Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Extreme Sports' Mental Hurdles

For most action sports, getting over the mental hurdle can be the hardest part. For me, that hurdle was the biggest with free-diving. When you're diving down 60ft+ on one breath of air, it takes very strong mental fortitude to not only convince yourself you can keep going, but that you'll be able to make it back up. Of course, as soon as you turn around and your lungs start to expand, you realize that you probably could have gone even farther that your target. You're frustrated and relieved at the same time when you get to the surface, and can't wait to do it again.

 

Many extreme sports are like that. You just have to commit to it, knowing that the odds of survival, if you do everything like you've planned for, trained for, or read about, it will be okay. Once you go "over the edge", you realize that your fear was holding you back from an amazing experience, and after, you just can't wait to do it again. Mentally, bungee jumping was more nerve racking for me than skydiving, because, even though I'd been skydiving multiple times before I went on a bungee, I'd never experienced the ground rush, nor had the ground for reference. It was one heck of a thrill and makes me believe that, once I've done some more research, I'll be stoked to try BASE jumping. Just don't tell my parents; I've given them enough gray hairs already.

 

The rest of the list from 5 to 10 is somewhat self-explanatory, and decreases the hurdle with the speed of the sport. If you're looking for a way to build up your fear tolerance, I'd start from the bottom with rock climbing and work my way up.

1. Free-diving

2. Bungee Jumping

3. Canyon Swinging

4. Solo Skydiving

5. Motorcycle Driving

6. Ice Climbing

7. Tandem Skydiving

8. Scuba-diving

9. White-water rafting

10. Rock Climbing

 

As I stated in the first article of this series, all of these rankings are based on my subjective experience and should only be used as a guide when deciding whether to get into a particular sport. If you don’t do your homework and make an uneducated decision, any of these sports can kill you. However, with proper training and awareness of the potential danger, these sports can become some of the most amazing experiences of your life. I only rank sports I have personally done, and I agree that there are other sports that could fall somewhere on this list; I just haven’t done them yet!

Thanks for reading.

Ethan J. DeLano “The EJDe”

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Most Physically Challenging

For looking for a workout to accompany their adrenaline rush, I'd recommend ice climbing and rock climbing.

Ethan Ice Climbing in New Zealand

In addition to being a great rush, ice climbing is one of the more killer work-outs you can do. The effort that it takes to drive the ice pick into the sometimes inverted wall you are climbing with enough force to hold your body, can explode your forearms, especially if you're not a regular climber. Also, you have a kick into the wall with the crampons on your feet, and removing those, along with the ice picks, after every move takes a fair bit of effort. After climbing up and down 50 feet of ice 6 times in New Zealand, I was spent and slept well the following night.

Rock climbing gives you a similar burn in your forearms and is a great workout as well, but I can climb up and down many more times on a rock wall before I call it day than I did on the glacier.

Free-diving requires a fair bit of training in order to be successful at it, and for that alone, it is the third on the list. Your body is physically capable of holding your breath for much longer than you think, which is more of a mental barrier, but the physical training can be intense.

The remaining sports on the list are not that physically demanding, but you should be in decent shape to do all of them. White-water rafting takes group coordination and some physical exertion. The amount of physical strain from driving a motorcycle depends on your riding style, but it does take some coordination as your are using all for limbs to drive it: 1) right hand for throttle and front brake 2) left hand for clutch 3) right leg for rear brake 4) left leg for shifting gears.

Solo skydiving requires body awareness and technique more than physical strength, and just about anybody could do it with proper training. Scuba-divers can be some of the most pot-belled "athletes" of all the sports I've listed that require active participation; especially with the amount of drinking some scuba-divers do to "decompress." Bungee jumping doesn't require much skill, just a simple bunny hop or fall forward, and the same goes for canyon swinging. And of course, for tandem skydiving, you don't have to worry about a thing, since you've got someone strapped to your back the whole way down, controlling the whole process. They even jump out of the plane for you!

1. Ice Climbing

2. Rock Climbing

3. Free-diving

4. White-water rafting

5. Motorcycle driving

6. Solo Skydiving

7. Scuba-diving

8. Bungee Jumping

9. Canyon Swinging

10. Tandem Skydiving

 

As I stated in the first article, all of these rankings are based on my subjective experience and should only be used as a guide when deciding whether to get into a particular sport. If you don’t do your homework and make an uneducated decision, any of these sports can kill you. However, with proper training and awareness of the potential danger, these sports can become some of the most amazing experiences of your life. I only rank sports I have personally done, and I agree that there are other sports that could fall somewhere on this list; I just haven’t done them yet!

Thanks for reading.

Ethan J. DeLano “The EJDe”

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Top 10 Best Adrenaline Rushes

Following up on my last post about the Top 10 Extreme Sports for Amateur Athletes, I would like to explain how I ranked the Best Adrenaline Rush category.

Skydiving with Tate

Bar none, the best way to raise your adrenaline is to GO FAST! The more you are aware of the sensation, the higher the adrenaline rush, and looking at my list, the top 6, except for ice climbing, are essentially ranked according to top speed achieved in each sport. Of course, there are other things that raise your adrenaline, such as real (or perceived) danger, and that's where ice climbing gets a boost.

For canyon swinging and bungee jumping, you are strapped into a system that essentially does the same thing over and over, day after day, and if you've seen someone use the contraption before you, except for your completely (ir)rational fear of falling, there's no reason to be afraid. Ice climbing requires quite a bit of physical exertion and the potential that your ropes, boots, and ice picks could become detached from the glacier or frozen waterfall at any time heightens your senses. Every time you climb, the course is different, and that adds quite a bit to the rush you get when you climb.

 

The other sports on the list are not so extreme in the adrenaline rush department, though in short bursts in particular situations, can achieve a pretty big rush. For instance, if you are setting a new personal best depth in free-diving, the feeling for the last few feet before you reach your target can be insane: "There's no way I can make it back up!" you might think; but when you turn around and head back up, your lungs slowly expanding as the pressure decreases, you realize that you probably could have gone even further. White-water rafting and scuba-diving are also relatively low adrenaline sports, though rough rapids or running into a shark respectively could give you a fair jolt of adrenaline. Rock climbing is mostly an endurance sport, and if you do it properly, you'll never get an "adrenaline" rush; though falls can be pretty scary if you've got a lot of slack in the line or are climbing top-rope.

 

What are your thoughts? Did I get it right? I've only ranked the sports I've done. What should I try so I can add it to the list?

 

Let me know in the comments down below and be ready for my post next week which deals with the Top 10 Most Physically Challenging extreme sports.

 

The List:

Top 10 Best Adrenaline Rushes

1. Solo Skydiving

2. Motorcycle Driving

3. Tandem Skydiving

4. Ice Climbing

5. Canyon Swinging

6. Bungee Jumping

7. Free-diving

8. White-water Rafting

9. Scuba-diving

10. Rock Climbing

 

 

As I stated in the first article, all of these rankings are based on my subjective experience and should only be used as a guide when deciding whether to get into a particular sport. If you don’t do your homework and make an uneducated decision, any of these sports can kill you. However, with proper training and awareness of the potential danger, these sports can become some of the most amazing experiences of your life. I only rank sports I have personally done, and I agree that there are other sports that could fall somewhere on this list; I just haven't done them yet!

Thanks for reading.

Ethan J. DeLano "The EJDe"