Line and Flag Exercises from Self Coach Climber

I have a small number of friends getting into exercises and training from the book; Self Coach Climber, aka SCC. I have been doing the same side traverse and it helped me break into consistent onsights of V3+. I am working to perfect the line and flag exercises. Here is my response to a friend.

So, I did 6 of line and 6 of flag exercises. It felt awkward. I had to backstep more aggressively and different muscles are sore; deltoid, lat and scapula; mostly upper shoulder. This explains why I could not do them before because I started doing shoulder recovery exercises only about a month ago and my shoulder muscles are getting stronger. I just could not rely on my unstable left shoulder.

It means there are different muscle groups I need to develop. We are supposed to pivot but with these small footholds, we can't. I had to do many more foot adjustments to make it happen.

Like my success with the same side traverse exercise, I was forcing my pivoting without good awareness of where my COG is and I had my hand not adjusting to pivoting. This caused two problems; back ache and hand pain. You need to grab holds differently from normal climbing routine. Like Gaston or layback, or just don't wrap your fingers.

What is important is if you can produce high quality moves. Quantity does not matter so much at the beginning. Don't think it is a failure if you could not finish the whole wall. Just do what you can do with sections of the wall.

Massage - Accelerated Rest

I freeze my hands from time to time when I have injured fingers. Dave McCleod calls it freeze therapy. It works marvelously except 30 minutes of finger in ice bucket is a kind of hard. See his video

I have been massaging my hands, forearms and feet. The result is amazing. It takes stiffness out and increases range of motion. It feels amazing especially after a good night sleep.

You need to use oil. Nothing special just vegetable oil. Dry massage does not work.

I like to have a towel and a pail of warm water. Search self massage in YouTube. Basically you warm the part by rubbing, working it with a combination of thumb, side of your hand or a stick. You work any soreness out. The session should last good amount of time. Wash yourself and wipe off excessive oil. Having oil on you is not all that bad as your skin seems to absorb it.

Toe pain and prevention

Revisited: Be gentle with your toes and massage and stretch your toes especially big one every day.

I was having toe problems until I saw Adam Ondra's climbing video. I realized how I was killing my big toe. Everybody climbs with their favorite digit; big toe. I don't know how long but using big toe is drilled into me. After climbing sessions, my big toes are hurting. So much so I would have hot flash in my feet when nerves get blocked. So I must be doing something wrong. I was looking for a solution because my foot techniques wont' improve with pain.

So back to what Adam does, he looks sloppy. He does not use big toe unless he has to. In fact, he frictions where I would use my bt, big toe. It is interesting to watch his videos just his feet. Fascinating.

So, I did what he does. Use metatasal, that is, use parts of your foot not the first two digits of your toes. How do you do this? With care! Use rest of your foot instead of just the same big toe.

Cool sites; rehab and injury

I have no upper body problems at the moment but I am beginning to have lower body problems; hip, knee and foot. I am using lower body to initiate moves and am straining them without proper stretches or techinques.

I have tender spots around the hip.

Tensor fasciae latae or IT band related issues by sportsinjuryclinic

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

IT BAND

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/front/knee/irunnersknee.html

stretching/standing_outer_hip_stretch.php

stretching/outer_hip_stretch.php

Lower back pain

Revisited: This turned out to be a muscle inbalance. Iliopoas are tight. I started doing squats and lunges to strengthen glutes. Iliopoas are muscles in your front pelvis. They get tight from lifting legs and twisting. That solves my problem and I don't have back ache any longer.

I won't say it is a pain. It is rather dull pressure in the back. As you climb overhang, your hyper extension of the back causes. I found a French site with great stretches I was describing in the previous article.

http://www.kinescalade.com/patho/lombalgie.php

Translated from definition section

The word simply defined back pain pain in the lumbar region. That is to say, the bottom of the spine. Localization of the lumbar region of low back pain are many climbers, both in the type of pain in their causes. From the surface to depth, the different structures that can generate back pain are: • the muscles of the lumbar region, which may spasm, or because of the effort, either to protect the underlying structures, · intervertebral ligaments, which may suffer a prolonged stretch, · joints which can be worn when one speaks of osteoarthritis, · intervertebral discs, which can also be worn, crushed, or submit an overhang or a hernia, · meninges, envelopes the spinal cord, which may undergo various stresses (tensions , pressures).

You can use Google translate and it does adequate job. There are videos of stretches. It is great.

Grab holds gently and softly. Don't pull it down like an idiot.

The increased rest is working. I have less problems with fingers and I am fully rested. I am eager to climb.

I realize I need to go back to the basics every so often to test habits and assumptions.

For example, silent feet does not mean I place them silently and stare at it like an idiot. It means I place weight and feel and move off. Glue hand does not mean I grab a hold and think it is done. It means I place my hand the way I imagined and holding it the same way instead of shifting it after placing weight. Yesterday I realized when pieces of skin under my fingers shift under pressure. I was shifting my hand holds and stressing my skin to a breaking point. Subtle difference is how it plays out. First off, I am busy powering through without body awareness otherwise. Second, I am stressing my body through unnecessary peak stresses with poor hold contacts.

Back to the basics, I don't know how many times I am making these round-trips but the rock can wait.

I am doing some supplemental exercises; recruitment and strengthening of forearm, shoulder muscles and stretches of deeper core muscles. I complement them with opposing muscles training. This is to have muscle balance with stability.

Rest is training!

Revisited: In French, there is a lot more instructions about these types of information as it turns out. I was speaking with a good French climber. He climbs 8b and V10 and trad hard climb in his town of Serre Chavalier. He said it takes 3 years for tendon and ligament be stronger enough to get beyond V6 or 7. My answer to that is freeze theraphy every rest day and it is working out nicely. My fingers feel wholesome and not run out.

I increased the rest to two days that I am climbing more intensely. I don't have real expectations where I will go with this as long as I don't have chronic injuries.

I do this routines according to SCC, aka Self Coached Climber.

Fingers are doing good. I load them carefully and generally don't load statically and excessively. Every time I load my hand, I flick my wrist and stretch hand to flush. I give Adam Ondra the credit for this little amazing trick. Left shoulder and elbow are doing better with stabilization exercises. I should do little flush trick on them as well.

I am afraid to push my fingers too much. But instead of exclusively pulling on fingers, I engage forearm and upper arm into the hand hold. It could mean I don't keep my arm dead straight but at an angle.

But most of improvements and injury preventions come from foot work. I have enormous trouble where I need lots of shoulder stability and strength. With stronger core, it is surprising that I can make moves I was not able to make in the past.

I feel I need to be patient at the moment. I need to wait for the rest of deeper muscles to develop with techniques. I need good positive motivation like "with good approach and training, I made some hard moves and sustained climbing and it felt good instead of obsessing and getting discouraged."

The Self Coached Climber - The Bible for climbing so far. I hope someone betters it.

I ordered it and finally received it. Starting reading it, most of time, climbing is something I do not read about. I hate reading books on how to in sports.

In the past, I bought sports get-stronger recipe books and pick them up and down. This one is pretty readable as Dave Mcleod said. I have books I would give away because they just don't do it for me; giving me incremental approach.

It is almost like learning alphabets, learning how things fit and giving me understanding of directions and approaches I need to take.

Great climbing injury web site

I stumbled onto it.

Upper Extremity Injuries in Rock Climbers

Why do my articles repeat themselves?

Why do I revisit same injuries as they are new? Well, they are new.

You change one thing. It is different. Change amount of climbing from weekend to a few days at a time. Change to higher grade. Change your habits and try new techniques that you have not mastered.

Two things affect injuries drastically; angle and amount of climbing. Injuries are reactions. They flare up again and again. I call them weakest links. Elbow problem now is not exactly the same as elbow problem of the past. In the past, wear and tear of multiple days of climbing lower grade, weakest link fails first. My current elbow problem is muscle inbalance resulting in excessive stress on the weakest link.

This is the reason Dave Mcleod promotes deep learning instead of taking quick recipes. There are few reasons why this approach causes injuries.