BODY BY YOU
Teen rock climber's scaling the heights

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BODY BY YOU
Young. Old. We'd love to hear about how you get in shape.Send your story to jmailander@MiamiHerald.com.By JODI MAILANDER FARRELL
jmailander@MiamiHerald.com
Body: Adam Fox, 14, a freshman at Ferguson High School in Kendall, 5-feet-2, 75 pounds. He is an indoor rock climber. He has been working out for the past two years at a rock climbing gym. Although he has tried baseball and soccer, he prefers 'extreme' sports. ``The one thing I like about climbing most is you can do it competitively or just for fun. I like hanging in the air and falling.''
Typical workout: ``I stretch out five minutes in the padded gym. . Then I do some easy climbing and work my way up to as high as 38 feet. I'll climb on and off for about four hours a day. Climb, take a break, climb, take a break.''
Heart pumping: ``You really feel it. It works about almost everything. It uses a lot of cardio. I never thought it would be connected to running, but once I realized it has a similar movement, it really helped me set my pace.''
Spiderman: Adam likes to climb the roof, attaching a short line to hooks along the ceiling so he can crawl like a spider upside down. It's scary, but it's fun.''
Flexing his brain: ``If it's a hard route, I can spend the whole day trying to figure it out. I'll go down and stare at it. Having to think about all the different ways to tackle it challenges your thought patterns.''
Soundtrack: ``I listen to my iPod. It helps drown out other noises and set my pace. It's a good way to keep calm.''
Cool down: ``For the last few minutes, I'll fool around in the gym. I take out the slack line and boulder [climb a short distance without a rope] or walk across the slack line like a tightrope.''
Yoga for climbers: ``This takes a lot of core balance. They have a yoga class for climbers three times a week and I usually take it for 90 minutes on Fridays at 7:30 p.m. It helps stretch me out.''
Mom weighs in: ''This is a great environment for him,'' says Lourdes Torres Fox, a teacher at W.R. Thomas Middle School in Kendall. `` I'm a single mom. To have something like this is amazing. He comes home, does his homework and hits the gym. His drive for school has gone up and I know he's in good shape. He doesn't have a drop of fat.''
Where: X-treme Rock Climbing, 13972 SW 139th Ct., Kendall.
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