The Glass is Half Empty, But I See it Half Full

Burnout [burn-out] Noun

1. A fire that is totally destructive of something.

2. The termination of effective combustion in a rocket engine, due to exhaustion of

propellant.

3. The end of the powered portion of a rocket's flight.

4. The breakdown of a lamp, motor, or other electrical device due to the heat created by the current flowing through it.

Also, burnout: Fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, 

overwork, or intense activity.

Whatever you would like to interpret it as, we all have experienced burnout. Maybe you have experienced it in the middle of climb; you just couldn't hold on any longer. Maybe you have experienced fatigue or soreness when you have not taken a rest day. Maybe you have experienced it at your job, where you just feel so stressed that you cannot work any longer. Or maybe you have experienced it like I have...where you wake up in the morning and feel like you have gotten absolutely no rest, where a 45lb bar feels like 150lbs, where your fingers hurt so bad from climbing the day before that you cannot even open a jar.

Yes, this amount of fatigue is what the word burnout means to me. I feel burnout like this much more often than most people. And why? Well, that is what I am trying you figure out.

You see, last year I took off 6 months from climbing because my fingers we in so much pain that they would give out when I tried to crimp. I searched for answers, seeing three different hand specialists that were ranked among the very best in Boston. All they could give me as an answer was chronic swelling with a side of rest, rest, and more rest. Which is fine because after that six months, I was able to climb again! And since then I have been making so much progress (slow and steady of course). I got to a point in my climbing where I felt confident enough to compete at the ABS National Championships (Feb 2013), which I did. And I felt pretty good about it because I have not been able to compete in awhile.

Unfortunately, I have not really been able to climb since Nationals. In fact, I felt so burnt out after, it took a whole 8 days for me to get out of bed and back on track with my life. But here is where things get interesting: I have had five, 8 day burnouts just like this in the last 10 months. I realized this just recently, and now I want answers.

I have been tracking my workout and dietary habits since June 2012. I decided to take a closer look at what I've been tracking after my nutritionist suggested I may have "endocrine burnout". Without even really realizing it, I would rest for exactly 8 days, workout for a month or so, have another 8 day rest, then have no such rest for 2 months. Then again I will have two months with 8 day rests, and 2 months without.

It's an odd pattern. Whats more odd, is on day 9 I feel like a completely different person. I feel great, alive. This is evident in my workouts as well. If I compare my crossfit and climbing workouts from the week before the burnout to the week after, I improve almost double! It's funny, I just thought I was tired from working out often. But to have a pattern like this so cut and clear, I feel that I need to investigate further.

So what am I going to do? Well the next step (unfortunately) is to take the rest of this season off from competitive climbing. My fingers are in pain just looking at climbing holds, so any climbing I do will just be for recreation (and my sanity). So far crossfit has not made any of my joints hurt, so I am going to continue with that.

Lastly, I am going to find some answers from professionals. I am now regularly seeing a nutritionist who has me eating gluten-free, cutting out nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant), and cutting out artificial sugars (my taste buds hate me for that). This should, in theory, reduce the inflammation in my body. I am also meeting with my endocrinologist and a rheumatologist. I have this creeping feeling that I may have rheumatoid arthritis, but the only way to know is if I see a specialist. I gotta thank my parents for the good health insurance they have me under to cover all of this.

I am really hoping that this helps. I'm young, I shouldn't have problems like these. At this point I just need answers. I don't like feeling burnt out, I don't like the fact that I cannot work to my full potential, and I absolutely hate the fact that I cannot climb hard.

Hopefully I will get answers...good ones. "Chronic tenosynovitis" does not cut it, especially if I cannot do the sport I love.

Burnout definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/burnout?s=t

Breaking Free Pt.2

Last night I was sitting in the Colorado Springs auditorium watching the ABS Open National Championships. As I sat and watched, I kept thinking about where I was last year at that time. Last year I was in Massachusetts with injured fingers that were splinted and elevating a broken ankle. I was watching Nationals off of Alex David Johnson's webcam live feed, that was such poor quality I could only see when the climber left the ground and when they fell back on the mats (however I do appreciate the effort!) As I watched off of this live feed, I felt miserable. I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel for me. I didn't know if I could ever rock climb again. 

Last night I was helping judge the climbs, so I had a front row seat to see some inspiring rock climbers compete. USA Climbing also offered an amazing live feed thanks to Louder Than 11! I got many texts from team kids saying that I was on tv...lol. This weekend I had competed in both the Open Nationals and the Citizens Nationals. My body felt strong and my fingers held up through all of the climbing. I was enjoying myself so much that I almost forgot I was out of the scene for an entire season.

This weekend I tied for 26th in the ABS Open National Championships. There were 42 women total, possibly a record for USA Climbing, and they took 22 to semi finals. Honestly I am bummed that I did not make semis. But if I look at what I have been through the past year, I feel extremely proud to have competed. My fingers cannot hold up to training for climbing just yet. Yes, I can climb and I can climb in competitions without pain. But, my fingers are still not 100% and I have to be careful. I don't want to be injured again. 

Three points is what push me out of semis. Three holds. I know what holds I didn't grab and why. On problem #2, I got pumped before the lip. Lack of power endurance. On problem three I could not get past the 2nd hold, which was a bump move from one crimp to another on a 60 degree. Contact strength. These were the two things I could not train due to the condition of my fingers.

To be quite honest, I probably could have trained those things with tape considering I have been climbing off and on with no tape for the past month. But I was afraid that if I did train, the health of my pulleys would drastically decline to where it was last year. I never want to feel the pain of not only trying to climb as my fingers give out, and the pain of not being able to be on the climbing scene. This recovery process would turn into injury again and I don't want that. I would take the 26th place over my goal of top 10 again if it meant that my fingers would be healthy. 

Overall the climbs were extremely fun and I was able to use a lot of the tactics I learned over the Pro Training Camp to help my overall performance. I also competed in the Citizens National yesterday, placing 3rd in the open below Francesca Metcalf (2nd) and Tiffany Hensley (1st). This was an extremely fun experience and again tested what my fingers are capable of at the moment. I feel that I could have pushed and won 2nd, however my fingers began to feel sore after 2 hours of climbing. So I stopped. Either way, this was an amazing experience and it was fun to compete with a few of my competitors from the Open. 

Being in Colorado and having this opportunity to compete again is pretty emotional for me. It is awesome, it is frustrating. But I get to spend my time with some pretty great people and I look forward to the rest of my week in Colorado. Being here and never giving up is what it means to be breaking free.

Shoutout to Kris Peters, Kati Peters, Alex Johnson, and Josh Brown for opening up their home to me! Much appreciated and I'm psyched to be here with you guys!

Breaking Free pt.1

I have not posted in awhile, which is a huge bummer because I have so much that I want to talk about! I have been extremely busy the past couple of months and it looks like there will be no slowing down! However I am going to update this blog a couple of times per week to catch everyone up with what I have been up to.


Before I go into what I have been doing the past couple of months, I just want to take a moment to reflect on this past year. Last year at this time I was not climbing. My fingers were in so much pain from tendovaginitis that I could not even open a door without whimpering. I would feel pain constantly whether I was moving my fingers or not. I also was in a boot from breaking my ankle while walking (yes I said walking, laugh all you want...okay stop). Not only was I injured, but I was just not satisfied with my life. I was very unhappy and things needed to change.

Six months later(Summer 2012), I had decided to make a lot of changes to my life. I began to step out of my box, which used to consist of just climbing...literally. My life revolved around climbing and that needed to stop. It needed to stop because I was limiting my happiness, my abilities, my health, and just myself in general. I also feared (and still fear) that my fingers will never allow me to climb at the level I dream of being at.

So I began to do crossfit. I started spending more time with people who did not climb, started running, started using rehab techniques such as foam rolling to increase my recovery, started paleo, started to study more in depth exercise science, and really started to enjoy the world and things around me.

Now I am what I think is the most happy I have been in my entire life. I am very fit, but that is not my main focus. I can climb again, but that is not my main focus either. Being able to experience crossfit competitions, climbing competitions, attend a pro climbing camp, study to become a certified personal trainer, coach, meet new people, and also recover from this injury are things that are making me thoroughly happy. Also, I have not had an injury in over six months! This is HUGE for me! To be able to maintain such a physical lifestyle and be healthy means the world to me. 

I would like to share some of my recent accomplishments with you. I am excited to keep progressing with climbing, crossfit, and my recovery! Hopefully I will be able to show better PR's, better photos, and even better recovery news in the future!

- This is a photo of me comparing what I looked like in January 2012 (Left) to how I look in January 2013 (Right). The left photo was taken a little after I had gotten injured, but I felt as if I was in the best shape of my life. I feel really proud of myself when I look at the right photo. I have been working hard to become fit, and I love to see my results!

- Two weeks ago marked the first day I climbed with no tape since I began me recovery process in June 2012. Not only did I climb with no tape, but I bouldered all of the problems v6-v8 in our gym. I also spent time projecting v9's. That was the first true sign that my fingers are recovering. I have been climbing with and without tape since then, depending on how I feel. I don't want to push it. I am still recovering. I feel that I have not reached full recovery yet, but I will eventually. I am hoping that when I reach full recovery, however far away that will be, I will do amazing things with climbing.


-Three weeks ago I got a new PR on my deadlift. I deadlifted 305, and that was all of the weight we had in the climbing gym (The weight set is actually 295; we had to tie a 10lb weight to the barbell to break 305).

- Four weeks ago I attended a pro climbing camp held by Chris Danielson and Tonde Kaito at Earth Treks. It was the most amazing experience and I feel honored to have been invited. More info on this in my next blog post!!

Photo By: Emily Varisco

Photo by: Emily Varisco

The Crew! - Photo by: Tonde Kaito

...To be continued.

(Final)ly is Over!

So this past Saturday was Dark Horse #3. Everyone was super stoked and excited to come fly in for this competition...which was stacked in both womens and mens! Even I was stoked for this comp! But unfortunately, finals week sucked out my soul.

You laugh, but literally I could not even climb a v4 on Saturday. It was horrible! I wound up withdrawing from the competition, which I have never done, even when I'm injured. I figured it was pointless to keep climbing because I am so susceptible to injury. Why beat myself down more when my body was already beaten down by 3 all nighters and some horrible tests? So instead of competing, I cheered on my friends and got some great tacos with Natasha Barnes and Steve Briggs.

Even though I didn't do well on Saturday, I would like to give myself props for such a horrendous semester. But seriously, my schedule was insane. Not only did I coach 5-6 days a week, I took 17 credits, trained for crossfit, trained for climbing, and had some time do some competitions and a paleo challenge.

Here's a little look at what my schedule was like...

6:45am- Wake up, shower, eat, and all that good stuff in between
7:35-8:50am- Anatomy+Physiology lecture....aka nap because it was 7 friggin 30 am
9:00-11:00am- Crossfit (or homework because we all know that got done over the weekend)
11-11:30am- Drive to other campus
11:30-12:20pm- Fitness for life...aka doodling fat people as my notes (yes 'as' them)
12:30-1pm- Lunch
1-2:50pm- Kinesiology Lab
3-4pm- Drive to work and potentially take a quick nap in my car
4-7pm- Coach
7:15-9pm- Climb
9:30-10pm- Make Food, unless I ate dinner before climbing
10:30- Bed

...and that was my Monday! woo what a great start to a week...........unfortunately just about everyday looked like this.

Despite the fact that my schedule was hectic, I still accomplished so many things! And I did fairly well in my classes. I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish...but I will never have a schedule like this again...ever. Cheers to a month off and a spring semester full of advanced personal training, art, sport skill classes, and rock climbing competitions!

I also have gained some pretty cool strengths this past semester. Below are some recent strengths I have developed in the past 3 months. Enjoy!

One Year

I cannot believe that it has been one year since I was diagnosed tenosynovitis in my ring fingers...a whole year!! This week marks not only the 1 year mark of my injury, but the 6 month mark of when I began climbing again (June 2012). This week also marks when I began crossfit 6 months ago. Although my fingers are not fully healed, I am making great progress for a full recovery!

This week also marks the first week where I was able to climb on crimps again with no tape! I have been able to warm up/cooldown without tape, but I decided to try climbing some crimps like these on v3-v5's in the climbing gym, on all wall angles. No pain! I do have to admit that the next day my fingers felt sore, like a sore muscle would feel. So I am not going to climb again for a couple more days. However, this is still progress in my eyes!
 

Not only are my fingers getting better, but I feel tremendously strong! I am able to lift some pretty heavy weights in crossfit, and also do some muscle ups! Here is a little video of some of my muscle up practice:

Now that my recovery is going well, I can finally focus on climbing hard again. Last year, all of my weaknesses were due to an imbalance of musculature in my body. Now that I am doing crossfit, this is not a problem anymore. I feel very powerful on the wall and I can make moves that I could never do before.

Now, my strengths from last year have become my weaknesses. However these are easy fixes such as power endurance training and specific grip strength training. If my fingers stay healthy, these things should attained in time to reach my goals!

I'd like to share my goals for the upcoming months. I have some for climbing, for crossfit, and overall health. I feel that my life is more balanced when I create goals that are not always climbing-specific. I like crossfit and I really want to get better at it. I also care about my health much more than I ever have. So here is my list...I'd like to achieve all of my goals (except for competition scores) by the end of January.

Climbing:
- Make finals for the remaining Dark Horse competitions
- Place top 15 in both ABS/SCS Nationals
- Strive to climb with no tape by February
- Work on pinch/sloper strength
- Practice Dyno's as a part of my technical training
- To climb outside again

Crossfit:
- Increase my metcon (metabolic conditioning) so that I can finish workouts faster/more efficiently
- Learn how to kip/butterfly with pull ups
- Learn/Execute proper form for all lifts
- Learn how to do double unders; get 10 in a row
- No whining/complaining

Overall Health
- Do not overtrain, listen to body
- Perform stretching/recovery exercises everyday
- Do not get injured
- Eat a modified Paleo diet (consists of Paleo with a little more carbs that can be from some grains and rice)
- Take at least 2 rest days a week


Now that I have it all written down, I hope to start working on these goals! Training all of these things without over training is a delicate balance, but seeing as I am going on 3 months with no injuries I think I can do it!

A New Chapter

The last time I posted, I was right smack in the middle of my Paleo challenge. Well, my Paleo challenge ended today! For a quick review of what Paleo is: Eating meats, nuts, veggies, seeds, and fruit consisting of 40% carbohydrates, 30% fat, and 30% protein. No grains, legumes, dairy, or processed foods are allowed.

I want to give you just a quick rundown on how the diet affected me. Coming from a 65% carbohydrate (mainly grains), 15% protien, and 20% fat (mainly unsaturated) ratio, I knew that I might run into some bumps along the road with this new makeup of percentages. However for the first month I felt really no changes. I felt energetic and excited about cooking new things and trying new recipes. But about 4 weeks ago this began to change, and I began to feel really tired. I felt really foggy actually. As if I could not respond quickly to what was going on. I found out recently that my ph balance was really alkaline, being almost an 11 on the scale, where humans should be between 6.5-7.5. I'm guessing this is because I took out grains and pasta, which were the only acidic things that I was really eating. However I am constantly learning more about the pH scale and am just going to experiment with implementing different foods into my diet until I find what will make me feel better (or what is making me feel worse).

I think coming out of this challenge I am going to eat a small amount of grains/starches to see if this "fog" goes away. I think that it will, but it may take a couple of weeks. What I like about this paleo challenge is that it has helped me kick my sweet habit! I have no real craving for frozen yogurt, candy, or chocolate anymore. Pretty cool actually. I also feel much better eating foods without high fructose corn syrup (which is in basically everything now, so shopping can get frustrating)

Even though I felt I was in a fog for the past few weeks, I have made some amazing progress! Not only did I get my first muscle up, but I can do three strict muscle ups in a row on gymnastic rings. I can also deadlift 280lbs! Below is a chart of my before and after measurements. Keep in mind that I stayed a consistent 139lbs throughout the entire challenge.

 

Moving on with crossfit and climbing, I am seeing significant changes in my strength and finger health. I competed in this past weekend's Dark Horse, placing 6th, and realized that my fingers are doing pretty well. Even though my grip strength and power endurance was significantly weak, I noticed that my fingers are healed enough for me to begin (very slowly) training these aspects of climbing again!

Going forward I am going to continue with a mainly Paleo diet, crossfit, and climbing and add in some slight climbing specific training. My hope is that I can be strong and healthy enough to compete in both climbing and crossfit competitions this coming year!

End of Paleo!

First Climbing Competition In 11 Months!

Last weekend I competed in the first Dark Horse competition of the season. This was also my first competition in 11 months!! In November of 2011 I competed in the Dark Horse which was my first and last competition of the '11/'12 season. I placed 2nd there, and I was feeling really strong. But I unfortunately felt the effects of my over training three weeks after.

Last weekend was what I consider the real test to see how well my fingers are recovering. I was really nervous about doing a redpoint qualifying round because I wasn't sure how my fingers would hold up with 3 hours of climbing...plus a finals round. Especially with all hard climbs. The longest bouldering session I have had since I began bouldering again in late August had been an hour and a half long and consisted of projecting a v8, climbing v5's, and rope climbing 5.10. Even though I feel that I have all of my power back, I am lacking in the power endurance range. Knowing that made me even more nervous to climb hard.

However, my fingers held up through the entire day! ...with tape of course. But nevertheless, it felt great to compete. My scores were low in the qualifying round because I was trying not to push it too hard on my fingers. I also had poor power endurance and only had enough gas in the first hour to climb hard. I went into finals in 8th place, but I am so happy that I was able to climb hard for three whole hours!

In finals I was definitely feeling tired. But it felt great to climb in front of a crowd again and the climbs were so much fun! I think that one of the most satisfying and exciting things in life is having a crows cheer for you. I felt as if life made sense again. It was great to compete against many of my friends that I had not seen last season, and to meet new friends as well. I think that I either placed 4th or 5th in finals. Scores were not posted for those not in the top three, but I came to this conclusion after talking with my competitors.

Whether I came in 4th or 5th doesn't really matter in the long run. What matters is that I climbed with no further injury and helped put on a great show for those watching; which is one of my all time favorite things to do. I also got some great photos/video of me climbing!

Hopefully I will be able to write more posts about competitions this year! So psyched to be back!
Thanks to Jordan Shipman from Louder Than 11 for the great highlight video and Natalia Boltukhova from Metrorock for the great photos!


Highlight Video:
Dark Horse 2013 Series 4 Round 1 Highlights from Louder Than Eleven on Vimeo.

Photos: (more on darkhorseseries.com)