How many times have I come back in bits after a
long session outdoor? Why is it that my body aches so much after just a few
problems? More interestingly, why does it ache so much more than it would
after a similar - or more intense - indoor session?
1. Conditions
I’ve often wondered and attributed this pain to
the consequences of various factors:
1. Conditions
It’s cold outside. Colder than inside. So my
muscles contract more, hence more pain the next day. That and Her Ladyship, Ms Dampness. The humidity factor definitely has
an impact on the repeated intensity when working on a problem. Don't you know the famous Irish saying "it's getting dampish,
pull harder!"
2. Focus
I tend to push myself more when outside
because I really want to send those (un)established problems while I don’t
really care about indoor pink resin problems that will eventually be stripped
from the climbing wall. Furthermore, I’m not distracted when outside because
there’s no music on, no other people to watch, no clock on the wall, no signs
of human presence - or so much less.
3. Shock absorption
I don’t notice it but I
hurt myself when outside. I keep knocking my elbows and my knees. I have a mat
but it’s very small compared to the big blue bed laying at the bottom of an
indoor climbing wall - why is it they are always blue? - which means that in the
end, added together, all these little outdoor jumps represent a bigger resistance
force applied to my body structure than that of those indoor jumps, because less shock
absorption is taking place.
But it actually hit me. It’s not that, it’s the rock itself.
When I pull on resin, the overall elasticity of
the body+climbing wall system is bigger than that of the body+rock system, because
there is a lot of elasticity taking place in the connections between the resin
hold, the screw, the wall timber panel and the wall structure.
Whereas the rock, well, it’s not known for
being particularly elastic (apart from that flake at the start of Superswinger,
but that’s an exception really).
(I thought I could sketch these properly in 3D on computer but I prefer to use my spare time for climbing sessions these days)
So, in the case of rock-climbing, as opposed to
resin-climbing, more of the elastic absorption is done by my muscles and my
skeleton. Hence the pain.
It's kind of obvious now that I think about it and I’m sure this must have been studied somewhere
by someone but my climbing readings are
scarce at the moment.
So anyone feeling the pain?
