Tag Archives: gym

Apr28

A breather in Bulgaria – Walltopia

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Sunday, 31-August-2025



“Seriously? Walltopia is based in Bulgaria? It was FOUNDED in Bulgaria?”
– Ben, upon hearing that the company that build his favorite climbing gyms around the world was started in Bulgaria.

It wasn’t something I’d expected to ever hear, and it wasn’t a place I ever expected to make a pilgrimage to… but the idea of visiting the showroom for the company that’s made almost all of my favorite climbing gyms did start to grow on me quickly.

Walltopia is a manufacturing company that makes wall panels, holds, HVAC, and then slathers textures pseudo-rock on top of it all. They make climbing gyms, and I owe them a huge amount of gratitude for the quality of the gyms I’ve been to.

And, interestingly, down the street from where Andrea’s family has an apartment in Sofia, Walltopia has their showcase gym. A spot where they can invite people to climb while showing off all the new technology that they’re working on.

We, of course, tested it all out, and had an absolute blast doing so.



Mar5

A trip to Leuven – Working out at a cathedral climbing gym

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Friday, 18-April-2025


Our last day in Belgium was unscheduled – we had the whole day to ourselves. Some people made some plans, but I had my own goals for the day… ages back, I’d read about a cathedral in Brussels that had been converted into a climbing gym. I hadn’t had a chance to check it out while I was there in 2024, and so now was the time to make it happen.

I packed my climbing gear into a pack, hopped on a train, and zoomed off on my own lovely little solo adventure.


After a week of classes, negotiations, and socializing, this was heaven for me. Calm, quiet, and blissfully solo. I kept to my own schedule, rented a scooter, and blasted my way around town until I found myself climbing tall routes under beautiful stained glass.

Then, I grabbed a quick snack, and did it all again – scooting my way to the train station, then catching a ride back to Leuven in time to meet the class and get the bus to the airport.

Yeah… I do enjoy planning and executing my own adventures.


(A quick link to a news story about the gym: https://www.brusselstimes.com/1566631/hidden-belgium-climbing-space-in-church)



Apr12

Strength and the gym

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Starting March 17th, 2021


Gyms in Oregon have opened up again!

There wasn’t any announcements that I saw – Just one day, going for my run, I saw the lights on in the gym.

Like a barfly returning to a pub after getting kicked out, I hesitantly crept my way toward the door… the warm light calling me, and the clanking of weights beckoning from the quiet evening.

(Editors note: You can’t actually hear the clanking of weights from the first floor of Ben’s gym. I don’t know why he’s being poetic tonight, but please bear with him on his artistic license)

As I cautiously pulled open the front door, the gym staff called out an enthusiastic greeting. I returned it, and quickly learned that gyms had actually been allowed to open and this wasn’t just the imagination of someone completely sick of cardio… if you can call slow runs around my apartment complex, combined with 30min sets of dancing in the livingroom, cardio.

I started back in that very night.

I’d been thinking about what to do, once the gyms opened again, but didn’t quite have a plan laid out just yet… so instead, I lightly tested myself. I did a few reps of everything, feeling how my body reacted to the extremely light weights that I tested myself with. Bench pressing the bar, curling the lightest weights, squatting and deadlifting in the assisted machine, and even trying a few cable pulls.



Going forward, I’ll have a full plan laid out. A rotation of bench, lats, squats, and deadlifts. Bookended with cardio, to make up for the Saunas still being closed, and staggered out as best as I’m able.

Slowly, I’ll build my core back up, and hopefully (finally) fully recover from the pulled nerve that I got right at the beginning of COVID.

2021 is going to be a good year, I can feel it.