Two Opportunities To Recover For Climbing

In this podcast, we got a little personal and talked briefly about what it was like living in Germany, and recent travels Mercedes did.
Then, we dove into the two best opportunities for recovery, so that you can climb and feel your best. As we know, recovery is an important aspect of rest, but how do we do this so that it's not overwhelming? We hope to answer this in this podcast.
We outline a few ways to easily include recovery and some bonus strategies so that you can recover just as hard as you train for climbing. Topics include the importance of proper movement, auto-regulation, managing stress levels, sleep, and the benefits of protein in the diet.
We are excited to open up enrollment to Modus Performance Training! This is our amazing 8-week training course to help intermediate climbers learn to train and experience a new level of climbing. If you're looking to break through a plateau and want a world class coaching experience, join now with an early bird price! We begin February 26th. www.modusathletica.com/mpt

[@Rockhug]

I have a problem when we say that climbing a skill sport, there is no question that skill is truly important and time on the wall cannot be replace by time in the gym. That said, climbing a physical sport, like most than many sport. Every highlevel climber got a godly level of strength and athleticism when you compare them with athlete from other sport (exception to wrestler, gymnast specialising in strenght discipline, etc.).
You do need to be close to 100% when you go in the gym (which is also true for bodybuilding, ang powerlifting) if you want to have the best gain. You need some base level of strength to do some problem, and you may plateau if you dont have it. Strength isn't hypertrophy, but you need some muscle to build it. At some point, you will need to go in an hypertrophy protocol.
If not, you probably started climbing at a young age and you didn't realize the gain you did make without working on it. Or/And you have good genetic (medium to small frame, so the strength benchmark are not as high)

[@MercedesPollmeier]

thanks for the comment and I can tell you truly care about the sport and performance. I agree with some of what you said as well as disagree. And I hope I am understanding you correctly, but it seems like you are saying that since climbing is a strength sport, we should be training very close to 100%, as well as do some hypertropthy.
Climbing, like all sports, are combined skills. Strength is a skill too, and I also believe it forms the base of many sports. And I would say that powerlifting is one of a few sports that has some of the strongest athletes. BUT this would disqualify the amount of strength many other athletes need for their sports. Even sprinters will show great amounts of strength, because sprinting is based on speed. And the amount of speed an athlete can generate is based on how strong they are. So I don't believe that climbers are in a unique position or absolutely stronger than other athletes. I do believe climbers have some of the strongest absolute pulling strength.
If you know about strength training, there are different phases to train in. For max strength development, athletes will train in the 1-3 rep range, for many sets, often being in the 90-100% intensity. But it is impossible to train like this every session or for long periods of time. For many reasons, but it includes compounding fatigue, as well as nervous system fatigue. Which is why there is an array of different set and rep schemes to train in, to allow the body to adapt and recover. And much of these other schemes are training in the 65-85% intensity range, meaning you have 2-4 reps left in the tank. There are even protocols now that are at much lower intensities done more frequently, in order for connective tissue to build and adapt. You don't have to train to failure to get stronger...
And many of the set and reps schemes do illicit hypertrophy. Even at lower reps, research has seen increases in muscle size. And I didn't say that climbers don't need hypertrophy. They do in the upper body for sure. I just don't believe that climbers should be following a body building program. They should be following a strength program.
When it comes to climbing training (on the wall), I also believe that we should vary up our intensity and not always climb close to failure (finger or forearm failure). We have different energy systems that can't all adapt at once. Going through phases or specific workouts, often focusing on one energy system, will help boost it. For example, endurance. You can't climb to failure if you are trying to build endurance. The muscles don't work that way. Endurance is inherently at a very low intensity. If you climb to failure trying to build endurance, you won't get the results you want, and likely lead to injury because of the amount of volume and intensity you are doing. Not to mention the difficulty in recover from such sessions.
For many climbers, they aren't professional and many won't reach elite levels. many just love climbing and want to get as good as possible, while also having a fill time job, and living a life. And luckily, you don't have to devote hours and kill yourself to get gains. Training consistently, at low, moderate, and high intensities can reap many rewards.
I hope this clarifies some of what I was saying in the podcast.

[@Rockhug]

@@MercedesPollmeier I do believe is mostly miscommunication. Associating rep range with hypertrophy is old literature, its true that higher rep range can help produce higher hypertrophy, but its mostly muscle fatigue (without failing elsewhere, calories reserve, mental, cardio etc.). Strength its only about generating power. In that sense, you don't need fatigue. But muscle as capacity of strength too, and i see climbing trying hard to build more strength and getting on a plateau because the fear building a little mass. I do feel we need to fight against the fear of getting some weight and being strong versus focusing on being as light as possible. (I know you didnt imply it, but i still feel its a problem in our community)
My comment about being at 100% is mostly that if you want to maximize strength or hypertrophy you need to be fully rested. Didn't mean to imply that you need to all in everytime you go in the gym. My bad.
At some point If you want to maximize the result you should climb hard at least 2 times a week and probably not over 3 times a week. Buiilding athleticism a long processus. In the end I do feel that if you enjoy what you are doing, go climb the way you want.
I'm ok with everything else you said, its hard trying to be concise and clear in a youtube comment :). My main point is we should not fear getting some muscle mass as a climber, we will not get 15kg of muscle mass if we dont do only hypertrophy work for multiple year :)