T Nation

Recovery: Sport and Lifting On The Same Day Or Fewer Rest-days

Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
#1

Coach,

I’m wondering if you have any opinion on what is better from a recovery standpoint?

In the past my week has been

Su: Upper
Mo: Lower
Tu: Climbing
We: Upper
Th: Climbing
Fr: Lower
Sa: Rest

But am having climbing rescheduled to Mondays and Wednesdays and it struck me that maybe it’s better from a recovery standpoint (I have never experimented with this so I have no empirical evidence with regards to my own body) to consolidate training onto specific days rather than smearing out training across the week.

Su: Rest
Mo: Climb AM / Upper PM
Tu: Rest
We: Climb AM / Lower PM
Th: Rest
Fr: Upper
Sa: Lower

On paper the second option seems as if it provides more recovery for the body than the former. Is this intuition wrong?

Appreciate your thoughts.

2 Likes
#2

In that situation, I prefer to do both on the say days. As you mentioned, it provides more rest days. This is especially important with a sport that has a high neurological component like climbing. If someone can afford to do both on the same days it will almost always be the better option.

1 Like
#3

Thank you Coach!

For anyone else reading this (other climbers perhaps) I’d like to highlight I put climbing first before lifting as to me it’s the activity with the highest neurological component (and risk).

I prefer doing the explosive, dangerous, neural, and technically demanding training modality first.

If I had to climb in the PM I wouldn’t be as inclined to lift beforehand unless I purposefully altered how I trained climbing. At least one session would then have to be on a day when I’m fresh and the other session would be more technique work where I can be fatigued from lifting.

#4

I used to train and climb on the same days. I found that I could deadlift before climbing fine, but I couldn’t deadlift after climbing. My lats and grip where trashed and it put more strain on my lower back. My lats always grew from climbing so I took out chins and bicep from my workouts. Did prehab shoulder and delt stuff in as my pull.

I’ve said it before but I think lifting and climbing can go really well together if you want to be well rounded. I’m not, but it’s an aim.