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Post by erick on May 2, 2016 15:42:39 GMT -7
I was listening to the "Power Company Podcast" episode 6 and Steve Bechtle delivered the greatest climbing training quote ever! In reference to the benefits of crossfit for climbers he says...
"Any time your reading an article about the benefits of crossfit for a sport, just take the word "crossfit" out of it and replace it with "zumba" and see if your still interested in doing it."
Chew on that for a while
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Post by Lundy on May 2, 2016 20:40:01 GMT -7
My favorite Steve Bechtel quote is something like "Running is as useful for climbing as climbing is for running."
Love it.
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Post by wellhung on May 3, 2016 6:14:33 GMT -7
Can't remember if it was the same person, but the one that made me laugh was something like "If crossfit helps your climbing, you must really suck at climbing".
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Post by jivemiguel on May 3, 2016 7:05:20 GMT -7
I have found Betchel's interviews at Power Company and Training Beta very informative. One thing he seems to advocate that is different from the RCTM is doing heavy squats and deadlifts as part of your supplemental training, particularly for older climbers. I am turning 32 this month and am considering adding these to my SEs. I am hesitant for the following reasons: 1) leg strength almost never seems to be a limiting factor. 2) Heavy squats and deadlifts take a long time to recover from and I am concerned will interfere with more sport specific training. Has anyone experimented with heavy lower body strength exercises over a couple of seasons? If so, what were your results?
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Post by erick on May 3, 2016 7:31:16 GMT -7
He mentioned in one of his interviews that the benefit of heavy squats/dead lifts for 30+ males and females was not to gain leg strength, although that does happen, but was to get the body to produce muscle growth hormone that benefits the rest of your training. I also remember somewhere he mentioned something about doing 2 sets of 2. If you follow that system its pretty easy to add into a workout and you are very unlikely to add leg mass. Thats the theory I think.
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Post by Lundy on May 3, 2016 8:30:50 GMT -7
I don't do squats but I do pretty heavy deadlifts, though nowhere near my limit. The set I do is roughly 5 reps at roughly 60% 1RM, 4 reps at roughly 70% 1RM, and 3 reps at roughly 80% 1RM. So I'm not doing a ton of lifting, nor am I doing very heavy weight, but I do feel like it helps with my overall body/core strength, and with that sort of protocol I don't think I've gained any weight at all (added them about 6 months ago), and it hasn't impacted by other training at all.
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Post by jessebruni on May 3, 2016 9:03:09 GMT -7
I dunno about squats, but deadlifts train the entire posterior chain. I've found that doing heavy deadlifts helps a lot with body tension on steep walls.
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Post by Charlie S on May 3, 2016 10:17:28 GMT -7
So here's a dumb question. Can you get the same growth hormone from heavy bench presses? Pecs weight a lot less than thighs.
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ericg
New Member
Posts: 42
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Post by ericg on May 3, 2016 10:32:00 GMT -7
Charlie my understanding is amount of hormone produced is proportional to the size and number of muscle groups worked. Therefore, doing heavy bench would increase the amount but not as much other heavy lifts, that is why deadlifts and squats are used. In some of Betchle's programs he has his athletes doing deadlifts, bench and weighted pullups the same day as hangboarding for maximum effect.
Personally, I have been able to increase my dead lift by about 70lbs, while keeping my weight the same or evening losing a few pounds. I never do more than 4 reps though.
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Post by alexandra on May 3, 2016 12:20:21 GMT -7
I do heavy squats, bench, and deadlifts (varied squatting and deadlift programming, but roughly around 80-90% or 1RM) twice a week and have always done that while being a climber so I don't know what would happen if I didn't do them to compare. However, I find that I can still progress in climbing independent of the heavy lifts so I doubt it hurts much. I like being overall strong for many aspects of life
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Post by joecoov on May 3, 2016 13:08:21 GMT -7
So here's a dumb question. Can you get the same growth hormone from heavy bench presses? Pecs weight a lot less than thighs. According to the research it appears that exercising with moderate to high intensity, high volume, large muscle mass, and using short rest intervals produces the largest Growth hormone responses (1) Research on very high intensity (1-2 reps) with long rest periods showed a much lower amount of growth hormone response in men (1). So the more work you do (weight x rep x set) in a given time period, the greater GH reponse. The legs are stronger, so can perform more work and therefore elicit a higher GH response. However, Bench Pressing still works a large muscle group and therefore elicits a response, just lower than squatting. -Joe 1. Kraemer, William J., and Nicholas A. Ratamess. "Hormonal Responses and Adaptations to Resistance Exercise and Training." Sports Medicine 35.4 (2005): 339-61. Web.
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Post by joecoov on May 3, 2016 13:20:26 GMT -7
He mentioned in one of his interviews that the benefit of heavy squats/dead lifts for 30+ males and females was not to gain leg strength, although that does happen, but was to get the body to produce muscle growth hormone that benefits the rest of your training. I also remember somewhere he mentioned something about doing 2 sets of 2. If you follow that system its pretty easy to add into a workout and you are very unlikely to add leg mass. Thats the theory I think. Just an FYI, if he did say this, I hope he didn't imply an increase in growth hormone results in improved athletic performance. Pretty much only bodybuilders take growth hormone as an ergogenic because it typically promotes hypertrophy, but shows no increase in performance (1). In addition the way elicit the body into a large GH response is to lift like a bodybuilder (2), the opposite of what a climber would want. Now that is not to say that there are not other hormones that are released in response to low rep dead lifts that likely can cause muscle, strength, neurological, and bone adaptations that may help with climbing performance. -Joe 1. Liu, Hau. "Systematic Review: The Effects of Growth Hormone on Athletic Performance." Annals of Internal Medicine Ann Intern Med 148.10 (2008): 747. Web. 2. Kraemer, William J., and Nicholas A. Ratamess. "Hormonal Responses and Adaptations to Resistance Exercise and Training." Sports Medicine 35.4 (2005): 339-61. Web.
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Post by alexandra on May 3, 2016 13:28:12 GMT -7
On another note, as a pretty dedicated cross fitter, let me mention that replacing "crossfit" with "zumba" regarding the benefits for climbing does not make any sense. Crossfit has a high intersection with the "supplemental exercises" part that we all do during our training cycles, thus works those muscles in a very efficient way. Would you be able to achieve the same effect from just lifting/doing SEs? most likely yes. Would you be able to achieve those effects doing Zumba or running? I am willing to bet not. In fact, I did do Zumba for 6 months trying to stay active with a broken hand and my strength level went pretty damn close to zero (I went from being able to do 20+ pull-ups to not being able to do even one, even though I lost weight at that time). So yes, Crossfit, lifting, gymnastics, pull-ups, and generally supplemental exercises help climbing because they make you stronger. They are all faces of the same coin and it comes down to what you prefer doing (working out alone, vs in a group, working HIIT vs not etc). Now, I am not an avid climber myself so I might be missing something here, but just the fact that I started off climbing with pretty strong muscles and continue to get muscularly stronger by doing all those CF/SE/Gymanstics things, has allowed me to climb harder than other people around me with as little experience (2-ish years of consistent climbing mostly at gym and lately outdoor bouldering) as me have. I am suspecting this might sometimes be a bad thing, cause my strength is higher than my technique, but eventually, when my technique gets on par, I can't see why doing all of that crossfit type stuff won't be beneficial.
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RichF
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Post by RichF on May 4, 2016 8:34:32 GMT -7
Joe, I haven't heard the podcast, and don't know much about the topic. But I was curious about what was being suggested in the thread. My take-away was that increasing GH would benefit your training, presumably by facilitating increased muscle growth in the trained areas (finger strength, for example) vs. just training those areas without also doing squats/dead lifts, etc. That increased strength would increase climbing performance, which is different than saying that the increase in GH directly increases climbing performance. It seems you are concerned that people might think that increasing GH would lead to an increase in climbing performance. Is that correct, or are you saying that increasing GH won't have any effect on climbing training either? He mentioned in one of his interviews that the benefit of heavy squats/dead lifts for 30+ males and females was not to gain leg strength, although that does happen, but was to get the body to produce muscle growth hormone that benefits the rest of your training. I also remember somewhere he mentioned something about doing 2 sets of 2. If you follow that system its pretty easy to add into a workout and you are very unlikely to add leg mass. Thats the theory I think. Just an FYI, if he did say this, I hope he didn't imply an increase in growth hormone results in improved athletic performance. Pretty much only bodybuilders take growth hormone as an ergogenic because it typically promotes hypertrophy, but shows no increase in performance (1). In addition the way elicit the body into a large GH response is to lift like a bodybuilder (2), the opposite of what a climber would want. Now that is not to say that there are not other hormones that are released in response to low rep dead lifts that likely can cause muscle, strength, neurological, and bone adaptations that may help with climbing performance. -Joe
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Post by erick on May 4, 2016 9:42:48 GMT -7
On another note, as a pretty dedicated cross fitter, let me mention that replacing "crossfit" with "zumba" regarding the benefits for climbing does not make any sense. The point I think he was trying to make was that neither crossfit or zumba have the specificity to climbing that climbing has. So although there absolutely carryover benefits huge amounts of strength gained, training crossfit specifically to make you a stronger climber/runner/baseball player is not the best option.
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