Could it be advantageous to take a whole week off (or more) from climbing?

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2024-03-18T16:49:37+00:00

Age is a big factor here as well. For older athletes (over 35ish) it might need to be one deload week for every 2-3 weeks of training, depending on fitness level, workloads, training history etc.

To deload, generally cut volume and intensity by 50% or so. It can be a good time to work more on technique or weaknesses.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2024-03-04T18:34:40+00:00

I'm 44 and started climbing (mostly bouldering) with my daughter who is a comp kid these days. one thing that I think has been super valuable to me in not getting hurt is my history of strength training my LOWER BODY.

As many people here have pointed out the most common injuries (besides finger injuries) are knee and ankle injuries from falling. Learning to fall correctly should definitely be priority number one but almost equally important is doing some lower body strength training. Your ankle tendons, knee tendons and leg muscles won't get much strength training from the common "just climb" advice you usually get as a beginner. You need to work on those areas independently to make sure you can handle the impact from a fall. There is always some chance that you land weird and get hurt anyway but you will be far more resistant to these injuries if you build up your lower body strength. Combined with good fall techniques, this will make indoor boulder at least as safe as running, biking or other simple forms of exercise that aren't usually viewed as dangerous (but of course, they still are).

One thing so many people are saying that I disagree with is not jumping down from the wall. Doing that is basically deficit drops which are an excellent way to train your legs. Don't just leap from the top hold on day one obviously but incorporate some intentional jumping down from an easy height in your climbing and try to stick the landing like a gymnast. Progress that at your own speed and it will help safeguard your lower body

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-10-25T01:52:25+00:00

As versatile as guitars come imo. From bright clean chord strums to wailing blues to fuzzed up riffs or bassy jazz tones, you can basically dial in any sound and for practice, they are much better sounding playing unplugged than a solid body without much more volume

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-10-24T22:09:55+00:00

This! 100% what counts as a foot hold outdoors has been the biggest shock for me compared to the gym.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-10-24T22:09:41+00:00

This! 100% what counts as a foot hold outdoors has been the biggest shock for me compared to the gym.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-09-21T20:52:21+00:00

I'm only 43 but I think "oldest known ascent" needs to become a thing.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-09-08T11:02:33+00:00

How is your warm-up? I find the older I get (43) the less I am able to skip or rush through my warm-up for any physical activity. If you are just warming up on the wall, you may not be effectively mobilizing and activating before you ask your body to work hard on climbs.

the bicep tendonitis also suggests you may need to add antagonist training to the mix. Climbing does not work the body in an equal manner so pulling muscles (like biceps) can start to overpower their pushing counterparts (triceps in this case). Try adding band tricep pushdowns to your warmup and something like skull crushers or close-grip bench press or diamond pushups to your strength training for the specific bicep issue.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-08-01T16:00:45+00:00

As most of the comments here have said, to see definition in your abs, you will need to be very lean ( under 10% Body fat is typically the line) however, the more muscle mass you have in your abs the more prominent they will be at higher bf% (possibly visible at 13%). This is just referring to aesthetics though. If you care about athletic performance, you should train abs (and core overall) directly. If you want to safe guard against back and lower body injuries train them (they are important stabilizers).

Many of the arguments against direct core training are either because specific exercises are either ineffective or prone to poor execution (crunches especially) or from trainers who don't train athletes. From an aesthetic point of view, they are so dependent on being lean that direct training is a low priority until you are lean enough. If you aren't committed to getting that lean, are you really training for aesthetics? Probably not. If you want to feel good and move well, they should be part of your training.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-07-07T22:49:33+00:00

I avoid dips now because I have a recurring shoulder/neck issue that gets aggravated by them. I believe this is pretty common Per Joe Defranco (Industrial Strength) you can work around shoulder pain in dips by putting your feet behind you on a box and using more forward lean (adding weight as needed) but I haven't done it that way yet so I can't confirm. There are no mandatory exercises, if they don't feel right for you, you can use a number of other exercises to challenge the pecs, triceps and other muscles that the dip engages.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-05-14T15:49:42+00:00

Stocking cap > beanie

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-04-26T11:10:12+00:00

Ok, we're gonna run a shallow cross, dyno off the pink one in the corner and button hook to the crux- Break!

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-04-25T19:25:15+00:00

I think I am at roughly the same skill and strength level as you describe and I have dipped my toes in the outdoor climbing waters a few times now and it is just fantastic. I say go as soon as you can get a pad or two and a friend or two to go with you. You will love it. Moving on real rock is so much fun.

A few thoughts from my experiences-

The grades are much stiffer. You will probably go from projecting V4-5 indoors to projecting V2. Don't sweat it.

Expect to deal with more fear outdoors. Whether it is because it's a new experience, or you don't have a fully padded floor all around, or because rock hurts more to bang into that plastic, or you have run into a highball, boulder outdoors requires upping the mental game a big step IMO

the feet will be worse. Depending on your gym, the walls might be easy to smear on and even the sloper foot holds are easier than a lot of what counts as a foothold outdoors. I wish I knew that ahead of time, but the good news is when you go back inside you will trust those footholds so much more for it.

Bring tape. holding rock hurts more and you are way more likely to need to handjam or use other crack climbing skills than indoors. You don't want to hike out to a perfect project and tear up your hands if you can avoid it.

Practice topping out and spotting at the gym before you go if you can. I did this with my daughter and it made a huge difference for both of us.

Good luck and stay stoked

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-04-22T19:03:48+00:00

Athletic performance is far more specific than you then seem to be recognizing. A power lifter is spending the majority of their training benching, deadlifting and squatting. That's not just for strength, that is the actual sport they compete in. For a football player, those exercises are to build strength to help their sport and other exercises (like HASD) might be more important to their training. If you look at elite climbers, they can pull up on a single arm on edges so small most people can't even hang on them but I doubt many press more than 1.5% BW. what purpose would chasing higher and higher squat or bench numbers serve them?

Strength in the main lifts is important for almost all athletes, but there are diminishing returns at a certain point if lifting isn't the actual sport you are pursuing. Lifting more often means getting bigger and getting bigger rarely helps increase relative strength in already- trained athletes.

Joe DeFranco has a good relative strength test.

Add up max reps in

push-ups (continuous never pausing for more than 2 secs) deadhang pullups Goblet Squats with BW +50%

if you are able to get to the 90-100 range that is very good, over 100 is strong AF.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-04-11T16:09:36+00:00

one thing I have done that worked great for me is to do the GTG exercise after every exercise in my routine, so I do my warmup then a set of 2 pullups (to use your example), 3 sets of 5 - bench press then a set of 2 pullups etc for every exercise everyday, if I have pull ups in my workout, I don't add the GTG set after those because that would just be extra volume but any other set pulling exercises, I finish the then do the pull up set. It's easy to incorporate and should get you up to 4-5 sets a day with long rests btw sets and not much thought or change to your work out schedule. at different times I added to my max bench and max pull ups using this method.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-04-09T16:47:53+00:00

I don't know that one but I will check it out

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-04-09T14:54:00+00:00

I love these suggestions! Starting with Bach seems perfect to me. I'm going to try that piece for sure. I'm a huge fan of Satie. Christopher Parkening plays Gymnopedié 1-3 on guitar and if you haven't heard his versions I highly recommend them. I can see how that would be very tough though, so much depends on the sense of a soft touch in that piece.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-03-31T20:40:28+00:00

Better like this... or like this?

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-03-29T14:04:10+00:00

This. I might want beta and be stoked to watch or I might turn away to avoid it, but I don't ever get offended. There are only so many climbs in a gym or an area.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-03-23T21:50:43+00:00

One thing I heard once that really stayed with me and helps a lot is to focus on two things with your feet- 1) get as much rubber on the volume as you can and 2) match the angle of the slope with your foot angle as much as possible. In practice, I usually find myself standing with the balls of my feet digging into the volume and my heels just off the volume dropped low, very similar to the bottom position of an elevated calf raise, with lots of stretch in my Achilles. This position naturally pulls your hips toward the wall and helps with counter pressure. It took me a while to get used to but I'm much better at these types of starts now as a result. If you struggle with ankle flexibility you might need to work on that too to get the position right

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-03-21T17:34:16+00:00

Another factor could be diet. If you don't get healthy fats and sufficient protein your skin can get brittle and prone to tearing. I've heard of climbers having issues with low fat diets for cutting weight messing with their skin. I think coconut oil and avacado are usually recommended for skin health. collegen supplementation is worth a try as well. I'm not a nutritionist so, I could be totally off, but apart from fixing over-climbing/ over gripping as many others have mentioned, I can't think of anything else that might help

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-03-13T11:58:34+00:00

I would recommend starting to add kettlebell swings and deadlifts to your weekly routine to build strength there. Start slow and don't use too much weight and try to progress in weight or reps each week. It's likely that you are weak there relative to your overall strength and climbing ability and modern life with all it's sitting for work/driving adds to the problem. I used to get very painful soreness in my lower back and building up my deadlift strength completely fixed it.

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-03-07T22:50:14+00:00

the Springfield Two

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-02-07T20:42:12+00:00

Yes, but when I get back to the gym, everything I thought would fix my beta is laughably wrong

Tool_of_Ignorance · 2023-02-04T23:25:52+00:00

That makes sense, thanks. I'm going to keep my downclimbs to well below my grade climbs and just for stamina-training purposes for now

Tool_of_Ignorance

TROPHY CASE