It is hard to be fit, it's easy to be fat! It's not easy to do hard routes, but it is a damn sight harder if you'r fat, and can't do a pull up, or two. I was watching a vid of one of the latest bunch of training gurus telling me how to train this morning on my googely wiggly box, when what ever he was saying faded into gray, and I looked at the bags under his eyes, and his fairly obvious light weight due to not eating! Preety neat I thought, masquerade light weight as training, a bit like the steroid boys and girls telling you how to get big muscles by 3 sets of 12, when they are in fact pharmaceutical experiments. I have often said climbing training isn't rocket science, but for pitysake a quick video of an emaciated climber with huge skill will not turn you into any thing except disappointed. How about telling people it will take time. Or that they have to try really hard!
I make money occasionally by taking people on to improve their climbing, or help them enjoy a bit more success, and I always tell them you gotta get some in, you have to train. You have to be in the right gear, you gotta want it, actually wanting it is a good start, desperate to succeed is better. Fundamentally gagging for the next grade would be my preferred state of mind. Mindlessly following the gurus lovely cuddly words won't hack it. Doing 4X4s won't hack it, you gotta mean it.
I read training books not because I will ever find anything out, but because I want to avoid training. If Steve Edwards was alive he would laugh at that one. He was always kind, and liked my training stuff. One of his big things was doing some thing big on his birthday. It was a birthday challenge. He got the idea from Jack Lalanne a fitness guru who was also into health food long befor these things became mainstream. I got the birthday challenge the day I was born, and with each passing year I get lazier. However I resist the urge to book my Zimmer frame, and try, some years I try foooking hard.
Eat less, train more, try hard. Possibly, get some skill sets, acquire real knowledge, perspire, aspire, when in doubt hire - as in hire me, I need the money, and I know what I am talking about.
