What did I do with that 13mm spanner

Bill Ferguson — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 16:34:58 +0000

When I was a kid I used to like climbing things, usually trees as there were no climbing walls in those days. I always thought I had a good head for heights but after watching this video I am not so sure. The two engineers climb a 1768 feet transmission tower to do a bit of maintenance work at the top. Most of the climbing is in the open without safety ropes and the lead climber has a 30 lb toolbox suspended from his harness by a cord.

The two thoughts that kept coming into my head were: what if one of the rungs is rusty and it snaps off in his hand? And what if he gets to the top and finds that he has brought the wrong part? A common occurence with engineers that I have used in the past, and he can’t just nip out to the van. See it for youself and if you can’t bear to watch it all the way through, you are not alone…

Now for the osteopathic bit. When climbing use your arms as little as possible. The commonest mistake made by new male climbers is to do pull-ups, relying on upper body strength to gain height. Let’s say you gain two feet of height for every pull up, by the time you have done 20 or 30 you are 40-60 feet up the pitch and your arms are like jelly. What next?

Usually it’s time to come down, hopefully the second fastest way.

My advice: whenever possible use your hands and arms as safety hooks, make your legs do the work. Your quadriceps are potentially the biggest muscles in your body. The intelligent climber knows this and climbs by converting a bent knee to a straight knee from a position of balance, over and over again. Just like going up a ladder.

Annual Coal Carrying Race

Bill Ferguson — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:00:30 +0000

I heard recently that the Olympic stadium in London has already cost over £300 million, and look at how much it costs to go to a football match these days. But sport needn’t be big business, you can enjoy participating in some very challenging sports for almost nothing if you are prepared to travel. I recently mentioned the cheddar cheese rolling event that was cancelled due to safety concerns (that is crowd safety – not the competitors!). I am delighted to see that another regional event went ahead as usual, I am talking about the annual Gawthorpe World Coal Carrying Championships.

The competitors run just under a mile from the Royal Oak pub in Gawthorp to the maypole on the village green, carrying a 50kg bag of coal on their shoulders. This year (and last year) the winner was Chris Birkin with a time of 4min 29sec while in the ladies race (using a 20kg bag of coal) a new world record of 4min 39sec was achieved. Watch the race here

The favourite technique seems to be the shoulder carry. I saw one or two competitors use a low back carry but this means you are running doubled over which would slow you down. The chest or abdominal carry is the least efficient as it makes breathing difficult due to tension in the arm and chest muscles. From a professional point of view I would expect some of the competitors to suffer neck pain and probably some headaches after the race from the carrying position, and maybe the odd sprained ankle or wrist.

Annual Coal Carrying Race
Photo: Yorkshire Evening Post

Tenterden Osteopath » technique

What did I do with that 13mm spanner

Annual Coal Carrying Race