Climber Weight

T

treesplease

Treehouser
Joined
Dec 13, 2017
Messages
9
Hello all,
New here to Treestuff and looking forward to everyone's insight here on the forum..

A little about me and then to my question...

I am 30 years old and own a landscaping company. I do a fair amount of tree work and have had a lot of bad experience keeping an experienced climber on staff due to not having a huge demand for climbing. It seems like most climbers just want to climb and I get that.

When I was 18 I went to work for a tree company and did a little climbing when I was allowed (basically low risk stuff due to my experience). My boss was far from someone I would have considered a mentor and most of his instruction was telling me to hurry the f*** up and get the tree cut. I worked with this company for almost a year before they went out of business.

12 years later I have put on a lot of weight, but interested in brushing up on my climbing so when I have the demand for a tree to be climbed I can rely on myself to get the job done and safely.. I am 5' 11" and weight about 280. About three years ago I has surgery on my right knee for a meniscus tear that is worse now than it was before the surgery.

Ultimately, should I be climbing?

It has been a long time since I have climbed and I am sure that I have forgot most of the little bit that I learned when at the tree company. I called around to a few companies that offered climbing classes and they would not allow me to enroll due to my weight and told me to lose 80-90 lbs and try back. The main reason for wanting to attend that classes was for safety instruction and rigging technique. I am a bit more mature and safety conscience now than when I was younger.

Your opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
Welcome to The Tree House treesplease. An interesting thread you started.

I doubt you want my opinion. But on the off chance I am wrong I will give it to you anyway. It is very doable to have your body healthfully drop half a pound to a pound per day till you are down near your ideal body weight. For me that is the weight I was when I was in high school decades ago.

When it comes to torn things in the body a doctor should be consulted to tell you what that means. After that and before doing irreversible operations etc a person can look into how our bodies can tear things and , if they hadn't, what would have had to be going on in the body to not have it happen.

Why is this information of so little interest to most? No pill or surgeons knife can successfully give you what you want - it can't be bought. It's all you, it's all personal effort every step of the way.
 
Welcome to the tree house! :)

I cut trees part time, I'm the same height but 205-210. I have a little beer gut, and I can def tell that I'm out of shape (I don't do that many trees as of late). Others here might disagree with me on this, but I don't see any reason why you can't climb. You won't be able to get to as many places as someone lighter, you won't be able to climb on as small of wood as some guys, but you will be able to climb trees. You already know, or will soon rediscover, that climbing is very physical, and is probably the most physically demanding thing that I've ever done for money. Good news is that it's an excellent workout, and climbing frequently will probably shed pounds quicker than anything legal you can do lol. If you can do a pull up, you can climb. Now your knee is concerning, but I bet losing weight will help it immensely, but it will cause you problems. Spurs are going to be even more of a torture implement, and foot ascenders will load it at an angle as well. I don't know anything medical, but maybe a brace could help there. Worst case, depending on where you live and what kind of trees you are in, a lift can rented, allowing you to magically float through the air, all while comfortably standing. Something to always keep in the back of your mind. I don't know if you are a long time lurker first time poster (like I was), but if not, you have some of the world's most knowledgeable people at your disposal here. With some patience and work, you will be able to learn a bunch, and maybe even make a buck or two. :)
 
Hi there! Welcome on board and that's a great first post.

Lots of good reading in that thread that Steve just referenced ^^^.

I've had three knee ops, a shoulder op and plenty of soft tissue injuries. For me GOOD Physiotherapy has been absolutely essential for correct rehab and recovery. It's one thing to have the op, but proper, guided recovery followed by strengthening exercises is essential.
You so quickly lose muscle tone and mass after an operation as well as muscles can 'turn off' due to the pain and swelling, and unless you retrain your muscles to fire and operate correctly things will become unbalanced again, leading to more pain!
Yes, losing weight will also be necessary in the long run, but doing a bit of tree climbing will help with that!

Good luck mate, and have a go.
 
You'd have to be strong as hell to manage that much weight in a tree. That is with two good knees.
Apart from the difficulty with moving freely in the crown, standing in spurs and blocking a stem down would kill your knee.

When I look for new apprentices, I tell right away that we won't take any that are overweight, because in my opinion they have no future in the business.

So lose the weight first, get in shape, then learn to climb.
 
Having had a meniscus surgery 4 months ago myself, I feel for you. I'm speculating that you've accepted that your knee is F***** but it shouldn't be. Maybe another surgery is in order but this time lose the weight and rehab the knee properly. As to your question, should you be climbing. Until you get your knee fixed I would have to say no. Of course this is only my opinion but I can't see anything productive coming out of it. Up a tree with a chainsaw, limited experience and a bad knee doesn't sound like a great start. This line of work is hard enough for guys and gals that are physically sound.

Didn't intend to echo you Stig. You posted while I typed.
 
Welcome to the TreeHouse, brother!

The combination of your weight and your bad knee puts you out of contention for being a daily, production climber.

Sorry!
 
Ditto what everyone else said. I climbed for 20 years and was 180 lbs when I gave up climbing. Now I'm 210 and there's no way in hell I could climb productively, especially with my gimpy hip. My hip is more of a hindrance than the weight as the hip makes every step painful. The weight just kills my endurance. I can climb out of the bucket once in a while to get something slightly out of reach but that's all.

I propose the same will be true with you. The knee will make every step painful and the weight will kill your endurance so you'd never make it through a full day anyway. The best you can hope for is being able to go up and get one limb off that is out of reach of the pole pruner.
 
Address your health issues first. Then climb.
What we do is taxing on the body. If you're out of shape or have injuries, it can hurt you, get worse, or kill you through just sheer distraction or lack of agility.
Address your health. Then climb on. Learn, practice, do. Evolve.
 
Yep.

You wouldn't try to run a 10K at this point, right?

You can get there.

Might hire a nutritionist for a consult, or more. There are professionals in all walks of life, for a reason.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #14
I appreciate all of the feedback.

Reading all of your posts basically reiterated what I was already thinking.

I am also a deer hunter and use lock on tree stands from time to time and when installing one I find it quite taxing. We use screw in steps and usually when installing them by the 15th one or so my legs are trembling and I am pretty uncomfortable. I am willing to bet that would be multiplied by 100 or so in on spikes.

I believe that I am going to go ahead and get myself a new saddle, spikes, and perhaps a flip line, ascender, and maybe a rope stop. I have a few different large pines and hardwoods on my property that I might try conditioning myself in and practicing.
I had typed a much longer response to all of this and when I tried to post the forum said I need to refresh and log back in so a lot of the post wasn't saved .... Pain in the ass.

Again, thanks for all of the feedback. I will be around not going to give up quite yet
 
no better way to lose weight than climbing trees. watch your diet, do physical therapy strengthening for your knee and climb trees. sweat. I have never been overweight and have to eat like crazy to not lose weight but I think that's because I climb trees all day. my advice might not be worth taking. I have worked with a few overweight groundies that were lean by the end of the summer.
 
I cant understand why the climbing school would not let you climb vecause of your weight. that bugs me. what the hell? there are people with no legs at all climbing trees. there are people with one arm climbing. The tree doesn't care about an extra 100 lbs. where are you located?
 
Guess I'll start looking for a one armed person with no legs to be my next apprentice, then.
 
kevin bingham said:
no better way to lose weight than climbing trees. watch your diet, do physical therapy strengthening for your knee and climb trees. sweat. I have never been overweight and have to eat like crazy to not lose weight but I think that's because I climb trees all day. my advice might not be worth taking. I have worked with a few overweight groundies that were lean by the end of the summer.
Click to expand...

I was going to do that until I realized there were no trees around.

I even have a set of spikes I bought from Eric!
 
Ok, so treework is just about getting up the tree.
Guess I must have been doing it wrong all these years.
 
I wouldn't climb with the spurs. It's the most demanding for the body. The knees, hips, feet, can see way more than the full body weight due to the angle needed between the trunk and the legs /body's axis. It's even harder if (when) a foot slip out.
You should consider the rope climbing techniques. They can rely mostly on arm's strength, helped by your good leg with a foot ascender (they are designed either for the right or the left side). So you can spare a little your wounded knee, but still be able to climb.

That represents a lot of work to train your body for this new task. Your muscles first won't agree at all to do that.
Start slowly, but often, out of the business activity. Take the time to train you without the commercial stress. Only when you feel ready, approach the production climbing, with a body in a way better shape and a good enough knowledge of techniques.
If not, it will wear you badly and maybe kill you.
 
stig said:
Ok, so treework is just about getting up the tree.
Guess I must have been doing it wrong all these years.
Click to expand...
clearly. I thought you were a logger anyway.

the guy isn't asking you to hire him he is asking if there is any reason he shouldn't climb based on his weight. I personally see no reason why not based off your weight alone. only he can feel the pain in his knee. so that comes down to him. but weight alone is no reason to not climb a tree.
 
treesplease said:
....I am 30 years old and own a landscaping company. I do a fair amount of tree work.....Ultimately, should I be climbing?.....
Click to expand...

Tree work covers a wide and varied range of activities. What does your company focus on in tree work? Pruning requires a skill set that goes beyond just being able to climb the tree.
 
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