If you’ve spent any time climbing in Rifle Mountain Park, then you’ve seen Lee Sheftel. Despite recently turning 71, Lee is always in the canyon climbing pitches and working on his projects with just as much motivation as the 20 year old climbing next to him.
Lee recently sat down with Neely to record a TrainingBeta Podcast episode. While the full talk is definitely worth a listen, below is an excerpt in which Lee talks about his secret for maintaining such a high level of motivation for training and everything else climbing for nearly 40 years.
Give it a read yourself and if you like what you see be sure to check out the full episode and transcript by clicking through below!
Lee Sheftel on Motivation:
Neely Quinn: So the thing that I think people know you for the most, is that you started climbing sort of at a later age than a lot of us start. I think you were 33, right?
Lee Sheftel: Yeah, you got that right. 33.
Neely Quinn: I did my research. Then you had a lot of success- you climbed your first 14a at 59? Was that right?
Lee Sheftel: Yeah, that’s correct.
Neely Quinn: Right, so that’s extremely impressive. Nice work, first of all.
Lee Sheftel: Well thanks.
Neely Quinn: Yeah, you keep making the news in Rock and Ice and Climbing for doing these things at- how old are you now?
Lee Sheftel: I just turned 71 two days ago.
Neely Quinn: Oh nice! So what I want to focus on with you is how you have gotten so strong, how you continue to stay so strong, and what are some tips for people who are older, about climbing.
Lee Sheftel: Well, first of all, I’m not that strong. It’s actually my biggest weakness, is strength and power. It seems to follow me around in all my sports. What I’m kind of I guess known for, or what I consider my strength, is my endurance and my persistence. When I started at 33, as most people know, by the time you get in your late 20s, even your mid 20s I guess, it’s that much harder to build power. These days kids start when they’re, god, 4, 5? In gyms?
Neely Quinn: Yeah.
Lee Sheftel: Yeah, and then when they reach puberty, I mean, they got all these hormones running around, and all they have to do is think about power and they get strong.
Neely Quinn:
Lee Sheftel: I mean at one point my bouldering ability was… I did a couple of v9s back about 25 years ago. But that’s as high as I ever got, and I know I wouldn’t be able to do that now, or I don’t think I would be able to now. But at any rate, the thing about age is that other than the power thing, which you know, is sad, I think the way I got strong, the number one reason is my passion for the sport. As soon as I started the sport, literally the first day I went out and actually took a lesson- I almost killed myself climbing the Flat Irons one day, and I decided I better take a lesson. I took a lesson from his 18 year old kid, he took me out, and at the time I was living in California. He took me out in a place in Santa Barbara, and at the end of the day he asked me “So, what do you think?”. And my reaction was like, “Oh my god, where the heck has this sport been all my life?”.
So I immediately fell in love with it, and I pursued it with a passion. From that point on, you know, back then there wasn’t anything such as sport climbing, so I did nothing but trad climbing, but it doesn’t really matter. I pursued it by climbing any chance I got, training however I could train. Back then, there were no training facilities per se. I remember we used to have this wall- a rock wall that was built around this park. We used to just traverse on this wall for hours to train, after work. I just kept pursuing training and climbing and top roping after work, and going trad climbing on the weekends.
Full Episode/Transcript: TBP 082 :: Lee Sheftel on Climbing 5.13 into His 70’s
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