Apologies if this has been addressed somewhere else, but a brief search didn’t turn up much.
Well, its happened. Boulder and Denver on a stay at home order. Thus far, I’ve been reluctant to do anything climbing related at home, mostly out of denial and frustration. I got outside once last week, and was doing ok working from home. Going into week two, reality has set in. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get out, so it’s time to find a way to not lose too much.
What are some things I can do that will give meaningful results with zero equipment? I mean nothing. No hangboard. No woody. No pull up bar. No dumbbells. I got nada. Before, I’d focus on ring rollouts, physio ball ‘roll ups’, hip ROM, and some antagonistic work at the end of most workouts and then do some stretching. Though the idea of doing crunches til the cows come home is boring, I need to come up with a decent routine to commit to. I am slowly and reluctantly coming to terms with my finger strength is going to go down, but there must be other things I can at least maintain in the interim. What do you suggest?
B P
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Mar 23, 2020
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Unknown Hometown
· Joined Nov 2019
· Points: 0
You can walk outside to a tree branch to do pullups on and can usually hang on door jambs for finger strength crimps. Doing pushups off of your fingers will also help build finger strength. For forearm pump and wrist strengthening, get 6lbs of rice and put in a small trash can or a bucket and pound rice for a while. If you can get some cheap rubber bands, there's a ton more you can do . Stay healthy out there!
Cesar Cardenas wrote: I don't think losing climbing ability is at much risk right now unless you're at the higher levels of the game. I'm pushing 5.11 gear, 5.12 sport right now and I can't imagine 2 months off doing anything worse than healing my hurt finger and maybe costing me some core and back strength which won't happen because I'm still regularly exercising at home.
Cesar Cardenas wrote: I don't think losing climbing ability is at much risk right now unless you're at the higher levels of the game. I'm pushing 5.11 gear, 5.12 sport right now and I can't imagine 2 months off doing anything worse than healing my hurt finger and maybe costing me some core and back strength which won't happen because I'm still regularly exercising at home.
Maybe its case by case though? I've never trained my finger strength, and I've only ever focused on technique so I find my technique not going anywhere no matter how long I take off-- especially when I spend all my time either doing online homework or day dreaming route sequences at my favorite walls :)
If you want to know though,
I'm doing a core workout at home, going for a fast and steep hike (off trail and off the map where I don't see anyone. Literally anyone.), and I do basic body lifts such as dead lifts, squats, bench press, pull ups (weighted), and tricep dips (Weighted). I know some of this may not be do-able based on what you have, but even with some resistant bands, you could pretty much set these all up with some creativity.
Like others said, you can crimp on doors if you want, I might actually make a hangboard since they're all sold out and I have free time--you know, to see what these finger gains everyone is talking about feel like lol.
Thanks Cesar, that's reassuring to hear. I'm just now breaking into 12's in the gym, high 11's outside sport, this summer the goal is to get comfortable pushing my trad climbing into the 10s, where the climbing stops being super easy. I don't regularly hangboard or anything specifically for finger strength, but climbing regularly has to count for something!
Did some Googling, and came up with a circuit that I think will at least get me moving. For reference if anyone else is searching. This will most likely be tweaked after trying it and seeing what feels hard or easy or what I think I'd need more of.
Edge Hangs - 5 sec on 5 sec off for 1 minute - on random ledge I have inside. (door jambs don't feel sturdy enough) Spiderman Push ups - 10 per side Shoulder Presses - bag of rice or bottle of wine - 10 per side Planks - 1 minute Squats - 15 Pull ups - 10 - beam in garage Flutter Kicks - 100 Calf raises - 20 Supermans - 20 Finger Planks - 1 minute Pistol Squats - 5 per side Wrist curls - can of soup - 20 per side
Gallon of water is 8.25 lbs. Refill a couple AZ tea jugs (or similar, i like these because they are sturdy plastic with a good handle). Now you have a couple light dumbbells for shoulder and arm work, squats, 1-leg deadlifts; you get the idea.
You can sling a couple, or a few, together for one heavier weight for rows, bicep curls; again lots of possibilities.
If you have one of those blue aquatainers, that 30-40 lbs, depending on which one you have. This is good for dead lifts and squats as well. Kettle bell type stuff; just watch your form since the weight moves around and isn't uniform like a kettle bell.
Pushups, obviously, but those get boring with the same plane to work from. If you have a good size hard-cooler, that will be sturdy enough to get you some different elevation for decline push-ups or even step ups if you have one of the expensive ones (maybe Yetis are worth the money?). If its long enough to support your frame, you have a makeshift bench for butterflys, bench press, pullovers, etc.
Alternatively, you can order a medicine ball of amazon for 30 bucks. Thousands of exercise routines can be found on the interwebz. I like the 12 for all around use for someone in decent rock climbing shape already, but ymmv. Inflatable exercise balls are excellent inexpensive options that really allow you to vary your workouts as well. If you are into going the online procurement route for your needs, you could order a couple of those Metolius rock ring contraptions and throw those babies over any large tree branch, soccer goal, whatever you find in the wild. I'm considering this myself.
A friend of mine rigged a hangboard to one of those perfect pullup doorjam things and its pretty neat.
If you don't have any experience with yoga, I wouldn't suggest you just start doing it now in earnest, but there are definitely some very good and simple poses that will help build some core strength and flexibility; you will often find them described in Climbing magazine or Rock and Ice, as well as various interwebz resources. Some of the more difficult and strength focused poses could leave you injured if you do them wrong so keep it simple.
More important than the actual equipment you can muster, is to take the time to find some exercises that you like and hit the areas you want to hit over the course of the first week before settling on a routine; don't focus so much on the pump effect at first. You want to dial your form with some of these modified exercises, establish the timing of your routines and circuits, and you should try and have some fun with it. The bright side of this will be that you will develop a way to stay in shape when you can't climb or follow your normal gym routine (traveling, finger injuries, bad weather, quarantines, whatever) and build some improvisational skills that can improve your normal gym routine.
You are going to lose some finger and forearm strength, without a doubt. Accept that. But it will return quickly once we can get back out on the sending rocks once again. The key is to maintain some fitness so you aren't completely off-the-couch.
Resources are out there, and I'm sure there are some #vanlife folks that have even more ideas. Good Luck out there my friends.
Cesar Cardenas wrote: Let me know how you feel after doing it for a week! I'll be modifying my workout too, now that I'm expecting this to be more of a longer term situation (Longer than 3 weeks)
Just finished. Woo! This is a lot of shoulders and abs. Might switch the order on some stuff to better separate exercises that target the same muscles to allow for giving full effort on each thing. Doing higher reps in place of heavier weights (bottle of wine was the heaviest I used, for both shoulder presses and wrist curls) seems like a decent way to tire out the muscles and hopefully keep some of that endurance up.
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