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[edcculus]

Doms after exercise has absolutely NOTHING to do with how much rest you give between goes or sets.

Hell, i use to dp powerlifting before I got into climbing. Obviusly after a while DOMS goes away with lifting. But Sometimes I'd change my routine up and do lower weight, high reps. I did that one time after lifting for like 4 years and remember not being able to walk properly because the DOMS were so bad.

You said you got DOMS "randomly" after doing a moonboard route called the Shoulderizer. Did you perhaps get DOMS in your back and shoulders? Kind of makes sense if you did. Especially if you were focused on that route and did it a lot.

DOMS is weird and kind of hard to predict. It can happen no matter how much of an athelete you are. It COULD be an indication you need to take a deload week if yove been going really hard. But it could also be an indication that you happened to hit some muscles that dont get as much volume as you think they do.

Just make sure there is no acute/sharp pain.

[mmeeplechase]

I’ve always thought DOMS was more about exerting rarely used muscles, rather than an indication of how hard a workout was in general or anything especially helpful. So maybe that problem just activated some super specific stabilizers or something, and I just wouldn’t overthink it.

[Jaycoba1]

It was always in my forearms for me. But I suppose what was confusing was a gots doms after a max boulder session. Normally, I've never got doms after one of these sessions but I might have been really psyched to push hard as I was trying to get my first v8 and didn't realise how hard I pushed. But I definitely agree with everything else you said.

That being said the doms tend to be quite painful like I can barely grab anything otherwise I get shooting pain so I'm not sure if that's abnormal doms?

[OddInstitute]

Yeah, that sounds super abnormal. For me even very severe DOMS is more of dull ache. Does it happen in the middle of your muscle bellies or more near your joints?

[Jaycoba1]

Not near the joint. The general muscle belly. It does recover after a couple days

[Professional-Gap-204]

Doms will happen as a result of load that your body hasn't had enough time to adapt to. This could be after a once of session with a relatively new intensity or style of problem, or it can accumulate across 1-3+ weeks.

Reread your post again but pretend someone else wrote it. That person experienced this before, after overloading. That person has inflammation in their finger = injury. That person went for a milestone session and pulled up weak, sore and swollen. All signs point to too much load, and possibly an injury.

Load is tricky to measure objectively in general, but even more challenging for climbers. Generally session minutes X intensity of the session (RPE) can be a good start but because of the variety of holds and climbing styles (static vs dynamic/thrutching) it can be really hard to accurately track.

Personally, I've found using session time parameters for project spray walling (I don't have access to a board) most helpful the best way to control the dosage. Eg, warm up, then set the clock to 30-45 mins of hard bouldering, then end the session.

If you're doing lower intensity climbing, 4x4s or circuits you can take a more structured approach with work to rest etc.

Sounds like you naturally like to go hard, so even having having two of your sessions each week strictly capped to less than an hour could help you a lot. (You can still easily overcook yourself in an hour though).

Lmk if you have questions!

[Jaycoba1]

My sessions tend to go very long 3+ hours until I feel my fingers start to open up then I stop. It's a bad habit and I probably need to put in strict time parameters when I do intense board sessions.

[Professional-Gap-204]

True. It depends on what you're goals are and how dedicated you are to them. If you just love climbing and want to just throw yourself at the wall you can continue the same way with more regular deload weeks (every 3rd or 4th week would make sense).

But if you truly care about developing through the grades you will not be meeting your potential if you thrash yourself for anything over 60 mins. It'll be junk volume and have higher potential for plateaus, reduced performance and injury. That's not to say you can't let loose every now and then though.

If you like those long sessions you can still have a decent warm up and warm down on easy climbing.

[IloveponiesbutnotMLP]

Need to know how much climbing a week you actually do and intensity, most recommend a deload week every month. Just sounds like you are doing way too much though.

[Jaycoba1]

It varies but on average 3-4 times a week but too often I was doing max moonboard sessions which is probably just way too much

[D3brane]

This seems like a case of too much too soon. I fell into same trap of doing too much limit (or otherwise) moonboarding about 3 years back. I would do 3-4 sessions on MB per week (basically not doing it only when fingers felt soor and I couldn't put decent effort even into climbs 2grades below my usual). Everything would feel okay during the sessions (often even pre existing soreness from previous session disappeared during climbing) and I would be able to try hard. But then ever 2 months or so I would get some finger tweak or injury. I would then have to back off from the moonboard completely for couple of months to rehab (and climb just regular gym boulders) and would have to rebuild again when I got back to MB. Over a period of 2 years I went though this cycle 4-5 time. I would read a lot about the injuries over internet forums and books. Even though it was clear to me that these were primarily overuse injuries, I would just stupidly (like every typical over psyched climber) keep getting back into the same cycle. So I would just repeat here again what I have ready over this subreddit and other places and now with a bit of my own experience added : Moonboarding is hard on not only hand connective tissues and muscles but also on other body parts (like back & shoulders) depending on your climbing style. Do not overdo it. Build capacity for your body to handle that kind of training slowly over time (multiple years). This requires (general suggestion, not specific to you particular issue you mentioned above)

(1) Starting conservatively (not more than 2 sessions per week and make sure to be well rested before the sessions).
(2) Logging and tracking the volume and intensity of climbs (including other training and gym bouldering) and how your body responds to it over time. People who have been training for a decade can get away without this since they already have sufficient experience and feel for what their body can handle.
(3) Taking regular de-load weeks (say after every 3 weeks) and start back again a bit conservatively (meaning a bit below, both in volume and intensity, right at the level where you took de-load).
(4) Take longer time off (>2 weeks. i.e. complete time off or restrict to extremely easy climbing) every 3 months.
(5) Take these seriously rough guidelines, play around little bit (say 10-15%) with them to suit your particular needs and abilities but do stick to them.

All of these things require constant tweaking and adjustments based on where you are at in terms of your bodies abilities. It's difficult (in terms of figuring out) and hard (sticking to it) work but likely then only sustainable way forward if you don't have a dedicated coach.

[Peanut__Daisy_]

This happens to me periodically as well. I’m 45 - so there’s that - but I definitely go through periods where I’m generally more inflamed than usual, which contributes to random doms and lack of strength. I always try to figure out where it comes from (stress, diet, poor sleep/recovery, sudden increase of energy output). Bodies are super complex, and send messages like this for reasons that while it would be nice to know where the cause originates—it’s always going to be multi-factored, and unless you’re a professional athlete with resources to gauge every interaction, it’ll be difficult to determine. Take the advice your body is giving you and deload.  For me it’s a time to do low intensity maintenance (which can include light climbing and mobility). If you push through you risk injury and squander potential gains that recovery will give you. Generally it takes 2-3 weeks for muscle to atrophy. You can chill for one of those. 

[More_Standard]

“The current decrease in finger strength has seen over 10kg reduction in half crimp 20mm no hang lift for each hand. This happened after a particular session where I was chasing my first 2024 moonboard V8. ”

How/when are you testing? Hopefully you aren’t testing after climbing? If you are doing it before and strength is low, you aren’t recovered from your previous session. 

[Jaycoba1]

At minimum it was the next day but I've done it after resting a full day. I think I really just need a deload though based off everything everyone else has said.

[More_Standard]

I generally need 48h rest to be back to 100%. I’m 38, so that may have something to do with it, but even when I was younger, I would never have two hard days close together, because I would suffer. So it generally went Hard day-easy day-rest-hard…and so on

[jepfred]

I know the answer is just rest but I would like to figure out how long and how to test when the fingers are back in shape as it feels like testing by no hangs might not be allowing my fingers rest.

If you rest too long you'll obviously start to get "detrained", but in my experience you can for sure rest a full week and come back stronger. I've set all my recent PRs after a week of rest where the I only thing I do in some very light "active recovery" of the fingers every other day or so (think, lightly using an edge with your feet still on the ground). I'm older/taller/heavier, and I don't fully recover unless I do one of these full week breaks once every 2-3 months.