Quote from: ghisinoI am particularly interested to know if anyone has a clue about what kind of work in the gym would help my weight-dropping objective the best, particularly in the sense of :-burning the most possible calories over a given time (say a 2 hours session)-minimizing loss of climbing-relevant muscle.My common sense says the best would be running as many laps as possible in the cave structure (burly climbing->big muscles involved->more calories burnt).But i'm not sure, especially since i like that kind of work and i might just be self-indulgent here...The literature on the energy cost of rock climbing is sparse, but what little there is suggests that, if your goal is to lose weight, then the volume of climbing you do is much more important than the difficulty. Bertuzzi et al¹ found that climbing a 10-m gym route required 17 to 23 kcal, depending on the difficulty of the route and the skill of the climber. Watts et al.² found that climbers' total energy expenditure while climbing was in the range of 10.4–11.2 kcal/min. A reasonable estimate of resting metabolic rate is 1.2 kcal/min. Subtracting this figure from Watts' results gives a net energy of rock climbing of 9.2–10.0 kcal/min. If we assume that a 10-m gym route takes about 2 min. to climb, then Bertuzzi's and Watts' results are quite comparable.Looking at Bertuzzi's results more closely, they found that highly skilled climbers burned 17.1, 19.3, and 22.0 kcal climbing routes rated 5.10a, 5.11b, and 5.12b, respectively. So, say that in a day of climbing you can complete 10 5.11b routes. Then, in that day, you will have burned 193 kcal climbing. That's equivalent to jogging a whole 19 minutes. On the other hand, if dropping down to 5.10a would allow you to climb 20 routes in a day, then you would burn 20 × 17.1 = 342 kcal. That is still lousy compared with other forms of exercise, such as running, biking, or swimming, but it is a substantial improvement over climbing fewer harder routes. So, the bottom line is that, if you want to use rock climbing as a direct means of losing weight, you have to do a lot of volume. Keep in mind that the above results are for 10-m routes. Results for longer routes would scale up proportionately, so if you can climb 20 20-m 5.10a routes in a day, you can burn about 680 kcal—equivalent to about an hour of easy jogging. Not bad.A couple of clarifications. First, all of the above numbers apply only to the actual time climbing. Secondly, by climbing, I mean climbing up. I have seen no data for traversing, but I would presume that, for a given level of difficulty, traversing would require far less energy than climbing up. Secondly, outdoor climbing is better for weight loss than the above numbers suggest, because during a climbing day you spend energy on activities other than pure climbing, such as approaches, walks between routes, and belaying (assuming you bother to stand up). These ancillary activities all burn more energy than sitting at your desk does, and contribute to total energy expenditure during a climbing day.Jay¹ Bertuzzi RC, et al. Energy system contributions in indoor rock climbing. Eur J Appl Physiol (2007) 101:293-300.² Watts PB and Drobish KM. Physiological responses to simulated rock climbing at different angles. Med Sci Sports Exerc (1998) 30(7):1118-22.
I am particularly interested to know if anyone has a clue about what kind of work in the gym would help my weight-dropping objective the best, particularly in the sense of :-burning the most possible calories over a given time (say a 2 hours session)-minimizing loss of climbing-relevant muscle.My common sense says the best would be running as many laps as possible in the cave structure (burly climbing->big muscles involved->more calories burnt).But i'm not sure, especially since i like that kind of work and i might just be self-indulgent here...
This tallies in with an experiment i did wearing a heart rate monitor whilst climbing.
I'll bet whats in my lunchbox today (egg sandwiches anyone?) you could still burn more calories in less time doing aerobic exercise than lots of volume climbing without any major detriment to your climbing ability (e.g. half hour run/swim or an hours cycling a couple of times a week).
So you want to lose weight, but not to lose weight by doing any of the things that are best for helping you lose weight?(am I getting a deja vu feeling about this thread?)
So you want to lose weight, but not to lose weight by doing any of the things that are best for helping you lose weight?(am I getting a deja vu feeling about this thread?)Well the obvious choice then is to eat and drink less bad stuff.
I can "loose" upto ~0.5kg having a shit in the morning if my scales are to be believed!
I also lost about ~5kg last year in one week walking and climbing in Scotland simply because I was out exercising all day (yet still eating breakfast, lunch and nice big meals every evening).
