Feb 27, 2012

Free Climb In NY

While we were doing our Outage Readiness Assessment last week in Oswego NY, three of us decided to head out Thursday night and try free form rock climbing.  Two of us had climbed once before, using harnesses, but none of us had tried free form (they have lots of padding on the floor).

One of the keys to being able to climb like this is the ability to do pull-ups.  Another thing is to use your feet and legs and try not to exhaust your upper body muscles.  I was good on the second one.  However, even with the weights that I have been lifting over the past several years, I have only within the last few months started working on pull-ups, a completely different muscle set from the standard gym workouts.  This rock climbing showed me how much work I have left to do.

We had fun, and I will definitely try this again after I develop better muscles for pull-ups.  Then, the next step is finger-tip only pull-ups, even harder.

Here is a picture of each of the three of us (Bill, Jim, and Ken).

6 comments:

  1. I wonder how I would do. My upper body strength sucks these days but I have pretty good strength in my legs. Then again I used to climb lots of fences and trees in the past and I know that I relied upon my legs to get me up.

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  2. On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, there was a profile of a cat who climbed MOUNTAINS with nothing more than a good pair of climbing shoes and the biggest and thickest fingers I have ever seen! It was amazing..!

    Good on you and your friends... that IS tough..!

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  3. About 8 years ago I climbed an artificial mountain face. It was hard work. And although I never lost my footing, I was happy to be wearing a harness. It was one of the GREATEST moments in my life, reaching the top. Nowadays I can't stand or walk without difficulty. Glad you tackled this and had fun. VERY brave without harness. Even with padding that's a long way down to go splat.

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  4. You done good! Not my thing, my skin crawls a little to see a man climbing a vertical surface. I have watched it, but nothing in my head says, 'go for it'. I don't doubt it is a challenge!!!

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  5. I have strong legs, but I bet the holds are too far apart for me. haha

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  6. Looks like fun. I'd love it. Not sure Stan would like it.

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