nolanr

Courtenay, That's my other favorite dumb ass lifting technique, where it looks more like a power clean than a curl and they use more lower body than upper body during the movement. I always wanted to ask those guys, "So, um, did you even feel that in your bicep the slightest bit anywhere during the movement?"

Yes, I definitely was speaking of pushups, not pull ups. If I could rip off 50 of the latter, I would be pretty impressed w/ myself.

Oh yeah, about the guy sleeping out and getting sniffed by coyotes. I don't think he was in much danger, they were probably just curious. That's actually surprising they would approach a human, they tend to be extremely wary of us 2 legged critters. So far as I know wolves don't attack and eat people either, in spite of what probably 99% of cattle and sheep ranchers in Montana and Wyoming would tell you ('cause they're all deluded liars who are living in the dark ages still when it comes to the actual behaviors of predatory species...oops, sounds like I'm about to get off on a rant there).

I was thinking as the Cascades as basically the divider between western and eastern half of the Northwest states, so Smith Rock area I would call east. I've heard many times about coyotes having a special affinity for munching on house cats. Mmm, yummy. I'd also heard about coyotes thriving in urban areas (L.A. even, they cruise around through the aquaduct things). I haven't heard any singing around a major city, but maybe I'll get lucky some time. I'd also say anybody that has seen a wolf in the Cascades (or a wolf anywhere, even Alaska) is extremely lucky. Now I'm jealous.

How 'bout push up poker? I used to whoop up on everybody playing that game. You get a deck of cards, and you draw one, and you have to do that number of pushups, face cards=10 or 11, can't remember. You go all the way thru the deck. Round 2=twice the value of the card, and so on. You go til you have to drop out, last man (or woman) standing is the winner. I used to rip off thirty or forty or fifty at the end just to maintain my dominance. Come on Courtenay, I'm trying really hard to impress you here.

That's part of the fun of it. Most of my climbing buddies are around 6', and I'm, well, under 6' by a ways. So a given route is different for me than it is for them. Sometimes I have to come up w/ an intermediate hold or move where they could just reach up and grab something I couldn't. I think there's definitely advantages and disadvantages, whatever your size. I used to climb w/ a girl who was 5' nuthin' (cute, too, but then she went and broke my heart, blah blah blah), she couldn't reach any holds hardly, but she was a pretty good climber.

Hey, maybe we can all have a pull up contest to try to impress Courtenay. Whadyasay Court?

Jens' comments about the wrestler being a kick ass climber his first time out got me thinking. What other athletes do you think would excel at rock climbing if they had the opportunity? Gymnasts, martial artists, stuff like that where there is great body control, strength, balance, gracefullness, all that jive. Maybe some basketball players, long and lean and fairly strong and explosive. Any other thoughts? [ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: nolanr ]

epb, You're right, I was joking. You get into that pound for pound thing, and it seems like a little guy always comes out on top when you do that. I mean pound for pound best boxer, they never mention heavyweights as being the all around best.

I've been wondering about this for a while, curious what other people have experienced. I know there's coyotes in the Cascades, I've seen one in the Paradise area of Rainier, also near the town of Trout Lake south of Mt. Adams. I've spent a lot of nights camped in various parts of the Cascades, and never once heard a coyote vocalizing. But it seems like you're almost guaranteed of hearing them "singing" at night if you're on the eastern side of Washington or Oregon. I don't even have a guess why there would be a regional difference. Anyone noticed the same thing? Or anybody heard them singing in the Cascades?

Yeah, that's not fair, those little feather weight guys don't need much strength to pull their scrawny asses up over and over again. When I was into bodybuilding I used to purposely do pull ups slowly, w/ a fairly wide grip, palms facing away, to make it harder. If I remember right a set of 10 or 15 was plenty to get the lats screaming.

Palms facing chest=more pullups, definitely because of more involvment from the bicep. Trying doing curls w/ palms facing and palms away from you, w/ the same weight, probably a dramatic difference in number of reps you can do.

Superslow reps may not be particularly effective training for sports, but they will KICK YOUR ASS. Try doing superslow on the negative (lowering portion) of a bench press some time. It is intense. If you're a musclehead like I used to be, this technique rocks. You can go normal speed on the positive portion of the exercise, or even get a spotter to help you lift a little bit. You can probably do 1 or 2 more reps lowering the weight even after you can't lift it anymore. Sorry, but speed and lifting sounds like a bad idea to me. Snap crackle pop go the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. You ever seen idiots in the weight room pick a bar off the bench rack, flat out drop it on their chest, bounce it halfway back up to the starting position, then exert a teeny bit of force to lock their arms out and finish the movement? I've always wondered exactly what that was supposed to be accomplishing. Anyway, even if you're not doing super slows a movement should always be under control and smooth, not herky jerky and super fast. My $.02.

A few come to mind. W. Ridge of Prusik in a single push from Colchuck Lake TH was quite the butt kicker, I think it tooks us around 18 hrs. I don't think we set a speed record. Cascadia Couloir on Stuart (we turned around at the false summit, grr!) from Long's Pass, something like 12-15 hours. Also Glacier Peak from Boulder Basin camp, spent one night, but we were basically car to car in 24 hours. Butt kickers one and all. Lessons learned...um, I don't think I've learned anything yet. Most of my semi-epics have been recently, so I'm not getting any wiser w/ age.

Sorry Courtenay, they have entered your domain and now they probably won't give it back. Our 2 favorite spraymeisters haven't met a topic yet they couldn't get off track. Anyway, I think any exercise where you're moving your body weight around is probably good and more closely resembles what you'd actually be doing in a sport, including climbing.

If she'd got it on her shoulder you wouldn't have gotten to see her ass when she showed you her tat!

It's not fare Lambone, everybody loves to spray you and they didn't even bother w/ me. I've lost my touch to irritate the masses. Sniff, sniff, anybody have a tissue?

Well I was halfway trolling and halfway serious. Surprised I didn't get more lambastings.

Ooh, dragging out the old stuff. Spray is this site anymore, without there wouldn't be any topics. I believe the spraymeisters have won the war.

Alright dudes. I already went thru this way back when in a different thread. I'm not telling anybody to quit smoking. I'm not concerned about the legality of it. I'm just not interested in smoking dope, I have a blast in the mountains clean and sober. And the people I climb w/ are the same. Maybe we're in the vast minority. That's fine. I don't have problems w/ other parties I run into, I'll usually chat a while w/ 'em, maybe some of them have been stoned and I didn't realize it. It doesn't matter. I am perfectly willing to go thru life without knowing what it's like to be stoned. Whatever y'all do, have fun climbing whether it's stoned, drunk, sober, or anything else if there's other options. [ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: nolanr ]

Comradreja, You're not doing yourself or the Christian faith any favors. The attitude you're showing up here with is precisely why a lotta people don't like Christians in general and consider them narrowminded hypocrites. Relax a little.

Hey, Jesus was a mountain climber. It's true, skim thru the New Testament of the good 'ol Bible and you'll see. I bet he had some FA's. Dude could walk on water, so I'm sure he could send any sick phat boulder problem if he wanted to. There was a little part in a collection called "Games Climbers Play", can't remember the author or the title of the story, one of those sarcastic British types I think, but it made reference to Moses making a difficult traverse of the Red Sea that has never been repeated, and in fact killed the entire party that tried to second the route (the Egyptian army, as it were). I don't show up here to preach or spout "religious BS" as someone put it, but I think it's equally unnecessary to post completely blasphemous drivel. Maybe if that poem was funny I woulda laughed, but as it was I think it was in poor taste. Okay, spray on, I'm ready.

Terminal Gravity No way anybody could send this mother in a single push. Not even Twight could use alpine fast'n'light style on this thing. Gotta use old school Himalayan style siege tactics. I'm still befuddled by this whole idea that all climbers smoke dope. Not the ones I climb w/. Not even meaning to stir up the pot again. I just can't believe useage of wacky weed in the mountains is as common as some would make it seem.

So now we finally know what the moondance looks like. Here's a new one, so far as I know this term was limited to a group of 4 guys road trippin' in the Northern rockies several years ago: goopuckey. It can either refer to any adhesive item, any food type substance, or pretty much anything you can't think of the actual name of at the time.

Whoever the bare chested Vantage climber is, that's only acceptable if: 1) You're right by the parking lot or a road or 2) if there's hot chicks nearby. Went for a bike ride Sat., slept in too late to head for the mountains. Ended up at the beach at Picnic Point, beautiful day. Sun. went up to Mt. Pugh, things got kinda ugly, icy, spindrift blowing around, thin powder on top of ice or steep heather, not much good for kick stepping. Gained the ridgeline above Stujack Pass and decided there was no way in hell I was gonna top out, so I headed down. Had the place to myself, 'cept for the pikas. Anybody know if those little guys retire to their dens once the snow really starts flying? I know they're not true hibernators, but you wouldn't expect to see one cruising around in several feet of snow in January or February or something. [ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: nolanr ]