This is the first of what I hope will be many guest posts to the blog. If you’ve ever clicked around on my page of training options, you may have come across one of my (extensive) forms intended to help me get to know new and potential clients. I like to have as much information as I possibly can as soon as I possibly can.
When Adam Wernham filled out the form for a 6-week custom plan, I was in awe of his answers. We’re not all writers like Adam, but what struck me wasn’t his careful crafting of words; it was the level of self awareness and candid reflection. Adam leaned into this vulnerability that we are all taught not to expect of men.
When I first started HC, I mistakenly assumed that my approach would resonate more with women. After all, the patriarchal threads of our society weave women as (overly) emotional beings while men are expected to fit the mold of ‘strong.’ I like to talk about feelings as part of my coaching, and I guess I thought high performing male boulderers would be the last demographic seeking me out, because I’m not immune to making assumptions about people any more than the next person.
Vulnerability is high on my values list, and watching several of my male clients unfold these complex emotional landscapes to a near stranger has been such a gift, learning experience, and in a lot of ways, a source of hope and inspiration.
In the particular intake form that Adam filled out, one of the questions reads “How does your body and your relationship with your body influence your climbing?” As part of his response to this question, he wrote “I feel like there’s this juxtaposition between the try-hard, burly, sort of macho vibe of hard bouldering and the tenderness it takes to care for my body with loving attention.”
And so, the idea for this blog post was born. I’m super grateful to Adam for taking the time to write out his thoughts and share his experience.
Enough from me! Keep scrolling to hear from Adam.
Train Hard, Rest Hard(er?)
When I started climbing, I was in my freshman year of college at UC Santa Cruz. I was 19. I would get out of class every day, rush home, shove something vaguely resembling food into my mouth, and bike across town to the gym – where I’d usually climb for 5 or 6 hours until the gym closed. Then it was back on the bike, to my favorite taqueria where I’d ravenously devour an al pastor burrito the size of my (still quite underdeveloped) forearm. Bike home, do my homework (read: watch the same video of Sharma climbing Witness the Fitness for the 200th time), and then off to bed before doing it all over again. I probably climbed 30 hours a week during those first couple of years.
I had no idea what I was doing when it came to training, injury prevention, nutrition, or anything resembling ‘self-care’. All I knew was that I was psyched to get stronger, and I figured the more I climbed and the harder I pushed my body, the stronger I’d get. I’d love to say that this strategy worked for my young, resilient body – but looking back, I can see how misguided I really was. During my first few years of climbing, I was plagued by injuries ranging from ruptured finger pullies to persistent elbow tendonitis, some of which set me back several months. And believe it or not, I don’t think I ever connected the dots between my a muerte approach to climbing and ‘training’, and my apparent bad luck with near-constant injury.
Honestly, I can’t blame my past self for this attitude. Everything I was absorbing from climbing culture and media, particularly the male bouldering scene, was screaming at me to push my body harder. Don’t get me wrong – trying hard and finding my limits remains one of my favorite aspects of climbing. Ask any of my climbing partners, and you can confirm that screaming my face off mid-crux and ‘blacking out’ to the point that I can’t remember my beta on an 8-move boulder are routine occurrences for me. But without bringing these aspects of climbing into balance, I ended up in a cycle that was all about try-hard, and I missed many equally important elements of actually climbing hard.
When I refer to bringing balance to our climbing, I’m talking about putting just as much effort towards taking care of our bodies as we do towards pushing their limits. When Dani Andrada says a muerte, he’s saying we should give the climb absolutely everything we have, when we’re on the rock. He’s not telling us to push and push without ever resting or slowing down. For every minute we spend trying hard projects, doing crunches, or pulling on the campus board, there’s a minute we can spend making nourishing food, self-massaging, stretching, or sleeping. It’s taken me 8 years to learn that what I do with my rest days is just as, if not more, impactful upon my growth as a climber (and a person) as what I do on climbing and training days.
Another really important key to finding this balance is to shift focus from what we do to how and why we’re doing it. It’s all too easy to take a hyper-masculine, performance-focused mindset and pivot it towards aspects of self-care like nutrition and rest.
Regimenting, pushing, and restricting yourself in order to meet your self-care goals is a hell of a lot different than learning to relate to your body in a loving way.
This is a complicated concept and something that is often a lot easier said than done. I’ve had quite a long journey learning to relate to my body as a vessel and home to be cared for and nourished, rather than a machine to be exploited and abused. I’m still learning how to do this.
You don’t need to have hair down to your ass and a copy of the Tao Te Ching next to your toilet to take this advice to heart, although I have both and they don’t seem to hurt. Don’t lie to yourself. Although I’m writing this article with your holistic well-being in mind, I’m also writing it with your v12 project in mind. We all want to climb harder, and if your climbing performance is the most motivating thing for you, allow that to be true. Still, if we want our cars to drive fast and not break down, do we constantly push them to their limits in order to achieve this? No, we take time replacing old parts, changing oil, and listening for odd noises. We give them the gift of our attention, and determine what kind of care they need in order to optimize their performance. That’s all I’m suggesting you do for your body.
I wish I could tell my 19-year-old self these things. I wish I could tell myself that behind the scenes of that video of Sharma going a muerte on Witness the Fitness, there were probably so many rest days, so much sleep, so much healthy food, and so much relaxation and regeneration happening. I wish I could tell myself that taking care of my body wouldn’t make me ‘soft’. Instead, I’m telling you – and in doing so, I’m reminding myself:
When I take care of my body, it takes care of me.