Ashley and I are training to attempt to climb the Century Crack, a massive offwidth roof in Canyonlands. I'll leave it to that so I don't get too ahead of myself, and regret talking it up when I throw up halfway through the route and fail miserably.
However I would like to explain a little bit of our training process, Since it seems to be of interest to some people.
We have two locations for training, our first is at the Sandy Momentum climbing gym, it has a "5.12
+" offwidth invert crack. Our second location is a 8 foot crack machine that resides in our garage.
(Army member Kevin Lockwood on the Momentum Crack)
(Ashley Cracroft on the Garage offwidth)
We try to climb the momentum crack at least once a week, and usually add in a series of inverted sit-ups, and pivot moves along with the climb.
Twice a week we try to get out to the garage and really try to crush ourselves. Our recent routine has consisted of; held inverted sit-ups (which we time), Shuffling back and forth (distance), inverted squats (squopposites), and inverted sit ups. A few rounds of that, and your abs will be jello.
With one day of climbing Cardio, that leaves just enough time to recover and get right back after it.
The Momentum Crack has been a great tool, that I've been using forever now. If you ever get the opportunity to climb there make sure to give it a go, climbing it in an inverted style tends to be the easiest, however it can be done vertically too if your feeling up to the challenge.
Most peoples interest with our training is the crack machine. A good friend Nathan Williamson actually built it for his personal training and ended up giving it to us. He did an incredible job building the expansion able crack, all we had to do was add textured paint!
If your considering building your own, do it! It really has taken my climbing to a completely different level in almost no time, my only suggestion would be to make sure the crack has enough depth. to successfully stack we have to sit up to our ankles (difficult). I'm sure this will pay off, but it was a real pain in the ass until we developed the flexibility and core strength.
Any way, for those who were wondering I hope this was enough. If you ever find yourself in the Salt Lake area, come join us for a training session!
-Danny
