UKC

Hey,

I'm just after tips really. What exercises/techniques do you employ to get your body fit and strong for climbing but avoid bulking up?

Specifically: Intense core exercises that dont stress your triceps/thighs (like L-sits/planches)rotator cuff exercises that dont enlarge your shoulders/triceps (like military presses)etc.

I never perform an exercise I cant repeat at least 15-20x but am still putting on masses of muscle.

Help!

In reply to M.Taylor: Look at your diet?

In reply to M.Taylor:

The weakest link will almost certainly be your finger strength, so choose exercises that target the forearms. Hint - this will probably involve hanging from a fingerboard in some way. Using only isometric loading (ie the sort that is involved in climbing) it's quite difficult to produce substantial muscle bulk in the forearms, and even if you do then the increase in weight is negligable compared to the overall weight of your body, as comparatively the muscles in your forearms are tiny.

In reply to M.Taylor:

increase cardio and improve diet to lose weight and boulder lots to gain strength!

yoga or pilates is good for lengthening/strengthening muscles without bulking up, as an addition to climbing specific stuff.

In reply to M.Taylor:

and lots of steep, fingery and powerful bouldering, obviously. This should be your priority.

In reply to M.Taylor:
PCP will make you strong and keep you light

There may be some side effects!

In reply to M.Taylor: You could focus on improving recruitment which just makes the most of the muscle you have rather than building bulk. For this you need to focus on the 1-4 rep range or bouldering aboce your normal 'limit'. In other words boulder problems that need multiple attempts even to get single moves worked out.

In reply to M.Taylor:

Looking on a bodybuilding site I found this, although it's not aimed only at bodybuilders. It covers endurance, strength and muscle gain (hypertrophy) from various reps:

"1-5 reps Neural Strength & power little hypertrophy
6-8 reps Neural & metabolic Strength & Hypertrophy
9-12 reps Metabolic & Neural Hypertrophy & some strength
13-20+ reps Metabolic local endurance some hypertrophy, little strength"

and

"If you’re an athlete and your primary goal is strength and power for improved sports performance, then a good majority of your training is going to be in the 1-5 rep range. This will help make you stronger, faster and more powerful without adding muscle bulk. "

So the very low rep at limit of strength would appear to be where a climber should aim. Also suggests your high reps stuff isn't doing much for your strength gain.

The full article is here:

http://www.dorianyates.net/dorian/site/showthread.php?t=873

In reply to terryturbojr:
thats awesome, cheers!

In reply to terryturbojr:
Wasn't Mike Mentzer commandment to do a small number of reps at the obsolute limit of strength? He was *HUGE*.

In reply to ahaynes:


That's what I thought too, and thought Dorian Yates was a believer in his methodology (my dad's a bodybuilder so grew up it). I came across that link because I was searching for Dorian Yates using small rep stuff leading to muscle gain even if it says completely the opposite.

In reply to M.Taylor:

Preventing yourself from gaining weight is a matter of simply eating only as much food as you require. http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

It's not the type of exercise which encourages muscle growth it's the number of repitions in a set and the intensity at which you do them.

As others have said, keep the reps low (1-5) and you should be struggling to complete the last rep. Give yourself plenty of rest between sets because you're trying to achieve high quality repititions at a high intensity.

In reply to M.Taylor:

Oh and don't rule out genetics. Some people naturally find it easier to gain muscle mass.

In reply to ahaynes:


Yes, but unfortunately, whilst seeming very efficient in terms of requiring reduced training time, that type of training carried a higher risk of injury because they were lifting much heavier weights once or twice rather than doing more reps with a lighter load. Once you are injured you can't train and that is very inefficient!

In reply to M.Taylor:
Realistically you only gain 5-10lbs of muscle a year naturally. Unless you are on gear I doubt you are gaining as much muscle as you think.

In reply to Charlie_Zero:
Thats really true, I added 15kg of weights to a belt and did some dead hangs/pullups/fingerboard work and within 2 weeks of this my shoulders were seriously weakened and close to slipping out entirely!

I think a part of my problem has been just really wanting to get better, and doing anything to get there. Reading the above posts just climbing more is probably the answer, and anything which stops you doing that is bad! cheers guys.

In reply to M.Taylor:

I think you should just keep climbing, maybe throw in some press ups to balance out the antagonistic muscles. Also some core stuff, a few planks and things.

I started climbing about the same time as you and try and go 3 times a week (mostly indoor) and have steadily progressed just with climbing. In the last couple of months I've started doing a little fingerboard work (as I'd plateaued around V2/English 5C/French 6C) which seems to be helping, either that or my technique is just improving at the same time. I'm taking it very easy though as everyone warns about rushing in to the finger exercises and at 34 the last thing I want is to injure myself as I don't heal like I used to.

In reply to terryturbojr:>


Which is all well and good if you are a low recruiter with big arms that needs to teach your muscles and other stringy bits a bit of teamwork. If you are already a high recruiter then hypertrophy is going to be the way forward. It can be argued that hypertrophy is for all climbers desirable in the forearms as they dont weigh much and are singularly important for climbing performance.

After the forearms you have in descending order of importance with respect to muscular strength (for a well balanced climber) you have the upper arms, shoulders, back, core and thighs. Probably.

Arms are also self-supporting which makes their mass even less important.

In reply to shark:

Makes sense. So 6-8 rep heavy forearm curls & weighted chin ups?

In reply to terryturbojr:

Combining forearm curls with deadhanging exercises in a session probably better. Try to get a balance between longer deadhangs without destroying your joints such as reps of 30 secs on and off should be safe enough. Individual response (to injury and strength gain) will vary so experiment.

As for weighted chin-ups yes but worth doing a bit more variety. A session could/should also include:

- One arm pull-ups with assistance
- One arm lock offs
- French pullups (count to 3-5 at hanging,90degs, full lock, 90deg etc)
- Travelling pullups - moving side to side touching chin on each hand
- Power pulls - pull up as fast as possible and lower slowly
- Offset pull ups if you can sort it ie on a board or bachar ladder

Throw in some core exercises like attempted front levers, knee raises etc while you are at it.

In reply to shark:

Cheers, the one-arm stuff possibly a bit above my grade at the minute maybe though.

With chin ups you aiming for lower reps, like 6-8, or more?

In reply to terryturbojr:

Use as much assistance as you need. I tend to use a knotted bike inner tube attached to the bar. Also do it side on to start with. Frontal ones are more specifically useful for climbing but it does put a lot of strain on the shoulder and are nails.


That's a reasonable range to work with. Don't get to hung up on it. Muscles can't count. You are just seeking a lot of stimulus (overload) to force them to adapt.

In reply to M.Taylor: this question is answered in a book called "Racing Weight" available on dave macleods book shop and a few others i expect.

Cheers
dave

think about what you eat and train hard!
keep it simple
or
spend loads of money and time and realise the same