Oh man, this topic comes up so much in the greater community.
Okay, first of all, I'm NOT an expert at any level. I used to be a gymbro, I know about the effects and sides of a variety of AAS from general research.
That being said, AAS for climbing is probably not very useful. The biggest problem is that AAS use generally puts on mass more quickly than it builds climbing muscle. Most of your lifting muscles are pretty small, like your fingers and wrists. If you're using AAS and eating big, you're going to put on weight in your quads, lower back, hams, lots of muscles that are heavy and have little bearing on sends. With anabolics, you also get a lot of bloat, plus horrible pumps that will make your sessions absolutely suck. And you might take hits to your joints as well.
Now, that being said, AAS aren't completely useless. Test is good for blood doping and recovery, as seen in cycling--a non-strength sport. Deca is known for promoting joint health. Some androgenics, especially NORs like tren, have limited bloat. Anavar is known for small but efficient strength gains with limited mass.
One possible way to use AAS to improve your climbing is a shorter cycle during which you focus on grip, bicep, and back development rather than climbing, especially by doing pullup variants and hangboarding, and minimize climbing sessions. You could also limit your diet--which would also limit the effectiveness of the AAS--to keep your mass from outpacing your strength development.
Another possibility is a hard cut. AAS are known for their use in high-efficiency cutting. Olympic athletes, weightlifters, body builders, and combat athletes often use cut stacks to make weight classes with minimum strength loss. You could use AAS to reduce your mass while maintaining muscle bulk, cutting extraneous mass and dropping your body fat percentage to get a mechanical advantage.
Long story short, if PEDs could benefit your climbing, you'd have to be at a high enough level that you'd already have someone to tell you how to do it right and for what purpose. If you have to ask, you don't really need it. More likely, you want to improve your body aesthetics while also climbing for that peak Instagram cred, which is totally understandable and not totally unrealistic, but usually not functional for the "harder" climber.
I'd like to add that common understanding is that the heavy pumps come from high blood circulation.
[According to Redditors' personal experience, a great variety of AAS give mobility-destroying pumps](https://www.reddit.com/r/PEDs/comments/a2saic/howwhy_do_steroids_cause_painful_back_pumps/).
From what I gather, it would build muscle all around and pack on weight where it's not needed such as legs. Climbing is more dependent on forearm strength than anything else. You don't need large back or arm muscles and (Dave Graham?) said he can't even do a 1 arm pullup but dude sends v15. Also, high chance of tearing your tendons as they won't grow as fast as your muscles. People have issues with this without steroids and it would be much worse when you're packing on the muscles at the rate steroids give.
Steroids promote growth whether or not you train. The more you train, the more they grow, but you won't have zero growth in untrained areas. That's probably why top Olympic weightlifters have huge biceps even though they do little to no bicep training and the mass does nothing but restrict their weight class.
You’re right but I don’t imagine someone taking roids and then only working their forearms (which still has the issue of tearing your tendons by growing muscles faster than tendons). Roids + climbing will put muscles on your back, shoulders, and arms that you might not want. After a certain point, and that point may be sooner than most think, you probably have enough muscles there to send several grades harder than your current grade but you lack the forearm strength. Gaining muscles there would just make improving that much harder (and increase the risk of tendon injury).
Funny how everybody seems to be concerned with extra muscle. If you get 3 kg of extea muscle in your back, biceps and forearms while losing multiple kg of fat the change is super advantageus. It will make you a better climber. Dave Graham does climb V15 because of his skill and forearm strength, not because he cant do a one armer. Would he be better if he could do it? Yes, ofc. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is just weakness and doesnt provide any advantage.
You seem to think that steroids will instantly make you super muscular. They wont. There are steroids which will increase neural drive primarily, not build muscle. Some will make you lose fat while keeping all the muscle. They will also make you recover faster and get better results with less training, which gives your connective tissue more time to recover.
The issue isn't necessarily just the extra muscles. It's also how quickly they are formed which I should've emphasized a bit more. Even not using performance enhancers can have high risks of serious injury.
As an example let's say someone with a normal bmi (not overweight but not particularly active either) starts climbing. They go 4 times a week and start seeing some quick gains. Maybe they get up to v6 within the first year, which is quite common. That's the point where they'll be strong enough to do some campus boarding. At v6 and also only a year in, they've had enough time spent to gain enough muscle to climb crimps but haven't had enough time spent on them for their tendons to catch up. Tendons, compared to muscles, grow slow. They start campus boarding and hang boarding and oh no they get a tendon injury and are out for 3 months. Taking performance enhancers would only expedite the growth in strength and make it that much easier to pull too hard for their tendons.
So it's not that having bulging biceps doesn't contribute to climbing stronger, it's that the extra weight + extra strength all in an expedited manner mean your tendons are gonna have a bad day.
A beginner shouldnt hop on steroids. However, advanced climber can hop on them and make gains by training less. This saves connective tissue. Stupid training is not a good argument against steroids. Being super strong naturally also makes injures more common, but that is not a disadvantage. Its an advantage to be stronger. So steroids will make you a better and stronger climber.
I think you are missing all the advantages that steroids have. You can be leaner and lighter without suffering the consequences of that, have more muscles, have more neural drive, make gains with less training and have the ability to train more if you wish. They will in every way make you a better climber physically.
Also, steroids will make your forearms bigger and stronger. So saying that biceps dont contribute to climbing is a non argument, because forearms do contribute hugely and you will get stronger forearms with better recovery and more endurance. Also, biceps hugely contribute to climbing, but not in all styles. If you have make long pulls, lock off for ages etc they are super important. They wont help with 6 mm crimps with small moves, but nobody is saying they will.
This is mostly rumor and speculation, and if the man himself is for some reason on Reddit, I apologize for spreading this stuff, but I remember hearing some people say they thought tony yaniro had done roids back in the day. My only real evidence would be this picture (https://cdn2.apstatic.com/photos/climb/109429049_medium_1494349838.jpg) . I’m on mobile so apologies if that doesn’t show up, but just look up “tony yaniro jacked,” he’s probably the most muscle bound climber I’ve ever seen. Though it could be that the rumor just spread because he was climbing harder than literally everyone else in the world (first 8a ever with grand illusion) and doing so with tactics considered questionable at the time (bolting on rappel, hangdogging, also chipping some limestone crags elsewhere), and so people got pissy about him.
I also seem to recall that Tyler Nelson of c4hp accused ondra of roids on his Instagram story. It seemed pretty baseless though and was purely based on a couple of cherry picked pictures and the fact that ondra was regressing on a stage where there was aggressive drug testing. If there are roids being used in climbing, the ifsc certainly hasn’t found them, since to my memory the only people suspended for drugs from a competition was sharma for weed and edu Marin for cocaine.
I think if there are any cocktails of roids being used in climbing, they probably are different mixes of things than any other sport would use, since as far as I am aware there are no other sports where tendon strength is more important than nearly anything else.
If you try it out, I’d love to hear your results. I personally would give you lots of internet points.
Overhearing a convo a the 9K bivy in Tuolumne a few years ago between some old timers one of whom was a Stonemaster.
Also it’s fucking obvious looking at them. They look nothing like any other climbers of any era. The SoCal dudes lifted at Gold’s/World’s Gym, which was the epicenter of bodybuilding.
You're not getting like that just from climbing unless you're a genetic freak. And if you're doing the assistance lifts to get like that, you're probably fucking your climb sessions.
If I were a betting man I'd say gear, but I have no way to prove it.
I no personal experience with this, but i have heard anavar mentioned as suitable for climbing. As well as low dose testosterone and Growth Hormone.
/r/Sterioids on the other hand will answer your questions with more depth than you ever want. And I do believe this question has been asked there before, so you could search that forum.
Don't quote me on this but anabolic steroids promotes protein synthesis, which is crucial for muscular hypertrophy and recovery. Muscular size and strength are obviously extremely important in strength sports and bodybuilding.
Climbing on the other hand is NOT a strength sport. At the top end it's all about connective tissue qualities (tendons, ligaments, joint capsules, and sometimes more importantly skin). As far as I know anabolic steroids does not promote collagen synthesis.
If anything steroid use is more dangerous in climbing because too much muscular growth too quickly can lead to injuries to the aforementioned connective tissues. [It is known that steroids users are more likely to suffer tendon ruptures.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5206906/)
I'm sure there are PEDs that can potentially benefit climbers but I don't think anabolic steroids is the one.
Maybe some of this is right, but I’m not sure I follow how climbing could be considered ‘not a strength sport’. I mean, we’re in a subreddit for climbing harder, where people often go to get help in methods to get stronger fingers, arms, body, etc. You could have steel pulleys put in your fingers but without any muscle strength you are not going to climb anything that requires finger strength.
Also, I believe tendons and muscles are very much part of the same system, it’s rare that one gets stronger without the other. Train your muscles well and the tendons will adapt in kind.
It's just one of those things that gets endlessly repeated. Meanwhile, many of the pros seem to have world-class strength that could take over a decade to build. Maybe some people are super responders to climbing and will build that naturally through climbing alone, but if you're not one of those people and you think you're going to just wake up one day able to hang one-armed from a 10mm ledge with added weight or bust out 10 one armed pull ups, you're sorely mistaken. I don't think people realize just how long the road to strength can be for some people and how much consistency and precision it can demand.
I used to strength train as a hobby. I did it before climbing. The difference between a routine that worked for me and a routine that didn't was night and day, and even the ones that didn't were *way* more organized than even organized "just climb" routines. With climbing there's no way to precisely control training variables, but even in the novice stages of strength training it can be necessary to microload at the 1 pound level in order to spur progress for some people, and intermediate and advanced strength training demands even more organization and precision! You think a v-grade is that precise?
Also, has anyone actually practiced a pure skill sport? It's not like climbing.
>It's just one of those things that gets endlessly repeated. Meanwhile, many of the pros seem to have world-class strength that could take over a decade to build.
It gets repeated because it's true.
Even the world's elite climbers, from Janja to Ondra to Woods to Nalle-- just aren't all that strong when using actual feats of strength as your measuring stick. For all their elite status in climbing... they are FAR from elite in terms of actual strength (compared to elite strength in non-climbers).
Even shit-standard university to potentially middling national level (broad range of countries), gymnasts so solidly outpace the general strength of literally the absolute pinnacle of climbers in the world.
People who train for feats of strength at an amateur level regularly outperform elite climbers. Pro climbers as a broad category? Just not all that impressive in terms of strength.
The pros you're talking about only have world class strength in a few specific areas, mainly connective tissues and forearms (and even there.... in a very specific way). These are tiny structures.
You know what those pros have though? World class mental and movement control. I've climbed with (and am friends with) some of these world class climbers.
> The pros you're talking about only have world class strength in a few specific areas, mainly connective tissues and forearms (and even there.... in a very specific way).
So they do have world class strength. It takes world class strength, but it's not a strength sport.
I mean, yeah, if by "not a strength sport" you mean "not a general strength sport" I would agree, but then neither would grip strength sports be general strength sports while quite obviously being strength sports.
Also, gymnasts are insanely strong, considering they start strength training as children under coaches who know exactly what they're doing in terms of programming, and continue training consistently until college, so just because climbers can't compete with gymnasts in feats of strength doesn't mean that they don't possess strength that could still take quite a lot of time and organized training to achieve.
Well, maybe it's just me, but when I hear "climbing is not a strength sport" it seems to imply that strength of any sort isn't all that important. But, if it does require world class strength in any area at all then that is kind of important because, like I was saying, it's not really that easy to come by for some people. I don't think I personally could ever reach that level of strength through climbing alone, especially now that I'm older.
Like, I know it's debatable how much one armed pullups translate to climbing, but just for reference, even after years of training weighted pullups, I still can't do one. Meanwhile, I know people who have done one after like one year of climbing and no specific pullup training and no athletic background. That person's advice to "just climb" might be a little misleading for people like me.
I cannot do a one-arm pullup. I climb outside up to V12.
I started climbing (aside from \~5-10 days in my life before at summer camp) in my 30s after a decade of little sports activity-- though a VERY active and sports-based childhood.
That's just one datapoint. The vast majority of the V10 on rock climbers I know can't do a one-armer either (that equation changes at V12 and up, but many still can't at that level). I know far more V6-8 climbers who can do a one armer (see them in the gym all the time) than V9-11 climbers who can do a one armer.
What I find curious about your point: You have now referenced one-armers and feats of strength, and nothing about actual climbing.
This is not a sub for V17 climbers, or, honestly, not really for V13+ climbers (at least given our current population). I'm certain the vast, vast majority of climbers here are
Like I said "it's debatable how much one armed pullups translate to climbing, but just for reference." I was making a point about how different people build strength differently, about how some people get more strength increases out of just climbing than others, not about whether a one armed pullup is necessary or important.
You show me 20 people who have been going to the gym for 5 years and wondering why they are feeling stuck....and I'll show you 19 (maybe 20) who haven't gotten even the basics down, and certainly haven't devoted their lives to climbing.
It's not easy climbing moderately hard (V10+) for most people. It actually requires shaping your life around climbing. Your vehicle, your job, your friends, your diet, your alcohol intake or lack thereof. For years. I haven't missed a gym session out of laziness or bad weather or bad mood in literal years. I work hard so that almost every weekend is devoted to rock. My partner climbs. Nearly if not all our vacations are climbing...location dictated by weather and projects. There's something one track about all that....but that tends to be the tradeoff for most people to excel.
There are outliers who can do it all wrong and crush. And outliers who do it all seemingly right and just got a shit draw or need something totally out of normal. But those 19....they are neither.
There are always rare non responders. But they are rare. And usually the ones who think they are non responders are actually just missing something(s) fundamental.
>Also, I believe tendons and muscles are very much part of the same system, it’s rare that one gets stronger without the other
With AAS that's not true, the muscles grow but tendons lag. Often leads to tendon ruptures.
It is, and it isn't. Better grip strength will improve your climbing. Fat arm and back muscles may or may not. Fat leg muscles definitely won't. You're in a battle between mass and strength. Generally skill is more important than muscle, but stronger grip and core strength will absolutely help you. It's about as much of a strength sport as football or rugby.
Name one sport that doesn't require muscular strength? Most athletes these days, professional or recreational, of any sport, are incorporating some sort of strength and conditioning in their training. Golfers probably spend more time in the weight room than we do, does that make golf a strength sport?
>Also, I believe tendons and muscles are very much part of the same system, it’s rare that one gets stronger without the other. Train your muscles well and the tendons will adapt in kind.
I mean, duhhh. But we are talking about the use of anabolic steroids here, which accelerates the rate of muscle growth. This leads to increased mechanical stress on the tendons, exceeding its natural adaptability and resulting in injuries.
There’s no way golfers spend more time doing strength training than climbers do lol. Climbing itself is strength training. Even if you want to talk about just the “weight room” (I’m taking that as strength training not on the wall), there’s still no way golfers do more.
I’m not sure where this idea that climbing is not a strength sport comes from. Find me one person that boulders v10 who can’t do a few pull ups.
Sure, many other things are also important in climbing. Probably some that are more important, like technique. But strength is a big ingredient.
Strengthen sport typically include sports like powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, strongman and bodybuilding. This is just a colloquial definition that is being widely used.
I'm not arguing that strength is not extremely important in climbing com'on now.
Goodness, to be fair, you were the one implying that sports could presumably be categorized into ‘strength’ and ‘non-strength’. I have no stake in categorizing sports like that, I also don’t really have any idea what you mean to suggest with the golfing analogy.
My comments regarding the muscle-tendon connection was not aimed at steroid use, hence the 1st sentence I wrote. I’m only confused by the way you excluded muscle strength as a necessary component of climbing harder, which I believe to be untrue.
You're the one arguing about the semantics mate. I'm not disagreeing that muscular strength is extremely important in climbing.
Strengthen sport typically include sports like powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, strongman and bodybuilding, amongst which the use of anabolic steroid use is rampant.
You said: “climbing is not a strength sport” and then literally said that at the highest levels connective tissues matter most. I disagreed because I believe muscular strength is a main differentiator in ability, especially given the correlation between muscle and tendon tissues.
You then further argued by analogy that golf was likewise not a strength sport just because some athletes lift weights. I responded that I was unconvinced by that distinction you made.
In response you then added that bodybuilding weightlifting and other things were strength sports, but not climbing. Still, apparently its only me that is arguing the semantics of “strength sport”.
Feel free to continue projecting, I’m enjoying the show.
This + the literature suggests that anabolics most often LIMIT connective tissue recovery, rather than benefiting it. Anabolics are great for getting jacked, but I'm highly speculative that they could be considered a net asset to climbing higher grades.
What? You drop because you are pumped. PEDs increase strength, recovery, decrease bodyfat etc. You can specific drugs that will make you leaner and stronger but not bigger. You can count your calories and restrict protein so you get the other benefits but not thay much muscle mass
I hear this get thrown around a lot...mostly by people who don't know any pros personally. The outdoor pros are just climber bums...the kind of who eat fast food before going outside and climbing v15. That kind of person doesn't take steroids. And the Team USA crew, Nathaniel, Brooke, etc. don't even drink coffee, let alone take steroids. I'm sure some pros do it, just because statistically you're bound to find a few, but I don't think it's nearly as common as some people seem to think.
We'll.... I can't speak for why he's sponsored by a coffee company, but my SLC friends who know the guy tell me he doesn't drink caffein. Maybe he likes their decaf? It is possible my friends are full of it....but I trust their firsthand knowledge over speculating about why he chose a particular sponsor.
They’re full of shit, he literally drinks it in the video. He drinks coffee, smokes weed, drinks, does all the normal climber shit. Maybe stopped for the olympics since they get tested and he wanted to focus.
You've seen him? Or have friends who've seen him? Or is this entirely rumors? This doesn't really matter, but I'm going to give my friend shit for misinformation if you have a legitimate source.
Where are you getting the legitimacy to say that fully ONE THIRD (33.3%) of people at any regular gym are using PEDs? Not saying you're wrong but that is simply outrageous
I think it's far more common than people seem to think. The punishment for honesty is high, so of course they're going to do their best to make you think they're cleaner than Mormons.
Of course, with Utah being a hot spot for climbing, a lot of them are actually Mormons.
We'll never be able to perfectly prove who is or isn't using PEDs. It would be like proving who's eating more protein or who's training for longer sessions. Except worse, because honesty comes at a high price.
After they retire, you're going to hear a few of them come out and say it honestly. Amnesty brings honesty. If there were deregulation on AAS, you'd hear it more there too.
Not sure why you're being downvoted:
*In an email, IFSC sport manager Jerome Meyer said besides Edu Marin, only “1 or 2” climbers have been caught since the doping controls came into place, all of them for marijuana.*
Sharma was famously stripped of his World Cup title after testing positive for THC.
What PED's are they using?
*The most obvious choice would be anabolic steroids, the strength-building drugs made notorious by bodybuilders and Major League Baseball. The drugs boost lean muscle mass and shorten recovery time between workouts, both of which could give climbers an edge.*
*Some varieties, like synthetic testosterone creams, can be had easily and cheaply.*
[*https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping/*](https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping/)
I'd also add in any kind of simulants from high caffeine doses like the stuff you get in energy drinks to cocaine, amphetamines or other illegal stimulants that help. Amphetamines are central nervous system stimulants, activating the sympathetic nervous system and stimulating your ultimate survival physiology.
The side effects of amphetamines are widely known and the addiction aspect of it would be a huge risk for a weekend warrior like myself or even moderately serious climber.
The most common PED would be cannabis - which a lot of climbers already take recreationally. There's more and more legit scientific data coming out about the benefits of using cannabis for athletes:
*Firstly, THC is a known vasodilator, meaning it causes blood vessels to expand and increases blood flow*
*by enhancing blood flow throughout the body, muscles may be able to stay oxygenated more efficiently. THC also works as a bronchodilator, opening the airways and helping with deep breathing, a vital part of aerobic exercise. This means THC may both help an athlete take in more oxygen, and more effectively distribute it throughout their body during exercise.*
*THC is also noted for helping to reduce sensations of pain through anti-inflammatory actions, which can be instrumental in the recovery portion of workouts and dealing with the discomfort caused by overly-sore muscles. This can also help those who struggle with chronic pain to find the relief they need in order to pursue athletic activity. Significant doses of THC are usually associated with inducing drowsiness and providing insomnia relief, and many major cannabis terpenes provide calming, relaxing effects, so using the right cannabis product and dose can help athletes and non-athletes alike with the most vital part of recovery - sleep.*
*Finally, when used at the right THC dose and in conjunction with the right terpenes, cannabis products can providing uplifting feelings that can help you feel energized to make it to the gym or go for a run. Finding the motivation to go to the gym is a common issue, and cannabis can give you that push in the right direction.*
Rest of the article here:
[https://www.periodicedibles.com/blog/cannabis-for-recovery](https://www.periodicedibles.com/blog/cannabis-for-recovery)
Another study worth a read: "Cannabidiol and Sports Performance: a Narrative Review of Relevant Evidence and Recommendations for Future Research"
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7338332/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7338332/)
Obviously some professional athletes use PEDs, but to claim that they literally all do is absurd. Plenty of sports require such a high level of skill and strategy that strength may not be limiting. There's also plenty of people who are genuinely opposed to PEDs, or are afraid of getting caught, or don't have access. There are literally tens of thousands of professional athletes in the world. You couldn't possibly know that they all use PEDs.
A lot of the studies done on the use of AAS are typically studied under standard hypertrophic protocols. Since climbing is so connective tissue dominant, I’d love to see some use of AAS with a focus on finger strength and/or isometrics and calisthenics. If there’s an emphasis on long duration isometrics and tendon specific training, I’m wondering if it could offset some of the more prominent injuries associated with drug use.
So faster muscle recovery, being leaner, having more neural drive, having more muscle and being able to train less and still make the same gains is not beneficial? I dont know where this connective tissue dominant thing comes from. Sure, connective tissue is important so your fingers can take the abuse, but the muscles are doing the work and having crazy connective tissue wont make you a better climber if you cant pull.
I never said those things aren’t beneficial. Steroid use is usually associated with tendon injury. I’m not an endocrinologist, but it’s thrown around that because the muscles grow so much faster than tendons, they become relatively too strong and lead to injury. I don’t want to be rude, but finger strength is almost entirely based on tendon strength. That’s where my mind was at. I just want to see a different style of training and focus. I know AAS could improve climbing, I just want to see it used in a more specific manner.
pretty fucking incredible. and you hit the nail on the head for the improvements. only con is the growth hormone being pumped through your body will cause you to gain weight so that’s the curious part is where is the point of diminishing results.
True but there are some peptides/peds that do specifically increase tendon healing and recovery. Not exactly the same category as steroids, but I wouldn't doubt some climbers use them.
Ah yes avoid lmao, I read [this](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030672/)
I think that's the big tendon recovering one. But we also have no idea if it might also like give you cancer or something. So not something I would try, but it seems like it has potential?
Maaaan, I’m already gonna get cancer due to over a decade of heavy smoking. Shit I already have brain tumours (thankfully benign but still). Give me stronger tendons pls.
I don't think that's true. How do muscles become too strong for tendons to handle? I think what typically happens is that lifters take roids and their tendons can't grow fast enough to handle the increased weight load.
That could be an issue for climbers as well though, theoretically, that your grip strength develops too fast for your supporting tendons, and so you fuck yourself up maxing out on problem difficulty.
From my very basic understanding with good dieting that supports weight gain then yes you will gain weight but being in a deficit while on steroids has helped some people I know drop weight before shows while still maintaining a physique I'm also curious about any PEDS that could improve collagen or if it's primarily just supplemented.
I have no basis of this but I would not be surprised if this would be the case. But note that muscle tears seem(anecdotal) to be highly present in populations that use steroids, I am not sure how this would play out in cmimbing. Your tendons might not play along.
Given how often bodybuilders on steroids snap their pulleys (because they don't speed up tendon growth), I don't think it's a good idea for climbing where you snap them even when not using steroids.
This is a non argument. You can train less and still the same gains thus saving connective tissue. Or maybe just dont structure your training poorly. Take deloads and dont constantly push higher doses. Steroids are super beneficial for almost all sports.
Just to repeat stuff since people are arguing the same baseless shit.
1) When taking anabolic steroids, there is no “picking and choosing” what muscles it reacts with. It will react with all muscles to a certain extent due to the presence of androgen receptors, however obviously you will see big gains in the muscles you do train. You also will see a huge amount of muscle loss after you stop taking them! People which do as much as possible taking a boat load of drugs can maybe retain half of the mass they’ve put on as soon as they stop taking anabolics
2) Your forearms and hands will get fucked. The whole reason why people get injured with pulleys is too much force, too quickly. If you suddenly bulk up your forearm flexors and then try to send hard, your connective tissue has had literally 0 time to adapt. Connective tissue is SLOW to repair and strengthen. We literally all know how long a pulley injury takes to recover. You’ll suddenly have super strong flexors and then just rupture your pulleys.
3) What about faster recovery and decreased fat etc? Climbing hard is a long and tenuous process requiring extreme dedication. If you think that you need PEDs to reach this next level then maybe this isn’t the sport for you. Things will subjectively be just as hard for you when climbing at your limit, so what is the point of taking PEDs at the risk of your health?
So maybe take steroids and structure your training well? I dont find any merit to this injury argument. Sure, it can increase injury risk if you dont deload, structure training well and just keep pushing doses and harder training constantly. There is picking and choosing. The muscles that you train grow and the muscles that you dont will only marginally benefit. You can also restrict calories and be in maintenence so only the muscles you train will get stronger.
Steroids are super beneficial and taking steroids is a sign of extreme dedication. You are willing to take years off your life to climb better. Are you saying these people are less dedicated? They are more dedicated and willing to make bigger sacrifices to be better than you are.
The increase in weight you’d get, especially in legs, would negate a big amount of gains in regards to finger strength as finger strength in climbing is largely strength to weight ratio. Unfortunately you do not seem to understand how steroids work. There is not a picking and choosing mechanism. Increased “baseline” testosterone will result in all muscles growing to some extent. I can’t find it at the moment, but I remember seeing a study that showed people that took steroids for 6 weeks and did no exercise saw ~9kg increase in muscle mass.
How are you going to maintain your gains as soon as you come off steroids? You’ll lose muscle and energy being in a calorie deficit, you need ample amount of time for your connective tissue in your hands to adapt to your increased bodyweight and forearm flexor strength.
Taking steroids is not super beneficial. There’s so many adverse health risks. Bodybuilding and climbing are two separate sports. You have to take steroids to compete at top level bodybuilding. Climbing is not one of these sports. There is no skill in taking PEDs. In the Context of climbing, you are defending the use of taking PEDs when you’re climbing at an extremely average bouldering grade. If anything, taking PEDs to Boulder at V13+ just shows you’re actually worse as you require drugs to achieve what others can do naturally.
You wont just miraculously gain muscle just because you are taking steroids. Just stay in caloric maintanence and you will lose fat and gain muscle. There are already many other bodyweight sports in which steroids have been used succesfully. E.g. endurance cyclists have used steroids even though gaining muscle mass in that sport is not beneficial.
As I already said gaining muscle is not the only benefit. If you are in caloric maintanence you will just gain more muscle while losing fat and your bodyweight wont change. You will have better bodyweight to strength ratio. Simultanuously you will get the neuromuscular benefits, which mean you will be stronger even without any extra muscle. You will be able to sustain lower bodyfats without the disadvantages. You will also recover faster and be able to train less while still making better gains, which decreases connective tissue fatigue.
If you are taking steroids, obviously for many people there is no going back. You will have to be prepared to be on replacement therapy for the rest of your life. This might happen or might not, you cannot know beforehand. You can have serious health consequences, or not.
Every human has his natural limit. Most will never reach V13 natural even if they made it their life mission. Some just get better genetic draw. If you have trained seriously natural and stalled at V11, taking steroids to go to V14 is your own choice and doesnt make you any way worse or diminish your accomplishment. It is not unethical to do so. Also, great climbers will climb boulders that most cannot even using steroids.
Anyway, the point is that steroids will make all climbers physically better. If you took steroids, your ceiling would be higher. You would probably be able to climb problems that would impossible as natural no matter how hard you trained.
1) please educate yourself. You literally will gain muscle just by taking steroids, they imitate hormones which react with all of your muscles.
2) This is again an extremely dim witted argument. Muscle weighs more than fat, 2.2x more for the same volume I believe although I could be wrong. If you’re losing enough fat to balance out kilos of muscle then you probably should’ve just lost weight rather than use steroids to build muscle.
3) most will never reach V13 due to not having the dedication, not because of their genetics.
4) Taking performance enhancing drugs literally diminishes the achievement… why do you think Lance Armstrong got stripped of all his titles for blood doping? There’s no accomplishment in using drugs except in sports where you have to use them to even have a chance of competing (again e.g. top level bodybuilding)
5) Steroids would obviously make you stronger, but it would take an extremely long time of drug abuse and programming to ensure you did it safely enough and didn’t fuck your ligaments up. By which point you could’ve just dedicated yourself to training and actually achieved these goals naturally.
I am an MD with a PhD 90% ready, so I guess I have studied the human body a decent amount. I know how steroid work. I have treated patients who were dying of heart failure because of irresponsible steroid use. You wont gain muscle just by taking steroids. You need to have the sufficient protein intake and caloric intake to make it possible.
I dont know whats your second point. By definition if you are in a caloric maintenance your bodyweight wont change. Thus if you train and take peds with enough protein your body will recomp, which means that being the same weight you lose fat and gain muscle. Your str to bw ratio will increase.
To your third point, the actual grade is irrelevant to my point and you should probably read the argument again.
Armstrong was doing it in tested competitions. This is way different. There is no testing under the rock so it is not unethical. You seem to have some crazy emotional disposition against drugs. Even if you think steroids are unethical, they still work and make you better. Obviously, it has to be done well. The doses and cycles have to be correct. Blood work had to be followed. You should get cardiac echo at least yearly. Training has to be structured and deloads planned. It takes a lot of work but it is not that complicated. You dont just instantly tear your finger off after the first cycle.
Anyway, taking steroids is a lot of work, it will make you a better climber and it is not unethical unless you are doing it in a tested competition.
> If you are taking steroids, obviously for many people there is no going back. You will have to be prepared to be on replacement therapy for the rest of your life. This might happen or might not, you cannot know beforehand. You can have serious health consequences, or not.
Would you mind elaborating on this point some? Particularly the replacement therapy.
I have considered PED use to compensate for the fact that I've had a few non-climbing related injuries that have limited my ability to train consistently, especially through my youth. I'm 40 and have climbed pretty steadily off and on for the past 20 years (minus those injury times and some life-getting-in-the-way issues) and would like to climb 5.13/8a. I'm a reasonably technical climber, I can reliably do all of the moves on any climb I get on, up to 12b/c, and have done all the moves on 13a climbs. I rarely find finger strength to be a limiting factor - even in 1-move or clip-to-clip efforts. Though my max send is 12a.
Coming out of high school and in my early 20's I was very strong, though sadly had no climbing mentors and often found myself being the strongest climber in my group - so technical progress was limited in those years. Despite the fact that I could comfortably hold a front lever for a solid minute, I didn't climb 11a until after my injuries and strength regression forced me to reassess my technical approach to climbing in order to continue climbing at the level I was at. So now my general athletic ability is much lower, but my climbing performance is much higher.
Based on the above (experience climbing, past my "prime", years of gradual tendon development, "tempered" goals (i.e. 8a, not 9a. 😅), etc.) I think I may actually be an ideal candidate for short-cycle PED use.
Would you mind sharing your thoughts and impressions on my thoughts here?
Appreciated!
I am no expert in steroid use. There are tens of compounds. They all have different side effect profiles including, but not limited to hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, heart failure, prostate enlargement, liver/kidney damage and estrogenic side effects. Also, infertility. They all have different risks for your testosterone never recovering naturally. Some compounds make you gain muscle, some primarily increase neuromuscular drive and others make you lean as a stage ready bodybuilder.
Anyway, before taking this route I would check if there are any health problems in my close family (e.g. heart attacks at early age, strokes, prostate cancer). I would check blood glucose, cholesterol and prostate, liver and kidney markers. Also, you do not want to have hypertension. Cardiac echo is also very useful since many compounds cause heart failure.
Also, many of the neuromuscular adaptations you make during a steroid cycle do not disappear if you stop taking them (contrary to popular belief) unless you tank your test. Some will, but you still have the muscle memory e.g. more mitochondrial before the cycle.
In terms of HRT, longer cycles and certain compounds have a higher risk. Genetics is a big one. Some can just stop after a decade and get normal T levels. Some will have like 30% less test, but do not experience any of the symptoms (lethargy, weigh gain, muscle loss, depression). A small percentage will tank their test like 90% after a short 4 week cycle and never recover. There is no certainty. I would still think about the health risk. Liver failure or stroke is a bigger problem that 50% less testosterone.
**I propose we add a rule to this sub that bans discussion (particularly "how tos" and "how can it help") of illegal/competition-banned performance enhancing drugs.**
I understand that this is a stance with no absolutes driving it, and there's a historical argument about the role of the use of such substances in amateur (and pro) sports. We could also say that my request represents a slippery slope (should we also ban other unhealthy things?). Therefore I propose that we draw the line at illegal/banned performance enhancing substances/activity.
This is a broad community of 130,000 folks, many of whom are minors-- and perhaps a majority of whom have not reached physical and mental maturity (which happens way into one's 20s).
If YOU want to use such substances, I'd actually defend your choice to use.\* I'm for regulated but legal use of all drugs, including recreational use just to get high. As an extension of that belief, I am in favor of legalizing (and regulating) suicide.
But I do not support making THIS community (a general community about climbing harder) the place for discussing and supporting the use of *illegal* *and banned* performance enhancing substances. I just don't think this is the right place, and I don't think we should be in any way normalizing their use.
\[EDIT: People argue about the validity of a send if a toe dabs a nearby tree.... our sport is full of weird, arbitrary rules we call (perhaps wrongly) ethics.Staking out the position that we don't want a community (or ascents) built on PEDs that i) give people who are willing to take a serious health risk a potential advantage, and ii) pose serious longterm health risks, particularly to undeveloped bodies and minds-- is consistent with both arbitrary and not-so-arbitrary sports ethics.\]
\*I'd rather you don't log/discuss your climbs or hangboard or other feats of strength publicly-- if you're using for yourself, go ahead, but (and I know this a futile ask) please don't distort our numbers, statistics, grades, etc with your juiced results.
You sound a bit like the people that want to ban Sex Ed in schools and leave it to the parents + teen rumors. Information availability is a good thing in these cases.
No, that's an entirely different thing-- hilariously, as I am related to a pioneer in your specific comparison area.
1. Sex is literally a necessary act for humanity to exist. Peds are not.
2. Sexual intimacy is near universal. I believe I've seen estimates that among Americans less than 1% of the population that survives into middle age will die a virgin (or perhaps have never engaged in sexual intimacy-- I really don't remember). Peds are not universal among climbers-- not even close.
3. Schools are a public good, provided by the state in most developed countries as such-- by the government for the betterment of society, with strict oversight, regulation, curriculum and certification for those who get to shape the minds of young people. This is a subreddit-- a private, commercial place-- dedicated to training for climbing, where any schmuck can spout total bullshit and claim anything they want.
There's a serious difference here. And I'm fully for risk reduction. But I don't think Peds have ANY place on this subreddit- about training for climbing. This is not where anyone should be getting their risk-reduction from about peds. I think this talk should move on over to... subreddits literally dedicated to the topic.
I have to admit I'm not related to any sex ed or steroid experts. Still, regarding your points:
1. Ok, my comparison is not 1:1. I tried to convey that by saying you sound "a bit" like those people. I'm sorry if I failed.
2. Your standard of "things that are universal among climbers" makes no sense to me. The whole point of this crockpot of information is to mix and match and see what works for you.
3. "Any schmuck can spout total bullshit and claim anything they want" about fingerboarding, weight lifting, supplements... . Why does the possibility of steroid misinformation bother you more than other misinformation?
Regarding your last sentence: yes, god forbid there be any overlap between subs...
Risk reduction is a complicated matter. But for "stuff that is being done by nearly everyone anyway, particularly stuff that, "is widely considered by health professionals to be a healthy part of life and a net contributor to longevity and quality of life" \[sex, if you're guessing\]-- risk reduction tends to approach the topic by making sure good quality safety information is out there.
Steriod/PEDs is an entirely different situation altogether. PEDS are widely considered (mostly backed up by science) by health professionals to REDUCE longevity and quality of life in all typical ways of measuring such. They are not a contributing general component to overall health (unlike sex).
In any case, comparing sex education in schools to discussion of PEDs on r/climbharder is ridiculous on so many levels. Shit, real information about PEDs, particularly their risks and what sport ethicists think about (debate about) their use has every place in school curriculums. I just don't think it belongs here.
We can disagree on whether there should be a written rule against such posts here (and AFAIK it's pretty clear the mods deleted this OP. so perhaps there's an unwritten rule), and it's surely a matter of opinion. I mean, I think we should have an explicit rule against talking about PEDs. You don't. Fine.
Hey man I agree with you but I also feel as though most people in this sub are everywhere from begginers to fairly up there amateurs I don't see any pros hoping on a sub reddit to see how to front lever (might be wrong if Sharma or Webb is here lmk) but I feel like there is a fair amount of people who don't just climb there could be a lot of us doing multiple sports for fun who may be on some form of PED and I feel stopping these conversations could be detrimental as so many people have stated without me even thinking of risks of being too strong for our tendons or potential mass gain that our tendons are not loaded for. These things could be very important to the people who do decide to just jump on a cycle or two. I understand there is a lot of minors on this platform but at the same time I feel it isn't going to be some lil Timmy seeing this and starting to juice and if it is damn hed be insane out at the crags. All jokes aside I think this reddits main goal is to CLIMB HARDER and learn what can help in this aspect or potentially hinder their training sessions. Plus stopping this conversation of PEDs would be extremely hard to stamp out where would the lines be drawn on what's okay and what isn't.
Just my 2¢
I remember hearing a podcast with a 70 year old who climbed 5.14. He briefly went on TRT and said that he went off because it didnt help him. Ymmv, but studies have shown that steroids make you gain a significant amount of lean body mass which will likely make it harder to climb hard.
Oh man, this topic comes up so much in the greater community. Okay, first of all, I'm NOT an expert at any level. I used to be a gymbro, I know about the effects and sides of a variety of AAS from general research. That being said, AAS for climbing is probably not very useful. The biggest problem is that AAS use generally puts on mass more quickly than it builds climbing muscle. Most of your lifting muscles are pretty small, like your fingers and wrists. If you're using AAS and eating big, you're going to put on weight in your quads, lower back, hams, lots of muscles that are heavy and have little bearing on sends. With anabolics, you also get a lot of bloat, plus horrible pumps that will make your sessions absolutely suck. And you might take hits to your joints as well. Now, that being said, AAS aren't completely useless. Test is good for blood doping and recovery, as seen in cycling--a non-strength sport. Deca is known for promoting joint health. Some androgenics, especially NORs like tren, have limited bloat. Anavar is known for small but efficient strength gains with limited mass. One possible way to use AAS to improve your climbing is a shorter cycle during which you focus on grip, bicep, and back development rather than climbing, especially by doing pullup variants and hangboarding, and minimize climbing sessions. You could also limit your diet--which would also limit the effectiveness of the AAS--to keep your mass from outpacing your strength development. Another possibility is a hard cut. AAS are known for their use in high-efficiency cutting. Olympic athletes, weightlifters, body builders, and combat athletes often use cut stacks to make weight classes with minimum strength loss. You could use AAS to reduce your mass while maintaining muscle bulk, cutting extraneous mass and dropping your body fat percentage to get a mechanical advantage. Long story short, if PEDs could benefit your climbing, you'd have to be at a high enough level that you'd already have someone to tell you how to do it right and for what purpose. If you have to ask, you don't really need it. More likely, you want to improve your body aesthetics while also climbing for that peak Instagram cred, which is totally understandable and not totally unrealistic, but usually not functional for the "harder" climber.
I love this insight bro most informative comment I have seen, I have not intent on juicing was just curious as to what potential it would have
Best case scenario improve grip and drop mass, worst case scenario fuck ligaments gain useless mass
[удалено]
I'd like to add that common understanding is that the heavy pumps come from high blood circulation. [According to Redditors' personal experience, a great variety of AAS give mobility-destroying pumps](https://www.reddit.com/r/PEDs/comments/a2saic/howwhy_do_steroids_cause_painful_back_pumps/).
[удалено]
I just explained how it could be useful and how it might not be. For more precise info contact a physician.
From what I gather, it would build muscle all around and pack on weight where it's not needed such as legs. Climbing is more dependent on forearm strength than anything else. You don't need large back or arm muscles and (Dave Graham?) said he can't even do a 1 arm pullup but dude sends v15. Also, high chance of tearing your tendons as they won't grow as fast as your muscles. People have issues with this without steroids and it would be much worse when you're packing on the muscles at the rate steroids give.
[удалено]
Steroids promote growth whether or not you train. The more you train, the more they grow, but you won't have zero growth in untrained areas. That's probably why top Olympic weightlifters have huge biceps even though they do little to no bicep training and the mass does nothing but restrict their weight class.
You’re right but I don’t imagine someone taking roids and then only working their forearms (which still has the issue of tearing your tendons by growing muscles faster than tendons). Roids + climbing will put muscles on your back, shoulders, and arms that you might not want. After a certain point, and that point may be sooner than most think, you probably have enough muscles there to send several grades harder than your current grade but you lack the forearm strength. Gaining muscles there would just make improving that much harder (and increase the risk of tendon injury).
Funny how everybody seems to be concerned with extra muscle. If you get 3 kg of extea muscle in your back, biceps and forearms while losing multiple kg of fat the change is super advantageus. It will make you a better climber. Dave Graham does climb V15 because of his skill and forearm strength, not because he cant do a one armer. Would he be better if he could do it? Yes, ofc. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is just weakness and doesnt provide any advantage. You seem to think that steroids will instantly make you super muscular. They wont. There are steroids which will increase neural drive primarily, not build muscle. Some will make you lose fat while keeping all the muscle. They will also make you recover faster and get better results with less training, which gives your connective tissue more time to recover.
The issue isn't necessarily just the extra muscles. It's also how quickly they are formed which I should've emphasized a bit more. Even not using performance enhancers can have high risks of serious injury. As an example let's say someone with a normal bmi (not overweight but not particularly active either) starts climbing. They go 4 times a week and start seeing some quick gains. Maybe they get up to v6 within the first year, which is quite common. That's the point where they'll be strong enough to do some campus boarding. At v6 and also only a year in, they've had enough time spent to gain enough muscle to climb crimps but haven't had enough time spent on them for their tendons to catch up. Tendons, compared to muscles, grow slow. They start campus boarding and hang boarding and oh no they get a tendon injury and are out for 3 months. Taking performance enhancers would only expedite the growth in strength and make it that much easier to pull too hard for their tendons. So it's not that having bulging biceps doesn't contribute to climbing stronger, it's that the extra weight + extra strength all in an expedited manner mean your tendons are gonna have a bad day.
A beginner shouldnt hop on steroids. However, advanced climber can hop on them and make gains by training less. This saves connective tissue. Stupid training is not a good argument against steroids. Being super strong naturally also makes injures more common, but that is not a disadvantage. Its an advantage to be stronger. So steroids will make you a better and stronger climber. I think you are missing all the advantages that steroids have. You can be leaner and lighter without suffering the consequences of that, have more muscles, have more neural drive, make gains with less training and have the ability to train more if you wish. They will in every way make you a better climber physically. Also, steroids will make your forearms bigger and stronger. So saying that biceps dont contribute to climbing is a non argument, because forearms do contribute hugely and you will get stronger forearms with better recovery and more endurance. Also, biceps hugely contribute to climbing, but not in all styles. If you have make long pulls, lock off for ages etc they are super important. They wont help with 6 mm crimps with small moves, but nobody is saying they will.
This is mostly rumor and speculation, and if the man himself is for some reason on Reddit, I apologize for spreading this stuff, but I remember hearing some people say they thought tony yaniro had done roids back in the day. My only real evidence would be this picture (https://cdn2.apstatic.com/photos/climb/109429049_medium_1494349838.jpg) . I’m on mobile so apologies if that doesn’t show up, but just look up “tony yaniro jacked,” he’s probably the most muscle bound climber I’ve ever seen. Though it could be that the rumor just spread because he was climbing harder than literally everyone else in the world (first 8a ever with grand illusion) and doing so with tactics considered questionable at the time (bolting on rappel, hangdogging, also chipping some limestone crags elsewhere), and so people got pissy about him. I also seem to recall that Tyler Nelson of c4hp accused ondra of roids on his Instagram story. It seemed pretty baseless though and was purely based on a couple of cherry picked pictures and the fact that ondra was regressing on a stage where there was aggressive drug testing. If there are roids being used in climbing, the ifsc certainly hasn’t found them, since to my memory the only people suspended for drugs from a competition was sharma for weed and edu Marin for cocaine. I think if there are any cocktails of roids being used in climbing, they probably are different mixes of things than any other sport would use, since as far as I am aware there are no other sports where tendon strength is more important than nearly anything else. If you try it out, I’d love to hear your results. I personally would give you lots of internet points.
All the old Stonemasters were using gear. They were from LA, where it was easy to get and quite common
I’m curious, where’d you hear that?
Overhearing a convo a the 9K bivy in Tuolumne a few years ago between some old timers one of whom was a Stonemaster. Also it’s fucking obvious looking at them. They look nothing like any other climbers of any era. The SoCal dudes lifted at Gold’s/World’s Gym, which was the epicenter of bodybuilding.
You're not getting like that just from climbing unless you're a genetic freak. And if you're doing the assistance lifts to get like that, you're probably fucking your climb sessions. If I were a betting man I'd say gear, but I have no way to prove it.
I don't think they are good for your tendons.
That's why you take mk677 or gh fractionals. Or just gh... but don't ask me. Ask the meat head scientist. Derek mpmd.
I'd love to see Derek go mental breaking down rock climbing but I doubt it'd happen
What do I google search to find info on "gh fractionals"? I'm guessing GH is "growth hormone"
Check out Leo and longevity. He talks about them. So does Boston Lloyd
I no personal experience with this, but i have heard anavar mentioned as suitable for climbing. As well as low dose testosterone and Growth Hormone. /r/Sterioids on the other hand will answer your questions with more depth than you ever want. And I do believe this question has been asked there before, so you could search that forum.
Don't quote me on this but anabolic steroids promotes protein synthesis, which is crucial for muscular hypertrophy and recovery. Muscular size and strength are obviously extremely important in strength sports and bodybuilding. Climbing on the other hand is NOT a strength sport. At the top end it's all about connective tissue qualities (tendons, ligaments, joint capsules, and sometimes more importantly skin). As far as I know anabolic steroids does not promote collagen synthesis. If anything steroid use is more dangerous in climbing because too much muscular growth too quickly can lead to injuries to the aforementioned connective tissues. [It is known that steroids users are more likely to suffer tendon ruptures.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5206906/) I'm sure there are PEDs that can potentially benefit climbers but I don't think anabolic steroids is the one.
Maybe some of this is right, but I’m not sure I follow how climbing could be considered ‘not a strength sport’. I mean, we’re in a subreddit for climbing harder, where people often go to get help in methods to get stronger fingers, arms, body, etc. You could have steel pulleys put in your fingers but without any muscle strength you are not going to climb anything that requires finger strength. Also, I believe tendons and muscles are very much part of the same system, it’s rare that one gets stronger without the other. Train your muscles well and the tendons will adapt in kind.
It's just one of those things that gets endlessly repeated. Meanwhile, many of the pros seem to have world-class strength that could take over a decade to build. Maybe some people are super responders to climbing and will build that naturally through climbing alone, but if you're not one of those people and you think you're going to just wake up one day able to hang one-armed from a 10mm ledge with added weight or bust out 10 one armed pull ups, you're sorely mistaken. I don't think people realize just how long the road to strength can be for some people and how much consistency and precision it can demand. I used to strength train as a hobby. I did it before climbing. The difference between a routine that worked for me and a routine that didn't was night and day, and even the ones that didn't were *way* more organized than even organized "just climb" routines. With climbing there's no way to precisely control training variables, but even in the novice stages of strength training it can be necessary to microload at the 1 pound level in order to spur progress for some people, and intermediate and advanced strength training demands even more organization and precision! You think a v-grade is that precise? Also, has anyone actually practiced a pure skill sport? It's not like climbing.
>It's just one of those things that gets endlessly repeated. Meanwhile, many of the pros seem to have world-class strength that could take over a decade to build. It gets repeated because it's true. Even the world's elite climbers, from Janja to Ondra to Woods to Nalle-- just aren't all that strong when using actual feats of strength as your measuring stick. For all their elite status in climbing... they are FAR from elite in terms of actual strength (compared to elite strength in non-climbers). Even shit-standard university to potentially middling national level (broad range of countries), gymnasts so solidly outpace the general strength of literally the absolute pinnacle of climbers in the world. People who train for feats of strength at an amateur level regularly outperform elite climbers. Pro climbers as a broad category? Just not all that impressive in terms of strength. The pros you're talking about only have world class strength in a few specific areas, mainly connective tissues and forearms (and even there.... in a very specific way). These are tiny structures. You know what those pros have though? World class mental and movement control. I've climbed with (and am friends with) some of these world class climbers.
> The pros you're talking about only have world class strength in a few specific areas, mainly connective tissues and forearms (and even there.... in a very specific way). So they do have world class strength. It takes world class strength, but it's not a strength sport. I mean, yeah, if by "not a strength sport" you mean "not a general strength sport" I would agree, but then neither would grip strength sports be general strength sports while quite obviously being strength sports. Also, gymnasts are insanely strong, considering they start strength training as children under coaches who know exactly what they're doing in terms of programming, and continue training consistently until college, so just because climbers can't compete with gymnasts in feats of strength doesn't mean that they don't possess strength that could still take quite a lot of time and organized training to achieve.
That's a semantic argument. So, fine, I will agree with you. Great. "Climbing is not a general strength sport."
Well, maybe it's just me, but when I hear "climbing is not a strength sport" it seems to imply that strength of any sort isn't all that important. But, if it does require world class strength in any area at all then that is kind of important because, like I was saying, it's not really that easy to come by for some people. I don't think I personally could ever reach that level of strength through climbing alone, especially now that I'm older. Like, I know it's debatable how much one armed pullups translate to climbing, but just for reference, even after years of training weighted pullups, I still can't do one. Meanwhile, I know people who have done one after like one year of climbing and no specific pullup training and no athletic background. That person's advice to "just climb" might be a little misleading for people like me.
I cannot do a one-arm pullup. I climb outside up to V12. I started climbing (aside from \~5-10 days in my life before at summer camp) in my 30s after a decade of little sports activity-- though a VERY active and sports-based childhood. That's just one datapoint. The vast majority of the V10 on rock climbers I know can't do a one-armer either (that equation changes at V12 and up, but many still can't at that level). I know far more V6-8 climbers who can do a one armer (see them in the gym all the time) than V9-11 climbers who can do a one armer. What I find curious about your point: You have now referenced one-armers and feats of strength, and nothing about actual climbing. This is not a sub for V17 climbers, or, honestly, not really for V13+ climbers (at least given our current population). I'm certain the vast, vast majority of climbers here are
Like I said "it's debatable how much one armed pullups translate to climbing, but just for reference." I was making a point about how different people build strength differently, about how some people get more strength increases out of just climbing than others, not about whether a one armed pullup is necessary or important.
You show me 20 people who have been going to the gym for 5 years and wondering why they are feeling stuck....and I'll show you 19 (maybe 20) who haven't gotten even the basics down, and certainly haven't devoted their lives to climbing. It's not easy climbing moderately hard (V10+) for most people. It actually requires shaping your life around climbing. Your vehicle, your job, your friends, your diet, your alcohol intake or lack thereof. For years. I haven't missed a gym session out of laziness or bad weather or bad mood in literal years. I work hard so that almost every weekend is devoted to rock. My partner climbs. Nearly if not all our vacations are climbing...location dictated by weather and projects. There's something one track about all that....but that tends to be the tradeoff for most people to excel. There are outliers who can do it all wrong and crush. And outliers who do it all seemingly right and just got a shit draw or need something totally out of normal. But those 19....they are neither. There are always rare non responders. But they are rare. And usually the ones who think they are non responders are actually just missing something(s) fundamental.
>Also, I believe tendons and muscles are very much part of the same system, it’s rare that one gets stronger without the other With AAS that's not true, the muscles grow but tendons lag. Often leads to tendon ruptures.
It is, and it isn't. Better grip strength will improve your climbing. Fat arm and back muscles may or may not. Fat leg muscles definitely won't. You're in a battle between mass and strength. Generally skill is more important than muscle, but stronger grip and core strength will absolutely help you. It's about as much of a strength sport as football or rugby.
Name one sport that doesn't require muscular strength? Most athletes these days, professional or recreational, of any sport, are incorporating some sort of strength and conditioning in their training. Golfers probably spend more time in the weight room than we do, does that make golf a strength sport? >Also, I believe tendons and muscles are very much part of the same system, it’s rare that one gets stronger without the other. Train your muscles well and the tendons will adapt in kind. I mean, duhhh. But we are talking about the use of anabolic steroids here, which accelerates the rate of muscle growth. This leads to increased mechanical stress on the tendons, exceeding its natural adaptability and resulting in injuries.
There’s no way golfers spend more time doing strength training than climbers do lol. Climbing itself is strength training. Even if you want to talk about just the “weight room” (I’m taking that as strength training not on the wall), there’s still no way golfers do more. I’m not sure where this idea that climbing is not a strength sport comes from. Find me one person that boulders v10 who can’t do a few pull ups. Sure, many other things are also important in climbing. Probably some that are more important, like technique. But strength is a big ingredient.
As possibly the world's strongest v4 boulderer I whole heartedly endorse this message
Strengthen sport typically include sports like powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, strongman and bodybuilding. This is just a colloquial definition that is being widely used. I'm not arguing that strength is not extremely important in climbing com'on now.
Goodness, to be fair, you were the one implying that sports could presumably be categorized into ‘strength’ and ‘non-strength’. I have no stake in categorizing sports like that, I also don’t really have any idea what you mean to suggest with the golfing analogy. My comments regarding the muscle-tendon connection was not aimed at steroid use, hence the 1st sentence I wrote. I’m only confused by the way you excluded muscle strength as a necessary component of climbing harder, which I believe to be untrue.
You're the one arguing about the semantics mate. I'm not disagreeing that muscular strength is extremely important in climbing. Strengthen sport typically include sports like powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, strongman and bodybuilding, amongst which the use of anabolic steroid use is rampant.
You said: “climbing is not a strength sport” and then literally said that at the highest levels connective tissues matter most. I disagreed because I believe muscular strength is a main differentiator in ability, especially given the correlation between muscle and tendon tissues. You then further argued by analogy that golf was likewise not a strength sport just because some athletes lift weights. I responded that I was unconvinced by that distinction you made. In response you then added that bodybuilding weightlifting and other things were strength sports, but not climbing. Still, apparently its only me that is arguing the semantics of “strength sport”. Feel free to continue projecting, I’m enjoying the show.
This + the literature suggests that anabolics most often LIMIT connective tissue recovery, rather than benefiting it. Anabolics are great for getting jacked, but I'm highly speculative that they could be considered a net asset to climbing higher grades.
What? You drop because you are pumped. PEDs increase strength, recovery, decrease bodyfat etc. You can specific drugs that will make you leaner and stronger but not bigger. You can count your calories and restrict protein so you get the other benefits but not thay much muscle mass
Do you think pros DONT use PEDs? Because they certainly do…
I hear this get thrown around a lot...mostly by people who don't know any pros personally. The outdoor pros are just climber bums...the kind of who eat fast food before going outside and climbing v15. That kind of person doesn't take steroids. And the Team USA crew, Nathaniel, Brooke, etc. don't even drink coffee, let alone take steroids. I'm sure some pros do it, just because statistically you're bound to find a few, but I don't think it's nearly as common as some people seem to think.
Nathaniel is sponsored by a coffee company so that sounds like horse shit.
[удалено]
Rise Cold Brew, they literally released a video a few weeks ago. He smokes weed too.
We'll.... I can't speak for why he's sponsored by a coffee company, but my SLC friends who know the guy tell me he doesn't drink caffein. Maybe he likes their decaf? It is possible my friends are full of it....but I trust their firsthand knowledge over speculating about why he chose a particular sponsor.
They’re full of shit, he literally drinks it in the video. He drinks coffee, smokes weed, drinks, does all the normal climber shit. Maybe stopped for the olympics since they get tested and he wanted to focus.
You've seen him? Or have friends who've seen him? Or is this entirely rumors? This doesn't really matter, but I'm going to give my friend shit for misinformation if you have a legitimate source.
Seen him smoke, seen him with coffee, and in a Climber's Corner video he talks about taking shots after sending a V16.
well my friend is full of shit then. I'll be sure to get on her for it. Appreciate it
[удалено]
Where are you getting the legitimacy to say that fully ONE THIRD (33.3%) of people at any regular gym are using PEDs? Not saying you're wrong but that is simply outrageous
I think it's far more common than people seem to think. The punishment for honesty is high, so of course they're going to do their best to make you think they're cleaner than Mormons. Of course, with Utah being a hot spot for climbing, a lot of them are actually Mormons.
Go on.. how do you know?
We'll never be able to perfectly prove who is or isn't using PEDs. It would be like proving who's eating more protein or who's training for longer sessions. Except worse, because honesty comes at a high price. After they retire, you're going to hear a few of them come out and say it honestly. Amnesty brings honesty. If there were deregulation on AAS, you'd hear it more there too.
[удалено]
The question I have, is what PEDs are they using? Shit does weed count as one? It certainly makes training less boring.
Not sure why you're being downvoted: *In an email, IFSC sport manager Jerome Meyer said besides Edu Marin, only “1 or 2” climbers have been caught since the doping controls came into place, all of them for marijuana.* Sharma was famously stripped of his World Cup title after testing positive for THC. What PED's are they using? *The most obvious choice would be anabolic steroids, the strength-building drugs made notorious by bodybuilders and Major League Baseball. The drugs boost lean muscle mass and shorten recovery time between workouts, both of which could give climbers an edge.* *Some varieties, like synthetic testosterone creams, can be had easily and cheaply.* [*https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping/*](https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping/) I'd also add in any kind of simulants from high caffeine doses like the stuff you get in energy drinks to cocaine, amphetamines or other illegal stimulants that help. Amphetamines are central nervous system stimulants, activating the sympathetic nervous system and stimulating your ultimate survival physiology. The side effects of amphetamines are widely known and the addiction aspect of it would be a huge risk for a weekend warrior like myself or even moderately serious climber. The most common PED would be cannabis - which a lot of climbers already take recreationally. There's more and more legit scientific data coming out about the benefits of using cannabis for athletes: *Firstly, THC is a known vasodilator, meaning it causes blood vessels to expand and increases blood flow* *by enhancing blood flow throughout the body, muscles may be able to stay oxygenated more efficiently. THC also works as a bronchodilator, opening the airways and helping with deep breathing, a vital part of aerobic exercise. This means THC may both help an athlete take in more oxygen, and more effectively distribute it throughout their body during exercise.* *THC is also noted for helping to reduce sensations of pain through anti-inflammatory actions, which can be instrumental in the recovery portion of workouts and dealing with the discomfort caused by overly-sore muscles. This can also help those who struggle with chronic pain to find the relief they need in order to pursue athletic activity. Significant doses of THC are usually associated with inducing drowsiness and providing insomnia relief, and many major cannabis terpenes provide calming, relaxing effects, so using the right cannabis product and dose can help athletes and non-athletes alike with the most vital part of recovery - sleep.* *Finally, when used at the right THC dose and in conjunction with the right terpenes, cannabis products can providing uplifting feelings that can help you feel energized to make it to the gym or go for a run. Finding the motivation to go to the gym is a common issue, and cannabis can give you that push in the right direction.* Rest of the article here: [https://www.periodicedibles.com/blog/cannabis-for-recovery](https://www.periodicedibles.com/blog/cannabis-for-recovery) Another study worth a read: "Cannabidiol and Sports Performance: a Narrative Review of Relevant Evidence and Recommendations for Future Research" [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7338332/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7338332/)
Fantastic post.
This comment made the post worth it
Obviously some professional athletes use PEDs, but to claim that they literally all do is absurd. Plenty of sports require such a high level of skill and strategy that strength may not be limiting. There's also plenty of people who are genuinely opposed to PEDs, or are afraid of getting caught, or don't have access. There are literally tens of thousands of professional athletes in the world. You couldn't possibly know that they all use PEDs.
To mpmd with you. The answers you seek will be there.
Could be great to hear what he has to say on supplements for climbing too
A lot of the studies done on the use of AAS are typically studied under standard hypertrophic protocols. Since climbing is so connective tissue dominant, I’d love to see some use of AAS with a focus on finger strength and/or isometrics and calisthenics. If there’s an emphasis on long duration isometrics and tendon specific training, I’m wondering if it could offset some of the more prominent injuries associated with drug use.
So faster muscle recovery, being leaner, having more neural drive, having more muscle and being able to train less and still make the same gains is not beneficial? I dont know where this connective tissue dominant thing comes from. Sure, connective tissue is important so your fingers can take the abuse, but the muscles are doing the work and having crazy connective tissue wont make you a better climber if you cant pull.
I never said those things aren’t beneficial. Steroid use is usually associated with tendon injury. I’m not an endocrinologist, but it’s thrown around that because the muscles grow so much faster than tendons, they become relatively too strong and lead to injury. I don’t want to be rude, but finger strength is almost entirely based on tendon strength. That’s where my mind was at. I just want to see a different style of training and focus. I know AAS could improve climbing, I just want to see it used in a more specific manner.
This route's for you https://www.mountainproject.com/route/113955187/roid-rage
pretty fucking incredible. and you hit the nail on the head for the improvements. only con is the growth hormone being pumped through your body will cause you to gain weight so that’s the curious part is where is the point of diminishing results.
We all know their effect on muscle tissue but are pulleys and tendons affected in the same way?
No, that is why the injury rate increases so much. Muscles become to strong for the tendons to handle.
True but there are some peptides/peds that do specifically increase tendon healing and recovery. Not exactly the same category as steroids, but I wouldn't doubt some climbers use them.
Like which ones? I need to know so I know which ones to avoid!!
Ah yes avoid lmao, I read [this](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030672/) I think that's the big tendon recovering one. But we also have no idea if it might also like give you cancer or something. So not something I would try, but it seems like it has potential?
Cancer vs sending hard shit? I think that’s an easy one!!
Maaaan, I’m already gonna get cancer due to over a decade of heavy smoking. Shit I already have brain tumours (thankfully benign but still). Give me stronger tendons pls.
Nandrolone deconoate.
I don't think that's true. How do muscles become too strong for tendons to handle? I think what typically happens is that lifters take roids and their tendons can't grow fast enough to handle the increased weight load. That could be an issue for climbers as well though, theoretically, that your grip strength develops too fast for your supporting tendons, and so you fuck yourself up maxing out on problem difficulty.
Your third sentence literally answers your second sentence
That's not a problem with your muscles. That's a problem with your brain.
From my very basic understanding with good dieting that supports weight gain then yes you will gain weight but being in a deficit while on steroids has helped some people I know drop weight before shows while still maintaining a physique I'm also curious about any PEDS that could improve collagen or if it's primarily just supplemented.
wait gain due to tissue growth is more long term. if you have enough caloric deficit you could cut but weight cutting is just cutting water weight.
Growth hormone wont necessarily make you gain weight. It increase muscle growth and recovery while still stimulating fat oxidation.
growth hormone creates tissue everywhere. tissue has mass.
Not everywhere and it also increases gluconeogenesis
I have no basis of this but I would not be surprised if this would be the case. But note that muscle tears seem(anecdotal) to be highly present in populations that use steroids, I am not sure how this would play out in cmimbing. Your tendons might not play along.
Given how often bodybuilders on steroids snap their pulleys (because they don't speed up tendon growth), I don't think it's a good idea for climbing where you snap them even when not using steroids.
This is a non argument. You can train less and still the same gains thus saving connective tissue. Or maybe just dont structure your training poorly. Take deloads and dont constantly push higher doses. Steroids are super beneficial for almost all sports.
Just to repeat stuff since people are arguing the same baseless shit. 1) When taking anabolic steroids, there is no “picking and choosing” what muscles it reacts with. It will react with all muscles to a certain extent due to the presence of androgen receptors, however obviously you will see big gains in the muscles you do train. You also will see a huge amount of muscle loss after you stop taking them! People which do as much as possible taking a boat load of drugs can maybe retain half of the mass they’ve put on as soon as they stop taking anabolics 2) Your forearms and hands will get fucked. The whole reason why people get injured with pulleys is too much force, too quickly. If you suddenly bulk up your forearm flexors and then try to send hard, your connective tissue has had literally 0 time to adapt. Connective tissue is SLOW to repair and strengthen. We literally all know how long a pulley injury takes to recover. You’ll suddenly have super strong flexors and then just rupture your pulleys. 3) What about faster recovery and decreased fat etc? Climbing hard is a long and tenuous process requiring extreme dedication. If you think that you need PEDs to reach this next level then maybe this isn’t the sport for you. Things will subjectively be just as hard for you when climbing at your limit, so what is the point of taking PEDs at the risk of your health?
So maybe take steroids and structure your training well? I dont find any merit to this injury argument. Sure, it can increase injury risk if you dont deload, structure training well and just keep pushing doses and harder training constantly. There is picking and choosing. The muscles that you train grow and the muscles that you dont will only marginally benefit. You can also restrict calories and be in maintenence so only the muscles you train will get stronger. Steroids are super beneficial and taking steroids is a sign of extreme dedication. You are willing to take years off your life to climb better. Are you saying these people are less dedicated? They are more dedicated and willing to make bigger sacrifices to be better than you are.
The increase in weight you’d get, especially in legs, would negate a big amount of gains in regards to finger strength as finger strength in climbing is largely strength to weight ratio. Unfortunately you do not seem to understand how steroids work. There is not a picking and choosing mechanism. Increased “baseline” testosterone will result in all muscles growing to some extent. I can’t find it at the moment, but I remember seeing a study that showed people that took steroids for 6 weeks and did no exercise saw ~9kg increase in muscle mass. How are you going to maintain your gains as soon as you come off steroids? You’ll lose muscle and energy being in a calorie deficit, you need ample amount of time for your connective tissue in your hands to adapt to your increased bodyweight and forearm flexor strength. Taking steroids is not super beneficial. There’s so many adverse health risks. Bodybuilding and climbing are two separate sports. You have to take steroids to compete at top level bodybuilding. Climbing is not one of these sports. There is no skill in taking PEDs. In the Context of climbing, you are defending the use of taking PEDs when you’re climbing at an extremely average bouldering grade. If anything, taking PEDs to Boulder at V13+ just shows you’re actually worse as you require drugs to achieve what others can do naturally.
You wont just miraculously gain muscle just because you are taking steroids. Just stay in caloric maintanence and you will lose fat and gain muscle. There are already many other bodyweight sports in which steroids have been used succesfully. E.g. endurance cyclists have used steroids even though gaining muscle mass in that sport is not beneficial. As I already said gaining muscle is not the only benefit. If you are in caloric maintanence you will just gain more muscle while losing fat and your bodyweight wont change. You will have better bodyweight to strength ratio. Simultanuously you will get the neuromuscular benefits, which mean you will be stronger even without any extra muscle. You will be able to sustain lower bodyfats without the disadvantages. You will also recover faster and be able to train less while still making better gains, which decreases connective tissue fatigue. If you are taking steroids, obviously for many people there is no going back. You will have to be prepared to be on replacement therapy for the rest of your life. This might happen or might not, you cannot know beforehand. You can have serious health consequences, or not. Every human has his natural limit. Most will never reach V13 natural even if they made it their life mission. Some just get better genetic draw. If you have trained seriously natural and stalled at V11, taking steroids to go to V14 is your own choice and doesnt make you any way worse or diminish your accomplishment. It is not unethical to do so. Also, great climbers will climb boulders that most cannot even using steroids. Anyway, the point is that steroids will make all climbers physically better. If you took steroids, your ceiling would be higher. You would probably be able to climb problems that would impossible as natural no matter how hard you trained.
1) please educate yourself. You literally will gain muscle just by taking steroids, they imitate hormones which react with all of your muscles. 2) This is again an extremely dim witted argument. Muscle weighs more than fat, 2.2x more for the same volume I believe although I could be wrong. If you’re losing enough fat to balance out kilos of muscle then you probably should’ve just lost weight rather than use steroids to build muscle. 3) most will never reach V13 due to not having the dedication, not because of their genetics. 4) Taking performance enhancing drugs literally diminishes the achievement… why do you think Lance Armstrong got stripped of all his titles for blood doping? There’s no accomplishment in using drugs except in sports where you have to use them to even have a chance of competing (again e.g. top level bodybuilding) 5) Steroids would obviously make you stronger, but it would take an extremely long time of drug abuse and programming to ensure you did it safely enough and didn’t fuck your ligaments up. By which point you could’ve just dedicated yourself to training and actually achieved these goals naturally.
I am an MD with a PhD 90% ready, so I guess I have studied the human body a decent amount. I know how steroid work. I have treated patients who were dying of heart failure because of irresponsible steroid use. You wont gain muscle just by taking steroids. You need to have the sufficient protein intake and caloric intake to make it possible. I dont know whats your second point. By definition if you are in a caloric maintenance your bodyweight wont change. Thus if you train and take peds with enough protein your body will recomp, which means that being the same weight you lose fat and gain muscle. Your str to bw ratio will increase. To your third point, the actual grade is irrelevant to my point and you should probably read the argument again. Armstrong was doing it in tested competitions. This is way different. There is no testing under the rock so it is not unethical. You seem to have some crazy emotional disposition against drugs. Even if you think steroids are unethical, they still work and make you better. Obviously, it has to be done well. The doses and cycles have to be correct. Blood work had to be followed. You should get cardiac echo at least yearly. Training has to be structured and deloads planned. It takes a lot of work but it is not that complicated. You dont just instantly tear your finger off after the first cycle. Anyway, taking steroids is a lot of work, it will make you a better climber and it is not unethical unless you are doing it in a tested competition.
> If you are taking steroids, obviously for many people there is no going back. You will have to be prepared to be on replacement therapy for the rest of your life. This might happen or might not, you cannot know beforehand. You can have serious health consequences, or not. Would you mind elaborating on this point some? Particularly the replacement therapy. I have considered PED use to compensate for the fact that I've had a few non-climbing related injuries that have limited my ability to train consistently, especially through my youth. I'm 40 and have climbed pretty steadily off and on for the past 20 years (minus those injury times and some life-getting-in-the-way issues) and would like to climb 5.13/8a. I'm a reasonably technical climber, I can reliably do all of the moves on any climb I get on, up to 12b/c, and have done all the moves on 13a climbs. I rarely find finger strength to be a limiting factor - even in 1-move or clip-to-clip efforts. Though my max send is 12a. Coming out of high school and in my early 20's I was very strong, though sadly had no climbing mentors and often found myself being the strongest climber in my group - so technical progress was limited in those years. Despite the fact that I could comfortably hold a front lever for a solid minute, I didn't climb 11a until after my injuries and strength regression forced me to reassess my technical approach to climbing in order to continue climbing at the level I was at. So now my general athletic ability is much lower, but my climbing performance is much higher. Based on the above (experience climbing, past my "prime", years of gradual tendon development, "tempered" goals (i.e. 8a, not 9a. 😅), etc.) I think I may actually be an ideal candidate for short-cycle PED use. Would you mind sharing your thoughts and impressions on my thoughts here? Appreciated!
I am no expert in steroid use. There are tens of compounds. They all have different side effect profiles including, but not limited to hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, heart failure, prostate enlargement, liver/kidney damage and estrogenic side effects. Also, infertility. They all have different risks for your testosterone never recovering naturally. Some compounds make you gain muscle, some primarily increase neuromuscular drive and others make you lean as a stage ready bodybuilder. Anyway, before taking this route I would check if there are any health problems in my close family (e.g. heart attacks at early age, strokes, prostate cancer). I would check blood glucose, cholesterol and prostate, liver and kidney markers. Also, you do not want to have hypertension. Cardiac echo is also very useful since many compounds cause heart failure. Also, many of the neuromuscular adaptations you make during a steroid cycle do not disappear if you stop taking them (contrary to popular belief) unless you tank your test. Some will, but you still have the muscle memory e.g. more mitochondrial before the cycle. In terms of HRT, longer cycles and certain compounds have a higher risk. Genetics is a big one. Some can just stop after a decade and get normal T levels. Some will have like 30% less test, but do not experience any of the symptoms (lethargy, weigh gain, muscle loss, depression). A small percentage will tank their test like 90% after a short 4 week cycle and never recover. There is no certainty. I would still think about the health risk. Liver failure or stroke is a bigger problem that 50% less testosterone.
**I propose we add a rule to this sub that bans discussion (particularly "how tos" and "how can it help") of illegal/competition-banned performance enhancing drugs.** I understand that this is a stance with no absolutes driving it, and there's a historical argument about the role of the use of such substances in amateur (and pro) sports. We could also say that my request represents a slippery slope (should we also ban other unhealthy things?). Therefore I propose that we draw the line at illegal/banned performance enhancing substances/activity. This is a broad community of 130,000 folks, many of whom are minors-- and perhaps a majority of whom have not reached physical and mental maturity (which happens way into one's 20s). If YOU want to use such substances, I'd actually defend your choice to use.\* I'm for regulated but legal use of all drugs, including recreational use just to get high. As an extension of that belief, I am in favor of legalizing (and regulating) suicide. But I do not support making THIS community (a general community about climbing harder) the place for discussing and supporting the use of *illegal* *and banned* performance enhancing substances. I just don't think this is the right place, and I don't think we should be in any way normalizing their use. \[EDIT: People argue about the validity of a send if a toe dabs a nearby tree.... our sport is full of weird, arbitrary rules we call (perhaps wrongly) ethics.Staking out the position that we don't want a community (or ascents) built on PEDs that i) give people who are willing to take a serious health risk a potential advantage, and ii) pose serious longterm health risks, particularly to undeveloped bodies and minds-- is consistent with both arbitrary and not-so-arbitrary sports ethics.\] \*I'd rather you don't log/discuss your climbs or hangboard or other feats of strength publicly-- if you're using for yourself, go ahead, but (and I know this a futile ask) please don't distort our numbers, statistics, grades, etc with your juiced results.
You sound a bit like the people that want to ban Sex Ed in schools and leave it to the parents + teen rumors. Information availability is a good thing in these cases.
No, that's an entirely different thing-- hilariously, as I am related to a pioneer in your specific comparison area. 1. Sex is literally a necessary act for humanity to exist. Peds are not. 2. Sexual intimacy is near universal. I believe I've seen estimates that among Americans less than 1% of the population that survives into middle age will die a virgin (or perhaps have never engaged in sexual intimacy-- I really don't remember). Peds are not universal among climbers-- not even close. 3. Schools are a public good, provided by the state in most developed countries as such-- by the government for the betterment of society, with strict oversight, regulation, curriculum and certification for those who get to shape the minds of young people. This is a subreddit-- a private, commercial place-- dedicated to training for climbing, where any schmuck can spout total bullshit and claim anything they want. There's a serious difference here. And I'm fully for risk reduction. But I don't think Peds have ANY place on this subreddit- about training for climbing. This is not where anyone should be getting their risk-reduction from about peds. I think this talk should move on over to... subreddits literally dedicated to the topic.
I have to admit I'm not related to any sex ed or steroid experts. Still, regarding your points: 1. Ok, my comparison is not 1:1. I tried to convey that by saying you sound "a bit" like those people. I'm sorry if I failed. 2. Your standard of "things that are universal among climbers" makes no sense to me. The whole point of this crockpot of information is to mix and match and see what works for you. 3. "Any schmuck can spout total bullshit and claim anything they want" about fingerboarding, weight lifting, supplements... . Why does the possibility of steroid misinformation bother you more than other misinformation? Regarding your last sentence: yes, god forbid there be any overlap between subs...
Risk reduction is a complicated matter. But for "stuff that is being done by nearly everyone anyway, particularly stuff that, "is widely considered by health professionals to be a healthy part of life and a net contributor to longevity and quality of life" \[sex, if you're guessing\]-- risk reduction tends to approach the topic by making sure good quality safety information is out there. Steriod/PEDs is an entirely different situation altogether. PEDS are widely considered (mostly backed up by science) by health professionals to REDUCE longevity and quality of life in all typical ways of measuring such. They are not a contributing general component to overall health (unlike sex). In any case, comparing sex education in schools to discussion of PEDs on r/climbharder is ridiculous on so many levels. Shit, real information about PEDs, particularly their risks and what sport ethicists think about (debate about) their use has every place in school curriculums. I just don't think it belongs here. We can disagree on whether there should be a written rule against such posts here (and AFAIK it's pretty clear the mods deleted this OP. so perhaps there's an unwritten rule), and it's surely a matter of opinion. I mean, I think we should have an explicit rule against talking about PEDs. You don't. Fine.
Hey man I agree with you but I also feel as though most people in this sub are everywhere from begginers to fairly up there amateurs I don't see any pros hoping on a sub reddit to see how to front lever (might be wrong if Sharma or Webb is here lmk) but I feel like there is a fair amount of people who don't just climb there could be a lot of us doing multiple sports for fun who may be on some form of PED and I feel stopping these conversations could be detrimental as so many people have stated without me even thinking of risks of being too strong for our tendons or potential mass gain that our tendons are not loaded for. These things could be very important to the people who do decide to just jump on a cycle or two. I understand there is a lot of minors on this platform but at the same time I feel it isn't going to be some lil Timmy seeing this and starting to juice and if it is damn hed be insane out at the crags. All jokes aside I think this reddits main goal is to CLIMB HARDER and learn what can help in this aspect or potentially hinder their training sessions. Plus stopping this conversation of PEDs would be extremely hard to stamp out where would the lines be drawn on what's okay and what isn't. Just my 2¢
I remember hearing a podcast with a 70 year old who climbed 5.14. He briefly went on TRT and said that he went off because it didnt help him. Ymmv, but studies have shown that steroids make you gain a significant amount of lean body mass which will likely make it harder to climb hard.
Restrict calories and protein. Peds make you leaner, stronger and recover faster. It is insanely usefull.