Climbing Through Time: Steve McClure on Aging, Injury Prevention, and Staying Motivated

In today's Lattice Podcast highlight, host Tom Randall sits down with legendary climber Steve McClure to delve into injury prevention and the nuances of climbing as we age. Life gets more complicated as you get older, but finding inspiration from motivated and strong friends can make a world of difference.

Highlights from this Discussion Include:

• Life and Climbing: How increasing life complexities make it harder to push climbing limits as we age.
• Motivation from Peers: The crucial role of being surrounded by motivated and strong friends for ongoing inspiration.
• Ageing and Genetics: Understanding the impact of genetics and self-care on ageing climbers.
• Maintaining Muscle Mass: The importance of maintaining upper body muscle mass with age.
• Endurance and Power Endurance: How these aspects can still be improved, despite potential declines in finger strength.
• Flexibility Changes: Noting how flexibility evolves, with the lower body often retaining better range of motion than the upper body.
• Motivation and Enjoyment:Emphasizing the importance of motivation and the joy of climbing in maintaining progress over time.

This episode is just a thirty minute highlight from a more in-depth conversation covering additional insights on balancing life and climbing as we age. For the full discussion, tune in to the complete episode available on all major podcast platforms. 

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.

Transcript

Tom (00:00)
climb like I used to. you know, I'm...

I'm too old to do that now, but it might not be that they're too old to do that. It might be because life got in the way and it does. Life gets more complicated as you get older. It's not as easy to, to push yourself to the limit. But if you notice that more and more people around you are doing that, then it's motivating to do that as well. If everybody around you, all your mates have got a massive beer belly and just, you know, go out and eat food and, and do that kind of stuff, then yeah, I'll just do that as well.

That's what everybody else is doing. But if all your mates are like lean and trim and still crushing, you're like, actually, yeah, I'm going to do that as well. That looks much more fun. So that maybe it's that there's like a wave of people and we're all kind of riding that wave. Yeah. And what for you now would you say has been the key changes which have occurred through all of your 40s and now approaching the middle years of your 50s?

What do you think of the kind of like the headline things? Yeah, that's a good question. Have changed. So what I noticed was there wasn't much change for quite a long time. And I was often thinking, wow, like you're really getting away with this. And like now in particular, I mean, regularly now I'll be climbing and I'm thinking, am I supposed to be able to do this? Like I'm trying really flipping hard. I'm pulling on some bad holes here.

and my body's working, is that all right? And I kind of wonder whether that's an, being all the thing to have those thoughts, because it still does work. I'll get into later what happens when I try really hard and how many days it takes to recover. It's like, well, it's a bit of a payback required now. But certainly I didn't notice any noticeable drop off. Actually, I haven't noticed any noticeable drop off, but.

There was nothing to notice until I was around 50 really. So all the way through my forties, there was no like, I'm getting weaker. I just stayed level. Nothing really went down. Well, I suppose you climbed your hardest route grade at 46. Yeah, 46, nearly 47. Yeah. I immediately jumped into harder trad stuff then straight after it. And I was as good as I'd ever been. So maybe there was some drop in, I mean, there will have been some drop in...

actual top -end physical performance and that will be at any age because I moved sideways into something a little bit different that wasn't like pure hard red pointing but because I was doing something a little bit different and I was doing relatively well at it I didn't notice anything that made me think you're not as good as you were before I always thought wow you're doing just as well as you've ever done and I kind of feel like that now like I at the moment I feel like I'm climbing just as well

in what I want to do. Now that's probably the key comment. If I wanted to climb 9b, I might go, I'm not quite as good as what I was, but because I'm motivated by other things, I'm climbing just as well. I just do notice that if I really hammer it, the next day I'm thinking, I'm a bit knackered today. A bit more knackered than what I would have been 20 years ago. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's interesting to hear that because...

I remember when, me and you sort of first cross paths from a training perspective was back when I was managing the GB senior climbing team. Right. Like quite a long time ago, maybe 15 years or something like that. And you came in and did some sessions with the team and kind of ran them through the kind of training that you would do and the fit and the sort of the breadth of exercise and way to, to sort of cover the full.

range of things that would actually result in better performance. Cause you had that interesting scenario back then where you weren't doing a load of competition climbing, but you were very definitely right at the top end of any performance in the UK. And one of the things that I remember from that was the, the kind of the depth and density of your climbing training sessions was pretty good because I remember those guys in the team going, Steve does all of that in a day.

And it was, yeah, it was, it was a lot. So it's interesting to hear that you feel like that finally isn't quite as doable and you've got longer recovery or can you just not do as much in a session? well, I mean, it depends on what you're doing. I mean, I'm, I think I'm a quite a high volume person. I mean, just last week I, I spent, you know, eight hours setting nine hours setting every day for four days in a row.

And they were all hard. I was setting the wave at the foundry. So you're trying multiple like font 7A, 7B boulder problems and over and over again. And then I went to London and set circuits up to like 8B plus. Four days in a row. So that's pretty full on. So yeah, volume, I think my volume is still high. I'm a quite high volume person. After that was cycling and climbing, whatever. But the volume of very high intensity, I can't keep that up like I used to be able to.

So high volume of high intensity. I mean, those two things don't work anyway, but I don't think I've ever been a climber who had a focus on the very high intensity stuff. You know, you wouldn't often see me doing, for instance, deadlifts followed by like total max hangs and calling it sort of quits. I would be much more like, let's do something a bit easier and loads of it.

I suppose that's my thing. Easier but more. Yeah. And do you think that you see much difference in, you kind of referenced this group of friends and people that you have that decline in the same age group and they're really psyched and they're wanting to perform. Do you see much difference in their experiences over that time period of evolving in their age compared to yours? Cause I'm guessing you must talk about it as a group a fair bit. Yes. So, I mean, there's...

It varies.

So this is the thing which I think, I mean, I've noticed this and you don't tend to notice this as you because you don't care. But as you get older, you're aware that people age differently. And why that happens is self -inflicted to some extent, genetic to others, just look for other people. But some people age badly and some people age well. And I've got people that I know in their 60s that are still cranking. I mean, I've got people I know in their 60s that are not alive.

So it's gonna be varied depending on who you are. I think I've had a lucky run, lucky genetically as well, in that I've not noticed much drop off, but I do have people that I'm really inspired by that are climbing in their 60s and they're still just going. Paul Reeve is a great example. He's 62 and he's a monster. He's just out there all the time. Rab Carrington, he just kept on going.

They're the sort of people you take huge inspiration from. If they can do it, why can't I? Yeah, yeah. A lot of it comes from that, I suppose mindset and approach that then plays back into how people actually carry out their kind of consistent weekly daily activities. Cause I see exactly the same thing in Pete's mum, Jill. We interviewed for this podcast recently and like I know Jill really well and I've known her for going on...

15 plus years, but sitting down with her and actually talking to her about her own climbing and training, I left it going, my God, this was like listening to a version of Pete, but maybe even, maybe even more motivated. And thinking there's a good reason why Jill is in that position of doing some of the best climbing that she's ever done in her sixties because of her approach and mindset and attitude. Yeah.

What do they say? You're only as old as you feel. I mean, obviously it's, if you feel young, then you're just going to press on. He's going to punch it out still. And if you feel old, you're going to sit on the sofa, watch telly, you know, it's, it's, it's in the head definitely. And you can trick yourself. You can feel old and go, come on, wake up. And you can make that happen. But it's sometimes it's quite hard to do that. And I don't even drink to your coffee. So what do you think of the things that you've

being quite conscious about maintaining in your life so that that is possible. And then likewise, also just keeping out, even if there's been a natural drift for it to come in. Because we were chatting before with this podcast about, wow, doesn't life get more complicated as you get older? But there's definitely things that I think probably both me and you have intentionally gone, I know this is what I probably could or should do, but I'm really careful not to have too much of this.

or at all in my life. Yeah, so I think we're talking just climbing here. We're not going to shift into every other parts of life. So one of the thoughts I do have quite regularly, because I do have injuries and niggles and things like that. And obviously I will get injuries that seem a little bit more than a little niggle. And my thought when I get one of them is, do I push on to try and get stronger or do I...

to protect their foot off the gas because what I'm doing right now is great. At the moment I can regularly on site 8A's, 8A pluses, that's great to be able to do that at my age is brilliant. I can red point 8B plus, 8C, that's great. I can try and push to maybe hudge up a level, but is it worth it? Is it worth the risk of the injuries and not being able to do anything?

or should I just continue what I'm doing? So it's finding that balance line between pushing really hard and taking it up. I mean, we all have it at any age, but obviously it's a bigger risk as you get older and understanding where you can go to with the hard work you put in, I think is really complicated. And I don't know whether I've got anywhere near actually sorting it out, but yeah, you need to be just be, don't take too many risks is the key.

I suppose expanding on the question, like specifics of that, I find hard, very hard intensive training to be likely to push me over the edge and lead to some kind of tweak. Whereas more volume based climbing is likely to be okay. So I can, I can boulder indoors like a classic indoor bouldering session for me would be loads of bouldering. Some of it relatively limit, like I can do that problem in.

five tries. So that, but it's not going to be like, I'm going to have to try for like 20 days on a two move boulder problem. That's going to, I'm going to pay for that big time. So yeah, more higher volume. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. Cause I think one of the things that I've had to really be aware of when it's come to, as my climbing has changed between my thirties and my forties. And it's something that I've also try and remind people a lot of when it comes from a coaching and training plan perspective.

is that we can often find ourselves in a position where we will make almost like an excuse for our age and go, well, I'm in this bracket here now and just things are feeling harder, worse. But can we objectively look at when things were going really well? Let's say it was 10 years before and go, how does my life in terms of my climbing activity, how relevant, no, not relevant, that's not the right word. How similar is it to what I did 10 years ago?

So for my specific example would be, I generally feel that I'm not as fit as I was 10 years ago. Like the power endurance has gone down, but I really objectively look at what I've done with my power endurance versus 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I have way more time and I just put in more volume as a whole. Now I try and use all these hacks and little tricks that I know I've learned through sports science. And I go, I can just trick myself into doing better in power endurance by being really effective with my half hour session.

or my one hour session was before I used to put three, four hours of time in. And the reality is that they're very different compared to now. And I'm gonna be careful not to then go, well, I'm just older, so I can't have parent -duty is good. Yeah, and that's a good point, isn't it? Yeah, so yeah, how much you're putting in. If you're putting in way less now and you've got worse results, of course, it's really obvious. I think one thing which I'm aware of as well, slightly sort of sidetracking a bit is that

I feel like as you get older you tend to lose muscle. So muscle sort of drops off a little bit and I think it's quite important maybe for the older climber to try and maintain some of the sort of big muscle groups and that might be best done off the wall maybe. Like I won't say down the gym, you know on a bar with weight, something like that trying to keep the muscle size.

because it drops, that goes as you get older, that tends to go. And the problem that you have as a climber is you can climb hard stuff, you can try hard stuff, but it might be that, let's just think of some sort of little example. You're trying to board a problem and it's really flipping hard and you try it twice a week for two weeks. But if you actually look at what the big muscles are doing, maybe only your right biceps doing anything and in your fingers. So after the end of that,

two or three week block of hard climbing, the rest of you's not done anything. Now when you're young, your muscle doesn't drop off you straight away. It kind of like hovers around the stairs the same, so you won't lose very much. But for the older climber, you've got a nice big right bicep at the end of it, but the rest of you's gone to nothing. So you've got to try and keep hold of that, otherwise, you know, the next week you're trying to build a problem and only your left bicep gets worked out. Before you know it, you've just got like some biceps and nothing left at all. So you've got to keep that.

I've noticed that I sometimes am aware that my, I won't say bulk because I never had any bulk. It seems to sort of be going away. So I've got to work on that. Yeah. I think this is a extremely good point. And that's what I would say is always a recommendation to your climbers who are going through their 40s, 50s, 60s is maintain a really consistent approach towards strength training. Especially when you become larger muscle groups and doing things which

would have a, I suppose, lower risk in terms of working really small muscle groups, things that might pick up tweaks more easily and doing stuff. Yeah. On a bar with some weights, floor -based stuff, it's still, it's still can be calisthenics even. And you don't have to go to the gym and lift or push really heavy weights, but it's a really, really important thing to do. and also with it is maintaining a fairly good focus on protein intake in diet as well. It's another thing that's just.

very good research to say make sure that that's also maintained through those latter years. Some people do it naturally and intuitively but I think it's good to be aware that that's that's a thing as well. The protein thing. Yeah. Yeah I've really upped my chocolate intake so I seem to be doing alright. Milk or dark? Both. Ideally in the same bar. Typical Steve answer there. Yeah plenty of cheese as well. You have more cheese when you get older. That's protein isn't it?

it definitely is. Yeah. And what do you think are the things for you over your forties and fifties, which have felt you can still make really appreciable improvements and gains on over some of those things like, for example, muscle bulk, where it's been much harder to maintain or even just stop the slow degradation. There must be elements of your climbing where you've gone.

Wow, over the last five years, I'm significantly better, even though I'm 52 years old. Yeah. So we're talking physically? Physically, technically, tactically. I think I'm just trying to give perspective to people listening that, yes, you may have some aspects of the climbing performance profile, which are going to get increasingly hard to work on, but there are others which you can keep working through your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, you know, there's a lot of scope there.

talking physically, first of all, there's no doubt. I think it's backed by science as well that you can increase your endurance for a long time, you know, way into, I won't put an age on it, but for years. And I feel like my endurance is definitely not, it hasn't gone down at all. But the power endurance, that seems to be just getting better all the time, like that resisting the pump. I'm noticing that I'm,

doing better. I'm getting really pumped, but I can stay with it for longer. Even now it's still getting better. There's no doubt about it. Probably like once a year, with some foot on canvassing, I will just time myself and compare myself to where I was before. It's just like miles better. It's just like, wow, I haven't done that for a year and it's miles better. When I'm actually out climbing as well.

Roots maybe that I have, you just know don't you? You know you're doing a root and you're on hold and you think I'm at least as good, if not better than I was 10 years ago at keeping on this kind of terrain. No doubt about it. So they're the things which I've noticed. My finger strength, I've noticed that I'm struggling to get crimp strength. I've sort of dropped into a chisel grip.

And I used to be really good at crimping. I think I was never... And when you say crimping, like full crimping. Yeah, full crimping. Like classic, peak limestone style -y. So I'd go to Ravenstone, pull down some dirty crimps, whereas now I find myself chiselling on it. And I want to crimp and I try and crimp, but it's not my stronger grip anymore. And I've been trying to do better at that and I'm struggling to get that back. And like I was saying earlier, I think it might be shoulders. Shoulders might be the weak link.

I need to give that some thought, but the actual brute finger strength. But ironically, my chisel grippy strength is better. You know, like just, I think it was last, last autumn, I had a PB on the Beastmaker 2000 edge of plus 12 kilos or something. It's not bad when you weigh 55. It's flipping good. Plus 12 kilos. I mean, body weight is... Body weight is good. It's really good. Well, I couldn't do body weight when I did mutation.

Yeah, yeah, I remember you saying, yeah. Couldn't do that, no way, it was impossible. So gradually making some, let's not say gains, but my finger strength doesn't seem to be, it's just changing a little bit. It's not, not to be dropping off. I can't bicep kill what used to be a bicep kill. Yeah. I think I'd explode if I tried anyway. Technically getting better all the time. You always learn stuff. Maybe some stuff gets like kicked out of the memory systems that you're not using very, very much. But if you found that the, your flexibility.

has changed with that at all and given you less access to certain techniques? Because that I think is part of that technique equation. What positions can you find yourself? So my hip flexibility is pretty good. I can get my feet high on holds. I've always had that. I do work a little bit on it. So I'll often do a little bit of that hip flexion work while I'm between boulder problems. Not a lot of it. I feel like I do that naturally when I'm climbing anyway. So I work on it.

Other flexibility is hindered to some extent by things like I've got a cartilage tearing my knee so there'll be some issues have gone my my hamstrings are quite tight I need to work on them. I feel flexibility wise like everything from the chest down is as good as it's always been going upwards those shoulders don't like moving like they used to before is that injury based?

Possibly. Is it just lack of trying to do flexibility work? Possibly. I feel like my upper body is not as flexible and I can't get into positions that I used to be able to get into. So I think a lot of technique though is driven by the lower half of the body. You know, obviously you use your arms to position, but the way that you use your feet to tuck in and hold your body in certain places is driven a lot by the lower part, which doesn't get hammered like the upper body.

body part so maybe you've got longer lifespan with that part of your technique. Yeah I mean I think a lot of flexibility comes down to how you use the flexibility and explore the range of motion and strength through the range of motion and a lot of the time in climbing for the lower body we're very good exploring the full range of motion for the legs and using strength throughout whereas in the upper body I think we're very good at using a much of

closer range of motion when it comes to actually using the flexibility in the shoulders and the torso and the upper back. And so there is a difference in there. And I suppose that might be driven partly by the fact that when the upper body is doing maximal work, so when you're at the full range of motion right on the limits, then you sort of can basically explode, whereas the legs maybe not trying quite so hard. So there can be in more out there positions.

That's just a guess. Yeah. It's difficult to say for sure with everything because we're still actually discovering quite a lot when it comes to flexibility and the training aspects of it in relation to climbing. But certainly what we find is that there is a total relevance to both parts, upper body and lower body. And I think that for us as climbers who aren't in our twenties anymore, it is important to recognise that both of them are important.

but knowing how they'll affect different movement styles or different movement types of climbing. So I've experienced the same thing as you is my upper body feels quite a bit stiffer and less flexible than 10 years ago. My lower body, I'd say is pretty flipping close to where it was. But now I recognise that if I go indoors and I climb on volumes and these sort of pushy sort of shoulder problems, my goodness, I'm rubbish at them compared to 10 years ago. Cause I can feel that like

I cannot get my shoulders into the positions. And then likewise, when I go outside and I climb on really big extended moves, again, I can tell the difference to where I was, but elsewise, everything close in and locked and pulled in, no difference. Yeah, that's, and I suppose speaking for me personally, because of the climbing style I do, I don't tend to do much of that indoor weirdness and outdoor.

like super wide compression stuff. I don't do much of that. So I wouldn't have noticed quite so much. Yeah. Maybe I should try and do more of that. We'll just go back and have another session on the quarry man. Cause I was going to say that was something where I went back and did it 10 years later again and went, dear. But the first session on it, I couldn't even do the groove, which I would say was the easy part of the route for me when I first did it. And

I just couldn't even get my shoulders in position. And it was a good wake up because I went, I'm definitely a better climber now, but now I'm finding this pitch harder because I know objectively my shoulders are way stiffer and I can't put them in positions. So that's a great lesson in terms of like noting what's changed and maybe sort of giving you a kick at the backside to maybe do something about it. Yeah, that I should be doing more of that. I think the temptation as you get older is to first of all, ignore those lessons for good or for bad.

But the good part about ignoring those lessons and the beauty is there's so much other stuff you can do as well. So if you find you can't do the Quartermann, you can go and do some other really cool stuff instead. So we're not going to, in the 50s and beyond, you are not going to be a perfect athlete anymore. It just goes without saying, but you can still do some really good stuff. And it's a matter of being happy with that, not beating yourself up because you can't climb the Quartermann anymore.

You know, you're old, you know.

But you can still do loads of great stuff. You're saying I'm old? You're not old. I'm talking about me here. And people that are like old. There's lots of old people, but there's tons of stuff you can do. And it's a matter of getting out and doing it. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And it's, fortunately climbing is a very diverse, variable sport. There is just so many things on offer. So really it's just finding the thing that works for you.

now and has results in contentment, happiness, fulfilment in the climbing you do because that's kind of what we're always looking after. Ultimately, that's why we all start the sport and why we go with it. Obviously, there's just a few lessons, I think. It's easy to say, yeah, I'm just going to do what I like doing and keep on climbing. But I'm trying to sort my shoulders out because I feel like that's something which will not only make me potentially climb better.

Maybe not better than I've ever climbed, but better than I'm climbing now. But it could also give me longer in the game before my shoulders explode and stop me. I've got a shoulder tweak at the moment and I'm pretty sure that's just because I've not done enough shoulder work. I've sort of neglected it and maybe had too many thoughts of like, well, climbing is such a rounded sport. I'll just do this and not worry about it. So I know you can't just expect to just roll through with no consequence. You have to put some work in.

to get a good payout in the end. So yeah, I've been a bit too blasé maybe. What do you think has changed in terms of your training approach over your forties and now into your fifties? Are you finding that you are taking a very different approach in your fifties versus your forties? Are certain things you see as being a real benefit now?

to your climbing and still maintaining or improving your climbing and other things you're going, nah, this just isn't appropriate anymore. Kind of be interested to hear what your, your experiences are with that. Cause I definitely have changed up some of the approaches I take. So I'm going to give you a really uninteresting answer here. Sorry, sorry folks. But I've had very little change over the years. I've done a very minimal amount of actual training as it were. By training I'm going to say,

That means like a dedicated, structured, targeted plan where you actually stick with something for a long period of time. So by far the majority of my indoor climbing has been like turning up the climb wall and just doing what I fancy doing. When I've been motivated, it's had some elements where I might boulder for a couple of hours and think, right, I'm now gonna go and do some training. So I'll go and do like half an hour of.

Maybe weighted pull ups, dips, low rows, fingerboard stuff like that. And I'll try and that's my sort of training, but it might last. I might do that for like two or three days in a row and then just forget all about it. So the key for me has been trying hard in whatever I've been doing. So like these days I tend to go indoors and bowl and I'll try really hard for two hours. And I feel like that has a large training benefit in its own right. But yeah, I'm sorry. I really haven't.

put much structure into it. The only training I did which made a big difference was the foot on canvassing. And I just did that, you know, like literally religiously for 20 minutes after I'd been out climbing when I was 27 years old or whatever. That made the biggest difference. But I am aware, and I, the thing I was just discussing there where maybe I would do some stuff after I'd done some bouldering pull -ups, that kind of thing. When I've done those,

I felt better and more resilient. So I might do those, you know, like I might do two sessions of those for three weeks, for instance, and then go on a trip and sort of forget about it a bit. And even just a sort of three week block of doing that twice a week, I'll feel more solid. And I feel like I would benefit from doing that. I just need to give myself a kick up the ass. It's tricky for me personally, I'm not going to do any moaning now, but I've got such a

random life of route setting and coaching and talks and this and that. It's just to get the structure is quite tricky. But that's a poor excuse because I've got a pull -up bar at home. I can still do it. I can still do it. So I should be doing that. I feel like I would benefit from it. Yeah, I suppose it comes down to motivation and what you get a good experience from and...

over the years that I've known you, you have never been someone who is what you would class as psyched on training. You're psyched on climbing really well and climbing hard things. And that I think has always in a way sort of defined you as a climber, that you're almost unusual in the sense that you haven't got such a balancing force compared to a lot of other people. So one we've got to remember as well is it's...

as a sort of sideline, you've got to remember that climbing is massively technical, massively dependent on your mind state and it's also dependent on your physical as well. So it's three really important factors. I feel like I can run fairly well on like physical strength of like 80%. 80 % is fairly down on the top end, you know, so I've dropped 20%, but if I can run the other two at 100, that's pretty good.

And if we've got 100, 180, that's not bad. I suspect that many, many climbers run on a high physical and relatively low in the other. So it's a balancing act between those three. And a high physical as you get older is harder to achieve, more dangerous in terms of injury. So you've got to keep the other two topped up as best you can do. And that's almost certainly what I'm doing at the moment. Psyched, getting out.

motivated, you know, that's what's keeping me going.

And have you changed the amount of bouldering versus, actually, no, let me phrase it in a different way. Have you trade changed the amount of strength stimulus versus power endurance versus endurance over the last 10 years and seen any differences or benefits, disadvantages from that? Probably the most noticeable thing that is

not in my climbing as much now is red pointing. So by definition, I'll probably be doing a little bit less bouldering and a bit more like on the sighting sport routes, but I still boulder indoors. That's my sort of predominant indoor activity. And is that mainly when you're route setting or when you're just? No, just when I'm going, if I go indoor climbing, I usually boulder indoors because I love indoor bouldering. It's great. Particularly at the foundry.

in Sheffield on the Wave, which I think is the best piece of indoor bouldering in the world. There's a plug there. It's just great. I just love it. It's so like outdoor climbing. It's so movement based, which makes such a difference. In answer to your question, I'm waffling here. Not much has changed, but I think I've do a little bit less bouldering, but everything else is kind of the same. Lots of power, endurance -based stuff, getting really quite pumped.

but doing enough relatively high intensity bouldering stuff to keep my hand in with relatively hard roots, but very little block style boulder. Okay. Yeah, that's it. That's interesting. I'm not motivated on block style boulder anyway. I feel as though it's flirting with injury a little bit more and you can kind of tell, I mean, you know, bouldering is rarely basic.

got some awkward undercuts, some weird gas done and you do it four or five times and you just think, yeah, watch out. Yeah. Especially if you're also good at getting into the try hard zone. That's the bit that I've found has been a risk as such is that mentally I'm just as good at getting into a point where I will try really, really hard, but, objectively, I don't do as much that I used to do. So I think in general, I'm not as conditioned.

to cope as well for very, very hard or extreme movements. The risk increases when I am forced into position where I'm doing that thing that I'm not quite as well conditioned for anymore. But my mind's still going, yeah, go 100%, go on, do it. And then it goes, okay, yeah, that hurt. And then it takes a bit longer to get back from. A useful tip for the injury wise as well, this is invaluable, is if you feel like you've got a bit of a tweak.

If you've done something that you think, that feels a bit sore, just stop climbing. Maybe start again in half an hour, but you'll know in half an hour whether it was time to stop properly. Because the temptation is you've got a bit of a tweak, be all right, I'll push on. I've done that before where I've carried on and the next morning you think, man, that was a massive mistake. I think it's gonna take ages to go away. I've also done it where after half an hour I think.

Yeah, I'm glad I stopped because I think if I carried on, it would have gone worse. And then the next few days, it's actually recovered again because I stopped short. I've also tried it where I've tweaked myself. I thought, you know, that feels a bit sore. And half an hour later, you think, it's all right, I'll carry on. But that window is quite key. You've got to just give it a bit of time to find out what you've actually done. And when you've warmed up and psyched and all your mates are having another go and you nearly did it.

That's when you're going to break yourself for ages. Yeah. And that's a whole load of time out from the activity that you love doing that probably if you are climbing in your fifties, as likely been a lifelong passion as well. And that's just miserable to have a load of time out from doing the things that you absolutely love. It is. It's rubbish. It was six months or a year away from doing something or, or do that and being a lot of pain.

and you're just constantly managing pain all the way through it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's hard to pack mentally, I think. Yeah, I think something you said before about injury is when you've had one in the past, you've actually seen it as a chance to do something different, an opportunity, a positive. I mean, it takes a certain mind state to think that, but yeah, I mean, the last time I knocked myself, I went on to do my best ever one arm pull -ups. I do three in a row from a straight arm.

I've never done that before, I can't do it again. It's only because I've knacked my