Longer breaks from things that we love are hard for us, that’s why we want to keep our breaks as short as they need to be. There are 2 main types of breaks, the first one is shorter and is based on the fatigue that we have from our last climbing session, simply we need time to recover before we will be able to visit the climbing gym again, and the second break is harder because it is based on our health condition.
If we have some injury or any health problem we have to have a longer break from climbing, which can be hard and depend on many things. We did the necessary research for you and we will show you both cases so stay with us!
Let’s focus on the short break between two climbing sessions, on the first one we did our best, and now we need to regenerate a bit. This type of break for most climbers is about 1-2 days of no climbing, according to studies and many polls on the internet, but isn’t that too short for our body to regenerate? Let us explain.
Is my body able to regenerate in 1 day?
Climbers tend to use mostly upper body parts muscles, but the most important thing about it is that they are using the same muscles in every climbing session, which means that muscles are fatigued after the session, and they have sustained a lot of damage while climbing, but they are visible only on a micro-scale.
Muscle fibers under a hard workout will get damaged, and they need some time and protein to regenerate, but don’t worry because they will regenerate and become even stronger. So if we take a look at people who are going to a normal gym, they tend to pick parts of their bodies to train on each day of the week, to prevent working out the same body part 2 days in a row, because it will simply reduce their muscle growth from training.
For example, you should avoid working out your biceps with weights on Wednesday and Thursday because on Wednesday you will fatigue your muscles and they won’t have enough time to regenerate and grow until Thursday. Remember that muscles are growing while you are resting and not while you are training.
48 hours of rest is a good time for your body to recover, but it is advised to rest for at least 60 hours before you start to work on the same muscles. You can shorten that time by using supplements and eating enough proteins which will let you start to recover faster.
You can think that they are growing while you are training but that’s simply due to the blood flow, if you are using a lot of your muscles, then they are starting to swell and that’s why they look a bit bigger, but that’s only temporary. We also call this effect “the pump“.
Why do we need to recover from climbing?
Most people think about muscles when it comes to recovery but another important thing is the skin on the hands. Due to the friction that is generated while we are grabbing handholds the skin on our hands is slowly disappearing.
That’s why we feel the heat on our hands while climbing. The skin for climbers is a very important thing that’s why climbers must take special care of their hands’ skin as we described in the article “How To Take Care Of My Hands After Climbing?“, make sure to read it if you want your skin to recover faster.
The more care we pay for our hands’ skin the more friction we can generate with our hands on handholds which will help us to become better climbers faster!
How long of a break from climbing should I take if my health condition is bad?
Breaks due to the injury tend to be very long, like at least one month to even a year. It really depends on your case, for example, if you have an arm injury it can be very long to heal, from one month to even six months. That’s why it is important to consult your injuries with a specialist like an orthopedist.
If you won’t take care of your injuries as quickly as they show up then you can expose yourself to the same type of injury but this time it will triple the time necessary for you to recover.
For example, if you injure your right shoulder and leave it to heal for itself then when you will visit the climbing gym after a few days then you can hurt that shoulder again up to the point of surgery.
In summary – How much of a break from climbing should I take?
If you are thinking about simple recovery from one climbing session to another then one day of a break without climbing should be enough, but if you want to be sure that your muscles recover then take 2 days of a break. Make sure that you do proper care for your hands’ skin to become a better climber.
If you want to know more about arms injuries then you should check out our new article “I Can’t Move My Hands After Climbing – (How To Treat It?)“.
