How much is too much, and how much is not enough?
This question is one that all athletes perennially battle with. How much training will get me to where I want to be, but is not excessive? Can I ever train too much?
The answer to the second question is yes. As there is with most things, there is a happy medium in working out. Sometimes, it’s good to reach your breaking point when you’re working out. When I’m doing a leg day, I never count reps. I just go until I physically cannot do another squat, then do three more, then call it a day. However, there is a fine line between working hard and overworking. I max out hard on leg and ab days, but on arm and finger days I go a little bit easier. You might ask why I do that–aren’t a climber’s arms and hands the most important part? The answer is it that they can be. But the reason I train them less is that they are smaller muscles and much more prone to injury. While I can do squats all day and not hurt myself, doing too many pull-ups will result in an injury. I train my arms and hands long enough to get stronger, and then I stop.
I’ve been climbing for two years. For the first six months, I barely trained. Actually, I barely cared. It was a new sport, and I was still trying to adjust after quitting figure skating, my eight-year passion. Because of skating, I had great back muscles and great legs, but barely any arm strength and mediocre ab strength. After failing miserably in the competition world for a little while, I began to pick up speed. I finally started to train, but as soon as that happened, I started getting rashes of little injuries. I would work my arms like crazy, go home, find out I’d pulled something, and then be forced to take time off. I never did cardio, only strength training, and then only in specific muscle groups. I was actually hindering myself by doing the very thing that was supposed to help me.
Of course, I was furious. Here I was, putting all of this extra time into training, and getting absolutely nothing out of it except injuries. So, after a short period of wallowing in self-pity, I started to do some research. With the help of several e-books, my coaches, a personal trainer, and some friends, I began to understand the concepts of muscle balance and imbalance. Most climbers encounter the problem of having such good abs and arms that their backs literally could not support them. Coming from my skating and karate background, I never had that problem; however, my downfall was my forearm imbalance. The insides of my forearms were so much stronger than the outsides that I was putting unnecessary strain on my tendons and muscles all the way up to my shoulders. Also, my biceps were decent but my triceps were subpar at best, causing imbalance in my upper arms.
After discovering all of this, I completely changed the way I worked out. I began factoring runs into my routine, at least nine miles per week. I do “morning warm-ups” before school, which include seven exercises targeting six muscle groups and one cardio boost. I climb five days a week and take one full rest day once every two weeks. I do weight training at the gym three days per week, and spend at least an hour a week on my hang board doing finger and forearm exercises.
Diet is also a huge part of training. Frankly, I’m not a believer in any sort of crash diet–actually, I oppose them. However, eating well is and having a good relationship with food is essential. Thanks to an e-book called Way of Gray, I’ve both cleaned up my diet and made it interesting, as well as adding a new cardio circuit to my routine based on that book. According to an article by ClimbHealthy, eating clean helps lower the risk of getting muscle and tendon injuries, and I agree. Training isn’t just about getting ripped, it’s about getting healthy.
Some people think it’s “cool” to push through the pain in a workout, but really, if your muscles are hurting in a not-good way, then stop. There is a line between working hard and overworking; it is when you cross into the “overworking” zone that you get hurt.
Yes, you can train too much. Yes, you can overwork. Yes, it is difficult to get it right. But once you do, it’s worth it.
Stay strong and stay safe ❤
Julia
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