[cofe]

To continue something from twitter the other night...... I generally can't climb at the wall in the week more than once because I need at least 2 days to recover. As was the case last week. Despite the fact I haven't climbed this summer, it's been the same the last few winters.

My body aches like fuck, and I wonder if I could be doing something to recover more effectively? (Carbs, protein after a session were mentioned). I have to climb late (8pm - 10pm) and I generally have some milk and a snack after.

I also just go climbing down the wall, boulder circuits etc. 'Training' would be stretching it a bit. If I take it too seriously, like the fucking heroes, then I get hurt.

Any advice appreciated, ta.

[Johnny Brown]

Milk? You're a grown man! Broadie kebab?

[shark]

In training mode full recovery isnt necessarily desirable between sessions. If you persist and keep at it your reciovery between sessions will improve but it can be hard work to get there. You have to challenge the body to get it to adapt.

When you say 2 days to recover is that 48 hours to recover or say climb Mon day evening and have Tuesday and Weds off before climbing Thurs evening which is 72 hrs.

Milk is good - skimmed natch.

[Eddies]

'Training' would be stretching it a bit.
Any advice appreciated, ta.

Stretch before and after your sessions.

[tomtom]

I missed this on the twitter...

some thoughts.. from a early middle aged punter...

1. Dont go for too long - today I went for just over an hour (after I'd warmed up). of course its different if you go on your own or with folk etc.. which leads to different intensities..
2. Do very different types of problems on different visits. At the moment my outdoor climbing seems to be mainly crimpy walls - so I do big overhangs on jugs at the wall. Work the core and sholder. If I have the misfortune to have to go to the wall twice a week I'll spend one session on crimps/walls etc.. the other overhangs (you get my gist..)
3. I get really really de-hydrated without noticing it. if I go at lunchtime, by evening I've re-hydrated. But if I go in the eve and leave the wall at 9-10pm (as you do) then I dont seem to have enough time to re-hydrate before bed, and I wake up in the night with de-hydration headaches etc..
4. Don't try too hard. Its just bloody training. Pulling plastic (for me) is a poor alternative to rock and I see it as getting miles in, keeping in shape and sometimes working weaknesses.
5. 2-3 years ago I upped my training intensity from maybe once or twice a week to three times a week (in effect doubling it). I recon I had c.4-5 months of feeling fucked most of the time... headaches, aches, feeling knackered etc.. and then my body seemed to get used to 'training'... maybe you've slipped into this?

Anyway thats my ramblings - not meaning to teach you how to suck eggs etc.. but thats what I've found..

[Omar15]

Yeah, my forearms used to give me gyp when i climbed 2 or 3 days on. I think if you just keep on at it they'll eventually get used to it. I find protein shakes help a massive amount too, especially if you take one just after your session.

[Baron]

My experience as a man near 50 than 20. Stretch before and after session. I also find swimming helps to alleviate general aches and pains, along with a quick sauna if you're at the university of course.

[Baron]

Or just take up surfing. Worked for Jerry.

[Nibile]

To help recovery apart from body adaptation to a higher volume of training, one crucial thing is eating and timing your post session meal.
If you give it just some milk, where will your body take the nutrients to recover from?
It's important to eat more or less within an hour, after finishing. In this window of time, the nutrients are best assimilated, especially carbs, which go to replenish the glycogen storage of the muscle itself. Muscle glycogen is the first source of energy that the muscle uses.
Delaying the meal will mean that the carbs will be mostly stored as some kind of fat, which is used as the last source of energy. That's why it stays there (the mofo!).
The carbs should be complexes of a low glycemic value (there are charts on the net), and that's also important, not only because they are better metabolyzed, better used, contain more fibers and so on, but also because the low glycemic value keeps high the concentration of muscle glycogen, so that you'll store more carbs there and less in fat (as it happens with high insuline levels and high glycemic value foods).
Also, a sugar rush can produce a sugar crash very soon. The crash can cause very low glycemic levels and the release of cortisol hormon, that is a catabolic one, that can hinder the pure muscle recovery and reconstruction.
This is what I know from a few books (9 out of 10 and Racing Weight).
Oh, and proteins as well.
Proteins are good.
The excess of protein is stored as fat 20 times less than the excess of carbs.
Hope this helps.
If I said something wrong, please anyone correct me, because I follow these guidelines myself!

Ps. very light cardio the following day will raise your metabolism, heart rate and blood flow and this could help getting rid of toxines as well.

[Nibile]

Re-checking around, also high glycemic value foods can be good, because of the anabolic effect of the insuline released.

[Paul B]

I'm not convinced you want low GI when trying to replenish Glycogen? If so then why is Dextrose the carb of choice for recovery based drinks? By using simple carbs catabolism is halted earlier and the body switches to anabolism.

The excess of protein is stored as fat 20 times less than the excess of carbs.

I think its simply a case of the body struggling to convert proteins to usable energy. Essentially this leads to the same thing as you say but the way you put it could lead to a very expensive way of avoiding putting on any excess! Maybe its just better to get your calories vaguely correct than pissing away protein in the fear of getting fat from eating too many carbs.

Cofe - Why not try one of those nourish me now drinks (if there's a pro/carb option) the works stock and gauge how you feel (that way there's no need to commit to a kg or so of powder)? Cold walls make me achy (as does Grit), I've put this down to struggling to warm up effectively.

Recently I've been drinking my recovery drinks on the way back from the Yorkshire crags (minimum of 2 hours away from food) and it's really helped. If only I could drink something to help me grow back lost skin.

[tomtom]

Just swizz a bit of Nivea into your protein shake

[Nibile]

As I said on my second post, also high GI food can be used. But we're not bodybuilders, are we.
I couldn't be more specific than that, I was typing between redpoints on my board: and you know what comes first!
 

[Paul B]

what I'm pointing out is that your initial post isn't correct from what I understand if we're talking specifically about recovery! It doesn't matter that we're not bodybuilders, catabolism is undesirable, high GI will replenish Glycogen quicker and hence reduce this, non?

[abarro81]

I'm with paul on this

[duncan]

I'm ancient and I can’t get to real rock more than about three times a month.  Over the last two years I’ve been making a fairly serious attempt to get fit again, so this has necessitated visiting climbing walls.  To start with I creaked like a 300 year old door and felt stiffer than plank of wood the following day.

Things that work for me:

Most important factor has been doing shorter but more frequent sessions. I break if I do more than one two-three hour sessions a week.  I can manage a 45-60 min session most days of the week.

As shark says, you can definitely train recovery. Stick with it.

Very light exercise of the relevant muscles the following day.  Research evidence is that this doesn’t make any difference.  Seems to help me, placebo perhaps?

Light stretching the following day (I wouldn’t stretch immediately after heavy muscle work).  Research evidence says that this doesn’t make any difference to soreness but it feels quite good and will not do any harm.

Eating and drinking something not shit fairly soon after exercising.  I can’t be doing with protein shakes and the like.  I think they are the product of a despicable industry that cultivates insecurity in young men like the slimming industry does in women.  Furthermore, I don’t believe there is any good evidence they work better than a cheese sarnie and a mug of tea. Good evidence that 500ml of skimmed milk helps.

Get a decent night’s sleep.  This is very important for me. 

Other things worth considering:

Compression garments work subjectively, people ‘feel’ a bit less sore, but probably don’t improve objective recovery.  Ice baths have a similar effect.

Massage slightly reduces the feeling of soreness and speeds recovery of strength post-exercise, the effect is not huge but several trials have similar findings so it is probably a real effect.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, e.g. ibuprofen, reduce soreness but probably have a detrimental effect on long-term muscle repair.

Hyperbaric oxygen tents increase soreness but don’t change objective recovery.

There is some tentative evidence that whole-body vibration ‘Power Plate’ may reduce soreness and improve rate of muscle strength recovery.  Only a few small-scale trials so far though.

[a dense loner]

Paul n nibs I don't think your replies are really what an overweight mountain man was looking for. Don't get me wrong I lv my body n I've no idea what you two were talking about.
Protein shake b4 n after cofe, if u can't be bothered b4 just have one after. N stop eatin so many pies, might be worth stopping eating loads of wheat based stuff if u do

[Nibile]

Voice of reason. Sometimes I take myself too seriously.

[Paul B]

Paul n nibs I don't think your replies are really what an overweight mountain man was looking for.

I did point out he could buy something at his wall of choice, minimal effort.

[cofe]

Thanks all.

Shark: so 72 hours. I climbed inside Tues, no way I could have climbed inside Thurs. Two days on would be out of the question. My max session will be 2 hours, and at least the first 10 minutes of that will be chatting, so <2 hours. If I could get the wall earlier to give myself more time after I would, but I can't. Some good advice to go on with here though. Maybe I'll get into a routine.

[Jim]

unfortunately the fountain of youth is purely fictional. Welcome to mid-life.
How do you think Dense feels?
Oh yeah, MTFU as well!!
and what Johnny said

[Drew]

Don't get me wrong I lv my body...

A little TOO much sometimes


I agree with Jim, MTFU.

And this is my "recovery shake"



Half a bottle shortly after a session, and I'm usually fine the day after next, sometimes even the next day.

[shark]

Thanks all.

Shark: so 72 hours. I climbed inside Tues, no way I could have climbed inside Thurs. Two days on would be out of the question. My max session will be 2 hours, and at least the first 10 minutes of that will be chatting, so <2 hours. If I could get the wall earlier to give myself more time after I would, but I can't. Some good advice to go on with here though. Maybe I'll get into a routine.

Definitely worth it. The good news is that the scope for your improvement is huge. Session recovery is trainable. Going from an average of 3-4 days a week of climbing/training  to 4-5 had a big impact for me. Also on your trips you will be able to have longer days and fewer rest days (skin permitting!). Here’s a few pointers on how you might achieve this to pick and mix from.

Lifestyle
Turning up late at the wall, not eating properly and poor sleep isn’t going to give you a good training response in terms of getting stronger or give you good recovery. There are things we are able to do to tweak our lifestyle to fit in training and ways of training to fit our lifestyle. For example slipping a 30 minute deadhang session at lunchtime twice a week might require a bit of planning and organisation but over time make a big difference to your climbing if you keep it up.   

Conditioning
You have to be fit to train and improve recovery. A period of build up where you drop the intensity of climbing sessions and increase the volume might require parking the ego and ignoring peer pressure but will support your capability to do more intense sessions , more often, a few months down the line. This could include lots of easier problems or aerocap circuits for your climbing and complemented by weights sessions and even yoga. Aim to do 8 weeks in two blocks of 4 weeks where you build up over the 3 weeks and then have an easier 4th week.

Nutrient timing
This is covered well in Matt Fitzgerald’s Racing Weight. Keep hydrated. Carbs before a session for fuel/glycogen. Carbs and protein shortly after for recovery and then ideally a main meal. 

Variety
You can combine dissimilar stuff well on the same day. So a weights session at lunchtime and fingery climbing in the evening might mean you are not performing 100% at the bouldering – but that’s OK because you are training remember. Overlapping training without full recovery is good practice but give yourself an easy week every 4th week or so.

Recovery
I don’t think stretching helps recovery. Diet, low stress, good sleep and nutrient timing does. Warming up in the sense of starting easy and building up is going to help too as is warming down. At the end of a session I quite often do dwarf press-ups where you crank out 40/50 press-ups on your knees balanced on your fists as it is good for elbows and gets a bit of a sweat on. The only other suggestion is to spray your forearms with cold water after a session (or immerse them in a handy river like the Beck at Malham).

Stopping strong
Sometimes its worth getting trashed (more so for endurance training) but most of the time stopping without being trashed means that you can train again quicker and the overall benefit in the longer term of the rising shallower waves of medium training/shorter recovery can be better than the deeper hills and valleys of hard intense training / longer recovery. To a certain extent this depends on where you are in your athletic development. As you improve your recovery then the harder/intense training will become more practicable because you can bounce back quicker.

Active rest
The day after a session which you might normally have as a rest day instead go and do some really easy climbing instead. It will help recovery and also probably mean it takes less time to warm up for your next training session.   

HTH

[Jack.G]

Pint of milk and a banana during the drive home any session, indoor or out. Ibuprofen before bed if overdone it.

I think someone else mentioned before, but sleep is very important.

[SA Chris]

Or banana milkshake - kill 2 birds. Usually snack on chocolate chip cookies throughout session too.

I usually end up late at the wall too; 7:30 or so, usually home for 10:30, but still have a small tuna and cheese omlette and toast before bed, or else I wake up starving at about 5:00, usually headachey too. Takes minutes to make, you could even prep mixture the night before.

Also my usual yoga session is lunchtime the day after the session and that helps with getting out some of the niggles and aches and I'm usually ready for another session by the next evening.