"Maddy, since I'm going to have some down time before we go rock climbing tonight, do you think I should go for a run, start training for our upcoming stair climb, or do the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD?"
"Well, Jenny, you've said before that your Jillian Michael's workout involved a lot of arm workouts, so I would stick to that for today. You wouldn't want to kill your legs before climbing!"
Maddy was right on both accounts.
For her latter point, you really don't want to kill your legs before climbing. A common misconception about climbing is that it involves mostly your arms. People think that if you have strong arms, you should be able to pull yourself up a wall with ease. While it is true that the stronger you are, the more success you'll have on a route, people tend to forget what a crucial role legs play in the climbing process. Our friend Teddy Westside would take this to an extreme sometimes, when he'd ascend the wall using nothing but his arms... both legs flailing in the wind. While he may have made it to the end of a route on occassion, he would also have tired out his arms enough that he would have to spend the rest of the evening watching others. And complaining. Incessantly.
But ask any experienced climber, and they'll tell you just how important it is to use your legs. Your legs are significantly more powerful than your arms, and as a result are much more capable of propelling you up a wall (there is a reason that we walk on our legs rather than constantly doing hand stands... and only part of it has to do with head rushes). Everyone that has ever coached me up a route has always yelled something about trusting my legs and getting my feet up to the next hold. I never hear "ok, now kick off the wall and use just your arms to get to the next hold." In fact, I've had the most success when I rely entirely on my legs for vertical movement, and use my arms to mostly stabilize myself against the wall (which, granted, is still really tiring).
I'm not trying to downplay the role that arms play in climbing, but if you ever try a route with sore/achy/tired legs, you'll likely be in for a much more unsuccessful night.
For Maddy's first point, she is correct in that I have said that the 30 Day Shred involved a lot of arm workouts. Jillian Michaels has you do regular push ups, walking push ups, and traveling push ups. She makes you do punches while holding weights and you spend a third of the time holding plank position (not to be confused with planking). Then there are the bicep curls, arm raises, etc. But it seems that I had focused so much on the arm workouts, that I had completely blocked out how many leg exercises she makes you do. So while Maddy was right that I had said that Jillian Michael's workout was mostly geared towards arms, I had been incorrect when originally mentioning it. I was reminded of this fact yesterday when I was following along with the DVD and was told for the billionth time that we were going to do more lunges (not an exaggeration... we did literally one billion sets).
The point of the story is that in trying to find a workout that wouldn't tire my legs out before rock climbing, I ended up doing one that made simply walking or standing difficult as well as made me wish I had had a straw for the applesauce I ate with dinner (because lifting the spoon to my mouth was proving to require far too much effort).
On the bright side, I'm really sore today (but not detrimentally so), and it's pretty awesome.
When you rock climb, do you focus on legs or arms? Have you ever blocked something like my leg workouts out only to have it bite you later? Should I try working on not visibly wincing every time I stand up or sit down due to my achy legs?
P.S. Even though I was already really tired out before climbing last night, I did manage to make it up a couple new routes clean. It was pretty exciting!
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