i_like_sun

These look like they have potential for snowboarding: http://www.sportiva.com/products/prod/296 Ideally it would be rad to have an all around big mountain boot that you can also shred in.

Yeah those bindings are definitely sick! I think the problem really sits in boot design at this point. The AT boot set ups I see look GREAT for the climbing aspect (I've even seen a guy climbing water ice in his AT boots) but there is a reason the snowboard companies steered away from hard boots: Its damn near impossible to get an awesome surfy feel in them. You don't see Jeremy Jones dropping Alaskan big lines in plastics.... Granted, a helicopter zooming you to any summit you want must be nice.....

So this is actually a GREAT discussion topic. There are basically three camps of kinesiologists when it comes to orthotics problems. First Camp: Most physical therapists fall into this one. They would say "YES!!! GET NEW ORTHOTICS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!" Walking around without them will destroy your ankles knees hips and back!! Second Camp: This is where most Kinesiology researchers stand. "No!! Orthotics will make your feet weak and make your problems worse by deactivating intrinsic foot muscles and alter biomechanics for the worse!!!" Third Camp: And this is where I fall into. "Yes, get new orthotics" BUT "Don't allow yourself to become dependent on them". In other words, you don't need to wear them 24/7 for EVERY activity. It is healthy for your motor control system to get a zero-control platform every once in a while (meaning a shoe that has no motion control). This is evident from studies on barefoot running. Eliminating the orthotic does allow you to develop motor pathways that elicit strength development, but if your arch is collapsed you might need an orthotic that "shows" your brain how to hold your feet. Basically, the orthotic can serve two purposes: 1) To do what your PT wants, and correct your biomechanics by applying specific ground reaction forces on the bottom of your foot. 2) To give your brain a "model" on how to hold your feet, knees, hips and back. You are probably correct in that your knee pain arose because of a rapid change in foot mechanics. You probably were so used to the orthotic that you were dependent on it. So, for the mean time my best guess would be that you should replace it to stop the pain. Then, practice walking and running without it form time to time, and see what you can do. You can also practice doing things like barefoot squats and lunges in front of a mirror, and really visualize how your foot arches, ankles, knees, hips and back are supposed to look and feel when things are working properly.. Then do the same thing with the orthotic, and compare each condition. Hope that helps. I have shitty feet too. Cheers.

I know this topic has probably been posted before, but whatever.... One thing that pisses me off to no end, is how infiltrated the sport of snowboarding is with retarded skater idiots. I'm not bashing skateboarders, but seriously, 99% of the snowboarders out there don't even know what a crampon is. I've been involved with climbing for 20 years, and have been snowboarding for 15 years. Ski companies have been in communication with climbing companies for years, yet snowboard/climbers are basically F***ed when It comes to combining these sports. It would be AMAZING if a company like Black Diamond were to produce a soft snowboard mountaineering boot that is compatible with vertical ice climbing, and general alpine glacier & rock travel.... It is one thing to climb a sick route, then do an ugly slide to the bottom and say you "rode down". Its another thing to climb a sick route, and then shred the piss out of it.... Todays splitboard gear doesn't really allow for this.

True: Jamie Pierre IS a fag..... Also true: He is still drops bigger cliffs than you do.....

I need a ciggy break...

So that is what's wrong with you?

I send you my best with your healing Arch. Being in pain and not able to climb is SO depressing... Oh, I've been reading a lot about the importance of Vitamin D on supporting systemic anabolic metabolism. Read a study that showed pretty strong statistical significance that adequate Vitamin D increased fracture healing rates in rabits.... maybe take an extra shot of Cod Liver Oil in the mornings?

So a graduate student at Western actually ran a thesis study on the physiology of elite rock climbers. I think part of her results actually demonstrated that pullup performance is a weak predictor for how hard somebody can climb on the 5 or V scales (although there did seem to be a threshold of pullup strength between subjects). Basically, all in all, yes you do need strength to climb well, but having great technique combined with strength above or equal to threshold is essential. If your technique is already killer great and you climb hard, improving gross muscle strength can only help.

Damn Archenemy, THAT BLOWS DIRTY BALLS!! How in the hell did you shatter your freaking leg??? I had screws in my Tibia from snapping my ankle super bad when I was in 8th grade. I think I remember it hurting for like 4 months afterwards. Do you take painkillers? It sounds like your bone is still healing? What do X-rays show? What's his face has a good point about asking your doc about getting the metal removed once its all healed up. Bones keep recycling through the entire life-span, and I've actually read papers about the etiology of metal hardware negatively effecting bone remodeling (as it can change the direction of force vectors through the osseum). This could be a fun excuse to get all loose on meds. How is everything else going? Its been forever since I posted on this website, so thought I'd check in Hope your leg feels better

Well, the osgood slaughter hypothesis is pretty valid... I have from time to time experienced pain in my tibial tuberosity (patellar insertion) but usually only after having suffered a blunt trauma to it. The best advise is to listen to pain. Don't work through it! It is my understanding that many legpress machines do increase anterior shear forces at the knee to a greater extent than free-form squats do. Perhaps you can adjust your squating form to reduce knee pain? The further you stick your ass out the back, the more of the force your hips will take and not your knees. Also, stay away from wall squats, and if you do lunges, be super careful. After all that, ice it, ice it, ice it, and ice it some more (in 15 minute intervals).

No they're not, they sold out just as I hit the "place order" button!!!!

Way to ruin it by TELLING EVERYBODY, you jackass......

Good point.....

Does ultimate vehicle also mean "insanely hideous"? I mean seriously, go road trip in a 1968 Camaro..... I'm guessing you are from Glassgow? That would explain things.... hahahahaha

I found the best thing that helped was to finally start telling my climbing and bike buddies "sorry dudes, I've blown my knee out and can't shred for a while". That was drastic enough to convince myself to actually REST IT. (I'm really bad at that part) Second thing I found most effective was to really work on getting super strong, particularly in my core and lower extremity (the scar tissue in your patellar tendon needs mechanical loading to properly re-model itself in a functional and strong direction. Think of healthy parallel bungee-cord fibers, instead of a jumble of knotted-up shoe laces that like to tear easily). It is true that the whole kinetic chain begins in the hips. Focusing on just "the effected quad muscle" won't help; if you have any crappy biomechanical factors going on that are causing or exacerbating it, you must fix it by starting at the pelvic girdle (basically meaning stretch your hip flexors, and strengthen your hip extensors and external rotators [gluteals]). Specific knee extensor exercises help, but doing closed chain dynamic movements are now thought to be the most effective method of therapy in the PT literature (such as squats). I hope it feels better soon man

Is your pain on the top or bottom of your knee cap? I had a partial tear of my patellar tendon in 2003, and it took like 12 months to feel strong again. You have make sure you keep working it out, but not to the point where you just piss it off. Ice it a lot, too..

Its hard to say what zones are "right" unless you've gone through some exercise testing to see where your fitness levels are. As a rule of thumb, if you are tired and exhausted from other stresses in life, you should work out at lower intensities and for shorter durations. However, if you wake up feeling like a young lion, the so called "meat head" workouts are EXTREMELY effective. Functional strength and power training is absolutely amazing.... Only a "girly man" would forgo a sick ass exercise program.... Actually, dude, pushing a wheel barrow with sandbags for 30 min. is NOT a meat head workout!! Hanging out in the weight room for 4 hours on a perfectly gorgeous summer afternoon is however....

First thing: why are you posting this? Are you experiencing declines in performance? Dragging ass when you head out? The most recent sports nutrition research shows that carb loading is a waste of time. All you can do is top off your glycogen carrying capacity by a small degree - all of the excess carbohydrate goes to conversion to triglycerides (body fat). The "best" breakfast is one that starts the instant you wake up, and then ends an hour before dinner. Seriously, you can't expect 1 meal in the morning to provide all the nutrition for the rest of the day - topping off every hour during the day seems to be what all of the elite endurance athletes do, and the research shows that it works. Carbs should make up as much as 60% of an endurance athlete's diet, with fats and proteins making up the remaining 20 + 20%. Doing so should help to optimize the hormonal response to training/climbing. It shouldn't matter so much "what" you eat, but how you time it around exercise.

Besides that stuff, go get yourself a 50 pound sandbag and carry it up stairs. Wheel-barrows full of heavy shit can give you an absolutely STELLAR core workout too. Go to the track and do explosive sprints. Carry you KIDS on your back around Greenlake. Take shovel into the backyard, and freaking dig a huge and deep hole, fill it back up, and then dig it again. Seriously, digging is an AMAZING workout. Then get yourself a heart rate monitor and make sure you work out in the right zones. Its really not that hard to get a killer and fun workout.

I wish I could say that I have no experience with this bone, but it would be a lie...... I destroyed both of my wrists BMX dirt jumping, and the Scaphoid is seriously THE WORST bone to break. Well, maybe not as bad as a vertebral or skull fracture..... But as far as the extremities go, yeah..... Essentially, it has a very limited blood supply and its healing time (if it heals at all) is very slow. The Scaphoid is built out of an extremely compact and strong type of bone, and is one of the body's densest structures. Because of its density and strength, it hasn't evolved a rich blood supply - it recieves nourishment from the distal and medial portions; and so proximal pole and waist fractures are the worst. If you haven't yet, go look up a doctor named "Thomas Trumble" down at UW Medicine. He is the premier hand surgeon in the Northwest, and has a 97% success rate with Scaphoid healing. I suffered a very displaced Scaphoid waist fracture in 2005, and he basically saved my wrist from going necrotic and thus rendering me disabled for life. The trick with this injury is to act very quickly before the bone has a greater chance of non-union. Again, go see Trumble. My family is full of OT's, PT's, and hand therapists, and they all refer people to him. Here is a link: http://www.orthop.washington.edu/uw/tabID__3374/ItemID__2/mid__10294/Default.aspx Good luck.

Why are you selling them?

Any recommendations people?? I'm feeling too lazy to go search for old threads, but has anyone used the "RAB Summit Extreme"? I checked it out in Marmot a couple weeks ago, and it seems like just the ticket for a small-footprint mountaineering tent. Cheers.

Are you debating the properties of CO2 as a Greenhouse Gas? How do you explain the fact that ice cores are showing an exponential increase in CO2 over the past 100 years that perfectly mirrors Earth warming? Also, what are your credentials? Are you saying you are smarter than all of the top minds in atmospheric chemistry that are in agreement that humans are playing a prime role in heating up the atmosphere? We are experiencing an Earth that is heading into the warmest period in over 30 million years. And all of this has been achieved within the past 100 years. People who debate human causality in climate change are usually staunch lobotomized republicans who own huge trucks, and, who have small dicks.

If you add every internal combustion engine together, 68% of the Earth's surface area is ON FIRE. Human burning truly began at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and climate warming mirrors this with a significance value that alarms anyone who knows anything about statistics. It is also known that although it is not the worst Greenhouse Gas, CO2 still has significant atmospheric warming properties. 1 + 2 = 3. Where is the debate????