New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #33
|
Emil Briggs wrote: Emil, after a few years of doing an all-round routine, I switched to the split type routine that you described. 3 sets. That's what I did for many years. For perspective, I'm female, and I think I'm a hard-gainer. But when I started climbing a lot (which included a lot of hiking), I thought that I wasn't getting enough rest between the two activities. I also thought that the muscular load involved in climbing would substitute for the training I got from weightlifting. I was climbing outdoors, doing 2-5 hours of climbing, carrying a heavy pack down a long trail. It would take me 2-3 days to fully recover. And then it was time for another climb. It could be that I wasn't eating enough to recover fully (I have a poor appetite). Years later, I think that I shouldn't have stopped lifting for the few years that I did, and I should have been eating more (and more protein). Now I keep lifting in my routine, and just try not to be too strict about it. If I go climbing 3 days in a row, then lifting is probably not going to happen that week, which is okay. And I lift more frequently during the winter. Carl, Lori is talking about weightlifting for general health in elderlyville, I believe. The longevity people say that lifting is very important for aging well and healthily. I think the general idea is that when you lift, your balance improves, which means you're less likely to fall over and die . I don't know if they studied people who were athletic in other ways. Climbing seems like a very good all around activity to keep you fit. Slab climbing isn't so good for building muscle, I'd say. Possibly, weightlifting causes your body to produce more HGH which in theory should help you build muscle or avoid losing as much of it (?). |
|
dragons wrote: For sure gains are hard for some people while others seem to just look at a weight and put on muscle. But it gets harder for everyone with age and female baseline is lower than male. It sounds like you're on the right track now and I don't think short breaks hurt as long as you have good long term consistency. I'm 63 now and started serious weight training when I was 13. I've never taken more than a few weeks break and I think it's paid off. Sure I'm weaker than my younger self but doing much better than my age group peers. I do worry about injuries though. I have some other friends in their 60s and 70s who were doing really well but suffered an injury that required a long layoff and were never able to get back to where they were. So I try really hard not to hurt myself! Lot's of warmup for lifting (e.g. recent bench workout 45x12,65x12,95x10,135x10,155x8). Only the last two sets required much effort but the first ones are just as important IMO. Same thing with climbing, a long warmup before trying hard. (Can be tough outside sometimes though). |
|
Lori Milas wrote: It's actually quite hard for most people to put on a lot of muscle and for people in our age range even harder. So lifting is unlikely to bulk anyone up too much for climbing. Sorry Tony has been having a tough time. I hope things look up for him soon. |
|
Lori Milas wrote:He wrote the book. |
|
It is hard for me to believe that a prudent and intelligently applied program of strength training ( pursued independently of one's target activity) would be "useless" in almost any physical pursuit one would care to cite, climbing included. Especially when the possibility of injury is factored in. Tons of verified studies in recent years have definitely proven the protective effect of strength training for older people. The idea that weight training, intelligently applied ,would be more likely to result in injury than health and/or performance improvements is not supported by empirical evidence, for all age groups. Lori, if I'm not mistaken, suffers from diabetes, Strength training could possibly help in that regard by reducing insulin resistance and improving delivery of energy into her muscles. This happens to be one of its health benefits; although this is not guaranteed given the epigenetic variability of individuals. Nevertheless that alone is worth hacking into weight training for a few months to gauge whether there are improvements. When there is an overabundance of focus on the target activity, in this case climbing, there tends to be a narrow appraisal of any sort of supporting activity that could or might be useful--and I get that. |
|
I’m 66 and, for me (no expert on the topic), I just feel so much better when I have a long period of hitting the weights in the gym 2-3 times a week. I typically do high reps and low weight, 2-4 sets per exercise, to work arms, shoulders, and core… and maybe a leg day now and then. Sort of like what was called circuit training, maybe? I’m certainly not lifting anything that will give me a hernia. I usually do a good 20 minutes of stretching before as well. Just trying to keep old age at bay as long as possible… like all of us on this thread! |
|
dragons wrote: I've been lifting almost forever, and I like that it keeps me able to functionally lift heavy things (carry groceries, heavy boxes etc.). I don't think my level of climbing keeps me in shape for other life activities, and I do think that weightlifting helps with that. You nailed it, dragons! Thank you for this, you gave it the right words. I no longer think that rock climbing is enough. I hope that the addition of lifting will round out my program. I hate to think this is 'age', but maybe it is. C Miller said it is an easy hike from the top of Saddle Rock to the bottom. It was not easy for me to hike/scramble 400-500 feet down a hillside. My balance was challenged, my quad strength not the best. It's also not easy for me to lift heavy objects anymore nor pull down something heavy. I think there is room for weight lifting, in some form, to help with all of this. And I am totally wanting that HGH hit. It may be enough to keep me from having to inject it (by prescription from my Endo) Emil: can you please explain your recent bench workout 45x12,65x12,95x10,135x10,155x8 ? I will have to start keeping track of my own. What do the numbers represent? Donald Thompson wrote: It is hard for me to believe that a prudent and intelligently applied program of strength training ( pursued independently of one's target activity) would be "useless" in almost any physical pursuit one would care to cite, climbing included. Especially when the possibility of injury is factored in. Agreed, And yes, I do know that strength training, as opposed to cardio, has a profound effect on my blood sugar. On those days when I REALLY work hard, (long climbing day) I can l almost turn off my insulin pump for 12-24 hours. These great conversations on this thread are SO helpful. Reading lots of books doesn't come close. This community, it feels like, is generously sharing the wisdom and experience needed to get us through the entire climbing journey. I just never knew that would also include our own frailties as we age and of those we care for. It seems we discuss it all here. |
|
Lori Milas wrote: What's left of it is available for picking. I was a little over six feet tall and about 150 lbs when I enrolled in a mandatory intro to gymnastics class at Ga Tech fall of 1954. Almost immediately I saw the connection between gymnastics and climbing, including the use of chalk. At the time climbing was seen as a progression of walking, hiking, scrambling, roped climbing, and technical climbing. I began to see climbing as an extension of gymnastics and practiced on the rope climb for speed and the still rings, not necessarily as training for climbing, but for the satisfaction of learning the moves and polishing them to the point of experiencing flow. Within two years I was up to 175 lbs. and felt a lot better about myself. My icons later on, if I had any, were body weight athletes like Jasper Benincasa and Eugen Sandow. Not climbers. I enjoyed working on feats of strength in which the body is supported by the arms and fingers. Only occasionally a few dumbbell curls. I rarely did exercises to prepare for a specific climb or boulder problem. However, at Glasgow AFB around 1960 I would attempt to pull up on small screws holding a wood panel to the wall of the gym as focused training for my trips to the SD Needles. All of this happened so long ago it's ancient history and hardly worth mentioning in modern times. |
|
fossil wrote: Weight training with proper technique/warmup/loads is very unlikely to cause injuries and enables weaker people to progress into some of the things Bachar recommends. Consider pullups. I do them as part of my weight training and I can still bang out a bunch pretty easily. But a lot of older individuals have a hard time doing just 1 or 2. If they use a lat pulldown machine they can get the same motion but with a reduced load that they can handle. Same with dips which again I do as part of my weight training workout but a lot of seniors can't do even one. Most well equipped gyms will have machines that can take weight off so weaker people can do them. So in a sense Bachar was recommending weight training but mostly using bodyweight. EDIT: Ran into the post limit so editing and adding my response to Lori It's the number of repetitions in each set and the weight I used. My typical push workout these days starts with some light cardio for a few minutes and some dynamic motion without weight to get limbered up. Then I start bench pressing. The first set is just the bar which is 45 pounds and I do 12 repetitions. Then active rest 4 minutes (move around, swing arms etc) then increase the weight to 65 pounds and do another set of 12. Then 95x10, 135x10 and 155x8. So 5 total sets but the only ones that stress me are the last two and really the last one is the only one that I go close to failure. I also do 2 sets of weighted dips and 2 sets of dumbbell shoulder press. There is a lot of crossover on these with bench press so I don't do a bunch of warmup sets for them and just get right to business. This was my most recent workout but I vary things throughout the year. Sometimes I'll go heavier on my final set in the 3-6 rep range and sometimes higher. And of course adjustments depending on how much I'm climbing so if I go on a week long climbing trip I might now lift at all that week. One thing to keep in mind is that I have a background in D1 athletics and a really long training history. For someone over 60 or 70 just starting out a different program might make more sense. I know there are books focused on older folks who are just beginning and some trainers who specialize in that as well. |
|
fossil wrote: Maybe the better description would be weight training. I've been doing it since I started climbing in 1980, and I've never done weighted squats or bench press. When I first starting lifting at Gold's gym, I was working a full time inside job, there were no climbing gyms, and other nearby outdoor climbing options were limited. I had never been an athlete before I became a climber, and the lifting gym workouts gave me overall greatly improved strength and fitness. I love the way my body feels after a good gym workout, which can include free weights, weight machines and various nifty stands of various configurations where you can do things like back raises and leg lifts. I feel like the regular gym workouts provide cross-training which helps prevent injuries. Erika can probably say more about this. Does all this improve my climbing? I have no idea but I don't care - I would do it even if I stopped climbing. It feels great.
This I specifically disagree with. The first thing PT has you do after knee surgery are lots of leg extensions and leg curls, to strengthen those muscle group to protect the knee from the stresses of exercise. Walking and slab climbing put lots of stress on the knee and these exercises will help protect you. I don't believe that most flat walking and slab climbing, which is a lot of Joshua Tree activity, is sufficient if the goal is all-round fitness. IMO, there are lots of muscle systems which barely get worked in that type of activity, and if that's all you do, you notice it in other types of climbing and other activities. |
|
Lori Milas wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he's doing five sets of bench presses: (1) 45 lbs for 12 repetitions, (2) 65 lbs for 12 reps, etc. with the fifth set 155 lbs for 8 reps. |
|
Brandt Allen wrote: In the past, for me, a warm up set of 12 reps followed by 3 sets in the range of 6 to 8 worked, so it went, for instance (kilos, EZ bar curls), idealistically: Day 1: 20 (kilos) x 10 (reps), 30 (kilos) x 6 (reps), 30 x 6, 30 x 6 Day 2: 20 x 10, 30 x 7, 30 x 6, 30 x 6 Day 3: 20 x 10, 30 x 7, 30 x 7, 30 x 6 Day 4: 20 x 10, 30 x 7, 30 x 7, 30 x 7 Day 5: 20 x 10, 30 x 8, 30 x 7, 30 x 7 Day 6: 20 x 10, 30 x 8, 30 x 8, 30 x 7 Day 7: 20 x 10, 30 x 8, 30 x 8, 30 x 8 Then add weight and start again at 3 x 6 (20 x 10, 35 x 6, 35 x 6, 35 x 6) etc etc. (Of course the 'days' weren't consecutive, and normally it'd be pushing exercises one day, then pulling the next, then pushing. I found working out Mon, Wed, and Fri worked (I was doing army PT sessions every day as well, consisting of anything from swimming, to bayonet assault courses, to 5k runs to basketball). So really doing two workouts a day three days a week and one workout (the army PT session) two days a week. On weekends I'd do household stuff like mowing the lawns and maybe go for a run. I never climbed when I was in the army; started climbing at 50. If we 'went out bush' on exercise (SAM detachment) I'd relish digging gun pits with a pick and shovel. Good exercise.) So weights workouts would end up being Monday biceps, back, legs, Wednesday chest, shoulders, triceps etc. I read everything I could on bodybuilding and always took protein powder. I found some of the routines in the magazines and books just ridiculous, they would kill a gorilla. But if you look at what peeps did back then (fuelled by steroids) there were those like Arnie who worked out twice a day and did a LOT of volume and then Mike Mentzer who did sets of singles. That's a warm up set or sets and then just ONE rep at MAX effort. And both methods worked for each person. Both of course were huge, and not grossly ugly huge like they are now. Frank Zane had probably one of the best bodies at the time, and Sergio Oliva too. |
|
I am fundamentally lazy and just attempting to read the posts of a work out routine makes me tired. |
|
"So in a sense Bachar was recommending weight training but mostly using bodyweight " I met John when he was perhaps 19, when he and Long visited me in Colorado. We discussed auxiliary exercises for climbing. He went on to develop his own approach, including the (later controversial) Bachar Ladder. I advise against that. He showed a real aptitude for dynamics. I had saved this one for him to do the FA. That's his girlfriend at the time. |
|
|
|
"Frank Zane had probably one of the best bodies at the time, and Sergio Oliva too." When I was a teenager my best friend at the time worked out at the old Weider gym in Santa Monica. He was several years older than me and used to talk a lot about the dudes he worked out with at that gym. One was a guy named "Arnold" from Austria who used to let my friend drive his old beat-up truck out to various SoCal locations to pick up supplements and protein mixtures, and sometimes steroids, all pedaled out of garages where some of these sellers had lab equipment to cook up their own bodybuilding products.It's a wonder someone wasn't poisoned. Such was the state of that fledgling industry at the time. I wasn't interested in bodybuilding but I was into nutrition and supplements. One day we drove out to Palm Springs where Frank Zane and his wife ran a little resort for L.A. yuppies who wanted to learn how to get in shape. Zane had developed his own supplement line which we ended up helping him sell . His formulations were actually somewhat ahead of their time. Later on , in the late 70s and 1980s Zane went on to win Mr. Olympia and I think only weighed about 190 lbs -- very light by today's standard . I think he now lives in the San Diego area. He was a good guy when I briefly met him ,and later became a very intelligent and gifted bodybuilder. |
|
John Gill wrote: That no pad bouldering makes my knees ache just looking at it! RE: Bachar Ladders. I messed around with them a long time ago when I was still pretty young and decided against using it for training. For someone over 60 it seems the risk of injury far exceeds the possible benefits. |
|
fossil wrote: I've found that through proper PT recommended lifting/workouts that my knees, elbows and shoulders are doing well and pain free.Three years ago when half of my elbow ligaments completely tore away and no surgeons wanted to even try to fix the mess I didn't think anything over 5.8 would be possible again. 30+ years of carpentry, tiling and plaster work (with a minor in tree cutting/splitting) usually puts folks onto couch warming and maybe walking a mile or two a few times a week. I couldn't even pull start my small chainsaw it was so bad, now I can get the big Husqvarna started and it doesn't have any kind of pressure release it's so old. I do mileage in the gym mostly during winters and rarely spend much time projecting anything hard, similar to you, it really help a ton and I'm somehow getting stronger and occasionally sending things on my first try that would have taken 3 trys 10 years ago. Mileage climbing is tough to do when you see people climbing harder routes that you really want to do, I pretty much have to slap myself into staying on track sometimes. Sometimes I see older folks like us not warming up at all and wonder how they do it, then I don't see them for months and guess they are nursing injuries. A minimal warmup for me is simulating an uphill approach which you probably do every time you climb. Getting the heart rate up and the blood flowing before pushing it on the wall is definitely priceless. |
|
John Gill wrote: John, there is nothing about your career that is ancient history. I hope you know that, although you might be tired of having to tell the story. The thing that gets me is how secluded our little climbing community is, meaning, the stories, adventure, and excellence that are hardly known. As a relative newbie and outsider, I roam through Joshua Tree, continually finding old routes and being utterly astonished “someone climbed this?“. Anyway, The Thimble. Can you share what was your preparation and/or training for this, maybe especially mental? I’m trying to fathom stepping up to a 30 foot edifice with no rope and no pads, that has a rating of 5.12+ … and just sallying up. Had you made plans for this? Was this a huge day? It had to be.
|
|
M M wrote: Likely, pushing themselves beyond their limits is also very common. Knowing your limits. Cliché, but key.
Most of my climbing partners and I warm up on easier climbs. We’ll get 4 sets of double routes to warmup then hit the hard climbs. Maybe 280 feet vertical warmup then another 5-10 35 foot pitches per session. Pacing ourselves to be able to climb that much helps keep us below our injury thresholds. If crimping on warmups, that’s NOT a warmup. If you can easily grab a 10mm edge without crimping, that’s still a warmup. If your thumb is wrapped about your fingers and it’s close to your maximum effort, that’s NOT a warmup. Injury prevention is really key. |