I have recently seen a post on one of the UK’s lead climbing coaches website Dave Macleod, and if your following this blog then you should definitely follow his. As not only is he a great climber but and excellent coach as well. If you know anything about me and coaching I have tendency to be slightly bias towards people who have a background in the science behind the term coaching. Neil Gresham for instance might not have a MSc in a related feild, I would suggest however he has a wealth of experience equal to or greater than the sum of knowledge one could accumulate in completing a academic course. Dave has both the academic and applied experience.
Both of these coaches have a vested interested in high end coaching, by that I mean they have both performed to the very limit of elite climbing in there choosen field(s). This blog however is really aimed at the ground up, my expereince comes from mainly coaching beginner and intermediate climber, and help them to improve through increased efficiency rather than strict training regimes.
As such I have a view about weight lose that is based on the that end of the climbing spectrum rather than the elite end. In his recent post Dave reviewed a book about competitive weight lose. I guess boxers would call in getting down to fight weight, whilst runners call it their racing weight. If a climber wants to lose weight then a book like this might well help them to lose weight, but not lose the edge.
My problem with the book, is that if a competitive weight strategy is promoted too early to young athletes than there has been links in research of form based sport and activities like professional dancing and gymnastics. That have shown a link between a coaches attitude towards weight lose and the development of disordered eating amongst their athletes. Whilst I feel that if someone is above 18, although this type of problem does most commonly span into the early twenties, then they are making that choice as part of a lifestyle as an adult. Below that age I as someone who does operate in the elite areas of climbing, feel that weight should not be an issue, as there are very real health implications involved. I can’t help but remember some very w0rrying pictures of recent times of young national standard climbers barely filling there lycra leggings and looking unhealthly thin. (My Previous post on weight loss)
I bet however that a section of Dave’s website demongraphics are in that particular age range where weight problems and disordered eating could be triggered. So when Dave says He Must Get Light, he is referring to his own weight. To achieve that as sensibly as possibly he has brought a book that covers the science behind it. I personally would have liked to see a caveat with his post, however we can’t simply write a blog post for everyone, remembering that there are children out there who will fooloow and read his and possibly even my blog avidly.
So hopefully you can see from my blog post that I don’t disagree with Dave about the review of his book. Instead I just wanted to add a caveat about the risk of promoting a weight lose programme to young athletes or climbers. In a way I think it is great to have a point made by Dave about how he personally has looked at losing weight for a hard redpoint at the limit of what he finds possible, so its probably at the limit of anyone capabilities, and in a sensible manner. So adults diet away, children eat sensibly!