Not having a great few weeks, the training is going
slooooooow.
That’s what training does-it goes sloooow. But this
slow time has at least giving me time to think, and re-think. I have with a bit
of thought re arranged my finger board set ups, which are helping my Shoulder
Impingement, this is a great success, and I advise people to look a bit more
closely at their training to minimize self inflicted damage.
As for real standards, this is interesting because
there are two criteria for climbing hard, but which if looked at closely, are
at odds with each other. Climbs are basically either hard because the holds are
small, or hard because there is a lot of gymnastic climbing, the two if taken
to their extreme ends are mutually exclusive. This is leading to a great deal
of confusion in climbing and stupid reporting in the climbing press.
Most people won’t understand or don’t want to understand, climbing is confusing enough they think. But try thinking about it. If you really wanted to pull on small holds you should just starve yourself to death-this is in fact the strategy of the majority of climbers above 8b. It produces a climber of either sex at a BMI of 18 or less. And when I say less, I mean like one competitor having to go to hospital after a major comp. Funny how that never made it into the news, isn’t it. So when you are down at a BMI of 17 there is no advantage in being male, that is you don’t need testosterone, cos in reality you ain’t got much muscle. In fact what you need are small fingers, and fast movement, so enter the androgynous youth competitor. If you think this is sour grapes, think again lots of climbers actually think climbing grades are ‘Whack’, but we are just too dumb to come up with anything better.
Now then when an athlete reaches their individual
plateau at low weight, (it’s a little different for each one) they try to get a
bit stronger, and in so doing they get heavier. The heavier you get, very
obviously the less easy it is too pull on small holds, or should I say tiny
holds. It’s actually a vicious circle, the most vicious circle of all.
Now then what people don’t understand is for certain
routes the difference between the correct weight and ridiculously heavy is only
a few kilograms.
I phoned up two mates for advice recently, and they both said the same thing-ditch the weight. Not ‘get stronger’ just ditch the weight bro’, one actually said ‘you fat fooking beast, at your weight I’d break my fingers.
This is very funny because I have been trying to ditch
the weight, bro. To ditch the weight you must stop eating, and in my stupid,
stupid way, I have forgotten that, that’s what it takes. It’s a hard sport,
climbing is like gymnastics, but maybe worse, in gymnastics 50% of female
competitors have eating disorders. In climbing we lie about it. Apparently we don’t
have anybody in climbing with eating disorders, and yet I’m continually out
climbed by some of the thinnest people I have ever seen in my life. I’m
obviously suffering from the wrong eating disorder.
 |
| I had to starve for that one! |
