RRC Archives

ted wrote:Try this http://www.mountainathlete.com
the programing is geared toward climbing for the long run to prevent injuries and continually make gains. pretty good stuff with a few days training in different areas and a couple days of sport specific training with the method of periodization. I enjoy it.

Thanks Ted. Nice link. If you like this kind of stuff, http://www.gymjones.com/ provides a more exhaustive(no pun intended) resource for this type of training.

Specifically, I liked http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=46

Lee,
I reread this thread, and then went back and read the title of the thread- "Recovery: What am I missing". Kind of funny. THAT is what you seem to be missing- Recovery!
Good resting to you.
Hugh

the lurkist wrote:Lee,
I reread this thread, and then went back and read the title of the thread- "Recovery: What am I missing". Kind of funny. THAT is what you seem to be missing- Recovery!
Good resting to you.
Hugh

Touche!
Seems like my body can handle 4 days, but not 5. As soon as I have your ticklist, Hugh, I can give this up and just relax.

What makes your question really difficult to get a good answer from someone else is that the amount of rest "you" need is specific to your genetic makeup and is a moving target that changes with age, sleep patterns and recent cumulative training stress along with a bunch of other factors.
I suspect that you will continue to get better if you avoid injury, primarily because you have the motivation, there are plenty of climbers who are getting stronger into their 50's and beyond, I am a 46 year old training addict and despite breaking my heel and missing 4 months of the year I had my strongest year of climbing thus far. One thing I have learned that is often a good way to judge my recovery after a hard training session over the following two days or so is to notice how sore the forearm muscles feel while giving them a hard massage, if I notice some continued soreness and my schedule allows the flexibility I will delay the next training session by a day or so (or change it to a less intense workout such as power endurance or endurance instead of power), I also feel that several 15-20 minute hot soaks of the forearm muscles over a couple of days can do wonders for speeding up the recovery process.

heavyc wrote:I also feel that several 15-20 minute hot soaks of the forearm muscles over a couple of days can do wonders for speeding up the recovery process.

Interesting. Isn't ice the usual choice?

ice might even be better, and from what I have read probably alternating hot and cold therapy would be the best, I have never taken the time or effort to try ice out and I suspect it would be a bit painful or least not enjoyable like 20 minutes in a hot tub can be, I don't completely understand how either one works, I suspect hot and cold therapy, electrostimulation and mild active rest exercises all work in a similar fashion by increasing the metabolic rate without causing further trauma (like your workout should have) which speeds up the inflammatory and repair processes that cause your muscles to overcompensate and repair themselves in a way that they will be stronger and perhaps bigger, the importance of the normal inflammatory process occurring during your recovery is a big reason some believe that using anti-inflammatory medicines like Ibuprofen, Aleve etc. is probably counterproductive

SCIN wrote:

heavyc wrote:I also feel that several 15-20 minute hot soaks of the forearm muscles over a couple of days can do wonders for speeding up the recovery process.

Interesting. Isn't ice the usual choice?

It depends on what your intended result is...

Heat:
-Good for increasing blood flow to muscles. May be effective in reducing lactic acid build up, bringing nutrients to muscles and taking away toxic metabolic byproducts
-Not good for inflammatory response (ie.. think acute injury or "tweak")
-Good for chronic tendonitis. ie. Medial/lateral epicondylitis. These are a gradually worsening condition that don't heal well because the tendons are relatively avascular (poor blood supply and nutrition). The heat helps with the healing process.

Ice:
-Slows down inflammatory cascade. (ie good for acute tendon or muscle pulls)
-Not as good on chronic tendonitis for healing but effective for immediate pain relief.

Decent article:

http://www.protraineronline.com/past/may15/rnr.cfm

Isn't icing useful only in the first 48 hours following an injury because the cells become "leaky"?

On the tendonitis, this was suggested to me by Audrey who was suffering bad elbow tendonitis that put her out of climbing: http://www.activerelease.com/what_patients.asp. She got healthy after the first session, but it took 3 for her to be ready to climb again. There are a couple of places in Lex that do this kind of therapy.

JR wrote:You seem to be playing the shell game with the hours of climbing you can handle.

I like this analogy.

Here's a thought:

Technique. You've admitted that some techniques are a weakness... so work on those. But lightly. Not enough to be a real physical workout... more of a learning, mental workout. After one week of the current power phase, I axed all sport specific exercises, in favor of focusing on "new" techniques that I wasn't entirely familiar with. I've seen big "power" gains out of just better understanding a few "bouldery" movements. When you apply one of the new movements you've learned in a realtime situation, it's like magic.

Encountering, and understanding, a few of these situations on a route can mean the difference between sending and not... or at the least, the difference between 3 days versus 5 days. You might even go back to a route you thought you had dialed, and realize there is a much more efficient way... and that you just didn't understand it yet.