Thursday, September 27, 2007
Chicken Wings
Are flared elbows effective despite being weird-looking?
Raise one pumped claw if this has ever happened to you:
As you get more and more tired on a route you’re just barely managing to hold on. You manage to squeeze out one move, and then another, and desperately pull off another. As you get more trashed, your elbows start creeping up and out behind you until they’re sticking almost straight up and back, like the joints on a chicken wing.
(Mmmm, hot sauce…how that lactic acid burns!)
As the relatively weak muscles of your forearms get taxed, your body is using bigger muscles in your back and shoulders to try to help. That is, as your fingers start opening up, your body levers your failing fingers back down on the holds by moving your elbows up and out at the other end of the ‘lever’ – your forearms.
There’s nothing technically wrong with doing ‘chicken wings.’ But you probably don’t want to get in the habit of it. Even if you could force yourself to bring your elbows back down, your trashed fingers would just drop you.
It’s a good thing that you’re throwing yourself into finishing the route with so much gusto – way to stick with it! But once those elbows start to flare, it’ll be over in seconds. In general, the better strategy is to climb more efficiently overall. Use some strategy, and exploit every kind of rest on the route you can so you can finish with some control and style instead looking like you’re trying to take flight. ¶ Thursday, September 27, 2007
Are flared elbows effective despite being weird-looking?
Raise one pumped claw if this has ever happened to you:
As you get more and more tired on a route you’re just barely managing to hold on. You manage to squeeze out one move, and then another, and desperately pull off another. As you get more trashed, your elbows start creeping up and out behind you until they’re sticking almost straight up and back, like the joints on a chicken wing.
(Mmmm, hot sauce…how that lactic acid burns!)
As the relatively weak muscles of your forearms get taxed, your body is using bigger muscles in your back and shoulders to try to help. That is, as your fingers start opening up, your body levers your failing fingers back down on the holds by moving your elbows up and out at the other end of the ‘lever’ – your forearms.
There’s nothing technically wrong with doing ‘chicken wings.’ But you probably don’t want to get in the habit of it. Even if you could force yourself to bring your elbows back down, your trashed fingers would just drop you.
It’s a good thing that you’re throwing yourself into finishing the route with so much gusto – way to stick with it! But once those elbows start to flare, it’ll be over in seconds. In general, the better strategy is to climb more efficiently overall. Use some strategy, and exploit every kind of rest on the route you can so you can finish with some control and style instead looking like you’re trying to take flight. ¶ Thursday, September 27, 2007
