Feelin' wrecked (from Hangboarding)

[dan]

I'm on my first training cycle after reading the book. Im basically brand new to structured training. Last night, I finished my 5th hangboard workout and I'm just feeling worked. I was hoping to get outside this weekend to do some moderate climbing, but the thought of that and/or my next HB workout on Sunday seems like too much right now.
Should I skip the climbing?
Push HB #6 back?

Thanks,

[Jack Ziegler]

Generally I've found any climbing the day before a hangboard workout bad. I try to rest completely aside from some yoga. I've also found stretching the forearms the day after helps. I use the voodoo flossing compression bands, wrap them tight and stretch for a couple minutes before my hands go numb and then take them off. . I've also found doing the supplemental exercises too hard the day before the hangboard workout also wears me down. So supplemental exercises the day of hangboard workouts or the day after, same with easy climbing. Any hard climbing takes away from hangboard recovery and feeling completely fresh and psyched for each workout.

For your situation i would say you need to figure out how important climbing on Saturday is to you. I see three solutions: skip climbing, climb then do the workout Monday, or do the work out Sunday morning and then immediately go climbing outside Sunday late morning or afternoon.
I would also surmise that how many hangboard workouts you do in total would also factor into your flexibility. I'm on my second cycle and just finished my last, number 10, hangboard work out two days ago. I had one period in the middle where I had a 6 day break because I had to travel. I was able to still make gains, and the extra rest may have helped because I was doing the advanced version (3 sets each grip).


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[dan]

Thanks! I've never heard of those compression bands before; I might have to check em out.
I'll try Sunday HB followed by easy climbing.
Also, the book recommends icing the forearms after hard climbing or workouts. Has anyone had luck doing this?

[RyanJohnson]

Sept 19, 2014 8:19:26 GMT -7 dan said:

I'm on my first training cycle after reading the book. Im basically brand new to structured training. Last night, I finished my 5th hangboard workout and I'm just feeling worked. I was hoping to get outside this weekend to do some moderate climbing, but the thought of that and/or my next HB workout on Sunday seems like too much right now.
Should I skip the climbing?
Push HB #6 back?

Thanks,

You'll have to decide how moderate the moderate climbing actually is.

To a point, you should feel worked if you just did a quality hangboard workout last night. This is primarily the reason that it's recommended to schedule hangboard workouts 48-72 hours apart. If it's only been 12-16 hours since the workout, then I'd say you're where you should be. With that said, absolutely listen to your body! If you feel like you over did it, then take another day of rest, skip the climbing, and try for the hangboard workout on Sunday. 

When I'm in a hangboard phase, I try and complete 8-10 workouts. The first few workouts have a low enough load that I can usually get by with one day in between workouts. I start adding an extra rest day around workout 5 or 6. For workouts 9 and 10, it's often three days between due to how taxing the accumulated weight is getting. During the latter half of the hangboard phase, the muscle soreness and weakness encountered the day after a hangboard workout makes me thankful for my desk job.

[ericb]

Dan, I'm right there with you. I just finished my sixth HB workout on my first cycle. This probably doesn't answer your question, but I'm personally taking the full two days between workouts off. But this is also because I've had chronic finger issues in the past (but hardly felt any soreness at all since starting the program!). I'd guess if you are relatively injury free some easy outdoor climbing would be fine. Says in the book you can do some light ARCing between workouts I think.

[boulderdaz]

I'm on my second cycle, and I'm taking 2 days off between hb workouts, with only a core workout on one of those days, along with stretching. I've found that I need that rest to keep feeling fresh. For reference, I also do the SE workouts straight after hang boarding.

I struggled with resting so much - it felt counter productive - but I realised an average joe like me needs it :-)

[Jack Ziegler]

I've iced my inner elbows before and it helped. In the book they show dumping your whole forearm in an ice bath! If you have really tight forearms, don't stretch too hard the day right before. Do the hard stretch/compression 48 hrs before as you need to recover from that too. I've found as I've stretched more and gotten used the the compression band my forearms became noticeably softer and they aren't sore as often.


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[Chris W]

Don't forget that all your training is doing is breaking your body down. Your actual gains come when you go to sleep that night and your body reacts/rebuilds/recovers/rewires. Train well, eat well, sleep well, get strong, repeat...

[dan]

Thanks guys. It's nice to get some other perspectives on this induced suffer-fest we call training.

[Den]

Dan said: Also, the book recommends icing the forearms after hard climbing or workouts. Has anyone had luck doing this?

My physio once told me that ice increases bloodflow to an area by around 300%, which is amazing for flushing lactic acid. I did two training cycles early this year of climbing 10-days-straight (mad, I know) to increase power for a particular trip. On this protocol I iced every night, either in an ice bath, or doing 5 sets of 20mins with an ice pack on each body part that was heinously sore (shoulders, forearms, elbows, fingers).

Didn't get injured. Did get really powerful but the gains only appeared 3 days after finishing the protocol and only lasted about a week. It was a fun experiment but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

Since then, ice has become my religion. It's amazing how much it improves recovery and soreness!

[aaron]

I'm likewise on my first training cycle and likewise started feeling wrecked around the 5th session - specifically my fingers and especially my ring finger. I've just finished my 8th session and the 5th (when I began to feel wrecked) was my peak. The 6th was more or less a flat line and 7 and 8 deteriorated to such a degree that I'm going to skip 9 (planned as my final session of the phase) and move on to power. I'm sure that part of the decline has to do with my gaining a bit of weight over the last week, but I can tell that I'm just more worked.

As an additional data point, my average gain (training 7 different holds plus warmups) was roughly 10lbs/hold and I think my max load (a fancy calculation of weight and TUT) peaked around the 6th session.

I will note that I definitely felt a visceral increase in finger strength while climbing during the phase, so that was nice!

Stats: I'm 42, started climbing at 38 or so and weigh ~135lbs. The whole phase was done using the beginner timings.

[MarkAnderson]

If ever you feel like you need more rest, TAKE MORE REST!!! Seriously, an extra rest day here and there will do wonders. Don't feel like you need to strictly obey the printed schedule no matter what.