UKC

I've very recently started getting into bouldering, and I'm getting addicted already! I had a fairly long session two days ago and really wanted to go again today, but my forearms are pretty tense and sore. I was wondering if anyone had any advice as to how long to recover for? Should I avoid climbing again until my arms are no longer sore? I feel like I want to climb as much as possible but I don't want to injure myself and not be able to go again for ages.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

In reply to markus674:

Firstly, take anything I say with a pinch of salt. I am by no means qualified to be giving advice and just tend to get by on common sense with trial and error.

Your muscles will adapt pretty quickly - the tendons in your fingers wont. If you're aching lots and lots then maybe take a day or two to rest up but you stand a much higher chance of hurting the tendons in your fingers if you overdo it before they are particularly strong.

So long as you warm up and don't push yourself like a maniac - if it's just muscular aches and I felt like a climb, I'd go along anyway 9 times out of ten. If my fingers start feeling stiff however then I give them time to recover.

In reply to markus674:

Give yourself at least some rest days, but stiff arms in themselves are not a problem in themselves.

However, I would be careful if you feel tightness, rather than stiffness - for example round the inside of your wrist. If it feels like tendons, give them time to rest and give them a bit of non-climbing exercise to loosen them up.

Particularly at this time of year, a proper active warm-up (NOT "stretches") will lessen your chance of injury.

(I am also not qualified to give medical or health advice.)

In reply to markus674:

I get this every time I go to Font and by day 3 my arms are screaming so much that I take a day off and go for a walk through the Forest to give the muscles time to recover. Sometimes it can take a couple of days rest before the pain goes. Pressing on just makes it worse, although it can be alleviated by rubbing Voltarol gel onto the muscles.

In reply to markus674:

My experience: in six year's climbing fairly regularly, the biggest problem I've had is avoiding injuries. Mostly elbows and shoulders. If I had my time over I'd do the following -

1. take at least two days between sessions
2. do lots of preventative stuff from the start - ie stretching, atagonistic exercises, posture exercises
3. vary my climbing more (hold types, steepness, length etc)
4. go regularly - ie two or three times every week - rather than in patches - eg four times a week for a couple of weeks and then none

Thanks for all the advice! Greatly appreciated. I figured I'd wait at least another day and be patient. Injuring myself so early on would be quite irritating, just as I'm getting into it.

On another note, what warm ups would people recommend before climbing?

In reply to markus674:

Just be realistic and listen to your body - it's going to take a couple of years for your ligaments and tendons to get strong. Don't finger board or campus before then. Lots of people do and get away with it until the day something goes ping in their fingers.

Make sure you do antagonistic training - probably the single best thing you can do to prevent injury. If you're climbing muscles are feeling sore do some push ups/dips/etc instead. It's still training.

Warm up - shoulder rotations, flexing fingers gently, hips flexes, easy traverse until you get a mild pump, dead hangs from jugs with feet on holds, easy problems. Anything that doesn't strain your muscles and joints too much until they are warm. Takes me 40 minutes to get my body up to speed for climbing or training.