Weight lifting/strength training and rock climbing - how to combine?
November 22, 2015 3:16 PM Subscribe
And . . . long distance biking as well! Couldn't fit that in the question title. I'd like to pursue all of these over the course of the next year but am not sure how compatible they are. Any pointers?
Here's the deal: I love long-distance bike riding, and just finished a successful period of 4 months or so of doing over a hundred miles a week (probably more like 120 miles on average). However, the weather has recently changed, which is pushing me inside. I joined a rock gym a month or two ago and have probably been going twice a week on average. I joined the rock gym with the thought it would be 1) Fun and social and 2) A good way to get some strength training in without having to do a weight lifting routine. However, of late I have been considering the benefits of doing a basic, all-body strength training program (lunges, squats, dead lifts, etc.), as I'm generally not terribly strong and I also just finished a month or two of physical therapy for a back issue during which the utility of doing core exercises (planks, bird/dogs, etc.) and other strength training was stressed to me. I also have been enjoying my PT exercises, and they actually seem to have worked to take care of the issue they were meant to address. Would love to establish routines to stop that issue from coming back.
My general background: I'm a bit overweight and have always been to some extent, ranging from really obese when I was in high school to yoyoing around the same 30-40 lbs or so since I lost most of that weight in college. I lost about 20 lbs from the most recent bout of long-distance biking. I'd like to lose more eventually, but am not feeling urgent about it. My goals at the moment are to increase my strength/athleticism, and work on my diet a bit. Hopefully eventually I'll get to my "ideal" weight for long-term health, but if that happens a year from now instead of the 3-4 months it could theoretically take if I did nothing but restrict my diet and do a lot of cardio, I'm okay with that. It's also important to me to have some fun with whatever I do, since I'm of the firm belief that one major contributor to sustaining positive changes is that there is an element in whatever you do that is enjoyable/keeps you coming back to it.
Current thoughts on what I'd like to do: I'm thinking of the long-distance biking thing as a "summer months" thing that I'll do 5-6 months out of the year, and rock-climbing/strength training as something I'll focus on the rest of the time (and probably still do it to some extent during the biking parts of the year as well, though more to try to prevent muscle loss). As it's getting into winter, I'm currently working on designing a strength-training regime and planning out how often I'll go to the rock gym. I'm a complete beginner with the strength training, and have just purchased and am reading through most of the New Rules of Lifting for women, which provides a six-month long program for strength training. I like the idea of doing this program to build a basis for myself in strength-training. However, I'm a bit unsure of how to combine it with rock climbing, since they're both essentially strength-training activities.
My questions then are:
1) If you have combined strength training and rock climbing, how have you done this?
2) Would it be doing too much to try to do both the full-body strength training routines and rock climbing on the same days? I don't want to overdo it on the days I work out. Would it make more sense to do the strength training routine 2 days a week and rock climbing on a third (and maybe a fourth?). (And if I did two days strength training/two days rock climbing, would I not be getting enough rest time?)
3) Is a strength training program that targets the whole body likely to help or hinder progress in rock climbing? I know a lot of beginner rock climbers really develop their forearms and finger muscles the most the first year or two, and those are certainly the areas that I've noticed being the sore the most since starting rock climbing. So it seems to me to some extent that the two workouts might be complementary to one another, or at least not interfering with one another too much since I don't think the full body workouts do much to increase finger strength or focus on forearm strength. FYI, my goal for the rock climbing is mostly just to have fun, but I also would enjoy seeing the level of the routes I can do increase gradually.
Thanks for any thoughts, happy to provide clarifications if necessary!
Here's the deal: I love long-distance bike riding, and just finished a successful period of 4 months or so of doing over a hundred miles a week (probably more like 120 miles on average). However, the weather has recently changed, which is pushing me inside. I joined a rock gym a month or two ago and have probably been going twice a week on average. I joined the rock gym with the thought it would be 1) Fun and social and 2) A good way to get some strength training in without having to do a weight lifting routine. However, of late I have been considering the benefits of doing a basic, all-body strength training program (lunges, squats, dead lifts, etc.), as I'm generally not terribly strong and I also just finished a month or two of physical therapy for a back issue during which the utility of doing core exercises (planks, bird/dogs, etc.) and other strength training was stressed to me. I also have been enjoying my PT exercises, and they actually seem to have worked to take care of the issue they were meant to address. Would love to establish routines to stop that issue from coming back.
My general background: I'm a bit overweight and have always been to some extent, ranging from really obese when I was in high school to yoyoing around the same 30-40 lbs or so since I lost most of that weight in college. I lost about 20 lbs from the most recent bout of long-distance biking. I'd like to lose more eventually, but am not feeling urgent about it. My goals at the moment are to increase my strength/athleticism, and work on my diet a bit. Hopefully eventually I'll get to my "ideal" weight for long-term health, but if that happens a year from now instead of the 3-4 months it could theoretically take if I did nothing but restrict my diet and do a lot of cardio, I'm okay with that. It's also important to me to have some fun with whatever I do, since I'm of the firm belief that one major contributor to sustaining positive changes is that there is an element in whatever you do that is enjoyable/keeps you coming back to it.
Current thoughts on what I'd like to do: I'm thinking of the long-distance biking thing as a "summer months" thing that I'll do 5-6 months out of the year, and rock-climbing/strength training as something I'll focus on the rest of the time (and probably still do it to some extent during the biking parts of the year as well, though more to try to prevent muscle loss). As it's getting into winter, I'm currently working on designing a strength-training regime and planning out how often I'll go to the rock gym. I'm a complete beginner with the strength training, and have just purchased and am reading through most of the New Rules of Lifting for women, which provides a six-month long program for strength training. I like the idea of doing this program to build a basis for myself in strength-training. However, I'm a bit unsure of how to combine it with rock climbing, since they're both essentially strength-training activities.
My questions then are:
1) If you have combined strength training and rock climbing, how have you done this?
2) Would it be doing too much to try to do both the full-body strength training routines and rock climbing on the same days? I don't want to overdo it on the days I work out. Would it make more sense to do the strength training routine 2 days a week and rock climbing on a third (and maybe a fourth?). (And if I did two days strength training/two days rock climbing, would I not be getting enough rest time?)
3) Is a strength training program that targets the whole body likely to help or hinder progress in rock climbing? I know a lot of beginner rock climbers really develop their forearms and finger muscles the most the first year or two, and those are certainly the areas that I've noticed being the sore the most since starting rock climbing. So it seems to me to some extent that the two workouts might be complementary to one another, or at least not interfering with one another too much since I don't think the full body workouts do much to increase finger strength or focus on forearm strength. FYI, my goal for the rock climbing is mostly just to have fun, but I also would enjoy seeing the level of the routes I can do increase gradually.
Thanks for any thoughts, happy to provide clarifications if necessary!
since I don't think the full body workouts do much to increase finger strength or focus on forearm strength.
You know what deadlifts are. If you can't grip the bar, you can't lift the weight. Ditto for pull ups. Grip strength is crucial for certain compound lifts.
I lift weights but I am not a rock climber. However, I cannot imagine how strength training would hinder rock climbing progress. Are weaker people better rock climbers than stronger people? That is counterintuitive because a rock climber needs to be able to move his/her body's weight. Stronger people can do that easier.
As a weight lifter, I do think that if you are going to just lift weights six months a year, you are going to lose a lot of your progress over the six months that you don't. New Rules of Lifting for Women does not contemplate that. Lift three days a week on days you don't bike or climb.
If you are concerned with grip strength, you also might want to check out the GripTraining subreddit.
posted by Tanizaki at 4:14 PM on November 22, 2015
You know what deadlifts are. If you can't grip the bar, you can't lift the weight. Ditto for pull ups. Grip strength is crucial for certain compound lifts.
I lift weights but I am not a rock climber. However, I cannot imagine how strength training would hinder rock climbing progress. Are weaker people better rock climbers than stronger people? That is counterintuitive because a rock climber needs to be able to move his/her body's weight. Stronger people can do that easier.
As a weight lifter, I do think that if you are going to just lift weights six months a year, you are going to lose a lot of your progress over the six months that you don't. New Rules of Lifting for Women does not contemplate that. Lift three days a week on days you don't bike or climb.
If you are concerned with grip strength, you also might want to check out the GripTraining subreddit.
posted by Tanizaki at 4:14 PM on November 22, 2015
You could give Starting Strength a try. Most SSesque programs specify two workouts, A and B, and you're in the gym 3x/week, usually M-W-F or Th-Tu-Sa. In that case, the workouts rotate in the order: A-B-A, then B-A-B the next week. If you wanted to combine SS with climbing, though, one thing that you could try is to leave out one of the workouts, so you're lifting only 2x/week (that is, A-B every week), or leave out the upper body movements on the day you both lift and climb (see below)
Run that "program" for a month or two and see how you feel. If your recovery's OK, you're not too tired, and don't have any nagging injuries, then work that extra day of lifting back in. On the naggling injuries bit, the one thing you have to be very careful about when starting to climb is keeping your elbows healthy and not ramping up the volume too much. Look up golfer's elbow, for example.
1) I haven't combined the two too much, but the above is probably how I would do it were I in your position.
2) Depends on how much climbing you're doing. If you're doing easy drills (like footwork on a slab) in the climbing gym then it wouldn't be too much. Your best bet may be to stack the climbing with a leg day; although SS doesn't exactly have a leg day, what you could do is leave out the upper body exercises and just squat plus some core exercises and accessories. This would work great on top of two full SS days and another climbing day.
3) If you're a beginner, it can only help, but I know that a lot of advanced rock climbers don't weight train or do so only sparingly -- they just climb ALL. THE. TIME. Something like 5x/week, which makes sense when you're at that level -- the more advanced you are at a sport, the more specific your training has to be. That and once you start doing the harder routes, the extra muscle mass (especially in your legs) starts to mess with your strength-to-weight ratio.
posted by un petit cadeau at 4:50 PM on November 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Run that "program" for a month or two and see how you feel. If your recovery's OK, you're not too tired, and don't have any nagging injuries, then work that extra day of lifting back in. On the naggling injuries bit, the one thing you have to be very careful about when starting to climb is keeping your elbows healthy and not ramping up the volume too much. Look up golfer's elbow, for example.
1) I haven't combined the two too much, but the above is probably how I would do it were I in your position.
2) Depends on how much climbing you're doing. If you're doing easy drills (like footwork on a slab) in the climbing gym then it wouldn't be too much. Your best bet may be to stack the climbing with a leg day; although SS doesn't exactly have a leg day, what you could do is leave out the upper body exercises and just squat plus some core exercises and accessories. This would work great on top of two full SS days and another climbing day.
3) If you're a beginner, it can only help, but I know that a lot of advanced rock climbers don't weight train or do so only sparingly -- they just climb ALL. THE. TIME. Something like 5x/week, which makes sense when you're at that level -- the more advanced you are at a sport, the more specific your training has to be. That and once you start doing the harder routes, the extra muscle mass (especially in your legs) starts to mess with your strength-to-weight ratio.
posted by un petit cadeau at 4:50 PM on November 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
You don't get stronger from lifting, you get stronger from recovering from lifting. So if you lift on MWF and climb on TuTh, you'll never allow your body to recover and then supercompensate. I'd say lift or climb MWF and bike TuThSa, and make your rides reeeeeally easy, like spinning your legs easy.
posted by disconnect at 5:29 PM on November 22, 2015
posted by disconnect at 5:29 PM on November 22, 2015
Response by poster: Hi - just to be clear, I'm not planning on biking for the next few months, aside from commuting and maybe some short sessions of interval training on a spinn bike. Winter months = strength training/rock climbing focus.
I'm also planning on keeping up the strength training to some extent during the summer while I'm biking, to try to avoid losing muscle mass.
The purpose of the strength training is just to build a base of all-around strength that I feel I currently lack - ie, I doubt I will gain so much muscle in my legs from this that it will hinder my rock climbing. I also don't think I want to rock climb 4-5 times a week - 3 times might actually be ideal.
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions so far! It didn't occur to me that grip strength from deadlifts would be similar to training fingers through rock climbing (and tbh, I barely even know what a deadlift is - my physical therapist taught me about those earlier this week).
Starting strength is next up on the reading list, actually, so thanks for the recommendation of how to maybe combine the two, un petit cadeau :)
posted by knownfossils at 5:47 PM on November 22, 2015
I'm also planning on keeping up the strength training to some extent during the summer while I'm biking, to try to avoid losing muscle mass.
The purpose of the strength training is just to build a base of all-around strength that I feel I currently lack - ie, I doubt I will gain so much muscle in my legs from this that it will hinder my rock climbing. I also don't think I want to rock climb 4-5 times a week - 3 times might actually be ideal.
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions so far! It didn't occur to me that grip strength from deadlifts would be similar to training fingers through rock climbing (and tbh, I barely even know what a deadlift is - my physical therapist taught me about those earlier this week).
Starting strength is next up on the reading list, actually, so thanks for the recommendation of how to maybe combine the two, un petit cadeau :)
posted by knownfossils at 5:47 PM on November 22, 2015
I climb once a week, and really wish I was climbing twice a week, but can't make the weird hours at my local climbing wall work for me. The wall is closed in the summers, so sometimes I do a bit of strength training then. Honestly, though, the biggest effect I've seen on my climbing has been not from my lackadaisical weightlifting, but from Couch to 5k. Moral: don't underestimate the work your legs do in lifting you up the wall! (I bet more core strength would be good for my climbing, too, but I haven't found a way to work on that directly without activating my personal worst-kid-in-gym-class baggage.)
posted by yarntheory at 5:55 PM on November 22, 2015
posted by yarntheory at 5:55 PM on November 22, 2015
Best answer: I've been doing indoor climbing and weight training for the past couple of years and to me they complement each other very well!
To answer your questions:
1) how have I combined them - mine is driven by the practicalities. For me the gym is a 30-60 minute session, whereas the climbing wall is 2-3 hours. This means climbing only really works at the weekend, and I normally only do one session a week. The gym I can squeeze in whenever, normally a couple of sessions on the weekday mornings, and then maybe once over the weekend. This normally gives 24 hours between sessions, which I think is necessary.
I also play football (soccer) once or twice a week which might be similar to your cycling. For this I have found you can't do a decent climbing or weights session immediately before, because you will be knackered, but you can do a weights session the morning after. It's just harder!
2) combining them in the same day - for me climbing is exhausting and very demanding on your body even when you are in 100% condition so there is no way I would want to try doing it straight after a decent gym session, I don't think I've ever even tried!
Occasionally I have done some gym sessions straight after climbing, as with the football this worked ok as long as you remember it will be harder. So lower numbers of reps and more recovery time.
3) helping or hindering - for me gym work has definitely helped my climbing. A lot of the advice I have heard is that 'the only way to get better at climbing is do more climbing', which appears to be on the logic that climbing is more than strength, there is a lot of technique and balance, and that as you say the strength you need is finger and forearm based which isn't what most weights programmes are focused on.
This probably is logical but I think only gives half the story. Yes doing more climbing would be the best way to get improve, but for me as someone who struggles to climb at the wall more than once a week the gym is a hell of a lot better than doing nothing in between.
This I think is down to two factors. Firstly whilst finger strength is important in the higher echelons of climbing, being stronger in your body generally definitely helps at the lower grades where the holds are more generous and there is a lot of pushing and pulling with your whole body, and finger strength isn't necessarily the main limiting factor. In particular when you are trying to use your legs more as all good climbers should a common hard move is to bring your foot up as high as you can on to a toe hold and then push up your whole body weight off of it. This is basically the same muscle groups as a lunge or a single leg squat.
Secondly more generally I find learning to climb is all about working out how to use your body as an effective lever, which is fundamentally the same as lifting heavy weights. So ok yes the particular movement patterns are different but the understanding you need from your body is the same. For me doing weights in between climbing keeps that connection with your body going, and I think is the main reason why I feel like I am improving most times I climb even when I miss a couple of weeks as I don't have to spend a whole session remembering how I did it last time.
posted by Albondiga at 6:00 AM on November 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
To answer your questions:
1) how have I combined them - mine is driven by the practicalities. For me the gym is a 30-60 minute session, whereas the climbing wall is 2-3 hours. This means climbing only really works at the weekend, and I normally only do one session a week. The gym I can squeeze in whenever, normally a couple of sessions on the weekday mornings, and then maybe once over the weekend. This normally gives 24 hours between sessions, which I think is necessary.
I also play football (soccer) once or twice a week which might be similar to your cycling. For this I have found you can't do a decent climbing or weights session immediately before, because you will be knackered, but you can do a weights session the morning after. It's just harder!
2) combining them in the same day - for me climbing is exhausting and very demanding on your body even when you are in 100% condition so there is no way I would want to try doing it straight after a decent gym session, I don't think I've ever even tried!
Occasionally I have done some gym sessions straight after climbing, as with the football this worked ok as long as you remember it will be harder. So lower numbers of reps and more recovery time.
3) helping or hindering - for me gym work has definitely helped my climbing. A lot of the advice I have heard is that 'the only way to get better at climbing is do more climbing', which appears to be on the logic that climbing is more than strength, there is a lot of technique and balance, and that as you say the strength you need is finger and forearm based which isn't what most weights programmes are focused on.
This probably is logical but I think only gives half the story. Yes doing more climbing would be the best way to get improve, but for me as someone who struggles to climb at the wall more than once a week the gym is a hell of a lot better than doing nothing in between.
This I think is down to two factors. Firstly whilst finger strength is important in the higher echelons of climbing, being stronger in your body generally definitely helps at the lower grades where the holds are more generous and there is a lot of pushing and pulling with your whole body, and finger strength isn't necessarily the main limiting factor. In particular when you are trying to use your legs more as all good climbers should a common hard move is to bring your foot up as high as you can on to a toe hold and then push up your whole body weight off of it. This is basically the same muscle groups as a lunge or a single leg squat.
Secondly more generally I find learning to climb is all about working out how to use your body as an effective lever, which is fundamentally the same as lifting heavy weights. So ok yes the particular movement patterns are different but the understanding you need from your body is the same. For me doing weights in between climbing keeps that connection with your body going, and I think is the main reason why I feel like I am improving most times I climb even when I miss a couple of weeks as I don't have to spend a whole session remembering how I did it last time.
posted by Albondiga at 6:00 AM on November 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
When I was doing a lot of endurance cycling, I found that focusing on endurance training rather than strength was important. I got to be a much better hill-climber, for example, when I started doing high-rep/lower weight leg and core work-outs. Definitely don't skip leg day during the winter season.
Climbing really benefits from increasing core strength as well, though, of course arms are important there as well. whole body exercises were the thing I found the most benefit from, medicine ball work especially. But most climbing happens with your feet (or should). Hand/forearm strength help too, getting a fingerboard for home isn't the worst idea.
The hardest, most boring thing though is to keep doing aerobic exercise in the off-months. You can never do enough cardio. Interval work can really help the bike too.
posted by bonehead at 7:28 AM on November 23, 2015
Climbing really benefits from increasing core strength as well, though, of course arms are important there as well. whole body exercises were the thing I found the most benefit from, medicine ball work especially. But most climbing happens with your feet (or should). Hand/forearm strength help too, getting a fingerboard for home isn't the worst idea.
The hardest, most boring thing though is to keep doing aerobic exercise in the off-months. You can never do enough cardio. Interval work can really help the bike too.
posted by bonehead at 7:28 AM on November 23, 2015
I am into long distance cycling and rock climbing, but I'll provide slightly contrarian advice in saying that I'm a bit skeptical about the degree of how the two disciplines complement each other. There is certainly some benefit to having stronger shoulders, arms, and fingers when doing distance cycling, but at a certain point, that extra muscle mass isn't doing a lot for you on the bike and could slow you down on hills because of the weight.
Nowadays, my cycling goals are pretty moderate, because there are other priorities in my life that preclude intensive training, but back when I had more aggressive goals and a more structured training regimen, my winter program tended to be a mixture of swimming and quasi-pilates core work, to keep more of the emphasis on lower body strength and overall body flexibility.
posted by bl1nk at 7:29 AM on November 23, 2015
Nowadays, my cycling goals are pretty moderate, because there are other priorities in my life that preclude intensive training, but back when I had more aggressive goals and a more structured training regimen, my winter program tended to be a mixture of swimming and quasi-pilates core work, to keep more of the emphasis on lower body strength and overall body flexibility.
posted by bl1nk at 7:29 AM on November 23, 2015
Climbing is a skill sport, so most/all of your "training" for climbing should really be thought of as practice instead. You don't really need to train to progress as a climber until you've been climbing for quite a while. That said, you have a limited amount of motor adaptation capacity, so if you're working on multiple new things at once, it can limit your progress in both. If I were you, I'd avoid significant strength training on days you climb.
Oh, and general grip strength has very little (basically no) overlap with the kind of finger strength that rock climbing requires. At least above say 5.10/V0.
I'm a huge fan of Steve Bechtel (climbstrong.com). He's a climber and trainer in Lander, WY and he's super smart and totally no-nonsense. His perspective, is essentially that beyond basic strength and capacity improvement, cross-training for climbing isn't that useful. If you're interested, check out some of his fee blog articles (here's on on training vs. practice) or this recent podcast interview he did (interviewer is a total amateur, but Bechtel's a total pro).
posted by that's candlepin at 12:47 PM on December 7, 2015
Oh, and general grip strength has very little (basically no) overlap with the kind of finger strength that rock climbing requires. At least above say 5.10/V0.
I'm a huge fan of Steve Bechtel (climbstrong.com). He's a climber and trainer in Lander, WY and he's super smart and totally no-nonsense. His perspective, is essentially that beyond basic strength and capacity improvement, cross-training for climbing isn't that useful. If you're interested, check out some of his fee blog articles (here's on on training vs. practice) or this recent podcast interview he did (interviewer is a total amateur, but Bechtel's a total pro).
posted by that's candlepin at 12:47 PM on December 7, 2015
Thinking about this a bit more: if your goal is to get better at rock climbing, you should probably focus on getting to your ideal weight. Also, if you want to be a better climber, you'll want to climb year round. You can lose a lot of skill gains over a summer of not climbing. Anyway, I'll shut up now, but I like to think about climbing and climbing training, so memail me if you're interested in my ramblings.
posted by that's candlepin at 1:52 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by that's candlepin at 1:52 PM on December 8, 2015
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The one exception to that is if I'm doing a weight program that's specifically intended to leave slack for other activities. Pavel Tsatsouline's _Simple and Sinister_ (which uses kettlebells, not dumbbells or barbells) is a good example.
posted by asterix at 3:43 PM on November 22, 2015