Resting

Resting is the ability to recover energy/strength while still climbing. It is a skill that is learned and should be trained. Many top climber attribute their success not to their strength but to their ability to rest and recover on a route. In general the steeper and harder the route the harder it is to find a resting position. This chapter will deal with funding resting positions, how to maximize the resting position and how to train your resting technique.

Finding a Resting Position

Resting positions are places where you can relax one arm then the other for at least a short period of time. The best rests are obviously no hands rests where all your weight is on your feet. When looking for a resting position try to find somewhere where you can take as much weight as possible off your hands (stems, heel, hools, big footholds...) and where the handholds are close enough together to switch back and forth. The reason that you need to switch back and force easily is that you do not want to be wasting energy moving between the resting holds.

Maximize the Rest

When resting, it is important to try and relax your arms as much as possible. The quality of the resting position, the amount that your arms are pumped, the difficulty of the next series of moves and how far you are from the top will all factor into how long you choose to stay in the rest. If the rest is a slightly strenuous one then you will have to think about how much you can recover before the rest itself starts to tire you out.

Even a quick shake between holds can be enough to recover a little bit of strength.

As you enter the rest position try to place your feet well first. This does not mean that your feet have to stay where they are as you switch hands, in fact in most cases you will have to adjust your feet and certainly your weight distribution as you alternate hands. If you are pumped going into the rest start by alternating your hands quite quickly. As you start to lose your pump a little bit you can start holding on with each hand slightly longer, giving the other arm a longer time to recover. The hand that is holding on should be as relaxed as possible but there are lots of options for what to do with the arm that is hanging.

Concentrate on your breathing and force yourself to take long slow breaths, this will again help you relax and slow down your heart rate. As you rest continue to evaluate your feet and determine if they are in the best spot, or can you improve them.

Eric Horst talks about a method of depumping in his article: http://www.nicros.com/training/articles/g-tox/

This method uses gravity to help drain the used blood from your forearms to allow new blood with more oxygen into them. The trick is to hold your forearms above your head as you shake out. You do not have to hold you arms up the whole time but it does help to do this for about 10 seconds at a time.

Try to relax the resting arm as much as possible, try stretching your forearm out against the wall, against your thigh or against your hips if necessary. This will open up the arteries and veins in your forearm and allow you to recover faster.

As you alternate hands concentrate on shifting your weight directly below the hand hold and onto your feet as much as possible. If you are matching on a hold and your feet are directly below you a little shuffle of the hips should be all that is necessary to help you relax. If the resting holds are not equal in quality (one is harder to hold than the other) then minimize the amount of time spent holding onto the bad hold.

A good tip is to use the rope itself to take the weight off your hands. If it is possible to make a clip above you and downclimb to the rest without too much difficulty then you should do this. Once the rope is clipped above you and you are back in the resting position try and weight the rope a little. The weight of the rope and rope drag going down to your belayer should be able to take some weight off of your arms. As you shift between hands you may need to shift your hips higher every time and then sit back down on the rope.

Your belayer will not notice the difference at their end of the rope.

When you decide that it is time to leave the rest, start breathing harder again and alternating your hands back and forth quicker. Concentrate on the next series of moves coming up. This will better prepare you for any hard moves coming up that you need to pull down on.

Learning to Rest and Training

Most people when first told to rest will complain that the rest tires them out too much.

It is more work to rest than the strength that they recover. Resting is a skill and there is a technique to it. You have to force yourself to rest in order to learn how it feels.

Resting Drills

To learn how to rest set a boulder circuit or routes on slightly overhanging walls. At the start of the circuit, or at the bottom of the routes, place two holds that are not huge but that you can hold onto quite easily. If you are just starting this drill give yourself very generous feet, as you become more comfortable resting use smaller and smaller feet.

Climb the circuit until you start to feel pumped then get to the rest. Force yourself to stay in the rest for a fixed amount of time even (say five minutes) even if it seems too long. Make sure that the rest allows you to switch your arms back and forth and doesn't allow a no hands rest. Concentrate on the points listed above such as centre your weight, weight your feet as much as possible and concentrate on your breathing.

After awhile you should be able to make the rest harder. Make it more difficult to switch your hands back and forth, make one hand harder to rest on than the other, give yourself only one foothold, etc... After time you should be able to find rests easier and know how much recovery you can get from a rest. You should also be able to determine when you are too pumped to recover and when you need to rest. Play around with this drill at the end of an endurance session.