Eugenia Lavrushkina does Amores Perros (8A+)

Eugenia Lavrushkina, who started climbing at age 26, ten years ago, has done Amores perros (8A+) in Borzeta. ”I've been avoiding this problem for a long time because I've never thought of myself as a roof climber, and the first crux of Amores Perros is a roof. As I went back from my Fontainebleau trip in October and decided to give it a try. I managed to do all the moves (along with some shorter links) during the first session and thought I would send it fast.. but then somehow I had to spend a couple of sessions linking the roof part because (even though I had no problems with it during the first session) I simply wasn't able to get through it. After some time (due to bad weather conditions) I got back to the boulder and spent 3 sessions falling on the last move (not counting the mantle as it is easy), and then finally I managed to link everything! I am sooo happy to send my project now, taking into account that I am going to Font trip this week, so the time pressure was real.

Can you tell us about your climbing background?
I've been climbing for a little bit less than 10 years, and for the last 3-4 years I've been focusing more on outdoor bouldering (Fontainebleau is my top favourite area). Amores Perros is a great boulder problem with really cool moves, athletic and technical at the same time, but my fav is still Les Beaux Quartiers (8A) in Font, which I sent in April less than a year ago. It's critical to stress that a tremendous amount of credit for all my hard sends goes to my coaches, Maciej Oczko and Nina Gmiter (Motion Lab Sports Kraków) as they are the ones who make sure I am constantly progressing as a climber. When I came to them (exactly three years ago) my max grade was 7c boulder. They are magicians :) I sent my first 7c+ in a couple of months after that so seeing the progress I became really really determined and it paid off.

How do you train?
Usually I climb 4 times a week (sometimes 5 but it is rare), there are some micro-cycles and other cycles, but I am not an expert in that so cannot really say more. I discuss with coaches my climbing goals (trips, grades, expectations etc) and they take care of those cycles :). We're using de-load weeks here and there, I know there is a trend nowadays to train without them but [de-loading], works for me. So those 4/5 training days really depend on a cycle, sometimes it's more strength oriented, sometimes power-endurance etc. In terms of intensity it also depends, usually it is 1 or 2 really intense workouts per week and the rest is like 70% of the max or even lower (esp during a de-load phase). I've been focusing on technique a lot as sometimes I tend to rely on pure strength too much.

Once or twice a week I do hangboarding, lately it's been one-arm hangs mostly and it seems I've [made] quite a progress with those (especially after I started taking care of my shoulders after I had a shoulder impingement). My wild guess is that rotator cuff strengthening contributed a lot to one-arm hangs on a fingerboard.

As I already mentioned I am pretty determined and it helps me immensely to get through some types of workouts I don't enjoy. Like... any type of conditioning (I do this twice a week). Or hangboarding. Or campusing. Well, anything that is not climbing to be honest. And, [I] don't do stretching at all, almost never, perhaps I should but I simply cannot make myself do that and even determination cannot help me here....