How I Physically Prepare for Making an Adventure Film
When the sun rises in Boulder, Colorado in the summer, I'm often not awake to see it. My daily routine varies due to work, family and social demands but one thing that remains relatively consistent is my lack of enthusiasm towards exercising early in the mornings. Living in a neighborhood in Boulder where professional athletes are as common as the mountain peaks that decorate the sky, it sometimes feels like I'm not doing enough.
Being an average athlete…
My Strava is currently filled with single digit mile runs and a feeling of accomplishment whenever I break into the double digit distance - even if my minutes per mile pace is also in the double digits. My climbing gym membership sometimes boasts a 14 day streak, followed by a one month hiatus as I focus on other priorities. My bike has never climbed more than a couple thousand feet on one ride and my split-board only gets used for human powered winter activities a few times a season. But with all those mediocre performances I maybe don’t feel as down on myself as I should. I get to pursue all these amazing outdoor sports as a part of my profession, and for that, I’m super grateful.
Taking physical care of my body has always been important to me but it's also been an emotional process over the years and I understand that there's only so much that I can do. There may be a season where I'm only eating plant based foods, cutting out all added sugars, intermittent fasting and exercising twice a day to get in shape for an expedition or a modeling gig. However, there are other periods of time (especially it seems following a breakup) where Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Panda Express and every form of chocolate you can imagine become a routine part of my food consumption.
Thankfully, I never let myself slip too far but it does beg the question - what do I need to do to be physically successful in my work?
Do I need to be a Filmmaker or athlete?
Sure, the emphasis in the phrase "adventure filmmaker" is often on the word filmmaker. I'm the cameraman. I craft the story. I'm the documentarian.
However, it's important to remember that in the niche I chose to specialize in, I'm also an adventurer. I'm an athlete. I'm a climber and surfer and biker and runner. I need to be physically in tune with my body in order to film the athletes I work with.
I'm never going to be expected to run or bike or climb or ski as far or hard as the subjects I'm filming, that's often why I'm filming them, but I do need to be able to keep up enough to tell their story.
How I train for climbing, surfing and skiing films…
Now, this process takes a lot of different forms depending on the subject of the adventure film that I’m preparing for. Here are the three main disciplines of my work and I how train for them…
Climbing Films
To prepare for rock climbing expeditions, I normally try to exercise twice a day - I climb with friends in the climbing gym and either run, bike or do yoga everyday. Some climbing films require me on the wall while others require me to run up neighboring peaks so training a combination of strength and cardio is important for these kind of projects. Endurance is the name of the game on these climbing trips so any sort of sustained effort really helps.
Surfing Films
For surf based fitness, I mostly focus on three areas - breath work, balance and upper body strength. Breath work is a great activity to prepare for filming those underwater shots and potential long hold-downs under the big set waves. Balance training normally happens in the gym on Bosu balls or at the skatepark in the bowl. Upper body strength is normally just done through climbing and HIIT exercises since I feel there's a lot of crossover for back muscles in those functional fitness activites.
Skiing Films
I’ve found the best way to prepare for ski films is by, well, skiing and snowboarding. It's really important for me to maintain a high level of confidence on both because they each enable different shots. Because of the way my body is positioned, snowboarding grants me an opportunity to be face to face with another snowboarder if we're both flying down the mountain. Skiing faces me more downhill so is ideal for follow-cam style shots.
In addition to the snow sports training, I focus on running, or anything to maintain my cardiovascular fitness, which allows me to move efficiently around the mountain - in the backcountry or at the resort.
“I Create My Best Work When I’m Feeling Good”
When you read this, I hope you don’t get the impression that I'm a pro athlete by any means. As far as Boulder residents go, I feel very average - sometimes even below average. But, what matters to me is that I do what I can to craft the best stories in the outdoor industry. I train my body to make me feel good because when I feel good I create my best work. I want to ski with mountain guides to help share their hearts around bringing other people into the outdoors. I want to climb with professional climbers that are giving non-climbers a glimpse into the lifestyle that the mountains can bring. I want to surf all around the world to connect with surfers creating a positive change in and around the environment.
What’s Next in Roo’s fitness journey?
So, what does it take to tell the stories I do? Well, honestly, I'm still trying to figure that out. For the past year it's meant putting on exercise clothes and moving my body outside. Whether I was biking, climbing, skiing, running, surfing or attending a yoga class I felt like I was moving in the right direction. Now, it seems the projects are getting bigger and my physical base is now needing to be a little bit higher. So I'll probably have hire a coach to help take me to where I need to be because there's only so much I can do when I'm doing it alone.
More on that later I guess, for now... I'm probably going to go run.
Connect with Roo!
Roo is a commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has produced films for Outside Magazine in Ireland, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador, directed videos with professional climbers in Mexico and has received notable recognition in his hometown of Orcas Island in Washington State for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.
