[mrjonathanr]

Thé intangible  be resistance to injury from good recovery?

[Fiend]

Thanks for posting jwills, and interesting that you've presented it as a question.

What do you think?

A lot of the emphasis placed on regeneration workouts/recovery work suggests that it improves our ability to recover from the stresses of higher intensity work, but I don't think it's "intrinsic".
The fact that no one has replied reflects the emphasis that people put on higher intensity work. That may sound obvious, but I think there's a tendency to neglect general conditioning. It's common for people to chase/exchange markers for their BM2000 slot performance, but less their hip flexibility for instance, or their rate of recovery after a set of low end 6s on the wall.

Again, I think that might seem to make sense, but I also think that when we start to drop off of a "peak", we can often forget what we really put into getting there. It's interesting that later in the video there's some discussion about having a good "pyramid" - and this is very much neglected too - again, because we tend to chase peak performances, or markers for it.

The terms recovery work/regeneration workouts can be misleading, because they tend to imply that there is some "thing" in the work which is active in the regeneration. There are a lot of studies of different methods/techniques which indicate this isn't the case. When I was trying to run rather than climb, I started to get my head around a lot of principles which I felt carried over to training for climbing really well.

One author explained very well how most club runners tended to run when training, at a pace that was only very slightly below their race pace, whereas as an elite runner, the author would do the majority of his base work at a much lower pace. For example, a club runner might train at 7'30"/mile pace and race at 7'/mile, whereas for an elite runner, it might be more like 8'/mile and 4'30. One very good bit of advice that I've tried to take with me back into climbing is that "On your recovery runs, you can't run too slowly, only too quickly". Also, there is the common misconception that if you do work at a very easy level, you have to do loads more of it to benefit. No, a light session means low intensity and short duration.

In this article they explain very simply the conflicting demands placed on available energy by training and adaptation:
https://sportsedtv.com/blog/proper-recovery-and-regeneration-from-and-for-training-part-i/

Emphasising the limited resources available for training and recovery helps us understand that regeneration work is about adding volume at a level which doesn't conflict with or compromise recovery/adaptation from more intense work.

Very often, we think we can make up for lost time by training more intensely - a habit I'm trying to break - or we try to reach or regain a peak performance too soon when we think of it as our new "baseline".
Building a good pyramid of base work, is not about chasing a higher jump, but raising the level of the ground that we jump from.

I like to think of physical* ability in terms of elasticity - our ability to do work and perform, and then recover to a more relaxed state more quickly. The adaptive process in regen work is that it helps us raise the level at which we feel we're still working easily, by adding volume at a level which doesn't compromise our recovery and preparation for more intense efforts. That has an additional carry over too, in that by doing more work in a relaxed way, we can remain more relaxed when trying to perform at a higher level.

Most importantly, was the question of whether slash grades should be allowed @ ~17:30 

This is a really good topic.


* I was tempted to say athletic ability, but it doesn't really apply in my case

Good discussion, good post.

I think another reason why it's hard to stick to very easy regeneration / pyramid-base-building / active rest for climbing is that in this fucking dismal sodden shithole of a country, we have to do a lot of our training / non-training indoors, and easier climbing indoors is all too often ultra-boring jug pulls. Climbing is a technically interesting kinaesthetic sport and doing basically ladders (which will be relative to ability ofc) is pretty fucking dull. Better setting of vert / slabs with still-very-easy moves on edges / slopers / blobs / different orientated holds / more use of features and wall angles would help this. As people have said soloing can be an option but generally not when the entire country is underwater.

Two aspects of possible regen climbing that strike me as pertinent. It seems like it would be comparable to just gently and steadily warming up for a session - and then stopping. This seems like it could be beneficial and might get one primed for the next day's "OMG I JUST CAN'T RESIST THAT SWEET SWEET HIGH INTENSITY WORK" session. And secondly as Paul B said - movement to get blood flow to the muscles and tissues and encourage healing - that in itself seems like good reasoning.

However, personally, having done a huge amount of fucking easy ledge shuffling which probably would count as regeneration climbing, it's made me quite comfortable with doing a huge amount of fucking easy ledge shuffling (including on subsequent days, without any particular muscular fatigue, and without any feeling like I'm overdoing fucking easy ledge shuffling), but has left me feeling relatively weak and physically lacking overall. My "pyramid" in terms of physical performance is the complete opposite of, say, Spidermonkey90's pencil dick pyramid, mine is distinctly choadly. But this might well be my focus on fucking easy ledge shuffling and lack of structure to my training, rather than regen climbing being ineffective when mixed in to proper training.

[SA Chris]

compression garments

Are you saying my Accapi Nexus Bodysuit is doing nothing for me?

[duncan]

compression garments

Perpetually hugely discounted at sports pursuit. Massage guns heading in that direction.

IIRC, the broad conclusions in the literature for anything to do with recovery were (last time I took a quick look) that it seemed like lots of things made people feel better (active rest, contrast baths, massage, compression garments etc.) but none of these significantly improved performance in subsequent tests. That may be because they're useless or may be because marginal gains are hard to measure.

This. 

Adequate food and sleep makes a measurable difference.

[Wellsy]

IIRC, the broad conclusions in the literature for anything to do with recovery were (last time I took a quick look) that it seemed like lots of things made people feel better (active rest, contrast baths, massage, compression garments etc.) but none of these significantly improved performance in subsequent tests. That may be because they're useless or may be because marginal gains are hard to measure.

Essentially I've found this; no paper (that I read) noted that there's any measurable benefit in doing active rest the day after a work day compared to actual full rest, and some seemingly suggested it might be worse.

But yes hard to measure.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Some confusion about the terms/reference to regen/recovery work.

It's better thought of in terms of what one does while recovering from/regenerating for.

This is understood in terms of the distribution of easy/hard work, the former very often being significantly neglected, and also includes a great deal of other general conditioning work.

Conversely, studies into aids to/for recovery are - as other people have referenced - inconclusive/difficult to evaluate.
That said, a light recovery session is supposed to be just that, either other base work which doesn't impact recovery for the next harder session, or something that will leave you feeling better afterwards - for instance working on flexibility or mobility on very easy ground. Pissing people off by traversing the base of routes at the Foundry is very good for this. 

On the whole though, I think we seriously neglect base work.