Resting: Do it or Else!

The best thing since sliced bread. I recon anyway. Know there's a lot of jazz about resting at the moment in the climbing world, basically because we don't. As climbers we have a habit of pushing it that little bit too far, therefore risking injury. The main reason why we don't rest is because of the nature of this sport that we all love so much, it's obsessive, massively. As a culprit of this resting crime I have first hand experience of the consequences (2 shoulder operations, a variety of finger injuries and a completely screwed back). So you will all probably agree that we, as a collective of enthusiasts do not take our resting seriously. I wish to try and change this fact.

Right to sum up in a few words our body needs rest to recover and develop. Muscle growth and development is enhanced during periods of rest and the body generally needs time to recuperate and recover after strenuous activity. So ignoring this fact and carrying on training is a bad thing. VERY BAD!!!!

Muscle development increases during rest periods because the body needs a period of time to recover, effectively allowing the training effect to take place. Active rest is a type of training we, as climbers, find very, very hard to do. It requires you to climb at a low level for a set period of time, a short period of time. This is an alien concept to many climbers who seemingly go down the wall and beast them selves day in day out. This is not good for you in any way shape or form.

Overtraining. Now this is something new, a label for all of us who spend far too much time down the wall. Well overtraining is something that is very real in both physiological and psychological forms. It can reduce your performance dramatically bringing the onset of early fatigue during exercise, decrease in immune function and increased risk of injury. Also the lack of motivation, depression and mood swings are all symptoms of overtraining. Now we are getting all scientific and complicated, and we don't want that. Basically overtraining is BAD!!! Another consequence of not resting that will be a subject of another article.

Now if you want to rest enough, and not too much, you will nee to look at your macro and micro cycles and work them into your training pattern effectively. In basic terms it's a 2:1 ratio 2 days on 1 day off. However this is different for every one and needs to be fiddled with after it has been first set, we can help out with this so get in touch?

Anyway enough boring mumbo jumbo, I'm off to Italy to test all my training bull against some awesome granite. Come back next month for the next instalment on overtraining and finger board training and one move wonders

Catch ya later!!!