Date: April 27th, 2012
A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook about his inability to really get going during his workouts until halfway through them. He was doing a classical strength-training warmup called the Rippetoe warmup. Now, Mark Rippetoe is a bad-ass, and if I ever want to be a better strength athlete I will go see him. I hope to go take one of his seminars one day regardless. And his warmup is great for really motivated athletes focused on his variety of strength training, and I mean no disrespect when I say that his workout is deadly boring for most people. My friend wrote something to the effect of, “Why does it feel lousy to lift until the third set or so?”
I replied, “Here’s the Gadd Warmup: Drink more coffee, play louder music, jump up and down while thinking angry thoughts, throw a medicine ball against the wall a 20 times and run to pick it up while contemplating your high-school sweetheart’s infidelity or the people who can’t empty their pockets for airport security, scream a couple of times, and then lift the god dang bar. Works for me. Point is that all this foofy “warming up” often doesn’t get your mind or body really going to actually DO the workout. The Rip warmup was so boring I did it once a week or so ago and just woke up yesterday. Anyway, you gotta get the sludge in your veins and mind actually MOVING. Mostly joking above, sort of.”
I think a lot of how we perform during any athletic event is in our heads. We don’t “warm up” before a street fight or when we have to run from a piano falling out the sky; we produce enough adrenaline and other fun substances immediately that the idea is laughable. But when we workout we often don’t get the fun chemicals until we hit some sort of level of excitement, or get enough chemicals to hit a decent level of excitement. So I think a big part of warming up should actually be focused on getting into a solid mental state to perform well physically… And that mental state will look different for people lifting weights vs. climbing on a rope vs. bouldering. And it will be a different mental state for the type of workout too. One mental state or one warmup does not fit all situations. If you’re going to go for max squats then 20 minutes of rowing is just going to mess you up… Doing Rippetoe’s workout with a bunch of guys while listening to death metal and heckling each other? That’s probably going to work pretty well… Same with bouldering; a bunch of aerobic work before giving it anaerobically does not work well, I know this. Some range of motion exercises, some easy problems, and then boom, do it. Roped climbing? A good deep pump with some climbing that makes me physically and mentally have to try a bit and be uncomfortable, then 30 minutes of rest, game on. But I have seen people climb at their absolute best with no warmup other than walking to the crag for ten minutes on flat ground… Doesn’t work for me in general, but there’s a big variety in what works to warm up well” well.”
The bigger point here is to examine how we warmup, and ask what we want out of it. This will vary from day to day; if I’m tired and sore from a long flight and an early morning start then I will gently row for ten minutes, do a bit of stretching, and then decide if I even want to do the warmup. Usually I do by then, but if did 20 air squats and a few pull-ups I’d probably just leave. But on other days I’ve been active a ton already, so a few air squats, a few mobility exercises, and it’s go time. So you have to actually do some work and figure out what WORKS for your head and body. I read these endless articles about blood flow and oxygen levels etc, but they are generally written by people who studied sedentary, broke, semi-homeless people who hadn’t worked out in months. That’s actually insulting to homeless people, they at least get out and walk just to survive far more than the average human. Anyhow, point is that “scientific” workouts may be valid for scientific responses in a lab, but as always it’s PERFORMANCE that actually matters, and specifically your performance. Some people want to be told what to do, and that’s a decent starting point for sure. But ultimately you have to figure out what works for you as far as diet, training, life, sex, whatever. The templates are just that.
Finally, we often can’t control the competition or “real” workout environment (nor should we want or expect to), but training is different. I like to organize my training environment to make it fun for me. I often have to replace the music at my local climbing gym because it sucks (there are about 50 good techno tracks ever produced, the rest is just re-hashed disco. None of those good tracks are on the digital media player at my gym), and sucky music does not work for me when I’m training. I’d rather have silence than Bob Marley, Blur, or lame techno. I try to train when there are other motivated people to train with, or no one. Training with a lot of people who want to sit on their Lu Lu Lemon asses is a waste of time; the youth team where I train goes hard, I like to be around their energy and often overlap my own training schedules with theirs. It’s all about finding out what works for YOU.
Time to go train.
Posted in: Blog
Date: April 13th, 2012
This started off as the reply to an email but it’s now a post. NOTE: I’ve got zero training for this topic, go read my friend Dave Macleod’s excellent post here for the professional view (and everything else the guy writes, he’s a smart one). The below is just my experience with elbow issues.
Elbows: I’ve done every elbow rehab exercise ever over the years. For me these things work:
Initial Problem Stage, or “Yes, I’m going to admit I’m all messed up finally, and my elbows are a disaster. Shit.” How to stop the damage:
-ART massage. Not “sorta ART,” ART. Expensive, painful, works.
-Ice. Put it in little Dixie cups in the freezer, rip off strips of Dixie cup, apply. Brilliant. Twice a day. I don’t know for how long, I sit there until my elbow is cold and feels right.
-Don’t quit all activity involving your arms. This does not work for me, in fact I get worse. But do change whatever activity you’re doing. Swim, yoga, climb trees, whatever, but you’ve gotta keep your arms moving or everything gloms, especially when I’ve let it get really bad.
-Stretch. One fingers at time, full hand, but you’ve got to decrease the “walking around” load on the elbow. I don’t know why, but it is very important for me to heal.
Cure/Rebuild:
-Continue with the above as required to be pain-free and add the following:
-Do these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-RjM_Y_hc Medial or lateral depending on injury. Looks silly, works.
-Also, and I hate to say this but it has worked for me, do bicep curls if it’s medial. Rotate the weight as you do the curl–light, very light to start, then over a period of weeks to months increase the weight until it’s actually hard. Doesn’t seem to much matter how you rotate the weight as you do the curl, but rotate it fully. If it starts hurting back it down until it doesn’t hurt. You may be doing these with a salt shaker to start, no lie.
-Go climbing, but at a grade that is far, far below your peak level. If you insight 5.12 then go climb some long 5.8s. I believe the easy load in the same manner that caused the injury is somehow good for setting things right. I don’t know why, but it seems to work well for me and others.
Maintenance
-If your elbows start to hurt stop what you’re doing and change your game. Immediately. If you’re climbing jugs in the gym then go crimp something, vice versa. If you keep doing what has led to the problem then you’ll be injured worse. I write that because I keep learning that lesson. Keep climbing, but change it up–most injuries are due to too much of the same thing over and over. If you’re bouldering put a rope on, etc.
-Do some of the above as required to keep pain at bay.
-Do different sports. Paddle, ski, etc. Take some time off for longer periods. The goal is to climb forever, not just this year or month…
-Don’t crank the load or intensity too quickly, or you will get hurt. If you’re feeling good then don’t jump on a V-Hard boulder problem/route.
-Avoid “tweaky” shit like pulling in a fat rope through an ATC for hours. Horrible. Get a Gi Gi or something if you’re a guide or do a lot of multi-pitching.
And when you forget all of the above and get injured accept this fact early, and rebuild carefully. The longer you delay the rebuild the longer you’ll have to rebuild.
If I can only remember my own advice I should stay off the therabar for another year or two…
Posted in: Blog
Date: April 13th, 2012
I’m writing a piece on the role of spiritualism in the mountains. I’m about as spiritual as a tin can, so I’ve had to research the idea some. The piece is likely doomed to failure, but I have run into some good quotes:
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” –Marcus Aurelius
And
“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” -Stanley Kubrick
http://youtu.be/5LwWnJnoGQU
Posted in: Blog
Date: April 11th, 2012
Alright, it’s SPRING in some parts of the world now, and my snow-blind eyes and pasty skin are rejoicing. In the last few weeks I’ve been in Maine (definitely NOT spring), Charlotte, North Carolina, (spring), White Salmon, Washington (trying to spring, but delayed a bit), back east to Texas, (SPRING!), down to Portland, Oregon (flowers, but still sorta spring). In each place I’ve been lucky to climb/boulder on all kinds of stuff ranging from plywood (Mazama Mountaineers) old lava flows (Horsethief boulders on the Columbia, cool techno bouldering), granite, metamorphic something (what is Ship Rock in North Carolina exactly?) and a fair amount of plastic in random places including my old friend Gary’s Portland Rocky Gym in Portland and one in Portland, Maine too.. I’ve been doing shows, running clinics (ice clinics through competition sport climbing clinics, been great, thanks to all who came out!). In each place I’ve been inspired by stories from people about their own climbing and lives; there are a lot of of cool people in the world getting after it, thanks–hanging with you all has lifted me up as much as the green grass and leaves.
I’ve also been recovering from a winter of travelling and ice climbing; I’m pretty sure the travel has smashed me harder than the climbing. And I’ve had a lot of time on planes and hotel rooms where it’s hard to really work (sorry if I haven’t returned your email), but where surfing the internet about nutrition, training or stupid cat tricks just feels so right. I’ve also done some really fun workouts on the rings (never leave home without rings), hotel furniture, “Globo gyms” etc. They haven’t been perfectly regular, but I feel pretty good. Today for some reason I decided to bench press while working out in the scenic town of White Salmon, Idaho, and hit some reps and sets I hadn’t seen in 20 years. I’ve also been truly running some, which I didn’t think I’d ever do again, and my elbows feel great. I credit all of this to the last two months of “inter-season weight room training.” Or doing something when in hotel rooms etc…
What I mean by this is all the non-climbing “training” I’ve been doing. Over the last 25 years I’ve kept reasonably solid logs of my sports activities. Nothing fancy, just notes in books, basic spreadsheets with activities and times, etc. etc. Patterns start to emerge when you keep records. What training brings results, what doesn’t. When I get injured, when I don’t. One common denominator in my highest-performance years is a massive amount of time spent doing a specific sport. My best fitness levels for technical climbing came after basically several years of full-time climbing, with very little else going on (no weight training, no kayaking, no mountain running, etc). I then spent several years injured and unable to climb, but that was OK as I justI spent two years basically paragliding full-time, which led to good results… Overall, I’m physically healthier when I weight-train between sports, but not continuously, and definitely not with the same exercises repeated. If I train in the weight room (and I’d include any non-sporting “training” in that designation) solely I also end up injured and burned out. Putting too much time into training away from sports-specific training results in injury and poor actual sports performance. Too much time solely training for one sport results in great sports-specific performance but ultimately injury… I also include mental “implosion” as an injury; I see many athletes, including some I’ve coached, me, and many I’ve trained with, excel for a while and then blow up mentally. If forward progression stops dramatically then it’s an “injury” in my mind. Variety does prevent sudden implosion.
Where I’m going with all this rambling is that I’m more and more convinced of the benefits of doing some form of structured weight training for some period of time during an athlete’s season. Duh. But, I don’t think this weight training, at least for me, is about sports-specific performance, no matter what anyone says. This is an important distinction: I don’t weight train for sports-specific performance, I train to keep my body sports-capable. It’s more about resetting my body, hitting it in a different way, working through my range of motion and injuries, etc. etc. In fact, for pure sports performance this training is perhaps”wasted” time. I now don’t weight train at all when actually training for any of my sports, and I don’t know one truly world-class technical climber who does. But for long-term performance? I like a good round of weight training of some kind between seasons, it works. Lift heavy stuff, change it up, etc. etc. Crossfit is what first turned me onto this style of varied weight workout (and it doesn’t matter if it’s bodyweight or iron), and that’s my starting point for my workouts today. For me I’ve found some exercises (Olympic lifts for time) don’t work well with my aging body so I have to do them carefully and not for time, and doing my sports simultaneously with Crossfit just does not work. But as a seasonal bridge and a way to put myself back together? Yes. There is likely no deeper respiratory of accessible information on fitness training than what’s on the CF site; much of it is contradictory, some of it is wrong, but that’s the nature of a good library and resource. The people who variously savage Crossfit and wear the cult T-shirts are both wrong and both right, but both should use the knowledge there. Mountain Athlete, Gym Jones, P90x, Seal Fit, WTF fit, read what you can access/experiment with, dig through it, use it, keep notes, progress or don’t, but respect the work that is going on in each arena and try to gauge what their athletes are doing…
So, after a winter of ice climbing I’ve spent almost two months mixing up rock climbing, various ring workouts, the weight room and whatever is handy as I travel. I’ve missed workouts, gotten a little heavier with the limited aerobic exercise, but overall I’m strong, my injuries are fading fast, and I’m stoked to get home to Canmore tomorrow and transition into rock and paddling season. For a while the Crossfit-sorta workouts will be dominant, then more sports-specific stuff, and then no “gym” time at all until the next transition period. My knees, back and elbows (my weak points) are all healthy again, as is my head. Spring training rocks. Oh, and Rock Rings are cool, I’m doing some experiments with them.
Now go train, yeah!
Posted in: Blog
