Climbing Has A Problem

Will C wrote:

In every sport, people sacrifice their bodies and wellbeing. Athletes force feed themselves or starve themselves, take drugs, compromise their long term health, they train through severe injuries like broken bones, concussions, and serious lacerations and even compete through them. That's what competing on a global scale is. You wanna win? You're gonna have to suffer. That's what elite sport is and has always been, and it's fine. Climbing has only recently rounded the corner into that level arena and the climbers are saying, 'Wow that's like soooo problematic'. Boo hoo. This was the cost of entry to the olympics. It's not like athletes having short careers is some new phenomena.

All of this- spot on. 

The way it is now is the way it should always be.  Especially if it involves such an overwhelming problem, that effects many.  As long as everyone suffers equally its all gooood.  Using our intellect to try and solve such problems is a waste and should be discouraged generally. Big problems are scary and ought be avoided.

Pro athletes are our modern day gladiators, except instead of being eaten by lions, they suffer CTE, concussions, blown out knees, eating disorders, lifelong image issues, etc to perform at the highest level for our amusement. Problem for climbers is they don’t get rich for their troubles like NFLers, NBAers, and MLBers. Well, maybe Honnold.
Also, Alpine climbers trying to make a living have a good chance of getting the chop. This is where we are, no need to cry any rivers. 

Balewrote:

Pro athletes are our modern day gladiators, except instead of being eaten by lions, they suffer CTE, concussions, blown out knees, eating disorders, lifelong image issues, etc to perform at the highest level for our amusement. Problem for climbers is they don’t get rich for their troubles like NFLers, NBAers, and MLBers. Well, maybe Honnold.
Also, Alpine climbers trying to make a living have a good chance of getting the chop. This is where we are, no need to cry any rivers. 

There’s a thin line between an eating disorder and dedication.

Someone should create a points calculator determined by weight, height, and grade you sent. I'm 5'9 and 180 lbs on a good day, surely I should get more points than someone my height and at 150 lbs. Or maybe I'm just making excuses because my eating disorder is never saying no to dessert. 

“Climbing has a problem. There are literally people living out of their cars to climb more. People eat ramen for dinner for months on end to be able to afford more gear and gas. People sleep in boulders and under bridges to avoid getting jobs so they can climb more. Climbers refuse to get real jobs and often drop out of education and society as a whole just to climb more. Climbers often climb until injury because they just won’t stop climbing. Climbers routinely miss birthday and holidays and time with family just to play on rocks. Climbing has a problem!”

Tradibanwrote:

There’s a thin line between an eating disorder and dedication.

'thin line' is fat phobic, sir. 

Will C wrote:

I find the alarmist response irritating. Climbing does not have a systemic and problematic relationship with EDs. It's a select few professional athletes chasing the marginal gains required to win, who exhibit some unhealthy issues. The vast majority of climbers, competing or not, are nowhere near an ED. It's expected if you're trying to be the literal best at something, out of 8 billion people on the planet, you're going to have to do some unsavory things to some part of your body or life to claim that throne. That's the simple reality.

Preventing certain athletes from competing is also unfair. They're not cheating, but if pushing their weight really low is their competitive factor, why is it fair to bar them but not people who are able to push their power/finger-strength/whatever else beyond what other athletes can handle? It's not.

This... wig out about a few pro climbers' weights is such a sky-is-falling attitude.

Will, I don't think anyone is "wigging out".  Some of us are just trying to move in a direction where athletes have better long term health outcomes by boosting the volume of the conversation about ways we can improve.  

Did you watch the interview?  It's literally a conversation about how there's an issue at the top level of competition climbing.  Which, I think, you agree exists.  You just think no one should care? That's your argument? 

I'd encourage you to imagine a world larger than your own.  Consider talking to some youth climbing coaches and ask if they have seen disordered eating in their time as a coach.  Consider that when your livelihood is not tied to your climbing performance you will have to put actual mental effort into imaging that reality and how it's different from your own.  

It's fine that you don't care about other climbers who exist in conditions that are toxic to them, I just don't understand why you are actively trying to convince other people to not give a shit.  You seem proud about your lack of empathy.  It's very flattering.

John Luke Lusty wrote:

No.

No really. To complete at the high levels in many sports you have to be on the edge.

Being from an endurance background myself we would purposefully starve ourselves to get used to hunger, the body will adapt but go to far and bad things happen.

Oh man people are out of touch here. “Being on the edge” doesn’t mean you need to starve yourself of nutrients. Cutting weight for a competition is completely normal, within reason, but the IFSC is only putting these kinds of rules into place to make sure people aren’t making lifestyle choices that could jeopardize their lives.

Moreover, I think we’ve recently started learning that extreme weight cutting doesn’t necessarily contribute positively to performance and it’s an antiquated idea. Look at the strongest boulderers in the world - the mellow guys are out drinking wine all the time and still sending V16. Emil Abrahamsson has had marked positive results from bulking and prioritizing strength over weight.

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that EDs do exist in the community and are harmful. Just because you don’t/haven’t struggled with an eating disorder doesn’t mean so many others haven’t. 

OK, so what's on the list of things that can be done?

We can't reduce the force of gravity so...

1-Raise awareness--conversations, disseminating information (social media, official platforms, etc,), high profile athlete disucciosn and discolsures, and so on.

2-Celebrate and promote diverse athletes with different body types to change what people value in the community?

3-Changing route setting to favor more power moves and less tiny crimmpy holds. 

4-Are there blood markers for REDs, such as proteins showing muscle breakdown, hormones, immune system factors, and so on?  Athletes could take blood tests anbd be forced to sit out competition until their levels are healthy again. 

What else???

More the problem than the fix.  Heads tend to vary in position between sand, ass, and clouds.  

Harry Kwrote:

I look at half of the female athletes in the World Cups and it is obvious they are self harming. I look around at my gym and I see the same thing, more with young female climbers but also many young men as well. Sacrificing their health for the send, they just look sickly many of them.  Thoughts?  Can anything be done?

I'm sorry but I've grown up with some very very excellent and even well known climbers and you want to know what almost all of them have in common? They are almost all naturally thin with great natural strength. 

I'll admit I'm speaking of rock climbers more than plastic crushers but I cant imagine the gene pool is that different. Awareness and education is as far as I would ever go, people are free to get fat and free to starve themselves. To regulate them would be similar to regulations on how much obese people eat.

Bruno Schullwrote:

OK, so what's on the list of things that can be done?

With all due respect, did you fucking watch the video? The doctor was saying the IFSC should I dunno, do SOMETHING when an athlete is obviously harming themselves, while also providing mental health counseling to try to prevent it. The  program outlined was actually really well-thought out. The IFSC is doing none of it, so the doctor who works for them is quitting due to a major moral incompatibility for not wanting to be a part of this dysfunction. Chapeau to that guy. 

ED is really fucking serious - debatable for sure, but ED has one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness. 

This whole, "not my problem" is such an asshole take. If you have a friend who's killing themselves with alcohol, do you just turn the other way and mutter, "too bad!". Because uh: that's what we're doing to (often times) young woman, who seem to come out of ED in far worst shape than anyone else. We shouldn't normalize going for the Olympics while maintaining a perfect 4.0 in college - it's fucking too much shit for one person to not kill themselves doing.  

Weese Ritherspoonwrote:

With all due respect, did you fucking watch the video? The doctor was saying the IFSC should I dunno, do SOMETHING when an athlete is obviously harming themselves, while also providing mental health counseling to try to prevent it. The  program outlined was actually really well-thought out. The IFSC is doing none of it, so the doctor who works for them is quitting due to a major moral incompatibility for not wanting to be a part of this dysfunction. Chapeau to that guy. 

ED is really fucking serious - debatable for sure, but ED has one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness. 

This whole, "not my problem" is such an asshole take. If you have a friend who's killing themselves with alcohol, do you just turn the other way and mutter, "too bad!". Because uh: that's what we're doing to (often times) young woman, who seem to come out of ED in far worst shape than anyone else. We shouldn't normalize going for the Olympics while maintaining a perfect 4.0 in college - it's fucking too much shit for one person to not kill themselves doing.  

Erectile dysfunction?

Weese Ritherspoonwrote: If you have a friend who's killing themselves with alcohol, do you just turn the other way and mutter, "too bad!". 

Yeah I was literally killing myself with alcohol for a few years(a couple of times) and that's what most friends did, they turned the other way but figured I'd get my shit together at some point and I did. Not a fully fair comparison but I totally get your point.

In my experience climbers have been booting up their meals, sometimes occasionally and sometimes habitually, ever since sport climbing and comps came into vogue. Most of us then realized that normal but strict-ish body weight was the best way to climb to your potential. 

Weese Ritherspoonwrote:

With all due respect, did you fucking watch the video? 

ED is really fucking serious.

This whole, "not my problem" is such an asshole take. 

Hey Weese Ritherspoon, 

Your post was heartfelt--I'll give you that.

But take a step back and slow down....

I apologize if my tone seemed flippant or dismissive, but that was not my intent.  My goal with my last post was to list the things I had read in the thread so far that could make a difference.  I did not watch the video.  Sometimes I like to think things through before hearing the viewpoints of others.  It sounds like the doctors were talking about providing mental health counseling.  Good idea--we should add that to the list.  

Now, you've thrown some strong language in my direction.  I think you should examine your assumptions.

To begin with, I count myself among the people in the world who have a "sports induced" eating disorder.  I was a competitive cyclist at a respectable level for 15 years in adolescece through my twenties.  That's basically all I did until I was about 30.  A coach I once had went around the room poking the cyclists in the group.  "All the skin on your body," he said, "Should be like the skin on the back of you hand."  He pinched the skin on the back of his hand for emphasis.  When your dreams and sense of self worth are wrapped up in how fast you can go on a bicycle, those kinds of words stay with you.  30 years later, I eat like a monk.  Mostly vegetarian.  No unsaturated fat.  No cheese.  Only low fat or skim milk.  No cookies, cakes, sweets, or unecessary calories of any kind, or only very rarely, and with huge guilt afterward alleviated by obsessive exercise.  Eating out or when traveling is hard.  I often bring my own food.  Everybody comments about what I eat.  I chronically edge near low grade iron difficiency and anemia.  Absolutely no alcohol or other drugs (except my medications for OCD and anxiety).  I don't think my eating habits are only because of sport, but I think competitive sport exacerbated and encouraged what probably would have developed normally.  So I fucking get it.  

Second, as soon as I stopped bicycle racing, I became a high school teacher.  I have worked with teenagers and young adults for about 20 years. Teaching is as much about counseling as delivering content.  I have had many students with ED, and I have learned to recognize the signs, and take steps to help them when possible.  I've leared a huge amount, and in a few cases I've made a difference.  I've also had a students that I cared for deeply who developed an ED and dissapeared.   One girl still haunts me.  Could I have recognized it sooner?  Could I have done more?  And so on.  If you care about students you wil inevitably encounter stories like this.  

Anyway, consider carefully what you write.  Behind what you might view as a casual or dissmissive attitude on this site often lies deep experience.  

V V wrote:

I think the joke went over your head - I’m criticzing the people who delude themselves into thinking this isn’t a serious problem. 

Lol.  I got your joke.  I just stepped on yours to make mine.  Crime of opportunity 

hot take: being underweight or overweight is unhealthy for the mind and body.  

To be clear, competition climbing has a problem, not necessarily climbing at large. One possible solution that was brought up was to change to style of competition setting - making the climbs more burly and powerful, and less gymnastic, would push climbers to become more muscular and heavier as opposed to the super thin image that is most common today.

Aaron Kolbwrote:

To be clear, competition climbing has a problem, not necessarily climbing at large. 

^Fat phobic.  /z