You Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone

Finger strength and endurance, body mass and technique, are, according to Dave MacLeod the big four key components to climbing well. Seems like, of late, I've lost three of the four. Too much “cheating” on the paleo program, and too little training and climbing has left me with weak fingers and a heavier than ideal body. Even my technique has gone somewhat adrift as it's difficult to have good technique on steep climbs when you are weak and heavy. The mind may know what to do but the body doesn't necessarily obey.

At our old home in Nelson we had a small climbing wall that I used about every second day. Sometimes, I wondered if all that tedious bouldering – staying on a small wall for even half an hour at a time is crushingly boring – was doing anything at all. Now I know. We also had a fairly well set up gym with a good stack of heavy, but simple, weights, a pull-up bar, and a jump box. The most important thing I had back in Nelson, however, was a routine. Three days of Stronglifts a week, five to six days of Crossfit WOD's per week, and three days on the bouldering wall per week. Written down, that seems like a lot, particularly as all that was in addition to whatever mountain activities I was doing that week, and Doug used to frequently tell me I was overtraining. Sometimes even I wondered if I was overtraining. In hindsight, I don't believe I was.

It always seemed to me that I lost whatever fitness I had frightening quickly, and regaining that fitness was always frightfully hard. That concept kept me nose to the grindstone – or hands to the weight bar – on a very consistent basis.  Two months away from my regular routine and training equipment has left me too heavy and too weak, and, any elation I might feel over being right is profoundly overshadowed by dismay.

Of course, one can train without any equipment - although for building pure strength, nothing beats a simple 5 x 5 weight routine (which is impossible without heavy weights) - so much of my failure is due to lack of will not lack of equipment. Undeniably it's easier to stay in a familiar and well set up environment than it is to scrounge around in multiple different locations to find a good area with at least a tree branch or playground set for pull-ups, a boulder or step to jump on, and a steep, long hill to run. Certainly, scrounging around for a work-out location, scheduling in that workout when your life lacks routine and coming up with creative ways to lift heavy things, work on explosive speed and power, develop core and finger endurance and strength has, at least for me, been overwhelmingly difficult.

I had thought that the regular climbing and hiking we were doing would be enough to maintain a good level of climbing fitness - wrong, wrong, wrong. It is clear to me now that I need a structured, targeted and regular training program in addition to recreational climbing and hiking to stay fit. The difficulty is going to be constructing and implementing such a routine when I'm forever moving around and lack easily accessible training facilities. Joni Mitchell was right, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Sunset Over Eucaplyts

Blue Mountains