True to Scale
Rock climbing is the biggest workout trend since Crossfit. Here’s how to master it
SURE, YOU CAN BENCH PRESS DOUBLE YOUR WEIGHT. But ever notice how, whenever it comes time to help a friend move, you end up straining muscles you never even knew you had? There's a solution to that: ditch the gym routine in favour of functional athleticism, the stuff that’ll give you the physique of Lionel Messi and the strength of a construction worker. The best sport for it is climbing, and as luck would have it, you don’t need to travel to the nearest mountain range. It flirted with mainstream appeal in the ’90s, but, now, in cities across the country, you can't toss a carabiner without hitting an indoor mountaineering palace (some with watering holes attached). Get ready to say goodbye to your Goodlife membership.
In Toronto’s Koreatown, steps away from the best bibimbap this side of Seoul, you can scale the walls of a porn theatre. Or, more accurately, what used to be a gentlemen’s downtown cinema. Now, Basecamp Climbing’s 40-foot ceilings are slanted at impossible angles and dotted with multicoloured hand and footholds, giving the onetime seedy space the look of a Peter Saville album cover. “When I first stepped inside, it was pretty gross. But once I got past the smell and nastiness,” says co-founder Matt Languay, seemingly withholding a shudder, “it was pretty clear this should be a gym.”
He’s right: when Basecamp launched a Kickstarter campaign to refit Bloor St.’s
Metro Theatre, it blew past its $25,000 goal. And it’s not an isolated incident. We’re becoming increasingly obsessed with climbing stylishly: Languay estimates that the sport’s gone viral in Canada, and in the last six years, the number of gyms has doubled year-over-year. And they’re no longer in best-avoided suburban office parks: in Calgary, frequent flyers scale the walls of the airport-adjacent Hangar, meant to resemble an airport hangar (get it?). At Montreal’s Allez Up, you can perch atop 125-foot grain silos overlooking the city’s rising Little Burgundy ’hood. And at Halifax’s Seven Bays, a bouldering gym has been carved from a derelict auto garage on the emergent Gottingen St. strip, complete with an Edison bulb-dotted bar.
For his part, Languay thinks it’s about time. In Europe, he notes, climbing is a way of life — it can even be found in school gym classes. “North America has been slow to the realization of rock climbing, and a lot of that may be because of geography,” he says. “People are realizing how beneficial climbing is, but also how enjoyable it is. It’s different from a lot of physical activity, where you go to the gym and put on music to forget that you’re exercising.”
And that’s one thing you’ll realize about many climbers. They hate the run-lift-rinse-repeat routine. And none may hate it more than Canmore, Alberta’s Will Gadd, a Red Bull-sponsored adventurer who’s climbed everything from abandoned Swedish mines to icebergs off the coast of Labrador. His motto? “If it’s vertical, I’ll climb it.” But he’s hardly an adrenalin junkie — “Hemingway said there are three sports: bullfighting, climbing and auto racing,” he says. “The rest are games, and I’m proud of my safety record.” Instead, he touts the sport’s ability to fuse physical fitness with mental sharpness. Some describe it as the mindfulness of yoga with the physicality of cross-fit.
“It’s like physical sudoku,” he says. “And climbing gyms are almost churchlike. There’s a strong community, and when I travel, I get to see it in every city. It’s a complete-body workout that’s fun — a lot of it’s problem-solving, figuring out how to connect holds in a way that works for you. It’s a puzzle, and it keeps people coming back. One of the biggest problems in exercise is that you’re supposed to run on a treadmill and lift weights. I do that, but if that’s all exercise was, I’d shoot myself in the head. That’s boring as fuck.”
Like urban kayaking (because yes, that’s a thing you’ll also hear about soon), our obsession with climbing is closely linked to our evolving attitudes toward fitness. We want athletics that will sustain us — not just our glamour muscles — for a lifetime, and climbing is a complete workout. Head to a gym and try slab climbing, which is akin to ascending a steep hill, for a full-core workout. Overhang climbing, which pits gravity against you, is the upper-body strength training of the gods. Bouldering is the sport’s powerlifting, based around short, harness-free routes. Gadd, at 50-something, says it’s given him the mobility and suppleness of a much younger man — and who doesn’t want that?
First, it’s important to figure out your climbing style. “But [whatever your style is] you’ll work your legs, your arms, you’ll use your hands and fingers all the time,” says Basecamp’s Languay. “You’ll find yourself gripping things harder.” And when you’re done, go ahead and grip a stiff Negroni. You’ve earned it.