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Post by jcm on Feb 8, 2017 20:09:35 GMT -7
So, I've got a sore finger and am taking a few weeks off from crimping. Instead of spending that time moping and eating ice cream (OK, I may to some of that), I've decided to invest this newfound block of time to learning how to train a few things that I've been neglecting for the last few years. Notably, posterior chain (deadlifts) and flexibility. This thread is about the latter.
My lower-body flexibility is somewhat lacking. I have decent healthy shoulder mobility, but anything involving hips and legs is pathetic. Hip turnout is so-so, hamstring flexibility is awful. If trying to touch my toes, I can get barely to my upper shin. So there is a lot of potential to improve.
But I don't want to spend a significant amount of time or energy working on this. I don't think flexibility is the primary thing holding back my climbing, and the majority of my (finite) time and motivation is and will be better spent on other things. So how to improve flexibility efficiently and effectively (the RCTM way)? Spending an hour twice a week going to a yoga class isn't going to happen. Too much time, a lot of it isn't climbing-specific, and half the exercise are too advanced for me to do (see: terrible flexibility).
What I'm looking for is 2 to 5 basic, targeted exercises that will improve flexibility in a climbing-specific manner. Hip turnout, high steps, and wide stems are the main objective, but some basic shoulder stretches would be good too. I'm looking to set up a set of stretches/exercises that I can do regularly throughout the season on rest days, or while resting between ARC sets, etc. 10-15 minutes per session as a desired time investment. It needs to be short, simple, and easy enough that I will actually do it, and that it won't take time or attention away from the important stuff.
Any suggestions for a specific set of exercises to use? |
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Post by jcm on Feb 8, 2017 20:19:59 GMT -7
Other thoughts/questions:
- Is stretching even the right approach, or something more resembling strengthening? The end goal is to have better hip turnout for vertical climbing, and better splits for stemming. I don't care how I get there.
- I've heard skepticism before on how trainable flexibility is. Are people who do yoga flexible because they do yoga, or do they do yoga because they are flexible?
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Post by MarkAnderson on Feb 8, 2017 21:04:36 GMT -7
I thought I had horrible flexibility, but this... If trying to touch my toes, I can get barely to my upper shin. ...is truly wretched  So I'm surely not the best person to ask. That said, I have two general philosophies on flexibility: 1) It's over-rated. I have horrible flexibility (at least I thought I did, see above) and I've done plenty of techy hard routes that would seem to require excellent flexibility. 2) Climbing includes quite a bit of active stretching, not unlike yoga (and yes, I do realize the irony here). Sure you can't touch your toes, but when do you need to do that for climbing (6" roof cracks notwithstanding?)? Compared to your hamstring flexibility, you're probably much better off in the types of flexibility required for climbing, whatever they are. Not that it can't get better, but...my understanding is that humans are generally born super flexible and tend to get more and more stiff as they age (child-baring women notwithstanding). I recall a stretching-for-climbing article from years ago arguing that the objective is more to retain the flexibility you have as you age, rather than hoping to gain much better flexibility. Anyway, other than the forearm stretches in the book, I can only think of two stretches I've done since I stopped running 10 years ago. One is standing up trying to do the best splits I can. The other is [the " reverse butterfly stretch"] laying on my stomach, pulling my feet up into a frog-style pose to stretch out my hips (so, what you would want to do if crouching on footholds on a vert thin face). And the latest consensus is that you should stretch after exercise, not before. PS, I can share a stretching-with-Alberto-Salazar story if anyone here knows who that is and is interested in hearing it. |
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Post by climbnkev on Feb 9, 2017 20:36:29 GMT -7
The key to having any improvement in flexibility is consistency. An hour a week is going to have little to no effect. Check out the Climb Strong website for some good examples of climbing specific mobility drills (no one says stretching any more). I do them between my hangboard sets, between PE circuits, and between supplemental exercise sets. Check out the Integrated Strength program for another alternative(combining Hangboarding with supplementals and mobility in a single workout).
My personal feeling is that the people who need mobility work are rarely the ones doing it. Having inflexible joints can increase your injury risk. I'm a stiff old guy but still try to stretch after every workout. If anything it seems to help with recovery.
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Post by reboot on Feb 16, 2018 15:36:55 GMT -7
I have pretty good hamstring flexibility (can put my hands flat on the ground while keeping my legs straight), but honestly I'm not sure how useful that is to climbing. That said, IMO, good ROM for most joints of the body can be very helpful in climbing, especially for certain styles of climbing.
While consistency (both in targeted stretches and actually using the ROM in climbing) is probably the #1 key, one thing I've had some success with is loading the muscle at an elongated state: i.e., instead of just relax into a stretch, perform a weighted exercise at the extreme end of the muscle's ROM. For hamstring, that means something like a straight legged "good morning" (or a safer variant like having the barbell/dumbell hanging over your arms), for shoulders, overhead squat (with as close a grip as you can while still maintaining balance, which for me, is still very wide). For side splits, I've tried having 1 foot on a slider and try to go down and then slide up w/ minimal help from my arms, but I've never done those consistently to see how much that helps. Unfortunately, most of my flexibility issues are the opposite of opening up: arm/leg crossing, twisting/tucking, hand/foot match w/ the leg going inside of the arm, etc. And I haven't figured out how to effectively load the offending muscles while elongated (probably more effective if I just slim down).
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Post by scojo on Feb 16, 2018 16:53:16 GMT -7
I don't think flexibility/mobility is overrated for climbing, but I don't think the usual advice of "go to yoga" is very efficient or effective to attain the relevant mobility for climbing. This is mostly because it is rarely ever targeted to the narrow range of mobility that's relevant for climbing.
Training mobility probably won't enable you to climb that next grade, but I think it'll help you climb a broader range of styles within the same grade. In my experience it makes more of a difference in bouldering (and even more in indoor climbing if you care about that). Stemming, hooking and drop knees are the most common cases where I've felted limited by mobility.
The progress I've seen from static stretching has been slow or stagnant. Contract/relax techniques and weighted mobility seem to help a little bit, but I can't shake the feeling that I have some physical limitation blocking much further progress. It seems like the people who have had the most success with training mobility were already flexible to begin with...
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Post by tetrault on Feb 17, 2018 15:55:21 GMT -7
It seems like the people who have had the most success with training mobility were already flexible to begin with... I would agree here. My wrists are quite inflexible despite always performing the RPTM type static stretching after all training sessions. However, I seem to have very flexible glutes, putting very minimal effort into maintaining such flexiblilty. |
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Post by RobF on Feb 18, 2018 1:05:23 GMT -7
I like this one. I tend to do the standing variation but not against the wall. It is then possible to make some subtle weight shifts from one foot to the other and also some small rotations to explore areas of tightness. Key is maintaining a neutral spine as you descend... youtu.be/UnLQeZ5L4eM |
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Post by daustin on Feb 19, 2018 13:50:36 GMT -7
It seems like the people who have had the most success with training mobility were already flexible to begin with... I would agree here. My wrists are quite inflexible despite always performing the RPTM type static stretching after all training sessions. However, I seem to have very flexible glutes, putting very minimal effort into maintaining such flexiblilty. This goes back to a comment that I think Peter Beal made on the training panel roundtable -- the same is also probably true of finger strength. Those that make the best gains via hangboarding are probably predisposed to having stronger fingers. Ultimately this isn't really relevant to whether or not you should hangboard. If anything, if you're not one of the lucky ones predisposed to strong fingers, then the case for hangboarding is even stronger, even if the gains may be harder to come by. In a sense, I think the same is probably true of mobility. Personally, the last year and a half has been riddled with (luckily relatively mild) injuries unrelated to my fingers. Both shoulders and both knees have had some problems, as well as my lower back. I've been neglecting my hips and shoulders joint health, and what little diagnosing I've done makes me think I have a ROM issue with my lower body and a strength issue with my shoulders. I'm still trying to figure out my plan of attack in a more deliberate way, but in the meantime I've been doing a lot of lower body flexibility stretches (hip flexors, hamstrings, ankles) and some different shoulder & rotator cuff strengthening exercises (overhead press, front raise, external rotations). My main priority is overall body health and injury rehab/prehab, but especially with the hip flexibility work I'm seeing some on the wall improvements in terms of being able to get my feet onto holds that were previously hard to access due to flexibility limitations. I still feel like I have a lot of room to improve so this is definitely going to be a priority for me. I actually just got a copy of Becoming A Supple Leopard that I'm starting to read, hoping that will help me come up with a better plan. If it does, maybe I'll actually be able to give a concise answer to JCM's original question instead of all this bloviating |
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Post by MarkAnderson on Feb 19, 2018 15:04:16 GMT -7
This goes back to a comment that I think Peter Beal made on the training panel roundtable -- the same is also probably true of finger strength. Those that make the best gains via hangboarding are probably predisposed to having stronger fingers. An interesting comment for sure, but totally unsubstantiated. |
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Post by scojo on Feb 19, 2018 15:13:08 GMT -7
I would agree here. My wrists are quite inflexible despite always performing the RPTM type static stretching after all training sessions. However, I seem to have very flexible glutes, putting very minimal effort into maintaining such flexiblilty. This goes back to a comment that I think Peter Beal made on the training panel roundtable -- the same is also probably true of finger strength. Those that make the best gains via hangboarding are probably predisposed to having stronger fingers. Ultimately this isn't really relevant to whether or not you should hangboard. If anything, if you're not one of the lucky ones predisposed to strong fingers, then the case for hangboarding is even stronger, even if the gains may be harder to come by. In a sense, I think the same is probably true of mobility. I agree completely. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't worth the time/effort to train mobility. I've actually seen tangible benefits in my climbing (however, mostly on plastic so far) from the small amount of progress I've made in mobility. Peter's comment really hit home with me at the time, since I was feeling like I had stopped progressing on my hangs. But after a couple of weeks, I made some unexpected jumps in the weight I could hang. In both cases, with consistency and patience, incremental progress will come. And even small progress can make a big difference in what you can climb. |
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Post by psathyrella on Sept 18, 2019 16:57:47 GMT -7
Late to the party here, but I've seen a huge improvement in my ability to use very high and/or wide feet from the core exercise that "Training for the New Alpinism" calls "Hitler's dog" (they have a video of it, where they call it "bird's dog"). I don't do any stretching, although I do some of the other core exercises they list there (I find some flavor of side plank very helpful to being able to actually stand up on a super high foot, once you've placed it). I'm sure it depends on rock type and goals, but at least for me (climbing mostly on granite) this makes a big difference on maybe 3-5 moves a day, which for me is huge. |
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Post by thomasthegreat on Sept 24, 2019 23:18:28 GMT -7
Flexibility is obviously necessary, I was into judo in my childhood, and can' even described how much it worked for me when I went to bouldering and rock climbing. I got stamina, flexibility, and grip strength from there, but as was mentioned the key is consistency, for an adult it's much more difficult but still, even wiki says here that the point for stretching is everyday training even if it's only 15 minutes |
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So I'm surely not the best person to ask. That said, I have two general philosophies on flexibility: 
