Day 18

Day 18

My forearms are exhausted. I can feel them working just to type, and I’m not exactly cranking out 150 words per minute! I went bouldering today. It is awesome! I love it. It’s essentially the hardest parts of rock climbing with no ropes and about 20 feet and a big mattress-type pad between you and the ground. I love it. Did I already say that? (Rhetorical) Well I do.

It’s a great workout! Depending on how hard you push yourself (which doesn’t take much pushing at all for beginners), you will have no trouble overloading your forearm muscles. Remember, overloading is the goal. The beauty is that you get to enjoy God’s creation in a truly hands-on way. I won’t go into great detail of routes, problems, and technique, but I’ll say this. It’s one of those sports that you will always be able to get better at. I love being able to improve myself while having fun at the same time. Being a better basketball player takes way too many hours of jump shots, free throws, and laps across the court. Height helps too, an area I don’t excel in. The cool thing (opinion, I guess) about bouldering and rock climbing is that, in the physical health and development aspect, you exercise your feet, legs, core, upper back, some chest, arms, and even your hands (rarely exercised enough)! We’re talking a total body workout! Of course your arms and hands get the most work, but no muscle gets left out. My legs are pretty solid, not in size, but strength and endurance. If your legs are lacking strength, this will definitely get them burning along with those arms. Expect to get sore, get stronger, and get leaner. Don’t expect to get buff! Actually, big guys really aren’t the best climbers. Think about it – muscle is heavy. For those ladies who read this, know that there are plenty of awesome climbers who happen to be women! Just because women’s strength isn’t usually in the upper body doesn’t mean you shouldn’t climb. Besides, how will you get your upper body stronger if you don’t exercise it?

If you don’t know me well or have never connected the dots, you may not know that I’m really into metaphors! I can pretty much relate anything to God, which makes sense to me. After all, He did create everything! Bouldering and rock climbing could certainly relate to our spiritual health in several ways. As a metaphor, there are mountains we have to climb...wait, that’s lame. Haha. Okay, try this one. In all honesty, we are weak in certain areas. As we mentioned parts a few days ago, some parts don’t really get all that much work out of them. I mean, we use our hands every day, but do we really push them to the extreme? Do we use each part to it’s real potential? I imagine that we surely don’t. Hands seem to do so much work, but they could definitely do more. Bouldering will definitely force them to do that. I think as parts of the body of Christ, we may think we do a lot, maybe not. If you think you don’t do enough for the Lord (I know I don’t) or that you do plenty for the Lord, then consider the possibility that you may have not realized what you can really do, what you’re really capable of. Sure, you may think you’re doing all you can, but what if you’ve been designed to do something greater? Here’s what I’m learning – it takes time, work, and practice. You can’t climb a V16 (really hard) your first time on a wall, or in the V16 case, under an overhang. A lot of beginners have trouble with a V0 (easiest). So why do you think that you can conquer the world, your flesh, and temptation, bring others to Christ, and advance God’s kingdom in a cinch if you haven’t trained for it? Don’t get me wrong; try! Do all you can for the Lord! We only get better by pushing ourselves. Push yourself until you just can’t hang on any longer, and know that even if you fall off the wall, God will be there to pick you back up and reach new heights.