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klk
Trad climber
cali
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"Some 40 years ago I remember hearing that jstan recommended 20 minutes of rest between attempts on hard climbs."
That approach involved severe danger however. During that 20 minutes the person climbing with me generally did the route. I never did get the hang of properly structuring the team.
u obviously spent too much time climbing with wunsch and goldstone.
ondra recommends hours of rest between redpoint attempts.
you can spend the downtime tweeting yr fans, texting the broheims, and emailing ur sponsors.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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eau tami, tell me it's not true.
over to the dark side
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MH2
climber
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ondra recommends hours of rest between redpoint attempts.
Perhaps we are headed towards climbing by not climbing.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2011 - 01:30am PT
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http://www.horoftvs.cz/grant_anthropometric,strenght,endurence_and_flexibility_characteristics.pdf
Journal of Sports Sciences, 1996, 14, 301-309
Anthropometric, strength, endurance and flexibility characteristics of elite and recreational climbers
S. GRANT, V. HYNES, A. WHITTAKER and T. AITCHISON
There has been remarkable development in the scope and quality of rock climbing in recent years. However, there are scant data on the anthropometry, strength, endurance and flexibility of rock climbers. The aim of this study was to compare these characteristics in three groups of subjects - elite rock climbers, recreational climbers and non-climbers. The 30 male subjects were aged 28.8 ± 8.1 ( <x> ± S.D.) years. Group 1 (n = 10) comprised elite rock climbers who had led a climb of a minimum standard of `E1’ (E1-E9 are the highest climbing grades) within the previous 12 months; Group 2 (n = 10) comprised rock climbers who had achieved a standard no better than leading a climb considered `severe’ (a low climbing grade category); and Group 3 (n = 10) comprised physically active individuals who had not previously done any rock climbing. The test battery included tests of finger strength [grip strength, pincer (i.e. thumb and forefinger) strength, finger strength measured on climbing-specific apparatus], body dimensions, body composition, flexibility, arm strength and endurance, and abdominal endurance. The tests which resulted in significant differences (P < 0.05) between the three groups included the bent arm hang (elite 53.1 ± 1.32 s; recreational 31.4 ± 9.0 s; non-climbers 32.6 ± 15.0 s) and pull-ups (elite 16.2 ± 7.2 repetitions; recreational 3.0 ± 4.0 reps; non-climbers 3.0 ± 3.9 reps); for both tests, the elite climbers performed significantly better than the recreational climbers and non-climbers. Regression procedures (i.e. analysis of covariance) were used to examine the influence of body mass and leg length. Using adjusted means (i.e. for body mass and leg length), significant differences were obtained for the following: (1) finger strength, grip 1, four fingers (right hand) (elite 447 ± 30 N; recreational 359 ± 29 N; non-climbers 309 ± 30 N), (2) grip strength (left hand) (elite 526 ± 21 N; recreational 445 ± 21 N; non-climbers 440 ± 21 N), (3) pincer strength (right hand) (elite 95 ± 5 N; recreational 69 ± 5 N; non-climbers 70 ± 5 N) and (4) leg span (elite 139 ± 4 cm; recreational 122 ± 4 cm; non-climbers 124 ± 4 cm). For tests 3 and 4, the elite climbers performed significantly better than the recreational climbers and non-climbers for any variable. These results demonstrate that elite climbers have greater shoulder girdle endurance, finger strength and hip flexibility than recreational climbers and nonclimbers. Those who aspire to lead `E1’ standard climbs or above should consider training programmes to enhance their finger strength, shoulder girdle strength and endurance, and hip flexibility.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2011 - 01:49am PT
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http://www.nyuhjdbulletin.org/Mod/Bulletin/V64N3-4/Docs/V64N3-4_11.pdf
Bulletin of the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases • Volume 64, Numbers 3 & 4, 2006
Hand Injuries in Rock Climbers
Erik N. Kubiak, M.D., Jeffrey A. Klugman, M.D., and Joseph A. Bosco, III, M.D.
Abstract
Rock climbing, whether practiced in nature on cliffs and boulders or indoors on walls made of resin and wood, has grown in popularity in recent years. An estimated five million people participate in “rocking” at least three times a year. Climbing places unique demands on the upper extremity, especially the hands. The flexor tendons and flexor pulleys are prone to sprains and ruptures. Pulley injuries occur in up to 20% of climbers. The A2 pulley of the ring finger is the most frequently injured. Most pulley injuries can be successfully treated with a week of immobilization, followed by a range of motion (ROM) exercises for one week. Isometric training on a finger board can be started once ROM exercises are painless. A return to climbing can be initiated when the climber is able to avoid grip positions that produce pain; however, the closed crimp grip should be avoided at this time. Surgical reconstruction using the technique described by Widstrom is recommended for acute injuries with clinical evidence of bowstringing. Ultrasound and MRI are the current modalities best suited for confirming clinical findings.
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WBraun
climber
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Carrying all this stuff around in ones head is like a huge overloaded rack.
No wonder people get injured carrying around all that excessive baggage .....
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rhyang
climber
SJC
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I ran into my friend Lisa in Tuolumne yesterday at S. Flank Daff -
She is nearing 60 and has recovered from breast cancer and hip replacement. Arthritis is starting to set in, and she is worried the other hip is starting to go. But she still does easy climbs and hikes, plus yoga and pilates. She seems pretty happy with life.
I had to take a year off climbing in 2007-2008 at my neurosurgeon's orders. I scrambled up peaks, did long hikes and snow climbs instead. I'm still weak on my left side and have other assorted neurological issues. But I've done things I'd dreamed of doing before my injury, and am leading harder than I did before. I'm weak at liebacks and overhangs, but it's just a matter of figuring out my strengths and taking advantage of them. Sometimes have to find people with complementary strengths .. sometimes have to yell "take!" and some times I just have to bail and retreat (that's why I practice downclimbing in the gym :)
Because of my injury, early neurological deterioration may set in and I may well find myself back in a wheelchair by the time I am Lisa's age. The discs around my fusion will probably start to herniate at some point, necessitating .. another set of fusions ? I don't want to think about that stuff right now.
Here is some climbing pr0n from last weekend in the Meadows, from a fellow gimp -
Black Widow (p2)
West Crack (p1)
Cathedral Peak from the top of Daff
An acquaintance on Bull Dozier (p1)
Cheers Ed !
-Rob
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2011 - 01:57am PT
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http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=ijes&sei-redir=1#search=%22Physiology%20sport%20rock%20climbing%22
Int J Exerc Sci 1(1): 4-13, 2008
FOREARM EMG DURING ROCK CLIMBING DIFFERS FROM EMG DURING HANDGRIP DYNAMOMETRY
Phillip B. Watts, Randall L. Jensen, Edward Gannon, Randy Kobeinia, Jeremy Maynard, Jennifer Sansom
ABSTRACT
Handgrip dynamometry is often given importance in the study of rock climbing performance. Whether handgrip dynamometry produces a degree of muscle activation comparable to actual climbing has not been reported. Furthermore, the degree and variability of muscle activation for various hand configurations during climbing are unknown. The purpose of this study was to record forearm EMG responses for six hand configurations during climbing and to compare these responses to a maximum handgrip test. Five experienced climbers performed four moves up (UP) and down (DN) on an overhanging 45-deg. climbing wall with each of six hand configurations: crimp (C), pinch (P), three 2-finger combinations (2F1, 2F2, 2F3) and an open-hand grip (O). Forearm EMG was recorded via surface electrodes. Data were recorded for the second UP and second DN moves. Prior to climbing, maximum handgrip force (HG) and simultaneous EMG were obtained. Mean HG force was 526.6±33.3 N. Times to complete the climbing movements with each hand configuration varied between 3.1±0.5 and 4.8±0.9 sec with no significant differences. Peak EMG’s during climbing were higher than HG EMG (p<.05). Mean EMG amplitudes for UP, as percentages of HG EMG, were 198±55, 169±22, 222±72, 181±39, 126±32, and 143±47% for C, P, 2F1, 2F2, 2F3, and O respectively. Significant differences were found for O versus 2F1 and for 2F3 versus 2F1 and C (p<.05). EMG amplitudes were lower for DN than UP (p<.05). Since all climbing EMGs exceeded HG EMG, it was concluded that handgrip dynamometry lacks specificity to actual rock climbing.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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None of the journal articles address why you did a "turnback" the other day. It's likely your head simply wasn't into playing the climbing game as you re-entered the arena after dealing with injuries.
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beluga
climber
Nowhere
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It's ok to say that you just didn't want to.
That's when you just go home.
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susu
Trad climber
East Bay, CA
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If I cannot enjoy climbing despite intense discomfort or pain, it's not worth it to me to push too hard. I know sometimes we have to climb like there's no tomorrow if we don't. Most times we can be much more relaxed and just not do the lead, and while taking a load off, reflect what an excellent choice it can be to know when to back off. After all, the climb will still be there for another time. If pain is from a chronic sort of problem, then I try to work through it; but knock on wood most of my experience has involved trying to pay close attention to prevent pain from turning into a chronic issue, so as to keep from getting sidelined too long. It can be hard to listen to the bod, but the thought of having to sit out many weeks of climbing usually motivates rest. When climbing, or doing the things I do to get better at it, produce more pressure than I like, and especially guilt, it seems a good time to back off myself, temporarily lower expectations, just bc it seems pointless otherwise since it's supposed to be a labor of love.
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O.D.
Trad climber
LA LA Land
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Ed, this thread is going to be one of those that we will come back to many, many times -- it's one of the best contributions to our sport that this forum has ever produced.
High mileage sucks, by the way.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Okay, lots to get to here, but this will be brief because Em and I have to git climbing and I'm typing into a fugking phone with my fumble fingers
You're over thinking this Ed. You know what to do. You know how to climb, you know how to avoid and recover from injury. The analytic approach has it's place, but it can also be the biggest albatross any climber can drag around.
Let yourself climb, don't make yourself climb. Trust the subconscious, it knows!
Grug had never done the kind of climbing that is on Lucille, but by trusting to his experience and being open to new experience he almost onsighted it!
The conservative pragmatic approach does make it's contribution, but you have to store that stuff in the backburner/hardrive and let yourself be.....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2011 - 11:36am PT
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thanks for all the support....
but this thread was supposed to be about getting the community's input on various aspects of climbing:
1) what is good technique?
2) in the event of an injury, what is an effective recovery regime?
3) what is effective training?
there are other issues dealing with risk which I think I might expand on some other thread in the future
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Ed asks:
1) "what is good technique?" - Depends
2) "in the event of an injury, what is an effective recovery regime?" - Depends
3) "what is effective training?" - Depends
Good questions but the answer to each question is based upon individual abilities, needs, and goals.
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MH2
climber
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Very much depends.
On how much of your day, week, and life you devote to climbing.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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post references..
A few, there are others but I don't have them handy. MacCleod could probably point you to several more:
Reynolds, Heather 1995. Physical characteristics including strength, flexibility, and body anthropometry of sport climbers at the eleite and recreational levels. Thesis Dalhousie Univ, Halifax NS.
Russum, W. 1989. Physiological determinants of rock climbing ability. Thesis, San Jose Univ.
Watts, Martin, Durtschi 1993. The anthopometric profiles of elite male and female competitive sport rock climbers. Journal of Sport Sciences 11:113-117
Wakasa. Do better climbers have stronger hands? R&I 80:43.
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jstan
climber
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At the old age of 26 when I first began climbing I knew of no one who had a conditioning program. There were perhaps a few dozen in the US who conditioned. I immediately focussed on aerobic conditioning because access to fuel and oxygen along with the removal of waste products had to be important. Particularly in climbing where muscle use is static and pumping of the blood is not assisted by motion of the muscle.
No rewards of any kind were proffered beyond the excitement that comes from finding and perhaps even advancing one's personal limits, something in which no one but myself would ever take the slightest interest. It was very interesting for the first four years but I came to a dreadful conclusion at thirty.
Climbing is something that does not need to be done. Now old, time was running out and I needed to concentrate on something that did need to be done.
Ed is a hugely able person who has done this in order reverse to that. He has done what needed to be done and now is excited by the idea of developing his athletic limits. Ed, of course realizes he is going against the flow.
My rather harsh post above was intended to make one point. The first task is to quantify the rate at which ones physical abilities are declining. And then to take as progress the degree to which careful conditioning allows one to stay above that trend line.
With the exception of Goldstone's very excellent contributions, most of the supposedly learned publications we see here appear to be inexpert testimony by and for young persons attached to the sport climbing industry.
These present danger.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Hi, Ed. I'm sorry that you're still struggling with your injuries. I hope my non-scientific and self referential stab at answering your most recent 1,2, 3 questions is not too far outside the spirit in which you asked them.
1. Good technique is about efficiency, IMO. It's the type of movement that reaches the best compromise between minimum energy expenditure and security. The ideal compromise will be different depending upon the climber's strength and endurance as well as the consequences of trading power/energy for security.
There are some techniques that are never a win (taking 5 tries to get your foot on the hold, using insecure and energy intensive positions, etc.), and these are sort of universally thought to be "bad technique". People are often praised for their "good technique" when they seem to effortlessly flow up a hard climb with no apparent wasted movement. However, a favorite quote of mine (Fern Webb from rec.climbing) that I like to remember is "Strength is a technique." If the way that you move your body and the strength that you can maintain are enough to allow you to safely send, then your technique is "good enough" for the climb in question.
An example...A particular 5.12 tight hands and finger crack was ascended by two guys: Climber A: a Yosemite regular with piles of crack-climbing experience and Climber B: a professional climber with 5.14 sport climbs to his credit but who climbed cracks much less frequently. Climber A had his feet in the crack nearly the whole way. He had the security and energy to chalk, talk, shake, etc. at essentially any place that he wanted to on the climb. It looked like 5.9. Climber B looked like he was successfully pulling the walls apart to make the crack wider. He thrashed and grunted. He seemed to have less "technique" because his method required much more energy, but since he had the power and endurance to pull it off in that fashion, he sent too. At some point, there would be climbs that would require climber A to have more power endurance, even when bringing his best "technique" to bear, and there would be climbs that would exceed climber B's capacity to crush where improving efficiency would probably serve him better than trying to get 5.15 strong.
2. I don't think there is a blanket answer. I'll just offer my N=1 personal reflections. My tough pill to swallow is that I don't get to recover from some of my injuries. My focus isn't recovery, but trying to strike a balance between climbing at a reasonable level and not using up what my body has left in it too quickly.
What I needed to do to recover from ACL surgery in my 20's or a partial finger ligament tear in my early 30's looks really different from how I learn to manage pain and prevent symptom progression with a non-fixable broken back as I near my 40's.
I don't know how much age effects my bodies capacity to heal from acute injury, but I do know that it has given me time to accumulate a lot of chronic issues that really decreases the frequency of my big adventures because I need more time to physically recover and forget about how bad it flippin' hurt last time. If I come back too soon or too hard, not only do I hurt like crazy and climb like poo, but I hate it...and that makes me the worst climber in the world.
3. Effective training, IMO (again, my casual observations, not data driven... I hope that doesn't goof your intent w/ this thread), is about working up to a degree of challenge by strengthening the body parts, developing the coordination, and (most importantly for me) establishing a recent precedent for success informing risk-assessment that is relevant to the goal in question.
Effective training to climb the hardest #'s known to humanity is going to be skewed toward what works best for overhanging sport climbing and steep, itty bitty cracks, since most of the hardest #'d climbs are one of those two types of climbs. Finger strength will matter a lot. People with crazy finger strength like that are probably very strong and fit otherwise and will progress rapidly on the kind of climbing that we tend to do in Yosemite if they are psyched for it. A positive correlation would likely appear between finger strength and capacity to send (insert whatever long valley climb in the 5.9-5.10 range) when you control for length of time climbing. However, since you never need to hang your whole body weight off of your hands to get up hardly any of those routes, the relationship would probably not be particularly causal.
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exposeur
Trad climber
california?
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I have a genetic condition where i make shitty, stretchy collagen, the stuff of connective tissue including tendons and ligaments. you may have seen people with a more extreme version who have stretchy skin - it's called ehlers-danlose syndrome. after i tore my knee apart (acl, mcl, meniscus) playing ultimate i decided climbing was lower impact. i soon pinched a nerve in my C6 vertebra and learned about the importance of antagonist muscles. I managed to climb for almost 7 years before getting my first real climbing injury, a minor A2 pulley tear. at that time i found dave macleod's blog where he described using cold water immersion for his own pulley injury; the Lewis reaction is where instead of cutting off blood supply to one's cold extremities, when only one small part of you is cold (the submerged fingers) your body reacts by dilating blood vessels in that region, increasing blood supply several times over. you can SEE blood pumping in your red, swollen fingers. this really helped my recovery . i also take extra vitamin c (required for collagen synthesis) and calcium (strengthens bones and bone connecting parts of tendons/ligs). shoulder strengthening (yoga, weight training, rotator cuff and hand stands) has helped stabilize moves that I was previously weak on. strengthening the core is hugely important, allowing more weight to be delivered to the feet. hip flexibility is what most guys neglect, but stretching is the easiest way to get free strength. slacklining (gasp!) also helps strengthen the hips and core and helps train body awareness and a level of mental focus that i did not have before. lastly, i just want to reiterate how awesome dave macleod's blog is. oh, and don't forget the forearm antagonists. and eating really, really well.
-anson, a climbing coach and medical aspirer
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