How to Set & Achieve Massive Goals

00:00:00.340 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.320 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.920 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.960 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.480 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.720 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.600 | My guest today is Alex Honnold.

00:00:17.600 | Alex Honnold is a professional rock climber.

00:00:20.080 | He's best known for successfully free soloing,

00:00:22.480 | meaning climbing with no ropes or latching on of any kind,

00:00:25.560 | El Capitan, also called El Cap,

00:00:27.800 | which is a nearly 3,000-foot climb in Yosemite National Park.

00:00:31.440 | It was also, of course, the topic and focus

00:00:33.640 | of the incredible movie Free Solo,

00:00:35.560 | which if you haven't seen, you absolutely should watch.

00:00:38.740 | I've wanted to talk to Alex for a long time now.

00:00:40.880 | I'm not a rock climber, I've tried it a few times,

00:00:43.500 | but I've been extremely curious to understand

00:00:45.360 | Alex's mental frame around learning and training

00:00:47.760 | and his broader philosophy on life.

00:00:49.840 | My interest stems from the fact that Alex's Free Solo of El Cap

00:00:52.880 | and his other climbs make him one of the most accomplished

00:00:55.480 | and innovative athletes in all of history.

00:00:57.600 | And of course, the Free Solo of El Cap is extremely high risk

00:01:00.840 | and high consequence.

00:01:02.400 | Today, we discuss how to envision and make progress

00:01:04.360 | towards your goals and how to merge the demands of daily work

00:01:07.240 | and family life with incremental training

00:01:09.520 | for spectacularly big or long challenges of any kind.

00:01:13.520 | Alex makes clear that it's essential and possible

00:01:15.880 | to build your capacity to exert effort

00:01:18.120 | and how to do that in a regimented way

00:01:20.080 | so as to bring seemingly impossible goals within your reach.

00:01:23.400 | We also discuss how coming to terms with one's own mortality

00:01:26.440 | is actually one of the best motivators for building a great life

00:01:29.760 | and why most people hide from that reality and as a result,

00:01:33.000 | end up living much smaller lives than they otherwise would.

00:01:36.040 | We also discuss training, literally what to do

00:01:38.400 | to build strength and endurance, not just for sake of rock climbing,

00:01:41.440 | but just generally.

00:01:42.640 | And that takes us into discussions about weight training,

00:01:44.800 | body weight training, running, hiking,

00:01:46.800 | and a bunch of other things that you can apply.

00:01:49.000 | Even if you have zero interest in rock climbing,

00:01:51.360 | today's conversation with Alex Honnold

00:01:53.080 | will definitely change the way that you think about your life,

00:01:55.760 | what you can make of it, and how to go about that.

00:01:58.360 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:02:00.880 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:02:03.520 | It is, however, part of my desire and effort

00:02:05.560 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:02:08.080 | and science-related tools to the general public.

00:02:10.680 | In keeping with that theme,

00:02:11.800 | today's episode does include sponsors.

00:02:14.160 | And now for my discussion with Alex Honnold.

00:02:17.160 | Alex Honnold, welcome.

00:02:18.800 | - Thanks for having me.

00:02:20.680 | I think "Free Solo" is remarkable for a ton of reasons,

00:02:25.280 | but as a good friend of mine,

00:02:27.200 | who I think you know, Michael Muller, photographer,

00:02:29.520 | he said, before I had seen the film, he said,

00:02:32.560 | "It's wild because you're terrified as an observer

00:02:35.960 | the entire time, but you also know that Alex survives

00:02:40.520 | from the very beginning," which is a very unusual-

00:02:43.600 | - I think some people don't know that.

00:02:45.120 | - Oh, really? - Some people watch the movie

00:02:46.040 | and they literally have no idea what it's about

00:02:47.440 | or what's going on and they spend the whole movie being like,

00:02:49.080 | "Oh my God, what's gonna happen?"

00:02:50.800 | - Okay, so I just spoiled it.

00:02:52.560 | - Oh yeah, well at this point I'm like, nobody cares.

00:02:55.400 | It's old news.

00:02:56.280 | - Well, it's a spectacular feat and we can go into that feat,

00:03:00.080 | but I'd actually like to drill in a little bit

00:03:03.240 | to just your process in general.

00:03:05.160 | I'm sure that's changed over time

00:03:07.480 | and feel free to talk about that.

00:03:09.040 | But, you know, I'm very curious about notions

00:03:13.000 | of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, right?

00:03:15.680 | And I think "Free Solo" is also remarkable

00:03:17.520 | because you had cameras on you, it was obviously to be recorded

00:03:22.760 | and you knew you had cameras on you.

00:03:24.880 | And yet I always thought of climbing

00:03:27.600 | as kind of a solitary sport or things that people do

00:03:32.040 | in small groups, kind of off the grid.

00:03:33.960 | Things have changed now with social media,

00:03:35.840 | the way everything can be posted very quickly

00:03:37.920 | or even run live.

00:03:39.160 | But when you think about sort of the work that you're doing

00:03:43.000 | in terms of progressing and goals and, you know,

00:03:46.080 | kind of milestones for yourself, how do you envision that?

00:03:49.440 | Is this in like a, do you have a diary?

00:03:51.640 | Do you have a process where you sit back and you think, you know,

00:03:53.720 | what would be awesome for me to experience?

00:03:56.840 | Would people like to see it?

00:03:57.920 | How do, what's the sort of balance between intrinsic

00:04:00.120 | and extrinsic motivation for you?

00:04:01.680 | So basically I think climbing is always intrinsically motivated.

00:04:04.440 | I mean, since I've, I started climbing when I was a child,

00:04:06.480 | I've always loved climbing.

00:04:07.480 | I love the movement of climbing.

00:04:08.440 | I love the feeling of it.

00:04:09.240 | I love the whole experience, you know, just everything about it's great.

00:04:12.240 | But then, you know, now as a professional climber,

00:04:14.800 | obviously there is that extrinsic motivation as well,

00:04:17.120 | where you're like, oh, that's how I make a living.

00:04:18.520 | And so I think with the film "Free Solo", you know,

00:04:21.000 | it was a really interesting balance of the two,

00:04:22.560 | where it's like, this is something that I'd love to do for myself.

00:04:24.600 | And even if no one else in the world existed, I'd want to do this thing.

00:04:27.600 | But then you also know that if you're, if the film turns out well,

00:04:31.800 | at which it did, you know, it's going to be great for your career.

00:04:35.760 | It's going to be great for whatever.

00:04:36.960 | And so like there is that extrinsic motivation as well.

00:04:39.400 | And so then you're always trying to parse out like which part is which.

00:04:41.640 | And, you know, because you don't, particularly with "Free Solo",

00:04:44.520 | you don't want to be too extrinsically motivated

00:04:46.200 | because you don't want to get pushed into something

00:04:48.040 | that you're not prepared for that you shouldn't be doing.

00:04:51.800 | Of course, you know, being even being extrinsically motivated,

00:04:54.680 | you can do something you shouldn't, you know, I don't know.

00:04:57.080 | I mean, but you're just constantly thinking about those things as a climber.

00:04:59.720 | In order to "Free Solo" El Cap, did you memorize sequences?

00:05:06.320 | Or is it more sort of like motifs where you kind of know

00:05:09.400 | that you're going to do any number of different things in a given pitch?

00:05:13.720 | It depends.

00:05:14.920 | So for the hardest parts, I memorized like for sure, memorize every aspect of it.

00:05:18.920 | But that's only the hardest part.

00:05:20.320 | So that's maybe like a third of the route.

00:05:21.840 | And then for the easiest third, and some of it is actually quite easy.

00:05:25.280 | Some of it's like even a non-climber could climb small sections of the wall.

00:05:28.640 | Like there are parts that are quite easy here and there.

00:05:31.280 | You know, it's like not the bulk, but, but so for the easy parts,

00:05:35.360 | you just know that you can do it and you don't have to stress it.

00:05:38.080 | And then the, the medium part's kind of like the remaining third of the wall.

00:05:42.000 | You sort of remember kind of like you said, motifs, like you might know the hardest part

00:05:47.200 | and you just kind of know that it's going to be fine, but you don't have to memorize it per se.

00:05:50.160 | But certainly I knew the route very, very well.

00:05:54.160 | You know, you just, you just know all the things that you have to know.

00:05:57.200 | You recognize not just holds, but like visceral sensations, like this feels different or,

00:06:03.280 | because I imagine conditions change, right?

00:06:06.000 | I mean, weather conditions, heat on the rock, shadows on the rock.

00:06:09.200 | Yeah, but not as much as you might think, because like I was only climbing in shade,

00:06:13.120 | like in the springtime, the, that whole west side of the wall stays in the shade until 11 or

00:06:19.040 | noonish in the morning.

00:06:19.920 | So you go at four in the morning and then you have sort of eight hours of solid shade.

00:06:23.600 | So normally the temperature and the, the conditions feel relatively stable and you

00:06:29.040 | spend the whole season working on it.

00:06:30.320 | So you kind of know that tomorrow is going to feel the same as it did today, roughly,

00:06:33.520 | you know?

00:06:33.840 | And so it's all within a relatively narrow band, particularly in the spring,

00:06:37.840 | which is why I did it in the springtime in the, in the fall and the autumn.

00:06:41.040 | It's a little bit different because the sun is lower in the sky.

00:06:43.040 | So it gets sun much earlier and it actually is way hotter counterintuitively.

00:06:46.320 | It's like colder when it's in the shade, but then hotter when it's in the sun.

00:06:48.880 | And anyways, that makes it harder for climbing, obviously.

00:06:51.440 | But when I free solo at El Cap, I was spending three or four months a year in Yosemite every

00:06:55.200 | year, like, you know, a month or two every spring and every, every autumn.

00:06:58.560 | And so you're spending four months a year in a place.

00:07:00.880 | You just know how it feels, you know?

00:07:02.320 | It's like, you're used to getting up that early.

00:07:03.760 | You're used to climbing on the wall and you're just kind of like, oh, it's,

00:07:05.760 | it's going to be another beautiful day on the rock.

00:07:07.840 | And actually the day that I did the free solo of El Cap, it was actually a little more

00:07:11.680 | humid and a little warmer than, than I maybe, than would have been optimal.

00:07:15.120 | You know, like, it's not what I would have chosen, but that's just the way it was that

00:07:18.240 | day.

00:07:18.480 | And I was kind of like, well, this is my day.

00:07:20.400 | You know, you kind of just have to do the thing.

00:07:22.000 | But it had been like overcast that night.

00:07:24.640 | And you know, when it's cloudy at night, the lows don't drop as low.

00:07:26.800 | And so I woke up and it was like kind of muggy-ish feeling.

00:07:29.040 | I was like, it's not, it's not great for being four in the morning.

00:07:31.120 | It was like, it feels kind of gross.

00:07:32.720 | But I was like, this is my day.

00:07:33.680 | And it was fun.

00:07:34.720 | So you form a relationship with the rock.

00:07:37.120 | You kind of like learn to recognize, um, it's different states when you did it and completed

00:07:43.680 | it.

00:07:43.760 | Cause I know you set out one day and then you, you called it.

00:07:46.000 | Yeah.

00:07:46.160 | And that was in the autumn.

00:07:47.120 | Okay.

00:07:47.520 | That was the season before.

00:07:48.560 | And, uh, basically the season was ending, like the storms are coming in the next week type

00:07:52.400 | deal.

00:07:52.640 | And it was like, the season is winding down.

00:07:54.160 | It was kind of like, well, I should at least take a shot because I'd done a lot of prep and

00:07:57.440 | I felt mostly ready and it turns out I just wasn't ready ready.

00:08:01.360 | And so, so I wound up bailing, but that was kind of my end of the season.

00:08:05.280 | Like, I think I can squeak this in knowing that if I couldn't squeak it in then, then I'd have

00:08:09.360 | to wait six more months.

00:08:10.480 | And with the pressure of the film crew and all that stuff, knowing that there are all these

00:08:13.040 | people like working and waiting for you, you're kind of like, well, I'd at least try to get this

00:08:17.520 | done because it's like all these people are waiting on me.

00:08:19.600 | But as it turns out, I just didn't quite have it yet.

00:08:22.640 | And then when I ultimately did do it in the spring, I was much better prepared, felt way better.

00:08:26.400 | The whole experience worked out better.

00:08:27.760 | So now in retrospect, I'm like, I'm glad that it played out that way.

00:08:30.960 | Cause you know, it was, it was better, but at the time it was, you know, I was like, oh God,

00:08:35.840 | I failed on this thing and all these people are watching.

00:08:37.760 | It's embarrassing.

00:08:38.480 | It's, you know, it was, you know, it was, it was all very stressful at the time.

00:08:41.200 | Yeah.

00:08:41.440 | The external pressures have to be, you know, pretty, pretty mighty when, you know, when,

00:08:45.600 | especially when they're your friends, I guess one could imagine that like when it's

00:08:48.400 | just business, you can just be like, well, it's just business.

00:08:51.200 | But yeah, you had a lot of friends up there with you.

00:08:52.880 | For me, the thing is, is that if I'm going to go climb the wall, you know,

00:08:55.840 | I start climbing at four 30 in the morning or five or something.

00:08:58.240 | So that means some of my friends to get in position at the top of the wall are getting

00:09:01.440 | up at like one in the morning and then hiking to the top of a mountain with a heavy backpack.

00:09:05.120 | And if you're asking a bunch of your buddies to go hiking at one in the morning, like you

00:09:08.320 | better live up to your end of the thing, you know, like if you say you're going to do something,

00:09:11.760 | you better actually do the thing.

00:09:13.040 | I mean, because your friends, obviously no one's complaining, no one is pressuring me.

00:09:17.440 | No one's, but at the same time, you don't want to bail.

00:09:20.160 | Sure.

00:09:20.640 | Like, it's pretty embarrassing.

00:09:22.160 | If you tell someone you're going to do something, then you just can't do it.

00:09:24.320 | Well, they certainly wanted the outcome to be only one way.

00:09:27.440 | And yeah, and they were all super positive and supportive and it's all great, but you

00:09:31.040 | still can't help but feel that pressure.

00:09:32.560 | Sure.

00:09:33.040 | Well, it certainly worked out.

00:09:34.400 | I'm curious on a scale of one to 10, 10 being a total certainty, um, along that trajectory,

00:09:40.160 | uh, when you completed it, uh, were there any phases where, um,

00:09:45.840 | you felt you had to improvise against the original plan?

00:09:49.360 | You mean on the day of the actual, on the day of the actual completion of the free solo?

00:09:53.360 | No, on, on the day I was a hundred percent.

00:09:55.040 | Everything was perfect.

00:09:55.840 | I knew exactly what to do is all amazing.

00:09:57.520 | Um, but it took a really long time to get, to get there.

00:10:01.040 | You know, it's like literally years of building up to it and then months of preparation and

00:10:05.760 | everything, but no, on the day it was, it was perfect.

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00:12:35.360 | When you climb, I'm curious where your mental horizon is.

00:12:39.280 | I can make up a story as a non-climber that your mental horizon is always on just the next maneuver,

00:12:46.960 | just getting further up and further over.

00:12:48.880 | Sometimes, of course, you have to go down and up.

00:12:50.480 | But that your time binning and your space binning is very, very close.

00:12:57.280 | But do you ever go into states where you're in automaticity?

00:13:01.360 | I mean, we hear about flow, right?

00:13:02.560 | But where you find yourself maneuvering as opposed to being hyper strategic about what's happening in the next

00:13:09.120 | five seconds, 10 seconds?

00:13:10.320 | Well, I think the aspiration is to be in that flow state, whatever you want to call it.

00:13:14.400 | But actually, I think even in the film, there's some quotes from me saying autopilot and things like,

00:13:20.080 | I'm aspiring to be on autopilot.

00:13:22.400 | So I'm aspiring to not be thinking too much about it.

00:13:24.720 | And that's, for me at least, why it required so much practice was to be able to just do something

00:13:30.800 | almost by rote, you know, by through repetition, just to do the thing that you've practiced without

00:13:36.240 | having to think about it.

00:13:38.080 | Because I think once you start thinking about it too much, you're just more prone to not just make errors,

00:13:43.680 | but just like get to get caught up in your own mind.

00:13:46.800 | And I don't know.

00:13:48.400 | I mean, the aspiration was just to do the thing, like no thinking about it, no hesitation, you know,

00:13:54.560 | no emotional, you know, affect around it to just do it.

00:14:00.400 | Is the kinesthetic aspect of it big?

00:14:04.720 | In other words, are you feeling your way through it as well as using vision?

00:14:09.440 | I mean, I imagine that these things start to blend.

00:14:12.560 | Yeah, I've actually never been asked something quite like that.

00:14:14.800 | And some ways, I mean, the kinesthetic aspect is maybe the whole thing.

00:14:19.760 | Like, I mean, it is kind of like dancing or something where you are just flowing over stone.

00:14:23.200 | I mean, obviously you're looking around and you're looking at your footholds

00:14:25.600 | and you're sort of placing your feet correctly that way.

00:14:28.240 | But really, you're just doing sequences.

00:14:30.640 | You're just flowing like your body is moving.

00:14:32.640 | I mean, I think when you climb well and particularly when you've rehearsed something

00:14:36.720 | and you know the climb really well, it feels like jogging or swimming or sort of other elemental

00:14:41.280 | movement patterns where it's just like your body doing what it's meant to do.

00:14:43.840 | And it feels great.

00:14:45.040 | You know, it's like it's really nice.

00:14:46.080 | Do you ever surprise yourself still like that in training things, you know, I'm surprised that

00:14:52.880 | worked out and then stick with that kinesthetic sense.

00:14:56.160 | I've been listening to an amazing book by Twyla Tharp.

00:14:59.600 | She's a choreographer.

00:15:01.760 | She was a ballerina.

00:15:02.480 | She's a choreographer.

00:15:03.520 | And she said that what distinguishes, you know, sort of virtuosity from mastery is that when

00:15:08.560 | you start to surprise yourself, I think you're certainly in that category of virtuoso.

00:15:12.800 | So, um, how often does surprise come about for me personally?

00:15:16.560 | That's maybe my favorite moment in climbing is when you surprise yourself.

00:15:19.840 | Um, and this isn't so much with free soloing because with free soloing, you don't want to

00:15:23.360 | be surprised, but, uh, but with a, but with a rope on, you know, you have moments all the

00:15:28.080 | time where you're sure you're about to fall because you're, you know, up against your physical

00:15:31.280 | limits or whatever.

00:15:32.400 | And then you stick a move that you were sure you weren't going to.

00:15:35.600 | Um, and you know, it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you're like, oh, I exceeded

00:15:40.480 | my own expectations.

00:15:41.280 | It's like, it's like the best feeling, you know, it happens from time to time in some ways.

00:15:46.400 | Actually, I was telling my friends, I think that that might be, uh, one of the ways in

00:15:50.240 | which I see aging, you know, like as I'm getting older as a climber, I think I surprise myself less

00:15:54.480 | often.

00:15:54.800 | You know, I think it's like a 24 year old.

00:15:56.720 | You just don't know your own limitations that much.

00:15:58.400 | And you frequently surprise yourself where I'm like, wow, I really outdid myself.

00:16:01.280 | I really did something that I was sure I couldn't do, but I managed to do it.

00:16:03.920 | And now as a recent 40 year old, you know, like that happens from time to time for sure,

00:16:09.120 | but not all the time, you know, it's like, and now occasionally I have things where I was like,

00:16:14.320 | oh, I was sure I could do that. And, and then I failed, you know, and you're kind of like,

00:16:17.520 | oh, you can blame conditions. You can blame whatever, but you're kind of like, oh,

00:16:20.000 | I really thought I would do that. And I, and I fell off anyway. And you're like, damn it.

00:16:22.960 | What is the role of aging and climbing traditionally and how you're experiencing it? Like there are fields

00:16:28.320 | of science, like mathematics, where the, the stereotype is, uh, you know, it's a young person's game.

00:16:34.080 | And then there are fields like biology, which is a bit more incremental and people can have

00:16:37.200 | fantastic discoveries and long careers that those are academic, uh, cerebral, uh, um, endeavors.

00:16:43.600 | But, you know, we have our understanding of this for every sport, uh, for climbing,

00:16:47.680 | what's the lure for, um, climbing and for free soloists in particular, that it's an old man's

00:16:52.320 | game. It's a young man's game, woman's game. Excuse me. I don't, I don't think anybody calls

00:16:56.720 | free soloing an old man's game, but, um, but no, but it could be, but no, I think in general,

00:17:02.560 | climbing has more longevity than most sports, just because it's relatively low impact on your body.

00:17:07.280 | It's very technique and like movement focused. And so it's not just pure physical strength that said,

00:17:13.360 | I mean, climbing is in the Olympics now and the people winning the Olympics are all sort of 18 to

00:17:17.280 | 23 ish, you know, sort of same as gymnastics type of range. So I think at the most elite levels of

00:17:22.480 | climbing performance, it's kind of similar to gymnastics probably, but then to do interesting

00:17:27.520 | new things on real rock outdoors, I think there's a much wider latitude, you know, it's like, and then

00:17:34.240 | even into your fifties and sixties, there are plenty of climbers who are leading expeditions to new

00:17:38.400 | places, developing new climbs, you know, you know, doing things that are noteworthy and sort of meaningful

00:17:42.480 | for the climbing community, even though they're not necessarily cutting edge physically. So I think

00:17:46.080 | there's a lot of, a lot of opportunity for climbing more than most sports. And, and I think

00:17:51.280 | actually in the other big thing with climbing is that in so many other sports, I think ball sports,

00:17:55.360 | you know, NBA, NFL, baseball, whatever, it's kind of like, if you don't make the team, then you're done

00:18:00.480 | playing forever. Like you'll literally never play football again if you're not a professional

00:18:04.640 | football player. Whereas with climbing, even if you're not playing at the highest level, you can

00:18:09.360 | still go climb all the time and you can still do cool climbs. You can still do things that matter.

00:18:13.520 | You can help teach, you can do whatever. And so you can kind of like stay in the game much,

00:18:17.200 | much longer. You mentioned that climbing's in the Olympics. Now we see a lot of sports like

00:18:21.520 | skateboarding and climbing now in the Olympics. And these were sports that traditionally

00:18:24.960 | were done. You know, people just go to go to where these things were done. And it wasn't

00:18:30.160 | always recorded because there wasn't social media back then.

00:18:32.400 | Well, more that there weren't smartphones, there weren't cameras that, you know, it's like,

00:18:35.920 | it's not even about the social, it's about the whether or not you can record it easily.

00:18:39.680 | Mm-hmm. So I'm guessing there's a big influx of, of young kids getting into this now.

00:18:45.280 | Do you see the sport progressing faster? And I'm also curious about the culture, whether or not,

00:18:50.160 | you know, like anytime a sport is in the Olympics, the thing is like, oh, it's kind of quote unquote

00:18:54.720 | sold out. Now it's going to change. It's going to become more commercial. So what's the culture

00:18:59.040 | within climbing about, about this big expansion? What are your thoughts?

00:19:02.480 | I mean, personally, I'm way into it. I mean, I was a kid that got into climbing, into climbing gym and,

00:19:06.720 | and it's changed my life for the better. You know, like I love climbing. I think it's great.

00:19:11.200 | You know, I can certainly see the sort of commercial influx from the Olympics or sort of like

00:19:15.200 | more mainstream adoption of climbing, but that's kind of great. Cause I mean,

00:19:19.520 | most of my friends are sort of climbing industry adjacent professionals in some ways, you know,

00:19:24.400 | like they make, they're like coaches or dietitians or setters. Like they, they make the climbs that

00:19:29.120 | people climb on. Um, and so basically the bigger the industry gets, the more people like that

00:19:34.400 | can make a living doing the thing that they love to do, even if they're not necessarily

00:19:39.040 | sponsored professionals at the highest level. So I'm kind of like, you know,

00:19:41.840 | a broadening industry is kind of good for everybody. And mostly, I mean, climbing is awesome.

00:19:46.800 | Like if people enjoy, you know, it's like, why not get into climbing? It's like, certainly,

00:19:50.880 | I mean, I think it's better than most other fitness modalities. You know, it's like, oh,

00:19:54.080 | why do CrossFit when you go rock climbing? It's way cooler.

00:19:56.240 | I mean, it certainly seems way more fun. That's for sure.

00:19:59.200 | And you can do indoors or outdoors. There are probably certain aspects you wouldn't want

00:20:02.640 | to do alone for safety reasons. But, um, I think when people ask, like, what do you worry

00:20:06.320 | about with climbing culture and all that kind of stuff, like with the Olympics and the,

00:20:09.760 | the mainstream appeal kind of like, you know, if somebody wants to be a climber and only go

00:20:14.880 | to the climbing gym in a, in a major city for their entire life, like, that's great. Like,

00:20:18.640 | if they just want to climb plastic the rest of their life, that's still better than going to CrossFit

00:20:22.320 | or doing whatever else. I'm like, that's cool. Like, you don't have to go climb El Cap to be a climber.

00:20:26.800 | I'm kind of like, people can do whatever they want. And I think, I think that's great for the sport.

00:20:30.880 | And you are seeing standards rise very quickly right now, sort of as a result,

00:20:35.920 | just like better access to gyms, more kids getting into it. You just see talent rise faster.

00:20:40.240 | I come across social media accounts of parkour kids every once in a while doing absolutely insane

00:20:47.200 | stuff in urban terrains. Usually what's the crossover, if any, between parkour and climbing of

00:20:52.720 | the sort that you do? There's a little bit, not that much, but, uh, but climbers often

00:20:56.400 | like competition climbing, uh, like bouldering, which is in the Olympics has definitely taken a

00:21:01.760 | slight turn towards parkour sorts of moves, like big run and jumps and like crazy swings and things like

00:21:06.560 | that. And so some old school climbers complain that it's like gotten a little too jumpy, that type of

00:21:12.800 | bouldering. Um, but I'm kind of into it. I mean, it's, I don't know, this is all very like inside

00:21:18.400 | baseball. Like how do you separate, like basically the highest level competitors are all very, very

00:21:21.840 | strong. So then how do you separate these different competitors who are all climbing at an elite

00:21:26.640 | level? And one of the ways is complicated movement like that, like running jumps and coordination and

00:21:30.480 | things like that. So I don't know. I mean, I think it's cool. Um, I've actually met like a couple of

00:21:36.880 | professional parkour athletes who also climb, uh, and they are really good at very particular sorts of

00:21:42.800 | things. Like it's, I mean, it's amazing to see. Yeah. I mean, I, I find a lot of what they do

00:21:47.440 | terrifying, but also awesome. I can't help myself, but watch and, uh, just the motivation to work it

00:21:52.160 | out too, like, you know, because some of these are, are truly make or break or make or die. Um,

00:21:57.440 | at least in the, in the form they, they put to social media. So I'm always curious to like what

00:22:01.840 | goes into that and, you know, having grown up skateboarding, I mean, you go around a city and

00:22:05.600 | you see stuff, you know, like, oh, that would be awesome. And so, I mean, just looking at a

00:22:09.200 | landscape, natural or, or urban landscape in a completely different way, I see a lot of parallels with

00:22:14.320 | climbing and core and also, you know, I think of, uh, you at, you know, certainly at the level and

00:22:19.040 | kind of parallel with a guy like Tony Hawk, who's been in the sport of skateboarding for a very long

00:22:22.720 | time. He's a amazing ambassador for the sport as it's gone through its various, like, you know, peaks

00:22:27.120 | and valleys now in the Olympics. So I think climbing and, and sports like skateboarding and surfing have

00:22:31.520 | a lot in common in this way, subculture, but then also gets popular. Yeah. Where they kind of niche

00:22:35.600 | and then they become kind of mainstream, but then even once they're mainstream, they're still kind of cool,

00:22:39.120 | you know, like skateboarding. It's like definitely not like full punk rock anymore, but you're like,

00:22:43.440 | it's pretty cool, you know, like skateboarding still. And it's not that common still, you know,

00:22:48.400 | and that's the thing with climbing is I'm kind of like, yeah, climbing is growing, it's becoming more

00:22:51.520 | mainstream. It's just never going to be soccer or something. You know what I mean? Like, it's always

00:22:56.160 | going to be slightly niche, slightly counterculture, because it's just, you know, it's just a smaller

00:23:01.360 | thing. Like it's just not playing basketball or something. Yeah. I'm intrigued by the training

00:23:06.160 | aspects and some of the fitness aspects. I agree that it, I'm having only done it a little bit.

00:23:10.480 | I mean, I've been to a climbing gym once or twice. Yeah. I was going to have, so you've gone to the gym

00:23:13.520 | and stuff. Yeah, I've gone up and down the wall a few times. I've belayed for people a few times,

00:23:16.160 | but I am by no means, you know, skilled at it. It'd be fun to get into, because I, happy birthday,

00:23:22.400 | by the way, I just turned 40. I'm turning 50 soon. And I think more about, I'm happy with my strength

00:23:28.240 | and endurance, but I think more about mobility now. And also climbing is great for that.

00:23:32.240 | Climbing is great for that. And, and there's a lot of interesting literature on brain longevity

00:23:37.680 | and just maintaining your cognition and the strength of your, of your distal body. So toes and fingers,

00:23:43.760 | believe it or not, it's a correlate. Like, yeah, isn't that, isn't that, I've always thought that's

00:23:47.360 | just a correlation. It's just a correlation. Because yeah, like, because grip strength is just a proxy

00:23:52.080 | for all, like it means that you use your body a lot. And so therefore you're probably,

00:23:56.080 | you know, like when I read those things about like, if you have strong grip, it means this and

00:23:59.680 | this and this, I'm like, no, if you have a strong grip, it means that you do stuff all the time.

00:24:03.040 | And so as a result of doing stuff all the time, you're probably sharper than, than somebody who

00:24:07.120 | doesn't do stuff all the time. That's right. So it's a correlate. Um, at the same time, the,

00:24:11.520 | the motor neurons that control like trunk movements and contraction of the trunk muscles,

00:24:15.760 | like, as you go out from the midline, they are, they're in layers in the spinal cord. So they're

00:24:19.680 | literally like the, the muscle, the motor neurons that control like the core sit closer to the,

00:24:25.360 | sit closer to, in the spinal cord to the midline. And then, you know, across evolution, like, you know,

00:24:30.880 | we evolved from animals with fins and, and wings and some of the same genes are used. And eventually

00:24:34.960 | you get motor neurons that control like fine motor movements like this. And it is true that for some

00:24:39.760 | reason, the motor neurons that control the, the distal body, so toes and fingers, calves and forearms

00:24:45.360 | are more vulnerable to age related degeneration than the ones for the, for the core. So by, so it is

00:24:51.520 | possible, we don't know yet that by maintaining strength of the, of the distal body that you can

00:24:56.080 | actually, um, preserve motor neuron and cognitive function. And I'm freaking, I'm psyched.

00:25:01.680 | And you're set. And that's why I was curious how climbers provided they don't fall and kill themselves,

00:25:06.000 | how they age. Um, and there's other things here too, because like in some sports like football

00:25:10.560 | and rugby, people are getting their hit, head hit a lot. So you don't tend to age well, but I always

00:25:15.040 | thought of climbers, you know, in my time up in Yosemite, I'd see young guys like you and I'd see these

00:25:19.280 | like old, like these old climbers. And I was like, man, these guys are in incredible shape. They're lean,

00:25:24.800 | they're live, they, they seem cognitively fresh. So it seems like it's a sport where people hold on to

00:25:29.440 | their faculties pretty well. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, um, you know, it's hard to say,

00:25:34.080 | cause there just aren't that many super old climbers. And then a lot of the ones that come

00:25:38.880 | to mind, like sort of famous old climbers, you know, I mean, they die the same ways that everybody

00:25:42.960 | dies, you know, like cancer or heart disease or whatever, but like in their late eighties or

00:25:46.400 | whatever. Um, no, I mean, I think climbing is a great way to age. I mean, I have a bunch of friends

00:25:51.920 | who are sort of fifties and sixties who are very fit. Like actually, uh, I mean, it comes to mind.

00:25:56.560 | There's a, this friend of mine who's a philosophy professor at UNLV at the university, but he's

00:26:01.680 | incredibly jacked and I think he's 64 now. I think he just became the oldest person to climb a certain

00:26:06.640 | grade, like 514, which is like kind of an elite rock climbing grade. But I think he's maybe the

00:26:10.320 | oldest person to have done that now. But, um, but he once told me that he was at some hotel pool,

00:26:15.600 | like in middle America, like some conference or something. And some kid asked if he could touch his

00:26:19.120 | abs cause he'd never seen, he was like, are they real? You know, like real cause he's like, yeah,

00:26:24.800 | he's like a 48 year old professor. He was like shredded. And some, some kid in the pool was like,

00:26:28.880 | can I touch those? Is that real? You know, like I've never seen a thing like that.

00:26:31.840 | It says a lot about him and about the state of our country right now. We are in this crisis of obesity

00:26:38.320 | that's very serious. Uh, it goes beyond aesthetics. Um, yeah, I've, I've thought about getting into

00:26:42.960 | climbing. I mean, it it's, um, the problem I had is I tried to just, uh, raw strength it. I just

00:26:48.400 | tried to pull up my way a lot. Obviously that's, that's foolish. It's and you gas out really fast.

00:26:53.600 | Yeah. That's a very common thing for adults. I mean, especially men, especially somebody like

00:26:57.360 | you is already fit. And so you try to bring the tool you already have to it. And you're like,

00:27:00.960 | no, you gotta drive with your legs, go technique, mobility. Like, you know, I like to say that anybody

00:27:07.360 | that tries climbing should think of it as climbing a really, really steep staircase where it's like,

00:27:11.600 | you're still walking up the stairs and you're using the handrail to for balance, but you're not pulling

00:27:16.560 | yourself up the handrail. And most of climbing is basically a steep staircase. You know, I mean,

00:27:21.360 | especially outdoors and in climbing gyms is a little bit different because the wall is actually

00:27:24.480 | vertical, but outdoors, the wall is almost always a little bit less than vertical. So it's like,

00:27:28.400 | basically you're on a very, very steep and technical staircase. And then you're using the handrail,

00:27:32.000 | like the handholds to keep you balanced on the wall, but your legs should always be driving you.

00:27:35.760 | - I still haven't done Half Dome. - Never? You've done Clouds Rest a bunch of times?

00:27:40.560 | - No, I've done Clouds Rest a bunch of times, run Clouds Rest, Ruck Clouds Rest.

00:27:42.560 | - That's weird. - But Half Dome has those cables.

00:27:45.520 | Yeah, yeah. I never was organized enough to do the sign up early enough in the season.

00:27:49.440 | - No, but just do it after the permits. - Oh yeah.

00:27:52.560 | - You know, the cables stay up all year. So when it's out of season, they take the uprights down,

00:27:58.560 | but the cables just sit there and you can do it anytime. It's actually way better to do it post,

00:28:02.560 | like after the season, because there's no permit and there are no people and it's like super chill.

00:28:06.400 | - Okay. I definitely want to do it. - Yeah. Just do it, do it off season. It's way better.

00:28:09.520 | - My biggest concern is not that I'm going to fall. It's that someone above me is going to fall.

00:28:13.200 | - Well, you're strong enough to just glance them off, you know, just like shrug them aside.

00:28:17.040 | - Possibly. I did hear about it. - Or ideally stop them.

00:28:19.760 | - Yeah, ideally stop them. Yeah. I'd love to do that. I've been going to Yosemite since I was in my teens.

00:28:24.480 | I love it up there. It's, I wouldn't say it's my second home, but it's heaven. I mean, as you know,

00:28:29.120 | and actually one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you among others is that I would like more

00:28:34.480 | people to get into the national parks and, and really enjoy them. Cause there, we have so many

00:28:39.840 | gems and Yosemite, the high country in Tuolumne Meadows to me is like, is, is heaven on earth.

00:28:44.080 | - No, Yosemite, I mean, is a crown jewel. I mean, it's the, I think it's the best,

00:28:48.320 | best national park in the country. - Yeah. People forget it's only about a four hour drive from the Bay Area

00:28:53.040 | or from Los Angeles. It's pretty quick. You go through a bunch of different landscapes and then boom,

00:28:56.080 | suddenly you're there. - Yeah. And it's like paradise. It's incredible.

00:28:59.200 | - I'm curious about things in free soloing that as a uninformed spectator, we think, oh, you know,

00:29:07.680 | that's the hardest part. That's, that's the most difficult thing. But I imagine inside of the sport,

00:29:13.440 | like any, that there are things that are very difficult and maybe even perilous that we're not

00:29:18.880 | aware of. Like what's some of the non-obvious aspects of free soloing if they exist? Because I always

00:29:24.240 | think, okay, you know, if I can imagine, oh, that's super tough, but that might be the easier or less

00:29:31.360 | tough. Usually there are these kind of a hidden, I don't want to call them hidden dangers, but hidden

00:29:35.520 | dangers in a sport. What, what are some things that the observer wouldn't, wouldn't be aware of?

00:29:39.440 | - Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the hidden dangers are. I would say though,

00:29:42.720 | that the, the obvious visual dangers, like for a non climber, just watching free soloing,

00:29:48.960 | I think they generally misperceive all the dangers and risks involved. You know,

00:29:52.880 | they just see and they're like, that's crazy. That's whatever, you know, and like whatever

00:29:55.600 | they're bringing to it, it's probably not the actual case. Just because it's hard to visually

00:30:00.880 | tell what's challenging in climbing, you know, you're like, that's a vertical wall. But if it's

00:30:05.040 | like a nice crack going over a vertical wall, that's actually quite easy and secure climbing.

00:30:08.480 | But then some of the other stuff, you know, if they're really small holes, you're trusting your feet,

00:30:13.120 | I don't know. I mean, it's, it's just really hard to judge that stuff visually. Like you have to do it

00:30:16.800 | to, to experience it. But I think that, that honestly, the whole perception of risk around

00:30:22.240 | free soloing is maybe slightly misperceived by people. So with climbing in general, like if you go

00:30:26.880 | climbing with a rope, uh, like if you're traditional climbing, like you're climbing with a rope and gear,

00:30:31.760 | and you're going to climb half dome, let's say, when you start climbing from the ground, you go some

00:30:35.120 | distance before you put your first piece of gear in, because that's just kind of the nature of

00:30:38.480 | climbing. You go for a ways and you put in some gear, you clip your rope into it, and then you're protected.

00:30:41.680 | And then for whatever distance you're going, you're essentially free soloing to that point.

00:30:46.160 | You know, like there's always risk involved in climbing, because even if you have a rope on,

00:30:49.760 | depending how far you're going above your last piece of gear and, you know, what the train is

00:30:53.120 | like and whether or not the rock is good and all these other factors, you know, you're more or less

00:30:57.200 | safe. And so I think people look at free soloing as like this binary, like if you don't have a rope,

00:31:01.120 | that's dangerous. And you're kind of like, well, anytime you're climbing, there are dangers,

00:31:05.680 | or there could be, and you're constantly evaluating those and trying to mitigate them.

00:31:10.480 | So I think that's, that's the big misperception because easy free soloing is probably like,

00:31:15.520 | if I'm somebody, you know, who's like an expert rock climber or whatever, I've been climbing 30 years,

00:31:20.080 | if I'm on an easy free solo, that's almost certainly safer than a very hard,

00:31:24.400 | certain types of hard climbing with a rope on, you know, and most of my scariest experience as a

00:31:29.600 | climber actually have been with a rope on, because with a rope, you're much more willing to push

00:31:33.520 | yourself into unknown terrain. Because you're kind of like, surely there'll be something good just around the

00:31:37.280 | corner. And so you keep going around the corner and you keep not getting good gear and you're like,

00:31:41.440 | holy shit, it's getting scarier and scarier. Are we allowed to curse?

00:31:43.840 | Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:44.880 | Yeah. So, you know, like even at each other, if you want to curse.

00:31:47.840 | Yeah. Perfect.

00:31:48.800 | But so a lot of my scariest experience has been with a rope on because you're kind of like,

00:31:52.640 | I'm sure it'll get better. I'm sure it'll get better. And it keeps getting worse and worse.

00:31:55.360 | And then pretty soon you're in some position where you're definitely going to die if you fall,

00:31:58.960 | but you never would have climbed into that position if you didn't have a rope on,

00:32:02.400 | because you're just so much more conservative when you're ropeless. And when you're ropeless,

00:32:06.400 | you're kind of like, if something seems wrong, you just go down, you know, because you're just not

00:32:09.840 | going to push that far. I saw the movie Maru. I thought that was pretty intense.

00:32:14.640 | I mean, that's an example of pushing really freaking far with a rope on, you know,

00:32:18.800 | it's like, because you have a rope, you're willing to just keep pushing into the unknown,

00:32:21.360 | pushing into the unknown. But then you wind up in a position where you're like,

00:32:24.000 | this is pretty freaking extreme. You know, it's like, I mean, you saw the film, it's all totally insane.

00:32:28.000 | Yeah, it is insane. And I feel like ice and snow bring a whole other dimension.

00:32:32.560 | Yeah. I think that in your sport and free soloing, like the idea from the spectator side is,

00:32:40.960 | you know, like these guys, like one fall and they're dead. Right. I've heard you say before,

00:32:44.960 | that's actually not true. I mean, yeah, it's kind of, you don't want to fall, but yeah,

00:32:48.960 | like, yeah, it's true that most places, if you fall off, you're going to die. But like when I started

00:32:53.680 | free soloing as a kid, not that I like started and then only did that, but on my first free solos,

00:32:59.120 | when I was young, in the back of my mind, it would be like, if you slip, you'll die. You know,

00:33:02.880 | and the reality is that there are tons of places where your foot can slip and nothing else moves,

00:33:06.960 | you know, like your hands are locked on, you're holding on tight and your foot slipped and you're

00:33:10.400 | just kind of like, oh, my foot slipped and you keep climbing. It's no big deal. I mean,

00:33:14.000 | there are also some places where if your foot slips, you're going to die for sure. And the key is

00:33:17.600 | differentiating between those. But I think when I started, you know, it was like,

00:33:20.880 | if anything happens, you'll die. And as you do it more, you're actually like,

00:33:24.160 | no, I mean, a lot of things can happen and it'll be fine. You just have to make sure that

00:33:28.560 | the wrong thing doesn't happen at the wrong time.

00:33:30.160 | I was surprised to hear you say that, yes, free soloists die, but oftentimes they died not free

00:33:37.760 | soloing. They die doing other things. I'm fascinated by this, not through a morbid fascination, but for

00:33:43.280 | a number of reasons. So maybe you could elaborate on that a little bit.

00:33:46.080 | Yeah, there's a there's a quote in the film Free Solo where a friend of mine, Tommy Caldwell,

00:33:49.920 | who's a very well-known climber, says something like, all the people who are big free solos are

00:33:54.800 | dead now. And it kind of implies like, you know, free soling is dangerous and they all died soling.

00:33:59.280 | But the reality is that basically none of them died soling. Like one or two solos have died soling,

00:34:04.000 | though my preferred statistic is that no one has ever died doing something cutting edge.

00:34:08.160 | So like no one has ever died pushing the envelope, like doing something extreme.

00:34:12.720 | There have been a couple of free solos who have died free soling easy terrain, like just out doing

00:34:16.800 | something casual and maybe a hold breaks or maybe something happens, like it's impossible to know

00:34:21.280 | what because they die. But then the bulk of other people who are sort of known for free soling have

00:34:27.600 | died either in parachuting accidents like wingsuiting or base jumping, or one got swept out to see by a

00:34:33.040 | rogue wave. It's kind of a freak thing. One died in a car accident, you know, just like things like,

00:34:37.120 | you know, it's basically just ways that people die. So all that I say, it's not clear that free

00:34:42.720 | soling is the most dangerous. We have a friend who unfortunately is dead now, Ken Block, who is a

00:34:48.800 | famous rally car driver and did with our photographer here at the podcast, Mike Blayback, and film crews

00:34:55.040 | with DC did, he developed, he was one of the founders of DC, like DC Shoes, DC Skateboarding, etc., rally

00:35:02.000 | car, unfortunately died in a snowmobiling accident. So something very like,

00:35:05.920 | kind of conventional for his daily life. He lived out in Utah and, you know, obviously a huge tragedy.

00:35:12.400 | And then you go look at kind of people who do quote unquote extreme sports, for lack of a better term,

00:35:18.560 | and you find that it's fairly common for people who are at the peak of their, of a field, of a sport,

00:35:25.200 | to die doing something else that they really enjoy. And you kind of wonder like, are they pushing themselves,

00:35:32.400 | or is it that they're, they're just too, a little too relaxed? Because as you said, rarely do free

00:35:36.160 | soloists die, like in the most difficult aspects of the climb. So maybe it's that letting go of the

00:35:41.520 | mental engagement. Like there's a change in the threshold of what they consider dangerous. So unless

00:35:44.800 | they need to be locked in, there's just some lack of attention to detail. This is my way of trying to

00:35:49.680 | save your life basically saying anything you're doing besides free soloing, be very, very careful.

00:35:53.920 | Reign it in. Yeah, we need you. No, I mean, I also would suspect that all the people that we're talking

00:35:58.400 | about are all just a little, they're just bigger risk takers in general. They're just more willing

00:36:03.200 | to do things like drive quickly and, you know, do whatever. Just more willing to take risk in their

00:36:09.360 | life. And, and I suppose sooner or later, those things catch up with you or they can. Yeah.

00:36:14.080 | Though that said with free soloing, two of the world's best free soloists from the previous

00:36:18.400 | generations are still alive, you know, older men just living their best lives, doing their thing.

00:36:23.440 | Still free soloing. Yeah. Uh, maybe not at like a super high level, maybe not pushing themselves hard,

00:36:28.720 | but yeah, like certainly could. So, um, man named Peter Croft, he's a Canadian, but has lived in the

00:36:33.760 | US forever. He was like my childhood hero growing up and he's incredible. So actually there's a film with

00:36:38.080 | him or a scene with him in the film free solo. He's kind of like a, they kind of frame him as like a

00:36:42.960 | mentor figure though. Honestly, he wasn't a mentor cause I was too afraid to ever even talk to him

00:36:46.400 | cause he was like such a personal hero, but I mean, he's such a, he's incredible, but he's super nice

00:36:50.240 | guy. And so I'm, uh, we're both sponsored by the North Face now. So we're friends, we're on the same

00:36:55.040 | team. And so I've like hung out with him at events and things. And I was having dinner with him once.

00:36:59.120 | I was kind of like, Oh, what point did you kind of end the cutting edge free soloing? And he was like,

00:37:03.840 | Oh, actually I did a couple of my hardest solos, like in terms of grades, like not necessarily the most

00:37:08.640 | cutting edge, but kind of the hardest grades within the last several years.

00:37:11.840 | And I was like, really? And he'd still, you know, he's still just like kind of doing stuff and fit

00:37:16.800 | and he's psyched and, and he's gotta be, I don't know. I don't want to offend him, but he's gotta

00:37:22.400 | be like mid fifties or like maybe 60. Like, you know, he's, uh, yeah. And he's just still incredible.

00:37:27.360 | He's still climbing all the time. And even on his rest days, he goes down into the same climbing

00:37:30.720 | areas to hang out with his friends and chit chat and like take his dog to the cliff and stuff.

00:37:34.160 | So, you know, I look at somebody like him, who's basically made an entire life of free

00:37:38.080 | soloing. And I'm kind of like, you know, if you do it carefully, you, you know, make good decisions.

00:37:42.160 | I don't think it has to be sketchy.

00:37:45.200 | How awesome is it that you're friends and coworkers with one of your childhood heroes?

00:37:49.120 | Oh, that's the best. That's actually, I think one of the best things about being a professional climber

00:37:52.240 | is so many of the people that I was, that I looked up to as a kid, you know,

00:37:56.080 | and our friends and peers and things are like, Oh, it's so great.

00:37:58.400 | It's wild.

00:37:59.040 | Yeah. Yeah. You get to like, hang out with your heroes and you're like, oh, it turns

00:38:01.680 | up.

00:38:01.680 | Never would have imagined.

00:38:02.240 | Yeah. No, it's amazing.

00:38:03.920 | There's some, uh, young kid out there now thinking the same. He's like, I'm too afraid to go up to Alex

00:38:10.160 | and say hello. Uh, and, uh,

00:38:12.320 | They should just say hello.

00:38:13.280 | Yeah.

00:38:13.760 | I don't know.

00:38:14.240 | But in the same way that, right.

00:38:16.400 | Yeah, totally.

00:38:17.040 | I mean, in the same way that I was like, so afraid to ever talk to Peter when I was young. And then

00:38:20.640 | ultimately now he's just another nice guy and we're friends, we climb together. It's great.

00:38:24.560 | Sort of like, yeah, anybody should just say hi. You know, it's like, if they're at the,

00:38:28.640 | if we're at the cliff, like come chat, you know, it's like, we're all doing the same thing.

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00:41:29.040 | Do most climbers as they're coming up, if they have aspirations to be, you know, great free soloists

00:41:36.240 | or other types of climbers, do they tend to work and do other things? Or is this like a, you're like all

00:41:41.040 | in your, it's lifestyle. You live in a van. I mean, you can do that also after achieving some degree of

00:41:47.120 | financial success. We know you've done that. We can talk about that, but is it the kind of thing where

00:41:51.040 | you have to give up other aspects of life in order to get really, really good at it? That's an interesting

00:41:55.920 | question. I'm not totally sure because in some ways, so it depends what you mean by achieving success as a

00:42:01.920 | climber, because if you're trying to climb the hardest grades or go to the Olympics or things like that, in

00:42:05.840 | some ways you're almost better off being a university student or something like having a structured

00:42:10.320 | schedule that in some ways limits the amount that you can climb. Because, you know, I don't know enough

00:42:15.600 | about other sports, but I suspect this is akin to like power lifting or something where it's like,

00:42:19.760 | if you're trying to be really, really strong, you kind of only need to do a little bit every couple

00:42:23.600 | days and then recover. And so for a sort of elite physical training for climbing, you really only need,

00:42:29.440 | you know, say three or four hour sessions, four or five days a week. And then it's like, what do you do

00:42:33.920 | with the rest of your time? And so like, you might as well have a job or, and so a lot of my friends

00:42:38.160 | who like write code for a living or, you know, do things like that are very, very strong climbers because of the,

00:42:43.680 | the, the schedule that it allows the structure. That said, I think if you want to be a great free

00:42:48.960 | solist or like a big adventure climber, you're probably better off living in a van and just

00:42:53.440 | doing the thing nonstop because for that, you're not trying to have that peak muscular performance.

00:43:00.800 | You're trying to just learn a skill and do something all the time. And so then like hours of practice,

00:43:05.200 | I think matter more. Anyway, maybe we talk a little bit about recovery as long as we're talking about,

00:43:10.320 | you know, number of hours that one puts in. I'm sure your recovery looks different than it used to.

00:43:15.680 | But what, what do you do to recover between sessions? Are you a big believer in sauna, cold?

00:43:22.960 | Is it just basically sleep? No, I like push my three-year-old on the swings, you know,

00:43:26.880 | like that's how it recovers. I like play with the kids on the swings and, and I try to, I mean,

00:43:31.840 | you know, I try to eat relatively well. I try to sleep enough. Like I do all the basics for recovery,

00:43:36.320 | but, um, but no, I mean, I basically just survive in between. I was actually just joking with somebody

00:43:41.840 | that I think, you know, as a, as a 24 year old living by myself in a van, I would have crazy days

00:43:47.840 | of climbing. And then on a rest day, I would like binge watch an entire season of some show while

00:43:51.440 | eating an entire flat Oreos, just like never even leave the bed of my van. And then the next day go

00:43:55.440 | out and like do a speed record on something and just be like, I'm so psyched, you know? And now I'm like,

00:44:00.240 | I'm definitely not doing that now or at least no, I haven't done that in forever. Cause I just don't

00:44:05.280 | have the time and don't have, um, yeah. So I think now it takes a little more effort to recover

00:44:10.480 | and it's just a little slower probably. But it's hard to say though, because a lot of that's just

00:44:15.360 | having kids and just having different demands of, of time in life. But it sounds like climbers are,

00:44:20.480 | are pretty, uh, grassroots in their, in their training and techniques. Like, you know, in a lot of other

00:44:25.040 | areas. Yeah. I mean, I was living in a van. I was basically like, you know, super low overhead,

00:44:30.160 | no, no team, no support. I'm just living in a car doing the thing nonstop for, uh, you know, a decade.

00:44:35.280 | And so that's a pretty scrappy approach. And I think that, that in the years since then climbing

00:44:42.080 | is professionalized a little bit and there's a little more money, there's a little more support

00:44:45.360 | and there's just a higher level of competition. I think, um, it'd be harder to, to achieve things

00:44:50.960 | doing just that now. I think you'd have to have a little more of a plan.

00:44:53.280 | Yeah. I can't help, but sense that hyperbaric chambers and red light and massage guns and

00:44:58.800 | all that are going to be making their way into the climate culture.

00:45:00.640 | Well, massage guns for sure are there. Yeah, massage guns are there. I tried to like roll

00:45:04.400 | out every once in a while, even when I was living in my van, I would stretch and roll out and those

00:45:07.760 | types of things. Cause you just kind of have to stay supple.

00:45:10.240 | Yeah. How do you feel? How's your body feel?

00:45:11.760 | Well, I mean, right now I think pretty good. I don't know. Yeah. When I'm, um, I live in Las Vegas,

00:45:17.040 | when I'm at home, I try to see this body worker in town once a week, Pat, sweet Pat, he's the man.

00:45:21.440 | And so, uh, you know, I think of that as kind of like a basic, just taking care of,

00:45:27.120 | uh, you know, making, it's like an oil change. It's like making sure the engine runs smoothly.

00:45:30.800 | And, and I think as a result of body work like that, I haven't had any major like overuse injuries

00:45:36.960 | and in years. And so like, that's, that's pretty good for me.

00:45:39.760 | Awesome. Yeah. Maybe it's just because it's historically, it was what I knew, but I'm seeing

00:45:44.560 | so many parallels with skateboarding where like, there was this time when no skateboarders lifted

00:45:49.120 | weights or did any kind of fitness. Yeah, totally.

00:45:50.960 | Then that started to happen. Actually, Danny Wei jumped the Great Wall of China. He was kind of the

00:45:55.280 | first person in skateboarding to like, he would do like neck training because he had broken his neck

00:45:59.760 | surfing in Newport. And he was doing like these, um, you know, like the, where you like swing the

00:46:04.880 | ball above your head. He was doing core work. And I remember back then thinking, uh, I sort of left

00:46:08.800 | skateboarding at that point. Yeah, it was all fringe.

00:46:09.920 | And I was thinking like, like skateboarders are just like really have a problem with this because

00:46:14.320 | it wasn't consistent with the culture. Now there are a lot of guys who, who work out and take care

00:46:19.040 | of their bodies, but there are still a lot of guys who absolutely kill it. They're incredible. And their

00:46:25.440 | energy drink is like a beer and their, uh, quote unquote, nootropic is cigarettes and, and they murder it.

00:46:31.760 | They're super good. And, and so I, I like these sports where it's like, you can't get around just

00:46:37.120 | investing a massive number of hours doing it. And then there, you can either take the,

00:46:42.000 | the kind of rock and roll track into it, or you can take the kind of self-care track

00:46:46.320 | and sometimes people cross over, but yeah, you know, it works either way. It really does.

00:46:50.480 | Climbing still has that exact same thing going on where you can kind of go either way.

00:46:54.160 | I do think though that the self-care track will obviously went out long-term. I mean,

00:46:57.680 | that's the thing with the climbing and being in the Olympics and just the professionalism,

00:47:00.560 | all that. I mean, obviously self-care is better for you long-term like, you know,

00:47:04.720 | everybody knows that that said you still see a lot of very proficient climbers who,

00:47:10.320 | yeah, exactly. Just kind of party, go hard. I mean, cause so much of climbing just comes down to

00:47:15.040 | effort when you're doing the thing. Like if you go climbing several days a week and you try your

00:47:18.880 | absolute hardest, every time you're climbing, you're going to get pretty freaking good.

00:47:22.160 | You know, whether you do red light therapy or like any of the weird other stuff or not.

00:47:26.240 | So it's like, I mean, it really just comes down to your effort doing the thing. And so,

00:47:29.600 | yeah, I mean, you could live. And I mean, a lot of climbers, especially in the past,

00:47:33.120 | lived on a diet of, of, you know, cigarettes and coffee and, and freaking beer. And, you know,

00:47:39.040 | you can, you can, you can get by that way. Yeah. The 1970s eighties approach.

00:47:43.040 | It's not ideal. It's not ideal. A friend of mine, Tom Bilyeu, he is very successful in business. He also

00:47:48.720 | has a podcast. He was saying to me the other day, he goes, yeah, basically, uh, when young people ask him,

00:47:52.960 | you know, how to get good at whatever business or anything, he just tells them, um, work as if,

00:47:58.240 | um, smartphones didn't exist. Meaning when you're bored, go work on the thing. When you don't have

00:48:02.480 | anything, like if you get rid, I'm not encouraging people get rid of their smartphone, but I'm curious

00:48:07.120 | about your relationship to technology, because I think nowadays, even though there are people training

00:48:11.120 | for the Olympics and whatnot, that it is very hard to, to, uh, disengage from pressures of sponsors,

00:48:17.600 | pressures of just sheer communications. Right. Um, and if you're coming up this idea that

00:48:22.720 | you always have to be in contact with people, you, it limits the total number of reps that you're,

00:48:26.960 | that you get physically, but also mentally. Cause I imagine there was a lot of times sitting back in

00:48:30.640 | bed and thinking about climbing. Um, just like I used to sit back in bed and think about experiments.

00:48:35.280 | And, you know, when I was in graduate school, now I'd probably, if that phones that exist,

00:48:39.440 | I'd probably be on my phone. Yeah.

00:48:40.720 | I used to think about experiments and figures and what would this work and that work. So what are your

00:48:44.720 | thoughts on kind of a mental, um, uh, engagement separate from climbing?

00:48:49.680 | No, I think that's, that's definitely a big thing. I mean, I think I've, I've thought in the past that

00:48:54.240 | in some ways I feel kind of lucky that I came up when I did in climbing where it's like sort of pre

00:48:58.880 | smartphone, pre social pre, you know, you just live in your car and you do the thing and that's it. And

00:49:03.600 | that's your whole lifestyle. Um, I mean, currently, you know, I, I have all the social media, uh,

00:49:09.840 | accounts and things, but I don't have any of the apps on my phone. I have a friend that manages it for me.

00:49:13.600 | Um, I like send all the content to her, but she posts stuff. And so it's a nice way to sort of

00:49:17.040 | disconnect myself from, from scrolling aimlessly. Um, I don't really have the time anymore. Anyway,

00:49:23.280 | you know, it's like, I'd rather play with my kids and then for sure scroll, uh, you know, it's like,

00:49:27.920 | but no, I mean, that's, that's tough. I mean, I think it'd be hard to be a kid now growing up,

00:49:33.760 | like thinking that that's the norm that you like have to be connected, that you have to be

00:49:37.200 | capturing everything, you know, documenting and then sharing it and posting and just all the stuff.

00:49:42.480 | I've always felt like the thing about being a professional climber is that you just have

00:49:45.280 | to be a good climber. Like first and foremost, the key to being a professional climber is being able

00:49:48.880 | to climb really well. And like the most important thing is doing the thing. And I just think when

00:49:54.000 | you get caught up in all the posting, sharing, streaming, all the, whatever, that's not doing

00:49:58.800 | the thing, you know, but, but it's easy to conflate them and it's, I don't know.

00:50:03.600 | Yeah, no, I think it'd be really hard.

00:50:04.960 | Yeah, I agree completely. And the hidden secret is that if you want something interesting to show

00:50:10.160 | on social media, the key is to not be on social media. So you have something to bring to it.

00:50:14.000 | It's just so hard to actually be good at something. And it's, and then this is goes back to what we were

00:50:18.160 | just talking about with free soling and perceived risk and all that kind of stuff is just really easy

00:50:22.240 | to make something look rad. So long wise, like, you know, I could climb, I could climb the outside of

00:50:27.040 | this building and it would like look insane. It would get tons of likes people think it's cool, but it's not

00:50:30.320 | cutting edge. It's not cool. It's not even hard. Like it's not, it's, it's whatever, but to actually

00:50:36.320 | do something that's cutting edge or newsworthy and climbing, it's pretty freaking hard, you know,

00:50:41.280 | and the challenge with, with social and with public, all that kind of stuff is that it's just so easy to,

00:50:46.160 | I don't want to say to fake it because it's not like people are out there like trying to be

00:50:50.320 | duplicitous or like to, to trick you, but it's just, you can get the same splash with none of the effort,

00:50:56.640 | you know, and through, through social stuff. I think you're like, oh, I just did something easy

00:51:00.960 | and people thought it was amazing. Let's call that good. And you're like, well, that's just not good

00:51:04.640 | because it's easy. It's freaking, you know, like it's not cutting edge. It's not rad.

00:51:08.160 | I mean, you clearly go after big, big goals. I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a giant goal. I think it

00:51:13.680 | really stands. And I know you've been told this many times before. So, um, if it embarrasses you in a

00:51:18.080 | positive way, then great. Um, I mean, it, it stands as perhaps at least one of the, the most impressive

00:51:24.400 | physical feats in history, because the risk consequence, uh, scenario there was you fall,

00:51:31.120 | you can potentially die. There may have been moments along the, along the climb where-

00:51:34.400 | Brief moments where you're right above a ledge. You're like, oh wow.

00:51:37.440 | Yeah. So, okay. So, and it's, and it's so like you to, to point out those moments as

00:51:41.760 | opposed to all the other moments. It really speaks to your mindset. Um, but I think that going after big

00:51:47.200 | things, I mean, you know, uh, you know, building, um, rockets to go to the moon.

00:51:53.520 | I remember when I was a kid, Danny Wade decided to jump the Great Wall of China to do it live.

00:51:57.120 | So when it died, trying it on a mountain bike, I remember thinking, I watched it on a little screen

00:52:00.880 | this big and I was like, I've known that guy since, uh, we're out of touch now, but, um, for the most

00:52:05.840 | part, but since it was like 13 and he was always going after big things, jumping out of helicopters,

00:52:12.080 | you know, jumping the Great Wall of China, like, you know, and then there were people who just

00:52:15.760 | push themselves. And so what, what I wonder is on a daily basis, when you climb, um,

00:52:21.120 | do you ever just climb for fun? When you climb, are you always working on something? And

00:52:27.600 | there's this famous scene in free solo, like more or less immediately after you got down from the climb,

00:52:33.920 | you're, you're fingerboarding again, and like you're, you're training and you're enjoying your,

00:52:37.120 | your routine. Um, which by the way is consistent with keeping the dopamine flowing for process,

00:52:41.600 | as opposed to like the postpartum depression that many people experience after a big feed is completed,

00:52:46.480 | selling a big company, et cetera. You avoid all that by doing exactly what you're doing.

00:52:49.680 | But then how quickly did your mind pivot to like, okay, what's next? Uh, in the domain of climbing,

00:52:55.200 | because I realize you've had two children, you've got other aspects of your life, but like, where's your

00:52:59.600 | mind, um, in terms of where you want to take your life and your climbing?

00:53:03.360 | Yeah. On the one hand, I set big goals, I guess, you know, something like y'all cap.

00:53:07.040 | The thing is, I would actually say that's more of the outgrowth of setting consistent little goals,

00:53:10.800 | like all the time. Like I basically always have a running to do list of like, what am I doing

00:53:14.800 | tomorrow? What am I doing today? What am I trying to do this week? And that extends to climbing as well

00:53:18.720 | with like, what are all the little things I can be doing? Like, what are the little things I can take

00:53:22.480 | this week? You know, I have, uh, my climbing journal goes back to 2005 or six or something. So

00:53:27.280 | basically everything I've ever climbed is, is logged with, you know, difficulty and times and whatever.

00:53:32.080 | And so I'm constantly trying to take things as a climber, you know, just like to do new climbs that

00:53:36.240 | I haven't done before. And so, I mean, I think like actually my day of climbing yesterday could be a

00:53:41.120 | good example of this. So yesterday my wife and I dropped off our older daughter at school, went to

00:53:46.160 | the cliff, uh, did a day of sport climbing, um, and then picked up our daughter on the way home.

00:53:50.480 | It's like a perfect day like that where you can kind of like make it all work. And I'm not going to be

00:53:56.000 | able to go to that cliff very often this season just because of travel and work and life basically.

00:54:00.800 | So I don't want to have any big project there because I just won't have time to do

00:54:04.960 | it. You know, I'm trying to set my goals appropriately where I'm like, oh, there's no

00:54:08.000 | point in trying to do something that would take me a month or two to achieve if I only have three days.

00:54:12.560 | And so I had a goal for that day of trying to do this very particular little combination of

00:54:17.520 | routes that I hadn't done before. It's just something new, something interesting. It's not that hard.

00:54:20.880 | But then we got there and it was, it was like the worst condition. It was like 86 degrees and we parked

00:54:24.800 | the car. And so, you know, it's like you're trying to work out and like horrendously hot. And it was

00:54:29.360 | also that kind of monsoony. So it was very humid. So we got to the wall and it's like disgusting. And

00:54:33.600 | I was kind of like, well, you know, it's a training day, like whatever. And so I tried to do this new

00:54:37.520 | combination of routes. Ultimately, I failed on, I felt the very freaking top of the wall. I was like

00:54:40.960 | so maxed and didn't do it. Uh, I'll probably get a chance to go back on Monday and hope and I'll

00:54:45.520 | for sure do it then. Um, but you know, it's like a very small goal. Like this isn't cutting edge,

00:54:50.880 | like big, this isn't, this isn't even cool at all. Like my friends won't even care. You're like,

00:54:54.720 | they'll think it's stupid, but, but it's nice for me to have a reason for me to try my hardest for that

00:55:00.160 | particular day of climbing. And I think that the big goals come as a result of all those little things,

00:55:05.280 | you know, like if day by day you're constantly doing something that's a little bit new, a little bit

00:55:08.480 | different, a little bit harder, you know, whatever seems like the appropriate challenge for that day.

00:55:13.200 | I think that looking back at 20 years of climbing outside nonstop, that the big things have just

00:55:18.480 | come as a natural outgrowth of all those little things. You do like enough little things all the

00:55:22.000 | time. And then every once in a while something big happens. And so I don't know that's, you know,

00:55:28.000 | but I have to do lists going back like years of like goals and all these aspirations. And you know,

00:55:32.400 | some years I only do half of them, some years I do a third of them. And then, you know,

00:55:36.080 | something like free selling all cap sat on a list like that literally for years. And it kept floating

00:55:40.240 | to the next year, to the next year. Cause you get into Yosemite, you look at the wall and you're like,

00:55:44.080 | nah, that's, you know, you're like, it's totally out of the question. And so you just like punt to

00:55:47.760 | the next year. And so, yeah, I mean, sometimes the goals don't happen. Sometimes they do,

00:55:52.880 | but you kind of just have to let it play out. You know, it's more like the day-to-day little challenges.

00:55:56.720 | I love how matter of fact you are about it. You are wired different.

00:55:59.520 | You think, I mean, well, maybe not. I mean, because like, and this is a vastly less high

00:56:08.320 | risk, high consequence endeavor, but like public speaking doesn't make me, it doesn't raise my level

00:56:13.760 | of, of cortisol or autonomic arousal at all. Cause I've done so much of it.

00:56:17.440 | Yeah. Cause you're super well-practiced.

00:56:18.720 | Yeah. I just, yeah. So sometimes I'll, you know, I'll think like, oh, I'm like a little more keyed up

00:56:23.520 | than I want to be. And I'll, I know how to calm myself down.

00:56:25.520 | Well, I'm actually, I feel the same way with public speaking now, but that's after years of practice.

00:56:28.960 | It used to be, it used to be so stressful for me. Like, so yeah, no, I was, I was so shy.

00:56:33.120 | Proof that your amygdala does work like everybody else's.

00:56:35.280 | Yeah. No, I mean, exactly. That's why I hate all this stuff. It's like, oh,

00:56:37.840 | you're just wired differently. Cause I'm like, no, I know that, you know, like, yeah, public,

00:56:40.800 | like speaking in front of a class in school was like mortifying. But now after years of doing

00:56:45.440 | keynote speeches to like giant groups, I'm sort of like, no, no, it's super chill. But you know,

00:56:49.920 | that's all learned.

00:56:50.880 | Yeah. Forgive me for saying you're wired different. I think that, you know, when you did a free solo,

00:56:54.960 | there were a number of news programs that like took advantage of the fact they put you in a brain

00:56:58.880 | scanner, you know, this is my field of neuroscience, you know, his amygdala might not be activated the

00:57:02.640 | same way as other people's, but I would have thought, and I think it's the case now you, you confirmed

00:57:07.200 | that it's really domain specific. Like you've done so much climbing of so many reps there that you're

00:57:11.120 | familiar with the contingencies. And so it's not that you can't experience fear. It's that you're not

00:57:15.200 | placing yourself into truly fearful circumstances climbing. But the fact that public speaking was an issue

00:57:20.240 | means that your threat sensors and the amygdala and related circuits were perfectly fine.

00:57:24.640 | With that particular, like scanning in the fMRI, you know, they show you a bunch of black and white

00:57:28.320 | pictures and it's like whether or not that triggers the fear response. And I was like, well, obviously

00:57:31.280 | looking at pictures isn't going to trigger my fear response. But I'm like, had they thrown a snake into

00:57:34.560 | the fMRI with me, like that would have triggered my fear response. You know, if there were like giant

00:57:37.680 | spiders, like crawling over me, like that would probably would too. And so I was like, no, obviously I feel fear.

00:57:42.800 | I just, I'm just not afraid of black and white photos. I was like, that's what they used. Like

00:57:47.280 | angry faces and that kind of the faces. It wasn't even faces. It was like random stuff. Like, I don't

00:57:52.400 | know, like a gun and then like a light socket, you know, some things that are like neutral, some things

00:57:56.080 | that I should have designed the experiment. My lab used to work on fear. It was a standardized thing,

00:57:59.600 | I think. Yeah, I know. I'm not trying to be disparaging of the research. My lab used to work

00:58:03.360 | on fear. We use VR. That's how I met Michael Muller, our friend in common. He took me down to Guadalupe.

00:58:08.240 | We did two times. So we went down there in 2016 and 2017, doing cage exit diving with great whites,

00:58:13.760 | filming with, uh, to get the VR. And I'll tell you in, in real life, it's a hell of a lot scarier

00:58:18.080 | than it is. Yeah, totally than in VR. But along the lines of, you know, dying when you're doing the

00:58:23.040 | other thing, uh, not the main thing, the cage exit part ended up being a lot safer. I had an air failure

00:58:29.120 | while in the cage. I was on that hookah line and I was alone in the cage when it happened. And I'll tell you,

00:58:33.760 | that was a lot more terrifying than being out of the cage with the sharks. Because when you're out of the

00:58:36.960 | cage, you're on scuba and you have some degree of control over, you know, you can shoot for the

00:58:40.800 | surface. When you're in the cage and you run out of air and you're alone, you're just terrified and

00:58:46.080 | you're, you're hosed, no pun intended. You're not hosed enough. So, you know, it, it speaks to this

00:58:51.760 | thing that like when there's this big scary thing and you're really locked in, you often miss the,

00:58:56.800 | the more trivial seeming, but real danger that's close up.

00:59:01.040 | Well, this is, I think one of the things, one of the real values of climbing is I think that

00:59:04.480 | as a climber, you spend all your time thinking about risk and managing risk and mitigating risk

00:59:08.240 | and all those kinds of things. And so I think that, um, I don't want to like toot my own horn too much,

00:59:13.440 | but I do feel good at evaluating risks like that. You know, like what is the actual dangerous thing?

00:59:18.320 | Like what's sketchy about the situation? And it just often isn't the thing that people are looking at,

00:59:23.760 | you know? And that's what I was talking about earlier with like people watching video,

00:59:27.120 | free-soling or whatever else are like, that's sketchy. And I'm like, well, you know, might be

00:59:30.960 | in some ways, but probably not for all the reasons that you're thinking, you know what I mean? Like

00:59:34.480 | the, the obvious visual thing is probably not the, the, the big challenge.

00:59:39.520 | And it sounds a little cliche, but you're doing what you love. You know, it's, it's interesting.

00:59:44.640 | I think one of the biggest risks that, um, I think about now, um, as I get older is

00:59:51.600 | the non-daily lethal risk of, you know, grinding it out in a job you don't like. And then, you know,

00:59:57.280 | one day you wake up and you're like, wow, there's, there's no time machine. Like, I can't go back and

01:00:01.920 | get that vitality in that time. Yeah. And that's where I think this, this idea of, you know, doing

01:00:07.040 | what you love really counts. Whether or not you have to live in a van and do nothing else, or whether or

01:00:10.560 | not you can also go to school, you know, but doing, doing something that you love very, very much.

01:00:14.240 | Yeah. Because either way you're going to die. Either way you're going to die. And you may as

01:00:17.280 | well die having done a lot of things you're really excited about than die regretting all the things

01:00:21.520 | you didn't do. Totally. I mean, I think that that actually, that exact mindset really helped inform

01:00:26.880 | my whole climbing journey in a way is like my father died when, when, uh, when I was 19 and he died of a

01:00:31.600 | heart attack unexpectedly, just free thing running through an airport, uh, at age 55. And, you know,

01:00:37.840 | and I think for a young, for a teenager that makes an impression where you're sort of like, oh,

01:00:42.080 | like this could end at any moment. And actually in both my grandfathers had just died like at

01:00:46.240 | roughly the same time. So I think for an impressionable, you know, teen, you're sort of like,

01:00:51.360 | oh, everybody dies. Like, do you get to do all the things that you want to do before you go?

01:00:55.600 | And, and I think my father, my father was a community college professor taught language. And,

01:01:00.800 | uh, you know, he ostensibly lived a risk-free life, you know, like relatively sedentary. I mean,

01:01:06.000 | he traveled widely, like he was great, but, but by any risk perception thing, you'd be like,

01:01:11.280 | oh, he's a professor. Like he's, he's, he's fine. And yet he still died young

01:01:15.040 | and probably would have preferred to do a lot of other things before he went. I'm sort of like,

01:01:20.160 | you know, it's just a reminder that you gotta, you gotta do all those things.

01:01:22.640 | Yeah. I want to talk to you about your philosophy on death and, and time and kind of life arc. And,

01:01:28.240 | and, uh, you've already started. Uh, so thank you, um, for that, because I would say

01:01:34.240 | most of my friends who started families young are people who, these are male friends whose dads died

01:01:41.760 | young. And so they had this very keen sense of the finite, uh, duration of, of life. And, you know,

01:01:47.760 | Steve Jobs talked about this. So like, you're, you know, very, and he died young. He seemed to have some

01:01:52.240 | sense of how long he was going to live and really wanted to pack things in. And I don't know why that

01:01:56.480 | was, he was adopted. So I don't know if he even knew how long his parents lived, et cetera. But barring

01:02:00.320 | accident or injury, you know, we don't really know when we're going to die. But sometimes I think,

01:02:05.600 | uh, we get the sense based on relatives and, you know, I can remember a time in my life when I,

01:02:10.160 | of course I knew I was going to die, but I lived in a way that I just, I felt like I had all the time

01:02:15.360 | in the world despite pursuing things. And I think, um, with each passing year, I'm like, oh, wow,

01:02:19.520 | like the wall is coming. It's winding down. Yeah. Like we gotta get, get the show on the road and I've

01:02:23.040 | done things I wanted to do, but it's, it's interesting that, um, uh, you know, it's, it does seem that

01:02:29.040 | like having a parent die has a, has a profound impact on where you set that horizon. You realize

01:02:35.600 | like today is part of an arc that has an end point and we know that, but we often don't live into that

01:02:41.520 | realization. Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with that. I mean, and I, you say we know that, but I actually

01:02:46.720 | think that we don't talk about that enough. You know what I mean? I think most people live with a

01:02:50.720 | little too much open in it because nobody wants to talk about death. Nobody wants to talk about,

01:02:54.320 | you know, like the consequences of like, cause people think it's morbid or it's just not the

01:02:58.480 | thing is like, we're all going to frigging die. You know, it's like, are we going to be proud of

01:03:02.160 | what we did before we died? Like, I don't know. I mean, yeah, we'll see. It's like kind of cliche

01:03:08.720 | to be like, oh, better to die young and, you know, burn brightly and all that kind of stuff.

01:03:11.920 | But you know, to some extent, I think that's, I think there's a middle ground where you're like,

01:03:16.160 | it's better to try hard and do things that you're proud of. And you know, either way you're going to

01:03:22.320 | die. I agree. I mean, I think there is something interesting to this 27 effect. You know, there's

01:03:26.640 | so many like rock and roll musicians die at 27. It's their quarter life crisis.

01:03:30.720 | Yeah. Quarter life crisis. I haven't heard of the quarter life crisis.

01:03:33.440 | You've never heard of quarter life? Like all my friends have gone through a quarter life crisis.

01:03:36.320 | Oh, really? When does that happen?

01:03:38.560 | Well, like 25, you know, 27.

01:03:40.160 | Interesting. No, I was just so focused on becoming a neuroscientist. I didn't know

01:03:45.040 | what else I would do besides that at 25. I think it was just so locked in,

01:03:48.960 | but I've always been a little bit obsessive. Have you always been a little bit like,

01:03:51.520 | whatever you're into, you're into, I guess it's been climbing.

01:03:53.600 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:03:54.720 | Yeah. I was just lucky to get into climbing when I was 10.

01:03:56.800 | So this is something that I've just been into forever.

01:03:58.960 | So did you play Legos as a kid or do you mean?

01:04:00.880 | Yeah. And I was psycho about my Legos.

01:04:02.160 | You were psycho about Legos?

01:04:03.200 | Yeah. Yeah. Psycho. Like I didn't have a bed in my room because I had Legos

01:04:07.200 | covered across the whole floor. Basically I slept in a corner and I just had Legos all over.

01:04:10.480 | Awesome. Kind of psycho.

01:04:11.920 | Do you see some of this in, in your kids?

01:04:13.920 | Not quite that yet, but they're pretty young. So it's hard to tell, but yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

01:04:20.240 | We'll see. I kind of think, you know, it's all about having personality, like do a thing,

01:04:25.680 | do it well, like get excited about things. I mean, there's just so many people on earth and they all

01:04:30.320 | do different things. Like you may as well be the person to do that one particular thing and just like

01:04:35.840 | really do it.

01:04:36.560 | No, I agree. That's the juice. I mean, I mean, I think for some of us, like I just know from my own life

01:04:42.800 | experience, I like, I thought I was certainly going to just get into skateboarding. Many of my friends

01:04:46.960 | became professional skateboarders, got really good at or worked in the industry. And early on,

01:04:50.320 | I was getting hurt and I realized I'm not very good at this. And then when I finally plugged into

01:04:53.920 | academics and learning, I was like, this is the thing and I loved it. And then eventually I pivoted

01:04:58.640 | to this thing, which I didn't anticipate. But I do think that going all in on something is a,

01:05:03.520 | it provides a really wonderful feedback loop that one can, like you feel, it makes you feel alive.

01:05:09.600 | Yeah. You're like doing a thing.

01:05:11.040 | Especially when it's hard. Yeah.

01:05:12.160 | Especially when it's hard.

01:05:13.120 | I've literally spent my whole life basically like all in on climbing and, and I'm still,

01:05:17.920 | I just, I just love going rock climbing. You know, it's like, I mean, I think that's really the,

01:05:21.840 | the goal of parenting is to help your kid find something that they're that psyched about,

01:05:25.200 | like something that they can commit to and something that will drive them something they're passionate

01:05:28.640 | about. And so, you know, I mean, we'll see with, uh, with our kids, but it's like the idea is just

01:05:33.440 | to let them experience enough things that they can find whatever they, whatever gets them out of bed

01:05:38.480 | every day. They certainly are in the right environment, uh, to flourish with it. You mentioned that climbing's

01:05:43.520 | in the Olympics. I could see, and I've observed in other sports where the parents are kind of more

01:05:47.840 | obsessive than the kid. And then the kid burns out on it. If I read, uh, Andre Agassi's book.

01:05:52.640 | Yeah. Yeah. That's basically a story of his dad pushing him to play a game. He did not want to play.

01:05:56.480 | Yeah. That's maybe the best sports memoir ever. That's like, that's a great, uh, that's a great

01:06:00.400 | book. Yeah. Great book. Yeah. His dad was like a boxer and basically trained him in tennis like a

01:06:04.400 | boxer. Yeah. Yeah. So it's sort of like the light handed approach of, of like, I think kids know,

01:06:09.360 | I think, I mean, you kind of let them forage, right? No, we're, we're, we're taking the light

01:06:12.800 | handed approach for sure. I mean, our kids will obviously know how to climb because that's what we

01:06:16.800 | do all the time. And, um, but so far we just go hiking. Like we haven't forced them to climb.

01:06:21.760 | We have a little bit of a home gym at home, like a little climbing, uh, garage. And so the girls can,

01:06:26.720 | you know, play on the wall whenever they want to, but there's certainly never any pressure to do

01:06:30.240 | anything. I read, um, and please correct me if this is inaccurate, but that, uh, it was during

01:06:35.760 | college that you had some family members pass away. And when you really leaned into just climbing more,

01:06:39.840 | um, I think it's somewhere on the internet that you were climbing on Indian rock, which is, uh,

01:06:44.720 | uh, interesting to me because I went to graduate school in Berkeley and lived in Berkeley for a long

01:06:49.760 | time. And you went to Cal, I went to Cal for my masters. And then I lived in Berkeley, even when

01:06:53.360 | I was a postdoc at Stanford, I love Berkeley. I was like, you went from Cal to Stanford.

01:06:56.320 | Yeah, right. The enemy, the enemy. Yeah. Born at Stanford, trained at Stanford,

01:07:00.960 | and still spent a lot of time at Berkeley. I liked the culture in Berkeley then. Um, and I liked the food.

01:07:06.080 | So I used to take pizzas from the cheese board up to Indian rock. And so while you were climbing Indian rock,

01:07:10.960 | I was eating and, uh, picnicking on Indian rock. Um, it's amazing. So would you just pull a little

01:07:16.480 | solo journeys out there that this is, by the way, folks, a big steep rock, but on one face, it's,

01:07:21.120 | it's gradual. It literally has like rock couches where, um, couples go on dates and you eat some pizza

01:07:25.920 | and hang out and get an amazing view overlooking the city. So you were climbing up the back of it,

01:07:29.120 | which is anything, but, uh, well, actually I was mostly traversing the bottom of it. Um,

01:07:33.040 | there's tons of like, basically you can contour the whole base of the rock. And so you can climb for,

01:07:37.120 | you know, a couple hundred feet basically without touching the ground. So you just go back and

01:07:40.480 | forth doing laps. And yeah, cool. I mean, from where I was living at Berkeley, there was only,

01:07:45.120 | I don't know, like a 30 minute walk to Indian rock or something. So I basically wasn't going to class.

01:07:48.400 | I was just strolling to Indian rock and traversing the wall back and forth. And, and then that's why

01:07:52.880 | I dropped out after one year at Berkeley. It's just kind of like, I don't know why I'm at university

01:07:56.560 | if I'm not actually, actually it's, it's more complicated than that. Cause that year I got into

01:08:01.680 | the youth worlds, like a international thing. And so I was going to take the semester off to

01:08:05.840 | go to worlds and travel and climb a little bit. And so now I've just taken, you know, whatever,

01:08:10.000 | like 30, 35 semesters off or something. Yeah, exactly. No, I think, I think after

01:08:15.600 | some point they were like, you're done. Yeah. Yeah. I think they closed that.

01:08:18.320 | But, um, it worked out. It certainly worked out. Yeah. The thing that we find ourselves doing when,

01:08:22.480 | um, we should be doing something else in, in the positive sense of it. Like,

01:08:27.760 | I mean, that often is the thing like it's a, that you're obsessed over. Yeah. I mean,

01:08:32.560 | it's just hard to know with that stuff though, because obviously for most people,

01:08:35.920 | they probably should get an education and get a job of some kind. Like even if you're a really

01:08:39.360 | passionate climber, I mean, most people probably aren't going to make a living as a professional

01:08:42.480 | climber. Cause it's just too small in industry and you know, the depends on your level and everything.

01:08:47.440 | I mean, I think I got kind of lucky. I mean, in a lot of ways I got lucky also just because I,

01:08:51.920 | I like soloing and it's like such a niche and not that many people do it. And the, and the level just

01:08:56.240 | wasn't that high. And so, you know, I sometimes joke, it's easy to be the best if you're the only

01:09:00.800 | one doing it, you know, it's like, it's easy to compete as the only person in the field. And

01:09:04.400 | you're kind of like, well, it makes it chill. And so, you know, I think I got lucky in a lot of ways

01:09:08.720 | like that. And so, yeah, most people probably should finish university and, and climb as they can.

01:09:13.360 | That said, I mean, if you love doing a thing, it makes sense to maybe build your life around how you

01:09:19.200 | can do that thing as much as possible, just because it keeps you energized and fired up and, you know,

01:09:23.520 | it makes the rest of your life better. I think it was Ryan Holiday that said that

01:09:26.880 | if you don't know what to do with your life and you're still trying to figure it out, definitely

01:09:30.240 | stay in college. Because, you know, there are all these tales of like Mark Zuckerberg leaving

01:09:34.400 | Harvard and Steve Jobs dropping out of Reed College and Alex Honnold leaving Berkeley and

01:09:38.800 | and eventually becoming the person that you are now. But you had a direction. There was another

01:09:44.640 | thing to lean into. It wasn't just, oh, I don't like this. I don't want to be here.

01:09:47.520 | Yeah. I mean, if you have nothing, then you drop out and you just go play video games in

01:09:51.120 | your basement or something like that's obviously not, that's not better than going to school. Like,

01:09:54.560 | you're better off going to school and broadening your horizons and doing whatever. But yeah,

01:09:58.720 | I mean, I thought I was just taking some time off and I thought that eventually I'd become a mountain

01:10:02.240 | guide or something or like teach at summer camps or I don't know, you know, because especially at the

01:10:06.240 | time the climbing industry was so much smaller, there wasn't any money. Like, I didn't think you could make

01:10:09.920 | it a living as a professional climber. And so I thought it was just kind of a fun thing. I was doing in the van for a while

01:10:14.880 | before I'd like find some kind of job or something. And then thankfully the climbing industry is kind

01:10:20.880 | of scaled at the same rate that, that, that I did as a climber. And so it, it all worked out.

01:10:26.320 | Is it the case that, um, you didn't have, uh, any monetary aspirations when you were doing it? Like,

01:10:33.520 | it sounds like you, you didn't, but, um, did you ever have the conversation with your mom? Like, you know,

01:10:39.120 | how are you going to make a living or? No. Well, so, I mean, I mentioned that my dad died,

01:10:42.800 | so my parents had just gotten divorced. And so my dad had left enough for, for my sister and me to finish college.

01:10:47.680 | And so I took that money and put it in bonds. I'm just like, I don't know what that is, but, you know,

01:10:51.680 | so I was making like a couple hundred bucks a month in bonds. And then, uh, I stole the family minivan.

01:10:57.120 | Like I said, my grandparent and my two grandfathers had died before. So like, basically my mom had inherited this

01:11:02.560 | little car that, so she was driving my grandpa's car. I took the family minivan. I was making a couple hundred bucks in bonds.

01:11:07.040 | And basically that just kind of covered any of the pressure, like the financial pressure,

01:11:11.280 | whereas like that gave me enough of a buffer that I was like, well, for several years,

01:11:14.480 | at least I can just kind of like live in this minivan and see what happens. And then after a

01:11:19.200 | couple of years I was sponsored, I was getting free product. I was getting it like a very,

01:11:23.600 | very small amount of money, but some amount of money, which is enough to sort of justify the

01:11:27.440 | whole thing. We're like, Oh, companies are paying me to do this thing. I should see how well I can do it.

01:11:31.200 | And then, and then it all kind of took off from there. But yeah, I mean, I mean, that's one of the

01:11:36.560 | ways in which I was very lucky as a climber, you know, there was like just enough financial cushion

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01:13:33.600 | It's going to sound like an odd question, but I'm very curious about this. You've been in beautiful

01:13:37.840 | places and you get a very different view of those places than most people. There's really great YouTube

01:13:44.640 | shorts of you hanging by one arm during a climb, which itself is impressive to the observer. But then

01:13:51.600 | you take some moments and you look around and you're just checking out the scene. You're clearly not

01:13:55.360 | looking at the rock that I know, even as a non-expert. And so I'm wondering this, I have reasons to ask,

01:14:02.800 | do you ever snap photos with your mind, your mind's eye? Do you have clear recollection of like,

01:14:09.040 | "Oh, I'm going to snap a shot of this, keep this one in the memory bank?"

01:14:11.520 | No, I can't remember. I mean, to me, it's more the living there day in and day out. With Freestyle

01:14:15.920 | Soling El Cap, let's say, I mean, I spent months on the wall and it's like just every day, you know,

01:14:21.680 | you're going up before sunrise a lot of the time. So you're watching the sunrise over Half Dome and

01:14:25.360 | it's like super beautiful. And then you're going down at sunset and you're watching the moon and it's

01:14:29.520 | just, I mean, it's just day in and day out. It's the most beautiful place on earth and all these amazing

01:14:34.560 | conditions. You know, sometimes it starts snowing, sometimes it's raining. It's like there are clouds

01:14:38.960 | swirling and mist or whatever. And you're just like, "Oh, it's amazing." But I don't really remember any

01:14:42.800 | specific, you know, like a snapshot of that. It's more just the overall, you're like, "Oh,

01:14:47.200 | it's just this amazing place." It's pretty, pretty awesome. Yeah. Like the freaking,

01:14:51.280 | what is it with Yosemite Falls, the, have you ever seen the, the moon rainbow thing? The firelight

01:14:57.040 | thing? No, the fire falls is a different thing. That's like with the moon and that's a different

01:15:00.880 | time of year. In like May or June, if you get a full moon, oh, the moon bow, that's what it is. It's

01:15:07.600 | like when Yosemite falls, we'll cast a moon bow. Like you'll be able to see a rainbow from the

01:15:12.480 | moonlight in the waterfall when it's at peak water. It's totally insane. My, my wife and I went for a

01:15:17.280 | romantic walk to go look at the moon bow one season because you're just there and you're like, that's

01:15:20.880 | pretty cool. You know, it's like, it's a rainbow at night. Amazing. It's really cool. We're going to

01:15:24.640 | send a lot of people to Yosemite by virtue of clouds rest and for, for the non, uh, climbers. I

01:15:29.680 | still think it's crazy that you've climbed clouds rest more than once and never climbed half dome.

01:15:32.880 | I've run clouds rest, rucked it. I've done it. I've probably done clouds rest at least a dozen

01:15:38.320 | times. That is crazy. And you have to go past half dome and half dome is the much more famous

01:15:42.720 | cousin that's closer and easier and kind of more spectacular. Well, you have to drive past it. So

01:15:46.720 | to be clear, I'm, I'm starting from sunrise. Oh, you're going from Tuolumne. I'm going from Tuolumne.

01:15:50.800 | Oh, I'm way less impressed. Oh, I thought you were going from the valley floor.

01:15:54.160 | I was thinking to myself, like, I was like, you know, clouds rest is like 15 miles up and back.

01:15:57.600 | It's like, it's, it's not gnarly. No, but going from the valley floor is really hard.

01:16:00.320 | Going from the valley floor is hard. Okay. I actually don't know many people who

01:16:03.280 | come up from the valley floor anymore. I've only done it from the valley floor.

01:16:05.200 | People tend to start at sunrise and then go down clouds rest, kind of go down the spine of it toward

01:16:10.160 | half dome. And then I know this because then recently. Yeah, there are trails between them and it's all easy.

01:16:14.160 | Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny because you were talking about rucking a heavy bag up there and I was like,

01:16:17.440 | man, that is a hard walk from the valley floor. But because I'm thinking everything

01:16:20.640 | from the valley floor, because I spent so much time in Yosemite.

01:16:22.880 | I'm starting at about 8,000 feet, finishing at about 10,000 feet.

01:16:25.760 | Yeah. Okay. I'm so much less impressed.

01:16:27.680 | Yeah. Your daughters do this.

01:16:28.800 | Yeah. Well, not quite yet.

01:16:30.160 | Your three and a half year old daughter. That's what I was saying. Like, wow, he's red. Okay.

01:16:33.040 | I mean, it's tough. I mean, 2000.

01:16:34.480 | Yeah, no, no, it's still tough.

01:16:35.920 | I mean, it's like a workout.

01:16:36.960 | But going from the valley floor is really tough.

01:16:38.960 | Yeah, that's brutal.

01:16:39.520 | Because I had one season in Yosemite where for whatever reason, I wasn't really motivated for climbing goals.

01:16:43.600 | And I called it, I said that I retired and I was on a trail running season.

01:16:46.960 | Though it's funny because I actually, I supported a bunch of my

01:16:50.480 | friends on things and I was bouldering with all my friends.

01:16:52.640 | And so, you know, I said that I have a climbing journal.

01:16:55.120 | And so by the end of the season, if you look through the journal, it would look like a normal

01:16:58.080 | season where like almost every day I was climbing with somebody, I was doing something.

01:17:00.960 | And then by the end of the season, I actually did a couple of things that I was kind of proud of.

01:17:03.920 | But the mindset going into it was like, I don't care.

01:17:06.240 | I'm just here having fun.

01:17:07.120 | I'm trail running and I'm supporting my friends on things and that's it.

01:17:10.080 | And, uh, and one of my big things that season was that I ran clouds rest from the valley floor.

01:17:14.240 | But to me, that was like a triumph of, of trail running, you know,

01:17:16.800 | because that's like a pretty big, it was like really, I don't know.

01:17:19.520 | It's like 5,000 feet over or 6,000.

01:17:21.760 | I don't know.

01:17:22.080 | It's like so far.

01:17:23.120 | Yeah.

01:17:23.440 | Uh, let's see.

01:17:24.000 | Cause it, it was like the hardest thing I'd ever run.

01:17:25.680 | Yeah.

01:17:25.840 | You're probably going at least three to 4,000 feet from the valley floor up to the meadows.

01:17:31.280 | And then another 2000 up to when the valley floor is four and top of clouds, this is 10 something.

01:17:35.920 | So you're doing six.

01:17:36.720 | Yeah.

01:17:36.960 | Yeah.

01:17:37.360 | So it's like, for me, I was like, oh, that's a, that's a lot.

01:17:40.320 | That's a trail run.

01:17:41.120 | Yeah.

01:17:41.600 | And you bring it and you're carrying water.

01:17:42.960 | Yeah.

01:17:43.600 | I just have like a little bottle and I don't know, fill in the rivers and yeah.

01:17:46.720 | I mean, I don't consider myself a serious trail runner or mountaineer certainly.

01:17:49.680 | But I, I, ever since I got my driver's license, it was like Yosemite.

01:17:53.520 | Yeah.

01:17:54.000 | It's the best, you know, and Glacier is amazing.

01:17:56.240 | Um, you know, I, and I swear I'm not sent here by the national park service, but, uh,

01:18:00.880 | I think Glacier's got some incredible scenery that, uh, everyone should make it to.

01:18:04.640 | Have you done a lot of climbing in Glacier?

01:18:05.680 | No, actually, I don't think there is that much climbing in Glacier National Park, but,

01:18:09.760 | uh, I've actually biked past on, on the way to Alaska for this like random, random journey

01:18:14.960 | I did.

01:18:15.960 | Yeah.

01:18:16.960 | Yeah.

01:18:17.960 | But, um, but no, I haven't, I haven't done much in there.

01:18:18.960 | What are the, um, if any, uh, cultural differences of climbing in the United States versus in Europe?

01:18:25.040 | It, it seems like, uh, you know, like get, get guys in that train in the Alps.

01:18:29.840 | Um, I keep saying guys, but I, I want to be fair enough for politically people, I'm not

01:18:33.840 | saying this for politically correct reasons, but there's a movie out very soon.

01:18:36.720 | Actually, an IMAX movie, I saw the trailer too.

01:18:39.120 | It's a friend of yours, a woman who's, what's she climbing?

01:18:41.360 | She's climbing the El Cap.

01:18:42.080 | Yeah.

01:18:42.240 | She's climbing El Cap in a day, like free in a day, this route called Golden Gate.

01:18:45.600 | Um, yeah, actually, surprisingly, I'm in that film much more than I thought, uh, because I

01:18:49.200 | supported her on each of her attempts.

01:18:50.880 | Uh, we're talking about Emily Harrington, who's also a professional climber, um, who, yeah,

01:18:54.640 | freed this route called Golden Gate in a day.

01:18:56.000 | And the film's, uh, called that Girl Climber.

01:18:58.240 | And I think it comes out.

01:18:59.120 | 24th.

01:19:00.640 | Yeah.

01:19:00.800 | Isn't that like soon?

01:19:01.840 | Soon.

01:19:02.160 | Yeah.

01:19:02.320 | It's one day in an IMAX, but then presumably it'll be released.

01:19:04.640 | And then some kind of theatrical release, but I think it'll be a relatively small theatrical

01:19:07.600 | release and then eventually stream and whatever.

01:19:09.600 | But anyway, this film, Girl Climber.

01:19:11.360 | Yeah.

01:19:11.840 | It's funny because she worked on this goal for a long time and I'd kind of forgotten that

01:19:15.440 | I basically supported her on each of her attempts because when you support somebody, I mean,

01:19:19.920 | this is kind of like crewing somebody's race or something.

01:19:22.160 | You know, when you support somebody, it's basically a rest day for you.

01:19:24.400 | You're like having a nice day.

01:19:25.440 | You're supporting a friend.

01:19:26.400 | It's like no pressure.

01:19:27.360 | It's all really chill.

01:19:28.400 | And so the days that I supported her were all like, you know, I mean, I remember them,

01:19:32.560 | but there was one day throughout a big season where I'd be working on other climbing goals,

01:19:35.360 | like all the things that I'm working on.

01:19:36.960 | And it's just like a fun day supporting a friend.

01:19:38.480 | But then I went and watched the movie and it's like, oh, every time she drives the wall,

01:19:41.120 | I'm like, they're supporting her.

01:19:42.080 | And I was like, oh God, I kind of forgot about all these things like a couple of years ago.

01:19:45.120 | And I don't know.

01:19:45.760 | That's awesome.

01:19:46.880 | Yeah.

01:19:47.040 | It's funny seeing the film.

01:19:47.840 | It's really, it's really inspiring.

01:19:50.080 | Is the route that she took particularly difficult?

01:19:53.040 | What, what, what's the, what's the milestone that she achieves there?

01:19:56.480 | She was the first woman to do that route in a day, free in a day.

01:20:00.160 | That route's like a harder version of the free rider.

01:20:02.160 | The thing that, that I free soloed in the film, free solo.

01:20:04.400 | But yeah, I mean, honestly, I think the film does a good job of not trying to portray it

01:20:10.480 | as anything more than it is.

01:20:12.320 | I mean, it's, it's a very difficult climbing achievement, but it's not like it, it doesn't

01:20:16.880 | need super, it's not the hardest thing ever done.

01:20:19.200 | It's not the first time that, you know, um, but it's very hard.

01:20:23.440 | And if you watch the film, you see what makes it meaningful is the level of effort that she

01:20:27.760 | puts into it.

01:20:28.480 | It's like, it's hard for her.

01:20:30.080 | She's a great climber and she puts a lot into it, a lot of herself into it.

01:20:33.200 | And eventually, I don't know, you know, spoiler, but eventually overcomes like,

01:20:36.800 | managed to do this thing that's really hard for her.

01:20:38.800 | And I think that's, which in a lot of ways is, I mean, that's climbing

01:20:42.000 | in a nutshell.

01:20:42.560 | It's like, none of it really matters.

01:20:43.920 | Cause like, even freestyling on cap, I mean, you can walk around the back.

01:20:46.320 | Like, you know, it was like, why put the years of effort into climbing the face when you can

01:20:49.520 | walk around the back?

01:20:50.480 | Like all of climbing is relatively meaningless.

01:20:52.480 | And so ultimately it's the effort that we put into it that, that, that has value.

01:20:57.440 | And so I think that's, that's what the film girl climber does a really good job of is

01:21:01.520 | sort of like, oh, wow.

01:21:02.240 | Like she puts a lot into it and therefore gets a lot out of it for herself.

01:21:06.080 | Awesome.

01:21:06.480 | And I haven't seen it yet, but clearly for the observer too.

01:21:09.360 | I mean, I find it amazing that humans love to see other humans accomplish great feats.

01:21:14.640 | You know, I think they love to see the effort.

01:21:16.800 | I mean, the accomplishment of course, but it's like, but you love seeing somebody work really

01:21:20.240 | hard at something, try really hard, like face their fears, overcome, and then, you know,

01:21:24.080 | ideally achieve something.

01:21:25.440 | But I think it's the effort that's so inspiring.

01:21:28.000 | Like, I mean, at least personally, I love to see other people try that hard because it's

01:21:31.920 | a reminder that I can try that hard if I want to.

01:21:34.160 | Yeah, no, I completely agree.

01:21:35.840 | I had made this little list before we started and I'm trying to just let my unconscious mind

01:21:41.760 | guide it more than I'm really scripting out carefully.

01:21:44.000 | And it says, uh, um, uh, Evel Knievel.

01:21:46.880 | Cause when I was growing up, like everything was Evel Knievel.

01:21:48.800 | It turned out there were many of them.

01:21:49.760 | It's all family.

01:21:50.880 | Oh yeah.

01:21:51.440 | Yeah.

01:21:52.160 | Yeah.

01:21:52.400 | A bunch of Evel Knievels.

01:21:53.280 | The Knievels.

01:21:53.920 | The Knievels.

01:21:54.640 | Yeah.

01:21:55.760 | And, you know, jumping, you know, whatever, you know, 50, maybe not 50, length to length,

01:22:01.120 | but semi trucks.

01:22:02.880 | And, and I think, you know, there's the element of danger.

01:22:06.800 | It's super impressive.

01:22:07.760 | Danny way growing up, cause I knew that kid, who is now a full grown man, doing all sorts

01:22:14.160 | of crazy stuff to the point where he was starting to go after things that for skateboarders felt a

01:22:19.120 | little bit kind of outside the box, like land speed records and things like that, you know,

01:22:23.440 | but jumping out of helicopters and certainly grump, jumping the great wall of China, just engineering

01:22:27.680 | it from scratch was super impressive.

01:22:29.920 | Um, and then I've got you here.

01:22:31.600 | And then, um, uh, Hunter Thompson, you know, like the guy just was all about like how many, uh, drug

01:22:38.160 | experiences he could have. And then his funeral was actually, um, he loved the town of Aspen.

01:22:42.400 | Uh, he had his ashes exploded over the town of Aspen in a, in a firework show.

01:22:46.720 | So that's, that's like going out the way, the way you lived, you know, that is fitting.

01:22:51.440 | Right. Um, so I think you're, I think you're absolutely right. However, that we love to

01:22:56.240 | touch into the amount of effort and training that's required. And that's the Rocky movies,

01:22:59.600 | that's, um, pretty much everything. And that's really where the, the work is like, that's the,

01:23:04.000 | that should be the inspiring part, right? Cause that's the part that one can adopt.

01:23:07.200 | The Rocky training montage. That's the best part of the movie. I mean, a lot of those films,

01:23:10.720 | the best part is the training montage where it's like cuts to the person working really,

01:23:14.480 | really hard for a long time and like getting swole. And then, then you get to the actual,

01:23:18.720 | them doing the thing and them doing the thing is, is cool, but it's like them getting ready to do

01:23:23.280 | the thing is often the part that you're like, that's so awesome. I'm all fired up. Totally.

01:23:26.800 | It's like chasing chickens and all the weird stuff. Speaking of which, um, for the non climber,

01:23:31.520 | what would be the strangest, um, aspect to your training? Do you train your feet?

01:23:35.120 | Do you train your hands in ways that are on you? But it's probably the dangling from your

01:23:38.400 | fingertips that I think a non climber would, I mean, also, I mean, I think that's the type of

01:23:43.360 | thing that a non climber just can't even interface with. Like they just can't hang from an edge,

01:23:47.360 | you know, it's like from a small, it's like the training your fingertip type stuff. Um, yeah,

01:23:51.840 | I mean, I think the, though, I mean, now there've been so many mainstream climbing things that I

01:23:56.320 | think people have a sense of that's, that's what it is. You like dangle on tiny edges and do pull-ups

01:24:00.400 | and all that kind of stuff. Well, I think, uh, I follow an Instagram account that's actually

01:24:04.080 | informative. Um, it's a former army guy who's, uh, he's a rock climber. And so it's mainly focused

01:24:11.040 | on pull-ups and things like that. And, and touching into like how you, if you change the, the speed of

01:24:15.280 | the initial one arm pull-up, like I learned to blast through the bar, like through and above the bar and

01:24:20.400 | let go and then catch it again, generates a completely different sort of motor neuron adapt, adaptation

01:24:25.600 | response than like just doing a bunch of pull-ups or, or like slow one arm pull-ups. Like the ability to be

01:24:30.400 | ballistic, but, and then also like the eccentric, like catch yourself and lower. Um, and it seems

01:24:36.400 | to have a lot of parallels with climbing. Maybe I should just go on a wall and climb. It sounds like,

01:24:40.080 | uh, do you, so I imagine that if you're bouldering, you, you end up doing all this stuff in the process

01:24:44.800 | of bouldering. Yeah, actually I was immediately like, so should I be going faster when I do pull-ups?

01:24:48.480 | Cause I've been like doing one arms at the end of a session, but like my one arms are pretty slow.

01:24:51.760 | You know, you just grab the bar and you just like struggle until you do it.

01:24:54.240 | Well, I mean, he talks about, you know, um, a lot of people can do a lot of pull-ups in full range,

01:24:58.960 | slow concentric and eccentric, but that, um, they rarely ever get to like muscle ups or to one arm

01:25:04.480 | pull-ups at the kind of level that he's pulling a ton of weight. Um, because they, there are a number

01:25:09.680 | of things that he suggests we can link to this account. Um, a lot of, there's some training of

01:25:13.840 | forearms and brachialis and hands that's required, but he said, you know, that not being able to

01:25:17.760 | generate enough force at the beginning is a reason. A lot of people don't get to the, the muscle up

01:25:22.160 | because, uh, with the muscle up, you actually, there's a little bit of a kip involved, at least

01:25:26.240 | when one's first learning it. And so people are used to kind of dragging themselves in low gear out

01:25:30.400 | of the bottom. You, it's going to be a long while before they have the strength to do a muscle up.

01:25:34.560 | Whereas if you can blast yourself out of the bum, you sort of end up almost above the bar at some

01:25:38.000 | point. I actually just started doing muscle ups again, like a couple months ago in my little home gym.

01:25:43.040 | And I was like, I haven't done a muscle up since I was a teenager. You know,

01:25:45.440 | it's like, it's a kind of a gym feat when you're a kid just to see if you can. And as an adult,

01:25:49.360 | it's just also living in a van, obviously you can't do muscle ups because there's nothing to muscle

01:25:52.800 | pass. You're like hanging from a little bar inside the van. But, um, but yeah, I started doing it again.

01:25:57.520 | I was like, oh wow, it's so explosive. I was, I was kind of like, wow, what a dude. I was so psyched.

01:26:01.680 | I could still do him. Well, yeah, then you don't need his help, but I'll, I'll send you the

01:26:05.840 | discount so you can take a look. He's got some interesting connections. I did want to, I mean,

01:26:09.520 | I was like, oh, I'm going to chat with Hooper. And I was like, so what am I supposed to be doing?

01:26:13.120 | I mean, like, that's the thing is like, well, cause I've just been doing all the same training

01:26:16.880 | stuff for 30 years. I mean, and obviously I, I, I read all the books and you know, all my friends are

01:26:21.200 | professional climbers. So we talk about this kind of stuff all the time, but there are a lot of things

01:26:24.080 | where you're always kind of as like a self-trained self-coached athlete, to some extent, you're kind

01:26:28.160 | of like, should I be doing this more? Should I be doing this less? Like, and it, I was like training a

01:26:33.520 | bunch this summer and it was really motivated. And then I've kind of just, the pendulum has kind of just

01:26:37.520 | swung back to being like, do I need to do trainee stuff? Like the calisthenics, the extra workout

01:26:42.080 | stuff, or should I just go pure climbing? Because to some extent climbing, like if you want to be a

01:26:47.280 | climber, you just climb. Like if you have energy left over, you should just climb harder or climb more.

01:26:52.560 | You don't necessarily need to save it for workout stuff and training stuff.

01:26:56.320 | So I don't know, but yeah. What do you think?

01:26:59.920 | Okay. Well, I'm not going to tell Alex Honnold how to change his training, especially before you take

01:27:04.080 | on a big milestone. I mean, all I can say is what, and I don't have a degree in exercise physiology,

01:27:11.120 | what I do have a degree in is 35 years of trying to get stronger. I'm naturally pretty, I would say

01:27:17.680 | like medium joints. I'm not like real thick joints, like my bulldog, you know, like some of those guys

01:27:22.160 | that just have like naturally the joints. But I'm actually keeping some endurance and some degree of

01:27:28.480 | of explosivity, but mostly strength and endurance have been the two main things.

01:27:32.240 | To me, the thing that has just been the most beneficial is what Pavel Satsulin taught me when

01:27:37.680 | he came here, which is take a weight that you can maybe do six or seven, maybe eight reps with,

01:27:44.480 | and do three repetitions, sit down and just do many more sets and rest a long period of time.

01:27:51.040 | If you have time to do that, that really like that really work those fast twitch motor units.

01:27:57.040 | - You mean do the reps faster?

01:27:59.360 | - Well, no, not necessarily. So if you take a weight that you could do maximum eight,

01:28:03.280 | like you'd fail somewhere between seven and eight repetitions, you take the weight,

01:28:07.120 | maybe even add a little bit and you just do three repetitions. You don't go to failure,

01:28:10.800 | but you do many more sets. So you might do, let's say some sort of push pull. So like a shoulder press

01:28:16.560 | of some sort, or, and then if you could get eight, you do three or four, but then you go do your pull-ups.

01:28:22.400 | You might do your, you know, sort of ballistic pull-ups that we were talking about before. I'm

01:28:25.440 | actually getting a lot of progress from those, like trying to blast through and past the bar and kind

01:28:29.920 | of catch it below me. - Keep your muscle up?

01:28:30.720 | - I'm almost there. I'm kipping too much when I do it. So I'm doing it, but I'm kind of like throwing

01:28:35.920 | myself up there. I'm not doing like a, like a super controlled muscle up yet soon. That's the goal.

01:28:40.720 | Um, but not training to failure seems to be really beneficial if you don't want to eat into your

01:28:47.040 | recovery too much. There's something about hitting muscular failure that's great for generating

01:28:50.400 | hypertrophy, but it really, according to Pavel and I'm finding this too, it sort of teaches your nervous

01:28:55.600 | system to reach that static point where you can't move any longer. And it really eats into your recovery

01:29:00.480 | ability. So I'm able to now train muscle groups that I used to only be able to recover if I train them

01:29:04.800 | once or twice a week. I can train them like three or four days a week and I'm making much more progress

01:29:09.520 | overall, but there's no single set where I'm like grinding out that last final rep.

01:29:13.760 | - That's interesting. So if, so, uh, like, so bench pressing, for example, like that's actually the

01:29:18.800 | only weight that I move around is I, I, I bench like when I'm at home and have like my own little home gym,

01:29:24.400 | I, uh, bench press like twice a week, let's say. And, uh, I feel like it's like good for shoulder

01:29:29.440 | stability, health. I know it's like nice to balance. Cause as a climber, you're always pulling.

01:29:32.800 | So it's like, I do, that's my only pushing basically. And so, um, so I can do like,

01:29:37.440 | I normally do three sets of five or six. It's just kind of like a basic something.

01:29:42.000 | So you're saying I should do like six sets or like eight, eight sets of three or something.

01:29:46.720 | - Yeah. Maybe even maybe eight sets of, of three to four with slightly more weight,

01:29:50.880 | but don't go to failure and obviously have a spotter. There are these horrible instances

01:29:54.480 | where people are benching at home and they don't have a spotter.

01:29:56.080 | - Well, I only have a dumbbells anyway.

01:29:57.520 | - Okay, perfect. That's, that's the best way to do it.

01:29:59.760 | - Yeah. It seems, it seems like that's the type of thing too. Also, I kind of like the dumbbells

01:30:03.600 | because it seems more like so much of what I care about is shoulder stability and whatever.

01:30:06.800 | And I'm kind of like, oh, it seems like dumbbells are good for that.

01:30:08.560 | - Yeah. Barbell bench. I'm going to catch a lot of shit for this, but barbell bench press,

01:30:11.760 | there's a lot of ego involved.

01:30:13.040 | - Yeah. It's too showy. I'm like, I don't need that shit.

01:30:14.720 | - I, I've never actually done a single rep max for a barbell bench press. Never been curious enough.

01:30:21.040 | - Cause you don't have enough friends to help spot that weight.

01:30:22.720 | - You don't have enough friends. Exactly.

01:30:23.680 | - You need like six guys to go to bar.

01:30:24.560 | - I'm all alone. I'm studying and I'm bench pressing alone in my basement.

01:30:28.320 | Another reason to use dumbbells, but yet taking a weight that you could do seven or eight repetitions

01:30:33.520 | and doing three or four or maybe five, and then just setting it down and going, doing something

01:30:38.160 | else, maybe for an opposing muscle group, and then coming back to it so that your total rest is somewhere.

01:30:42.320 | - I might try that particularly for the benching, because I do actually get kind of sore from like,

01:30:46.320 | - Being sore sucks. And you get really strong. I never would have thought this because I,

01:30:51.680 | I came up in the lineage of, I learned from Mike Menser, who was like a, he was an ex-bodybuilder,

01:30:57.040 | but then he trained Dorian Yates, who won the Olympia many times. And that whole philosophy was

01:31:01.680 | around doing one or two sets to absolute failure with four straps and drop sets and all the,

01:31:07.440 | all the stuff that builds a lot of muscle, but makes you very sore. And so Pavel sat right where

01:31:12.800 | you're sitting. And he was just like, try this, find movements you can do safely,

01:31:16.720 | load up the bar and do far fewer reps, many more sets. And perhaps even divide those sets

01:31:22.720 | across two days during the week, as you're already doing, as opposed to just training a muscle group

01:31:26.560 | once per week. - Do people do that, doing seven months a week?

01:31:28.960 | - I only train my legs once a week and I'm getting stronger most every workout, but I sprint on a

01:31:33.920 | separate day. So that's kind of a leg workout. - Yeah, it seems like a leg workout.

01:31:36.560 | - I don't have great recovery ability, never have. So it's - And you're pushing 50.

01:31:40.720 | - What's that? And I'm pushing 50. And I didn't run from the valley floor.

01:31:43.840 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:31:44.640 | - You know, exactly. I definitely have found that if I avoid going to muscular,

01:31:51.280 | momentary muscular failure, as it's called, far less soreness, far better recovery,

01:31:55.760 | and you get really strong, which is crazy. You would think the opposite.

01:31:59.280 | - Yeah. Do you think once a week is enough

01:32:00.800 | stimulus basically to like build? - If you do enough sets, but probably twice,

01:32:06.640 | you know, the, the data seem to show that the muscle protein synthesis is initiated

01:32:10.560 | after those workouts. And then it takes anywhere from 48 to 72 hours before it, you know, it subsides.

01:32:16.240 | I just personally find if I train my legs once a week, but then I sprint four or five days later,

01:32:21.280 | that's sort of two leg workouts. - Yeah.

01:32:23.200 | - You know, so it's really twice a week. And then I do a push pull day and then I do a separate

01:32:27.840 | day for my arms and extremities. And, and, and that ends up training, you know, chest and shoulders and

01:32:33.760 | back again. So it's really twice per week. One is directly. - Yeah. So you're doing all your

01:32:36.560 | stuff basically twice a week. - Yeah.

01:32:37.680 | - But everything heavy, like really heavy, never going, I don't think I've done above eight reps

01:32:42.160 | this year. I'm stronger than ever. And I can run really far, which is, so the two things, I always

01:32:47.200 | thought those were. - Do you do a long run during the week or something?

01:32:48.880 | - I do one for me, very long run, which means an hour to an hour and a half of just running with

01:32:52.800 | a 10 pound weight vest. - Oh, why?

01:32:54.480 | - Just to make sure that the small stabilizing muscles are strong. And also because I want to be able to just

01:33:00.800 | show up to clouds rest and just do it. I don't want to have to train for things in life. - Yeah.

01:33:06.000 | - And I love, also, I love running. I mean, just that low, that slow pace at first, just, it sucks.

01:33:11.280 | And then after about 20 minutes, you're just like, I could go all day. This is awesome. I don't know.

01:33:16.080 | That that's been my regimen now for almost 35 years to train each muscle group once a week, directly,

01:33:21.120 | indirectly, a long run. And I try and do one sprint run. But, but again, I'm not going to tell Alex,

01:33:25.760 | Alex Honnold had a, had a train, but, but you might find if you don't like getting sore and you want to

01:33:31.920 | get stronger, you're hearing it from me, but it's really Pavel Satsulin that deserves the credit for

01:33:37.120 | this. - Yeah, no, I'll try that for sure. Because particularly with something like benching, where

01:33:41.360 | it's like, I don't really care about pushing muscles, but when you're, when your pec or whatever,

01:33:46.160 | whatever this muscle is like the, you know, connecting your shoulders, it's like, yeah, it's like so sore.

01:33:50.240 | And then that kind of affects all your pulling as well. And so you're kind of like, oh, you just don't

01:33:53.280 | need to get that sore doing something that's like a side activity anyway.

01:33:57.200 | - Yeah. Yeah. They, and I'm guessing you're already getting it from your climbing, but I found

01:34:02.400 | that, um, anytime I'm doing pushing, which is, you know, basically all the time, um, making sure

01:34:09.200 | that I train like some rear, rear deltoid type thing where you're pulling, getting that smaller muscle

01:34:13.840 | in the back of the shoulders, because a lot of people, you don't have this problem, but if you

01:34:16.800 | look at a lot of people lift weights, they just stand passively, their thumbs kind of point towards

01:34:20.720 | their groin. Like they're kind of internally rotated. - They're rolling in, yeah.

01:34:23.920 | - Yeah. Whereas if you look at people who kind of do like the, the Fonzie thing, like you want your

01:34:28.560 | shoulder, you want your thumbs, like if you were just stand or sit naturally, your thumb's pointing

01:34:32.400 | straight forward. So you're looking like, like I've met Mike Tyson and like, he's like this, but like he's

01:34:36.880 | spent his whole life in that peekaboo stance, right? Then you meet people like you or people who

01:34:41.680 | practice yoga regularly or the really like most impressive postures and physiques are

01:34:46.640 | the dancers, right? Like Eric Jarvis was on this podcast. He's a neuroscientist, but he used to,

01:34:51.200 | um, he was accepted into the Allen, uh, uh, is it Allen Evely dance company? It was like, you know,

01:34:56.800 | elite dance company, or you see like a Twyla Tharp who's in her eighties and like in, she doesn't

01:35:01.760 | look like she's rigidly upright. She's just upright. And that's how I want to be when I'm in my eighties.

01:35:07.200 | So hard. Well, it's just, she spends two hours a day in the gym, seven days a week.

01:35:11.840 | Wow.

01:35:12.160 | 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM. And she's in her eighties. And then three hard boiled eggs. And then she gets

01:35:19.360 | to work like, yeah, she's, I'm like, that's a healthy lifestyle. She's and cognitively, she's

01:35:25.040 | just so strong, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No climbers definitely have issues with posture like that,

01:35:30.640 | because if you spend your whole life just pulling, like, you know, climbing, if you just climb,

01:35:34.320 | you're just doing pulling things. And so you wind up kind of like, well, actually you kind of wind

01:35:38.000 | punch. I think it's because like, you still use some of these muscles for, for pulling. And so

01:35:41.840 | you just wind up kind of tight in different ways. Yeah. But yeah. So things like that put you in a

01:35:45.760 | bridge pose and like in, in like spinal extension, um, those seem to be, uh, very useful. Yeah. As I,

01:35:51.920 | again, I'm not a elite athlete or even a competitive athlete, but I find that doing things that just

01:35:57.280 | like a long, slow run, a sprint day, um, training heavy with weights, but being able to, you know, run for

01:36:03.520 | 30 minutes. I mean, it's just, I don't think I need a degree in exercise physiology to just,

01:36:08.080 | it didn't make sense. You're just, I'm trying to be upper end of average, um, at everything,

01:36:14.320 | but that's very different than what you're trying to do. Obviously you're an elite athlete.

01:36:17.520 | Yeah. But some of the stuff like running, like, uh, like I went for a one hour run yesterday. I've

01:36:22.240 | been trying to run one day a week, just like great for an hour once a week. And, and then I try to do one

01:36:26.960 | kind of cardio adventure once a week, which is like climb a mountain or do something, you know,

01:36:30.080 | awesome anywhere from like two to four hours, let's say, but hopefully with like 3000 plus feet

01:36:34.400 | of bird or something, just like go up a thing to kind of trot down. And that's kind of enough to

01:36:38.560 | maintain cardio. I mean, this is kind of like family lifestyle. Cause the thing is like when I was living

01:36:43.120 | in a van by myself, you're just doing that stuff on rest days all the time. Cause you're kind of like,

01:36:46.400 | Oh, I'm going to sum up this new peak or like check out this hike or do whatever. But now that I'm living

01:36:50.400 | in a place and, you know, taking kids to school and all that, it's like, I kind of have to be a little

01:36:53.680 | more structured with, with just like, I'm going to go and, but so yeah, now I'm definitely thinking

01:36:58.880 | about all this a little more. It's like, is this enough cardio? Is this, you know, is this work?

01:37:02.880 | But I think that that lays a good foundation to be able to do things. Like I'm going to be in Yosemite

01:37:06.480 | this season and, uh, you know, I'm aspiring to climb stuff on all cap, not free saling necessarily,

01:37:11.680 | or not free saling at all, but maybe some like rope saling, maybe some speed stuff, maybe whatever.

01:37:16.080 | But either way, I just want to be able to climb 3000 feet relatively quickly without being that tired.

01:37:20.400 | And so it seems like for running or for mountain climbing, it's like, oh, you just have to be able

01:37:24.480 | to do that kind of vertical without getting too fatigued. Yeah. I think the one day a week long run,

01:37:29.760 | one day, uh, one day a week, like 30 minute run at a faster clip. And then one day a week sprint training.

01:37:35.360 | Um, I mean, you're covering all bases there. Um, that's three days a week of running though.

01:37:40.880 | I'm like, I don't like one of them is like 12 minutes long. You warm up for three minutes.

01:37:44.160 | It's sprint training 12 minutes. Yeah. Cause you're, you know, you, you warm up and then you run a 400,

01:37:48.640 | you know, and then you, you walk a lap, you do a 200, you walk a lap, you do a 100. And like,

01:37:54.080 | you're going not all out, all out, but close. Yeah. You can hurt yourself sprinting all out,

01:37:58.800 | all out. We, um, uh, had Stu McMillan, who's an elite sprint coach, trained a lot of Olympians and

01:38:04.000 | gold medalists. And, um, yeah, running full speed is like how you hurt yourself. You pop a hand string

01:38:10.240 | or something like you, but are you at a track? I prefer to attract. Sometimes I'll do it in the

01:38:14.480 | soft sand. And when I use a vest, I should say, and I have no, I have no sponsorship relationship to them.

01:38:19.760 | A more foe makes these vests that are like, like it looks, it's kind of funny to call it this, but it

01:38:24.000 | looks more like a kind of vest that, you know, you, you know, like a dress vest and it's got ball bearings

01:38:29.040 | in it. So it's not like, like one of those, like, uh, police type vests. Yeah. And so that eight or 10

01:38:35.600 | pounds that they make up to 12 pounds, I think it's just enough to give you some extra work on that long

01:38:40.240 | run. And then on the day when you sprint, you feel like you have, you know, uh, jet propulsion, you know,

01:38:46.800 | you've, I feel like that. I realize I don't, but yeah, and then all the little stabilizer things,

01:38:52.720 | like you don't have any, like, like aching, like you're not really, you seem like a very balanced

01:38:57.280 | in terms of your overall structure. That's one thing that I've really noticed about climbers.

01:39:00.800 | Like you see guys that are in the gym. I've spent a fair amount of time in gyms and there's this

01:39:04.640 | phenotype where they've got these big wide shoulders, wide back and the whole thing.

01:39:08.480 | And then they got like this little head and a little neck and you go with their upper spot,

01:39:12.800 | and they're not training their neck. And it looks crazy. I mean, I don't know if anyone has told them

01:39:16.000 | this, but they're like, you know, I walked by and I'm like, don't skip neck day, you know, but, um,

01:39:20.400 | but you know, when a body is out of balance like that, like if you saw a giant dog with a tiny head and neck,

01:39:25.120 | you'd be like, that dog is crazy looking.

01:39:26.800 | There are a lot of dog breeds like that where you're like that dog, you're like,

01:39:29.440 | hard to believe it came from a wolf.

01:39:30.560 | Exactly. You're so inbred. So right. The, the healthiest version of something that can move

01:39:34.960 | best is always fairly balanced. It seems like climbers are very balanced.

01:39:37.920 | No, I think, I think climbing is, is one of the healthiest sports and like lifestyles and,

01:39:42.080 | and also just, it's so fun. Like going to a gym, you hang out with your friends. It's like,

01:39:46.160 | it's mostly really chill. You mostly hang out and chit chat. And like, if you do a gym session,

01:39:49.680 | you feel like you just went and hung out with your friends all the time, but then you also wind up fit and mobile and,

01:39:54.640 | you know, pretty strong and, and so much of climbing is strength to weight. And so you just

01:39:58.240 | wind up kind of like lean and not like a big gym, gym bro kind of thing.

01:40:02.960 | Which I think is healthier as one ages too. Like you, you want to maintain muscle and hold on to

01:40:07.440 | muscle, but there's all sorts of things associated with being heavily muscled where people end up with

01:40:11.840 | some kind of sleep apnea or pseudo sleep apnea because the neck is thick and it blocks the airwaves.

01:40:16.880 | And, you know, sleep apnea is one of the biggest health risks. It, you know, people, not just heart

01:40:21.360 | attacks during sleep, but I mean, you're basically clogging all the, the blood flow and cleaning out of

01:40:26.160 | your brain that happens during sleep. It's very, very common in bigger people, either because they're fat or

01:40:30.880 | heavily muscled, but it's one of the reasons a lot of bodybuilders.

01:40:33.680 | Oh my goodness. I've never put on that much muscle.

01:40:35.360 | Yeah. Well, well, you can clearly generate a lot of force doing what you're doing. I'm curious how

01:40:39.200 | you deal with cramps when you're, when you're on the rock, like, no, you don't, you just don't,

01:40:43.120 | you just don't really cramp. You don't cramp.

01:40:44.640 | Yeah, not really. I've never, I mean, sometimes, you know, if you're trying to climb El Cap in a day,

01:40:49.680 | like a, like an 18 hour ascent or something, uh, like climbing with a rope, uh, but free ascent.

01:40:54.960 | So like basically if you're doing a really long climbs, some of my friends sometimes will cramp because you're like

01:40:58.800 | late into a, you know, post 12 hours into an athletic activity or just a little more likely,

01:41:04.480 | but I never, I never have pretty much in general, all my athletic performance is always a steady

01:41:09.120 | decline where I start and I'm doing great. And then over the next, you know, 10 to 48 hours,

01:41:14.560 | I just slowly get worse at a relatively linear rate, except that normally before sunrise of the next day,

01:41:21.200 | it starts to drop quite a bit more, you know, like as you start getting close to 24 hours,

01:41:24.560 | you're like, I'm pretty fucking tired. Yeah. It's like, but then when the sun comes up,

01:41:28.080 | you've really like boost back up again. And so then you're pretty good again.

01:41:31.280 | You just keep on the linear decline. So these are all night climbs.

01:41:34.560 | Yeah. I mean, I've done a lot,

01:41:35.440 | I've done quite a number of things now that are like more than 24 hour outings, you know?

01:41:40.240 | I mean, that's typically like climbing or mountain. So you're like hiking and climbing and

01:41:44.240 | then hiking some more and climbing some more doing whatever. But yeah, generally, you know,

01:41:49.040 | by 24 to 36 hours, you're just, you're just a worse version of what you used to be. You know,

01:41:53.920 | you're just, you're just tired and risk goes up when you're sleep deprived. I mean, that's, uh,

01:41:58.080 | well, like where, yeah, judgment gets worse. Uh, uh, reflexes get worse. Like everything is worse.

01:42:03.360 | Sleep is, is key, but yeah, that circadian clock phenomenon where like you've been up all night,

01:42:08.480 | but then you start waking up again. It's, uh, yeah, it's pretty incredible.

01:42:12.160 | I mean, also some of it with outdoor stuff is that, uh, just when you can see again, you know,

01:42:16.480 | it's like you've been going by headlamp for so long. And typically by that point,

01:42:19.600 | your headlamp is kind of dying and you just don't see that well. And then the sun comes up and you're

01:42:22.960 | like, thank God. And it's not cold anymore. You're just like this sun. So you get this like breath of

01:42:27.520 | fresh air and then you just keep grinding. Have you, um, ever had, or do you have any kind of like

01:42:35.360 | leaning towards this, like mystical experiences? Like, do you, do you believe in any of that?

01:42:40.560 | No, I've, I've always been a fierce atheist. Uh, technically I was raised Catholic. So like,

01:42:46.240 | I know religion a bit. Um, and I've just never, I've always been like, you know,

01:42:50.160 | it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm like, yeah, I'm strongly unreligious though. I mean,

01:42:54.560 | I've been in so many beautiful places on earth and had so many, you know, what some would characterize

01:42:59.920 | as spiritual experiences, like feeling a oneness with nature, like a connection, you know,

01:43:03.360 | or just awe inspiring beauty. You know, when you're somewhere and you look out and you're like,

01:43:06.400 | God, the universe is so incredible. This is like the world is magical place. So, you know,

01:43:11.680 | I'm certainly open to general spiritualism, I suppose, or, you know, but no, I'm, I'm very

01:43:18.720 | opposed to organized religion. Basically. Biology is awe inspiring. Yeah. That's the thing is I'm like,

01:43:24.000 | I think there's enough wonder in the world and in the universe without adding all the layers of dogma,

01:43:28.160 | basically like all the weird things that you don't really need to believe.

01:43:32.960 | I can't help but tell you this cause I, I find it fascinating and I think you might find it

01:43:37.520 | interesting. If, if not then forgive me. Speaking of Berkeley, there was a laboratory at Berkeley that

01:43:44.080 | wanted to understand how geckos could walk up walls. And for a long time, it was thought that it was like

01:43:48.720 | suction of some sort, but then it turns out they could do it in a vacuum. So it means that it can't be

01:43:54.800 | suction. It turns out they have these little pedals on their, on their fingertips and they can push those

01:44:01.760 | pedals. They're fed, they're like feather, organized like sort of like feathers. They can push them so

01:44:07.360 | close to the surface that they're climbing that they use what are called van der Waal forces,

01:44:11.680 | which is the exchange of molecules between the surface and those pedals. And they're making and

01:44:16.480 | breaking those van der Waal forces as they climb. Really? It's like Spiderman. It's like magical.

01:44:21.120 | Yes. So as they climb, they're exchanging molecules with the surface they're climbing,

01:44:25.520 | which I find absolutely amazing. I realize that's not how you're climbing. Well, I'm sweating all over the

01:44:29.760 | wall. So it's kind of the same idea. And I'm leaving skin behind. You're like, oh, my tips,

01:44:34.800 | it hurts.

01:44:35.360 | Well, you may not feel a kinship to them, but I have a feeling they feel a kinship to you because

01:44:39.600 | they're, they are world-class climbers. I just find it amazing that they've evolved some way to

01:44:45.040 | literally exchange molecules. So you spent a lot of time on the rock. I'm sure that you're carrying some,

01:44:49.680 | some granite in you by now.

01:44:51.360 | Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. No, that's cool. I mean, you see a lot of creatures on, on walls

01:44:56.400 | like that. You know, you see like little frogs wandering up and down. I mean, even something like

01:44:59.440 | El Cap that looks like a 3000 foot solid cliff. I mean, they're, they're rodents running up and down

01:45:03.440 | the cracks. They're, they're frogs in there. There are all kinds of birds. They're bats. So you see all

01:45:07.200 | these creatures roaming around. You're just kind of like, oh, they're just living. They're just up here

01:45:10.480 | doing their thing. And you know, I mean, climbing is so relatively hard for humans. And then, yeah,

01:45:14.960 | and then you're up there and like, it's just, it's just all part of the natural environment for all the

01:45:18.640 | other creatures. I didn't realize there are frogs up there. I didn't, I've seen birds go by. I think

01:45:22.960 | there are a couple of clips in free solo birds go by. Yeah. They live in all the cracks off. And when

01:45:26.320 | you put your hands in birds, they'll like run down your arm and fly out of the crack and things like

01:45:29.440 | that. And you're like, whoa, it's startling. Yeah. It's startling. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, or it's very startling

01:45:34.240 | the first time and then, you know, less startling the subsequent times, but you're always kind of like,

01:45:38.560 | oh wow, a swift just ran down my arm. That's wild. I was like, it's cool.

01:45:41.360 | Well, Alex, you've inspired and continue to inspire so many people. And I think you hit the nail on the

01:45:48.560 | head when you said it's the effort involved. You know, I think that many people might think it's the

01:45:54.240 | summiting and like standing on top of the rock and that those are moments that thanks to you,

01:45:58.880 | we've been fortunate enough to share and experience, you know, indirectly, but clearly it's the effort

01:46:05.440 | involved. And I actually think that's why people are so intrigued by what you do.

01:46:09.120 | In addition to the fact that it's in beautiful places and incredibly high risk, high consequence,

01:46:14.240 | it's like you, it's so clear that you're regimented and you're, and that you love what you do and that

01:46:19.600 | you put a ton of effort into it. And the way you describe climbing with your friends, I think is the

01:46:25.200 | best hook sales pitch for climbing ever. Like hanging out with your friends, talking and getting better and

01:46:30.480 | physically healthier. And it puts you in a place to go have bigger adventures and experience life

01:46:36.080 | more richly. Let's also get you back some time after this next big feat. We can't talk too much

01:46:41.120 | about it. It'll be amazing. Awesome. All right. Well, we'll see you after that climb. Cool. Thank you.

01:46:45.680 | Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Alex Honnold. If you're learning from and or

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How to Set & Achieve Massive Goals | Alex Honnold

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