Working with Brent Apgar Part II

As anyone who has followed my summer is aware, roughly a month and a half ago I definitely had something appear in my left elbow that hindered serious climbing. It has a history that goes back to May at least. For the past four weeks I have been meeting with Brent Apgar of Synchro Chiropractic and getting the elbow and other areas treated with a pretty painful massage method called the Graston technique. I feel confident in saying that yesterday I had a session at the Spot that clearly indicated that Brent's treatments were having a considerably beneficial result. I did around 20 problems overall including a near flash of a crimpy five minus and several four spots at various angles. Today, my arm feels fine with only negligible soreness and no obvious negative aftereffects from what was a fairly solid session.

I would certainly recommend this treatment along with a dedicated stretching regimen and a careful self-analysis of what went wrong in the first place. My main problem as I see it now was trying to do too much at the same time, training really hard on my home wall and not allowing some time for healing and recuperation, especially during a very busy and stressful semester. This inattention to the obvious cost me six weeks of climbing time which I was able to compensate for only somewhat through trail running and easy climbing. I would advise any climbers who are thinking about having bodywork done but are balking at the expense to consider the psychological and emotional cost of having to take two or more months off to heal and hopefully get back to square one. The monetary investment in physical health is equivalent to say a new rope but infinitely more important and more difficult to get back once damaged

One of the advantages of working with Brent was that he is a dedicated climber and focused on understanding the mechanics and physiology of movement in climbing. We talked for a long time about issues related to climbing movement and its potential for injury and strategies for prevention and healing. He was very open to discussion and straightforward in considering options for getting past the injury. So I am hoping that I can learn from this experience and pass some of this knowledge along to readers who are wondering where to turn. I would add that there is never an easy fix for an overuse injury of any kind and especially not one that may have been months or years in the making.

New Releases

The latest new offering from Wolverine Publishing is a superb guide to the climbing in Boulder Canyon. Bob D'Antonio asked me to assist by writing the bouldering section which has been included in the book. After receiving a copy earlier this week, I reviewed it very closely and have to say it is the definitive work on the subject. For reasons of space, a few areas have been passed over and there is a lack of FA info, which is a common trend in guidebooks these days. These minor points aside, I am very pleased to have helped with a guidebook that has turned out so well. The accuracy of the information and quality of presentation along with a generous helping of high-quality action photos and personal essays make this book a must-buy for local climbers and visitors alike. If it were possible to do such a thing, I would propose that the NSFS land on which most of the climbing is found be designated a Climbing Reserve with more done to facilitate access and maintenance of trails, etc. With the sport route explosion of the last 10 years, Boulder Canyon has become one of the most desirable locations in all of Colorado, one that I would recommend highly to visiting climbers who want hassle-free easy access routes across the spectrum of grades and styles. For sample pages and ordering info go to Wolverine's website. The book is out August 4 but early orders receive a five dollar discount. I am confident this will sell really well.

The other big news is the opening on Saturday of Movement Climbing + Fitness. This is a big deal for local climbers as it expands the indoor options for Boulder considerably. The space looks great as I hope the photos below clearly show. They were putting the final touches on the floors and other last-minute details so it looks to be on schedule. The opening day on Saturday should be the place to be so check it out. A couple of weeks ago Mike Moelter and Justen Sjong took me on a tour and the attention to detail as well as the open, well-lit atmosphere were clearly apparent.

The End of Climbing History?

The recent death of John Bachar has had me contemplating more than just mortality and age, it has also led to me to consider a broader change in the sport, namely that history no longer is being made in climbing. I don't mean that there is nothing left to do in climbing, far from it, but that there is no significant innovation in terms of technology, practice, arena, or destination likely to emerge in the future that will be considered truly historical.

While it would take a much longer essay to develop this point, I want briefly to consider where the end of history in climbing occured to begin the discussion. My personal preference is sometime between 1975 and 1985, an era when pretty much every form of technology and practice that we take for granted today was introduced and accepted and has not changed a great deal since. If we look at rock-climbing, this period saw the introduction of camming devices, sticky rubber, adoption of harnesses, and of course acceptance of bolted climbs. We could also throw in psychological innovations such as training, the concept of "beta" for remembering climbs, topos, and high-end free-soloing. Free-climbing big walls was already being explored and achieved in pathbreaking climbs such the Erickson-Higbee ascent of Half-Dome in 1976 and Hudon and Jones on the Salathe in 1980. Sport climbing was well established by the mid-80s and Tribout's 1986 "To Bolt or Not to Be" established a benchmark 5.14. Peter Croft's solos of Astroman and the Rostrum in 1987 mark a new departure in solo climbing. The same trends can be seen in bouldering, aid-climbing, alpinism and high-altitude mountaineering.

Climbing in the time prior to 1990 could still be described as exploratory, historical and foundational in nature but since then, it has become a sport with a well-defined set of practices, pretty clear parameters for performance and not much possibility for genuine innovation. I saw a recent headline on the cover of Urban Climber "5.15b now exists" and thought so what? This kind of ascent is not meaningful in the history of the sport, however impressive the climb, as it represents an incremental advance in physical difficulty, not a new, qualitatively different direction. Does this mean climbing is boring? Not at all. But is it innovative or exploratory in any real sense? Beyond the subjective experience of the individual, I would argue no. Climbing can longer have a history of the kind that was made beginning in the mid nineteenth century with Whymper on the Matterhorn in 1865, and ending maybe with the 1988 Skinner-Piana ascent of the Salathe or the 1985 ascent of the West Face of Gasherbrum IV by Schauer and Kurtyka. We might have news but no more history.

Longs Peak Run Part 2

This morning my knees are aching and my quads are incredibly sore thanks to an excursion up to the Keyhole on Longs Peak. I got a leisurely start, arriving at the trailhead around 9 am and started up feeling pretty good. After an annoying encounter with a horse train, the way was clear up to Chasm Junction where I stopped before. I could see individual climbers on the Diamond pretty clearly from there. I headed off to Granite Pass which went very quickly and then the Boulderfield was in sight. After a bit of rock-hopping, I was at the Keyhole by 11:15. While I would have liked to get the summit, it was at least an hour away still and I had to be back in Boulder. So back down, more or less uneventfully, to the car by 1 pm, a slow time induced by not quite enough to eat and dehydration, a state which persisted well into the night.

To do this mountain fast requires a lot more food and water than I carried yesterday but I think I have learned my lesson on that point. I look forward to a proper summit attempt soon, hopefully under six hours round trip. I will post pictures once I figure out how to download them from my phone.

Jim Collins in Fortune Magazine

Go here for a very interesting story about Jim Collins, best-selling business book author and management guru.

Elbow Improvement

So Saturday morning, I was getting pretty tired of how my elbow was feeling so I decided after a thorough warm-up on the west side of Nook's rock, to try That Flakes It, the hardest V4 on the mountain for my money and nailed the dyno first try and without any pain. I went to Cloudshadow and did Hagans, The Consideration, East Inside Corner and the Pedestal Traverse as well. I caught up with Bruce Miller there, one of the great unsung talents in the Boulder scene. Then I went up to Red Wall and did the Standard Red Wall problem and Varney's from the lower start (V7?) and after did a bunch more really easy stuff. The temps were pretty hot and the rock greasy so I definitely had to work for the holds. Sunday my arm felt like somethung had definitely loosened up so that even a fairly hard run up and down Green Mountain felt OK.

I am increasingly convinced that many elbow issues can be traced to excess biceps tension as that seems to be what is at the root of the problem. Stretching the area seems to produce the best results. Brent Apgar's last treatment focused a lot on my left triceps and biceps and while my arm hurt quite a bit the next day, clearly something was beginning to change for the better. I hope this remains the trajectory for the future.