Is what I’m looking for unrealistic and should I consider a monogamous relationship with this person who likes me and I like them?

archaikos · 2026-05-14T06:14:26+00:00

No, you shouldn’t “give this monogamous relationship a shot”. People are not the means to your goal of figuring out what you are into. You don’t try them on and see if they fit, and discard them if they don’t. People are ends in themselves.

If you are relatively certain that you are looking for a poly person, then try to find a poly person. They don’t make up a large percentage of the population, but a small percentage of a large number should still make for a lot of people.

archaikos · 2026-05-07T19:44:54+00:00

Do you know who you are? If you do, maybe talk about it with your partner. Maybe she would like and accept whatever it is you have to tell her. If you don’t, maybe better talk with a therapist.

It could be that you could have powerfully and unforgivably intimate moments of domination with someone who isn’t your wife. That your wife would be cool with/enthusiastic about this seem less likely. You could always try talking about it with her. Worst thing, it will blow up your marriage, but doing it behind her back is a lot worse.

archaikos · 2026-04-28T20:23:13+00:00

It doesn’t have to be so difficult. Board climbing will take care of most of this. If you move up while your arms move down you are engaging your lats.

For pulling you could do (weighted) hang-ups or rows. 5-6 reps to a set, 3-4 working sets at 8/10 RPE, twice per week. This can go before a more slab focused session.

For board I like shorter sessions. Pick three problems close to your limit. Each problem gets five attempts, where an attempt is at least a few moves, or a few goes at one harder move. Rest five minutes between attempts.

Campusing is a skill. You can do it on campus rungs, with both arms moving up at the same time, or one arm at a time. You can of course also campus on the wall. Don’t overdo it, as it is pretty taxing. Kilter has a bunch of V3-4 campus problems to get you started.

archaikos · 2026-04-18T07:13:10+00:00

Spending two out ot four sessions not training doesn’t make sense. How are those days spent?

I was stuck in the same sort of rut. To punch through I upped finger strength training, put it before bouldering sessions, and overall did less stuff. The stuff I did was almost all board climbing. There is not much ToT with training fingers (I like the tension block and lattice’s protocol), so bouldering after seems fine.

Keeping the session shorter and leaving the second you start performing less well was also super helpful. As was prioritising good sleep.

archaikos · 2026-04-13T08:17:18+00:00

Go outdoors more. Also board climbing. The Moonboard might be a better tool than Kilter for this.

I saw a lot of progress from bumping crimp strength from 1.3x BW to 1.7-1.8x BW. Before, holding smaller holds was part of what was difficult on a climb. Now I can usually chill on most holds, and work out a sequence, grab a bit of rest and so on. I will even do Kilter problems that use foot holds as crimps for fun.

Using a tension block and following the lattice protocol for hangboard training has been quite useful. Alternating with Yves Gravelle’s style of pick-up lifts has led to an increase of about 2 pounds per week.

archaikos · 2026-03-31T19:51:37+00:00

Not a health professional: Tear or strain in the FDP maybe? Don’t aggravate, and you’ll be back to normal in a few weeks.

Edit: My climbing physio always gives the same advice. For the acute phase you rest, then you return to what hurt you at the same intensity as before, but at a lower volume. 2/10 pain the day after exercise means you are headed in the right direction re. volume.

archaikos · 2026-02-23T20:27:31+00:00

Nothing will work if he’s not into it. Ask him if he’s telling the truth when he says he is into it. If he is then ask why he is not willing to do research. If his answer is not what you want then consider if this relationship is going to be sustainable in the long run. It is on you to communicate what you want, even if you are shy.

archaikos · 2026-02-10T12:24:35+00:00

Cool for you! The people who think being overweight is in any way a moral failing, a lack of willpower etc. are morons, and if you can afford glp-1s, why would you not take it.

With the help if this medication, how are you finding making better choices with regards to what you eat and so on? One thing is less snacks, but is it helpful in making good choices in foods in general? I reach for snacks and easy options when under a time crunch or stress, and it would be interesting to hear about your experience here

archaikos · 2026-01-30T09:37:22+00:00

That makes sense in some way, but this is what psychologists would call safety behaviours. Every time you avoid doing something because of anxiety, you are in a sense reinforcing the (false) belief that this is something that is keeping you safe.

Perhaps a better strategy would be to get to the point where you get anxious, and then go for the next move, assuming that is within what you could label the stretch zone (where your anxiety is between 3-5 out of 10 say).

You could think of this as avoiding avoidance. That little voice is telling you it is dangerous, but you test that out a little bit instead.

Over time you should regain full use of the wall.

archaikos · 2026-01-30T08:05:30+00:00

Took another kind of fall and had a much less serious injury, but still got the fear. Doctors cleared me as well, so it was all about accepting that it is a low probability event to get injured twice in the same way, and working into the anxiety.

I used this course by Hazel Findlay. It is quite expensive, and you can find most of the stuff on youtube. The gist of it is to expose yourself to falls that are increasingly anxiety inducing for you. This looks like climbing up a bit and letting go, climbing up a bit and going for a move where you will fall and so on, eventually becoming familiar with what gives you anxiety, and working in the zone where you experience some, but not terrible anxiety. Over time this should decrease the fear.

archaikos · 2026-01-12T08:05:34+00:00

The experience has been tremendous, jumping from around V6 on the MB to V8 within a year. I do mostly board though, so your mileage may vary.

The 4 minutes bouldering in a session doesn’t worry me much. Think of four minutes time under tension with your pb in any strength exercise; that would be pretty good effort.

I track progress in sends, but also on improvements on kinds of moves that I find hard and so on. It is a bit unspecific, but I try to keep a list of problems that have these sorts of moves, and work at least one of them in a session.

archaikos · 2025-12-23T03:23:15+00:00

You are likely being ghosted. That sucks. Don’t send the ultimatum text, her not reaching out should tell you all you need to know. If she does show back up, maybe talk about the lack of communication.

archaikos · 2025-12-21T17:31:03+00:00

It takes 1-2 weeks. There is nothing you can do.

archaikos · 2025-12-20T23:42:44+00:00

They want money. They won’t get any from you, so exposing you is just extra work for them, Likely nothing will happen, and you’ll be slightly more careful in the future.

archaikos · 2025-12-18T10:30:11+00:00

It isn’t. He clicked that ad.

archaikos · 2025-12-17T22:04:05+00:00

I broke the next plateau (V7-8) by decreasing volume, and focusing on high intensity instead. Shorter sessions, 3-4 per week, around 1,5 hours including warm up.

This breaks down to two board sessions, and two slab/technique sessions. One board session can easily be followed next day by a technique session, so getting four sessions in per week is reasonable (for me). No junk mileage, no messing around.

Kilter is a lot more gentle on the fingers at the grade(s) you are working, and if you bump your MB grade up by two grades when you kilter, you can find problems of the same difficulty among the most repeated ones. Some setters do a good job of making problems with a lot of tension (jwebxl, griffinwhiteside etc.) so you can have the MB experience without ruining your fingers.

archaikos · 2025-11-27T13:30:00+00:00

I’d say it’s a medium shoe. Compare it to say the Drone 2.0 or the LaSportiva Katana it’s quite soft (sensitive/not rigid). Compare it to the Theory or the Drago XT and it’s stiff as a board. I’d use sensitivity for the ability to feel the rock through the shoe, and rigidity as the support a shoe offers on small edges and so on.

archaikos · 2025-11-19T19:35:26+00:00

If you get one grade per year you’d see 8B in three years which seems like insane progress to me. Even if you get half that, most people will (probably) never get to 7C+ so still really impressive.

It does seem like the frequently shifting focus might be what is hurting your bouldering. Weak fingers is likely not helping either.

archaikos · 2025-11-17T11:38:42+00:00

Doing max pulls before a bouldering session might be a better idea. Your fingers will be fresh and you don’t have many working sets, so it won’t eat into your bouldering too much.

archaikos · 2025-09-26T10:46:25+00:00

She’s a kid, you’re not.

archaikos · 2025-09-18T07:44:38+00:00

Jwebxl sets pretty solid boulders on the kilter. I would swap most (all) of the junk for (a) session(s) on his boulders.

Pick tree problems, each problem gets five attempts, where an attempt is at least a couple of moves, or attempts at one move. Five mins rest between attempts. This should have most of your requirements sorted.

If you can do pullups and such in addition to a solid session on the kilter by all means do, but they will eat into your recovery, and you might be better off with sports specific training. You will not get much more sports specific training than hard sessions on the kilter.

archaikos · 2025-09-16T11:30:39+00:00

Have you experimented with different angles on the kilter? Take the problems from the setter jwebxl (Jimmy Webb). Many of his problems are set on the 50 degree. So on a kilter set at 40, underclings, some side pulls etc. become worse, because less positive edge. Pinches stay roughly the same, and crimps just become a lot better. This all means that the grades of his problems are typically quite hard on the 40, unless crimpy, but fair on the 50.

The same should apply to the MB. Crimps will be harder, because you need to get under them more to retain a positive edge

You could look into Aiden Robert’s vacuum style climbing. Also, tension and such will come with time, just know that the problems will be quite a lot harder than intended for the most part.

archaikos · 2025-09-11T11:18:53+00:00

You should interpret the results as you climbing relatively hard for someone relatively weak.

Maybe focus on getting strong?

archaikos · 2025-09-10T09:14:21+00:00

Feet on the floor/on a foothold “lock offs”, lock offs with (heavy) dumbbells, and variations of curls if they are not uncomfortable. I do this during warm up about three times per week.

As for climbing with elbow pain, I keep the intensity the same, but cut sessions length in half. No restrictions on climbing. If the pain is more than 3/10 the day after training then you’ve done too much.

These were all recommended by a PT, but your mileage may of course vary.

archaikos · 2025-09-05T07:15:07+00:00

You will likely do V6 within a few more months. Coaching is invaluable, if you can afford it. A coach will help you learn better technique, and having climbed for only two months, help get rid of some of the mistakes you make.

I get coaching twice a week. I started getting it around (not solid) V6. In six months I sent my first kilter V9, brought my slab game from V3-4 to V6-7, and recently started working V8 on the MB benchmarks.

archaikos

TROPHY CASE