[nasher47]

Every now and again we all have those sessions where it feels like you've just got nothing to give, you can't pull on things that you usually can and general performance leaves a little to be desired. How do you know when you just need to knuckle down and dig a little bit deeper and when it's your body saying it's time for a rest?? It's pretty common for people to point to the fact that really top athletes get there by digging deeper, by going the extra mile and by trying really hard even when they feel like they've got nothing but I'm fearful of overtraining and fearful of injury. Has anyone got any thoughts on this, either anecdotal or scientific?

I appreciate that this is a bit of an open ended question but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. In order to confine the discussion a little, I'm generally referring to high intensity work, i.e strength/power.

[abarro81]

A somewhat related article
http://www.climbstrong.com/articles/20140103

[nasher47]

It's a good article for sure and pretty clearly suggests that I should in fact have dug a little deeper this evening rather than sacking it off and eating a willy shaped lemon meringue pie...

[Sasquatch]

How do you know when you just need to knuckle down and dig a little bit deeper and when it's your body saying it's time for a rest??

Learn to pay extremely close attention to your body and write the little tidbits down.  Review them and they'll tell you alot. 

For example, one of my clues to how my fingers are doing is related to inflammation.  When I'm fully recovered and I flex the tip of my finger towards my palm, the first pad should be able to press against the third joint.   I check this twice a day every day for all of my fingers.  Once in the morning when I get up, and once in the afternoon.  When I'm carrying fatigue, I can tell quite a bit by how close they'll get.  If you look at the training load i'm currently doinghttp://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,23567.0.html] [url]http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,23567.0.html[/url], there's generally 1 time a week when 1 can get them to touch. Now that I'm starting to taper down, I expect that to get more frequent until they'll be able to touch prior to each workout....

In terms of overall fatigue, your mindset can tell you alot.  If you just cannot get yourself motivated to try hard, get a snack and see if that helps because sometimes it's simply low blood sugar.  If not, then you could be genuinely worn out.  Sometimes it's worth fighting through these workouts as best as you can.  Sometimes it's best to sack them off.  It really depends on your overall training load. 

[rodma]

There is a big difference between training hard and having a load of long shit sessions down the wall.

That's where most climbers go wrong on this subject.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

[nasher47]

That was an unhelpful comment based on the presumption that I don't know what I'm doing. If you don't have anything constructive to add to the discussion then why waste your time writing anything at all?

[abarro81]

No it wasnt, you're the one who asked for advice on this!

[Luke Owens]

When I'm tired I just do some light aerocap training.

Lately, I've been training more again but not feeling as tired as the aerocap sessions have been helping me with recovery. Feeling fresh for harder sessions where previously I've felt beat but overall my training volume has increased.

Do you just boulder? Some of my mates think this type of low intensity training is pointless but I don't agree, as for me the recovery benefits have been great.

[nasher47]

No it wasnt, you're the one who asked for advice on this!

We'll have to disagree on that, I think Rodma's comment was crappy and unhelpful, it didn't constitute advice in anyway, it was simply him having a dig at someone he thought was just flinging themselves at the wall in an unstructured and uninformed way, I guess he based his opinion on the fact that I don't comment on the forum very much. Though I acknowledge that in making that assumption I'm not doing any better than he did in the first instance.

[nasher47]

At the moment I am just bouldering as I've only got limited time available to me and a bouldering centre at my disposal. As a result I've been focusing on Conditioning & Strength/Power work almost exclusively for the past 8-12 weeks. Ordinarily I would also be running at least 1 AeroCap session a week but time/motivation/available facilities for that at the moment are a little restricted.

[Luke Owens]

At the moment I am just bouldering as I've only got limited time available to me and a bouldering centre at my disposal. As a result I've been focusing on Conditioning & Strength/Power work almost exclusively for the past 8-12 weeks. Ordinarily I would also be running at least 1 AeroCap session a week but time/motivation/available facilities for that at the moment are a little restricted.

Doing 30mins Aerocap tagged onto the end of a session I feel helps with recovery also, instead of having a session dedicated to it if time is limited.

[rodma]

No it wasnt, you're the one who asked for advice on this!

We'll have to disagree on that, I think Rodma's comment was crappy and unhelpful, it didn't constitute advice in anyway, it was simply him having a dig at someone he thought was just flinging themselves at the wall in an unstructured and uninformed way, I guess he based his opinion on the fact that I don't comment on the forum very much. Though I acknowledge that in making that assumption I'm not doing any better than he did in the first instance.

Forgive me for the brevity of my earlier respone, i find posting from my phone rather frustrating, especially when you can't swype "shit" and have to go back and edit it manually

Your original post contained the following

How do you know when you just need to knuckle down and dig a little bit deeper and when it's your body saying it's time for a rest?? ........... I'm fearful of overtraining and fearful of injury........ In order to confine the discussion a little, I'm generally referring to high intensity work, i.e strength/power.

If your too tired to  train strength power and have a session trying to do so, how would that be productive? you're better tarining these things when you're not tired.

I'm not making any assumptions about how you train based upon your use of the forum, i just see a lot of people (i used to do the same, because many of my peers were better/stronger climbers) train too frequently and for too long each session to be training strength or power.

[nasher47]

If your too tired to  train strength power and have a session trying to do so, how would that be productive? you're better tarining these things when you're not tired.

[/quote]

Thanks for the response and sorry for being arsey, one of those days.

I guess your question is really the same as mine but rephrased. I only raised the topic because you do find these examples of people saying sometimes you just have to push on and these are the sessions that separate the very best from the rest of us.

Here is an extract from Shauna's recent blog - "Of course there are days when I don’t want to train, I don’t want to climb, my skin hurts, my muscles ache or/and I am just grumpy. Those are the days when the people around me keep motivated and inspired. On those days finishing training, knowing I have completed or done my very best to complete a session, is even more satisfying on those days."

The essence of my question was really how do you know when to push and when to rest in order to avoid overtraining and  injury?

And really the key here is that the "tiredness" isn't an oh my god I can't stay awake thing it's a case of I'm fully awake and could easily do a load of easy stuff but as soon as I try to pull on anything harder I am somehow transformed into a much much weaker version of myself. This means, for example, that where I might ordinarily be able to do 3 sets of 5 1-arm negatives, on a night like last night I struggle to do 1 set of 3 but can still easily do normal pull ups.

In these instances should I sack it off or should I reduce the intensity of my training session to try to maintain X%effort in each session and therefore potentially still make useful progress?

[abarro81]

If you're sure you're tired physically and way off your max then I can't imagine you'll be doing useful strength training - either switch to an enduro orientated session or bin it IMO (often easier said than done, as with all these things). I think Shauna's point is aimed at those who just decide they can't be arsed to try hard. E.g. on Weds I felt tired, was in a shit mood and my skin hurt, but I was equalling my deadhang PBs so I knew I just needed to push on, man up and try harder.

[rodma]

If you're sure you're tired physically and way off your max then I can't imagine you'll be doing useful strength training - either switch to an enduro orientated session or bin it IMO (often easier said than done, as with all these things). I think Shauna's point is aimed at those who just decide they can't be arsed to try hard. E.g. on Weds I felt tired, was in a shit mood and my skin hurt, but I was equalling my deadhang PBs so I knew I just needed to push on, man up and try harder.

 

As life gets more in the way it's easy to feel like not training when there is no good reason.

One of my new year's resolutions was to always train on non-travelling days (i.e. not put it off until tomorrow), since on the days that i drive with work i am always back too late to train, so i use the driving day as a rest day and beast myself the day before.

i try to have two decent hard bouldering sessions a week and one heavy weights session, much more than that and i am broken. on top of that i have one longer easy bouldering session and an enduro-style weights session, both of which are possible when physically tired from the other sessions.

[Wood FT]

on Weds I felt tired, was in a shit mood and my skin hurt

 

[shark]

Thanks for the response and sorry for being arsey, one of those days.

Perhaps you've been overtraining ?

Less seriously, 3 weeks overdoing it and 1 week underdoing it as a rule of thumb seems to work well to avoid descending into a bad performance/recovery spiral. If you've been continuously at it for 8-12 weeks you may have dug yourself into a hole which might require a whole week off doing nothing.

[Schnell]

For example, one of my clues to how my fingers are doing is related to inflammation.  When I'm fully recovered and I flex the tip of my finger towards my palm, the first pad should be able to press against the third joint.   I check this twice a day every day for all of my fingers.  Once in the morning when I get up, and once in the afternoon.  When I'm carrying fatigue, I can tell quite a bit by how close they'll get.

Interested by this. Anyone else use it as an indicator?

Since it was posted I've tried every day and only my little finger will get touch, the index isn't too far off but the middle two are at least half an inch away. If I press with the other hand I can just about get them to touch. I do train a lot, haven't exactly been feeling fresh either..

[webbo]

I can get none of mine to to touch the third joint, my index fingers will just touch below with no assistance. My middle 2 and little fingers touch somewhere near the bottom of my palm.

[rodma]

I can get none of mine to to touch the third joint, my index fingers will just touch below with no assistance. My middle 2 and little fingers touch somewhere near the bottom of my palm.

This can be due to tightness/mobility in the forearm and as such can be nothing to do with inflammation. the concept of having a check that you perform is a good one, but set your own benchmark and don't use someone elses.

[Sasquatch]

 

[webbo]

I sort of knew that as the reason my fingers don't bend much is more likely due to 40 years of abuse. Rather than last nights session.
I was just responding to Schnell.

[Sasquatch]

the concept of having a check that you perform is a good one, but set your own benchmark and don't use someone elses.

I meant this part

[rodma]

I sort of knew that as the reason my fingers don't bend much is more likely due to 40 years of abuse. Rather than last nights session.
I was just responding to Schnell.

I understand,  but you know what it's like,  people find they can't do something and assume the worst.

I almost posted the same thing about years of abuse which is why mine can't.

[John Boy]

There is a big difference between training hard and having a load of long shit sessions down the wall.

That's where most climbers go wrong on this subject.

To me this made the biggest difference to my training. During a session, it's the moments when you're fully comitted, trying 100% and fully recruited that are the benefit. The rest of the session is either a build up to these moment's, a rest period or a cold down.