Maintaining a healthy weight is essential for athletes looking to boost their skills and performance. A sufficient level of lean body mass allows individuals to move with strength, agility, and endurance, especially in extreme sports such as climbing. Unfortunately, athletes can be prone to unhealthy and unsustainable weight loss practices. In an effort to acquire the optimal body composition for their sport, many turn to restrictive diets and excessive exercise.
Slimming down too much and too rapidly can be particularly dangerous for climbing, as you can compromise your functional power-to-weight ratio and thus risk falling or injuring yourself. Therefore, it’s important for climbers to get to a healthy weight with the right amount of strength and muscle. So, here are some science-backed strategies that you can try in order to lose weight without sacrificing your performance and overall health in the process.
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Do Strength Training
When you’re trying to lose weight, there’s the risk of losing some muscle — something that can negatively affect your strength, metabolic rate, and aerobic capacity. The good news is that strength training allows you to shed excess fat while also maintaining lean body mass, making it a significant component of athletic training for climbing. As opposed to doing cardio alone, regular strength training sessions promote greater weight loss and target the muscles needed for climbing, such as the biceps and back muscles for pulling and the core for stability and support. Beginners can start their strength training routine with brisk walks and dumbbell exercises before moving on to weekly sessions of circuit training and weight lifting.
Follow a Customized Diet
In addition to strength training, eating a sufficient amount of protein can enhance the preservation of fat-free muscle mass by keeping you fuller on fewer calories. Since the amount of protein you’ll have to consume depends on your current and desired body weight and your overall lifestyle, you can look into weight loss programs that provide a customized diet that meets your nutritional requirements and needed energy levels for climbing.
Tailored meal plans can also maintain your motivation for weight loss since they utilize a sustainable approach that still lets you enjoy your favorite foods with the right portion sizes. Additionally, you can complement this customized diet with a food diary where you can plan and track your meal intake, thus allowing you to make healthier, more mindful dietary choices.
Time Your Pre- and Post-Workout Nutrition
Aside from the composition and nutritional value of your diet, timing your meals and snacks around your workouts also ensures you have adequate energy for optimizing your climbing performance. Nutrient timing is based on bolstering your glycogen stores through eating complex carbohydrates, usually through a meal 4-6 hours before a workout. Consuming a combination of protein and carbs within 30 minutes after an intense workout also promotes glycogen re-synthesis for muscle synthesis, proper refueling, and post-training recovery. Lastly, proper rest throughout the week can aid in muscle and full-body recovery. Experts recommend monitoring your sleep cycle with the help of fitness trackers or smartwatches, as well as practicing sleep hygiene by turning off devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
Practice Intuitive Eating
An extreme sport like climbing equally involves physical and mental strength, so it is crucial to keep your willpower and stress levels in check throughout your weight loss journey.
Mindfulness increases your awareness of your internal and external environment, and one way to practice it is through intuitive eating habits. Rather than being rigid and restrictive with your diet and exercise plan, try to be more flexible with your food intake by introducing day-to-day variations to your training load and demands. It also helps to pay closer attention to your internal cues for fullness and hunger so that you avoid both undernourishment and overeating during training and climbing sessions.
Always remember that weight loss is rarely a linear and straightforward journey. Learning to cope with setbacks during changes in your body weight and composition can also equip you with the adaptive mindset you need not just for losing weight but for progressing as a climber.
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