UKC

I've really been enjoying my running recently, finding it easy to try hard. Which, apart from climbing, I've not been able to do with anything else.

Was wondering though, if any of you regular runners find it boosts parts of your climbing? Mental/physical endurance? Leg and hip flexibility? Pulling in with feet?

People say it builds too much leg mass. But I'm a skinny lad and want to push longer run. Gaining more endurance rather than large leg muscles.

Thoughts?

Running is a good way to maintain a healthy weight, but beyond that, bugger all good for rock climbing. Obviously there's more benefits for alpine climbing and fell walking.

I think I feel some benefit on routes where I am stood on small holds for a while fiddling gear in. The kind of route where your calf muscles get as pumped as your forearms.

When i'm running fit I think I have more stamina for this. 

Keeps the lard down a bit.  If you're big and heavy (as I am) running is an incredibly efficient way to burn calories.

Exercise isn’t a very efficient way to loose weight as one pound of fat is 3500 calories,and to burn those off would require a significant amount of  exercise.

I went from a climber who ran occasionally to a runner who climbed occasionally. I lost a fair amount of weight, but couldn’t climb as hard, partly due to climbing less, but also because I lost strength in my upper body.

I could get the crag a lot quicker though.

General fitness, fat loss and strong legs are good for climbing.. contrary to what everyone says, since I've been regularly doing some miles I've never had 'pumped' calfs.. might be a coincidence

Longer walk ins also become easier, saving you energy for climbing! 

Better that I'm exercising than that I'm not, though.  Means I can eat a bit more and not pile it on.

1 hour's (10K ish) run last week for an example was, according to Strava, 1623 calories.  Two hours' bike ride only netted me 800-odd.  If you're not big and heavy, the effect is lesser, of course.

You don’t have to be a particularly dedicated runner to burn through an extra 3,500 kcal in a week, in fact for most of the runners I know that would be a very light week.

Whether you are restricting calories or exercising to burn calories, or sensibly a bit of both if that is your target. Running is a very efficient way of sustaining a long term calorie deficit.

It might really benefit you if you are cardio unfit or suffer from tired legs on long routes but the down side is unless you are taking it really easy all the time it just zaps enough energy to take away that little bit of spark you need to climb at your hardest, or at least it does to me

Plus if i go for a 2hour run i definitely don't have the energy to climb train that day so limits the overall amount of climbing i can do 

I’d take that Strava figure with a pinch of salt unless you are a lot bigger than I think you are.

What do you use as a way of estimating calorie burn while running?

I'm more interested in energy per unit distance rather than per unit time, and guess it depends more on weight and ascent more than it does on effort, though that has other benefits.

It's basically distance and weight, speed will make a small difference, hills a bit more of a difference.

1.4KCal * Weight in KG * Distance in Miles is accurate enough.

Sounds about right.

Never seen that before but seems in the ballpark.. 69kg, 5.7 miles and with 800ft ascent shows as having burned 640 calories in Strava. My base calculation shows 560 using that, so the hills must be worth 80.. or 1 cal per 10ft climbed!

I found climbing slowed my running down as I put on muscle weight on top half of my body.

Running is great for so many reasons, but the key is maintaining your flexibility - so lots of stretching/yoga.

Alberto Salazar was famous for having his athletes perform 4x4s at their nearest wall and was experimenting with max hangs for marathon attempts. 

130kg.  But hills do have an effect.

Running massively improved my enjoyment and safety of winter and Alpine climbing.  Apart from general health benefits, probably doesn't do anything if you're a cragging rock climber, or a boulderer.

There is a effect of hills, but for the sort of hills that can be run, the effect is generally less than 20%, see the example above of pretty hilly run increasing calorie burn by around 15%. 

When I was running a lot, I initially felt a marked improvement in my climbing, as it felt as though my heart rate was lowered significantly during exercise and I found I could just take my time climbing in greater comfort as a result. I climbed a bunch of E3s and some E4s at that time which is unusual for me. As my mileage increased however, so my climbing performance declined as a result (presumably) of both fatigue from the running load and general neglect of time climbing in favour of running. So for me, personally, I’m reasonably confident that it has a positive impact just for overall fitness, at least up to a point. 
 

I’m interested now to see what sort of effect my current job (tree surgery groundsman) is going to have on my climbing. I haven’t climbed much in over six months now but at least up to as far as the lockdown, I reckon most days at work are 5000-6000 calorie days. Figured entirely unscientifically in the knowledge than I was eating about that and I was losing weight. It basically felt like full time alpine climbing though, so even though I’m way stronger now, I figure I might just be exhausted once I get back to them both. 
 

It's unlikely you're burning 6k calories a day. Humans are hugely efficient at walking. If you're actually eating 6k calories a day, losing weight and feeling tired you might want to visit a doc. 

For some perspective, Hafthor Bjornsson who just deadlift 501kg, weighs 205kg yesterday and was eating approx 9k a day to maintain muscle mass during his training. Chris Froome would eat about 6k calories on a mountain stage of the Tour. 

I can't run anymore, as my ankle is knackered. I spent 4 months cycling with very little climbing when I dislocated it.

I did limited climbing before going to the States on a road trip but by the end of the 1st week in Rifle I was onsighting 7a+, not sure I had the raw power for anything harder. Which would come from focussed climbing training but the aerobic capacity definitely helped.

This year I'd been swimming on Fridays to partly help with recovery and to help with aerobic capacity...

If you want decent guide get performance rock climbing.. it covers stuff like running.

Typically as long as you a decent weight for climbing the answer is no.

Climbing doesn't fire enough muscle fibres in the bigger muscle groups for VO2 max to be a limiting factor. If you need climbing endurance use circuit walls (or traverse a bridge like Ron did). If you need power fingerboard or bouldering.

That said I do a lot of both as I just enjoy them both. You will find recovery the biggest hurdle if you try them both. Being smart with training structure helps but still difficult.

Running probably makes limited difference to the climbing itself, but you'll be able to blast an hour's walk in ahead of the crowds and not arrive a sweaty mess. 

I run 35+ miles a week.

My calf's were pumped out there minds on tales of Yankee power on high tor last year just before falling off. 

So don't quite have the same experience.

I think balancing on the edge of a curb for 10min without falling off would be more representative than running for climbing situations.

Interesting. Do you mind if I ask where you run? Is it flat or hilly? My warm up is 300ft ascent in half a mile straight out of the door, so nothing but hilly generally. I don’t disagree about standing on a curb edge

Been running Derbyshire fell since about 10yrs old, 35 now. Did around 15miles 800m accent yesterday, off out to do 10 with 500m today.

Did a lot of track in the school leagues when young. Never really enjoyed it though.

Don't want to put people off running, I think it's great. Just better to enjoy running for running... Not hope it will make you climb better.

As others have said I run so I'm winter climbing fit when the time comes and so mountain crag walk ins in Summer are no issue.

Running to supplement climbing should be no issue, but f you are climbIng / climbing training hard then running will add in extra exercise you need to recover from, so inhibit climbing / training fitness / progression. 

Your body prioritises the muscles you use, so if you start to go running when you would have been climbing, rather than adding running in, you will probably see a downward effect on climbing performance as your body switches / shifts priority. (The obvious caveat being this will be more noticeable if your usual climbing is steep limestone rather than bold slate / grit slabs.)

For context for that I did once know a basic mileage and height gain calculation you could do to roughly work out calories burnt. From memory the Cullin Rdge traverse in a day was about 7000.

Sounds reasonable. Both times I’ve done Skye Ridge in a day it hasn’t felt harder than an average day at work back in Jan.

Last summer when I did it, it would have felt markedly easier. As I say, job felt pretty much like alpine climbing levels of calorie expenditure  

Aye, maybe not, but I reckon given what I was eating, it was in that ballpark - and no I’m not Ill!

Typical day was filling 2x 1.25 ton (payload) high-sided trucks with massive logs and log rings on my own, plus dragging, chipping and milling up brash and maybe digging holes and fencing or something for good measure. 10 hour days.
Tree work is a young man’s game, by which I mean twenties and I definitely can’t take it long term at 40.

Agree largely with that.

I think it's worth pointing out tho that you are probably talking quiet high grades and quiet a lot of running. I can pretty much hold solid at sport 7a whilst also running 30miles a week, as long as I am careful about training structure.

I do find I need to lower the running the get the power for upwards of that.. but still will do 10miles a week at least.

Work has helped me with the climbing. Plastering and window installations have been very helpful in keeping fit.

Friend of mine was a marathon runner with a PB of 2.27. However his legs lack flexibility, and he can struggle with his climbing because of this. Personally I was doing 8k in 30 mins but although it was ok for general fitness, it made little difference to my climbing. However a hard winter on the wall helped a lot. Training has to be specific to the desired aims.

Putting it obliquely, getting out running almost every day has done wonders for my running rather than pulling myself 2 ways trying to fit both running and climbing in. I have lost hip  (and ham) flexibility compared to when I was climbing better.

Nice to hear everyone's experience.

I do really enjoy running for running and seeing progress in it. Especially at this time when climbing is out.

A lot of you are saying it wont vastly improve climbing (strength, flexibility) , after all running doesn't even work the same muscles, and this makes sense.

But I do feel it helps me train my breathing while doing an activity, something I lack when climbing.

Also showing me to endure a little longer and grit through as it usually gets better. Something inside adapts and rises to meet the challenge.

Anyone else find it hard to actually stop? Especially when you've set a time or distance.

I am very passionate about climbing but I find myself all to ready to throw the towel in when a route gets tough. Only trying to 8 or 9/10, not pushing that last bit more. But with running I enjoy the extra push, something I'm hoping to bring over to my time on the rock.

i think it depends on a person's individual body and how often. I'm a skinny female but a fast mid distance runner -(4-10k distances).

last summer I was getting back into competitive running when I started climbing - and I could not for the life of me train both at the same time. the better I got at climber= the slower my times were for running. But the more I ran, the more my muscles wasted to make my upper body strength worse! because my body fat percentage is low, if I run a lot and burning too many calories my muscles will waste.

My endurance is actually shit for climbing despite having been a runner all my life weirdly! but I guess its cause the endurance for climbing is more about arms and endurance in running is more legs

But then again I was trying to train both actvities 2-3 times per activity a week. I think it might be different if it's just a casual run a few times a month but for me the two do not compliment each other and I've had to prioritise one over the other - climbing over running obviously but I know a lot of climbers who are pretty decent runners and also cyclists so generally I don't think they do much harm to do both for most people.

but whether you run or not should come down to the question: do you enjoy it? if you really enjoy it you should do it for that regardless as to how it'll affect your climbing. do what makes you happy in the action itself, not because of what it'll get you

I climb a little harder than that and run quite a lot less, so I think it is personal and subject to a persons medium / long term training history. The key bit for doing both is as you said: as long as I am careful about training structure.

I would agree with this. If you are cardiovascularly fit then you get less pump and your body turns lactic acid back into atp more efficiently. I noticed this year that at my running fittest I was bouldering my best within 2 sessions of returning to the wall after a 6 month break. Normally it would take me 3 months to get back on track. The only thing I lacked was finger strength. 

I've started running a lot in the last 2 years (mostly hills) and this has coincided with a lot of climbing training and significant increases in climbing strength.

Mind you, I don't think the two compliment each other all that well, except that running keeps bodyweight down. I haven't had a chance to do any proper winter/alpine climbing in this time but my hunch is that my winter climbing will suffer (too light, too much 'sports car' and not enough 'disel locomotive') but that fast and light stuff should go well.

It's really hard to train well for climbing on days where I've been running earlier. However, i prefer climbing training in the morning and running later, and climbing/strength training doesn't seem to hurt my running.

Like the rules around climbing training (do strength work first, then power, then endurance), if trying to do both on the same day climb first, then run.

Many climbers have combined running with climbing. We used to love it. If nothing else it keeps the weight down. Bob Toogood a Peak activist of the 60,s and early 70,s, as well as an accomplished mountaineer, went on to be the world vet. 10k road running champ. and represented U.K. at cross country and fell running.