July – 2010 – Will Gadd – Athlete, Speaker, Guide

Fitness, Women and Muscles.

Date: July 22nd, 2010

A week ago the Crossfit Games ran in California. The parts I watched were hugely inspirational, and had more “real” athletic or non-scripted events than I’ve seen in previous games. Overall super cool, but I gotta go off on a couple of things.

First, Crossfit pumps the games as finding the “fittest athlete on earth;” I have a little problem with that slogan as I don’t believe in the idea of “fittest on earth.” I care about performance in sports; I respect every top Crossfit athlete anywhere for their performances at Crossfit, but I also respect top climbers, power lifters, or anyone who practices his or her sport and performs at a high level (except the dope-sucking cyclists). “Fittest” is a meaningless term without context; fittest at what? The people who won the Crossfit Games are the fittest at Crossfit, and specifically those events in the combination presented at the Crossfit Games. Those of us who train Crossfit get good at Crossfit, with some degree of carryover into other ares of our lives. An average high-school runner would destroy the top finishers at the Crossfit Games in a run, same for every individual event in the games.

This searching for the “Fittest Athlete on Earth” is a sign of insecurity to me. The top marathon runner in the world doesn’t try to call himself the fittest person alive, they are just the best marathon runner, cool. The men and women who even made it to California are rad in my book of radness, lay off the hype, it takes away from their accomplishments.

This leads into my next bitch fest (bad coffee will do that to me), the topic of which is Women and Muscles. During the Crossfit Games I heard the announcers repeatedly say something along the lines of, “those women down there sure are pretty, and doing some amazing stuff!” I didn’t hear him say, “Those men sure are handsome mofos, and doing some amazing stuff!” It would have been ridiculous. But he could get away with it with the women because there’s somehow this idea that women competing should be pretty, or that women with muscles can’t to be pretty too, or that how hot a woman looks doing a muscle up has some bearing on the worth of the muscleup, or some conflicted mish-mash of all these ideas. What the announcer was really saying at the CF games was, “Well, those women are attractive despite being able to do muscle ups.” Or maybe, “Amazing, there’s a chick down there doing muscleups who isn’t ugly!” Or something along those lines, comments like that are a savage mess just under their surface and lead to stuff like this.

I don’t want to hear comments about “pretty” or “handsome” during an athletic event, I want to watch people do their absolute damn best. I’m fully capable of judging whether I think a chick looks hot, or a guy is handsome. If a female announcer were saying something like, “Boy, Iginla sure looked sweaty and handsome when he took that shot on goal” I’d want to penalize her for irrelevant drivel. Same with the CF announcers. And no person, male or female, can ever be ugly doing something she has trained hard for and is doing at her limit and with all her might, as the men and women in the CF games were. That level of effort literally brings tears to my eyes. How”pretty” someone looks doing their sport is irrelevant to performance anyhow, and therefore doesn’t belong in the commentary of any competitive event but a beauty pageant.

Let’s drop the “we can lift weights and look pretty too, amazing!” nonsense. Same with the women who worry about getting “too bulky” doing Crossfit. Most women I hear say that don’t have a hope in hell of ever getting “bulky,” same as most men. Fit-looking maybe, but not “huge.” Our bodies adapt to what we do; lift heavy weights fast and you’ll put on some muscle, but likely not much unless you’ve got the genes. Look at the top male and female competitors in Crossfit; they are “built,” but not huge. I heard the “I don’t want to get bulky” comment from a rather skinny (not fit, skinny, no toned muscle at all) woman the other day, and it sounded a lot like she was cutting on muscles as somehow being unfeminine, possibly because she was unlikely to ever grow muscles due primarily sitting on her undeveloped glutes… It was one of those sideways backwards compliment/stab comments that some people are very good at and I seldom understand.

Anyhow, there is obviously some sort of conflict around the idea of athletic women. All I’ve got to say to that is that every human has within him or her the seeds of an amazing athlete, or they wouldn’t be here today. Everyone alive today is the end result of a tremendous, epic selection process that involved athletic suffering not as sport but as survival, and our ancestors all passed those tests somehow. Every woman who has or will give birth is up against a workout that makes a mockery of almost any athletic event I’ve ever seen, and most women do just great at it if left to go at it on their own terms (in north America a lot of women end up with C-sections, not so in the rest of the world). As a man you’re here because of athletic women who could carry your sorry newborn ancestors for miles and not drop ’em on their heads. Athletic women rock. When women are being athletes publicly I want the public commentary to be about their athletics. Leave the commentary on how hot they are off the air, women and men can make their own decisions.

Finally, beauty and and athleticism (bodies that get used to celebrate motion) are inherently linked in my eyes, after some thought that’s why the comments at the games and the confused “I don’t want bulky muscles” comments irritate me. It’s the equivalent of saying, “Gee, look, that car has tires” or something, only slightly pejorative in a confused way.

Edit later in the day: On the whole I thought the commentators at the 2010 CF games did a good job–much, much easier to identify athletes, hear some stories, overall really good. The problem with doing anything well is that the problems then stand out. If it’s all a junk show then it’s not even worth commenting on.

Posted in: Blog

Mountain Skill Training

Date: July 20th, 2010

I just finished running a four-day course on mountain movement. I’m pecking away at a book on the same subject, and I wanted to test some ideas I had on how to help people move better in the mountains. I had a good response to the course outline that I put up, and selected eight brave victimsto take the course, thanks! The overall goal of the course was to increase the participants ability to move well in non-technical mountain terrain. I have a lot of theories and years of experience teaching mountain skills to people, but often we focus just on climbing or kayaking or whatever, not the equally if not more important ability to move well in the mountains. I was especially looking for people who were less than totally confident in the mountains; if my theories were solid then they would benefit the most, and provide a real acid test for the ideas in my book.

After four days of intense abuse ranging from falling at the Canmore gymnastics centre to hiking with my dad to scrambling up and over Mt. Yamnuska with Mr. Blanchard I felt that we had all learned a lot. I was repeatedly surprised by how well people would learn a skill in a relatively safe environment (the “Playground” I built in my back yard) and then apply it in a real situation. This “train and then do” idea was definitely effective, although I need to refine parts of it. On the final day everyone absolutely rocked over Mt. Yamnuska; I don’t think anyone fell down anywhere on mountain, although I fell down once on the trail. My own movement was a lot better, every time I really focus on understanding how to teach something I learn a tremendous amount from the process.

One of the many small things I learned is how important good lugs on your soles are for gripping on steep slabby terrain with loose bits on it. This type of terrain is a real PITA for many people, including me, and we were able to test various shoes on the sliding board (rocks and gravel on steep plywood) I built. Movement was important, but footwear was much more important than I had thought it would be. What is excellent for, say, Grand Teton style rock hopping (sticky dot-style rubber) is truly horrible in other conditions. Because most of us don’t test our footwear carefully in controlled environments we don’t get to see the pluses and minuses. Anyhow, I learned a tremendous amount on many topics, thanks!

Now it’s back to work on the book, and thanks to everyone who took part. I’ll put some photos up later today I hope!

Posted in: Blog

Lama, Red Bull, Cerro Torre

Date: July 13th, 2010

The following is my best understanding of what actually happened on the Lama trip, and then some analysis. Anyone who wants the story so far can read this or lots of other commentary out there. Most of this writing is wrong to some degree, including my initial post.

I’ve spent hours emailing and on the phone with everyone involved that I could contact: David Lama, Red Bull, the guides on the trip, the film makers, Rolo, and many others. I have yet to reach anyone who was on the cleanup crew despite repeated efforts in public and private. I would still like that perspective.

Even with all this research I’m sure some of this writing is still wrong, but it’s as accurate as I can make it at this point.

For those who don’t want to read this endless post my quick and personal summary is this: Big film crews and difficult alpine environments don’t mix, and will always end up doing more damage to a place. In terms of damage, ethics and style we’re all hypocrites. I will continue to examine my own efforts to not screw places up that I visit.

Get a coffee or a Red Bull for the next 3,000 words if you wanna tangle with ’em, here goes:

Some physical facts:

Reported: 60 plus bolts on the route.

Reality: Twelve bolts above the shoulder where the route and every topo of the route starts. None of the bolts are directly on the route. Another 14 or so bolts on a new rap line down from the shoulder that’s not part of the route at all.

Reported: Large quantities of fixed ropes, garbage, camps, etc. permanently left on the mountain.

Reality: There’s only been one haul bag on the mountain for months. The film team did hire some climbers to remove fixed line and gear that was abandoned, and take out some other gear that was left. Today’s there’s very little up there, despite what’s being reported.

That’s the direct physical impact. Now it gets more complicated.

David Lama had an idea: Free the Compressor route on Cerro Torre. I think that’s a cool idea, and I suspect most climbers would too. He then contacted Red Bull about funding the trip. Lama’s athlete manager at Red Bull Austria is a solid rock climber (I spoke with him as he came back from a climbing trip–he climbs more than most). Red Bull was excited about the project, and wanted to make a good film about the project. So far so good.

But Red Bull likes to do things with “high production values,” especially when it’s challenging to do so. This often means a larger film crew, and guides if the project is in the mountains. It is very possible to make a good film where the climbers on the trip shoot along with one capable climbing cameraman (this is how most of the filming on my trips is done, and how an excellent film maker like Leo Dickinson made his film on Cerro Torre.). It’s also possible to shoot with a larger crew in benign environments (sport climbing, bouldering, deep water soloing, that sort of thing) relatively easily, but if you want to have higher production values (think Touching the Void, the excellent production of the Eiger North Face, a lot of modern rock climbing films) then you’ve got to have a larger crew.

Cerro Torre has some of the worst weather in the world. Huge and violent storms move in with relatively little warning, and climbers always try to push the normally short weather windows. Ice often forms on the mountain, and then falls off when it warms up, posing a risk to anyone below. Moving a film crew, even a solid mountain crew, around in an environment like that is going to be a real bitch to do even remotely safely. To have what he felt was a safe line of retreat on the route the lead guide on the trip, who I’ll call Austrian Guide (AG) as his candid conversation with me was private, placed a total of 10 bolts off to the side of the climbing route, two or so near the route, and an additional 16 to 18 on the rappel line from the shoulder down. There are good natural cracks in the area, but the standard for live loads in industrial rigging calls for higher margins. AG felt the only way to safely move people and equipment around was to bolt a new and relatively safe retreat out of the way of the falling ice from the shoulder down, and bolt bomber stations to the side of the actual route. I’m not personally commenting on this decision, just outlining my understanding of the safety plan.

AG said he put these stations off to the side of the climbing route so he could rig fixed lines that would interfere as minimally as possible with other climbers on the route. AG added two or maybe three directional bolts that could be considered remotely on the line of the route. So the total of added bolts by the guides on the climb was less than a dozen, not 60 as reported, and none those are on the actual route according to the reports I received. AG’s bolts are unique so they should be identifiable, and I’ve worked with him on several projects, so I trust his number (and I have his topo–nobody else asked him for that).

AG over-drilled all of his bolts so that he could pound the bolts in. This leaves a surface hole, and AG had a system for filling that hole. From personal experience I know that it’s extremely hard to find these holes if you don’t know where they are. But they are there, and a hole is a hole.

There was a division between the film crew and Lama. Lama and his partner carried all their own gear into base camp, carted it out, etc. The film crew had help. Lama did not add any bolts to the route.

The team climbed only about 11 pitches up from the shoulder that marks the start of the “real” climbing. Bad weather (which should not really have been a surprise) then prevented the team from getting the fixed ropes off, and some of their gear out. The film team later paid for their gear and ropes to be retrieved, along with some additional fixed junk.

The only gear currently on Cerro Torre from the expedition is one haul bag and less than 30 bolts. The rest has been retrieved.

OK, so there are the facts as I understand them, and despite my best efforts to get accurate info some of them are probably wrong, that’s how it works in life. Now comes some personal analysis. These are my own viewpoints, not “cleared” with Red Bull or reviewed by anyone. Writing all of this may cause problems for my relationship with Red Bull, but it’s gotta be said if I’m going to wear a branded helmet. If Red Bull is the company I think it is then they’ll get it. These opinions are also likely to anger some climbers I regard as my friends. I trust they’re also big enough to get it.

If I try to look at this from a global perspective then there are broadly two categories of “damage:” The first is the physical damage to the earth in terms of bolts, left ropes, etc. Knowing what actually happened, I can’t get too angry about the damage this trip did from an “earth” basis. From a straight environmental perspective the flights from Europe to Patagonia were a hell of a lot more damaging to the world. The second form of damage is to what the priests of alpine climbing consider “good style.” I’m going to mostly leave that alone.

The AG was adamant on the phone that if he were in charge of safety for the crew when and if they returned next season he would take the same tactics, or he would not return with the crew. He did not feel it possible to rig safely off natural gear for the type of load and traffic the rigging would receive. David Lama had not thought about whether or not the bolts were necessary, and that question opened his mind up a lot. He thinks it would be possible to do the rigging without bolts, but he also wasn’t responsible for the lives of the people hanging on the gear. However, “safety” is not justification for adding even minimal bolts to a route for a film effort; the whole idea is not to further mess a place up.

Bolting a new rap line down from the shoulder isn’t a huge deal to me personally. Metal left behind is metal left behind, if it’s a good descent route then I really don’t care much about what the anchors are. Apparently the rap lines in this area are full of tat and random gear, a nice clean rap line might not be a bad thing. It might even reduce the quantity of junk left on the mountain by each retreating party. Others feel very differently about this, and I respect them personally even if we disagree on this. If the locals want the bolts on the rap route pounded in as the AG planned to do then I think the crew should do that as planned. Let me know and I’ll pass that on.

Several climbers wrote that bolting wouldn’t be tolerated on a film project on a classic line in the Alps or another better-known range. Filming with “high production values” in the Alps or anywhere on a major alpine route is very, ah, industrial compared to what went on in Patagonia. I don’t think it’s right anywhere.

As soon as the crew size expands the level of infrastructure goes up dramatically, and the odds of success go down dramatically. That’s was Lama’s real error in my opinion; I don’t think it’s possible to free the Compressor route with this level of infrastructure holding a climber down. In my view you simply can’t shoot for “high production values” without establishing more belays, bolts, fixed lines, etc. than is reasonable in a difficult high alpine environment, and trying to do that will lead to failure in many ways.

All the other “physical” problems (new bolts close to or on the Compressor Route, gear left behind, etc) stem from the original problem of crew size in such a difficult environment.

Now we come to the ethics or “style” equation. Red Bull as a company did not understand the anger the bolts (even with the numbers vastly over-stated) provoked among climbers, and their response has been corporate because it ultimately came from a corporate level. Lama didn’t understand the anger as he didn’t put any of the bolts in. He is sincerely unhappy with the bolting after questioning whether it could have been done without bolting… Climbing “ethics” often make little sense to me even as I fight for my version of them, and are going to be completely incomprehensible to a non-climber. That doesn’t release Red Bull as a company or those on the trip from responsibility, but when a climber of theirs (Lama) and guides on the trip aren’t seeing a problems then I think it’s a bit difficult for RB as a company to see deeper into it all.

Red Bull, and by extension Lama, broke another and perhaps more serious law of alpine climbing: “Thou shalt not spray before the fact.” Red Bull put up a rather over-the-top marketing article on their web site before Lama got anywhere near the mountain, and another after he returned. As I read through all the commentary on the attempted climb the writers kept harping on the marketing, and the hubris of it more than the actual bolts. I tend to laugh at stuff like that, but others obviously fail to see the humor.

What now?

The next Patagonia season approaches. What’s the right thing for Lama and RB to do? Here’s my personal take for what it’s worth.

1. RB should stand up and say, “We’re sorry about the bolts, we’ll do everything we can to make that right.” Pound the bolts above the shoulder into their holes, seal them up before any additional climbing is done. Do the same with the stations off to the side of the route. Wait and see what the general response is on the rap line, if it’s negative then pound that in too.

2. If Lama and RB do go back then do so with a small crew based around one highly competent climbing cameraman. Take care of the additional bolts before rolling one frame of video. I don’t believe a multi-person crew will work on the Torre without adding more bolts, ropes, etc, the environment is just too savage for a large crew to work without relatively heavy infrastructure.

3. Lama, his partner and a super mobile cameraman send the route from the top of Pitch 11 free, with no additional bolts added on the line. One climber very familiar with the route thinks additional bolts will be necessary to free the variations required, and doesn’t have a problem with that. Personally, a bolt is a bolt, it would be cooler to do it without any new bolts at all. The 350+ are more than enough already.

4. The production quality comes from what is shot so far, and by being creative on the route. Go “modern” with HD headcams, sound, all the stuff a capable and resourceful climbing cameraman will understand. Immediacy can be more compelling than pure production quality, especially if that production quality can be done on the ground, with what is shot so far, and in post. Hell, this controversy can be part of the story…

5. As a climber I’m increasingly looking at my “ethics” not as just what I do while climbing but what my travel to go climbing and my other sports does to the atmosphere and the wilderness places I visit. This is a much bigger problem than whether I use a pin or a bolt, and to pretend otherwise is selective ignorance.

6. RB is going to keep trying to do genuinely cool stuff in different sports, it’s what they do, and one reason I like working with them. RB does sponsor traditional sport, but it’s a company built on doing genuinely wild stuff with their marketing money. In doing difficult and “crazy” projects and events they are going to make errors. Those errors should be addressed as openly and as quickly as the successes, or at least addressed with some humility.

Finally, in the end it’s all about actually going climbing. It’s our responsibility to be aware of the stone and our impacts on it. As a sponsored and public climber I have an additional responsibility to try and do what’s right, and do what’s right with the companies I work with.

All the spittle on keyboards, reasoned response, and pulpit slamming fundamentalism means nothing when your hands grab the stone. My fingers are getting soft from all this writing, it’s now time to shut the fuck up and go climb. I’m outta here on this topic, thanks for reading through this journey.

Posted in: Blog

100 points of health, GPP, New Zealand

Date: July 10th, 2010

GPP, or General Purpose Training, and the 100 point system.

Note–for those of you waiting for the Lama post, I’ve written that and am just doing a little checking on it, up soon. Mal Haskins photo to left.

A friend of mine sent a link to this video, which I thought was interesting. I’m not completely convinced that doing pushups on a ball is a hell of a lot better than doing them on the ground, but doing pushups on a ball likely does more closely simulate grappling with someone while playing rugby, which is what this video comes from. Our discussion prompted a few thoughts on general fitness training.

The main idea I’m working with right now is that there is no “General Physical Prep” training in an absolute sense. We are all training for what we’re training with, or, put another way, we get good at what we train. Crossfit is meant to be GPP, and it is more general than just power lifting or something, but ultimately Crossfitters become best at doing Crossfit. This point was driven home to me while watching the CF regionals in Canada, where only a few of the people in the event could run up a low-angled wet hillside–that was too specific of a skill. In my world that’s a basic skill, but nothing can prepare someone for everything (and this is not to rag on CF, I think it’s an effective “generalist” program for sure). There will be crossover in sports, but in general the most effective sport training will be that which most closely resembles the sport.

Some sports, like soccer, are easy to train a lot of–go run, do agility drills with the ball, etc. Other sports, like football, rugby, ice climbing in summer, alpinism, etc, are more difficult to train specifically for, and require “simulations” either with weights or specific apparatus.

I was thinking about all of this while in New Zealand last week for the New Zealand mountain film festival. It was a fantastic trip, thanks to everyone who showed me around! I ended up doing about six different sports and activities in my week there; it would simply be impossible for me to be at my top level for all of them, and even training for all of them would take more time than I have in a day. My legs were blowing out skiing, my grip was failing while climbing, and my head wasn’t as strong as it could have been for speed flying…. I would have been far better at any one sport if I had just been training that sport, but my life isn’t like that (no complaints at all!). I rely on my sports background and general fitness to get through this kind of week…

Right now I’m mainly doing only four main non-sport exercises in any given week: Squats, deadlifts, muscleups and handstand pushups, combined with front levers and a few other things tossed into the mix before, after or during my sport-specific workouts (climbing and kayaking most often, bit of mountain biking etc. tossed in there). These four “gym” exercises are the first to get dropped when my “health” load (see below) gets too high. These four exercises helped with everything I did in NZ, but it was my background skill level that got me through each sport. I also think these exercises help with my life; I like to be able to pick up a bag of peat moss, put it on my shoulder, and walk to the car. Not necessary, but nice. However, having that skill takes away to some extent from my other sports, that’s just how it works.

All of this is leading me to look at my training in a new, for me, way. Let’s say that at any given time I have 100 units of “health” available for training, work, practicing, etc. in a week. I know from repeatedly destroying myself that I can only realistically handle 100 units of “life” a week. Getting piss-drunk on friday will take away 30 units, or effectively ruin a day and a half of training. Flying to New Zealand will take away about 20 units… Doing Crossfit burns about 15 units a session give or take. A hard climbing workout the same. A big day in the mountains might 80 or more. Not doing anything physical at all will knock me back about 30 units of function a week, I need to do something. It’s possible to push to 150 units for a week or maybe a month, but in any given year I’ll end up getting really sick, injured, or burnt out mentally if I push past that 100/week average too much in any given period. Everybody has a different level of health load they can handle, but I’ve found it very useful to look at my life with this idea in mind. I keep a detailed training log, and I can go through it and see what happens negatively when I load up too much, and also what happens negatively when I don’t load up enough in terms of performance at a specific sport. The positive comes when the load is appropriate and directed to produce the best performance.

Right now I’m about 50 units a week climbing and about 50 a week kayaking in terms of sports. Doing a lot of CF isn’t going to work, nor is doing too much deadlifting/squats/whatever. If I accept my 100 idea I can organize my athletic and life priorities realistically, and not feel bummed ’caused I’m not doing “enough” of whatever. Or if I’m not hitting my goals then changing something. One of the people I coach had a lousy week where life destroyed her training schedule; her problem wasn’t what to train, but just to scale back the damage to her 100 points to the point where there was room to train for even 50 points a week.

There is no absolute on this point scale, just as there are no absolutes with training or nutrition (really). The first step to understanding training is to do something, anything, and then to record that information and start to understand it. Then you’ll know what produces performance results, and what 100 points feels like. It’s been working for me.

Edit July 12:

I just added a photo of my training log from last week, a few people have asked for this. This is a typical “on the road” week, a big variety of stuff. Note that my “strength” workouts are relatively low volume, I know from years of experience that I can not handle highly destructive workouts after doing something like flying to New Zealand, doing a major presentation, etc. Or, I could do monster workouts, but if I push too hard while there’s a bunch of other stuff going in life I invariably get sick immediately or injured long-term. This is why I keep a training log, so I can see what happens after I train, and what I was doing that worked or didn’t, year after year. I used to keep a very detailed log, but this is what it’s boiled down to over the years. Easy to track rough load (and tracking anything physical except weight lifted or time doing something is pretty rough). The single most important number in this training log is the total of all the days I spend climbing, kayaking and paragliding every year. Seriously, that’s how I judge the absolute success of my year.

Edit July 13th: Some more good thoughts here on “Bedrock and Paradox.” I like the longer cycle stuff and use that too. I do think the total quantity of work in a given sport can definitely increase with fitness, but not the total “strain.” So, for example, if you’re fit and climbing a lot of 5.13 then you can do five of ’em in a day and be OK. But if you’re just breaking into 5.13 then that will destroy you for a week. A guy named OPT believes that if you are fitter you can also destroy yourself on a deeper level during a workout because you both do more work and get much better recruitment than a novice. The novice will be sore, but the trained athlete may take longer to recover from the damage inflicted. Interesting ideas.

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Fitness, Women and Muscles.

Mountain Skill Training

Lama, Red Bull, Cerro Torre

100 points of health, GPP, New Zealand

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