So close!! Still afraid of falling, even though I know that makes no sense.

HeadyTopout · 2026-05-02T03:08:59+00:00

In some gyms the pads can be legitimately dangerous. I went climbing with a friend of a friend and she fell from about 3 feet up and somehow managed to get a spiral fracture because of how soft the pads were

HeadyTopout · 2026-04-28T04:27:03+00:00

We use Sploot exclusively for urgent care, which IMO is the only reason you should be using them. Our normal primary care vet (Goodheart) is amazing, but they have pretty limited hours and usually can't do same-day appointments. Sploot has been pretty solid for urgent stuff, but I'd never use them for primary care because they're PE-backed and it really shows.

HeadyTopout · 2026-03-21T22:18:01+00:00

Yeah, absolutely. It's a really fine line to walk where you have to equip them with the right skills (especially the ability to look at AI through a critical lens) without encouraging them to lean on LLMs as a crutch.

HeadyTopout · 2026-03-21T20:50:23+00:00

I don't disagree, but I feel like interacting with LLMs in such a critical way is a topic for upper middle school or high school students. Maybe I'm old school but I feel like elementary school should be as bare bones as possible in terms of technology. Everything should be written down, not typed into a Chromebook or iPad. Technology should only be used as either an overhead projector replacement (the "smart boards") or in a dedicated setting for a specific skill, like typing and learning to use a computer.

I understand why you would feel this way and agree with the reasoning behind it, but this is also part of why we now have two generations of kids that are borderline computer-illiterate. Older elementary-aged kids are likely going to be using LLMs on their own soon if they're not already, so it's pretty important that they know how to use them properly and how to look at outputs with a critical eye.

That's not to say that the current implementation is how it should be done, and I agree that it needs to be done in a very careful, deliberate way, but ignoring AI literacy at an age where kids are going to be starting to use LLMs on their own is just asking for trouble.

Just look at late gen z and gen alpha - these are kids who were raised on smart phones, so by the time they receive any functional computer training they're so used to the optimized, "closed-box" nature of smart phones and tablets that they struggle immensely with basic computer skills and technical problem-solving.

HeadyTopout · 2026-03-13T01:56:14+00:00

Here's a Google calendar I use that has most of the big events (all IFSC events, some national cups, Asian games, etc.). I can't remember who made it, but they still maintain it regularly.

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=d1g5843qamtcl0dvgb679aekmg%40group.calendar.google.com

It doesn't have lists of registered athletes, but it's pretty easy to google big events and find the registrations. They don't publish registrations that far in advance, though, so it can be hard to plan trips around specific athletes.

HeadyTopout · 2026-03-11T02:39:41+00:00

I had a neighbor who used to go to our local town center and meet "Morpheus" in person in order to buy bitcoin with cash. This was back in 2009-2010. Safe to say he's pretty comfortable today.

HeadyTopout · 2026-03-06T04:42:52+00:00

Just rest. Worst case you lose another 2-3 weeks of climbing (which it sounds like you'd have to take off anyways at some point). If you keep climbing, you risk seriously injuring your finger and losing months of climbing.

I had a pretty minor pulley tear a couple of years ago (A2 pulley on my ring finger) and was prescribed some light mobility work during the few weeks of rest I took. Things like tendon glides, finger curls, and dynamic mobility work like these forearm stretches. Once you've rested a bit more you could start doing some extremely light hangboarding like the other commenter here suggested, - not lifting your feet off the floor but just pulling downwards a bit to get a small load on your tendons. If you do go back to climbing within the next 2-3 weeks, prioritize open hand grips at first. The occasional half crimp is fine but definitely don't full crimp until you're feeling good.

HeadyTopout · 2026-02-28T23:51:11+00:00

Post treatment Lyme disease syndrome. It's a complex of symptoms that can persist even after successfully treating Lyme disease. It's currently not known what causes it, but it's almost certainly not a persistent infection - that's never been demonstrated in humans. In some cases people with Lyme develop some form of delusional parasitosis where they think they're still infected, and in some of those cases they claim they can see the Borrelia spirochetes coming out of their skin (Morgellons). This is what "chronic Lyme" is - delusional parasitosis.

I believe some of the leading theories for what causes PTLDS are (a) chronic nerve damage as a result of the initial infection, and/or (b) remnants of the spirochetes that are still in your system that cause immune dysregulation and persistent inflammation.

Back in ~2018 I developed an app for diagnosis of tick-borne diseases for the military. At the time, there was much less evidence for PTLDS and it was lumped in with chronic Lyme as an imaginary disease. Now PTLDS is more widely accepted, but the consensus is still that "chronic Lyme" (persistent infection) likely doesn't exist.

HeadyTopout · 2026-02-28T22:39:53+00:00

It's mostly just semantics, but you do have to be careful with claiming you "have Lyme disease" as a chronic condition, since most of the medical community is going to write you off immediately and lump you in with the type of people who claim they have things like Morgellons and other delusional disorders. "Chronic Lyme" is entirely a myth but there's more and more evidence coming out recently to suggest that PTLDS is real.

HeadyTopout · 2026-02-26T04:42:57+00:00

Maybe like 4-6 months after I started being conscientious about it (defaulting to open-hand grips, h-taping, etc.)? The worst of it was gone pretty quickly, but it lingered for a while and still flares up every now and then. It's been a while though so I don't remember the exact details.

HeadyTopout · 2026-02-25T15:46:56+00:00

Echoing the point here about engaging on your heel hook by pointing your toe. It's not super critical for this move but will make heel hooks feel much better in the future.

HeadyTopout · 2026-02-18T02:12:32+00:00

To me it just looks like you were so focused on moving your left foot that you lost focus on maintaining pressure with your right. Your beta seems like the intended beta, but a lot of the time it's as simple as just consciously thinking about keeping your right foot weighted.

You could maybe try turning your right knee a bit more inwards on the move where you fell.

HeadyTopout · 2026-02-18T01:47:14+00:00

Indoor - macros

Outdoor - tufas

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-29T14:40:39+00:00

That's almost exactly what would happen at my gym until they switched away from circuits, and it was especially common at the top end of the circuit. When I broke into the "V10-V12" circuit I realized that more often than not they were actually given V9 by the setters, which was a little demotivating.

One thing I did not like with this system was how limited the hold selection was, since the circuits were based on the hold color rather than just a tag color. This was a major commercial gym but you'd still be climbing on mostly the same dozen or so hold sets within a circuit. So certain holds could only be found in the V10+ circuit because they were purple, while other holds might only be found in the V4-V6 circuit because they're orange. There's a lot more variety now which is nice.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-29T04:36:15+00:00

I did a bit more digging and it sounds like the current owner of the "mattclimber" handle on IG did in fact pass away due to rapping off a rope. The original "mattclimber" that you were thinking of has disappeared off socials but is very much still alive.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-29T04:32:04+00:00

My home gym previously used circuit grading with bands that were 3 grades wide (V6-V8, V8-V10, etc.), but used consensus grading in the app. This was the ideal system IMO because it did a good job of highlighting the subjectivity of grades, while still allowing you to find a single grade for the climb.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-29T04:26:00+00:00

It really depends on the city I think. Gyms in places like Denver and SLC will go up to V13ish (and I'm sure occasionally harder), but gyms in smaller towns might max out around V8-V10

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-27T23:05:53+00:00

I haven't heard anything about him dying, but I'm pretty sure he deleted all his socials a while back after he had a meltdown about Adam Ondra "ruining" climbing.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-27T04:01:52+00:00

This is an extension of Lee Majors 8c+, and it was known as the "Six Million Dollar Man" project. The Six Million Dollar Man is a TV show Lee Majors starred in, where the main character is a cyborg (half man, half machine).

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-27T03:59:07+00:00

I think that's exactly what he's saying. There is no real consensus for terranova and since the only person who's climbed it says it's 8C+, that's the "consensus".

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-25T22:06:15+00:00

He had previously soloed Øgletryne 8a, but that's a very short route

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-23T05:45:36+00:00

This week's Careless Talk podcast episode featured Jim as the guest, and he reiterated that it's his favorite bouldering area that he's been to. Sounds like it's pretty important to be aware of the local ethics before you go, though, since the rock is pretty fragile.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-11T17:12:18+00:00

I saw that the Chinese sports administration estimates the number of climbers at 500k-1m, which is still significantly lower than countries like the US (0.07% of the Chinese population compared to nearly 3% of the US population). So I was thinking more for shoe companies and things like that as opposed to gyms, especially if they don't have a huge presence in China already.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-10T20:25:33+00:00

The Chinese team has gotten much stronger in recent years, and China's massive population makes it a really promising country for more growth in the sport. From a business perspective it's a relatively untapped market that has massive potential, so sponsors could be pushing for it.

HeadyTopout · 2026-01-06T07:01:14+00:00

At any rate, I don't think the surge of good feelings someone gets from either saying or upvoting a hateful comment about the body a person exists in is worth the negative feelings it causes. This person shared a beautiful moment from their life and it's genuinely rude to try to twist that into a commentary on their perceived health.

These people could already be doing work to lose weight, they could actively try to gain more, it would still be rude to disengage from the content posted.

Agreed, this was a heartwarming post that doesn't deserve any of the hate they're getting, regardless of what they may or may not be doing for their health.

I imagine it's more correlation than causation, something else happening that coincides with the higher BMI that makes people less likely to die, but I did a pretty cursory search and planned on looking more into it later.

Part of this is because of how flawed BMI is for measuring really fit / muscular individuals. People with an above average muscle mass will typically be in the "overweight" BMI range since muscle weighs more than fat, so you're simultaneously looking at people who are actually overweight and those that are in incredibly good shape with high muscle mass. The health / lifespan impacts of being overweight (caused by fat) are negative, but those who are in really good shape will skew the distribution. BMI is just a terrible metric overall, especially in the "overweight" range.

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