I’ve been spending a lot of my personal time at the Rock Climbing Wall in Pointe Breeze. My determination to be good at this dangerous sport comes from the connection I made between climbing, kettlebell and calisthenic training. In short, if you lift rocks often and pull your self up a lot with rocks around your waist, you will be good at climbing rocks ;). Right now I’m not very good at climbing rocks so I’ve made the special point to be really effing good at the thing. Nothing challenges me, not even kettlebells, like this rock climbing sport. Forgive the pun, BUT I’M HOOKED! I may be talking a lot about rock climbing here today, but this post is about you, and how you have the ability to choose to be the athlete you know you are at heart.
But first a bit more on rock climbing 😉
Rock climbing. . . and this bouldering stuff.
It. Is. HARD!
Seriously, there’s nothing else I can think of (outside of perhaps power-lifting) that requires the kind of full body strength as rock climbing. The amount of grip strength, pull strength, and mental strength you need for this sort of sport is unreal. I believe the sheer challenge of the sport is why I’ve taken a serious liking to it. I’ve been frequenting The Climbing Wall here in Pointe Breeze as I’m determined to get really effing good at this sport. The toughest wall I’ve bee on yet though is located 5 and a half hours north of the Burgh in Toronto, ON, Canada. It was in Toronto where I found myself struggling to get to the top of the bouldering wall during a climbing session when I was out with Coach Kate from Precision Nutrition.
The course in Toronto is extremely challenging, and even more challenging if you’re a smaller person. At 5’3.5” (yeah that half inch matters), I found myself struggling for the longer reaches of the climbs. I would repeatedly lose my footing and grip and, you guessed it, fell off this wall course countless times. Coach Kate, who is 5 inches taller than me (and her half inch matters too), struggled just the same on the wall, but she made it to the top of the boulders a few times.
I’m not going to lie here, but I was a bit bummed that I couldn’t reach the summit. Rather than let my less than successful climbing experience get to me, I decided that I would return to the Climbing Wall in Pointe Breeze when I got back home to the Burgh after my weekend retreat in Canada. Climbing reminds me of doing lots of pull-ups and crawling drills, and with my Primal Fitness theme it just makes sense to do it.
On the drive back to Kate’s apartment after our climb, she and I got to talking about my experiences with the coaching program during this past year with Precision Nutrition.
“This was a struggle for me, and honestly this is arguably the hardest process I have gone through outside of any personal training certification I have completed. It was like I had to relearn how to be the athlete and coach I really am. I had to relearn all the healthy habits I knew how to do, but struggled to do when life got hectic. It was a struggle to pull myself up at times, but I was determined to keep going. I’m still determined”
“Well the program is like what you experienced on the bouldering wall today, except now you are the athlete. You are the coach. You are healthy. You just ARE.”
When she first said this to me, I really had no clue what the hell she was getting at. How could I be something that I felt I was still trying to become? How could I be somewhere that I felt I was still determined to get to? Seriously. . .SAY WHAT?!?!
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
Kate picked up on my being puzzled instantly. What she said in response to my perplexity though . . . THAT was the biggest, mind-blowing analogy I have ever heard.
“Imagine for a moment that you aren’t climbing up on boulders towards the summit. There is no struggle in you. You aren’t hanging on a ledge for dear life. You have no fear. You are exactly where you need to be. You’re already on top of those boulders, looking over everything you have achieved. You LIVE fitness. You BREATHE fitness. You ARE fitness. No one can take that away from you. Now, you simply must be. Be, because you ARE.”
I felt like everything had come to a a screeching halt. It hit me. I hadn’t actually conceptualized myself as a fit and healthy athlete and coach for a long time. My first year in business was so chaotic that I nearly forgot how to be that fit and healthy person. Hiring Precision Nutrition and doing the hard work they gave me to do was what would bring me back to that state of being fit and healthy. That program brought me back to the place I desired to be. I am my authentic self. I am an athlete. I am a coach. I am healthy.
Sometimes we can be so distracted, do bogged down from the chaos of our own lives that we can forget that our own lives matter. We may negate our own nutrition, our own workouts, our entire healthy lifestyle due to the stress live throws at us. The good news is that we can choose to move past these hurdles. We can choose to climb above our circumstances and reach the summit of our own vibrant health. We can choose to believe that we are enough, and we can accomplish anything we set our minds out to do.
Imagine for a moment that you aren’t climbing up on boulders towards the summit. There is no struggle in you. You aren’t hanging on a ledge for dear life. You have no fear. You are exactly where you need to be. You’re already on top of those boulders, looking over everything you have achieved. You LIVE fitness. You BREATHE fitness. You ARE fitness. No one can take that away from you. Now, you simply must be. Be, because you ARE.
Master your instincts!
