My name is Gabe and I’m a rock climber. I do sport, trad, and bouldering. I’ve been getting a lot of questions from fellow gym-goers about my training routine, how I’ve gotten to my climbing level, what types of exercise I do, and my life in general — so I started writing.
Eventually I ended up with this blog, which is targeted at the novice to intermediate climber, who is perhaps reaching their first plateau, and wants to up their climbing game. That said, I think pros might get some useful info (or at least entertainment value) out of my blog.
Full disclaimer — I’m not a sponsored athlete, a certified mountain guide, or anything resembling a professional climber. I’m 27 years old, ~180 lbs, 6'1", and have been climbing for 4 years. Prior to climbing, I had been athletic in college, doing about 4–5 years of weights, powerlifting, and swimming. In terms of climbing, I’ve sent a few V10’s now and on-sighted V8. When climbing sport, I can on-sight 7a+ / 5.12a on lead, and my goal is to redpoint a 5.13a this year. I’m still terrified of trad climbing and the hardest I’ve put down is a 5.10 in Yosemite.
I’m a regular kind of guy with a full-time job, partner, family obligations, other hobbies etc, for whom climbing is a real passion. I love it — it’s how I decompress after a day’s work. I also have an obsessive streak, and I approach my climbing in a scientific way, keeping detailed notes on my performance. I try to learn from the many talented climbers, coaches, trainers, sports nutritionists, etc that have come before me. You can think of me as a dabbling sports scientist, although a skeptical one at that.
My intention with this blog is to present information that I’ve found helpful, along with real-world results from own training, so that you may make your own informed decisions. I’ll also throw in writeups about my climbing trips (+ photos), opinions on crags, random thoughts — hopefully in a way that isn’t too noisy.
My philosophy around training is holistic — I believe that your training can’t stand alone: your personal life in all its aspects, including stress, freedom, state of mind, motivation, passion, adventures, are woven together, and you cannot divorce success in one area of your life from success in others. As such, I’ll include the occasional story from my personal life, so that you can better understand who I am and what drives me, which should enrich the meaning you derive from my training notes.
In the end I hope that you’ll find this blog helpful, and it will give you some of the tools needed to take your climbing game to the next level. If you think it sucks, please reach out and give me feedback!
Even if you’re climbing harder than I do, you might find my blog informative or at least interesting, and maybe you can leave comments to teach me a lesson or two.
Alright, ‘nuff said.
Climb on!
PS: If you’re wondering where to go next, you should check out this article, which is a brief history of my climbing career to date, and the evolution of my thoughts around it.
PPS: I spent the last year outfitting and living in my Sprinter van. If you’re curious about that, you should check out this article.
