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Resistance Band Training for Climbers

Resistance Band Training for Climbers

Whether you do free climbing, mountain climbing, or indoor climbing, you need to work all your body muscles. You need to have strong core muscles to help you climb better and powerful leg and arm muscles for endurance. You also need excellent balance to make crossings or to move up rock faces.

Resistance bands are excellent for a full-body workout that goes easy on your joints and improves your flexibility and balance. When you train with resistance bands, you are strengthening not only large muscle groups but the connective tissues around your joints that can protect you from injury.

Here follows a complete resistance band training for climbers.

Note: Make sure to warm up before exercising with 5 to 10 minutes of easy cardio, such as jumping jacks. Complement this training with 2 to 3 weekly cardio sessions, such as swimming or rowing. Cardio sessions will help improve your climbing endurance.

#1 Banded calf raises

For this exercise, you will need a long resistance band, such as a pull-up assist band (like this one https://victoremgear.com/products/pull-up-assist-band).

Calf raises strengthen your calves and help you when you're slab climbing.

• Stand on the middle of the band. Your feet are hip-distance apart.
• Hold the ends in each hand and make sure there's tension in the band.
• Rise up on your toes and hold at the top, then slowly lower back down.
• Repeat as needed.

#2 Banded knee squats

This exercise will help build power in your thighs, preparing you for when you're on a climb, and you need a lot of strength to stand up.

• Stand on the band as in the previous exercise, but with your knees bent into a squat. Keep your back straight. Your feet are facing forward (not turned out).
• Hold your hands closer to the band's ends so that your hands come up to shoulder height. Your elbows should be facing out, with your arms bent at 90 degrees.
• As you straighten your knees, keep your hands in the same place near your shoulders. You are making your thighs work hard against the band. The tighter the resistance in the band when you start, the more challenging this exercise will be.
• Pause at the top and then bend your knees again to come back to start.
• Repeat as needed.

#3 Banded chest flies

Chest flies work your chest and back muscles, which help you in steeper climbing with compression moves.

• Wrap the middle of the band around a pole or another stationary object at shoulder height.
• Hold either end in your hands and stand with your back to the pole and one foot forward. Your feet should be hip-distance apart. Begin with arms straight out to your sides. Bring your arms in together with your palms facing inward.
• Hold for a few seconds before slowing releasing your arms back out to your sides.
• Repeat as needed.

#4 Banded side planks with overhead press

This exercise works your triceps, deltoids, and upper trapezoid muscles. These muscles are what will help you pull yourself up during a climb.

• Wrap the end of the resistance band around a pole or another stationary object about 2 feet above the ground.
• Lie down on your side with the top hand holding the end of the band. Your top elbow should be bent and close to your waist. Your head is facing away from the pole.
• Put your weight on your elbow, keep your legs straight, and engage your abs as you come up into a side plank. Keep your chest facing out with your shoulders perpendicular to the mat or floor.
• While holding this position, straighten your arm so that you are pulling the band up towards your head. The resistance band should be tight throughout the entire movement.
• Do this for 15 reps, then switch sides.

Note: You can make this exercise more accessible by bending both knees or crossing your top leg over your lower leg.

Here's what this exercise looks like.

#5 Banded Russian twists

Russian twists work your obliques, your hip flexors, your core, and your spine.

• Sit on the floor.
• Your legs are extended, your knees slightly bent.
• Wrap the band around the middle of both feet and hold the band's ends in your hands.
• Hold your hands in front of you, lean back 45 degrees, raise your legs up.
• Twist your torso from one side to another. Keep your hands in front and the resistance band taut the whole time.

Enjoy your resistance band training for climbers!

How to Fit a Mountain Bike by Performance Bicycle

Using modern technology to help manage your training

If You Have A Heart You Need To Read This

By John Blok

If you have a heart and it beats, this is important to you. If you’re an athlete in training mode or someone who lives a stressful life, this is also important to you. Now that all of you are included, please read on.

Your heart beats a certain amount of beats a minute and although it appears that each beat is spaced evenly, similar to a metronome ticking away, this isn’t the case. In fact it shouldn’t be the case, but at times it will be the case. If you got out of bed this morning feeling refreshed, recovered from workouts and no anxiety or stress, the time between each heart beat will vary like an exciting drum solo. On the other hand if you get out of bed tired, stressed, not recovered from the previous days or weeks workouts, your heart will beat with evenly space beats, pounding away with the excitement of listening to a steady water drip.

Here is a little bit of science. Your nervous system functions in two different ways. One is the “Parasympathetic Nervous System”, Sometimes called the rest and digest system, and the other is the “Sympathetic Nervous System”, often known as the flight or fight system. When you’re relaxed, recovered, and unstressed, you’re running on the “Parasympathetic Nervous System”, and when you’re over-training, anxious, stressed, you’re running on the “Sympathetic Nervous System”. When you’re operating in the “Parasympathetic Nervous System”, you have a variable heart rate with varying length of time between beats. This is good, healthy and indicating good recovery between workouts. When you’re operating on the “Sympathetic Nervous System”, you’re likely not recovered from workouts, living in a stressful state and probably not sleeping well.

So much for science and here’s where it gets really interesting. With a high quality Bluetooth heart rate strap and your very smart phone, you can see where you exist between these two nervous system functions. Are you training too much or should you take another day of rest or maybe your job is creating extra stress and you’re wondering why you’re anxious. The app for your phone along with an accurate heart rate strap can read the variations in time between your heartbeats. It rates between 1 and 10. A rating of six or below and you may be overtraining and a rating of seven and above will give you a green light to train. Seven may be a light day and a rating of ten means that your fully recovered and you can go all out. If you’re always in the ten rating, this may show that you’re not training hard enough because some workouts should require a couple of days of recovery to get back to the ten rating.

The free App “Elite HRV” is available for Android and Iphone platforms. If you would like to test the App before investing in a Bluetooth Heart Rate strap you can see John at the Core. The Core has Polar H7 Bluetooth straps you can test or purchase.

Benefits of Boot Camp

10 Boot Camp benefits!

By FITNESSADVISORY | Published: APRIL 18, 2013

Forget the idea of military style training and hellish assault courses that leave you crumpled in an unfit heap after the end of a gruelling session. And dismiss any notions you have of terrifying and  confidence-knocking instructors screaming at your lack of physical prowess. Consider instead the real Boot Camp benefits. For this is an exercise program that can go a long way to improving your fitness levels

If you’ve no idea what Boot Camp involves then your first step is to find out, as session structure, intensity and goals can change between different fitness facilities. The key is to not be afraid to ask what to expect and what benefits you can will get from joining. If you turn up to a Boot Camp without not knowing what you are getting yourself into, you may find yourself not quite able to keep up with your classmates.

Once you have an idea about what Boot Camp is, you might want to understand what some of the plus points are. This can help if you’re wavering on the edge and not entirely sure if you want to take the Boot Camp plunge. So what are some of the benefits?#

• Concentrated focus – If you already keep active and fit with regular exercise then your attention is already geared towards health and fitness. However, at times, if you want to make big changes, such as to lose weight and tone up quickly and effectively, you may need to up the ante and focus in on your goal. Boot Camp is an ideal way to help you reach your target by honing in on what you want and offering intense exercise sessions to make sure you get there.
• Creates healthy expectations – Fitness classes which you can easily dip in and out of might offer a relaxed way of keeping in shape, but they don’t necessarily generate a sense of personal responsibility. A Boot Camp where you’re expected to show effort and determination, as well as commitment, can really inspire you to put healthy pressure on yourself. This in turn means that you’re more involved and more motivated to not let down your trainer, the others around you and most importantly, yourself.
• Motivates you to examine your lifestyle – Because of the focus on fitness in a Boot Camp environment, you naturally start to look at your life as a whole and how healthy you are. Assessments of your fitness levels, monitoring and working toward a goal, really highlight how exercise, diet and nutrition are linked, as well as all your other lifestyle choices. You might not get the same sense of interconnectedness from classes or sessions where you simply drop in and view as separate from the rest of your life.
• Dynamic workout – Many people lose focus and motivation because they get bored. The whole point of Boot Camp is that it is as diverse as it is intense. If you add in the fact that you will be progressing and changing along the way, then you have an interesting exercise mix that should keep you engaged enough to realize your exercise goals.
• Like-minded exercisers – Some people take up activities for the social scene, others because they are firmly fixed on a goal. A real positive about Boot Camp is that because of what it stands for, you are going to meet other people similar to yourself who want to seriously improve their lives. However, this shared goal means that there is a sense of camaraderie and support which is not always found in other exercise sessions.
• Faster results – Boot Camp is effective at identifying ways of reaching health and fitness goals in a faster way. Left to your own devices you might struggle to get there at all and classes or sessions which repeat one style of exercise might not deliver the right results on time either.

Boot Camp may be a challenge but because it is something you can really get to grips with the benefits are greater than the sum of each training session. Find out about what Boot Camp can do for your body, mind and life!

The 10 Most Important Fitness Goals

Transform your life by following this roadmap to fitness success. These goals will keep you grounded and force you to look at the big picture in your approach to incorporating physical activity within your life.

Learn more about the 10 most important fitness goals for 2016.

December 15th Indoor Cycling strength workout

If you miss one of the Whistler Core indoor cycling classes or need a great workout for spinning on one of our awesome Keiser bikes on your own time, try this week's strength workout. This workout features 15 second to 2 minute intervals for gaining cycling strength. Created by 9 time Ironman, John Blok