Fuel Food for Climbing Performance
Get all you can from everything you've got!
                                                            

First, let's get clear on what this article is not. You won't learn about how to set up a grand nutritional plan to have a perfectly balanced nutritional lifestyle that will keep every system in your body running perfectly and optimize your health. What we are learning about here is more specific. We're going to look at how food affects performance in the short term, specifically, the way in which food provides the fuel to help you have a rock climbing diet to tear it up at the crag and in training.

Carbo Loading

“Carbo loading” has been the darling child of endurance athletes for decades. Reports of improved performance and increased endurance abound. Possibly the greatest benefit of carbohydrate consumption is the easy digestibility of Carbo's in comparison with products containing animal proteins like milk and meat. Faster digestion times return the pasta eater to a state of athletic readiness in less than half the time his top sirloin counterpart will experience.

But is carboloading beneficial to rock climbers? First, let's look at what carbohydrate loading is. About eight days from an extreme athletic event, say a triathlon, athletes completely quit eating any carbohydrates. Not even fruit is allowed. A protein laden diet that starves the body of glycogen is pursued. At three days from the event, the body is ready to take any carbohydrate it can get. In fact it will overload its storage capacity to compensate for the starvation. By the time of the triathlon, every muscle cell and the liver are stocked with more glycogen than is ever normally possible. Great, here's a body that's ready for intense, constant punishment of an enduring nature: exactly what sport climbing and bouldering are not. Sport climbing, while involving aerobic processes is generally considered an explosive activity. Medium to high intensity levels of exercise with a duration of less than 15 minutes may not require the use of any stored glycogen. Sports nutritionists agree that bouts of exercise less than 90 minutes long will receive zero benefit from carboloading. It may be possible that a climber attempting the "Nose in a Day" could benefit. But for the rest of us... just eating well is the best thing.

Protein - Is that you Arnold???

Haven't we all heard that meat is the only way to get a complete protein? Or that protein is the most important part of an athletes diet? Protein is essential, no doubt about it. No proteins equals no muscle rebuilding. How much protein to eat is the question.  

A ratio of 1 g of protein per kilo of body weight for growing adolescents and .75 g per kilo body weight for adults is currently recommended by many sports nutritionists. Years ago, nutritionists recommended three or more grams of protein per kilo of body weight to be ideal. Nutritionists now say that they realize that human digestive enzymes are quite capable of assimilating vegetable proteins in what ever form is presented. The old myth that it is necessary to combine different types of vegetable proteins in order to have a digestible complete protein is just that, a myth. It is not necessary to eat vegetables and combinations in order to duplicate the amino acid structure of an animal protein. 

In other words, it's okay to eat beans without brown rice at the same meal in order to benefit from the protein of the beans. Additionally, the proteins that are broken down during strenuous exercise are mostly reabsorbed into the system. All of that muscle tissue is not lost.    It just needs to be rebuilt and your body is extremely efficient at taking the free proteins and packing them right back on. 

Amino acids are the cellular building blocks found in protein. We need at least eight, and possibly 10 amino acids in our diet for the sustenance of normal tissues and body growth. All of the amino acids are available from vegetable sources which are much lower in the harmful types of fats and cholesterol that come from animal sources. Vegetables also have a higher vitamin and mineral content than animal sources. This is not to say that you should eat no animal proteins and unless you are so inclined. Just keep in mind that the digestion of vegetable matter is much easier on the body. 

Digestion diverts blood from the muscles to the stomach. Keeping that in mind, the most taxing foods that a climber can consume before a maximum intensity event are dairy or meat products. They require a massive amount of time for humans to digest. Keep that in mind when planning what you eat and especially what type of climbing you'll be involved in after you eat it. It may very well be that someone heading up into high mountains wants to slow down their digestion for the long burn and cold temperatures. Someone preparing for a World Cup climbing event on the other hand could perform self sabotage by eating half a pizza right before going into isolation.

The “F” word... Fat  

In the early days of competition sport climbing, sports physiologists had a heyday checking out a climbers. It was like a whole new species of athletes were found in some remote jungle. They poked and prodded and measured every aspect of this new mutated type of athlete. They found something absolutely shocking. Sport climbers had the lowest body fat levels of any group of athletes on the planet. They were leaner than marathoners. Those were the days when the term “light is right” rang in the years of every sport climber. The caricature of sport climbers always depicted a stick figure type of gangly kid who's chalk bag was larger than his waist. Top female climbers have had irregular or absent menstrual cycles as an endemic problem for decades. Funny thing is, most climbers could eat like pigs and still disappear when they turned sideways if only they ate and trained correctly. 

Since most of us are oblivious to which foods are fatty and which are not, awareness is imperative to gaining a lean, honed, and healthy body. For example: an average hotdog has 146 calories. 146 calories is not that much right? A huge salad without any dressing has about the same number of calories. The difference is that the hotdog has about 13 g of fat which is about 81% of its calories. The actual nutritional value within the hotdog is almost nonexistent. Of course if you load a quarter cup of thousand Island dressing onto the salad you won't be doing much better. But by making your own dressing with ingredients like lemon juice, spices, and a bit of olive oil, you'll be in nutritional dynamo. 

Remembering that human bodies preferentially stored fat rather than burning it, you'll have no trouble choosing the salad and other healthy foods to make a fantastic meal that will give you all the energy you need and keep your body's systems operating for peak performance. 

Take the time to read processed food labels in order to make smart nutritional choices that will allow you to be a lot of nutrition packed a lean foods. That way you will keep plenty of food going in to avoid the health complications that arise from either junk food or starvation diets.

Many top climbers have mentioned that power in rock climbing is dependent on a good strength to body weight ratio. If you have any doubts about this theory, experiment by trying the hardest Boulder problem that you're capable of on your best day with a spotter giving you about 5 pounds of upward push. Next, attempt the same problem with 5 pounds of weight added to a weight vest or your harness. That 10 pound span will probably take you from the easiest walk up your Boulder problem to feeling like it's totally impossible. Remember that healthy, lean body mass is what I high performance rock climber eats four. Every ounce should contribute to your power and endurance.

Not all fat is bad, of course.  Actually fats are crucial. Without fats, many important functions would cease to perform in our bodies. The key is to reduce the bad fats and insure that the essential fatty acids and life giving fats come in the amounts that will keep you in top shape.  The details of this will be covered elsewhere.

Water
Because approximately 72% of muscle tissue is water, water may be the most important nutritional component during actual times of training or intense climbing. Dehydration, aside from causing headaches, shortness of breath, muscle cramps and fatigue presents two serious problems for climbers. And I'm guessing that you haven't even thought of them.
First: Dizziness. Changes in the fluid levels within the inner ear probe the vestibular that is the balance system out of sync with the visual, somatic and proprioceptive systems, which normally orchestrate our sense of balance. While it's unlikely that a climber would experience vertigo as a real result of mild dehydration, even a slight sense of dizziness can totally change a person's performance during rock climbing.

Second: Tendinitis. Because the human body will attempt to recover fluids from any available, non-essential source a likely complication for sport climbers and boulderers is tendinitis. Our bodies don't see lubrication of the tendons contending sheaths as essential as cooling and overheated body. If you climb or train and dehydrated, the likelihood of tendon problems is at least as high as if you were climbing without having warmed up first.

Thirst is a poor indicator of how much water has been lost, especially in cool weather. By the time thirst becomes noticeable, a person is already mildly dehydrated.

Eating before the big event
Pre-event meals… the meal before a climbing competition or climbing an extremely difficult route, has as great an effect on performance as do long-term nutritional habits.  

Full meals should be consumed no sooner than 2 1/2 hours prior to a major event.

NO:
Sugar loaded snack foods: These easy to carry and even easier to swallow down foods wreck havoc with blood sugar levels.  They also cause problems with cellular fluid and energy exchanges in the body. Since our bodies naturally react to high levels of sugar with insulin in order to moderate blood sugar levels, you could feel high as a kite one minute and absolutely energy drained 5 to 10 minutes later. High sugar foods are more unpredictable than high mountain weather. With either one you could be heading back down to the ground sooner than you thought.

Animal protein power lunch: You don't want blood that should be supplying maxed out muscles to be taking care of that double cheeseburger you had for lunch.

Yes:
Brown rice topped with half an avocado, chopped tomatoes, spices, Bragg liquid amino's and lemon juice.
Whole wheat pancakes with berries.
Smoothie with banana, berries and small amount of protein powder.
Half an energy bar.

Of course these are only a few suggestions. There isn’t a singular prescription for what to eat before “The Big Event”, but you get the idea.  The more you read on this topic from authoritative sources the better.

After a depleting event, climbing day, or work out, do your body a favor.  Eat a larger than usual amount of quality carbohydrates in order to replenish the glycogen levels in your body.  This will help your recovery tremendously by doing the equivalent of refilling your car’s empty gas tank, then get back to eating normally and nutritionally.

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