UKC

Does anybody do this?

Interested to hear whether you feel it benefits you and which pre-workouts in particular you use?

Thanks

In reply to Jackob:

I also scream and whack my head, chest and thighs before chalking up, strut about yelling when I top out and punch holes in the woodwork when I can't send a V2.

I think there is a huge gap in the market for Brouldering pre-workout.

In reply to Jackob:

Cardio - Mobility - Coordination - Recruitment.

In reply to Jackob:

I've seen some people do a few stretches and what have you to get the heart rate going a bit but I don't think I've seen anyone do a pre workout for bouldering. Bouldering is the work out, anything beyond a warm up (which I usually do via easy bouldering) is just knackering you out for the very thing you've come to do.

In reply to Jackob:

ive used pre workout for weights back in the jack3d days before it was banned, I can say I would not go near it for climbing.

weights and climbing are totally different 

just warm up and climb.

In reply to Jackob:

now I'm confused. I thought you meant pre-workout in terms of the powder stuff to get you hyped up, whereas others seem to see it as a warm-up routine. Which is it? Always warm up!

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

There's reasonable evidence to suggest that warming up on easy bouldering knackers you out for the very thing you're there to do also....

Warm up doing something else. Skipping, burpees, TRX, dynamic stretching etc. is a much better way to warm up for climbing. Your climbing muscles will be warm but fresh. 

I sometimes do some antags before climbing.

In reply to GHawksworth:

Whacking thighs and face does help to get your fight or flight response up and will help you access normally protected reserves.

Used to be my standard routine before a Judo match when . Inadvertently did this recently before sparring with some beginners...

Still, I do get your point about overmotivated boulderers.

CB

In reply to Jackob:

Sorry, I should have specified i meant in terms of supplements!!! 

In reply to Jackob:

Eat a banana and/or some other carby snack , aiming for 30-60g carbs about an hour before, for a c. 2 hour session. No need for anything else!

In reply to PaulJepson:. Apparently a different subject that sounds like a problem with basic fitness ?  

In reply to Jackob:

15 pack of fish fingers, couple of bags of pickled onion Space Raiders and a Bovril and you'll send it son, you'll send it.

In reply to PaulJepson:

I think it depends on what standard you're operating at. Looking at your logbook as a guide the level you'd climb physically means bouldering even at an easy grade may well present to steep a warm up curve for your goal route.

I was talking about warming up for bouldering, and  bouldering in the grade range I climb at. So if I'm aiming to climb a V10, then no amount of pottering about on a V1 is going to have an effect on my final effort on my project for the day and I'd probably climb up to V5 or V6 as part of my warm up (although I'd enjoy the climbing too at this point).

Although the same general idea would apply to route climbing, the walk in is enough to get the body warm then do a couple of easy routes followed by mid grade routes to warm the muscles and fingers before going for the hard route.

Obviously it is all relative to ability. If  your hard route is only serve then that's pretty close the minimum warm up grade routes you're likely to have access to and even easy bouldering is going to be harder than anything you'll do on the route. As such maybe just some general warm up exercises will be useful. But when you're opperating at a higher level you need to pull quite hard just to fully wake up the body. Skipping just isn't going to cut it.

Someone like Ondra would likely warm up by flashing some 7c - 8a routes before getting on anything he'd consider ''hard".

In reply to Jackob:

I don't take any supplements, but it is very apparent that my climbing is much worse when I am hungry. I typically climb after work so a decent lunch is important.

As for all other vigorous activity I eat nothing in the two hours preceding exercise.

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

I think it might be worth pointing out that some of us are staring at pensionable age in the near term, but still trying vainly to maintain a reasonable grade. I get really tweaky fingers unless they’re properly warmed up, and what really has surprised me is the increased activity required before full recruitment kicks in. I’ve never used a campus board, but have set my self a target to hit before my 60th next year. It takes a lot of TRX, and general pre warm up before I can get anywhere near being able to work on a board.

In reply to Jackob:

Keep it simple - double espresso and a banana. Another banana or a cereal bar after an hour or so if planning on climbing for more than 2 hours. More caffeine after 4-5hrs. 

Ideally 20g protein and 30-60g carbohydrate pre workout, 30g carbs every 1-1.5hrs and 30g protein directly afterwards.

Caffeine intake may need to be adjusted based on tolerance. I find 80mg is a good amount for me - an espresso shot contains circa 40mg. 

All the above can be achieved with powders and pills but generally speaking it's much more preferable and palatable to attain it from whole foods whilst also benefiting from the various micronutrients that naturally come alongside. 

Hope this helps. 

In reply to Jackob:

There's an interesting amount of negativity on this thread, which I find quite strange - what's with the warm-up hate people?!

For what it's worth my take on this has changed quite a lot over the years, mostly because my focus has largely shifted from trad to sport, then sport to bouldering. Being based in Bamford I'm in a somewhat privileged position, insofar as I can - when climbing within the Peak - warm up at home. I've found this invaluable both for sport and boulders, as it just means that by the time you actually hit the rock you're primed and ready to go.

My routine generally begins by gentle mobility work, followed by rolling around on a massage ball + roller. Once complete I tend to move onto the theraband to warm-up the shoulders, then move on to some shrugs on the BM1000 jugs. Bit by bit I'll start to integrate some finger boarding, feet on to begin with, moving up to feet off, then - if I'm going big - adding a bit of weight just to get properly recruited. I'll also incorporate some active leg stretches in/around this. In total this will take somewhere in the region of 20-30 minutes.

This has worked really well for local projects, but does require a bit of adjustments for trips further afield where I don't always have the apparatus to hand. Whilst I was away in Font recently I warmed up by climbing 20 or so 'easier' problems, starting as simple as orange and working my way up to red. I found this worked really well for Font, as it's such a movement based form of climbing it's important to get the flow. Fingers are clearly important, but whole body warmth is actually more crucial.

I take a very different approach when climbing on limestone, simply because there tends not to be quite so many pleasant problems to warm-up on and I've found getting warmed up/recruited on a fingerboard to be far, far more effective + precise a measure of when I'm genuinely ready to start trying hard safely.

In reply to MischaHY:

Is all the caffeine nutritionally beneficial, or is it just a case of getting you wired? I don't drink coffee so my caffeine intake is minimal but am interested that you've put it in with carbs & protein as I've never really looked at it as a nutritional supplement. 

I believe there's scientific evidence that shows caffeine can be performance enhancing for sport.  Pretty sure the nutritional benefit is nonexistent!

Can't remember if the findings are more at the endurance or strength/max recruitment end of the spectrum ... anyone?

In reply to Siderunner:

Endurance.

CB

In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

Nice summary. I'll try not to hold your proximity to good cragging against you

In my - admittedly limited - experience of climbers operating at high levels, they generally take warming-up for hard climbs/boulders pretty seriously, as you obviously have.

I must admit I find it hard to do anything other than climbing as a warmup at a busy crag. It's hard not to feel like a tool if you spend 20 minutes on an elaborate warmup before falling off everyone else's warmup at the second clip

In reply to PaulJepson:

Depends on what you mean by nutrition. In the context of a dietary supplement that will enhance performance, yes. 

This podcast is well worth a listen for understanding the common supplements on the market. 

http://climbsci.com/cast/05-supplements/ 

Caffeine is one to exercise caution with as it masks fatigue so if you're tired, steer clear (ironic though that may sound). 

You don't want enough to get jittery either. 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

That is a fair point and as the body gets frailer it'll need easing in more gradually. I've noticed this myself to some degree, (at the ripe old age of 34) I definitely need to do more bouldering than I used to in order to reach max operating capacity and the strong youth coming through are much springier than I am.  

I guess people have to do whatever works for them or learn to make do with what you've got at the available at the crag. Personally I just listen to my body, I can feel when my fingers are ready to pull hard and when they are not, the same applies to my shoulders and other big muscles, these normally need a bit of moderately powerful jug hauling or pull-ups off some holds to engage.

I do feel the best warm-up for climbing for most people is climbing though. Maybe a few hangs/pull-ups from holds if you must but in general it gets you moving, it stretches you out where you need it and it eases the fingers and shoulders in. You can completely moderate it too, so you only pull as hard as you need to and only from holds of the right size. 

Warming up is obviously useful, but I do think people can overdo it, and be over cautious sometimes. As I said, you have to listen to your body, not just follow a set warm up plan, sometimes it'll take longer than normal, sometimes you can do a few warm up's and smash your project first try. 

In reply to Jackob:

I've not done this strategically, but I certainly do find that the warm-up I get from cycling to the wall (about 20 or 30 minutes depending which one I go to) definitely causes me to climb better than if I drive there.

In reply to GHawksworth:

He's on about drugs for working out. There used to be something called DMAA in "pre-workout supplements" (jack3d mentioned above) - it's got an amphetamine-like structure but is much milder and shorter duration. The trouble with taking something like that is that it'll totally kill your appetite for a good few hours, for one thing. So you might work out with more vigour while it's working, but the overall effect on the body probably isn't that great (particularly if it's causing you to miss meals and sleep).

Since that was banned, "pre-workout" stuff is just caffeine mixed with other stuff that's just food, which can be bought a lot more cheaply if you get any positive benefits from it, or in tastier preparations. As has been said a banana and a coffee is much better than giving your money to some marketing bell-end in the supplements industry.

There are other mild-ish short acting stimulants that have been used in the same way, notably ephedrine. Again, banned/grey market. Definitely works in terms of having a shit-tonne of energy to throw at a work out or wall session and it's also a bronchodilator so it noticeably increases aerobic capacity. Of course the potentially jittery/stimulated feeling you get from taking stimulants of this type wouldn't be my cup of tea for going to the crag. If you're going out for the day, you'll also still be out when it wears off, which will feel shit. So you could take some more...which sounds to me like it could end unfortunately.

There is one drug which I've used very successfully for training at the wall, which is kratom. Takes some research to find the right type and dose, but it can make you feel really energetic and great, seems to improve performance, doesn't kill appetite like a traditional stimulant (it's actually a kind of opioid, which is weird!), doesn't cause insomnia or have any kind of crash as far as I can tell. Wonder-drug, maybe. Obviously if abused it's addictive and so on, but it is a drug, so what do you expect?

Hope that's useful. I'm sure with a bit of research you could find all manner of other dodgy substances that could enhance a training session and cause little to significant degrees of harm. But overall it might be better just to warm up properly, and if you're too knackered to train, maybe rest instead?

In reply to ALF_BELF:

This made me belly laugh.

In reply to Jackob:

I've started using a Pre-Workout by EQ Nutrition and so far it is having a positive effect. It gives me a good boost and I feel that I am able to maintain my peak for longer during the session as I was struggling with having a very small window of performance. 

I normally have something carby before a session and then this drink (Pink Lemonade Flavour is really good) about 30 minutes before a session. 

In reply to Jackob:

All my best performances happen after a couple of sausage and egg McMuffins or Big Macs if I get up late.

In reply to Jackob:

I'm not gonna kid myself by thinking I'm at a level where I'd notice any difference. I could probably do all my climbs in trainers at this point.

In reply to Pete Dangerous:

I recently ran a just-sub-2hr (10 seconds under) half marathon on 3.5 hours' sleep, a heavy night preceding it, and a double sausage and egg McMuffin and 2 hash browns, if that counts?  (There must be some science there such as raised blood sugar from the alcohol - both my Parkrun PBs have been after a heavy Friday night).