UKC

A recent shoulder tweak has made me re-evaluate mine. 3 times a week I do the rotator cuff stuff in an old UKC article, shoulder and chest presses and the golfers elbow supination exercises also from this site.

I wondered what the time served members of this forum do!

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

Over head squats I'm particularly fond of.
Just a bar is needed and a few weeks.

In reply to Sprucedgoose: Around 200 press-ups, 2/3 wide arm, 1/3 narrow arm, each time I go climbing. Simple but it works for me.

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

Overhead squats! Oooff. Good core stability I expect.

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

Theraband for my shoulders, Metolius Gripsaver for my hands, also press ups and reverse wrist curls. Just about keeps me going.

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

I do overhead press with dumbells following the advice of a physio I saw for long term ulna nerve problem. He said my shoulders were too low and I needed to build the up. I think they really helped as my nerve problem certainly seems better than it was.

I'd like to get into some more antagonist training though. I've tried a little with some exercises in rings like the plank with feet on a ball which seems like a good exercise. The unstable exercises using gymnastics rings or pilates balls seem to be well recommended by physios which is a good reason to use them or injury prevention stuff.

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

The older I get the less I seem to warm up because I think I know better. Currently nursing 1 finger pulley and an ankle(repeat customer) .... Time I faced the music!

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

Actually the whole strategy of training antagonists is getting rather "old school" - (except for a few special muscles/articulations for a few special sports, e.g. perhaps Javelin-throwing?).
Like . . . Strengthening wrist-supinators as rehab for the frequent climber's injury of golfer's elbow is way outside the mainstream of advice nowadays.

One area of interest to _climbers_ where strengthening something like an antagonist has credible benefit is the
Shoulder - (so it's good you mention that first).
Best treatment I've seen of explanation, diagnosis, selection of injury-prevention exercises for Shoulder for climbers is Dave MacLeod's excellent new book, Make or Break.

. (If you've got lots of extra time to use up, or you want to add body weight in the form of unnecessary muscle mass, by all means do whatever other "antagonist" exercises that seem interesting or fun to you) .

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

surgical tubing. I just do straightarm pulling exercises in every direction from the shoulder

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

Interestingly, over the years I've come to realise that all my lower arm injuries have been caused by using computers and all the wrist curls, hammer rotations etc. have been the only things that have fixed these. For climbing related shoulder issues, push ups have been essential for me as well as shoulder rotations with a bar.

In reply to kenr:


In a recent interview with Alex Megos (a month or so back) when asked what his top 3 tips were he said, "Antagonist training, antagonist training, antagonist training". His training philosophy seems to be linked to the Cafe Kraft gym and he has been coached by pretty serious climbing trainers there, one of whom is a sports scientist. In the interview he didn't really elaborate much on this aside from saying he trained with rings rather than more traditional exercise like push ups.

Given his recent successes, and fact he's done Action Directe multiple times and has never had a climbing injury I wouldn't say antagonist training is necessarily old school.

In reply to Sprucedgoose:
Handstands and handwalking for shoulders. Additionally some planche and lever variations (on rings).

Wrist push ups/reverse wrist curls/ weighted hammer rotations for forearms. Occassionally some internal and external rotations.

Deadlifts and squats for general/joined up all-body strength.

In reply to stp:

OK - I suspect that for almost any not-obviously-harmful exercise or diet idea, we could find some strong climber somewhere who believes it. Usually because they heard it from some coach or magazine article fifteen or twenty-five years ago. Like I said, there's no (or little?) harm in performing unnecessary antagonist exercises, so it's not like a non-PT-professional climber is going to stumble over some strong reason to stop doing them.

And we've got PTs and MDs who heard the antagonist theory fifteen or twenty-five years ago from some professor in school, and even though there's no more evidence for it (in most cases) now than there was then, they've been repeating it to patients, and they enjoy hearing themselves saying it, and their patients nod and sound impressed to have heard it.

I think that's why it's hard to kill this sort of "old coaching lore" which (except for a few situations in a few sports) lacks evidence. People who are taken to be authorities keep repeating it, so it keeps on "cascading".

Alex Megos presumably has lots of time on his hands to do unnecessary exercises - (though for all I know some of his supposed "antagonist" muscles are actually used to deliver primary strength to some unusual climbing move which he need to execute sometimes).

Any other climber with extra time, who has some favorite exercises which they think are valuable to train some "antagonists" -- by all means go ahead.

It burns calories, hopefully distracts you from over-training + injuring some primary "agonist" muscle, or leaves you less time to get into arguments with your Significant Other
- - > Win + Win + Win.

In reply to kenr:

what evidence do you have that it doesn't work? Just saying, lots of people find that they do work, and help with keeping injuries at bay etc. If the mechanism isn't understood fine, but how do you think people started fingerboarding, campus boarding? they didn't wait for a scientific study to tell them it gave you stronger fingers

In reply to Sprucedgoose:

In one word, Yoga.

In reply to kenr:

Interesting reply and I think its always good to be sceptical. However it seems to me that many climber's injuries are remedied by various non-climbing exercises. I have had two friends who recently rehabilitated injuries successfully following physio's advice on specific exercise. It seems logical that if they'd been working those muscles before the injury they probably would never have got injured in the first place. Climber's hunched backs is a real thing and I assume that by developing the other muscles at the same rate a more balanced physique would result.

Since some kind of local muscle exercise is frequently a physio's treatment isn't that strong evidence that non climbing exercises are likely to be beneficial?

What made Megos' comment interesting was the fact that he was so convinced by antagonist training that he stressed as it as the only worthwhile climbing tip. It seemed more than just what someone told him though admittedly it is also a strong part of the philosophy of the Cafe Kraft gym trainers too.