Climber Story: Mark Campbell

To start, tell us a little bit about yourself

My name is Mark Campbell. I’m 38 years old and I’m a personal trainer/ fitness studio owner.

How did you start climbing?

I first started climbing when my wife and I went on a Valentine's date 3 years ago in 2019. We went to a local gym and purchased an intro lesson with two weeks of unlimited climbing along with some gear and went a few times. Then, I heard about a new bouldering gym called Sequence Climb that was just down the street from my studio. I went to check it out, met the owners, and started my climbing obsession from that very day!

What impact has climbing had on your life?

Climbing for me has been one of the best mental and physical outlets for me in a long time! I really love bouldering since I can go climb by myself and get in a lot of problems in a short period of time which works great for my busy schedule! I also enjoy climbing with others and getting a great sense of support and community from other climbers. Being able to concentrate on figuring out the problems while managing to keep calm and work hard is a very rewarding aspect both mentally and physically.

What are some other things you do that you find most fulfilling?

I find it very fulfilling when climbing with other people to be able to work together and share beta to help figure out problems! It’s always super rewarding to cheer on other people's accomplishments as well!

If you could tell the world one thing, what would it be?

Never give up! Hard work and consistency pay off big in the end. No matter if you’re working towards improving strength, endurance, or rehabbing from an injury, your mental strength and focus will help you get through the hard times!

Favorite thing about Dynamite Starfish?

Allowing everyday climbers to tell their stories and inspire others!

Is there something you're working on that you'd like to tell our community about? We love a good story.

I think the biggest impact that I could have on the community would be to share my journey of climbing.

After I found my passion and obsession for climbing, I was able to quickly progress in my success by climbing my first V-8 indoor problem in just six months. A year and a half later, I was climbing a comp problem to which I put my knee in a poor position. This ended up causing me to hurt my knee and dislodge me from the wall. I fell 10 feet to land on my outstretched arm which dislocated and broke my elbow. I had to have surgery to remove a bone fragment as well as suture some ligaments.

For the first three months, I was only able to focus on range of motion movements with a 5-pound restriction. Going from being active and working out to only being able to train half of one side of my body is probably one of the biggest struggles I have ever dealt with both physically and mentally. I was dealing with a sprained LCL as well as a popliteus muscle on my right knee.

There are some really tough days when I will wake up and my range of motion wasn’t as good as it was when I went to bed the night before. A lot of tears were shed pushing myself to regain my range of motion. At the three-month mark, I was finally able to start strength training again. Obviously, going slowly into working out and trying not to overdo it was my number one goal.

My physical therapist released me to let me do my own strength training since she knew I was a personal trainer. I used the TRX suspension trainer to start rebuilding the strength that I had lost over the three months. Utilizing the TRX suspension trainer allowed me to regress a lot of exercises to make it easier to regain strength and build muscle. I was given the advice to purchase a BFR kit which I integrated two weeks into my strength training. This greatly helped accelerate my progress! It also helped improve my range of motion at the same time.

Finally, after working on focusing on my strength for a month and a half, I went to the climbing gym to try climbing again for the first time in over four months! I was incredibly emotional the first time I climbed, concerned that I was going to hurt myself but elated to be back. I was able to climb V0/V1 again without pain! I continue to climb one time a week slowly testing out how things fell while safely and slowly progressing and harder climbs.

While continuing to focus on my strength and slowly integrating back into harder climbing, I am finally back up to climbing at my previous level of V8/V9 indoor  only 7 months after my injury.

There were a lot of days I didn’t think I would ever get back to climbing that hard within a year, let alone seven months. There were also a lot of days that I didn’t think I was going to regain my range of motion or strength and became very depressed during those three months. Although I was happy with seeing the progress I was making In my range of motion, I knew that I was losing strength very quickly. I owe a lot of my rehab progress to my wife Stephanie for being my coach, cheerleader, and main support by not letting me lose sight of my goals and always encouraging me to work my hardest every day!

I just want to remind anybody that life is never predictable and things don't always go our way, but keeping a positive mindset and being grateful are what will help you get through the toughest of times!

You can find Mark on Instagram at @trx_core or swing by his gym @corestrongkc if you're in the Kansas City area.

Want to get to know more of the climbers in the amazing Dynamite Starfish community? Check out our archive of Climber Stories here.

We hope you have enjoyed these sneak peeks into climbers' lives. We're on a mission to share diverse stories about rock climbing. Let's push the boundaries of who we know as climbers. Let's use our energy and passion for the outdoors to love our environment and inspire one another.

Have someone you think we should feature? Send us a message and let us know!

Until next time!