Touching Toes

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Forgot to post that I very much like your assistant in the first picture, James!

I've been trying to get back into / keep up with stretching, as I can't train with my elbow, but hopefully stretching can both help a little bit with my climbing, but also with conditioning my body and setting it up for future training.

I've halved my 2 hour gym sessions (the emergency "not climbing enough at the moment" ones...) and done 50 mins of stretching to finish instead of more weights. This seems to be okay.

The most useful thing has been finding the stretches that are the most relaxing and easiest to chill out in with the body being put into the stretch and then having to do the least exertion after. As well as toes touching, I've particularly liked cobbler pose sitting against a wall, and can relax into that for a few minutes, also the quad / hip flexor stretch where you have one foot behind you on a bench (nice on the padded mats / bench).

Also not having a militantly strict routine and going with the flow a bit in terms of how much I do and what order i do it in (as long as i'm doing stuff to open the pelvis, do glutes, and a few others, at SOME point) has helped me be more relaxed and positive about stretching sessions.
 
Sounds like a good routine Fiend. Chopping the weights session in half is a good move, as anything after the first hour is likely going to be junk mileage.

Due to poor positioning on side splits, I've often struggled with my femur jamming my pelvis. If I've pushed a bit too hard it can leave the inside of my hips sore for a few days. More horse squats seems to be helping rewire my brain to position the pelvis better; If I fatigue the muscles in horse stance and then try to rep out horse squats, I really have to concentrate on keeping anterior pelvic tilt to prevent jamming. Another issue I haven't managed to fix is with keeping the femur externally rotated, or at least neutral when going deep on side splits. Any tips?
 
Fiend said:
Also not having a militantly strict routine and going with the flow a bit in terms of how much I do and what order i do it in (as long as i'm doing stuff to open the pelvis, do glutes, and a few others, at SOME point) has helped me be more relaxed and positive about stretching sessions.

This approach has been really useful for me too. As long as I give myself a minimum of five minutes and do a couple of key stretches then I’m good, no pressure. Though I usually do quite a bit more. I’m on a 58 day streak of stretching atm which has definitely yielded results.
 
Fiend said:
Slightly off-topic but in case it's useful, I can confirm that being able to touch your toes is absolutely bloody useless for 1. Any form of relevant climbing flexibility (hip-opening, wide bridges, etc), 2. Any form of climbing performance.

OTOH it's a fairly pleasant stretch, it is directly measurable, and I agree with the common sense advice above of starting gently, doing it regularly, doing longer holds etc.

This. I can touch my palms to the floor easily and while it's nice that I'm able to do it, it does nothing for me in terms of climbing performance.
 
crimpinainteasy said:
I can touch my palms to the floor easily and while it's nice that I'm able to do it, it does nothing for me in terms of climbing performance.

So if something happened that made your hamstrings, glutes and lower back so stiff that you had to sit down to put your shoes on and made involuntarily grunting noises while doing so, do you think you’d be climbing at the same level as before?
 
Apologies for straying off topic, but can you bendy folk recommend some stretches that are relevant for climbers? Upper body, lower body, I ain't fussy - but preferably accessible to someone as stiff as a board.
 
https://www.verywellfit.com/seated-groin-and-inner-thigh-stretch-3120294

for a start. For opening hips and being able to get in close to and over holds.

Or just google "best stretches for climbers"
 
cheque said:
So if something happened that made your hamstrings, glutes and lower back so stiff that you had to sit down to put your shoes on and made involuntarily grunting noises while doing so, do you think you’d be climbing at the same level as before?
Sorry cheque, my original reply about this wasn't meant to disparage or dismiss people who have severely struggled with mobility due to injury or disability - obviously you were an unfortunate outlier!!


SA Chris said:
https://www.verywellfit.com/seated-groin-and-inner-thigh-stretch-3120294
Ah that's the one I have been calling cobbler pose, and do sitting against the wall with a straight back, for maximum chillage / ease of use.

For glutes, I do this: https://www.verywellfit.com/eye-of-the-needle-pose-sucirandhrasana-3567044 - but with the back foot resting against the wall and knee at 90 degrees - really targets the glutes but again is pretty chilled to stay in (although I had to give it up completely with my LCL, and am now easing back in with a modified version).
 
SA Chris said:
https://www.verywellfit.com/seated-groin-and-inner-thigh-stretch-3120294

for a start. For opening hips and being able to get in close to and over holds.

Or just google "best stretches for climbers"

In "9 out of 10 Climbers", Dave MacLeod recs that and a seated wide-legged forward bend as the key two for climbers. Here's a decent description of the latter:

https://www.doyou.com/how-to-do-wide-legged-seated-forward-fold-pose/

I'd also add a basic doorway pec stretch because it can help prevent a lot of shoulder fuckery.
 
mr chaz said:
Apologies for straying off topic, but can you bendy folk recommend some stretches that are relevant for climbers? Upper body, lower body, I ain't fussy - but preferably accessible to someone as stiff as a board.

Well done on remembering upper body - I think having open shoulders is at least as important as having open hips! A good test is to stand with your back to a wall and raise your arms above your head without your lower back leaving the wall. If you can't get yours hands to touch the wall then you are giving up reach and will need to bring your torso further from the wall every time you are reaching overhead (if your core is engaged then you can't arc your back to compensate). The butchers block stretch is a great way to help address this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDnP3sPkdO0

Pec stretch as others have mentioned will also help. Personally I find the floor version much more effective than the doorway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ucqiO-YjvM
 
If you want to add to those, cat-cow is nice for mobilizing your spine and preventing back ache -- good to put in your warm-up:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/multimedia/cat-cow-pose/vid-20453581

And downwards-facing dog gives you a hamstring stretch, a calf stretch and some shoulder-opening (and weight-bearing down through your hands), so it's potentially a lot of bang for your buck. But because it's got all that going on, it might be hard to get into initially if you're very stiff.

https://www.ekhartyoga.com/resources/yoga-poses/downward-facing-dog-pose
https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/downward-facing-dog/

If it doesn't work even with your knees very bent, you could try it with your hands on the seat of a chair or on the wall. Or if it just feels cramped/awkward/jammed and you're not feeling a stretch, ditch it until you've got a bit more range of motion in the components and can get something out of it.

These are less focused on enhancing specific mobility for climbing, more general maintenance and preventing the climbing from fucking you up too much.
 
slab_happy said:
These are less focused on enhancing specific mobility for climbing, more general maintenance and preventing the climbing from fucking you up too much.
Good. Something very much at the forefront of my mind at the moment. Who knows if I could attain a body condition that's 1/10th of a LiamHutch98, I might be able to train again :-\

Quite pleased to see that many of these recommendations are stuff I include already. I do cat-cow (incredibly inflexibly) at the end of two sets of cobra (for keeping sciatica at bay) and child's pose. I do pecs on door frame (but probably not nearly enough). I'll try downward dog and butcher's block, but probably both at the same time.
 


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