hallo!

[niqaeli]

Hey! Mostly this is just an introduction of myself. I only recently got interested in climbing, but it looks like a lot of fun. I'm an ex-gymnast who's spent approximately a decade finishing up puberty, sitting on her duff, and also dealing with some mild/moderate mobility impairment/joint pain disability. So climbing is sort of fascinating to me, since it seems to accommodate my various WTF issues fairly well!

But, intro aside, I did also write up a rather, um, blathering account of my first climbing experience, should anyone be interested in that. :D

At some point, I may also try to write up an actual list of the variations of conditioning exercises that don't require equipment that I know from my years of yore as a gymnast. I sense that I desperately need to work on my arms and core strength! My core is woooooefully out of shape.

Comments

[originalkitsune]

Welcome! I would love to see the exercises. What's so hilarious is that climbers all oooh and ahh over being able to do a front lever but my gymnast friends say a front lever is really not that special. I think a front lever is crazy hard.

[niqaeli]

From what I recall of men's gymnastics, it's not... but from the perspective of normal people, it totally is! (I was always far and away weakest in my upper body strength... it took me a lot longer to get my kip on bars than some of my younger, stronger teammates; I had to acquire clean form before I could do them, whereas they could power through them with poorer form but better strength.)

[rydra_wong]

I believe it's mandatory for all climbing/gymnastics discussions to have a link to this photo at some point, so here it is:

John Gill performs a one-arm front lever

Gill's mentioned in a recent interview that he once did a one-arm front lever on one finger, though there isn't a photo of that.

His website has some interesting sections on the history of climbing and gymnastics.