[laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: Can you describe Golden Gate a little bit?

 

Hazel Findlay: It’s 33 pitches or something and the crux pitches are only 7c+ or so, so .13a, but it’s so hard climbing .13a when you’re carrying all your stuff up the wall and you’re really tired, and there’s this one pitch on it called The Move pitch which is notoriously reachy, which if you’re small you have to do in three moves or something. That took me quite a while to work out and I was quite proud of myself when I worked out how to do it.

It’s just little challenges like that, really.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, that’s awesome. 33 pitches, .13a. I think that’s an accomplishment. What would you say is/would you say that is your hardest thing that you’ve done, or…?

 

Hazel Findlay: No. Not the hardest. It was just maybe a cool experience. This other route that I did on El Cap, called the PreMuir, that’s got way harder pitches on it. The crux corner pitch on that, they say that’s like .13c or d or something, but it’s hard to grade that stuff because it’s just really just technique but for some reason, Golden Gate just sticks out more because it was my first time on a big wall, my first time hauling, and it was just so exciting. You know, it wasn’t as hard it was just somehow a bit more like an achievement somehow. I don’t really know.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah.

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Once again, if you just go to www.frictionlabs.com/trainingbeta you’ll find the discounts that they’re giving you guys exclusively. I hope you enjoy it. Here is Hazel again. Thanks for listening.

It seems like your goals are really varied. When you heal up with your shoulder what do you want to do this next year?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, so I’m really bad for making goals. I’ll be like, ‘I have about a hundred routes all over the world that I really want to do before I die,’ or whatever, but committing to something that is hard for me and working towards it is something that I’ve never really been able to do. I don’t know why but maybe I’ll use having this injury as an excuse to work towards something but I haven’t committed to anything yet.

I’d really love to try something properly hard on El Cap, where I actually project it, because those other routes I did on El Cap we just tried them from the ground. It would be cool to get a project and maybe work some pitches from the top. That kind of thing. Then, I’d love to free climb El Cap in a day. I think that would be an amazing feeling. It just means doing Freerider a bunch of times, though, which is a bit tiresome but I’ve got loads of things. I should probably just commit to something but I really struggle with goal setting.

 

Neely Quinn: It sounds like you’re really interested in big wall, multi-pitch climbing right now. Are there any single pitches that you are interested in doing?

 

Hazel Findlay: I’d really love to do Mind Control, Oliana, just because I tried that. It’s 8c in Oliana, in Spain. I tried it a while back last year and I really loved it so I’d kind of like to do that.

I really enjoy just sport climbing in France and Spain. I think it’s so fun and I think that’s what I’ll do quite a bit of as I’m trying to get fit again because I’m going to be ridiculously unfit.

Then there’s this route that I fell off of, actually, in the UK a while back. This E9 that I took a really nasty fall off so I kind of want to get back on that one because it’s got this physical and mental challenge and then also the whole ‘I failed once’ kind of thing, so…

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. I’m assuming that would be sort of daunting to get back on that?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, a little bit just because, even though I know I would just need to practice the bit, I just made lots of stupid mistakes which I know I will not make twice but it’s still one of those things where it’s like: if you’re on that move again and you commit and you’re going to commit to the move and suddenly you just remember what happened last time. I don’t know if I trust my head enough to stay cool or not. I don’t know. It’d be quite interesting.

 

Neely Quinn: In those situations, what kinds of things do you do to overcome that? So, you’re at a move where you’ve fallen before and maybe it was a bad fall like you were just talking about. Are there things that you can do to trick yourself to keep going? Do you have breathing techniques? Do you have anything that you do to get through them?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, I do a few things. It’s funny you should ask about this because right now I’m actually in the process of trying to teach myself a lot of this kind of stuff because I kind of want to get into coaching this sort of stuff.

 

Neely Quinn: Oh, cool.

 

Hazel Findlay: So I’m setting up a mental training coaching business where, instead of people coming to get technical, more physical kind of coaching I’d work with them to see if they could get over some of their mental barriers.

 

Neely Quinn: Sort of like Justen Sjong.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, yeah. I’m actually reading tons of all this kind of thing and there’s lots of different techniques you can use. I think the main thing that I try to do is I deal with all those doubts on the ground or from a position of safety and comfort and then when I commit to climbing, I just focus on the climbing. I know that’s easier said than done a lot of the time but I think when you get experienced enough you do sort of learn how to switch into climbing mode. I think that’s the main thing, really. You can’t be having those doubts still running through your head whilst you’re climbing.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, I interviewed Arno Ilgner – are you familiar with his stuff?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: He basically said the same thing because I asked him the same question. I was like, ‘What are your tricks and tips and what are your techniques that you use?’ He basically said that you just focus on one move at a time and that’s all you can do.

 

Hazel Findlay: I’ve been reading tons about flow in sport at the moment as well and it’s kind of a similar-type deal where, to create or access – well, maybe you don’t know what flow is, I suppose. Have you heard that term before?

 

Neely Quinn: I’ve heard it before.

 

Hazel Findlay: It’s kind of like when people say, “I’m in the zone,” or, like, you’re 100% focused or it’s the sort of thing where you’re climbing and nothing else is going through your head. You might be in flow for a section of a route or something and afterwards you don’t even really know what’s happened.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah.

 

Hazel Findlay: Do you know what I mean? It’s like time slowed down or something or it might speed up or it just feels strange, and that’s kind of the same deal. It’s like your body is just doing it for you. You’re on automatic rather than your mind’s telling your body what to do.

 

Neely Quinn: It sounds like it’s sort of a meditative state in ways.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: I wonder if you could practice it while not climbing. What do you think about that?

 

Hazel Findlay: Well, I’m actually talking to this guy at the moment. He’s called Cameron Norsworthy, maybe? He’s studied flow and worked with athletes, like professional skiers, base jumpers, and tennis players and all these surfers and he actually trains them in flow. There’s actually a lot of techniques he can do to help you access flow.

 

Neely Quinn: Are you reading a book of his? Or are you working with him directly?

 

Hazel Findlay: So far I’ve just had one Skype conversation with him.

 

Neely Quinn: Sorry, what was his name again?

 

Hazel Findlay: The website that he’s got is called The Flow Center and his name is/I think it’s Cameron Norsworthy. A strange last name, but there’s tons of stuff on the web about flow and this lady who is called Susan Jackson wrote this book called Flow in Sports and it’s a pretty interesting book. If you’re in any way interested in high performance sport, you should probably read this book, this lady’s book.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. These are great recommendations. I’m going to read them.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: So thanks. That’s basically it, though, you just – when you’re at a climb that you know is really challenging for you, at the bottom of the climb where you’re safe, you go over all the risks that you’re going to be taking, if there are any, and then when you’re actually up there you try to switch into this zone mode/flow mode and just focus on the climbing. That’s basically it.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, apart from it’s quite unlikely that you’ll be in complete flow, 100% focused, the entire way up. Maybe on a short redpoint or a boulder problem you might find that but I know I’ve never experienced – because you always have little points on a route where you hang out and rest and because you’re in a position of comfort, you can let those thoughts come back in, if you know what I mean. You might deal with them there as well.

Say you’re onsighting a route. You also don’t know what’s coming a lot of the time so what you might want to do is pick somewhere comfortable to rest and look at the next couple of meters ahead of you and just sort of think about those next couple of meters but then, when you start climbing, you’re climbing again and not still thinking.

 

Neely Quinn: One of the other things I think probably plays a part in all of this is supreme confidence in yourself. I’ve read studies about how the best athletes are really good at lying to themselves about whatever it may be, including their ability to perform an athletic thing. They can tell themselves that they can do it even though it’s probable that they can’t. Do you feel like you fall into that category of people where you can tell yourself that you’re capable of doing something, even though…?

 

Hazel Findlay: Not at all. I’ve never done that. I’ve never said to myself, “You can definitely do this.” I don’t know if maybe that works for some people but it just doesn’t work for me. I think it’s better to approach things with the idea of: you just don’t know. How can you stand underneath a route and know one way or the other whether you’re going to get up it or not? You just don’t know.

Why place loads of weight on that? That’s the reason we go climbing all the time. It’s because of that great unknown. How boring would climbing be if we knew that we would get to the top of everything we tried? Or if we knew we wouldn’t get to the top of everything we tried? That’s what’s so exciting and fun about it. It’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’ll do this route,’ but let’s not worry about it and just try it anyways.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. It seems like you’re coming from a place of humility more than supreme confidence, then.

 

Hazel Findlay: I guess so. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: Humility and acceptance of whatever may come.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, and just the fact that both outcomes are good. As long as you don’t get injured and hurt yourself, it’s good to fall, it’s good to fail. It means you’re trying hard. It means you’re choosing the right challenges for yourself. It’s strange that we have this language where if you fall off you’ve failed and if you reach the top you succeed. Climbing in that sense is quite a binary sport but don’t fall into that trap of seeing it that way. If you fall off a route it means that you’re stretching your limits and that’s what you have to do to get better.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. What’s your philosophy on projecting things? Do you project things for a long time?

 

Hazel Findlay: So, I’ve never really done any big projects. The longest I’ve tried something is for, like, five days. For some people that’s projecting but for a professional climber it’s probably not really projecting. Lots of people try things for months or years or whatever.

I definitely find it hard to only climb one thing. I really love onsight climbing so unless I’m in a place where I could try that one thing and also do a whole bunch of other routes the whole time, maybe that would work but just climbing the one route I think I would struggle with. I do think at some point in my life I would like a big project like that. I think it would be good for me. The mental challenge of committing and putting all that work in, I think, would be good for me.

 

Neely Quinn: Right, because that’s what I was going to ask you about, if you had had a really long project but I mean, even five days – you can get frustrated over five days. You seem to be really humble and, like you said, a realist so when you’re standing under a climb that you haven’t been able to do on day five, what kinds of things are you telling yourself to get up that climb again?

 

Hazel Findlay: I don’t know. It’s funny. The thing I projected the most was this 8c, this thing called Fish Eye Spain, in Oliana. For me, I never thought I was going to climb 8c that trip. I never thought I would get up something that hard and so I was just trying this route because my friend was trying it. I was just really having a lot of fun trying the route and I was working the moves out and I could do all the moves but I just didn’t think I was fit enough to do it and then I just gave it a go from the bottom. I was just like, ‘Well, whatever. I’m just going to see how far I get,’ and I made it through some of the redpoint cruxes and got to the redpoint crux and I was just ecstatic. Even if I couldn’t do that route that trip I knew that it was within my ability to do that trip – sorry, not that trip but just in my life, you know? – so then I was just happy with that.

Of course, as the trip was coming to an end I was like, ‘I wonder if I’ll do it or not?’ but I still would never say that it made me unhappy at all to think that I might not do it. I guess I just maybe don’t put tons of weight on that sort of thing so much because it was like there were other girls at the cliff who were getting so stressed and so upset. Maybe, I don’t know, that’s one of the reasons why maybe I don’t get so stressed is because I do all these different types of climbing? If you spend your winter alpine climbing in Patagonia, it’s just fun to be at the sport crag no matter what, you know? [laughs] Whereas if you spend the entire year sport climbing I think it’s easy to put more weight on achieving those grades. Does that make sense?

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, totally. Variety is good, it sounds like.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, I think so. But then, of course, I don’t perform to as high a standard as someone who sport climbs the entire year so it swings roundabouts, I suppose.

 

Neely Quinn: Speaking of variety, do you boulder at all?

 

Hazel Findlay: I do. If I climb in the gym I usually boulder, I don’t usually do routes. Say I’m in Yosemite – I’ll boulder. I think the combination of bouldering and big walling is a really good combination so yes, if I’m in a place with boulders I’ll go bouldering but I’ve only been on one bouldering trip in my entire life, pretty much.

 

Neely Quinn: So since this is a training podcast, technically, I suppose we have to talk about training. Do you train?

 

Hazel Findlay: I suppose it depends on your definition of training. If I’m in the UK and it’s winter I will train in the gym but for me, that means going to the gym and trying boulder problems and doing a core session afterwards and some fingerboarding. I’ll fingerboard but I’ve never done any systematic training. I don’t campus or anything like that. The main thing is I’m usually just traveling too much to train. I’ll just go on one trip and then I’ll come home for a week or sometimes I won’t even go home in between trips. I’ll just go straight onto the next trip again.

Really, my lifestyle in the last four years hasn’t allowed me to do any training like that.

 

Neely Quinn: But you feel like you can stay strong on the road and all these different places?

 

Hazel Findlay: Depends on what you would call strong. I’m sort of – a whole load of the people who go onto your training website, I reckon 90% of them are going to be stronger than me. [laughs] I’m really not very strong.

 

Neely Quinn: I don’t know about that. I mean, you must stay strong if you’re doing well on 8c and you’re climbing the things that you’re climbing. I mean, do you think that having started so early gives you an advantage in that way as a climber?

 

Hazel Findlay: I think it does for something like finger strength. I’ve noticed that I’ve got quite strong fingers even though I could go a really long time without doing any kind of finger training. Like, my fingers tend to stay reasonably strong, but I don’t think I’ve retained any other real strength from starting early, no.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you think you have good technique?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, I think I have good technique because I started climbing when I was like seven or something, and then also just climbing on all these different rock types gives you good technique because you can transfer skills. You can be climbing a sport route in Spain but if you know how to hand jam it might make the route half a grade easier or something because you can hand jam between the tufas or whatever.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s true. So you don’t train necessarily. Sometimes you fingerboard and you just climb on lots of different kinds of rock and you climb a lot, I think, right?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah. I mean, the last year I’ve not because of this shoulder business but yeah, I climb a lot.

 

Neely Quinn: How many days a week would you say you climb when you’re on trips?

 

Hazel Findlay: Usually on trips I like to rest. I’ll usually climb, like, two days on, one day off. That’s usually my thing. Then after a month or a bit less, at some point I’ll need two rest days. I’m pretty pro-resting. Some people will just climb climb climb and I just feel like my body can’t handle that. My mind as well. For me to stay passionate about climbing I allow myself to be like, ‘Okay, now I actually need to rest.’

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, and speaking of that: so you’re a pro climber. I know that you probably have obligations to your sponsors, doing things for them, but do you – one thing I wonder about pro climbers is whether or not you get bored. Do you know what I mean? Of course it’s amazing to climb all the time but do you ever get bored?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes I go through phases of not being motivated and a little bored, I suppose yeah, but that’s one of the struggles. Seeing that and knowing when that’s happening and saying to yourself, “Okay. Let’s do something else for a little bit. Let’s rest. Let’s rest the mind,” or the other thing, though, what I usually do is I usually just change climbing styles.

I do, after a while, get bored of sport climbing. It becomes too much about the grades or something and it just feels like you’re doing the same thing every day so then, if that happens, because Europe is awesome, you can just be sport climbing in Ceuse or something and then you can drive four hours and then you can alpine climb in the Alps. You just have to know when it’s happening and either change styles or just tell yourself that you need to rest for a bit.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, and it seems like you have other interests. Well, not necessarily other interests but you’re delving a little bit more into the mental aspect of climbing so you’re studying that.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, and I’m interested in loads of things. Now I’m reading, or always reading, like 10 different books at a time and always researching stuff on the internet. I’m someone who can always be – like, I don’t get bored, really, at all.

 

Neely Quinn: Can you mention a few of the things that you like researching?

 

Hazel Findlay: So this year I’ve been really interested in food and everything to do with food. Not just nutrition and diet but also kind of like agriculture and the ethics surrounding food and the environment with regard to agriculture and all that kind of thing. Then I studied philosophy for three years so I try to dip into some stuff like that every now and again. Sometimes I get interested in politics but not right now. You know, just stuff like sometimes I’ll get an idea and I’ll just get obsessed with it and then I’ll just forget about it and pick another idea, you know?

 

Neely Quinn: Yes, I do know. For a while there I was obsessed with having a treehouse in Costa Rica. [laughs]

 

Hazel Findlay: Oh nice.

 

Neely Quinn: Or just a tiny house somewhere. No, I totally understand.

Okay, so one of the last things I wanted to talk to you about is your shoulder because we both recently had shoulder surgery. It was funny – your message to me was funny because you wrote me and said, “Thanks so much for your post about your shoulder on your site. Mine was way less, way better than your’s was, so you prepared me for the worst. Thanks.”

 

Hazel Findlay: I just meant in terms of the pain because you said, “life-altering, nauseating pain.” Those were your words so to my mind, that’s pretty bad pain.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, and so the reason I put that out there was that I didn’t have strong enough drugs and that’s why I had such terrible pain. I wanted everybody to know that if they’re going to have surgery, they need to get the good stuff.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, yeah, okay. Nice.

 

Neely Quinn: So you had a SLAP tear. You didn’t have anything to do with your rotator cuff? It was just your labrum?

 

Hazel Findlay: He cleaned up my supraspinatus tendon as well whilst he was in there. That just had a bit of scar tissue around it.

 

Neely Quinn: Well that’s good.

 

Hazel Findlay: And then nothing else was wrong with my shoulder.

 

Neely Quinn: So he put some anchors in your labrum to tack it back down to the bone?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: And you did not have the tenodesis that I had, right?

 

Hazel Findlay: No.

 

Neely Quinn: Nothing else?

 

Hazel Findlay: Nothing else. That’s it.

 

Neely Quinn: It sounds like you’ve been dealing with this for about a year?

 

Hazel Findlay: Well actually I first did it six years ago.

 

Neely Quinn: Oh. How did you do it?

 

Hazel Findlay: It’s kind of an epic story, actually. I was on this route called Air Sweden [?] out at Indian Creek and it’s basically an arete and a crack. They’re probably four and a half feet separate from each other, maybe more. You’re spanned between this arete and the edge of a crack kind of thing, so you’re slapping up with your – it’s much easier to demonstrate this but you kind of know what I mean. Your arms are at full extension and you’re slapping up.

I guess my shoulder just got – because you’ve got no foot holds and you’re just smearing on the sandstone, your feet will slip and your arm will just yank out of its socket a little bit. That’s when the shoulder first started but I think maybe at first it was just maybe a partial tear or something because for five years I would get issues with that shoulder on and off and sometimes I’d have to rest. I did a whole bunch of physio but I climbed pretty hard with it.

There was months where it didn’t bother me at all but then for some reason, last year just after I climbed this 8c in Spain, it just got really bad and was pretty bad for a year, I would say. I sort of could still climb though. That was the problem – so everyone was sort of saying that it wasn’t really a SLAP tear because I was still climbing maybe 8a but it just wasn’t getting better then finally I went to Australia and I was like, ‘I’m just going to keep climbing on this shoulder and just see what happens.’ Then it got really, really bad and I got an MRI and I had the surgery and that’s where I am now.

 

Neely Quinn: So for education for the people who are listening, when you say, ‘It got really, really bad,’ was it just painful or was it coming out of the socket or what was it doing?

 

Hazel Findlay: It felt weak and painful and it was always clunking. It would just clunk all the time. [laughs] It basically felt like I couldn’t actually hang from that arm with my arm at extension because it felt weak and because it would just clunk in and out all the time. Was your’s doing that as well?

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it was clunking and it would subluxate so it would come out of the socket a little bit and then Seth, my husband, could push it back in and then it would feel okay.

 

Hazel Findlay: Oh gross. I don’t think that mine did that ever.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it’s pretty common but I mean it’s weird because my surgeon, at least, told me that 80% of overhead athletes like us or volleyball players have SLAP tears and don’t have pain. It just depends on you, if you have pain from it.

 

Hazel Findlay: Also maybe they could just have – because that’s kind of why I think maybe mine was just a partial tear at first then it became a full tear or something.

 

Neely Quinn: So what’s your prognosis? When do you get to climb again?

 

Hazel Findlay: So, I’m in a sling and the sling comes off soon and then I can start doing, like, building up the physio. He’s saying I can start doing some – basically four months, really.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, four months until you can climb.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: And you’re two and a half weeks out?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: Right now, just for reference, it is May 14th, 2015, so you’ll be climbing in the fall.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: So are you going to be in Sheffield until then?

 

Hazel Findlay: No. I can’t really stay in one place that amount of time. I want to go to India for three or four weeks or something. I’ll probably do a little bit of traveling in Europe and I’ll be psyched when I can drive again because we don’t have automatic cars over here. It’s a bit more of a deal waiting to drive.

 

Neely Quinn: Which arm is it?

 

Hazel Findlay: It’s my right arm.

 

Neely Quinn: And are you right-handed?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, which is a bummer.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it is. I was just wondering because it seems to be people’s less-dominant arm but apparently not for you.

 

Hazel Findlay: It’s just the way this route was because I was slapping with my right arm and then falling onto that arm.

 

Neely Quinn: So what are you going to do differently after this surgery with climbing, or anything?

 

Hazel Findlay: I kind of wanted to use this as an excuse to be like, ‘I’m starting from scratch,’ so I kind of want to do some training, actually. Maybe I will go on your website and learn how to train. I just thought that if you’re going to start from scratch you may as well do it properly so I want to make sure that all of those other muscles are getting worked enough and that I’m doing enough physio and that I just have these good, balanced shoulders to go forward with, you know?

 

Neely Quinn: Yep.

 

Hazel Findlay: And a good, balanced body. I’ve been getting into yoga before the operation as well so I think that will help and just sort of train a bit, sport climb, just build it up slowly and then hopefully my body will be good. I just want my body to be good, basically.

 

Neely Quinn: Yes, don’t we all?

So you don’t think you’ll go crazy from not climbing? It sounds like you have good plans to keep yourself occupied.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, it’s funny. It is a bit depressing, not going climbing, but I don’t really have a choice in the matter. It’s just the way it is so you’ve just got to get on with it.

The other day it felt like no time had passed at all and then I went to see the physio and she was like, ‘Oh, you can get your sling off,’ and I was like, ‘Woah. We’re already at three weeks in?’ Time goes so much quicker than you think and you shouldn’t wish it to go quicker. Just try and enjoy the stuff you’re doing I suppose.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, I agree. If you’re anything like me you’re going to have these moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, this is really fast progress,’ or you’ll have plateaus and then all of a sudden you’ll spike up and you’ll be able to do a lot more than you could three days earlier. It’s fun.  I mean, it’s been fun for me at least to go from a 5.8 climber almost back to where I was in a short time. It was fun.

 

Hazel Findlay: Nice. Yeah, that is fun, isn’t it? I see times in my life where I’ve let myself become completely unfit but then got that fitness back super quick because you’ve been there before. It’s not like the years that you spent building initially so I guess it will be fun to have that progression.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. So, any words of advice for people to avoid injury like this? Or is it just kind of inevitable for a lot of climbers?

 

Hazel Findlay: No, you should look after your bodies. This injury has taught me that your health – and this isn’t just your health for climbing 8c, this is your health in general – is kind of one of the most important things in your life, really, so eat well and just look after yourself. Do those physio exercises that the physio tells you to do and do yoga and stretch and work at it because chances are, you’ll get injured if you don’t. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: It seems like you are at that age, too, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m not invincible.’

 

Hazel Findlay: I’ve always had some injury since I was young so I’ve never felt invincible, unfortunately. Maybe that will come later, like really late. I don’t know.

 

Neely Quinn: Have you struggled with finger injuries? Or what kinds of injuries?

 

Hazel Findlay: I don’t know. I used to compete when I was younger so nothing terrible but just weird elbow tweaks and I’ve had knee things and Achilles tendonitis. Nothing like the shoulder but I’ve always felt like injury wasn’t this impossible thing, that it was always quite likely for me to get injured. That’s how I’ve always kind of felt.

 

Neely Quinn: Did you climb through injuries often or would you rest?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, it’s funny because I always felt like I was way more – with my shoulder, this is the hardest thing with injuries. It isn’t the physical side, it’s the mental side because with my shoulder I would always say to myself, “Oh, you’re just making something out of nothing. This isn’t a bad injury. Some people, when they get injured, they can’t even lift their hand up above their head without being in agonizing pain. You just need to get on with it. Go climbing.”

You just guilt trip yourself into thinking that you don’t have an injury when actually, I was in pain most of the time. It wasn’t until someone says to you, “Half of your cartilage is torn off of the bone. Of course you’re going to be feeling these things.” It’s only when someone tells you that that you actually even allow yourself to accept it.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it’s pretty funny and it’s hard to know when to go. For me it took four months of pain to be like, ‘Okay, I’m going to go to the doctor now,’ which was stupid because I could have been fixed much sooner.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah. Me too. I should have gotten an MRI a year earlier than I did but the thing is, that process is not a waste. I’ve learned so much over the last year about my body and about how my shoulder is and I’ve learned some really important lessons in that year, so I wish for it to be different but at the same time I say to my friends, “Get the MRI.”

 

Neely Quinn: Yep, me too.

Okay, so we have a few minutes left and I always ask people about nutrition and how it/what role it plays in their climbing. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

 

Hazel Findlay: Actually, one of the things that was really cool about my shoulder is that, through having this injury, I did a lot of research into nutrition to see how nutrition could help my shoulder, if at all. I experimented a lot with my diet and now I’m really interested in it. It’s a really important part of my life now, nutrition, and what I eat and eating well and all the rest of it. I’m massively interested in it.

 

Neely Quinn: What kinds of things did you learn over experimenting with your diet? What makes a difference?

 

Hazel Findlay: You know, just playing around with different non inflammatory diets. I suppose that’s what they’re called. Inflammation reducing diets? Something like that? Basically, there are some foods that seem to cause an inflammatory response in a lot of people and if you cut them out or at least – I spent 30 days where I cut out tons of those foods. The idea, then, is you can sort of introduce them back in and play around and see how these different foods affect your body. That’s what I did, essentially, and now I feel like I’ve got quite a good way of eating for me. I tweak it often and then getting a little less strict with it, because I was pretty strict with it at first.

It’s a whole learning process but I think it is important for people to be interested in food and not just mindlessly eat. Not in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality of what you’re eating.

 

Neely Quinn: What kinds of foods did you find have caused inflammation for you?

 

Hazel Findlay: I guess the biggest thing, and it’s really hard to quantify what you think is inflammatory or not, but I’d say that I didn’t realize the effect of sugar on my body and now I have very, very little sugar in my diet. I just started eating honey again because I kind of think there’s some good stuff in honey but it’s kind of crazy if you cut out sugar, how that affects you and then when you then – the problem is is that now I’m massively sensitive to sugar so if I accidentally eat some sugar I go mental. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: Was that the only food or did you find any others?

 

Hazel Findlay: I don’t do dairy anymore, really, so I don’t drink milk but I sort of think maybe I could. I’m not quite sure about dairy. I need to probably play around with that one a bit more. Then, I don’t eat wheat, either.

 

Neely Quinn: So you’ve learned that all in the past year about yourself?

 

Hazel Findlay: Pretty much, yeah. I’ve kind of got my shoulder to thank for that and also just a lot of people I know have got other ailments that they use diet to control so I’m really interested in that as well. My mom’s got some autoimmune problem so I’m always trying to figure out ways of maybe helping her out with that stuff, so it’s not just for climbing or whatever. It’s just good to be interested in your diet for general well-being, I suppose.

 

Neely Quinn: If you haven’t stumbled upon it, definitely check out the Paleo autoimmune protocol for your mom.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, I’ve definitely looked at that stuff for sure. The problem is she doesn’t really listen to me. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, they never do, those moms.

Okay, so besides diet – well, I guess this is related to diet, but the last question I have for you is about body weight. What do you think body weight has to do with performance?

 

Hazel Findlay: Well, I guess the lighter you are the easier things are, to a point. [laughs] I don’t know. I guess maybe because I haven’t gone into the massive projecting of stuff I’ve not ever gotten really too deep into the whole ‘losing body weight’ thing. I don’t really like to be hungry a lot of the time so I find that whole ‘I need to shed some pounds fast,’ I find that a kind of tricky subject. But say I’m sport climbing. I’ll sort of watch what I’m eating a bit more and be like, ‘Oh, it would be cool to maybe weigh a few less kilograms. Then maybe I can climb a bit harder,’ but I’ve never gone on any extreme weight loss programs or anything like that.

 

Neely Quinn: Have you experimented with eating less at all or eating differently at all in order to do that?

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah. Before I became interested in nutrition in terms of the quality of what I was eating I would just try to eat less calories. Say, if I’m climbing a big wall or in the alpine or something, then I just eat whatever. I just don’t care. I’ll just try to eat well. But say I’m on a sport climbing trip, I’ll maybe consciously eat a bit less calories, firstly because I need less calories and secondly to just weigh a bit less but then, now I’ve been so interested in this nutrition stuff, that’s almost like I look back on that time and I feel like I don’t ever want sacrifice the quality of what I’m eating in order to eat less, if you know what I mean.

I think previously what I would do is I would do maybe stupid things like I would have maybe a square of chocolate instead of a banana because the chocolate would have less calories. I certainly wouldn’t calorie count but I would think about what I was eating and try to reduce the calories, but I think as soon as you do that you’re in danger of not eating the stuff that’s good for you. Unless you’re really good at control, then I would say it’s better to eat good stuff for you than worry about how much you’re eating.

 

Neely Quinn: I think that’s a good way to leave it. Thanks.

So, in closing I wanted to give you an opportunity to tell us who your sponsors are and where – you have a website so you could tell us where that is.

 

Hazel Findlay: Okay, so don’t go on my website because it’s really bad [laughs] but hopefully I’m going to have a new website soon. It’s www.hazelfindlay.com anyway. I’m in the process/I’m using this time with my shoulder to maybe set up this coaching thing, have a new website, sort all of that stuff out in my life so there’s hope for me getting a new website.

My sponsors – my main sponsor now is Black Diamond but I’ve been sponsored with their equipment for a few years now but they’ve just started making clothes. They’re sort of my main sponsor and I’m really psyched about that. I’m really/I really like BD as a brand and I’m really happy to support the brand, their ethos, and there’s a really cool team of climbers now on the BD team, a lot of which are good friends of mine.

Then you know I wear La Sportiva shoes and Sterling ropes and some other random sponsors, which I should probably mention. [laughs] I know what I like, anyway.

 

Neely Quinn: Alright. But you are a fully sponsored climber. This is all that you do for work, which is pretty awesome. They support your food, your clothing, your travel, all of it. That’s pretty cool.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah. BD is the brand that puts the food in my mouth and sends me to all these cool places. They’re my main sponsor. I do bits of other work but it’s under that main bracket, really, of being a professional climber, like talking at events, and I’ve done a bit of coaching in the past as well. Not really for money but mostly just for interest and a bit of writing, too, but mostly BD.

 

Neely Quinn: Well I’m, personally, looking forward to seeing what you come up with for your coaching services. I mean, when do you think you’ll have that up and running?

 

Hazel Findlay: I think at first what I’ll do is I’ll just, say, not have anything too structured. Not say, “I’m doing this workshop here and this workshop there,” more just have it be sort of: just call me if you’re interested and we’ll try and work something out. Like, have it really flexible, preferably one-to-one or two-to-one coaching because I think that’s the most beneficial. Yeah, just have it flexible at first as I’m still learning stuff and then maybe I’ll grow it out from there.

I still want to focus on my own climbing a lot, too, so I need to keep it flexible because I’m all over the place in different places around the world so I can’t commit to future dates of coaching so much, so…

 

Neely Quinn: Well that’s great. I think that is all the questions I have for you. I mean, I really appreciate you doing this, once again, and this was really fun so thanks.

 

Hazel Findlay: Yeah, no your questions were really good, actually. They were interesting.

 

Neely Quinn: Thanks, I think. Alright, so I guess keep up with the good healing and I’ll keep an eye out for the new website and all that. Her website and everything will be on the episode page on TrainingBeta. Thanks, Hazel.

 

Hazel Findlay: Cool. Thanks for having me.

 

Neely Quinn: Thanks so much again for listening to episode 24 of the TrainingBeta podcast. I am your host, Neely Quinn, as always, and that was Hazel Findlay. You can find her at www.hazelfindlayclimbing.com and on Facebook. She’s pretty active so let her know if you want that coaching she was talking about. I think it’s an awesome idea and, I mean, it’s kind of unfortunate that you would have to go to England to get it with her but let her know and if she does end up doing it you’ll definitely hear about it from TrainingBeta.

Let’s see. Next week we have Steve Maisch on the show. He’s a trainer from Salt Lake City and I didn’t really know much about him before I interviewed him. I just had had some requests to have him on the show and it turns out he really, really knows his stuff. He has a lot in common, actually, with Steve Bechtel, Eric Horst, and the Anderson brothers. It seems that they all have done similar research into sports training in general and extrapolated a lot of the same stuff but it was really interesting getting his really particular viewpoint on things, so hopefully you’ll enjoy that interview. It will be out next Wednesday.

I guess the only other things I want to say are thank you, thank you, thank you for your support of the podcast and thank you for your amazing iTunes reviews. If you haven’t given us a review I would love it if you did that on iTunes.

The other way that you can support us is always by checking out our training programs. We have something for everybody up there. Something for boulderers, for route climbers, if you’re interested in nutrition, if you’re interested in injury prevention, so if you just go to www.trainingbeta.com there will be banners everywhere showing you where to go for the training programs. We really want to help people get strong, do it efficiently, and not have to think about it as much as possible. We’ve kind of done the thinking for you with all of our programs and made it just simply: you go to the gym and you do the workouts and you get stronger, so thanks for your support with that.

Until next week, climb hard, have fun, train hard, and I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening.

 

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Thanks for listening!