Training for Climbing, 2nd: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Performance (How To Climb Series)

while resting between climbs and days of climbing. As a result, you will perform better on the rocks today, tomorrow, and on all your future outings. Similarly, more rapid recovery between training sessions can translate into more long-term strength gains, since you can work out more often while still getting adequate rest and without risk of overtraining.
    While many of today’s enthusiastic climbers are keen on staying current on the latest climbing and training techniques, surprisingly few individuals are aware of the numerous strategies for accelerating recovery. Recovery from exercise has been the subject of dozens of recent research studies, and any serious climber would be wise to heed the findings of these sports scientists. On the pages that follow, I will present the leading-edge recovery strategies used in these studies, as well as provide instruction on specific techniques that will help you slow fatigue and speed recovery while on the rock.
    Clearly, recovery ability is a function of several factors, including age, sex, and level of conditioning. Regardless of these factors, however, I guarantee that you can recover more quickly by playing a proactive role in the recovery process—instead of just letting it happen, as many climbers do. By placing the same importance on optimal recovery as you do on training optimally, you will enhance your training response as well as your overall climbing performance!

The Basics of Fatigue and Recovery
     
    Proactively managing fatigue and taking the steps to accelerate recovery require an understanding of the basic physiological processes involved in energy production, fatigue, and recovery. We’ll begin our primer on this subject with a look at what causes fatigue, and then look at three recovery time frames.

Causes of Fatigue
     
    Several factors contribute to the fatigue you experience while training or climbing. These factors include the depletion of muscle fuels, the accumulation of metabolic by-products, low blood glucose, muscular cramps and microtraumas, and finally central fatigue.
DEPLETION OF ATP-CP
     
    Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and creatine phosphate (CP) are energy-rich phosphate compounds stored within the muscle cells in small amounts. Brief, maximum-intensity activities (such as a short, vicious boulder problem, a one-arm pull-up, or a 100-meter sprint) are fueled by ATP and CP; the supply of these fuels, however, limits this action to between five and fifteen seconds.
    This limitation on maximum energy output explains why it’s next to impossible to perform Double Dyno campus training for more than fifteen seconds, or why you have less than fifteen seconds to pull a maximal move (for you) on a route before your muscles give out. Continued exercise beyond this time threshold is only possible by lowering the intensity of the activity, so that the lactic acid energy system can contribute to energy production.
    Fortunately, ATP is continually synthesized within the muscles (by little ATP factories called mitochondria), and ATP stores become fully replenished in just three to five minutes of complete rest (Bloomfield 1994).
ACCUMULATION OF METABOLIC BY-PRODUCTS
     
    Sustained moderately high-intensity activity lasting between fifteen seconds and three minutes is fueled primary by anaerobic metabolism of glycogen fuel (see figure 5.4). Unfortunately, metabolic by-products of this energy production—chiefly, lactic acid—result in muscular discomfort and, eventually, muscular failure. How long you can exercise during periods of rising lactic acid concentration depends on your lactate threshold—that is, how high in intensity can you exercise before blood lactate levels grow greater than your body’s ability to metabolize it.
    Anaerobic endurance training will increase your tolerance to lactic acid as well as elevate your anaerobic threshold. Furthermore, anything you do to enhance blood flow through the working muscles will help disperse lactic acid to your liver and non-working muscles, where it’s converted back to glucose. Continued high-intensity exercise (with no rest), however, will cause lactic acid levels to skyrocket and muscular failure to occur in less than three minutes. This explains why the “pump clock” runs out in less than three minutes on long, near-maximum (for you) crux sequences. You must get to a rest in less than three minutes or you’ll end up taking a lactic acid bath!
    During rest periods, the clearance time of