Thursday, November 19, 2009

Rest Days

As I sit here writing this I feel absolutely destroyed. I could barely get out of bed this morning. I'm sore.

I'm curious what everyone else does for rest days? This is both a "What you do" and a "How often" question. Katie and I normally don't go more than 3 days on ever but every now and then we lapse and climb for extended periods of time. Right now we've been in the groove of 2-3 on, 1-2 off. It all depends on when we can get out to some real rock though.

Right now I'm planning to take two off so I can be somewhat fresh for Saturday, which will hopefully be a big one! What do you guys do?? I'm really curious what others do or if you have as many problems taking an actual rest day as we do.

The other part of this is something I'm sure we've all experienced before. The "non-rest" rest day. This happened to us when we moved this past spring and basically took a month off of climbing. The skin on my hands was tore up and my muscles were destroyed. I felt like a train wreck and couldn't even fathom climbing even after multiple weeks off.

Katie had one of these days a couple weeks ago when she decided to rake all the leaves in our yard on a Friday rest day. It started out fine, but then she broke our rake. She's just too damn strong!

The old rake.  She's so strong!


New Rake!


After she bought a replacement rake she started to realize just how many leaves we have in our yard. I think we have 4-5 massive trees covering our backyard right now. She had to get a bedsheet to transport them all to the front for the city to pick up.

Too many leaves....


The worst of it was when she was done and realized that there were another 5-10 sheets worth of leaves still on the ground or in the trees. She was less than excited to climb the next day and was sore for 3-4 days after it.

I want your stories! Out with them!

On the climbing front it looks like we're going to Beautiful Soup in the Morning on Saturday and possibly driving out to Dodge to meet up with Chris and Sarah after that. Should be a fun day. Who's in?? Sweaty?? Eggnuts?? Narc??

The more pads the merrier!

10 comments:

  1. you know me. i love the dodge but in this case your plan is a punt sir! How can you pass up checking out those projects? It's all I can think about. Remo are u coming out? I just talked to Prince of Narcville and he is in the market to be convinced to come out/ I already convinced him. Padwise we should have plenty I imagine. me and two buddies will be rolling up from here with prolly 3 or 4 pads. sooooo psyched.
    sweaty

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  2. Ride (JUMP OFF SHIT) my Eastern Mountain bike.

    I rest more now than I climb. I try and go as many days on as possible followed by as many rest days as my GF can handle me being around the house talking about my skin.

    I have a f'ing Giant hole in my finger now so I on my 3rd day off. I plan to climb (if the crater in my finger goes away!).

    Try and go 30 days on. No rest. I have never felt better. Not all of the days ended up being "hard climbing" and it was split between Sport/Bouldering (very little sport). By day 30 My skin was what ended up ending the streak (a MASSIVE split) but my muscles felt Great. After 4 or 5 days rest I tried to go climbing.. as I warmed up I realized how fucked my body was...

    The big catch to the "NO REST" system is 80% of it was outside climbing.

    I also started doing something new.. For every rest day I take I warm up for 30min...

    3 DAYS= 1.5 HOURS of warm up.

    -nic

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  3. you could go for a hike and look for projects (leave your shoes at home). Take lots of pictures and post them for us to drool. That way you still get some excercise. I try to do some core work or pushups or go for a run but more often end up watching tv with Kristen and the dogs and eating. I like to eat on rest days... a lot. Drinking a nice bottle of wine is a great rest day past time. Nap. Watch more t.v. The trashier the show the better really. I'm sure this will help :-)
    sweaty

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  4. I usually do the 1 on 1 off thing. It keeps me fresh and not burned out. Since it is prime outside season right now, I focus all my attention on that, and avoid the gym unless I need that monkey man fix(clay just rips the hands up).

    If I could climb outside everyday I would. When I still lived in LaCrosse I would climb everyday with no rest days. But it's easy there because the climbing is so close and I was younger and healed like Wolverine, ah the good ol days.

    I feel like now it's more project focused. You know, does the skin feel good, shoulders, forearms etc. for the project at hand. Sweaty makes a good point with the hiking for projects. I've done that many times this season, and yes a great way to stay in shape. I also enjoy running, kayaking or longboarding(until the snow falls) on the days off, and eating lots! Day dreaming about the send seams to train the muscles some how. Does anyone elses muscles twitch when they think about moves, or is that just me. God we are a weird bunch!
    Hope this helps Steve.
    Remo

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  5. we are an odd bread. my fingers have been sweating all day thinking about getting outside on Saturday. literally all day. and yes i get twitchy muscles also.

    Early on in mine and Kristen's relationship i was like staring off and Kris snapped me out of it. At which point I appoligized for "climbing in my head". Which I do often and always after a day of climbing outside while driving home. If they had a way to test for that I'm certain I would be pulled over and put in jail for being a hazard on the road.

    You coming out Sat. Remo??? It'd be great to check out that east bluff stuff!
    sweaty

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  6. Wish I was man. Tomorrow and Sunday for me, I work Saturdays-lame. Have a good time though, and give us a report on the projects.
    Remo

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  7. Hey, I've been reading you blog for awhile now and thout it's about time I posted something.
    Being from Romania I can't really say anything about the routes in the states. But this I can relate to. So for my resting days I basically lurk around and pour climbon on my fingers :D

    Alex.

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  8. Steve, congradulations on being international! I always believed you could do it my friend. You have reached the mountain top. Perhaps you should issue warning to Narc that you are stealing his followers :-)
    sweaty

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  9. I would like to hear from some folks who work a shit ton and have a family. My life forces MANY more rest (well, non climbing anyway) days than climbing days. I do work out, pushups, situps, pullups, hangs, campus board, woody, etc. and generally climb once a week and rest one day a week. Certainly not ideal but it works for me, more or less. This is almost certainly holding me back as far as pushing my limits (don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my life for anything) but what should I be doing??? I am disjointed and disorganized as far as training and would like to hear from others who are in the same boat. Not to hijack. OK, a slight hijack. Anyway on another note, DAMN SWEATY!!! Gettin in done. Holy good fall season for you. ce

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  10. haha thanks buddy. Good fall season for a ton of people it seems. Good on everybody!
    sweaty

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