Antagonistic Training and Lactic Acid

Hi Kevin This is actually a mixture of questions: You should work your antagonistisk muscles on a regular basis in order to acheive a stable frame for your climbing. To get any result your training will have to result in some hypertrophy of the worked muscles.  For pure hypertrophy a setup of 8-12 reps with 1-2 sets would work better. By using slightly higher repetition format and 3 sets of the same exercise you will acomplish some hypertrofy and and a better cirkulatory base at the same time - this is what we call rehabilitation training.  If you increase the repetitions even more you will acomplish mainly a better nerve to muscle response - that is you will get better and stronger in only performing that specific exercise (totally useless)! By using dynamic (contraction is followed by relaxation in a continious way) movements you will assure that the lactic acid buildup is low. Lactid acid will build up when the workload put demands on the muscle cells to deliver more energy then they can using the available oxygen - the result is a breakdown of muscle glykogen (sugar) to lactid acid. This will happen in two different situations ; too high workload (for the affected muscle mass and cirkulation in the effected area) and/or closed of cirkulation. The cirkulation is closed of when contracting a muscle continiously - static force  (like holding a crimp). The accumulation of lactid acid is very unfavorable for the muscle cells and with high occurence the nerv-muscle interaction will be severly impared and in the long run muscle will break down. As a climer you are most of the time using your forarm muscles in a static fashion - this is unavoidable but makes it imperative that you incorperate booth short (days of) and long (weeks of) layoffs from hard climbing in order for your muscles to fully reccuperate and acomplish the overcompensation (growing stronger) that your training is aiming for. In many sports atletes train specifically to be able to perform with high levels of lactid acid in their muscles ( sprinters, kayakers)- this in order to squeeze out everything in a performance. Climbers dont want to do this because of the above mentioned reasons and the fact that once you start accumulating lactid acid (getting pumped) it just a matter of time till the pump gets so hard that you effectively lose grip strengt and endurance. So sparingly but regularly work your antagonist so hard that you get a slight stimuli for hypertrophia and also a better cirkulatory base. Avoid owerpowering and long periods of static gripping as it is loading up your muscles with lactic acid and thus counterproductive for your climbing. Björn