Highlight: Flexibility Training for Climbers

In today’s Lattice Podcast Highlight, hosts Maddy Cope and Tom Randall discuss Lattice's brand-new online flexibility training course. This course emphasises the importance of education and knowledge-sharing in climbing training, focusing on three main goals:

• Educating climbers on methods beyond passive static stretching
• Integrating flexibility training into overall training programs
• Helping climbers select exercises based on their flexibility level.

The course provides step-by-step guides and assessments, to transform your approach to flexibility training and promote a sustainable, informed method.

Highlights include:

• Training Frequency
• Menstrual Cycle Considerations
• Structured Approach
• Evolving Training Culture
• Active vs. Passive Stretching
• Importance of Education

This episode is a highlight from a more in-depth conversation coming next week, covering additional insights on flexibility training, energy systems, and optimising performance for climbers.⁣

Special Offer Ends Soon, 1st July at Midnight: Get 20% off the Flexibility Deep Dive course and our cork yoga Flex Mat. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your training!

https://latticetraining.com/product/flexibility-course-bundle/

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.

Transcript

Tom (00:00)
So with the context of when we were talking earlier in this podcast around the things that we've tried to kind of...

change and impact within the climbing industry, the climbing community, the way that we train in our best practices is what do you see as being the main things that we're trying to change when it comes to flexibility training at Lattice at the moment? Like what are the, I suppose the milestones that we're going for? We go, yes, we really want to get people to do this differently or we want people to change their attitudes or their approaches on these key things.

Yeah, and I think there's three that really stand out. I'm sure there's more, but the first one, and this links back to one of the modules in the course, is that there is so much more to training flexibility than just passive static stretching, these sort of routines that you might see people doing where they're holding stretches for really long durations. And I'd sort of put yoga in there as well, just because a lot of climbers talk about using yoga for flexibility, which is absolutely fine if they want to do that.

It's just that what we also see is a lot of climbers reaching, seeing it as a barrier, because they're like, I don't like yoga and I don't want to sit in a stretch for kind of 30 minutes, sit doing stretches for 30 minutes. If they don't like that, they won't do it. So I think seeing the breadth of approaches that are available is a big one. And also what plays into that is just people's level of response as well, you know, using different approaches really helps.

us work with a number of individuals to get results. And so, yeah, the fact that there's different methods when they're appropriate, how to how to do them, that's going to be number one. And then the second one is trying to get climbers to look at flexibility in the same way that they would look at other forms of training now. I think there's a lot of knowledge out there about how to approach finger strength training, how to approach endurance training. And I

What we want to change, I don't think we're maybe quite there yet, is to have people think about their flexibility training in that way. So that's like programming, structuring, looking at things like intensity, frequency of training, maybe even tapering into a performance phase, like all of that sort of

And then the final one is having people understand how to select exercises that are appropriate for them. And there's a couple of different branches to this. The first one,

And the most important one really is selecting exercises that are appropriate for your current level of flexibility. So meeting yourself where you are and enabling yourself to get a good, the desired sensation of stretch to the area that you want it in the positions that you're using. So the sort of form that you're using in your different stretching exercises.

So understanding that is, we've found to make a really big difference to people's progress. And when we have, you know, coach people on this, people we work with, they then see much kind of faster progress. So I think it can also really play into people not seeing gains when they do flexibility training. And the sort of second branch of this is having climbers understand if they are like a little bit more specific, you know, if they've got.

preferred style, maybe even a specific project, certain movements that they feel are really holding them back flexibility wise. How do you go from that climbing movement through to a specific flexibility training exercise that, like with a lot of other training, won't necessarily look exactly like the climbing move. You're not just mimicking off the wall. You are doing a flexibility training exercise that directs the stretch and, you know, or potentially the strengthening.

you know, lengthening and strengthening both really important for flexibility. You're wanting to direct that to the specific muscles that are then going to play out on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. It's three big, big areas, but I am hoping. Yeah, they're not small points. No, no, they're not. and I suppose that's what for me always gets me really psyched about what we do with education and what we've done over the years is that they're really important things. And ultimately.

they're all about impacting the performance and the longevity of the athlete at the end. And that's really important to all of us as climbers, but also the people that we work with. And hopefully we will look back at this in five years time. We'll be recording another podcast going, right, what's the next topic? Yeah, yeah. Look how different the whole stretching flexibility industry is now around climbing. And people just don't think of that as being a little bit different or...

niche or too high level anymore. It's just standard practice. Yeah. Hope here is to change that across the whole industry. Yeah, yeah, definitely. With a sustainable approach. I think that's often the thing and it's sort of I suppose it goes back to climbers having a good knowledge of all the different strategies they could use in their flexibility training is that, you know, I think you can look at an approach, use it and have it work for a bit and get some, you know,

positive impact it for your climbing, which is great. But I think then often people feel like they reach a bit of a stopping point or, you know, they don't know how to then kind of make that a whole kind of a continued development through their climbing. And I think because climbing is such a life, a sport, you know, people are really in it for the long haul, forms a lot of like lifestyle around it. I think it's really nice to approach training and learning about training in a way.

that you're like, yeah, this will be sustainable. So I think that's where the processes of, you know, in the flexibility course, probably some of the standout processes that we give, you know, and kind of guide on, or the assessment, selecting exercises, programming, and progressive overload, like how are you actually progressively overloading your flexibility training? I imagine most people would be able to list the ways to progressively overload finger strength training to you, and probably a few less would be able to do with flexibility.

Yeah, quite a few less. Yeah. And also always bringing it back to what is the impact in your climbing? So one of the things that we found with some of the approaches to flexibility training that we use, some of the more strengthening ones, so I'm not talking about just sitting in a stretch for like a really long time, a lot of what we do and what we look at in the course, we're really strengthening our body just with the emphasis on a large range of movement, is that we also find...

that can transfer well to the wall, even if people haven't seen a huge change in classic flexibility. So how far they're getting into the sides. But some of the basic measures that we use when we are assessing people's flexibility, they obviously they have their place, but what's really cool that I've definitely seen is that when people do some of the flexibility training that's a little bit more focused on like strengthening positions, they feel it on the wall in a meaningful way to their climbing.

even if they haven't seen some huge change in like their flexibility capability in some of the basic testing. And I think that just kind of helps people break down some of those barriers that they're like, you know, there's really flexible people over there. It's just easy for them. They've just like can get really deep into the sides. But I think you can see a bit of another way that it applies to your climbing. Yeah. So.

I'm sure people listening are thinking, well, this sounds flipping interesting. I bet there's loads that I don't know about flexibility and I'd like to learn more. But what I wanted to maybe do was look at a couple of topics and give people just a bit of an insight into how we're actually looking at those things. And one of the first ones that you brought up was around static stretching. So what is it that you...

specifically are trying to educate people on around static stretching and how this fits into the flexibility training spectrum. Yeah, so kind of zooming in on just this one method. And I think it is a great one to talk about because it is one people are really familiar with and it is useful even though we use it alongside other ones, it is really useful. So I guess some of the, Fusco's going to do some like highlights on static stretching.

things that I think people could take away and think about. And say the first is intention and intensity. So there's a couple of different ways that you can approach static stretching. You can do constant angle static stretching, or you can do constant tension stretching. So if you get into a static stretch, a passive static stretch, so I don't know, Taylor's pose or anything, you could just.

remain in that position for your whole duration. So obviously you'll want to be feeling a stretch in the muscles. That's how you're getting that intensity. But then you can just hold it for the whole duration. And what you should feel is that that stretch sensation will dissipate throughout the time. And that is due to the adaptations that are occurring, a lot of which is kind of a neurological dampening relaxation. And when you say those sensations dissipate over time, we're talking about in session.

mid exercise, not over a period of those sessions. So discomfort lowers during the stretch. So it would be both, I suppose, but actually if you get into a stretch position where you feel, you know, that kind of sensation in the muscle, if you then hold that for 60 seconds, maybe even longer, whatever duration, you should feel that kind of start to reduce. And if you just hold that position, you're sort of in statically, then...

that will occur throughout the duration and nothing else will change. Or what you could do is as that sensation dissipates, you could actually move a little deeper into the position. So obviously, I guess some people are like, but it's static stretching. I guess it sort of is passive static stretching, but with a gradual deepening into the position throughout the duration to maintain the same.

stretch sensation. So I guess in one, you're setting the intensity at the start when you get into the position and then you're not changing it. And with the second, you're setting the intensity at the start, but then you're looking to keep that the same. And both of these can be useful, but I think if people aren't seeing much progress from using static stretching, they may be doing sort of too much, if you like. They may be leaning a bit more on constant angle.

and not actually doing the constant tension where they're bringing a bit more of that intention and intensity to the session. And it is a bit uncomfortable. You are trying hard in the same way as you might be in training. So I think that is probably one of the really important bits with static stretching. And I think another is frequency and playing with frequency.

Tom (11:13)
Hey everyone, we have an offer for you, which gives you 20 % off our flexibility deep dive course and our flex cork mat. So that is the online e -learning course that we have just been talking about in this podcast. And also our premium cork flex mat.

which has all of the markings on it set up to specifically target any of those climbing specific stretches that we go on about all of the time. And importantly, links in with our MyFlex free assessment that you can also do via our website. So if you go onto our website and look up the flexibility course bundle, you will get 20 % off on that price there.

Tom (11:59)
even if you're doing the...

their constant tension, especially if you are doing the constant angle. You can do more of this. The load that it's adding to your training is not the same as some of the more active forms of flexibility training, which are more like strength training. So use this. I think what some people do is they might do static stretching once a week and feel like they are not seeing much progress. And I think what we'll explore...

in the course alongside other things is how do you program this to make it the most effective it can be? And I think through frequency can be a really good way to do that. Couple of recommendations or ways that we have found work are doing your kind of passive stretching on any day that you are not doing an active form of flexibility training, or you could do it every day.

or you could do it like, you know, say at least like three times a week. So we're just leaning more to that kind of frequency, higher frequency side of things. And what we've found is that on top of the more active methods can bring about really good results. Where people might not see as good results, they might do is if they only use the passive forms and especially if they only use the constant angle forms. Yeah, it's really interesting that you say about that frequency element of stretching, because I think,

Most climbers are quite aware they have different options of sort of modalities, types of stretching, train, stretch training, flexibility training they can do, but they're really unsure about how frequent to make it. And I get asked this all the time. Is it better to go once or twice a week and go really deep and hard, or is it better to go seven days a week and go light? And it, to me, it always feels like there's quite a lot of confusion and unknown around this topic.

Yeah, and especially because you could try either. So with the more intense forms, we're probably usually talking two to three times a week, depending a little bit on body area as well, because, you know, if you were kind of doing some training for the lower body and upper body, then, you know, the fatigue will be a bit more isolated. Though we definitely start to run into like, how much time do you actually have to give to this? But yeah, on the sort of more intense side of things, you've kind of got two to three times a week.

And then if you're using the passive static stretching, you can do it seven days a week. We call that sort of greasing the groove. You'd probably keep it a bit lighter, you know, not pushing it so hard. Or you might do it like fewer times a week and push it a little bit harder with that constant tension. So you are really trying to kind of get deeper. And, you know, I do think it's quite easy for climbers to like put another weight plate on the bar or like, you know, on their kind of pickup edge.

it really takes some drive from you to push deeper into a stretch. So one of the approaches that we'll talk about in the course as well is tasking and tracking. And that's something that we have found really useful to help draw people's attention away from that kind of internal, that sort of sensation, some of that discomfort and having to push into that and having more of an external cue. So yeah, that sort of can play into...

getting the most out of your training as well. And another topic or sort of specific element of flexibility training that you touched on a little bit earlier, which I think also be interesting to talk about now is around this appropriateness or selection of exercise, you know, according to the demands of the climber, their specialisation, the project they're doing or how their body makeup is at the moment. Can you tell us a little bit about that and...

what this actually means and where are the areas that we're looking at to sort of see gain knowledge? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And I'll start with appropriateness because I think that's a really important one for seeing progress in an area. Say you choose an exercise and it's appropriate and it's not quite the best one for your project. There's often crossover between them. So I'll start with appropriateness. So I think the...

main thing here is to remember that in any given stretch, what we want to do is to be able to increase our range of motion. And there's a few different ways we can do that. But often with a lot of the exercises we've found to be really effective, you can use gravity to kind of help pull you deeper into a stretch. But the thing with gravity is it's obviously a force acting downwards. So the positioning of your body, the orientation of your body in the stretch,

needs to be such that you're really maximizing that. This is probably a little bit hard over a podcast, but if the pancake is a really good example or a forward bend, let's say a forward bend, because that's kind of gonna be really easy, because these are folding exercises, and when you fold forward, gravity will help draw your torso down to the floor. It'll be assisting you in getting deeper into your stretch, which is what we want. We want to be able to fold forward enough.

that gravity can help kind of pull us down into that stretch. It can help assist us in the same ways you can sort of add a little bit of weight to pull you deeper into stretches. Now, if when you bend over, if you, when you fold your torso forward, you barely get anywhere because of the orientation the rest of your body is in.

and the limitations of your flexibility. Not unless you have a head that weighs 50 kilos. Well, yeah. Basically. Yeah. Then you are just not getting the most out of gravity. So, and you just, because of that, you won't get as much stretch. And what we tend to find is that then people just don't see the progress that they want. And it kind of one of the problems here is copying people who are more flexible than you. So looking at the training exercise, the exact training exercise they're doing and trying to do it. And, and,

It doesn't mean you won't be able to do some form of what they're doing. You just probably need to change the orientation of your body so that when you do fold or move into your stretch, whatever that is, whatever that exercise is, gravity is pulling you and you are making the most out of that. And one of the kind of concepts we have is chasing the horizontal. So in a pancake or a folding exercise, you want to position yourself so that what you're working to is to be horizontal to the floor.

when you reach that, you know you can progress. So that's kind of the one side of it. Yeah, I think it's such a good example because I've been through this exact same experience with the whole straddle pancake thing is that when I was first working it and I was really inflexible on that forward bend, I just would get nothing over bending forward. And I watched my sister who's a gymnast and she's like, this is brilliant. I'm really getting deep in my stretch. I'm like, I'm getting nothing at this. So I had to go in a stood up position and...

forward bend because gravity was working my favor. And then once I could get beyond 45 to 60 degrees within that stretch, then I could go back down to seated. And then I did get something from it. And it was so interesting to go through that experience myself of realizing this stretch is appropriate when I'm quite unflexible, inflexible rather. And then when I've got deeper into it, I've become more advanced than the other one is totally appropriate for it. And it was cool experience that for my first time in my life. Yeah. And I guess.

The key thing to point out that you said there is that there is a form that is appropriate for all levels. I think that's a nice thing about flexibility. It's actually a really inclusive form of training because there's a lot of great adaptations you can make to exercises to make them right for people with different flexibility. So what you're doing here often when you're like changing the orientation of your body is whatever starting position you're in for your stretch, they'll often be a certain angle already set.

maybe at your hips, if we're talking about the pancake fold. So then when you fold, you're further increasing that angle. So you can think about making that starting angle as open as possible. So you're not in a very stretched position to begin with, allowing you to bring a stretch onto the muscles when you actually do the movement or the folding. And so, and as you said, that the way we do that is often through manipulating like the height of the hips and things like that. Yeah. So then I guess the other side is selecting exercises that.

are appropriate for your goals, your goals or your movement identifying weaknesses. Reflecting on like the actual climbing side of things is something that we do in the assessment module. It's not just about like flexibility tests. Of course, that's like one side of the coin and the other side is your climbing, your experience. And there's a few different ways we approach this. You can look at really common techniques and kind of movement patterns that we see in climbing.

And then we can identify the sort of different movements that are involved, the different muscles that are involved in that and how they might be limiting it. Then we'll choose exercises that target those. And we sort of call that the movement muscle system or yeah, process, because you follow these steps where you can really break down the movement, see the demands of the different muscles, what's lengthening, what's shortening. And then we know we want to...

increase the flexibility of the things that are lengthening, because they could be limiting us flexibility wise. And then we might want to strengthen the muscles that are shortening to help like pull us deeper. And so I'd say moving through that system and then being people being able to take that away and apply it to any movement for them is is key and just remembering that whatever exercise we end up with, it doesn't have to exactly look like what you're trying to do on the wall. In some cases, it might, but there's actually a lot of.

really effective flexibility exercises that look nothing like what you would do on the wall. Like the seated good morning is one that like comes to mind, but it's so, so valuable. And so I think remembering that along the way as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really, you know, really hoping and looking forward to people learning more about this, whether they're doing the flexibility deep dive course, or they're just looking at the content that we put out via things like the podcast here on Instagram, YouTube, et cetera.

and getting people to understand that it is like other forms of training, really quite a broad church as such. And there's lots of different approaches to achieve a similar outcome, but it's about thinking about it intelligently with the right approach, understanding what the demands of your goal are and what your project is, and then going into it in a thoughtful way and being consistent with that, with that training. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of the thoughtfulness comes around being...

realistic from the outset with your training time, where you are at, so that you can be consistent, you understand how to progressively overload it. And, you know, I think these are all skills people could take away. They could apply to other areas of training, but we're also going to look at it specifically thinking about flexibility training. And yeah, I think that hopefully because it's something you can come back to that classic thing people get where they hit a bit of a plateau or they've...

had to run out of ideas. They've used up the ideas or their current knowledge base. Hopefully this is a course where the idea is it could sustain your flexibility for your climbing career. And yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that I am really passionate about. I think I've always, coming from dancing, always used flexibility in my climbing. But for me, it's so linked to movement and that's something I hear from other climbers and that's often something that climbers really value.

is like that movement exploration, like being able to work out beta or getting your body into all these funky positions. And I think flexibility plays into that really nicely. massively. There is such a flipping huge correlation between good movers and flexible climbers. Yeah. And then you look at bad movers and then poor flexibility climbers. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously it's not a sort of like totally black and white, is it? But I think when you look at people who are really efficient,

can be really creative, B2Ys, often they do have a high amount of flexibility. Yeah, yeah. To finish off, I guess if anyone who's listening is interested in actually going and signing up to the course and getting involved with it, is it a case of going to the website and looking into our education section, sorry, in our education section and signing up? Are there any kind of...

money back, try it and see how you like it guarantees. How are we dealing with that? Yeah, so you can head to the website. You can check out a bit more of the information on there. If you still have any questions about whether it's right or not for you, you can also just contact us through the website. There's a form on there and that'll come through to the team here who can help explore your particular situation if you're still unsure.

Also, we do have a returns policy. So if you buy it and you look at some of it, you realize it's not quite right for you, whether it's just not quite right now, or it wasn't what you're expecting, then you can email that back to us and you can get your money back within the time period and stuff that's all on the website. One thing that I would say if you're gonna do that is I just really appreciate, we do have a feedback form if you could fill it in because,

then that can just help us improve it or kind of see where we can best be like clear on what we're offering. Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks very much, Maddie, for joining me again for it's been a while since we sat down and as ever, it's good fun. And it's just nice to have me and you chatting about stuff that we absolutely love, which is training and climbing. Yeah, yeah, it's been good. It's been good to do. It's nice to like look back and see how things are evolving and changing as well. I think that's really cool. Yeah, awesome. Well.

Thanks very much for everyone listening and we will see you again very soon. Yeah.