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Over twenty years of non-stop rock climbing, and I have so much arthritis in my upper body that it pains me to do simple tasks. I’m in my forties.

Sometimes a little neglect ain’t so bad.

by kakacik3 hours ago|

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Bouldering/climbing are exquisite sports, I love them most from all my non-winter activities (and then there are indoor walls/bouldering places), but it doesn't completely replace gym. Or it does but only in sense 'I am doing physical activity'.

If I rely only on climbing (did that experiment few times), many of my muscles visibly get smaller, and so does strength/stamina accordingly. Climbing doesn't develop whole body evenly, heck fanatics who do only this have often hunched (albeit very muscular) backs with corresponding long term issues, and popeye sailor like hands with overdeveloped forearms, compared to often lacking biceps/triceps area. In gym its easy to focus on specific places you want to develop, plus compound exercises like squats or deadlifts involve muscles and stabilizers that no climbing session can.

I completement each with the other, and add tons of other sports like hiking, swimming, ski / ski touring in winter. Best for body and mind, true passions rather than just activities or hobbies.

Also, generally recommending multiple sports since one may end up with injury or degradation that makes one sport impossible, its important to keep up with another. With climbing, ie finger joints in later age can get ie osteoarthritis and thats it basically. Old folks you see climbing around are often lucky genetic winners without even realizing that.

by brailsafe2 hours ago|

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I do get the impression from people who don't have multiple physical/outdoor pursuits that they perceive the landscape of being fit to be either going to the gym and being regimented, or not going to the gym, and everything else is just leisure, and these people tend to not even walk much (It's just an impression, not a broad generalization; I'm not looking down on these people). For people (or at least me) who do have multiple things going on, outdoor interests, climbing etc, the gym is like... my rest day almost. It's the place I go to supplement everything else, to socialize if I'm lucky, and hit a few muscles that only get uneven infrequent abuse while doing all of my other stuff. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise how volatile my career's been been, because the impression I get is that those who have the aforementioned perception pretty much go to work, imagine going to the gym one day, hate the notion of it, and then simply don't, but also don't do anything else physically healthy instead. If you set out to be physically engaged nearly every day, and you make a point of living near the gym, then it becomes the easy option.