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Comment by mikec3010 | Hacker News Reader

I'm an online fan of his after watching many videos on yt. What surprises me is that he (and all the climbers I've seen) aren't "ripped". For being able to pull himself straight up half dome, I would expect the body to layer on a lot more muscle.

Also, I hope he stops free soloing. It's amazing he can do that, but it's not fair to all his fans who would be devastated if we lost him.

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It's more important in climbing to have a good strength:weight ratio than to have a massive amount of muscle mass. Consider that every pound of muscle you pack on has to be taken up the pitch, has to be borne by your fingertips during the hardest moves. Also, the act of climbing itself is not really the right volume to promote muscular growth. Bodybuilders like Kai Greene laid out their routines, where they do around 10-20 reps for high volume work, then obviously keeping up strength with 1-5 rep sets. Pile on a very large, protein rich diet, performance enhancing drugs, and you can gain incredible amounts of muscle mass.

Contrast that to Alex Honnold, who does climbs for hours on end, which is more of an endurance sport than strength training. He also has a modest vegetarian diet, I don't believe he is slamming multiple chicken breasts per day like a body builder. I can't say if professional rock climbers use PED's, but they certainly are not interested in packing on extra muscle anywhere except the grip strength/forearms, which is crucial to surviving the hardest routes.

While I disagree with your assertion that Honnold isn't "ripped" (a word for which we seem to have different definitions) it is worth noting that the primary muscles(/tendons) used in climbing are hand/forearm based and you can do quite well even with everything else being significantly weaker in comparison.

That's a paradoxical thing to say, since you probably discovered him through his free soloing. You might not have been his fan had he not free solo'd.

That is true, the free soloing is the eye catcher. But he has a very likeable and relatable personality too. I would be really sad if something happened to him.

People frequently dying doing roped climbing too, even the most experience and skilled climbers; and often of stupid mistakes or random hazards.

But more importantly, it's probably better to let people do the things they love as long as they're not directly hurting others. Surely the feelings of fans shouldn't override the preferences of the object of their fanaticism.

And people doing roped climbing often fall and recover just fine, which is impossible to do when you...dont have a rope.

I agree that nobody should be prevented from doing risky things. But when they become "famous" I believe it reckless to disregard the feelings of their fans.

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