Rest Day Exercise

[jessebruni]

So I have been struggling for a while with the concept of what to do with rest days. In the book rest days usually have the optional aerobic training tag, but I seem to recall reading that ideally those sort of activities should be cut out and are basically just included in case you get stir crazy and can't do nothing for 2 days while you rest. For me personally, avoiding aerobic training is not hard. The only exercise I enjoy doing is climbing, so if some training program tells me I don't have to go running you can bet I'm not going to running, or play tennis, or basketball, or swim, or (insert exercise here). This does leave me with the issue of being rather bored on rest days, but I can deal with that.

The problem is that I have a pretty sedentary lifestyle. I work a desk job so I'm sitting for 9-10 hours a day (including driving time), and then when I get home and I'm not climbing it's usually more sitting on the couch watching TV or on the computer or something. This makes me feel like I should be getting up and getting some other form of exercise but I don't want to compromise my recovery time either. One way I've found to get around this is to do antagonist muscle exercises (shoulders, chest, triceps, reverse wrist curls, wrist pronators, etc.) on my rest days, but again I worry that this is compromising my recovery time.

So here's the question: With my lifestyle, should I be doing aerobic exercise on rest days since I get so little exercise during those days? Or should I continue what I am doing with the antagonist muscle exercises?

[joekr07]

I started doing some yoga on restdays, makes me feel good!
Also helps a lot with flexibility, might not be the biggest issue for some, but for me I feel it has been beneficial to my climbing.

Sitting at a desk a lot is not so good for your back etiher, yoga sorta helps with that to.

Some tips on yoga for climbing :

steviehaston.blogspot.se/p/yoga-for-climbing.html

[MarkAnderson]

I have a similar desk job/sedentary lifestyle. I like to take brisk walks to get my heart rate up slightly. It gives me more energy throughout the day. I try to do a 45-60 minute walk after lunch every non-climbing/training day, regardless of season. Some sources say multiple 20-ish min walks are better than one long walk, so do what you prefer. I like to walk in scenic places, so its logistically simpler to do one long walk.

When I'm "in-season" (likely dieting, and obsessing over a project), I do a 15 minutes walk before I get in the car to drive to work, and another 15 minute walk just before I jump into bed. My reasoning is that I'm keeping my metabolism going, but I have no data to back that up. Mostly it keeps me from going crazy

[jessebruni]

What about antagonist exercises on rest days? Do you think that's a bad idea?

Joker, I've heard a lot about yoga (I mean pretty much every climber does it right?) But I haven't taken the plunge yet. I may have to give it a shot.

[MarkAnderson]

I don't do it, but if the load is small I doubt it would be a problem.

[Charlie S]

If possible, converting your desk to a standing desk (with a stool, which is critical to avoid joint pain from prolonged standing) can help a lot.

[jan]

On rest days I like to do 3 activities, which seem to help with my recovery.
- some stretching (around 45min, with a focus on lower extremities)
- foam rolling (google for myofascial release)
- TENS (electro stimulation)
Give it a try!

What do the experts think of these activities on rest days?

[joshvillen]

I mostly just take walks and do core workouts, anything using my upper body antagonist or not takes away from my rest. Even going to the gym and climbing 5.9/ v0 feels too stressful

[alexandra]

Ok, so here is another question/concern. I just started this program and I am trying to learn and understand the information in the book about training. I am not sure I fully understand why it is not advised to do any (reasonably or even very) intense activity on the rest days as long as it does not involve fingers and perhaps pulling muscles. I definitely understand the importance of having rest days (and I admit that I need to be better a taking more rest days). However, for the last few years my every day training/workout schedule has involved >4 hours a day of intense activities, at least 5-6 days a week, often 7 days a week. Usually two hours Crossfit and powerlifting, and either one to two hour gymnastics or a couple hours climbing ( two of this activities on any given day, one in the morning and one at night). In all my workouts with few exceptions, I keep the intensity pretty high, ranging from 80 to 100% (of course taking long rests at least 5 min between lifting sets and Metcons, between hard boulder problems, between bar/ring routines). I am going to enter the strength part of the training program soon, which does not involve any such activities at all for weeks. Stopping the sports I do will be extremely hard for me. However I can modify them so, for example, I focus more on squatting, core, or cardio etc and do the strength/gymnastics stuff on the training days as supplemental exercises. I am suspecting that the answer I will get to this is to just toughen up and give up the other things I do in order to maximize my output for climbing. While I am still thinking about doing this, I would also like to know to what extent do you think that keeping up with my intense activities on rest days would affect the outcome (for example, does it render the whole climbing training program completely useless, or do I only see, say, 60-80% of the benefits?). Again, keep in mind that I am used to really large volume of intense activities for many years, most of them involving upper body strength and pulling, and I feel that I recover very well after less than 24 hours of such activities and I can go at least 80% again the next day. Thanks so much!

[jetjackson]

Alexandra,


Sounds like you have a pretty high work capacity, and you already know heaps about training.

I trained MA for 8 hours a day - 5 days a week for a few months in China, when I was 27, but I wasn't working, and I slept about 11 hours a day, 9 at night, with a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day... that enabled me to handle that level of volume. I was relatively fit going into it, off weights and marathon training, and it still hit me hard. The other guys that were training, who were in their late teens, early twenties, smoked cigarettes, drank on the weekend, and some weeknights, slept maybe 8 hours a day and were easily performing at par with me.

Based on that experience, I can sincerely say, that you're capacity for high volume is impressive!

If you don't give up the other training, and sports, you won't progress as fast with climbing as you would if you focussed on climbing specific training. You've noted that already, and it seems you're somewhat okay with it. Of particular note is the powerlifting and the squats, heavy legs will hinder your progress at the crag. Even at low reps (5x5), heavy squats = big, heavy thighs. Gymnastics however, has a lot more of a crossover with climbing. How much these other activities will affect your progress depends on age and your lifestyle/diet, alcohol intake, and probably more importantly, the hours you work and level of stress related to your job. I don't know if anyone could give you a % amount that it would be affected by, I doubt it would make the program completely useless.

The bigger risk that stands out to me, is that you will increase the risk for injury - which, if you rupture a pulley, or tear a tendon, you'll be going through rehab for a few months and that will set back your progress pretty far.

How much the other sports matters, really depends on your goals, and how quickly you want to achieve them - do you have a medium and long term climbing goal? What level do you climb at now?

[alexandra]

Thanks for the quick reply. Here is some more beta in case that would help you give me some more concrete advice on the matter. I never really had to give up one sport in order to train for another, since I could always do them at the same time and it didn't seem to affect me. So any informed opinion that you could give me on how much not giving up other activities will affect my climbing, that would be greatly appreciated!

Regarding lifestyle I don't drink or smoke, I rarely go out, eat a diet that is close to the "zone" diet which a lot of crossfit athletes follow (the idea is you eat the same amount in calories from good fats, protein and carbs which I get mostly from veggies and sweet potatoes etc, and you specify how many of those you need based on your activity) however, I do eat ice cream which contains a lot of sugar practically every day since this is my one addiction. I sleep 8-10 hours a night but rarely take other naps. My job is not very stressful, I work in academia.

Regarding climbing, I only pretty much boulder and all my goals are related to bouldering. Shorter term, I have a few climbs I would like to complete at Holy boulders in Southern Illinois and Devil's Lake in WI, that are in the V5-V7 range. I am also planning a trip to France in order to climb at Font in June but I have no projects there yet. Longer term, I don't have a very clear goal at the moment. I just would like to keep improving and enjoy, which for me it means to be strong enough to climb most of the boulders that I find pretty/appealing. I would say I would be happy to climb around V8-V9 so that I am able to do most of the stuff I would like to do in the long term (but as I progress that might change). I currently have been able to climb outdoors some V5 and have onsighted a couple V4. I am working and feel that I am close to a V6, but that might be height specific since this climb feels like it is better for short people. I am 5.3 so most of the bouldering grades feel very different for me since I am shorter than most people that climb them.

I know this is too much information, but I figured if you have some knowledge of the tradeoffs between performance and volume of training, the more information the better

thanks so much again, looking forward to any advice!

[chrisbecker]

Feb 6, 2016 13:10:32 GMT -7 jetjackson said:

Of particular note is the powerlifting and the squats, heavy legs will hinder your progress at the crag. Even at low reps (5x5), heavy squats = big, heavy thighs.

While I personally tend to agree and see this problem with myself (loads of leg bulk due to many years of competitive basketball) I think it's worth noting that different opinions on this topic exist. Steve Bechtel from climbstrong.com (and the foreword of RCTM) for example advocates heavy squats. If I remember correctly, he thinks they are especially helpful for females and athletes above 30 (something to do with growth hormones being produced in response to lifting heavy weights; more info to be found in his recent podcast with Kris Hampton on powercompanyclimbing.com).

That aside, Alexandra, when looking at your strength training background and your current strength and climbing level as stated in other threads I think it's quite obvious that focussing more on climbing related workouts and being well rested for the intensive ones of those would be the most beneficial for your development as a climber.

[alexandra]

I am guessing this is a truth that I am just postponing accepting...
Luckily for me regarding squats, I have a very very hard time bulking up in my legs so perhaps squats at least might not be a bad idea. I squat heavy twice a week for a year or two and have not seen much changing in the size of my legs since before I even started lifting.

[chrisbecker]

Feb 6, 2016 14:52:06 GMT -7 alexandra said:

I never really had to give up one sport in order to train for another, since I could always do them at the same time and it didn't seem to affect me. So any informed opinion that you could give me on how much not giving up other activities will affect my climbing, that would be greatly appreciated!

Hope this doesn't turn into rambling, but: 

When still playing basketball years ago, I used to train 9-10x2 hours per week with additional games on the weekend. For years, two or three of these workouts were weight lifting sessions but I was always too skinny for the position I was playing and didn't seem to be able to put on weight easily.

I then finally dedicated one Summer to lifting weights (and eating...) with any basketball training being more of an afterthought and gained 22 pounds of muscle mass during that period (and later that Summer wrecked my knee and eventually had to give up basketball, but that's an aside). One thing this taught me was that focussing on developing your physique in one direction at a time is much more efficient than trying to work on a lot of different aspects in parallell.

The RCTM workouts, especially the hangboard sessions, pack quite a high volume into training a set of relatively small muscles in your forearm. I don't think this is comparable with e.g. the intensity of running on a daily basis or even doing frequent training for your pull muscles when doing crossfit and gymnastics at the same time. In order to keep the intensity up, I think it is paramount to not add a lot of exercises that require grip strength during the strength and the power phases. During the PE and performance phases you will want to perform, so any non climbing related training will be detrimental as well.

I'm new to the program myself, so Mark or many others here will much more qualified to give you advice on this, but since I'm already writing: If I was you I would probably go through this cycle as outlined in the book. Then, once you have that experience to compare future cycles with, you could carefully start adding additional exercises and see/feel how these affect your climbing development. From personal experience I can at least tell you that as long as you don't focus on a single sport/exercise program, you won't have a clue as to how much you could develop with it.

[jetjackson]

Feb 6, 2016 15:01:14 GMT -7 chrisbecker said:

Feb 6, 2016 13:10:32 GMT -7 jetjackson said:

Of particular note is the powerlifting and the squats, heavy legs will hinder your progress at the crag. Even at low reps (5x5), heavy squats = big, heavy thighs.

While I personally tend to agree and see this problem with myself (loads of leg bulk due to many years of competitive basketball) I think it's worth noting that different opinions on this topic exist. Steve Bechtel from climbstrong.com (and the foreword of RCTM) for example advocates heavy squats. If I remember correctly, he thinks they are especially helpful for females and athletes above 30 (something to do with growth hormones being produced in response to lifting heavy weights; more info to be found in his recent podcast with Kris Hampton on powercompanyclimbing.com).

That aside, Alexandra, when looking at your strength training background and your current strength and climbing level as stated in other threads I think it's quite obvious that focussing more on climbing related workouts and being well rested for the intensive ones of those would be the most beneficial for your development as a climber.

I have heard of the squats benefit in increasing growth hormone before. I did the stronglifts programme for about 12 months, so squatting heavy 3 times a week, and my legs were tree trunks... well, skinny guy tree trunks. I found squats are treated like the holy grail among power lifters, and cross-fitters, who despise those people in the gym skipping leg day, and one of the arguments they always put forward is about the hormone boost from squats. The argument usually goes along the lines of, if you don't squat, you're missing out on a hormone boosting opportunity that working out your legs brings. Bit of info here from my favourite No-BS bodybuilder scooby. It's a claim that appears to be backef up by research.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm a big fan of squats, nothing like racking up 250 pounds and watching the bar bend while you squat, makes you feel like a beast - but I feel they are counter to my climbing goals. If done heavy, they fatigue the Central Nervous System, and that is going to impact you, particularly through the Power, and Power Endurance phase of your cycle. Campussing is taxing enough on the CNS. If you're going to squat, I'd think maybe doing 3x3, heavy, as supplemental exercises post-HB, during the strength phase, would help boost that growth hormone, without risking too much leg hypertrophy - whether that hormone gain would be worth the 'crowding out' of core or other strength exercises, I couldn't say. Alexandra says she squats 2x per week heavy year round - personally I think that creates a CNS fatigue issue, even if it isn't contributing to heavier legs. 

Mark's post here talks about the 'interference effect', which is probably relevant here also.

Alexandra, based on your follow up comment, your lifestyle and discipline seems to facilitate a high volume/intensity of training. I stand by the comment that if you just stuck to climbing training, you will do better than if you included all those other forms of training. Realistically though, if you enjoy the other training, it gives you a social outlet, it helps you maintain the psyche, and you feel you would get bored doing just the climbing training alone, then it's probably best to keep doing the other sports. Your V8/9 goal is definitely achievable within those boundaries, it might just take a bit longer with the added non-specific training.