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Core training, helpful or just another useless fad?
Mark E Dixon wrote: Yup, my opinion was that I will now heavily question all of their advice. That seemed like the most useless addition to recovery time with the least cross over to strength needed for climbing of just about any core exercise I've seen. I can't recall a time my abs made a concentric contraction while climbing..... |
Mark E Dixon wrote: Just a got a chance to watch this at home, and I'm a little disappointed. Fairly generic stuff with too much emphasis on the anterior side. But it is Tom Randall, so maybe he actually thinks most climbers can benefit from these? After all, not everyone can bust out a 5-second front lever any time they want. |
Vaughn wrote: In my opinion, this line of reasoning is why climbers focus so much on the front lever. I know I did for years. On the surface, if you just look at the body position it's pretty logical to conclude that a front lever is like climbing roof, so we should focus on the front lever. But when do you climb a roof with your feet just stick straight out in the thin air? Never. You might get into a front lever position if you cut loose and have to stab your feet on a far away hold, but as soon as you get your feet on, if you're any good at climbing overhangs you'll be trying hard to dig your toes into any little edges and incuts and actively pull with your feet. To me it feels like I'm engaging completely different muscles to do this compare to doing a front lever. The goal is really not to cut loose unless you have to. An interesting data point: due to the high wind last weekend, I went bouldering for the first time in years. Since I tend to get scared when I'm more than 6 feet off the ground, I mostly picked lowball overhangs so close to the ground you need to dig a hole just to get to the start. If I cut my feet on any of these problems, I might as well just stand up and try again, so all day I was trying my hardest to maintain body tension and keep my feet on. The next day my abs were fine, but my lower back muscles were really sore. This tells me that I was using my posterior muscles far more than my anterior. |
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I'm not a great climber by any means, but I have found that body weight exercises have helped me significantly. I am rather short - 5 ft 3in - so having that extra bit of core strength helps immensely. I've been working on this set of progressions with a few modifications (I do pull-ups and chin-ups and I'm working on dragon flags) http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/exercise-progressions_12.html. It isn't necessarily climbing specific though. I also include yoga and kettlebell routines. |
aikibujin wrote: not to pick on you, but if you train your anterior core muscles you gotta train your posterior core muscles too. Having a difference in fitness isn't all that great. If you can a plank for one minute, you should be able to do a reverse plank for one minute, too. Differences in fitness is what can cause things like back pain. I'm not sure what you were experiencing, but sore back muscles is an interesting phenomena I don't feel myself personally all that much. A sore lower back, yes, but not because of muscle fatigue. Perhaps a good experiment for you: a reverse table pose, how long can you hold it, when compared to say, a plank? That position, I think, is pretty similar to one you would get to, if climbing a very overhanging route, where you're actively using your posterior to brace yourself straight, and not to sag. I think core work is essential (I'm a tall, and heavy guy) - I get critiqued by my buds at the gym for sagging away from the wall all the time. That's me not engaging my core, no matter how strong I think it is - I sometimes fail to use it. The exercise that helps a lot with that, is just having my bud put his hand besides my back to make me remember to not sag off. This doesn't have to be a very steep route. Say I'm on a vertical boulder problem, and I need to grab a sloper. If you're not engaging your core, you'll just slide off that mofo. Engaging your scapula also helps with all this - seems like the core gets engaged as well. Yoga helps - all that shit. Core strength isn't necessarily about getting part of your body to move, it's to resist forces that are trying to screw up the connection between your upper and lower body. That's why so many core exercises are static (like the plank). The whole idea is to keep your form from crumbling. How are you going to push off from your feet when your core is not tight? As to, "do you need to do core exercises outside of climbing?" That's a pretty silly question. Training to avoid injury is a big reason. There's isolating a weakness as another. I feel that core training helps me understand the relationship of what my muscles do, and how to use them - which as I mentioned, helps me engage them when on the wall. The individual will have to answer that question herself. |
Long Ranger wrote: Yeah Justin, why are you picking on me, especially since we pretty much agree? I've been making the point that climbers focus too much on the anterior core and neglected the posterior core. Maybe not in these exact words, but that has been my stance. Look at the Lattice core training, and the link posted directly up, they are all heavy on the anterior core exercises. Do I have an imbalance? For sure, I've been doing front levers for 10 years, and only started working back levers 2 years ago. I can't do the reverse table top due to shoulder mobility issues, but I can hold a front lever for about 10 seconds, a back lever for only 2-3 seconds tops. |
Vaughn wrote: They come from shearing just one can of tuna for lunch. |
Nick Drake wrote: Well, this is nonsense. Apparently you do not use your abs much at all then..... I agree, however, that crunches seem questionably useful for most climbing activities. |
Aerili wrote: I think you either missed the word CONCENTRIC in my post ;) by the second part there we agree on the concept. My Abs make isometric contractions from the second I step on the wall. I’ve found dragon flags have great carry over to holding tension on steep ground.
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I didn't miss it. There is absolutely no way that climbing never involves concentric contractions. You don't have to be doing crunches for this to occur. Certainly there is some isometric work, but there is undoubtedly concentric work happening as well. I wish I could do a dragon flag.... |
aikibujin wrote: Agree we're agreeing, I was just using your example of a hurt lower back, thinking that, "hmm, this person isn't weak, this person is imbalanced". I don't... quite know what the ratio between front level and back lever is that would be deemed, "balanced", but I would shoot for something in the realm of 75% of one being your time for the other if I would wildly guess. Regarding concentric core exercises - yeah, there are some, but I think the fallacy is to train your core like you would your back (lats) or bicep or shoulder - not many people do this - ie: add weights to their exercises to increase resistance. Even the crunches in the video is done for time, not sets. The time is just set @ 30 seconds, so the dude that's all ripped needs to add weight to make those 30 seconds useful. But - Weight and # of sets is just one variable/dimension to work on in all training. Another is range of motion, right? Next time someone asks if squats are good for climbing, and there's the argument that happens in the replies, think about how getting a maximum range of motion from a squat movement (forgetting that there's weight involved perhaps, at all). Now you have a squat exercise that makes sense to train as a tool to better your climbing. ' Lots of this has come into the front of my thoughts, as I have a nagging finger injury, and I think, "Can't climb hard (relatively), what can I do?". Certainly work on my mobility, and core. But still, climbing is a skill-based thing, so even if my mobility is better, and my core is stronger, you have to learn how to use it while climbing - I think that's where people who go, "I can do all this crazy core exercises, but it doesn't help my climbing" stumble. It's not like, an automatic transfer of strength, if you don't got the skill to use it. |
Long Ranger wrote: Oh I didn't have a hurt back in my bouldering example, that was more of a DOMS, which told me that I was engaging my lower back muscle a lot more than my abs when I was climbing overhanging boulder problems. However, before I started training for the back lever, I did sometimes experience lower back pain, probably due to imbalance in my anterior and posterior side of the core. Ever since I started doing back lever progressions, I've rarely experienced lower back pain now. |
Aerili wrote: I should clarify, reboot had a great point up thread about inverted offwidths, a very specific movement. The fundamental position of most any face climbing and most crack types starts with getting the spine in a neutral and stable position. It’s from there that you’re able to connect extremities to drive force. For those times pulling a roof where I have to curl in for a hole to avoid cutting feet the concentric strength just isn’t an issue or limiter for a move. When I did loads of crunches it didn’t seem to help my climbing in any way. Switched out to doing strengthening moves with a stable neutral spine and I saw a drastic difference. Of course that’s my body and my experience, others might not have the same and everyone is starting from a different place. the dragon flags took over a year for me to finally get one rep positive. Doing strength sessions at least once every 7-10 days during training cutting back to every 14 days in season was what did it |
aikibujin wrote: Actually, after posting that a few months ago I did some more research and thinking (hence the bump to this thread) and sort of concluded that you are correct. Back levers may indeed also apply to climbing. You won't find me doing them because they are hell on my shoulders but I am doing the inverted rows as recommended in the Mark Anderson post I linked. |
Nick Drake wrote: I understand/understood what you mean. I'm just making the point that concentric abdominal action doesn't happen just during trunk flexion, a la crunches. It occurs during twisting motions (obviously frequent in climbing), lateral bending (also frequent), and it occurs when just drawing in statically to stabilize your spine (the transverse abdominis must concentrically contract to do this). Also, the spine is rarely in a true neutral position during most climbing moves. It may not always be dramatically flexed, extended, or rotated, but it's not truly neutral. First imagine keeping a neutral spine while lifting an object. Climbing is rarely that aligned in the spine. Climbing actually demands spinal movement (under control). Being parallel to a rock face doesn't equate to a neutral spine. It takes a lot of concentration to maintain a neutral spine. No one is ever thinking about their spinal alignment when they're climbing.....(except maybe those who have specific problems and have to avoid certain positions, but that is not the same argument). While we might think about and work to control what our core is doing on hard moves that require good central stability, we are not thinking about whether our vertebrae are lined up in an S-shaped curve (which is the definition of neutral spine). A stable spine does not require being in a neutral position. You can stabilize in many positions. Cirque people prove this all the time! :) Anyhow, pedantics aside, I definitely agree that doing core work which co-contracts muscles on all sides of the spine appear to be beneficial for climbing and is a more logically limiting strength during real moves. Definitely more so than crunches. Have never done a crunch in my life as a means for climbing.
There are also other methods for working the posterior chain which are safe for shoulders. Standard things like bridging exercises and deadlifts. |
Vaughn wrote: Dammit, you should've mentioned that when you bumped this post. That would've saved me tons of time banging angrily on my keyboard and yelling at the monitor... I mean, calmly typing up a well thought out response. I've linked Mark's article multiple times myself, and I do all the exercises on his list, except the front lever. I don't need to get any stronger on the front lever. |
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Well if you pull really hard and FART. is because your abs contracted. |
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I think it's pretty evident that core strength is important for climbing, especially overhanging climbing. The question for me is: how much core strength is "strong enough", where you could more wisely spend your time doing more specific climbing training? For example, pull-up strength has obvious applicability to climbing. But at a certain point (say, 10-15 or so pull-ups), you probably have enough pull-up strength and would be better off climbing or doing climbing specific exercise. Is there some sort of baseline that would similarly apply to core strength? Maybe like if you can hold a front lever for x seconds or do x reps of dragon flags, your core is strong enough and you should focus on other aspects of climbing training. |
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