Q' about winter gym training.

[Frankazoid]

Hey i am just curious if anybody feels that gyms/or plastic holds leaves your hands feeling super rough and tender compared to sport climbing the same grade stuff that you would climb at say, little si.

 

I can climb close to, and at my limit, almost all day long at many of the crags I go to. but if I give in to going to the dreaded gym my tips and hands are feeling brutalized in about 1 hour, not even pumped slightly. Is this common for folks who regulary climb outdoors and then give in to going to the gym when its been raining for too long? Does plastic really have to suck that bad? Do your hands just get used to tip-eating plastic if you go often?

Edited January 25, 2010 by Frankazoid

[ivan]

after a half hour at my friends home-gym i find meself gravitating solely to the natural rock holds, so nice n' smooth n' cold...

[BirdDog]

If you were to climb at J-Tree, you would think plastic holds were smooth as a baby's butt.

[TimL]

Are you climbing at the gym or are you training? When I'm in Spain, I train at the gym. I mean going there with a specific plan of warming up, thne doing a certain number of traverses, boulder problems, campus, hangboard and pull up all w/ time limits. When I come to Seattle in the winter and there is no rock to climb, I climb at the gym....which to me sounds funny but thats how it goes. To answer your question, I just came from the gym and my fingers, skin and everything hurts. But not to an extreme. That shows you got a work out cause you pack a lot more intensity usually into a training session in a shorter amount of time.

Edited January 25, 2010 by TimL

[Frankazoid]

ya the gym can definetly offer a faster pace i suppose.. Anyhow i'm thinkin I need to develop a specific plan for what im going to do while im there. Like you were talking about. Now that I think about it I probably climbed like 6 hard pitches in an hour 1/2, while just bouldering. OK-

 

I definetly still welcome any other comments, or other peoples experiences.....

[matt_warfield]

I agree with TimL. Treat the gym as a place to train and not tick hard lines at least not one after the other. Identify holds that don't work for you and skip those routes. It could be sharpness or shape or whatnot but figure out which ones work. Lots of mileage on routes under your outdoor standard could be your goal and save your fingers.

[eldiente]

Funny as I have the same problem when gym training. Often my skin goes raw and becomes soft long before my arms get pumped. Sometimes this happens outside too, but often outside the pump sets in first. Bouldering is usually the worst for me as I used to try and do 50+ problems in a night.

 

A few things I've tried...

 

*Don't do steep jug hauls. I find the overhanging jug hauls to be hard on the skin, it gives me splits and blisters low on the fingers and has minimal training value. I mean, how often outside are you going to climb a 45 degree wall with huge buckets the whole way? I can see maybe doing a few easy laps to warm-up, but that's it. If you feel the need to do jug hauls, go use a pull-up bar or something more skin friendly.

 

*Dont squirm. This again is more of an issue on routes with big holds, but often my skin get trashed shuffling my hands around on a hold trying to re-grip it. Stick the hold and don't wiggle, that wiggling action saws away at the skin.

 

*Climb hard routes. Do enough "easy" routes to get warmed-up and then do problems/routes that require 100% effort. I'm thinking of roped routes that are hard enough where you're falling half the time and leave you gasping at the chains. For most mortals, 3-6 routes like this and the arms will be pumped but the skin won't be too raw.

 

*Climb thin stuff. Again I find the big, more abrasive on the skin. Thin crimpers might wear out a tiny spot on the tips of your fingers but leave the rest of your skin un-touched.

 

-Nate

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2010 by eldiente

[Drederek]

It does take me a few sessions to get used to the roughness of the holds at the gym every winter and I works with my hands. My approach is almost 180 degrees from Eldiente's, especially early in the winter. I avoid crimpy things and bouldering for a few weeks and then start to work them in. Jug hauls and routes with large slopey holds work well for me to maintain the larger muscles and get used to pulling plastic. Its a whole different skillset indoors from out. Shorter, more intense routes really stress your weakest links, which in my case is tendons. Once you damage a ring tendon its gonna hurt all winter unless you take time off. And thats no fun!

[Frankazoid]

cool. those are some good comments. I thought there might be some others out there with similar experiences. I definetly need to train for vertical thin stuff, as well as big jugs hauls on roofs or 45's. Thailand is where I spend oct- dec, so training for those steep jug hauls is definetly worthwile for me.

Somehow I agree with both of the last 2 comments. Nobody's wrong, just different personal experiences. Great things to know.

 

If I could afford it I would just train in Thailand, on the stone.

(well i'm sure lots of us would)- In 1 month there I went from onsighting 5.10 to 11.b's typicly, and redpointing 12b while my previous redpoints stopped at 11a. What a place! Never would have imagined.

 

Well I think I definetly have some good ideas now, but like I said before- feel free to keep posting your own experiences! The more insights or perspectives the better... Thanks yall

Edited January 27, 2010 by Frankazoid

[eldiente]

I should clarify that I was thinking of what works best for protecting your skin, this has nothing to do with what is best for strength gains, tendon prevention etc.

 

If your coming off the couch with no base, yes doing 6 weeks of jug hauling is a good thing to get a nice, deep pump. Although again I think this is the most painful part of a training cycle. The crisp jugs cut into the hands and if you are indeed coming off the couch, the skin is already soft an easy to damage.

 

One possible work around for this would be to hook up some skin friendly holds (wood, smooth ) to a lat-pull down machine and do a bunch of sets there. Similar to jug hauling on the 45 but perhaps not so hard on the skin and doesn't need a belayer. When doing this I like to do the normal 10x pulls but instead of letting go, I'll dead hang with one hand from the hold for 30 seconds, shake out chalk-up an do x10 more sets for 20 minutes. The folks at 24 hour fitness might give you odd looks but it sort of feels like climbing a long route with good shake-outs.

 

Side gripe. Anyone have any problems with the texture of the wall that is normally used for the campus board? My gym bolts the wooden campus holds onto the normal gym wall that is textured like sandpaper. The problem I have is that when I dry-fire my finger tips go scarping across the textured wall and I lose a lot of skin. I'm thinking it would make sense to use smooth paint, or put thin rubber strips above and below each rung to protect the skin from botched moves. Has anyone tried this? Perhaps I just need to be more accurate with my campusing.

[ryanb]

Lots of people have this problem. You simply need to take better care of your skin.

 

Gyms build big hard callousses fast and big hard callousses slide around more, split more easily and generally suck.

 

Get a pumice stone (sold in the hygiene aisle for sanding callouses off your feet) or some sand paper or similar and some good hand salve designed for hard dry skin (Badgers, Burt's Bees, Climb On all seem to work well for me...).

 

Consider avoiding metolius super chalk or other chalk with drying agents in it in favor of pure magnesium carbonate (black diamond, frank endo etc...)

 

More information:

http://leashlessblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/dealing-with-bad-skin.html

http://www.nicros.com/archive/faq/Round-23.cfm

http://www.nicros.com/archive/faq/Round-3.cfm

 

Edit: shoot for a flexible smooth layer of callous.

Edited January 27, 2010 by ryanb

[StreetBoss]

After about 3 minutes my A D D kicks in and I'm sizing up the sports bra talent. That is all the motivation I need to get going.

 

[RuMR]

Dohh...the meat market gym style approach!