Wearing a hideously bright power vest might make your arms look a bit bigger (and you look a bit of a twat), but it doesn't make you any less of a fat, heavy, and weak climber.
Recently I have had no less than 3 climber guys mention "the size of my arms". 3 guys who were nice enough but not quite enough to "turn" me, sorry. Relatively muscular arms in theory vaguely correspond to stronger muscles and thus vaguely correspond to hauling yourself up rockfaces, but it's not even remotely close to being that simple: Arms were mentioned by Colin when I was down at Bramcrag Quarry, where of course it's mostly slabby and decent finger strength, dry skin, and good smearing are far more important, and then by Richie and Davie at Ashie Fort, where of course it's bold and intricate and steely fingers and, stamina for fiddling gear, and a cool confidence are far more important. No-one mentioned it when I was in the steeper stuff at Reiff because those so-called muscles didn't do fuck all then did they....
So all of this means that the "hide the gut show the guns" power vest motto is, errrr, working aesthetically. So I guess I might get some good photos.....on routes that are piss easy because I'm too weak to get up anything else. Muscles, schmuscles. They mean precisely jack shit when you're far too fucking overweight AND have no stamina AND no lock-off ability AND no confidence to push past the pump. I don't even know what they are doing on my arms to be honest, and having anyone mention them is ironic and farcical. No one mentions how slim I am nor how long I can hang out without getting pumped nor how confidently I can push on above gear. I can't even think of any items of luminous clothing that could encourage nor highlight those more relevant features/skills. Power feather fucking boa maybe??
Possibly the simplest truism in physical climbing is there is no substitute for being skinny and light as fuck. Sure anyone can point out the few exceptions who are 1. Actually still light as fuck not just as light as fuck as the other good climbers, and 2. Ridiculously fucking overstrong with it. So any dissent is pure bollox. Conversely people keep expressing amazement when Ondra takes his shirt of and there is nothing there (incidentally I think Ondra is now topping my world-class climber man-crush table, just ahead of Dave G with Nalle possibly in 3rd, this crush is nothing to do with physique it is to do with incredible climbing and a devoted but fun attitude). Well fucking DUH of course there is nothing there - except skin bones and fast twitch muscle fibre. I suspect my forearms are bigger than Ondra's calves but I suspect every bit of Ondra's body is honed to hauling himself up 9as onsight and that his power to weight ratio is astronomically high. It's all about power-to-weight and it's exactly the same down at more relevant levels and every time I hear fucking Shark or my mates Dunc or Phil moaning about being heavy or weak they need a serious boot in the cock for being some combination of skinny cunts, tall cunts, or strong cunts and still daring to complain about it.
Anyway I'm off to the gym. Hopefully the muscles won't get any bigger but if I manage to burn a fraction of an ounce off it might help the tiniest bit...
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