+* [Climbing](/p/climbing)
* [Movies](/p/movies)
* [Works in progress](/p/works-in-progress)
--- /dev/null
+# Prehab/Rehab
+It's worth noting that the distinction between training and prehab/rehab is
+somewhat arbitrary. While the primary motivation for my exploration in these
+areas has been injury rehabilitation and prevention, it's pretty clear that
+strengthening these muscles does contribute to climbing in many cases.
+
+* [Elbow Tendinosis](elbow-tendinosis)
+* [Shoulder Prehab](shoulder-prehab)
+
+# Training
+* [Flexibility](flexibility)
+* [Hangboarding](hangboarding)
+* [Rings](gymnastics-rings)
+* [Concepts from weight lifting](concepts-from-weight-lifting)
+
+# Tactics
+* [Projecting](projecting)
+
+# Other
+[DOMS](delayed-onset-muscle-soreness)
--- /dev/null
+Before I got into climbing, I used to lift weights, and I've carried over some
+concepts from that experience into my climbing training. I'll attempt to summarize
+some of that here.
+
+Lets start by defining some basic terms relevant to climbing:
+
+**power** The maximum force you can exert (how quickly can you do work).
+
+**strength** The ability to exert force.
+
+**endurance** The ability to continue to exert force.
+
+**power endurance** The ability to continue to exert maximum force.
+
+**isometric strength** The ability to exert force while not contracting or
+lengthening a muscle.
+
+**contact strength** The ability to begin exerting isometric force quickly.
+
+These are basically the things we as climbers want from our muscles.
+
+# The force/duration spectrum
+
+Exertion exists on a spectrum. With the highest levels for force generated,
+it's not possible to continue generating that force for long, so the duration
+of exercises at this level of force is limited. As we decrease the level of
+force generated, we can generate that force for longer periods of time. As a
+very loose rule of thumb, we can guess where we are on the force/duration
+spectrum by how many reps we're doing:
+
+1. 1-2 reps: power.
+2. 3-5 reps: strength.
+3. 6-8 reps: hypertrophy.
+4. 9-20 reps: endurance.
+5. >20 reps: cardio.
+
+However, the number of reps doesn't tell the whole story. There are some
+exercises which are by nature ballistic: in these exercises, the force is
+primarily generated for a brief period during the lift, and while there might
+be some continued force after that, the weight is carried on primarily by
+momentum. We can sometimes contrast these lifts to similar lifts that are slow
+and controlled throughout the movement:
+
+* Deadlift or kettlebell swing: ballistic, good morning: slow and controlled.
+* Pendlay row: ballistic, forward row (bar not touching ground): slow and controlled.
+* Jerk: ballistic, overhead press: slow and controlled.
+* Clean: ballistic, curl: slow and controlled.
+* Box jump: ballistic, squat: slow and controlled.
+
+In the case of the box jump, we literally can't exert force after the initial
+exertion because we're no longer in contact with the ground. In the other
+ballistic motions, it's common to simply drop the weight after completing the
+motion, because attempting to control the weight on its way down would
+practically guarantee injury. This is worth reiterating: while people might
+complain about the noise or sound the lunk alarm at certain gyms, with many
+power lifts, *dropping the weight is the correct form*. It's possible, of course,
+to deadlift and set it down in a slow and controlled manner, and this is a valid
+exercise, but critically, it's a *strength* exercise, not a *power* exercise.
+A slow, controlled motion can build strength, but it simply cannot build the
+ability to exert that strength *all at once*. It also doesn't build the
+coordination necessary to contract large muscle groups in sequence quickly.
+There's some translation between strength and power, but maximal power can only
+be reached by training power directly.
+
+Power exercises are rarely worth doing in sets of more than 5. Coordination
+breaks down and you're risking injury. If you can do more reps of a power
+exercise, it's probably better to do more weight instead.
+
+The next thing that jumps out about this spectrum is *hypertrophy*. What's that?
+Hypertrophy is muscle volume. This is something body builders care about, but
+for climbing, it's actually a *downside*; muscle size is loosely correlated with
+some of the properties we want, but maximal muscles size focuses in on the
+outlier, a muscle which is disproportionately large in relation to the power,
+strength, and endurance it can give us. This size comes with a big downside:
+weight. As such, you'd think climbers wouldn't ever want to work in the 6-8 rep
+range, but it turns out that range can be useful for working power endurance.
+More on that later.
+
+Cardio isn't directly climbing related, but it's not a bad thing. First of all,
+it's healthy. And while it may not directly contribute to climbing, it can
+help avoid fatigue: good cardio means that you may arrive at your climb less
+tired from the approach hike. As long as you're not burning nutrients necessary
+for climbing on your cardio, cardio is mostly a good thing.
+
+All this is to come back to the elephant in the room: strength. Even without
+training power or endurance, strength translates well into power and endurance.
+
+There's some effects to power training which are not achieved by strength
+training, such as building different energy systems and fast twitch muscles,
+but often power is a matter of coordinating the strength that is already there
+so that muscles fire in sequence, rather than building some new property of the
+muscles. Coordination can be trained more quickly than muscle adaptation;
+strong muscles can be made powerful easily.
+
+Likewise, strength translates well to endurance.
+A study I saw (TODO: find that study again) said something like that if you
+are operating at 20% of your max effort, you don't fatigue significantly over
+repetitions; if you're 5 times as strong as you need to be, you don't need
+endurance. And while it's often unrealistic to be 5 times as strong as you need
+to be to perform a climbing move, there's some evidence (TODO: look that up too,
+I think it's from Eric Hörst) which shows that endurance can be trained quickly:
+while strength for a climb might take many training cycles over years, it's
+possible for someone with the required strength to train endurance to near-maximal
+potential with a two week training period before their intended performance
+period.
+
+All this gives us a focus: while we'll spend some time training power and
+endurance, our primary focus is strength: as we near a performance goal,
+we can test and fill in gaps in our power and endurance as needed if we
+have the requisite strength.
--- /dev/null
+Dr. Julian Sanders wrote [Dodgy Elbows](http://drjuliansaunders.com/dodgy-elbows/)
+and [Dodgy Elbows Revisited](http://drjuliansaunders.com/ask-dr-j-issue-223-dodgy-elbows-revisited/)
+which cover elbow tendinosis in greater detail and scope than I am willing
+or even qualified to do here.
+
+To summarize very briefly, the pain is caused by
+muscles which, while they connect and hurt in the elbow, are actually controlling
+the wrist and hand, so we primarily fix this with exercises of flexion,
+pronation, and supination of the wrist (TODO: add pictures). Extension may
+also cause pain but is primarily a computer RSI injury, not a climbing injury;
+however, working this as training rather than prehab may contribute to climbing.
+
+The program focuses on lengthening the muscle under load, which forces the
+tendon to adapt, while *not* contracting the muscle under load, which forces
+the *muscle* to adapt; the goal is to rebalance the tendon so that the muscle
+is no longer too strong for the tendon.
+
+These exercises can be done twice a day, with 2 sets of 20 reps each.
+
+It's worth noting that strengthening these muscles is a worthwhile pursuit
+as well, but with the goal of building grip strength/stability rather than
+preventing or rehabbing tendinosis.
+
+A final note: in rehabbing my shoulder and then getting back into adding weight to
+pull-ups, I ran into an imbalance which the dodgy elbows program was unable to
+correct, which was causing pain in the inside of my elbow. After a lot of trial
+and error, I finally was able to correct this with skullcrushers, which indicates
+that this was probably caused by weak triceps.
--- /dev/null
+My flexibility training for climbing has primarily focused on two areas: groin
+(side splits) and hamstring.
+
+I've seen really fast gains from *strength-at-range* training, which basically
+attempts to strengthen the muscle at the limit of its range of motion. The
+reasoning I've heard for why this is effective is twofold:
+
+1. Your central nervous system will hold you back from stretching beyond where it
+ feels strong to prevent you from hurting yourself, so *strength* is somewhat
+ surprising limiter on flexibility. I should note that this is effectively
+ hearsay: while I've heard this from a few reputable sources, I'm not aware
+ of any scientific way of proving this.
+2. It doesn't matter for your climbing if you're able to get your foot into a
+ certain position if you're then unable to pull from that position. This is
+ analogous to problems with out-of-context finger strength, where you
+ may be able to grip a hold but not move off it, because the arm system as a
+ whole is unable to maintain strength while changing position.
+
+Because strength at range exercises stress the muscle as it lengthens, they are
+particularly likely to cause delayed onset muscle soreness. You can see
+[DOMS](delayed-onset-muscle-soreness) for more information, but the takeaway is
+to start with low weights, and do a light version of the workout a day or two
+after; the chemical reactions which cause DOMS also have a preventive effect
+which treats existing DOMS and prevent further DOMS.
+
+# Side Splits
+A key here for me has been understanding a particular gotcha of the side splits.
+There's a bony protrusion on the outside of the femur, and when toes are forward
+and pelvis vertical, splitting the legs causes this bony protrusion on the femur
+to run into the pelvis long before you reach the full range of motion of the
+muscles. Before I knew this I ran up against this for a while, seeing no progress
+in my side split and even causing a bit of pain which would cause me to stop
+stretching at times.
+
+The solution to this is to bring the pelvis into a right angle with the femur,
+which puts the bony protrusion behind the femur. There are two ways to do this:
+
+1. Point the toes and knees out instead of forward. It's really the knees that
+ are connected to the femur, but the knee is not a ball joint so if you don't
+ align the knee with the foot you're going to have problems.
+2. You can also tilt the top of the pelvis forward. Note that this doesn't
+ necessarily entail tilting the entire upper body forward.
+
+There are three exercises which I use:
+
+1. **Butterfly** which hits the muscles of the groin which are most active
+ when the knee is bent (TODO: get the names of the muscles and maybe some
+ pictures?). With your butt against a wall, place dumbbells (starting at
+ around 10lbs or 5kg) on your knees in butterfly position. Extend to your
+ range for 3 seconds relaxed, then flex the muscle, bringing the weight
+ up just a tiny bit, for 3 seconds. Do this for 2 sets of 20 reps each.
+
+ Progressing this exercise is a bit tough: raising the weight is easy but
+ I've quickly gotten to the point that my knees are resting on the ground
+ while not fully extended. Elevating by sitting on a 45lb barbell plate
+ has allowed my to drop my knees further, but now my shins are running into
+ the plate and I'm haven't found a good narrower surface to sit on. I'm
+ not too worried about it at the moment because I can still progress
+ strength without progressing range (higher dumbbell weights), and this isn't
+ the position which is most relevant to climbing.
+
+2. **Wide squats** This hits all the muscles of the groin in a position which
+ is somewhat relevant to climbing. You can "heel-toe" your feet out to get
+ a rough measure of width, then holding a dumbbell (starting at 10lbs or 5kg)
+ squat down as far as you can, remembering to tilt the pelvis to avoid the
+ femur colliding with the pelvis. When your femurs are horizontal, you can
+ go wider. Hold for 3 seconds at the bottom of each squat, and do 2 sets of
+ 20 reps each.
+
+3. **Unsupported splits** Hits the muscles of the groin which are active with
+ straight knee. With the body upright-ish, spread the legs straight to a
+ position with a light stretch: you can spread the toes to avoid the
+ femurs colliding with the pelvis, but for balance purposes it may be
+ beneficial to tilt the pelvis forward a bit and keep the toes pointed partly
+ forward. Then, importantly, don't support your hips with your arms: keep
+ your hands away from your hips, legs, and lower torso. Instead, support
+ your weight with the muscles of the groin.
+
+ You should aim for a width where you can hold the position for about 45
+ seconds: if you're able to hold it for 60 seconds, you can go wider,
+ if you're only able to hold for less than 30 seconds, you should ease off
+ a bit. Do this twice.
+
+ Tracking progress isn't strictly necessary unless you believe you are
+ hitting a plateau and want to verify this. You can track progress by
+ taking photos and measuring angles, or measuring foot width on the ground
+ with tape. However, if you just go to the end of your range and hold there,
+ you'll probably find holding this challenging.
+
+ It's also not necessary to add weight to this, because as your feet
+ go wider, your muscles are at a greater biomechanical disadvantage due to
+ the lever physics. It's quite common for an increase in range to greatly
+ decrease how long you can hold the position, as the strength required
+ increases greatly with even a small increase in range.
+
+# Hamstring
+A peculiarity of the hamstring is that it's difficult to isolate since it works
+in conjunction with the entire posterior chain. The glutes and calf can loosen
+as you stretch the hamstring, causing you to have to increase the intensity
+of the stretch midway through, so it's beneficial to stretch these muscles before
+you stretch the hamstring. It may also be beneficial to stretch the distal hip
+flexors (pigeon pose) and/or the groin for similar reasons.
+
+I've been doing offset-leg good mornings to work these, however I'm not as happy
+with the results. I've experimented with good mornings on one leg with the other
+ankle tucked above the knee; these seem only slightly more effective and have balance
+issues. I'd like to experiment with nordic leg curls but these require a barbell.
+
+# Opposing muscles
+It's worth noting that while the groin and the hamstring do the lengthening and
+then pulling at that range, the opposing muscles (distal hip flexors and psoas,
+respectively) have to be strong enough to get the leg into position. To work
+these I occaasionally do fire hydrants and standing forward leg lifts.
--- /dev/null
+# Density hangs
+Density hangs are primarily a beginner routine. Beginners can start on a large hold,
+one they can hold comfortably (but not a jug), and hang as long as they can.
+Once you can hang for 60 seconds, you can progress to a smaller hold.
+
+# Effort pulls
+Using one hand on a 20mm edge, pull down for 10 seconds. Using one hand will
+preclude the possibility of lifting off the ground for most people, but
+if you can lift your body in this way, add weight until that's no longer
+possible. The idea is to let your body and feel regulate effort. This is good
+for rehab and/or prehab of finger injuries, and can be done more frequently
+than other routines.
+
+# Repeaters
+Repeaters are focused on endurance by doing multiple hangs in quick succession.
+Using a 7-on, 3-off timing for 7 reps is common.
+
+I don't like adding weight to repeaters, for a few reasons:
+
+1. With density hangs or max hangs, if you mess up a hang, you can just
+ rest a bit and try for time or weight again. However, because timing
+ is more important for repeaters, this doesn't work for repeaters.
+ Faffing about with adding weights increases the chances of having some
+ swaying, mis-timing, or just bad setup that messes up a hang.
+2. Hanging on different holds has benefits for repeaters because volume
+ is high for repeaters. This high volume lends itself to repetitive
+ stress injuries, so varying the holds helps with this.
+
+To keep things simple, I find it easiest to follow a guided routine:
+the Beastmaker app works well for this. It's not perfect, but none of the
+problems really make it hard to use.
+
+I prefer to do repeaters after a session: this can make my measurment of
+progress less accurate, but it doesn't detract from the endurance benefits.
+
+# Max hangs
+Max hangs simply hanging with as much added weight as possible, to 3-5
+hangs, each 5-10 seconds long. Longer rests are ideal here: 5 minutes
+is a very reasonable minimum. A 20mm edge is fairly standard.
+
+I primarily train half crimp and three finger drag. Half crimp translates
+well to full crimp and avoids some of the injury potential of full crimp.
+But half crimp translates poorly to three finger drag for me.
+
+I find it's not a bad idea to do these before a climbing session. It's
+unusual for a climbing session to work my hands as much as the max hangs,
+so it doesn't often interfere with my climbing, and usually leaves me
+well-warmed up. I can hangboard after max climbing if the max climbing
+was on slopers, since these barely work my fingers.
+
+I don't like training primarily on edges less than 20mm, because the hangs
+become more condition dependent. It's worth training smaller edges occasionally
+to ensure that the strength gained from heavier hangs on larger holds does
+translate to the smaller holds, but in general I find that this doesn't have
+to be done often for the strength to translate.
+
+# Injury potential
+What follows is a rant.
+
+There's no evidence whatsoever that hangboarding has a higher potential
+for injury than climbing itself. Hangboarding is far more controlled than climbing.
+
+Yes, you can hangboard with poor form and get injured: it's much easier to climb
+with poor form and get injured because climbing form is far more complex and
+hard to assess, and involves a lot more ballistic and harder-to-control movements.
+
+Yes, you can hangboard too much or too hard and get injured: it's much
+easier to climb too much or too hard and get injured because you can't easily
+put numbers on how hard you're climbing (no, grades don't help with this).
+
+There's a strong argument that beginners shouldn't hangboard, but that has
+nothing to do with injury. The fact is that beginners will likely see the
+fastest gains in climbing ability from climbing, and learning climbing
+movement.
+
+However, there are a lot of cases where climbing isn't an option, and hangboarding
+is an option. I have a hangboard in my home: I can hangboard at home but
+I can't climb at home. Similarly, early in my climbing career, I injured my
+ankle, and was unable to climb, but I was able to hangboard. In such situations,
+hangboarding may make it possible to continue to progress your climbing
+when it's not actually possible to climb.
+
+And further, the adaptations caused by static loads such as hangboarding actually
+*prevent* injury. Hangboarding is literally one of the most effective ways to
+rehabilitate an injured finger.
+
+I get hate for this opinion, and invariably that hatemail is a litany
+of anecdotes which don't have any information about what form the people were
+hangboarding with, how often, or at what intensity, which just goes to show
+that people didn't read what is written above. Literally the entire point of
+hangboarding is that you can measure it to ensure progress and avoid injurty, so
+if you aren't measuring it, then yes, you should not be hangboarding.
+
+There's one special case of the above, which is the person who *did* measure
+and then ignored the measurements, went too hard, and got injured. This should
+not be seen as a refutation of the idea that the entire point of hangboarding
+is that you can measure it to ensure progress *and avoid injury*. If you've
+done nothing to avoid the avoidable, that doesn't change the fact that it was
+avoidable.
+
+End of rant.
--- /dev/null
+Credit goes to Louis Parkinson in
+[this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo_7o5SOEOQ) for this advice
+(paraphrased to my understanding):
+
+When projecting, don't treat attempts as if they are worthless, because they
+aren't. They have a cost. They cost skin, energy, time, motivation, and
+potentially the patience of spotters/belayers, and all of these are in limited
+supply. So recognize the value of each attempt and spend them wisely: *only*
+make quality attempts. Toward that end, two rules:
+
+1. Exactly 5 attempts. Fewer than that, and you're maybe giving up too soon,
+but more than that, and you're achieving diminishing returns.
+2. Don't just jump back on after a failed attempt. Don't get back on until you
+can answer the questions a) What did I do which caused me to fail? And b) what
+will I do this time instead?
+
+A few notes:
+* "Attempts" is a bit ambiguous. If it's redpoint attempts on a long trad
+pitch, you probably have fewer than 5 quality attempts in a session. If it's
+working out beta for a short sequence and you have 6 beta ideas, it probably
+makes sense to try all 6 betas rather than rigidly stopping at 5. Use your
+brain, observe yourself, and be aware of the point where the return-on-investment
+for an attempt begins to decrease. I think the point of the number 5 is to
+bring to light that this number is significantly lower than is intuitive to
+most people.
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