Getting Better

It’s build back season. Trying to regain some muscle after two months in Tasmania engaged in predominantly catabolic endurance activities with the added complication of a hip/leg injury (likely a tendinopathy). Tendons are touchy things, particularly in post-menopausal women, and poorly understood by the lay public (maybe even some medical people). Tendons take much, much longer to adapt to load than muscles and, when injured, similarly extended time periods to heal. And, you have to load tendons to repair them. The old RICE format (rest, ice, compress, elevate) does nothing for tendons and anti-inflammatories, like ibuprofen similarly delay recovery. It’s frustrating because your muscles and aerobic system are fit enough to increase volume but your tendons are not.

It is hard to go wrong by applying the old 10% rule which, as every endurance junkie knows, is only increase volume by 10% each week. This might be too little because the walking I am doing now is far easier than the walking I was doing in Tasmania, but, the other thing all endurance junkies know is it’s better to be slightly under-trained than over-trained.

I’m on a new strength program which will, like all strength programs change every three to six weeks and it is a bit different to any I have done before and comes from the book The Strong System. Technically, it’s a book for men and women, but it’s pretty clear that Cori Lefkowith, the author, primarily writes for and trains women. This is not a bad thing as women have a vastly different hormonal profile to men and older women require different stimulus to build muscle.

And, we went rock climbing for my birthday trip. I try to always do a birthday trip. In years past, I’ve tried to make these trips a bit out of the normal, but, given we haven’t climbed since mid-December climbing was out of the normal. Of all the activities I do that require building back, rock climbing is the hardest. And, this year, I vacillated. Maybe this would be the year I let climbing go. There is no gym nearby (it’s two hours to the nearest climbing gym at Nowra and it’s a bouldering gym which means volumes and jumps and is not really much like the climbing I do outside), and, I’m so restricted where and when I can climb with my tick allergies. My favourite close by area is infested with ticks so that is off the cards. Other areas require longer drives and I’m only guessing are safe from ticks based on never having got a tick there in the past.

Past behaviour might be the best predictor of future behaviour but it’s not the best predictor of ticks because Doug got a tick yesterday when we were out climbing. First time ever for that location. I had taken my usual precautions – full body rub down with 80% Deet (delightful), light coloured long sleeves and long pants with pants tucked into socks and all clothing and pack treated with permethrine. Frequent tick checks, shoes and socks back on between climbs. I’m not sure whether Doug was just unlucky or my precautions are working. Obviously, putting aside Doug’s bad luck, the latter would be the best option for me.

Anyway, as I was mulling over my enthusiasm level for the long road back to rock climbing fitness (I am doing some short sessions on my home wall), this post arrived from one of the substacks I follow. Hopefully you can read it without being subscribed (I only have a free subscription and I can read it). There are a lot of good ideas in here, especially if you are not sure how to train for being a functional human and more particularly, a functional old human. But for me, as I wavered on the edge of “perhaps I’ll let climbing go,” I read this section:

Rock Climbing: Still the “best” Thing I Do. I’m not trying to send hard routes.¹ I’m there for what climbing does that nothing else fully replicates: full-body tension and coordination, grip strength under fatigue, dynamic weight shifts, problem-solving in three dimensions, proprioceptive demands on surfaces that are irregular and unpredictable.

Life is about doing things you don’t necessarily want to do, or things that you find hard to do, but which ultimately lead to something you want very badly. Two months of injury where I could hardly sit, stand or lie comfortably. Two months of not being my most happily active. Two months of nagging discomfit and pain. After that, I realised that I am prepared to take the first few faltering steps along the road to building back climbing fitness. The first pitch of the day was not good, but the later pitches got better, and, no matter where you start, you can always get better.

1I can’t send hard routes!