Contemplating life at Foster Falls

After a little writing hiatus, I’m back and ready to share a few different things with you.  I’ve been getting out a little bit on ropes and had the company of this beautiful lady one of those days.  One of the greatest things about climbing is how spread out our community can be, but also how close it can feel.  I was living in Atlanta, but on a rotation in Columbia, SC when I met Lydia at a climbing gym.  Fast forward a few months later when I walked into Mean Mug having recently moved to Chattanooga and wouldn’t you know there was Lydia behind the counter who had also made the move to Chattanooga.  Life has a funny way of forcing the right people into your life.  That or this town really is a climber vortex.

Climber Yoga
If you have Amazon Prime, this is a great free yoga resource.  I think this is especially excellent for when you’re out on the road, or otherwise just have 20 minutes to squeeze in a quick yoga session.

Training with a Finger Injury
Should you do it?  With discipline and focus, maybe.  Everyone is different and every finger injury is different and the rehab process can be key to progressing a finger injury.  I like that this article mentions that strict rest alone can actually weaken the fingers.  I recently saw some great histological slides of ACL tissue quality (albeit in rabbits) after ACL repair with six weeks of immobilization vs. six weeks of weight bearing without immobilization.  While I expected a little bit of difference, the pictures were astonishing at how much better the tissue quality was without immobilization.

And lastly this week, not an article or link, but just a little commentary.  I was recently listening to a Power Company Climbing Podcast about where the trainers get their information.  At one point during the podcast, one of the guys mentioned something about research into lat activation in pull ups – I got a little nerdy and found two articles related to this and found some interesting conclusions.

• when comparing pronated grip pull ups and lat-pull down muscle activation of the latissimus dorsi (LD) is similar for both exercises
• LD MVIC% is similar in both concentric and eccentric phases of movement, roughly 40% in one study
• MVIC% for LD is similar across all grip widths

Conclusion?  Quit worrying about the perfect way to do it and just do the darn thing!

Resources:
1. Anderson V, Fimland M, Wilk E, Skogland A, Saeterbakken A. Effects of grip widteh on muiscle strength and acgtivation in the lat pull-down. Journal Of Strength & Conditioning Research (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) [serial online]. April 2014;28(4):1135-1142. Available from: SPORTDiscus with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 10, 2017. 2. Dickie J, Faulkner J, Barnes M, Lark S. Electromyographic analysis of muscle activation during pull-up variations. Journal Of Electromyography And Kinesiology [serial online]. February 1, 2017;32:30-36. Available from: ScienceDirect, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 10, 2017.