Rest days

[mitchleblanc]

Yo,

Here's a topic that could use some discussion. I've been finding that unless I get a couple days rest I don't seem to send very hard... but I'm wondering if it's just pyschological? People who are "good" often climb tons of days in a row, no? Does this mean I'm just weak? Zig, how much climbing do you do in a week? Of course, you hear about guys like Sharma who try a problem once.. then sit around for half an hour, then try once more.. so maybe they don't need so much rest, since they aren't getting tired in the same way?

I would like some advice, because I'm usually (at most) getting a single day rest at once... Might take some more days and see how I feel. What is your routine?

[Fred]

I can usually go for about 6 days in a row pretty hard. The first two are hard. The third and fourth take some getting used to and are pretty painfull and after that it's all the same. You end up forcing yourself to take a rest day after that because you just know your body needs time to heal. However, you don't have as much raw bouldering power some of those days as you might on your first day. But generaly speaking you tend to have enough to climb lots of hard stuff but maybe not at your limit stuff.

As for the big guns like Graham and Sharma. In the video "En Route" I think Joe Kinder or Dave Graham speak of all this in an interview. They talk about climbing for 9 days straight and how your body just gets in a groove.

I think physicaly you are still strong and have lots of endurance. Unless you aren't trained for it. By this I mean... If you don't train you'll still be strong on a few goes for the first problem you work on but you won't have much recovery. When I trained for Kentucky I did lap after lap in the gym. I didn't get much stronger (a bit) for hard problems but I was able to attempt them over and over with the same strength. But the beauty of it all was you could still move on to other hard problems after that. So endurance training I think can definitely be an advantage for boulderers in that sense.

To answer your real question Mitch... I think you may just be unmotivated for climbing.
Perhaps if there was a pretty girl present to impress?

[mitchleblanc]

Well, not really unmotivated. Sending lots, just trying to make sure that whenever I climb, it's at my absolute limit. So many projects at every crag mean I need to be feeling fresh all the time!

I suppose that my endurance might be lacking, but actually I think I'm quite good in that respect these days.

9 days on, eh? Well, I don't have time for that ... Yet!

[Pierre]

I don't know alot about training for climbing, however I have done alot of weight training.. and I found that the proper amount of rest was important. I also noticed as I got older I needed more rest in between hard workouts in order to make gains.

I've noticed when doing pull-ups ever other day, I can't pull as many as I would of if I rest for two days.

It's hard to say how much rest is required because ever one recovers at different rates....

I think if you climb hard evey day, sooner or later your going to burn out. Rest is a good thing..

[granite_grrl]

It all depends one how much climbing your doing, and what sort of performance you expect.

Last year I spent 3 weeks at Hueco. At the start I was doing 2 days on, 1 off. If I had spent any more time there I would have had to start climbing 1 day on 1 day off to be effective, the climbing was just catching up to my body.

I then went to J-Tree and Red Rocks for some trad climbing. After my calfs got used to J-tree slabs I was going quite a few days on (most might have been 7, can't really remember), but I was just cruising easier trad climbs all day.

It also depends on what your goals are. If you're training for strength then some rest days are key, but on a short road trip then just pull through the pain! If I'm really keen on climbing every day then I'll frequently take an active rest day. Just fool around on some stuff, strech myself out, go explore and see if I can find some new problems in the area to work on during my next sessions.

[Aficionados]

Just like some of you said, rest is quite important, may be even more important than the work out itself. I have started climbing about 5 months ago, and I have constently tried to work out at least 3 or 4 times a week for about 2 hours and going outside at least once a week : my schedule doesn't allow me for more than that right now.
As a soldier, the physical aspect of my job has a very big importance and I have always put priority on rest, even though sometimes there isn't enough time to rest...

I have pretty much always train for endurance sports : biking, running, skating, all that good stuff. I found out that the more often and the longer you do it, the better your body will increase its capacity to push fatigue back. You always have to watch for injuries of course : overtrain doesn't give anything but demotivation.
As of power, which I have started more often since I joined the military, my experience is that it takes lots more rest for your body, about 1 day off for couple of hours of hard training. A friend of mine is a body builder and he trains for (apparently) 6 hours a day, 6 days a week : his body is of course adapted by now to that kind of training, which isn't the case for everyone.

Like I said earlier, injuries are a big aspect of training and I'm pretty sure it's better to prevent them then to substain one and having the possibility of never recover completly. It happened to me once and it's very unpleasant. When you train at a high level, you must carefully listen to your body and watch out for pain : it's also important to notice the difference between pain from being injured than the pain from being tired : at signs of the first one, better be stopping, but if there is only a bit of lactic acid in your muscles, push a bit more, it won't kill ya.

Finally, stretching is a huge aspect of training, before and after the workout. I use to not stretch at all a couple of years ago because I was too lazy, but since I started to do it regularly, I have notice a huge difference in my performance.

To sum up, don't rest too much if you want to build up endurance/cardio, but take lots of time off when you do power/strength training. Watch for injuries, it sucks. Stretch often. That worked for me and several of my friends. Cheers.

Sorry if there are grammatical mistakes, my language of Shakespeare isn't at its best.

[dcentral]

You should also check out

Food for Fitness

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846

Its an excellent book on how to eat properly for effective training. This guy creates plans for lance armstrong so he knows his stuff.

I found it really interesting.

[zig]

Mitch,
3 words for you: Off the couch!
Climb when you are psyched and rest when you're not.
mot
zig

[mitchleblanc]

Haha! But off the couch can only get me so far! If I want to bring it to the next level I have to be dedicated! Must have a plan!