Wild Iris, WY, No. 3

A conversation about being old with Steve Bechtel of ClimbStrong, aka, true climbing-nerd stuff

In 2017 when Brian and I first went to Lander WY, we were drawn there by the climbing training influencer and coach, Steve Bechtel. We had been following his writing and ideas on his website, ClimbStrong, and we appreciated his confident voice and breadth of experience in the climbing training world, which had been growing so fast since the early aughts¹.

By 2017 Steve had already launched one of the first climbing coaching programs in the country, and we’d arrived to have our personal climbing strength evaluated. Brian and I were in our mid-40s, and Steve was the ripe old age of 50. He was and is much more of an avid climber than us with the added benefit of having a degree in physical training and living minutes away from some of the best sport climbing in the US, if not the world. He climbed a ton, he read a ton, and he had been coaching a ton of climbers for a while. For us, Steve was The Climbing Guru, and we were on some sort of pilgrimage seeking enlightenment.

Well, mainly Brian was. I had been injured since the previous year, so I already knew I wasn’t my strongest. But Brian had been questioning his strength for a long time. The past few climbing years hadn’t been kind to Brian, whereas, before I injured my shoulder, I’d seen a lot of personal success and increase in strength. He was basically there to find out if he was too old and physically weak to keep sending hard stuff. He was there for the cold hard facts, numbers, and data.

To make a long story slightly shorter, Brian was fully evaluated and found to be super strong and fit. I mean super strong². His grip strength in one hand was more than 80% of his body weight. He was also able to heave and fling some serious kettlebell weights around.

I think Brian was a little disappointed, actually. It might have been easier for him to learn that he was indeed too old and too weak to climb hard. Then I think he could have relaxed into climbing 5.8 trad routes for the rest of his days. Getting confirmation that he was as strong as he probably ever was, and that the only reason he wasn’t climbing hard is because he was telling himself he couldn’t, was a bit of a blow.

But getting the news from Steve softened the impact, and definitely put it in perspective. Steve is very gracious and honest when talking about his own climbing journey, and he could acknowledge to Brian that climbing as an old(er) person took on a new mental challenge, especially as life and kids were beginning to pull us away from climbing outside as often as we had in the past.

Jump ahead eight years to 2025, and we were back in the Lander area for ten whole days, this time to climb, as you know. We had no thought of spending time with Steve, except for the hope of maybe running into him at the crag. We doubted he really remembered us, even though he had written a personal note in a book we ordered from him in the past year. Since we last saw him, he’d become more of a super-star in the climbing world.

But then Brian posted some pics of our first cold, foggy climbing day at Wild Iris on InstaGram, and one of the ClimbStrong coaches who had been my coach for a couple of years³ saw that we were in the area and texted me. We made plans to meet up with him at Elemental, Steve’s gym, on our first rest day. Ken had coached me long distance over the phone, so it was fun to finally meet in person. It was also super short and quick, only fifteen minutes. But since we met at Elemental, Steve walked right into the middle of our huddle. He did remember us! It was a big old-time climber reunion! Then we said our goodbyes⁴.

Afterwards I kept thinking of all these questions I wanted to ask Steve as we embark on climbing into our 50s and 60s. I wanted to ask him specific questions about what he’s observed of the difference between men aging and climbing and women aging and climbing. I thought about these things as we hiked the long, long trail to the crag the next day.

Personally, I get frustrated quite often because of one thing in particular— Brian always, always, always⁵ climbs harder than me. This trip was no exception. I get so frustrated about it because I’m the most diligent and most consistent when it comes to, not just climbing, but also training for climbing. I am dedicated! Brian is the opposite; and yet, still out climbs me by far, even off the couch. He warms up on my projects. I’m pissed at him most of the time, really⁶.

I wanted some answers— if there were any answers to be had. I voiced all this to Brian and he said, “Why don’t you just email him and see?” Probably just to get me to stop yelling at him for climbing harder than me. So I did, and Steve enthusiastically responded, “For sure— I would love that!” Aww.

And so we finally arrive at the whole point of this post⁷— our recent conversation with Steve Bechtel. Much of this was transcribed directly and are Steve’s exact words. Where our natural dialog got sloppy and mucked-up with totally-s and likes and supers, and where I wanted to have more control over unwieldy or vague content, I felt the freedom to edit. Steve can correct me if I get anything wrong— I’ve been trying to get him to subscribe to my Substack anyway!

---

As older climbers, we wonder how to maintain a high level of athletic performance. If you’d have been a gymnast, you’d have been retired for 35 years by now. Cyclists do pretty well at maintaining a high level of performance because it’s a non-weight bearing sport. But if you were in many other sports, you’d be lucky to be “climbing at the 5.7 level” in that sport.

So, Steve told us, the fact that Brian and I are in our 50s and climbing in the 5.12 range, means we’re doing alright. Yay!

When we lose strength and aerobic capacity, we think it must be because of age. But the reason they decline is because we quit addressing strength and aerobic capacity in our 30s and 40s. Maybe it’s because you’ve got little kids, maybe work is getting more intense, maybe you bought a house in those years— maybe it’s the combination of all three and a multitude of others. In those years, overall training time starts to decline for many climbers. We can regain our fitness and performance level once some of those other responsibilities take less of our time, but the way to do it is finding the volume again— getting back to doing the work for the same amount of time that we used to, not worrying about the intensity of that work at first.

Older athletes might go too hard too fast when trying to get back to a high level of performance. Ideally, you buy back low intensity, high volume, very easy work at first. Then you can add intensity. It’s important to know and remember that soft tissue adapts slowly, and bones adapt even more slowly. Tendons adapt seven times slower than muscle and bones three times slower than that. You need to be patient and consistent.

Another key is that recovery is everything. The quicker you can recover the better the work you can do. A lot of people don’t realize that the thing about steroid use back-in-the-day wasn’t just that it made your muscles bigger. Steroids let you recover very quickly because it kept inflammation down, and it’s a metabolic (increasing your body’s ability to burn calories). Especially as women age, hormonal changes, the inability to hold onto minerals, hot flashes, loss of sleep, etc., keep your ability to recover down. It’s harder in general to recover as you get older.

This is a good big picture way to approach climbing for the older athlete:

1. Two developmental days per week— these days are for improvement. You push your maxes and performance numbers up— you want to improve a number on something. It could be your pull-up with added weight; it could be the number of reps you do; it could be your average bouldering grade across a session in the gym. It could even be a session where you just do something that you’re proud of— pushing yourself past a crux move. Taking a fall. The hero effort is important to consider. Maybe you try that deadpoint move four times and fall every single time. But you were working on emotional regulation; you were working on drive and your will to succeed.

2. One to two reinforcement days per week— these days you’re not doing anything harder than moderate climbing. You’re stopping at 20 boulder probs. You’re going to do a lot of exercise that’s well within your realm. You're just proving what you can already do and maintaining what you’ve got.

3. Ideally, six days of active recovery per week (30 mins a day, 3-4 hours a week)— Recovery doesn’t mean no activity. It means easy cycling or swimming or going for a walk at an intentional pace. Thirty minutes of walking a day is better for recovery than taking a total rest day. Even easy climbing, easy weight circuits, heart rate below 130, never gasping— this is restorative and enhances recovery. You can also do a recovery workout the same day you do a developmental workout. You can go boulder super hard and then go for a walk that evening. Or, you can climb in the gym and then go for a 90 minute bike ride— you’ll feel restored after that.

Reinforcement and recovery are more important as we age, but don’t skimp on them. They really are the key.

Steve is in his mid-50s and has been going through Wild Iris recently to repeat a bunch of routes that he onsighted or did quickly when he was in his 20s. For example, Two Kinds of Justice is a 12b that he did second try back in 1994. Last year it took him four days of work to send it. He loves approaching the easier grades now, being tactically smart and fighting the fatigue. When you do this, you’ve still got that feeling of really having to put the moves together if you want to make it to the anchors. It’s valuable even if it’s a route you’ve already sent before. Knowing this particularly made both Brian and I feel good about how we approach climbing now, especially when we go outside. In the future we will feel less like losers when routes we’ve done in the past feel really hard. It will help us try hard even on routes that we would consider “easy,” or felt easy the first time we did it.

It was hard to have a specific conversation about the difference between men and women athletes as they age. We talked about a few of the highest level climbers in the world like Lynn Hill and Bobbie Bensman and Ben Moon. The women have maintained a lower level of climbing compared to their hardest-ever climbs. However, Ben Moon achieved his second hardest-ever climb as an old guy— well, at 49 years old, that is.

But what about ordinary humans, not necessarily the top climbers in the whole world? Steve started to tell us about this ordinary guy, who has a family and works, and at the age of 49, trained and sent his first 13a. Yes, yes, yes, of course.

“But what about the female side of that anecdote,” I asked? I want to hear about the 49-year-old woman who trains and sends her first 13a— first, being the key word. People of that age who already climb at that level can probably maintain it. A few years ago, I wrote a post in response to a story of a 49-year old woman repointing 13d.⁸ But Steve didn’t know of an older woman sending her first 13a⁹. So I said, maybe I should be that anecdote, jokingly. I sent my first and only 13a when I was 38, is it completely unreasonable that I could send another one at the ripe old age of 52¹⁰?

Oh geez, I don’t know. It might take more time and effort than I want to spend at this time in my life. And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe by the time most of us get to this age, there just isn’t enough time or energy or gumption to devote to such an endeavor.

I don’t know, I really don’t. Maybe there is. Maybe I’ll find out. Hmm, I don’t know. I really, really don’t.

1. That means the 2000s, people.

2. IMHO

3. Why did I have a coach? you might wonder. Well, that’s a topic for another post.

4. “Good to see you again,” “keep in touch,” yada, yada, yada…

5. ALWAYS

6. Also a topic for another post.

7. Here’s where it gets nerdy, folks!

8. It’s really good. You should definitely click on that link and read it!

9. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t exist, but I’d sure like to hear about it if it does.

10. I’m not 52 yet, but I won’t be able to send something that hard before I turn 52, so…