Pro-Sports

The rock climbing purists would probably shoot me down for writing this but I do believe that this really helps you to get better at climbing…

Every now and then, push your limits and try climbing some more challenging routes on top-rope, even if they appear to be physically out of your ability.  I used to have an understanding with my climbing partner that with any new route I was working on, I had only three attempts to work out the crux on my own.  If, by the third time, I was not making any headway or progress, my belayer would “help” me up by giving me a tight rope.  As for how much tight rope I would get, well, it really depended on how much I was struggling to get up the route.  I have had instances where I made it to the top of the route through a combination of my own effort and the belayer’s effort. 

Now you may wonder what is the point of struggling up a route when it is clearly beyond your ability…  The thing is, when you put your body through the motions (even if it is not completely on your own merit), it helps your body to learn the moves.  The next time you try to climb the route, you may surprise yourself to discover that you struggle less (require less tight rope or even none) when trying to finish the route. 

I noticed this when my friend egged me on to try a particularly nasty route in the gym with brown coloured holds.  Knowing how tough it was, I was rather reluctant to give it a go.  I only attempted to climb it because my friend wouldn’t leave me alone until I tried it.  Needless to say, I struggled.  Huffed and puffed and got blown over by the route, I gratefully accepted whatever help my friend/belayer was giving me.  After a painful struggle, I made it to the top and vowed that I would never be so stupid as to try this route again.  A couple of weeks later (or perhaps it was a month later), I tried the route again.  To my surprise, I managed to get through it without cheating nearly as much as the first time.  The third time I worked on the route, I managed to complete it on my own merit (although I had to hangdog a couple of times).  The fourth time, I sent it.  And this was a route I had already labelled in my mind as “too difficult” for me.

Please note that you should only do this in the climbing gym.  Don’t try this when climbing outdoors because your struggles can destroy the rock surface (especially if you’re climbing limestone) which can be very annoying to the climbers who are physically capable of climbing the route.  If you do try this outdoors, don’t say I didn’t warn you and don’t mention my name either.  I don’t want anyone kicking my behind for even suggesting this.  The climbing purists will probably come here and flame me. 

Another thing you can do, which helps you psychologically, is touch the next hold.  Even if you need help to get there, just make sure you don’t get lowered before you’ve touched the next hold.

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Another week has gone by and all I managed was one workout on February 22 when I started the first two sections of the Yogalates DVD.  I would have done the whole thing if Gavin wasn’t so restless and clambering all over me while he threw his Duplo blocks onto my exercise mat so I could roll onto them.  I’ve read about meditative practices where they sit on sharp objects which I think Gavin has mistaken Yogalates to be related to.

I wonder if I can count pacing up and down the room while trying to get an 11kg weight to go to sleep as one of my exercise sessions?  If that’s the case then I’m sure I’ve gotten in more than my three sessions of exercise a week since Gavin has been demanding to be rocked to sleep on most days now.  Between that and carrying Gavin around the shopping malls, I’m sure I’m getting a pretty good weight training workout for my back, arms and legs.

The year is already zooming by - as the end of February approaches, we’re already one sixth of the way through the year.  It is amazing how time seems to speed up as you grow older…

I digress… I was supposed to tell you about the Yogalates DVD by Yoga Zone.  Nope, this isn’t the same Yoga Zone that operates in Malaysia.  It is Yoga Zone in Byron Bay, Australia - apparently known as the Yoga capital.  The instructor is Louise Solomon and she gives a very detailed explanation of all the moves as she takes you through it - at times it even feels a little slow.  Solomon has several other Yogalates titles and this particular one is called “Total Body Toner”. 

The DVD is divided into four parts:

Workout 1: Abdominals - for a tighter waist and flatter stomach
Workout 2: Upper body - arms and chest
Workout 3: Lower body - thighs and buttocks
Workout 4: Total body - combination of first three for advanced students

Workout 4 is only recommended after completing about 8 weeks of the first three (unless you’re in the advanced group, in which case you can get right into it).  According to Solomon, if you do these exercises 3 times a week, you will start to feel improvements in 4 weeks and and in 3 months, you’ll see improvements (i.e. get trimmer). 

So far I’ve only managed to try the first two workouts.  It’s a nice easy workout if you’re trying to get back into the whole fitness game.  Whether it will help you achieve what you want - a trimmer body - well, I’ll have to get back to you on that in three months.

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The benefit of climbing in a group is that you get to see how others climb.  It gives you ideas for new moves that you can try when working out a problem on the wall.  Sometimes another climber may have a better move that conserves more energy and it makes more sense for you to copy that move than to stick it out with the move that you worked out yourself.  Learn by watching other climbers because that old adage applies equally well for rock climbing as it does for any other situation in life - why reinvent the wheel when someone else has already done a pretty good job of it?

Below: The Rockrats at Dairy Farm, Singapore

Just as they recommend starting a weightloss program with a friend - so you can help to motivate each other - climbing with a group can be pretty motivating.  I remember a remark about bouldering made by a climber, “The thing about bouldering that I love is the energy surrounding it.  You hear other climbers calling out words of encouragement and they really want the climber to succeed.  It’s a good feeling.” 

The other thing I’ve noticed about climbing is that sometimes you need to see a route being climbed in order to believe it can be done.  For instance, I was watching a group of climbers working on a bouldering problem at the gym.  They kept taking turns to have a crack at the problem but no one could complete it.  It got to the point where everyone was convinced the problem could not be done.  That was, until one person succeeded in completing it.  Shortly after, another climber completed it, and another, and another, until they had all completed it.  It was as if the minds of the rest of the climbers had been opened to the possibility that the route was climbable after witnessing its completion.  Which brings me to a point about visualisation - but I’ll talk about that in the next post.

When you climb in a group, there will be climbers that are better than you and climbers who are weaker than you.  Regardless of their climbing ability, you should watch them all climb because there are things you can learn from a weaker climber as well as a stronger climber.  With a stronger climber, it’s obvious what you can learn from watching them climb.  Even if you aren’t physically capable of making the moves just yet, your brain is always storing information for future use. 

Weaker climbers remind us how best to conserve energy when climbing because a lot of the moves they use do not require as much strength purely because they don’t have the physical capability of making powerful moves.  At the peak of my climbing, I discovered that my new-found climbing strength had made me stupid.  When I first starting climbing, my moves were more creative and clever because I wasn’t strong enough to use brute force to get me up the wall.  As I became stronger, I started to waste energy on powerful moves just because I had the physical capacity to make them.  Watching a weaker climber helps to bring you back to basics.

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I’m afraid I haven’t done any more exercise since the Chinese New Year festivities ended.  I was supposed to start this week but I got slack.  On Wednesday, I did shop until I almost dropped.  My feet and legs were aching so bad after carrying Gavin around, I’m sure that had to be counted as a workout in itself.

I must be carrying Gavin around too much because I have developed a “tennis elbow” in my right arm again.  A couple of weeks back, I was shopping for sports bras and I remember feeling weakness in my right elbow.  It has also been aching similarly to the way it used to when I overstrained it during my rock climbing days.  I suspect it is a muscle imbalance injury resulting from too much bicep action and insufficient tricep activity.  All the more reason for me to work on my Yoga again.

Although I promised myself that I wouldn’t buy any more exercise CDs or DVDs until I could commit to a home exercise schedule, I couldn’t help checking out a few Yoga and Pilates DVD sets as I was browing through One bookshop in Vivo City and Kinokuniya in KLCC.  I am glad that I had the sense to shop around a little more before making a purchase because I found some Pilates and Yogilates DVDs going for a steal at Speedy DVD/CD shop in the old wing of 1Utama.  For under RM20 each, I didn’t think I could go too far wrong.  Now I really have to make that commitment and get started.

If you’re looking for exercise DVDs, I recommend you check out Speedy.  They have a whole range of exercise titles, not only Yoga and Pilates, all going for under RM20 each.  You can get dance exercises (hip hop, salsa are two that I can remember seeing), aerobics, fat busters, and fitness programs.  They also have a whole series by Denise Austin - the only name I recognised, because I remember seeing her workout videos when I was in Australia.

Exercise DVDs are great because they let you work out from home at your own convenience.  The only problem is that the rate of non compliance is extremely high because it is equally convenient to get slack and skip the exercise - what with the comforts of bed, your favourite TV programs and the kitchen within easy access.  So before you rush out to buy yourself a set of exercise DVDs, it’s a good idea to test whether you have the commitment and the ability to motivate yourself.

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Okay, okay, so I’m a little behind in the times reporting this since I saw the shop coming up some time back, but just in case you weren’t aware, Allsports is now in 1Utama.  Located near the Bridge, the shop is on level one, just one floor below TGV Cinema.

While I was shopping with my SIL and her friend a couple of days ago, I took a quick squiz through the shop and was pleasantly surprised to find that the price of a decent pair of rock climbing shoes is still going around RM300+ and a Petzl harness can still be purchased also for around RM300+.  Ropes, quickdraws and belay devices have gone up considerably, though - nearly double the price I purchased mine for.  The 70m Beal ropes were going for around RM800 (I bought a 60m Beal rope for about RM400).  I saw a simple quickdraw for about RM110+.  Even a Reverso costs about RM100+.

I don’t know the going rate for climbing equipment at the other shops since it has been equally long since I last checked it out.  I have yet to find a place that sells a child harness though - not that Gavin is ready to start climbing just yet.

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Variety is the spice of life.  It is also the key to getting better at whatever you do.  Always try to climb something new and different - work on different routes, climb at different crags, go to different gyms.  This helps you to improve a couple of things:

• your route-reading ability - how you look at a new route and figure out how to climb it.
• your repertoire of rock climbing moves - every new route will train your muscles in different ways.  If you only climb the same routes over and over again, your body won’t learn anything new.  Eric Horst once wrote about a climber who would climb at the same crag every weekend.  He got so good that he could dance pirouettes around every single route at that crag.  Until one day when someone broke one of the holds on a route and suddenly, he couldn’t climb that particular any more.  Don’t fall into this trap.

Add variety to your training sessions.  Try different styles of climbing.  You can work any of the following suggestions into your training program:

• Climb using only one hand (the easier routes, of course); or only one leg
• Practice traversing on a slab (a forward inclining wall) using feet only - this is great for improving your balance and your footwork.  The wall in the picture below is a good example of a slab, but obviously if you’re only using feet, make sure it has bigger footholds.

• climb using first touch - that means once you have placed your hand or foot, you can’t shift the position, even if it is awkward.  This helps you think about how you use a hold so that you optimise your moves and reduce the number of unnecessary moves
• boulder - do this with a group of friends and give each other boulder problems to work on.  Bouldering tends to be a shorter, more powerful sequence of moves that is guaranteed to help improve your footwork and your strength.
• do laps - up climb and down climb on a route that you can complete but is still somewhat challenging.  Obviously, don’t pick one that you could climb in your sleep, make sure you feel like you are working out when you do laps.  This helps to build your endurance.

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Week 3 went by and I didn’t do any exercise - not unless you count carrying Gavin around the shopping mall in a carrier… 

Week 4 is Chinese New Year.  The lead up to Chinese New Year’s Day has been rather hectic so I have really had the chance to work out.  Excuses, excuses…  Since the hubby has a week’s break from work I doubt I’ll be doing any Yoga or exercise for the rest of the week.  Maybe I should just stick to carrying Gavin around the shopping mall and call it a workout?  I did carry him until my arms felt like they were ready to drop today.  Sigh… perhaps I should call it a two week holiday break and start again in Week 5?

Shall I make it my Chinese New Year resolution, instead?  Not that I’m getting vain or anything, but I think it is a little cause for concern that I bought some Chinese New Year clothes about a month back and today, after wearing one of the pants I bought for the first time, it felt “a little too snug”.

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