I hold to the model of having main main exercises, supplemental exercises, and auxiliary exercises for each type of movement that I wish to train. A Main exercise involves pretty much every muscle group of a fundamental movement type. For example, some main exercises for the movement of upper body pushing would be Bench Press, Dips, etc.A Supplemental exercise has a much smaller demand on the Central Nervous System and involves less muscles coordinating together. It focuses on a specific part of what is involved in a main movement and aims to train that part. For example, in upper body pushing a supplemental exercise could be triceps pushdowns, or it could be dumbell flys for the chest. Each of those supplemental exercises isolates a smaller part of the larger category upper body pushing and trains that part. I think these exercises are incredibly key, but many people neglect them because they think curls and triceps pushdowns are for frat boys, and that you can get all you need from just performing main exercises. I used to think that way, but now I have seen the light.An Auxiliary exercise trains a very small and specific part of the larger movement. Most of the auxiliary exercises that I do for the upper body involve training the rotator cuff in an effort to keep my shoulders working properly. Most of these exercises are aimed at keeping healthy, I didn't choose most of them because I thought they emulated a specific thing I might encounter while climbing or because I really felt like I needed to be strong at them for their own sake. Rather, being strong at these small things allows the body to become stronger at the bigger things and keeps you injury free.Here are the types of movement that I think are worthwhile to train for climbing... I think you'll find just about every type of movement any weightlifter would train in the list.-Finger Strength-Upper Body Pull Strength -Lower Body Posterior Chain Dominant - subcategory of the one above, Calf strength, Tibialis Strength (Think Toehooks), and Foot strength are also very important for us climbers.-Lower Body Quad Dominant-Upper Body Push Strength-"Core" Strength
i will never do weights as a way of climbing harder
i will never do weights as a way of climbing harder,i did weights and climbed shite,ive stopped weights and im improving every session.suppose it may work for some but the extra weight is a hindrance.
Quote from: mark s on October 14, 2012, 08:43:34 pmi will never do weights as a way of climbing harderI feel like I should do some weights at my age (51) for postural/rehabilative/staving off osteoporosis reasons. My dad is virtually crippled with osteoporosis of the spine and I don't want to go the same way. I don't kid myself that it would be directly relevant to climbing.But my employer is closing the company gym - which only had very limited free weights and which tbh I only went to very sporadically anyway since I resumed climbing - to save costs. And I'm not sufficiently motivated at this point to spend the time & money for a gym membership. Thinking of buying a kettlebell, but not sure if that would be heavy enough to really make much difference to anything.
You probably know this but the effect of exercise seems to be mainly via mechanical stress rather than hormonal stimulation: doing arm exercises wont help the lower spine much, you need to stress the relevant bits. Both heavy resistance training and 'high-impact' exercise seem to help. Falling off regularly whilst bouldering probably does a very good job for the latter. For the lumbar spine I'd be thinking about dead-lifting or similar.
Other than your father's history (and I'd share your feeling if my Dad had suffered similarly) do you have any other risk factors that you know about?
