Legs

willeslinger wrote: And yeah man, Oklahoma's kicked ass.

Fellow big legged outside backer here, and I have to admit I hated Oklahoma. For me the only ass that drill kicked was mine.

To get back on topic, I have started running more long distance stuff (up to 25k), and I have tried to lose weight to improve my climbing. The running has gotten me as low as 175lbs - from an all time high of 195lbs. My upper body gets smaller, but my legs stay the same size. I find I climb my best when my weight is at the lower end of that spectrum, even though my legs seem to be the same size all through the range.

I can relate! I am 6-2, 235, with about 80% of my weight below the waist. Lots of bicycling and hiking when I was younger is the "culprit". I can motor on approaches, darn near kept up with Peter Croft in July on flat ground(he was probably sandbagging but wouldn't admit it:)). The minute we started up the steep stuff I was toast!

I have one word for you, mountaineering.

Thought I'd throw in my two cents on this thread.

Allocation of muscle mass will definitely depend on your priorities. High end sport climbing sees little benefit from leg mass; however, long alpine approaches and post-holing in snow at the top of alpine peaks will definitely require more lower body mass. In the end climbing, no matter what type, is about a power/strength to weight ratio.

I've seen the names Steve House and Mark Twight thrown around on this thread a bit and thought it significant to note that Mark Twight is a cyclist, which obviously requires significant leg mass, though less upper body strength. Page 41 of the latest Metolius catalog is an excellent demonstration of power:weight ratio and Steve's physique: metoliusclimbing.com/pdf/Me…

Damn, I thought this was a post about Legs Macgillicutty.

Legs
Carry on.

PS: Check out Rick Ridgeway's thighs. They are about as big as my chest. He is one MFBA and dragged his massive thighs up K2 without O's back in the day.

i feel that my flexability is ok for high stepping, and that i can generally get on the hold ok, but i just have a complete 'dead spot' in my power in that range from totally crunched up until my knee is at about 90 degrees. for me, it is most often an issue on harder slabs (like shumin pointed out) and also sometimes on easier terrain when you just have to 'balance up' to get up on a foothold. i usually feel like i have a decent chance at flubbing it and pitching off into the abyss.

interestingly enough, if i can get my heel on the hold (instead of my toe), but not really heel hooking, it usually helps quite a bit.

If you already have beefy legs and you don't want them to become larger then what you might consider is to take up running trails and yoga or a regular stretching routine.

I used to race bikes and so developed pretty large thighs. Which was great for my alpine adventures and guiding but sucked when the angle tilted over vertical and I began to sport climb in the the 12s. I gave up racing when I moved to BLDR and took up trail running instead. After a while I discovered that my thighs lost some of their mass but my legs got stronger and that running crossed over to climbing more than cycling. I also found that by doing yoga poses and intensive stretching that I could put that leg power into better use and achieve better movement on steeper rock (and ice).

I always felt that big legs were not an advantage on harder, steeper routes but I've managed to find ways to better utilize them to better affect.

I watched some chick with thunder-thies onsight my 11c sport project a few weeks ago.

She had thies to write home about - I'd write "goddamn ma, they were some serious thies, send money"

jack roberts wrote:If you already have beefy legs and you don't want them to become larger then what you might consider is to take up running trails

.

I used to love trail running, but I've been forbidden to do it by my chiro, he basically said to choose either running or climbing, because the combination was destroying my lower back.

As far as Yoga goes, well... I work with a bunch of Yogis, and they swear by it, but I've done Yoga before, and I despised it, it was SOOOOOOO boring, I'm way too ADD I guess.

For me, a good warmup, followed high intensity and/or heavy lifting, followed by a good cool down and static stretching gives the body a lot more variety to adapt to. Done intelligently, then it won't wear you down too much either.

Great topic guys, I'm really happy with the quality of this discussion.

willeslinger wrote:. I used to love trail running, but I've been forbidden to do it by my chiro, he basically said to choose either running or climbing, because the combination was destroying my lower back. As far as Yoga goes, well... I work with a bunch of Yogis, and they swear by it, but I've done Yoga before, and I despised it, it was SOOOOOOO boring, I'm way too ADD I guess. For me, a good warmup, followed high intensity and/or heavy lifting, followed by a good cool down and static stretching gives the body a lot more variety to adapt to. Done intelligently, then it won't wear you down too much either. Great topic guys, I'm really happy with the quality of this discussion.

I'm sure that you have a settled opinion on it and have had plenty of people tell you this before; but it'll grow on you, and if you strive for (close to) perfect form yoga is certainly not boring.

Garrett R. wrote: I'm sure that you have a settled opinion on it and have had plenty of people tell you this before; but it'll grow on you, and if you strive for (close to) perfect form yoga is certainly not boring.

Yeah, for sure, I'm not against Yoga, and I've seen co-workers go through hellacious core-murdering routines, but still, compared to going into the gym and getting a real* workout in is more enjoyable to me. Between working in outdoor retail, slacking my way through college and climbing I really only have time for one type of other exercise, and I like spending that time lifting.

• I don't say "real" to insinuate that yoga isn't a REAL workout, as I said, I've seen some seriously ass-kicking routines, I say real to saythat when I'm in the gym, I'm staying well the hell away from the chest fly and preacher curl machine.

Kevin Landolt wrote:I watched some chick with thunder-thies onsight my 11c sport project a few weeks ago. She had thies to write home about - I'd write "goddamn ma, they were some serious thies, send money"

Ha, "send money"? Yes! That's the only way to end a letter home for sure.

Shawn Mitchell wrote:Never met him, but my impression is Peter Croft has some beefy thighs, as do John Long and Steve Petro.

I met Peter Croft at a slideshow he was putting on. He actually poked a little fun at some European climbers he knew who made their significant others carry their pack on the approach to climbs because they were afraid of gaining any leg mass.

By the way, I didn't notice whether his legs were big or not, but the veins in his forearms looked like garden hoses!

willeslinger wrote:. I used to love trail running, but I've been forbidden to do it by my chiro, he basically said to choose either running or climbing, because the combination was destroying my lower back.

I have to say this sounds like really bad advice. Seriously, think about it... what in that combo is worse than either on their own? I mean, if your body can handle the impact of running and the twisting/arcing of gymnastic climbs, why in the world would you have to decide between the two? Better yet, don't just think it thru on your own, go see a sports medicine doc if you're worried about it. While the back is a unique structure in the body, it has stabilizing muscles like any other joint - train those stabilizers, and the sucker will naturally stay in proper alignment on its own (millions of years of evolution have favored this efficiency). It's not like you need to go get adjustments done on your knee, or the metatarsals in your foot. Same for your back.

Regarding your lifting routine, while you note it isn't designed to build mass, it is designed to maintain the mass that's already there - which you've stated might be a bit too much. Based on what you listed, you're not specifically training your slow twitch muscle fibers at all (type I), instead your just focusing on the type IIA and type IIB fast twitch fibers. Your FT fibers have a greater cross section because you've been stressting them during football training and now your heavy lifts, and as long as you keep stressing them with max recruitment exercises, they are going to maintain that larger cross section. Sure your not specifically jumping into the hypertrophy rep range, but your definitely telling the body to keep what it has.

Climbing is about efficiency, and as noted above, anything that isn't needed is dead weight. You most certainly have more than enough sheer strength and short burst power for climbing/mountaineering applications. You could lose some of that strength (and with it the weight of those larger fibers), still have enough for what is required of legs in climbing applications, and be more efficient overall.

With the above in mind, I'd definitely say to return to trail running if your body likes it, and given the size of your legs, take an extended break from lifting.

[just as a note, I've got the opposite problem - I keep trying to increase the size of my legs, specifically for alpine endeavors, but because of a bad back (L5 and S1 bodies are literally bumping into each other) I can't do lifts, can't run, hell walking even hurts like sin. So I'm left w/cycling. Hopefully can finance the fusion surgery this winter to fix all that, but just wanted to point out that I am on the 'too little muscle mass' leg efficiency spectrum. Hope the above helps.)

Have you thought about dropping the heavy squats in favor of something more functional and less brutal on the back? Try olympic style ligting for a change. Crank out triples of cleans and snatches. You'll use lighter weights but your muscles will be cetting a fast twich workout instead of a slow twitch. Your dyno movements will improve as your legs learn to fire faster and your back and knees will not take the abuse that back squats put on them. Plus you get your whole muscle chain involved, espcially your core. If you really want to squat and strengthen the core, try overhead squats. Again, whole body involvement, hard on the core and legs but lighter weights. From a T&F background, if you want to be strong, light on your feet and explosive, olympic style lifting is where it's at.