In my discussion with Dr. Amanda Carpenter a few weeks ago, we discussed how important supporting the body is in regards to longevity and optimal performance for the arborist as an industrial athlete. This support comes in the form of food, hydration, exercise/work and rest. Dr. Carpenter emphasized looking at our primal ancestors for inspiration, and how their life of healthy movement and eating is a great model to fashion our own fitness and wellness after.

After some digging, I came across a book: Primal Endurance, by Mark Sisson and Brad Kearns, two accomplished endurance athletes that shed light on healthier endurance training focused on less carbohydrate consumption and smarter aerobic training in order to emulate the conditions under which human evolution unfolded. Their arguments for this approach to endurance in many ways aline with what Dr. Carpenter discussed in terms of supporting the body through healthy movement and mitigating large amounts of stress exposure.

The book introduces itself with a numbered outline that highlights 115 things you need to know. Under the last point on the topic of aerobic training, the authors have this to say, “24. The seven habits of highly effective primal endurance athletes are: sleep, stress/rest balance, intuitive and personalized schedule, aerobic emphasis, structured intensity, complementary movement and lifestyle practices, and periodization,” (Sisson/Kearns, xii).

This point emphasizes how a well-rounded approach to endurance is critical for success. For the arborist, longevity is grounded in supporting our bodies; both by challenging it with stress and intensity in a very balanced manner, and through fueling it properly and allowing for suitable recovery and rest.

I am particularly drawn to noting the importance of complementary movement and lifestyle practices. This is in part because arboriculture, and more particularly production climbing, can involve very repetitive, stressful motions that need to be offset by complementary movements and lifestyle choices in general. This can come in the form of flexibility and yoga, as well as a slew of extracurricular activities and sports like swimming, biking, basketball, running and hiking. We can supplement extremely stressful days of climbing at or above our maximum aerobic heart rate, with a day or two spent in nature with our family and loved ones hiking the trails at a local state park or biking through the countryside, or perhaps going for a swim at the YMCA. There is an important case here for establishing balance between our life as production arborists and sustaining healthy lifestyles with our family and friends. One needs to compliment the other, and through this balance both spheres of our lives will thrive and support one another.

We need to be extremely careful of operating consistently above our maximum aerobic heart rate (which is 180 – your age). “Besides exceeding aerobic maximum heart rate with chronic cardio, endurance athletes are often guilty of an overly regimented, overly consistent approach, which brings high risk of overstress and burnout,” (Sisson/Kearns, xi). We can see many similarities between the overly regimented endurance athlete and the production arborist in the midst of the busy season. Although jobs are being completed and profit margins are strong, the expense of this over-regimentation can eventually have huge negative effects on our health, and especially on our longevity. The importance of monitoring our heart rate in order to keep it in the healthy range of the maximum aerobic rate will allow our endurance to increase overtime, as well as help avoid what Sisson and Kearns refer to as the ‘black hole’ where exercise is “slightly too strenuous to be aerobic, but not difficult enough to qualify as a peak performance speed workout,” (Sisson/Kearns, xi).

We often hear our friends and colleagues talk about getting together for recreational tree climbs, whether it be a dangle-about or a more structured training session of ascent practice, aerial rescue training or practicing our work climb event in preparation for an approaching tree climbing competition. What’s important to consider in this light is that this is essentially a form of play outside of the more rigorous demands of being ‘under contract’, and play is critical to our physical and mental health. “Play is a fundamental element of human health, and a key factor in the success of human evolution. Play is a critical stress release from the pressures, schedules, and responsibilities of daily life, and promotes the development of a ‘cognitively fluid mind’,” (Sisson/Kearns, xxiv). Recreational tree climbing can be both a form to fine-tune technique as well as a way to supplement of production lifestyle with a dose of fun. It also offers the opportunity to tap into more high-paced speed workouts where we push ourselves anaerobically to find personal bests in things like the ascent or completing a task aloft (aerial reduce/work climb) within a given time frame. These speed workouts can offer big physical breakthroughs: “sprinting, like strength training, delivers a potent anti-aging effect by flooding the bloodstream with adaptive hormones and actualizing the anti-aging maxim of ‘use it or lose it’,” (Kearns/Sisson, xx).

The more I look at the primal approach to arboriculture, the more grateful I am to Dr. Carpenter for bringing this philosophy of fitness and wellness to my attention. Simply put: it makes a lot of sense, and on the surface it’s less intimidating physically while providing more benefits in terms of longevity. It encourages more enjoyment of the things that we do in order to better our physical performance, rather than just ramming intensity down the hatch. And finally, it encourages a more encompassing approach to not only our job but also our entire lifestyle as arborists.