Charlie Schreiber - TRAIN Like a World Cup Climber

0:00 Maybe I was, you know, quote unquote being used, but it was, it felt like a symbiotic relationship. You know, is this dude like taking my blood and, and doing weird stuff with my blood? Like I don't know. Number one, let them eat spray. That is like, that is feed. If you have kids that you're coaching, feed them a spray wall diet. That is their 50 % of their diet should be spray wall.

0:22 I think that people have to realize that V17 is not that hard. If you start at a young age. When a kid walks in the gym, they hear dude dude come check this out. I set this for you You know what fireworks go off in a child? It's it's never give up on a kid Even if they seem like they don't like the sport and it's not clicking never give up Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest for today, Charlie Schreiber. Charlie is the founder of Paradigm Climbing and he has been coaching climbing athletes from the beginner to elite level for over 17 years. In this episode, we'll hear about a suspicious supplement sponsorship he had when

1:03 he was a kid, what his World Cup experience was like back in the day, why he thinks competition climbing has turned way too much into not real climbing, and of course, everything coaching related. I hope you enjoy this episode with Charlie. Please pardon this brief intermission, but let me tell you about Madrock's Remora Pro. You can now see several pros wearing Madrock shoes during competitions and here's why. If you like being able to feel the chips you're standing on and you like not having to worry about standing on sketchy volumes, then the Remora Pro is Madrock's softest aggressive shoe offering. They also have a crazy 3D heel that allows you to get more surface area when heel hooking and inserts that lock

1:57 your heel into the shoe no matter how hard you're pulling. Feel free to message me if you have any questions about the shoes or sizing, and you can use the discount code notrealclimber for 10 % off your entire Mad Rock order. Thank you to Mad Rock for helping to sponsor this podcast. Now back to the show. How are you doing today?

2:19 I'm good. I've got a big old busy day today. And I'm just at the The start of it, I've got 280, hold on, it's actually more than that. Oh no, 280 messages to go through. 13 programs to write. This morning I did my social media and my comment responses, my DM responses, and my emails. Been going since seven. And yeah, so I've got a full day ahead. That's a lot. They started early today as well. Oh, yeah. And it used to be so much worse. I was working with 194 people at the peak. Oh, my God. And yeah, it was too much. Now we're down to, I think, like 115. I haven't been letting people sign up for a little over a year now. So. Wow. Yeah.

3:19 I thought it was going to drop fast, but people don't leave. Oh, no. This is good. It's great. It hurts to break up with people and tell them you can't sign up again. Well, actually, to be completely fair, I did stop accepting anyone to re -enroll. I was going to actually make a one -time exception for an athlete who I just love working with her, but I have to get to the next level of being able to help more people and I can't do that while I'm helping a fixed amount of people. And so I did in the beginning not let the first couple of people come back on because they required much more attention.

4:02 They're just high level competitors and I love working with them, but they just take so much more time and that's the job and that's the job I love doing. But you can only, you know, it's like Roman Krashnik is, you know, like the best coach on the planet potentially. He works with the Slovenian team and that's it. We're like done. Yeah, and so he helps one or a couple of people as opposed to somebody that can create a ton of programming and guidance and mentorship and market that so that you can my goal is to basically make it so I have and Like a whole world that someone can enter and just be fostered from day one climber to get as far as they want, never doing the wrong thing, understanding the

4:54 exact right way to train and understand the world of training and climbing and progression and sports science, your body, your mind, all of it. And it takes a lot of work to get to that point, to help millions. That's what I want to do. We'll definitely get into what is training the wrong way, maybe a bit later. I was just thinking about what you were saying about Roman and training Yanya and I guess I kind of wonder like how much do you think is actually coming from his coaching versus if Yanya trained with any coach, she would still be that good. No way to tell. Yeah. No way to know. I don't know what goes on behind those scenes. I wish I did. But, you know, I think that what you are alluding

5:43 to is No, I'd say 95 % you know, there's like that that correlation of athlete being on the trajectory that they're on and then you add the variable of coach and of course a bad coach Can thank you. Yeah, like you can Be convinced to do the wrong thing and then you get hurt. That's like the furthest end of the spectrum, but What I try to instill in all my athletes, and this is what Yanya is, is that a champion becomes a champion. A champion is made way before they become a champion. And the best in our sport were destined to get there because they had the right habits, they had the right discipline, mindset, focus, people around them, environment.

6:37 I mean, all those things are both internal. and externals that they got lucky with, but the internals are really what truly make you reach your potential or not. And you can have all the best stuff, but if you just can't stop climbing when you should stop climbing, you'll never get to where you could otherwise get. Yeah, I'm sure he probably has to hold her back quite a lot. Before we get too deep into your philosophy, let's hear a little bit more about your background of how you got into climbing and then a bit of competing and then finally landing on coaching. Sure. I was a jock. I was on all sports teams. Baseball and basketball were my big ones and baseball, especially I was on four teams playing on at least two teams

7:28 all year round. Thought that's what I was going to go to college for and wanted to be in MLB. And I also skated on the side because I just loved ADHD. I have ADHD and just loved the idea of not having to stand there and wait for the game to come to me and go get the game and be in the game whenever I wanted. Skating was like that. And it's also endless variety. You have so many different styles of things you can do, different tricks anywhere, every time you go to any gap or stairs or whatever, it's always different. And I loved that. And I was driving with my parents on the highway. And I remembered there was an old skate park that was attached to my baseball facility that I trained at. And I asked him if I could go in and get a new helmet

8:17 because I needed one. And I went in there and it was no longer a skate park. It was a rock climbing gym, the Gravity Vault in Upper Sal River. And I just in that moment, I saw those walls. And I've never, I had never felt that feeling and I've never felt it since, that it was just the most unbelievable awakening I had ever experienced. It was the coolest thing I ever, cool is a horrible way of describing it.

8:44 It was like, it felt like I discovered another planet that I was actually meant to live on that planet and I had always been on the wrong planet. That's really what it felt like. And I asked him to try it. they let me do two walk -ins in a row, which was two climbs, and I was like, I need to come back. Came back every day for two weeks straight, and then they wouldn't let me. My skin was all ripped up, I had tape all over my hands, and they wouldn't let me buy a day pass again because they forced me to take a rest day with the climbing team. Really? Yeah.

9:19 Interesting. Yeah. And then, well, I think they just like... They said I you need to take a rest day that you can't keep coming in that you're gonna get hurt and my mom was like, oh, okay Well, then let's just not do that. I'm sure she had something else to do But I joined the team and have not lost that same psych for a I lost that psych for one a single two -hour period in my entire 20 years of climbing and Gained it right back. So you joined like the competition team then? Yes. Oh, yeah. So I joined two weeks.

9:50 No, no, no, I joined the intermediate team and then went up to the advanced team the next month and was on that team for like maybe four months and then made it onto the competitive team. I was lucky with the... Yeah, it was really fast. I knew a kid that was on the competitive team when I joined that intermediate team. He was actually my neighbor's good friend from his school.

10:14 It's crazy that this kid also climbed and I just went in and climbed with him a couple of times and had that... Really strong climber to chase and I was competitive because I grew up in competitive sports and we were good friends but I've definitely wanted to catch him and Caught him past him and then there were two kids in my age category now in the state of New actually one was in New Jersey and one was in New York like an hour away and they had placed first and second at nationals in two different years and those kids were incredibly strong and skilled and that's who I started hanging out with and that's who I started chasing and then I caught them and then I started doing open comps when I was 16 and started winning some

11:03 when I was 17 and then won a lot of, it was probably like 30 % of the open comps I would win in like the East Coast area for like a three year period and had one year where I was winning like almost every single one. and then got hurt when I won the Tri -State Championship and I went to the World Cups because I placed well enough at the Nationals and then came back. I was trying to make the U .S. team for the Olympics and I got a big sponsor that was paying me $2 ,000 a month to train for that. Oh, that is not bad at all.

11:41 Yeah, it was great because I was a full -time setter and that was the thing. That's actually a crazy side quest story of how I got that sponsorship. Do you want to get into it? Yeah, it's actually really wild. Maybe some people can learn from it. Yeah, okay. This is a good story for sure. There was this guy whose name was Van Merkle.

12:03 I'm just going to name drop him full on. And I worked at a Ninja Warrior gym. It was called High Exposure. It was Ninja Warrior and climbing. That's where I started coaching Adam Shahar and Austin Hoyt. They both came to the gym because it was Ninja Warrior. And then their first day climbing was with me. Oh, yeah. And then I got a chance. That was why I'm so close with those kids was that was their first day climbing, ran their tryout, coached them for their first four years. And yeah, anyway, so I'm there and I'm in the best shape of my life. I had also just gone on the American Ninja Warrior show, was training with Joe Moravsky. And I know it was wild time. And this guy comes and he just wants

12:44 to get up the Warped Wall and do the Salmon Ladder was like a long term goal of his. So day one, I get him up the Warped Wall. this guy tips me $500 for an hour lesson because I got him up the wall. I was like, whoa, he's from Ohio. I think Ohio. Yeah, he's from Ohio. And he flew there, flew to the gym just to take this lesson.

13:04 So he goes home and then he flies back the next month. And I had been telling him about my dreams to make it to the Olympics, but I'm setting, you know, I was the only setter of the gym. I was head setting this big climbing gym by myself setting four days a week. for about, it was usually like 30 -ish hours I would be setting for and then I would coach afterwards. It's a really busy schedule. I loved it though, loved setting.

13:33 I didn't realize that you were insane when I first saw you. The only reason I've gotten here, work. Just hours of work. And so he comes back and he brings me this eStim, which I still have and will still use occasionally. It's like a 500 -something dollar eStim. and tells me he wants to get me up the he wants to do the salmon ladder because we hadn't been able to do it that first day just at the warp wall get him up that and he says okay so here's here's another tip for today tips me seven hundred and fifty dollars now i'm like god what is this guy doing he's like i also want to make a proposal to you i will uh what I do is I'm yes I'm a chiropractor but I run a health agency in which we bring people

14:17 in we evaluate their blood their urine their stool and other things and then we give them like pills supplements and vitamins and all these things to get your blood and you know everything correct you know your vitals will look great you won't have any imbalances so he did that for me and the deal was he'll do that for me and he'll pay me $2 ,000 a month. So I don't have to set as much and all in return to go on his podcast and to do it basically be a case study for his work. So he did this for me. My wife and I called the Merkel bucks because I was just making it was crazy. And I up to the training and I started training for sport and speed, getting my time back like below where I was when I was a youth speed climber. which

15:09 I did at Nationals a couple of years and I was feeling great and I got hurt on like maybe the last month of training before I was deloading for Open Nationals for sport and I messed up my elbow. It strained my collateral ligament pretty bad. I think it was a grade two strain because I felt it go and it was my first big injury. And I told him that I didn't want to go to nationals because I didn't want to go and just show up and lose. I didn't want to get like 50th because I could barely climb and it hurt.

15:47 And I didn't go. And the deal was I was going. He was doing all this so that I would accomplish something great. And so he stopped funding me. And that sucked. Yeah, I kind of got turned off to the whole pursuit of making the Olympics because I felt like yeah I was already on the older end and it was already gonna be a long shot and Once I got hurt that sucked I got hurt a couple more times after that once I stopped winning comps I kind of stopped wanting to do the comps because it felt like I had peaked and come down and the new generation was so good and I was just a little too competitive and Was that but also I got way more sight on coaching and just saw this whole I wrote out all my goals and like I finished

16:40 writing my goals one day and all of them were coaching related with the exception of a grade for for climbing and I realized like whoa I think I want to be a coach not a professional climber anymore. Actually, I think I just like to improve it climbing And so I made the shift Sorry, I'm still trying to like process that story. That's so crazy. I guess like also as a coach, like what would you tell yourself if you were saying all these things about how you don't feel like you want to compete anymore because you don't feel like you can win anymore? Well, I would tell somebody if they felt that they couldn't win and that was all they were doing it for, then maybe they need to reevaluate their values.

17:27 and what they actually value in the comp experience and what it represents. Because I realized somewhat afterwards that I love the competitions because of everything inside of the comp. And I convinced myself that the end, that moment at the end where you receive your final placement basically invalidated the entire experience. And I would say things like, you know, it's such an investment, you know, flying around the world to do this, which I was flying around, at least the country a lot to do different comps, investing money and time.

18:11 And too much of what I wanted was to see progression in my placements. And when I was competing in the local comp, it felt like I had already done the whole climb the ladder, get to the top. And it was I was only living in the gap, which was looking at where I am and then trying to achieve this ideal forward rather than living in this gain of I've already accomplished so much. Every single time I compete, I could say, wow, even though I didn't win, I mean, not even recognize that, just how about look at how much I was able to accomplish today coming from where I've You know started which was i was just a kid i never thought i'd be winning open comps because that would change the experience to wow i did so great

19:03 in qualifiers i was able to send these hard boulders and that's so so sick compared to what i used to do back in the day and i even made finals and i even got fourth like that's i got to compete in front of this crowd i get to you know represent my my these brands that um you know, sponsor me and support me. I got to inspire these people and these kids, put on a great show. My wife came out. That was great. She was there. She got to feel that she was supporting me. And instead I felt like, you know, I go and I either win and winning meets expectations. So I net zero.

19:41 It's not like a plus. It's like, yes, I win. That's what I do. I've been winning. So when I show up, I need to win. So I was setting myself up for and I could feel this internally. I just didn't know it at the time was my mindset was I show up and I either get a net zero or lose. There was no potential for me to win. Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, I was just thinking about that story. It just sounds so like kind of suspicious in a way. Like almost like a sugar daddy kind of situation or Well, also as soon as you sit maybe off the record, but as soon as you said like chiropractor and like Weird, I don't know medical things that he was testing out that all sounded really suspicious to me Yeah, he he had

20:31 me taking About 20 different supplements. Oh my gosh. Oh my god when I I used to have a box that was this big I couldn't fit everything in a shoe box. I had a bigger box that was full of all the pills and I had to take some of them like multiple times a day. So I would like go to work and I'd take like a baggie with multiple bags of pills and I would have to be taking them.

20:57 And he sent a guy out to test me in the beginning, sent a guy out to test me at the end of a week, couple week period. I'll be honest, I was definitely, could have been placebo, but I was performing way better. I was able to do so much more. It could have been also my training because I was training more, setting less. Yeah, it was weird.

21:19 In hindsight, do you feel like it was like scammy or that it was actually a good, good opportunity? At one point he had mentioned that he because I was like, dude, I don't know why you're giving me $2 ,000 a month. And he was like, well, you know, don't think of it as me just doing this as a charitable thing. I am writing this off.

21:40 So like this is also helping my taxes. So I don't know if it was scammy as much as I was just like, you know, a way that he could have this double bonus of getting a case study. Maybe I was, you know, quote unquote being used, but it was it felt like a symbiotic relationship. And he was a genuinely very nice person. I didn't feel like I was getting we were like Is this dude taking my blood and doing weird stuff with my blood?

22:09 But no, I don't think so. Okay, interesting. So then I do want to get into your whole comp experience. You did a lot. You did Boulder lead and speed. Do you have a favorite discipline there? Boulder for sure. If you're thinking back, what were your strengths and weaknesses then that you really had to work through? Oh, yeah.

22:31 Well, I... Have always been, I have huge hands and I don't like to make this excuse, but if we're just talking from a biomechanics perspective, I am at a massive disadvantage due to my levers and torque. So I have a really hard time with smaller holds, but also just like force application rate of force development is just harder for large fingers. and smaller edges are going to feel even smaller. So in growing up with the more classic style, it was a real struggle to compete. I definitely I always had the weakest fingers of everybody. But I also think that for some reason, my bicep and my other pulling muscles are very well inserted. And I would always have the strongest arms and my background of in other

23:30 sports. helped me feel a lot more coordinated. But because I would, I trained at another gym, my main gym only set up to V8 plus. So when I got to the level where I was climbing around like V11, none of the multi multi colors, which were the V8 plus were hard enough for me to project. So I would constantly every day would be take away and making up my own boulders. And I loved route setting and I had a home wall that I would set every day on. and i was obsessive so i was like climbing five days a week route setting usually five and this is when i was a kid i hadn't even you know started getting paid for it at as a real job and i got very good at understanding uh beta and reading boulder problems and finding

24:18 breaks like crazy so when i would compete and also i was very early a very early adopter of comp style, especially with paddles and dinos and even coordination steps, run and jumps. That was my jam. The Ninja background, I guess. Ninja background, sure. But really, even before Ninja, it was just... Well, actually, I grew up watching Ninja Warrior on G4 when I was a kid kid in Japan.

24:52 Yeah, they had the Japanese version Ninja Warrior on G4 when I was, yeah, like six or seven. That's when I started watching. So good. So I started as a competitor with a big weakness of fingers and a very large strength in breaking beta, being physically strong. So when the holds were bigger and moves were bigger and also just quickly had to be more technical. whenever I would get on anything that was hard, you're like keeping the holding the holds. I couldn't campus on anything fingery. I couldn't have any margin of error.

25:32 I had to climb it perfectly and very efficiently. That's why my movement and technique developed very quickly and explosive power to skip for holds. I used to skip holds a ton or cut roots like, you know, winding boulders in half. and just look for breaks. Well, so with the setting style nowadays, do you think that your finger weakness would still be an issue? I think no matter what, you have a cap. The weaker your fingers are, the luckier you have to get because the best technique in climbing is finger strength by far. It's the best technique because it is the only thing that multiplies everything. The only thing it doesn't multiply is handless lab.

26:20 That's it. Everything else, even if it looks like a jug to jug dino, the person with the stronger fingers can get 100 % or, you know, as close to 100 % control and usage of their arms and every muscle in there pulling, you know, line. Whereas someone with weaker fingers can maybe only use 90 % and it feels like they're using 100, but it's not. And that That is a huge difference.

26:49 You notice it when you like have an injury in your finger and it's like, oh, actually everything hurts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And so you had also done a couple of World Cups, only two. What like what happened there? Oh, man. Well, the first one I went it was in Meijeringen. So it was the first of the season in 2017 and show up very unprepared. I did a ton of on -site training, getting ready for the rounds, getting on like the hardest boulders in New York City. I used to go into the city and do three day passes in a single day. And I'd go to three gyms and do their five hardest boulders in an on -site round.

27:29 And so I was fit and I felt strong. And I showed up, did not sleep on the flight very well, ate like crap, just was so psyched to be out of the country for the first time ever of Canada for like, I drove there. But yeah, it was with my parents and was so intimidated because it was my first time. And everyone's this legend who's done so well before and been there. There's like 145, 115 people in this comp. I'm like, holy crap, this is just out of my element. And I show up to the first boulder and I get out there and my heart's pounding. I didn't warm up that well.

28:12 Again, in ISO, I was clearly the weakest one, or at least it felt like that. I got on this boulder and it was just incredibly uncomfortable. So uncomfortable. It felt like it was just set incorrectly. It felt like they had set this climb that was like, dude, there should have been a foot. Please excuse this brief intermission, but if you're interested in ad -free episodes and would like to unlock over four hours of deleted scenes, including one where Charlie talks about bad coaching and gives his thoughts on why the men's field is so unpredictable, do consider helping support this podcast on Patreon. Some other perks include a membership pin shipped to you after two months, prioritized guest questions

28:55 or the ability to submit video questions, early release episodes, and more to come. The proceeds go back into the podcast, help me break even, and they help me improve the experience of the guests. If you'd like to help out non -monetarily, liking, commenting, and sharing helps a great deal as well. Back to the show. I got on this boulder and it was just incredibly uncomfortable.

29:18 So uncomfortable. It felt like it was just set incorrectly. Felt like they had set this climb that was like, dude, there should have been a foot. Like obviously there should have been a foot and this hand is turned complete. Like why is this Gaston like dead horizontal? This shouldn't, it should be on an angle. And that was what I experienced for every boulder. And I just could not, every time I'd pull on, I'd be like, what the, I can't, this is just, I can't even find the position to start generating. I can find no, there was, you know, it's like my. my calibration, my pattern, like if I was like trying to track and feel the muscles and everything was like, you're gonna hold a gimbal where it's like trying

30:00 to calibrate and it's just like doing this. Yeah, it's what every single move felt like. And I end the round and I got one zone that I fought my life out for. And this was the two hour period where in my whole climbing career of 20 years that I lost like, I finished that round. And so I got dead last 115 out of 115. And I was just devastated and it didn't click to me that I didn't sleep the night before basically. I was so nervous. I got like two hours of sleep.

30:31 I ate so much. Oh, it was horrible. I was so nervous. I was like sleep deprived. I gained like five pounds from just eating. I just ate way too much food with my parents and so psyched on the food. And you're just feeling bloated and just feeling like crap. Yeah, and I felt dejected and told my parents. I'm I'm gonna quit competition climbing. It's clearly not for me and I cried in their room like I'm like 23 years old too. I'm not like a kid or yeah, I think 22 or 23 and I go back to the The room that I'm staying in with the American team and Sean rabbit who was my my roommate and he was yeah, and this was like when Giuliano Cameronia just sent his first V15 like a couple weeks before. And so

31:23 they're not, you know, they're bigger names, but they're not huge names yet. And he's hanging out with Giuliano and they're drinking some wine afterwards. And they're with the Omets brothers who are just really cool, strong brothers who I grew up looking up to in videos. And I sit down and I'm like, guys, I just like, I had the worst comp I've ever had. And they were like, dude. What are you talking about, man? You probably climbed so strong. I also didn't get a zone on that boulder. Like my first comp was horrible.

31:53 Bro, don't even worry about it. You're such a beast. And they were so, it was just like, oh, wow, I'm actually not that bad. I just, cause they were like, dude, didn't you like not sleep last night? They were just being logical, making light of it. And like, you're going to crush the next one. And I had a glass of wine and I had a great night. and thoroughly enjoyed. We went climbing the next day with Daniel Woods and a bunch of absolute legends were there at the session. I just loved it. Had a great time and came back inspired and I said, I'm going to another one. I'm going to the competition in Vail. So goddamn it, I'm going to set very awkward climbs. And I stripped two walls in my gym. and convinced my gym owner to let me just

32:41 set for myself going to the World Cups. And I put a couple of holds up for the kids too. But I trained on those boulders almost exclusively for, I think it was a month and a half. And at the next World Cup in Vail, I topped two boulders, got four zones, and made it to, I'm sorry, not made it to, but placed 49th. So it was a massive, yeah, huge increase. And I also just felt better, did all the right things. I went in feeling so good, got great sleep, just like did all the things I was supposed to do. Did you change anything in that month and a half training specifically, or do you think it was mostly just the setting weird stuff? It's the setting, 100%. Yeah. Well, I'm sure I did. I still did onsite rounds. I

33:33 remember that. But it was the movement. It was a hundred percent the movement. I was actually training for awkward climbing I wasn't training for it's it's like when you train for You know, if you're a board climber and then you get on comp style roots Yeah, it's like you could be the best board climbing in the world But if you don't know how to do that move You're gonna have to solve it and sure you might be good enough and strong enough to solve it But it'll take you ten minutes, but you've got four And it was still like the old school style setting at this time, right? Yes, that the I mean, it was new school was definitely there, but it was not at all like, yeah, what it is right now. Not not

34:17 even a little bit. You had like maybe one or two coordination moves the whole round, maybe. And so, I mean, you did a lot better the second competition. So why why stop there? You did so great. Yeah, well, that's when I got hurt. Oh, okay. Yeah. Got hurt and then came back in and didn't win a couple of times. Then healed that injury. Finally, I just worked with a PT that had no idea what they were doing and just totally wasted my time. The injury didn't heal correctly.

34:53 They actually... what they were having me do definitely led to two other injuries that I had. They just, yeah, they were just trying to kick my ass basically with workouts. And for some reason I was doing it. I just trusted them. And I was so fatigued trying to train, which they said was okay. Got two more injuries, stopped working with them and started working with a better PT. And yeah, healed those and then went into a comp and won and then retired. Okay. Well, at least you ended it on a good note. Do you ever think you would go back to competing? Not in maybe not in like an international or like national way, but do you still find joy in competitions ever? Yes, definitely. I do want to go back to

35:40 competitions one day, but I want to I want to go back and I want to be able to make finals and have a chance at winning. I do. I do want that and I like being able to play on all of the climbs. I don't have as much fun when I go out into finals and I know I can't do the moves. It's just not that much fun to squirm on a move.

36:04 I know you can't do it, you know? And you still have that winning mindset. Okay, so then that's sort of when you started getting into your coaching journey. So let's get into that a bit. What were some of those goals that you'd initially set out? When you said that you were like writing down what your goals were and then saw that all of them ended up being about coaching. Ooh. Wow.

36:24 That's a very good, very good question. Um, one of them was at one point be coaching, uh, a hundred climbers, uh, in writing programming for a hundred climbers. Another one was help 100 ,000 climbers improve at the sport because I always, always had, um, My idea was to do live video coaching for huge groups. My mom used to go on webinars where thousands of people would be on this webinar watching this guy talk and life coach. I just thought that was so cool and my mom would pass on the learnings and it really helped me become the person I am today, truly, in so many positive ways. That's why I do the weekly webinars now, by the way. would love to be able to reach the point where my videos are consistently reaching

37:20 that many people and that my programming is guiding them. So another goal was to coach somebody to become a national champion for all three disciplines, which I did achieve, which was great. And then what else did I have on that? A couple of financial goals that were never going to be achieved through being a professional climber, for sure. I think that is it. And I had five, so three, five, 10, 15, 20 and 25 year goals. Well, yeah, you were very disciplined about it. And you've definitely reached quite a few of them already so far. I was thinking about having so many clients. I've had a few coaches kind of casually, and I know a lot of people who are always also looking for coaching or programs. And I feel like one thing

38:19 I always hear that people want is extremely personalized programs, or I hear complaints about getting a coaching program that feels generic. How personalized do you think programs really need to be in order to be effective? you can take so many different approaches to coaching somebody and the Habits that the things that are the most personal are To who the person actually is that that needs to be the most personal and I know that that's like it's not it sounds like it's dodging the question but Like I was saying before champions become champions. So the person that you're coaching and coaching is separate from program design Program design and coaching are not the same thing. Program design is very simple and yes,

39:16 you can design a very personalized program and when a person is struggling to find time, struggling to achieve a certain thing or has a major weakness or has a very, very specific goal, that's when you get very specific and personalized. Every person needs a personalized program because Everyone has a different thing that they're training for everyone is a different person with different strengths and weaknesses but the most personalized thing that you need to do is to mentor them guide them and communicate with them and change that person's outlook and Align their value system with what their true fulfillment actually comes from So I'm somebody who's really fulfilled with personal growth, which when you talk to anybody

40:06 who's a climber Depending on how you dictate the conversation on your end, you will almost always end up at, yeah, actually, I just want to improve. And I just want to improve reliably. And some people have a certain destination that they've either arbitrarily picked out or been inspired to reach. But that person needs mentorship on what their big three blockers are, their negative habits. If this person places very low value, on sleep. And so they tell you, yeah, I sleep all right. All right. Well, what's your sleep like? I mean, I'm always consistently sleeping at least six hours or more. Oh, so your sleep is actually trash. That's what you think is good sleep. But that's terrible. If you're an athlete,

40:57 you should be getting at least eight hours. Ideally, you're getting nine plus. And so if you were to write someone Give someone a generic plan. It's just a cookie cutter, pre -written plan. Give them that plan and then fix their sleep and get that person to sleep two hours extra every night. It's not even going to be close to how far they outperform the person with a personalized program, fully personalized, but is sleeping six hours a night. There's a hierarchy and most people don't touch those things. If you are someone who's an athlete, like I'm constantly always an athlete. I'm always trying to improve myself as a climber. I take that just as seriously as my, my coaching. And I work with a lot of

41:45 athletes and everyone's the same with sleep. Everyone needs a lot of sleep. Everyone should be understanding load management, what that is. So you have to understand that person's mind and their habits. You know, where is their stopping point? The questions you ask. Constantly each week when you talk to them every day some of these people I communicate with that's the thing that's personalized Hey, dude, how is this last session? Did you stop when you were supposed to? I did but my fingers are still a little you know, they didn't feel back 200 % Okay. Well, guess what? You know what the plan says? Do 50 % next time warm up and stop at v5. Leave the gym. Take your shoes off. That's it I know you're

42:25 a v10 climber got undercooked I think that makes sense because I remember the first time, the first ever coach I had, it was just like someone who was at the gym. They were like offering some coaching there. And I think I was probably climbing like B4, B5 at the time. And he his like main thing for me was he wanted me to keep doing straight arm drills. And I was like, what the heck is this like my first day climbing? Like, I think I know how to do straight arms. Um, and only like quite a while after that, did I realize, oh, like, I guess I wasn't very good at straight arms. And then I've been doing these straight arm drills and I'm like so much better at straight arms now. And it helps a lot in my climbing,

43:07 like being able to do harder boulders too, because I can like find a straight arm way to do this. And so yeah, thinking back on it. Yeah, I guess that makes sense at like an elite level. Does it become a lot more personalized? Totally. Yeah, and and this is the funny thing though is it totally does Be if you want it to but again like if you look at any of the top athletes in from any country The the best ones always will be the people that are the most focused when they're training They're the ones that are always you know, surrounding themselves with other strong climbers that they'd like to train with, that they enjoy training with, that don't do too much and don't trash their skin often, don't trash

43:59 their bodies often. Because, you know, that first thing, that superpower of working hard and being focused, that can sabotage you sometimes. But these people, they just stop. when their fingers are tired. They just don't want to climb anymore. It could be a known thing, or a lot of people just have these inherent qualities about them.

44:15 That's just a built -in habit that they, yeah, I just don't like when my fingers start to feel a little sore, even a little bit, or I'm not able to pull as hard. I'm just like, I don't want to keep going. And like to some people that's asinine. Like what do you, we're climbing. Why would you stop unless you just had to? And yes, you could have those people Do perfectly specialized training if they're fully bought in, you know, like you see videos of Yanya doing very specific balance exercises and Accessory work and she's doing tons of very, you know focused work on it's all supplemental to climbing but That's that's great. She's bought in on that. She likes it That's basically all she probably needs at

45:04 this point because she can't get those things With the time that she has or the finger strength that she has the skin that she has so when she's done on the wall and She's you know that that link, you know that weak link in the chain, which is the skin. Maybe it's done She's not gonna keep climbing. So she does this other very personalized stuff. That's specific to her because she needs something specific You know, she's not gonna do deadlifts. She's not gonna do squats because it's not extremely pointed to the weaknesses that she has, or the very specific demands that she gets in competition, that she maybe doesn't, they can't set on the wall all the time, or you know, whatever it is. But yeah, you can do, I

45:49 think everyone needs specific work, obviously, like if I have a weakness, I need something that targets a weakness. But the other things come first, you know, you're psych. And if it's dangerously close, like Yanya could do three extremely specific slab drills and get really good at those three specific movements if she's highly focused and psyched on it. Or she can go with her best friend to a local gym that has 20 comp -style slab boulders and just do a really fun session and just climb.

46:23 There's no way for us to know which one's going to be better for her. There are benefits and cons to each one when you compare. This is also one of the audience questions that had come in. Who are some of the elite level athletes that you have coached? And are there any hyper specific things that you had to work through them through with them on? Oh, yeah. So I would say the easiest one to pick out is Adam Shahar, but also Noah Wheeler, because we made a YouTube video that goes pretty into depth about the specifics, which we could link here. But Adam, So we did the same, you know, thing that I was saying Yanya has with Adam in for the first four years where it was just, you know, climb with people that you're

47:15 really psyched to climb with. And here's a crap ton. Here's a spray wall. Get on it all the time. Number one, let them eat spray. That is like that is feed. If you have kids that you're coaching, feed them a spray wall diet. That is 50 % of their diet should be spray wall. Wow. Or boards. I don't care. Whatever. But spray is a little better if you want them to be good at comps.

47:35 Also removes that competing with the numbers too much aspect. I think it's a little healthier and more whole diversity. And so we did 50 % of spray and 50 % get on my comp style boulders at every single grade, just everywhere. All across the whole gym, every angle, every style, no matter what, we're doing it. Put them on the wall where they have to go up and down handless on jibs.

48:02 And we would do, uh, you know, as much as we could in width of specific, you know, not narrowing our focus, but then when he got to the world cup level, we did have to focus because he started to develop a weakness when we weren't, I wasn't able to coach him in person more than once a week. So he would spend a little too much time on the spray in my opinion. I think that he got unbelievably strong on it and then just wasn't going to see as many returns. in terms of what he could, what stats can he move up for the World Cups in order to make his level move up? When you're at a 98 strength, finger power, getting to a 99, which will take you like a year of doing it or a whole extra two days a week forever.

48:55 Whereas you can just improve your slab, which is right now at a 70 bud. And so we would do a lot of slab work, a lot of coordination work, and very specific video analysis and mainly conceptual education. Because that's how I would regularly beat people that were way stronger than me. Like I said, I had the weakest fingers. In my opinion, my fingers were always the weakest on the circuit, even the years when I just would win every single comp. I was the weakest. But I understood exactly how to move. Exactly where to step with the foot exactly which you know point of my body to pull with how to create trajectory all of the concepts of movement. I had dialed in so when you gave me a v10 boulder sure everyone else was climbing

49:45 on a v10 i was climbing on a v8 because i was doing every move as efficiently as possible boulder is graded by the the. consensus of human beings, right? We all agree. Well, guess what? Everyone that's part of this, the average technique of everyone, let's say out of 100 points, is a 60. And their conceptual education, their understanding of these things, is that like, let's say a 60.

50:12 If you show up with a 90, you get on that climb, guess what? Real feel, it's gonna be way easier for you, assuming your strength is held constant to everyone. And that's, you know, when your strength is way higher, that's when you're like, oh, no, this thing's soft. But I know this thing's hard. I'm just doing the easiest possible method.

50:30 So we spent a crap ton of time of get on this coordination move, get on this slab. Come here. All right. Look at this. Now watch your hips. Okay. See what we want to do is and just draw it out, explain all the concepts, give him my brain. And that was what specifically he needed because he was so natural. And yes, I coached him on all these things for years, but you know each level you get to you need more of a foundation of conceptual understandings kind of like in math, you know when you get to Calculus five if you didn't do calculus, you know, if you're at calculus one, you can't just understand calculus five. So you have to know Two three four to be able to read the boulder and understand how to

51:15 move. Otherwise, you're just I guess I'll just go for it and You see it all the time. Even when people in the finals, they just don't understand Drives me nuts when I watch comp sometimes and you see someone who's so strong and so skilled But it's just so obvious. They don't understand simple concepts And then quote -unquote simple if they are advanced, but it's like dude. Why are you? Why are you loading the front foot so early, dude? You're you're right. You're your calf in the back on your lagging leg doesn't flick at all It just stays neutral and it doesn't even go into you know plantar flexion to start the dynamic coordination. So you're just generating with 20 % less power, which completely you can

51:56 see that's why your arc peaks, you know, two feet early. And that's why you're having to paddle. You can't stall. It's just like, you know, simple stuff like that, that if you teach the kid, they are getting on easier boulders across the board. And so how did you learn these kinds of things? Or how can people who Maybe can't afford a coach right now or can't have someone watching their stuff in person or over video Like how do they how do they learn what they don't know they don't know? Yeah Knowing what you don't know is really hard. You got to pay good coaches to teach these things or I've made a video library of 500 plus videos of me explaining Videos of my clients with exactly what I'm talking about. It's just

52:44 exclusively Me in a video drawing showing the conceptual education teaching biomechanics, you know physics and just sports science and movement theory and You can just go on the discord. It's it's free to join the discord and then you just pay for the video library I don't care if you know screen record and keep these but uh, yeah, so Other than that you analyze you just watch every comp that's ever come out I've watched every single competition and I will stop play stop play and I'll just rewatch somebody doing it successfully. I used to be like weirdly obsessive about it. I would save videos and I would drag and create a video where I would have the person doing it correctly. It would play five times

53:29 and then I would watch like on the bottom. You know, you just drag two videos, make them smaller and then have people doing it five, you know, the people that can't do it. Yeah, exactly. Five times on the bottom and I'd watch that. So I would it would basically be ingrained. into my brain what's right what's wrong and I'd pause and I'd see like you know draw the distances and you just need to put some uh lines on a screen to understand it and then get multiple angles you know when I would session I was obsessed with videoing myself profile you know you can learn so much by looking at yourself from profile everyone shoots from behind you gotta shoot from the side if you're always shooting from behind

54:08 you're missing it's in my opinion 75 % of what's really happening because we everyone sees when you look from behind you're going up and then you're coming down when you look from the side you're seeing how we really come away from the wall which is in and out and that's trajectory that's dead pointing that's tension that's force truly force leaking we never shoot up and then slam down onto holds. We're going up. I mean, it's rare. It's micro, but we come in and come out on virtually every move unless it's completely static. So especially with coordination and comp style, it's like so much of it. And you were earlier mentioning about, what did you say? Something about this. What was your phrase about this fray

54:56 wall? Oh, let the meat spray. Yes. Yeah. Like I didn't say that when Marie Antoinette said that. Uh, okay. Can you explain a bit about why the spray wall is so great? I just, I'm, I like never really got into the spray wall because I guess if I had a coach, it would be nice to go on a spray wall, but like me, myself on a spray wall, I'm like bad at coming up with clients to do. Yeah. So I like in the spray wall, the spray wall does the same thing to your brain that Lincoln logs do in the beginning of your, you know, your growth or like Legos. You know, when you are You get a bunch of Lego pieces when you're a kid. Let's run with that because more people probably know Legos. And it's nice for your brain to put together, you know, when you're

55:42 looking at a picture and you see, oh, okay, I'm going to make this bug or this flower. I'm going to make a rose. Okay, cool. And it gives you the step -by -steps. That's nice, but it takes, it's mindless. It's like getting on the boards and swiping up and pulling up. Oh, cool. Cookie, V4. All right well I'll try cookie v4 and boom boom boom oh well you know what I don't know how to do this let me look at all the videos linked ah great there is no thinking going on um other than how do I execute like this move better because I know what how to do it but I don't know you know what what I'm doing wrong but when you have the spray wall uh you don't have anything you are given a bunch of random legos and it says create whatever you want. And

56:33 when you first take Legos, and you know, this is like we're looking at any master of any creative arts, you know, it's like, or even science, you know, that we piece together concepts from everywhere around us. But when you make a novel discovery through research, that came from a ton of work and labor and you had to create new ideas. Same thing with like You know any great artist Picasso sure he sourced inspiration from certain things but he came up with this unique style and his first works probably sucked. You know the first boulders you make on the spray for the first two to three years are probably going to suck.

57:14 Picasso put in 10 ,000 hours before he started making masterpieces and so now when I look at a spray wall my the thing I'm best at in life it's not even close you can ask any of the boys any of the kids I've ever coached. If you bring me to a wall, I'm so much better at this than coaching, than climbing, anything. Give me a wall. Tell me what grade you climb. Actually, I'll just watch you climb for a minute or two.

57:39 You don't even have to tell me what grade. Give me a style. Give me a type of move, whatever. Give me a minute, maybe 30 seconds. I'll give you something that is going to be right at your limit. Or you can tell me how many tries you want it to be done in. And I'll make it so that that's the only way you can do it. damn close.

58:00 I've put in so many thousands of hours of just staring and making climbs up, some never even trying for other people. That is how you can walk up to a boulder and then you can see exactly what the possibilities are because so many times I have my own beta. There are people that have done this boulder has been done by a hundred something people. And everyone that's done it's super strong. I did it. I used beta that no one else has used. Because I can see 20 options, whereas someone who walks up. It's always good to have more options. And the spray wall teaches you that. And it also has larger holds. And it has more dimensions than boards. So for that reason, I think the spray is better. It's also

58:47 more visually appealing to me. It's very inspiring with the creative artistic aspect. And yeah, I think that you get less hurt on spray walls, obviously, if you're just using the average hold set because of the hold variety as well. And so when you're prescribing the spray wall to your clients, is it they're supposed to make up their own stuff or are you making up stuff for them? 99 % of the time it's they're making up their own stuff because if I make it up for you, no one becomes Picasso if somebody makes the paintings for Picasso. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough to get that imbued into people at the beginning.

59:29 Most times people do a cycle and I make sure not to give you, here's three drills in your week and each one you have to create entire boulders. I start with find a move or it depends if the climber has been climbing for like seven years and they're a V12 climber or whatever. I have like tiers, it's up here, but like. You're a V4 to V5 climber. I'm not having you make up anything more than a move at first. I also have to know that you like that because, sure, we can do that for a whole nine weeks. If you tell me, dude, I really didn't get anything out of the drill and it felt like a waste of time each time and I felt a bunch of shame, dude, this was a great cycle, but I'm sorry, I don't want to keep working together. I can't help that person

1:00:14 now. They never got to see the value. Yes, I can explain that over the phone, but if I get them for a nine -week period, You know, there's a whole long term. How do I help this person reach their goals? Well, I got to make them psyched to stay on the correct best optimal path Which I know what that is, but I got it, you know deliver value instantly and every day should feel like oh wow Oh cool. Oh great It's um, yeah, you have to think the whole life cycle Well, I'm just I'm thinking cuz I hate like spray walling and coming up with my own climbs and I Like it's completely accurate that I can't come up with correct, like my biggest weakness is also like finding good beta or like even finding like the

1:01:00 correct beta or the intended beta. And so I guess, yeah, it all tracks. All of what you just said completely tracks with my climbing. So yeah, I'm convinced. Am I gonna work on it? I don't know. Like, cause my issue is that I don't. Want to be spending time thinking like I'm tired. My brain is tired I don't have the time to do the thinking which is why I would hire a coach to do the thinking for me So that I can just go through the motions Right and not have to do the whole thinking part totally does that make sense? Yeah. No, it totally does make sense Let me let me ask you a question. Do you like?

1:01:43 Do you like walking everywhere? How much time would you spend in your life if you had to walk everywhere? I don't mind walking. I don't mind walking places. It depends on the weather, actually. Totally. Let's say you got to go get groceries. How long does that take to go walk to the grocery store and then walk back? 30 minutes? Okay. 30 minutes isn't bad. 30 minutes there and back?

1:02:07 Yeah. How much time would it take if you drove? 10. Okay. So 20 minutes. How many times do you get grocery per year? Do you do grocery shopping once a week? Yeah, once a week. Okay, so you do grocery shopping once a week sets? 52 times 20 so that's almost 20 hours that you would waste by By having to walk that's just walking right?

1:02:35 That's it. I'm so that's just groceries if you were to learn how to drive sure Learning how to drive. You don't want to learn how to drive learning how to drive takes time. It's freaking hard man It gets here you get home from work. You're exhausted. I don't want to have to now learn how to drive a vehicle You're gonna waste so much more time in your life trying to figure out the best beta Where have you just devoted 30 minutes a week to making up climbs on the spray wall? You're gonna finish climbs faster.

1:03:07 So you're not gonna spend 30 attempts on that that boulder. That's a project Literally doing the same moves you you benefit five percent for the first five moves three percent then two now You're just logging 20 attempts where you're benefiting one to point one percent Whereas you can move on to the next one and get five percent five percent five percent next one five percent five percent five percent So you're not wanting to put in that time is creating an enormous amount of time that you're wasting in your climbing and that's what I tried to get into people's heads because All of the best climbers on earth all of them do a crap ton of climbs Nobody gets to the top doing a couple of climbs you look

1:03:49 at all the best the way they got to be the best is they Sometimes project sometimes but the majority of their time they're sending things in 5 to 25 attempts that zone right there That's your magic the climbs you can do in 5 to 25 not climbs that take them, you know 25 and up or even You know, the climbs that they should be flashing and moving on to another one and learning a new lesson and getting more reps in. Yeah, that's like the big one. Yeah, that's definitely the big one for me. And sleep. There is still though a, you know, if you were to take what I just said a face value, you could also then theorize that if I do that, I will, the more time I spend creating my own climbs, the more I will improve

1:04:40 as a climber. and be able to see the correct answers. Sure, that's true. If you continuously improve in that skill, there's a reason why not every route setter is incredibly gifted at climbing as well. And there's a reason why every board setter or spray setter is not incredibly gifted as well, because people are all different and everyone starts this race. of creative mind and unique ideas and exploration. Keyword there is exploration. Many setters are really good at setting 10 different things, 10 different movement patterns, 10 different styles and moods. That's it. You look at all their sets, it's just variations of 10 ideas. So those people have hit their limit.

1:05:26 That's it. They need to either complexify those with micro ideas within the concepts. And again, those roads are faint. You need to form Massive networks of roads through all different ideas constantly looking at different boulders trying to force a new type of movement I used to do so much research on Let me pull up a new climb and reset this move. I've never set this move before How do I make it work? Why it is what I just said not feeling the same as the boulder?

1:05:56 Okay. Um, ooh Why am I not looking like the guy in the video? And there's a new idea. Now I'm learning new concepts. Same thing on the spray because some people just, they do the same and they don't grow. And so, and the setter heard that and they were inspired. You can't just do the same things over and over. Easier said than done for sure. So hard, yeah. Well, that brings me to one of the discord questions that had come in. Someone asked, how does one improve as a coach? Is practice the best way or are there books or classes or certifications that you think?

1:06:29 people should get. Ooh, that's a great question. All of the above. Obsession is the best way to become a coach. Complete obsession with learning. If you don't know something, research it. Look it up. One of the best ways to force yourself to learn something is to pursue a certification that is in direct alignment with your goals.

1:06:53 The CSCS was like, you know, it was a great challenge. I was studying a minimum of four hours a day for like eight months to take that test, crush the test. And it was only because I had this goal of doing it. So I would, I was normally studying for about, you know, I'm not going to lie, 30 minutes, some days, not a lot to an hour.

1:07:15 Some days I've never went above an hour. I would always like, today I set a timer. Usually it's a half hour. And then I'll just research and just. You know for whatever it is that I don't know or want to brush up on Pull it up watch all the videos go travel around the world the best way to get the best way to get any information is to research and then experience because research It's kind of like anything that you can only say so much You know like anything I put out there in social media or even an article. I can only say so many things the things I leave out are You know, 15 subtopics that didn't make the cut. Same thing with a journal article, you know, like you read any publication and sure they include

1:08:03 a lot, but there's so much they did not include, like all the verbal discussions between each other, all the, you know, between the people who are in the study. So experiencing every aspect that you coach, you know, like if you, your clients always feel fear at height and you don't know how to help someone with that. Go get on something tall and feel fearful and then work through that look up the ways to work through it and then do it yourself If you don't do that, you cannot speak you you're missing 50 % and so many people just say, you know, they regurgitate what they know Then the reading not what they have felt and endured So we'll get into more of these coaching questions. I got a bunch from the audience later.

1:08:53 But before we get into that, I want to talk about your thoughts on World Climbing today. What do you think about the setting in World Climbing right now? I think it's too removed at this point. I think that there are good boulders, without a doubt. There's some comps where it's great, totally. But I feel like they just don't... realize that so many people and so many climbers want to climb on boulder problems, not coordination problems exclusively. And I just it really just doesn't showcase who's the best climber anymore.

1:09:39 It's fine to have is because coordination moves are now a part of comp climbing. I get it. You know, It doesn't have to be. It's not inherently part of comp climbing, but it has been associated with... They're basically the same thing at this point. It's called comp style. People call things comp style when it's coordination, where there's huge holds and it's very dynamic and showy. I get it. It's fun to look at. It's funny because if you look at Instagram or you look at YouTube and you look at the most viewed... When you see hooks, When I use hooks, the best hooks are usually crazy positions and somebody, you know, holding something that looks like crap. And, you know, we just don't get that as much. We get some weird

1:10:36 positions. We it's funny because the best boulders that are always they call it out and showcased like in highlights are the ones where You know, it's just they had to do some weird freaky sequence and they just all were made uncomfortable and they had to solve it and the hold sucked and They just need I think the setters just make this bullshit argument It's just such bullshit that it's so hard to separate these people because they're all so strong Okay Good hold that thought so you're telling me that all these athletes are identically strong In all grip types, is that what you're telling me? Their strength to weight ratio are all the exact same. Is that true? No, it's not. That's impossible. Okay.

1:11:23 Let's just say sure. Is it possible? Yeah. In maybe one of the trillion dimensions out there, if those exist, but no, no, it's not. Let's be real here. So why don't you just set some boulder problems and get some real separations? Why don't you just do your job a little bit better? Why don't you just set these boulders? You know, with a group of setters separately, get something real close and then replicate that. Sure. We're going to see a couple of stopping points, but if, you know, that's the way that you have to force separation, why not make two zones? You know, if it's, you have to make a bunch of the moves and everyone might fall at one spot. Okay.

1:12:00 Make them bottom is a little bit harder. No one, no one gets mad when the moves are really hard and people achieve a point value. And maybe one person gets a top. It sucks when you make it way too hard, but you can make it so that getting the zone is very challenging and then getting the top is very hard. I just think that they, yeah, they've done it many times before. It's not impossible and they should do more boulders like that because it's way more fun. The athletes will enjoy it. It's a better representation of the actual sport. And I like watching them more.

1:12:38 I mean, they do set like at least one power boulder per round now. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah, no, they do. They do. Sometimes. And those are honestly like the best. Those in the hard slabs are the best boulders. What about the setting for lead then? Is that kind of good still to you? Leads good. Yeah, just stop making people run and jump. I guess I am surprised to hear that given your background with like Ninja Warrior and enjoying that kind of stuff. You just you want them to stay totally separate things. You know, I want to see the best climbers. That's what it is. It's a rock climbing competition.

1:13:17 So if it was a Ninja Warrior competition, I'd want to see who the best Ninja Warrior is. If it were a parkour competition, I'd want to see who the best parkourist is. It is a rock climbing competition. So why don't you just let them rock climb? And lead, by definition, is long endurance climbing. So if you're shutting people down at the beginning, we don't get to see who the best lead climber is. So I don't get... It's such a cop -out. When you're like, let's, we need to make this exciting. Let's open up with a, you know, a run and press and jump. It's like, dude, no, how about you just do your job better?

1:13:52 Why don't you just make a better route? Like you don't need to spice things up at the beginning, dude. Like everyone leads already. It's not, it's never going to be the most exciting, you know, discipline. It's just not, it's not as action packed. So just let it be what it is. I mean, I guess from like the viewership and needing eyes perspective, I mean, you also do a lot of content, like totally, you kind of understand why they feel like they need to do this in order to, you know, get sponsors and, you know, people who want to play ads before or get it on TV and have a lot of viewers there. Definitely. 100%.

1:14:32 But, you know, golf has a ton of viewership. It's very popular. It's been around for a lot longer. you know, and broadcasted. We just need time. That's that's really what we need. We don't need to dilute the sport and warp it to make it exciting. It really is. It's honestly, I've always said this and I just it's embarrassing.

1:14:52 It feels a little embarrassing that we have to masquerade as some, you know, we're we do these exciting, always we're running and jumping. It's like not at all what none of us got into it because of that. It's not it's not even that. I mean, it is inspiring. Don't get me wrong. I do like it. It's just it's not everything. It would be like if basketball, they were like, listen, we're going to do the whole thing is going to just be the last four minutes. Like, that's it. We're just going to do the game is going to be four minutes long. No, dude, it's you. The game is entertaining. People like watching a basketball game. Real basketball players like watching people that appreciate basketball. Sure, basketball

1:15:35 is more exciting. More can happen. But if you really want viewership, just focus on the athlete more. People watch documentaries, dude. Like way more people watch documentaries. They like to listen to people talk. The reason people are gonna watch is because they're invested. I will watch Jesse Grouper, you know, climb in slow motion for an hour. Because I grew up climbing with Jesse Grouper. I know Jesse Grouper. I feel an attachment. No one really... The other thing is like we're... We're not really focusing on the nations very much, the nationality. The story is just no one knows anything about the athletes in the World Cup other than what the announcer talks about. It's not that much. In other sports,

1:16:18 like I was watching the US Open with tennis, they get way into it. In between things, they see the athlete talking during the commercial breaks. You really know these athletes. You know what they've been going through. You get a lot of stats, and I like that they give stats. It's great, but I think they're just, yeah, they're focusing on their own things. That's my opinion.

1:16:38 No. Okay. I get that. Yeah. I mean, that's partially why I wanted to start the podcast because people weren't really talking to the comp athletes. And yeah, golf sucks. I don't want to watch it, but yeah, it is really slow. It is slow, but it's incredible skill. And if you, you know, you respect skill, you'll watch. Or if you like golf. Yeah. Makes sense. You also mentioned that you think other countries are kind of doing different things with their climbers that the US isn't doing? What do you feel like those things are?

1:17:11 Yeah, so the US has definitely gotten better about it with, you know, they have the hub right now is in Salt Lake City. And so the best athletes will be in Salt Lake City. But even still, you know, a lot of the best athletes that live They don't live in Sully City because they've got their home. They don't want to go there. They're just too young. They're still in school. There aren't enough opportunities given, in my opinion, for those athletes to be around other top athletes.

1:17:47 So you've got a lot of these athletes that train by themselves and they're not with a group where they're inspired or they're like the best ones at their gym. And that works for some people totally. These other countries have big teams. They give a lot to those teams. They fund it and they'll pay them and they will pay so that they have better opportunities so they can travel more, that they can be with other athletes because the best thing for a top level athlete who's climbing is to constantly be traveling to new gyms or to be at a great gym, a great facility.

1:18:30 and with people that are pushing them. Because if you put people together and you have a very high ceiling for like a big tank is what I used to call it with Adam and Austin. A fish only grows as large as its tank. Very few fish will continue to grow. It's extremely rare. Some do, but very few do. So the average fish will grow to the size of the tank. Like if my gym that I grew up climbing in, set beyond V8 and the highest boulders that they set were V14. I would have gotten a V14 because that was the ceiling.

1:19:07 But gyms stop setting. That's why the boards are so great because they don't have as low of a ceiling. They have V14 and it kind of gets muddied at the top where those boulders can be way easier, way harder, a lot of them way harder. And so I think that these gyms that these people are at, our country should probably do more.

1:19:27 If the athlete can't move, They should at least be given, you know, either a setter or they should do something with the gym in cooperation to support this athlete and make sure they constantly have new boulders or give the athlete a salary so that they can travel and get on. You know, it doesn't take much to make an athlete give them that opportunity and make their year twice as beneficial for what they want to do, which is compete and get to new gyms and have to solve new problems, be inspired, stay psyched. Yeah, I think in some places like Japan, it's just a little easier. It's more gyms, denser population because the country is just smaller and they have the gyms set incredibly difficult and the

1:20:13 setting is just so much better on average. The tank is just bigger there and they're constantly around other people that are just so psyched and so good. Every gym has some V16 climber in it. So that's your ceiling everywhere. And when everyone's like that, it pushes you up. It's definitely a bit harder in the U .S. where everyone is so spread out and the country is big and traveling around is not necessarily like a cheap thing to do. I guess it would help with, yeah, if they had sponsorships. But I also kind of like wonder if it is good to get inspiration. But then I'm thinking for people like Yanya where you are the inspiration and you are the top. It's like hard to push yourself when you're already kind

1:20:59 of the best. For people who are stuck, how do you push yourself when you're already the biggest one? Well, I think at that point, if you're the biggest one, if you're already thinking that, then you're thinking about it through extrinsic motivation. Your only motivation is to be better than other people. You know, so many people do get to the top with trying to be better than other people, but you're really only ever in any sport. And really this one, you're only in competition with yourself. So I want to get better.

1:21:37 I want to get better than I am today at something. And so I'm if I'm if I'm young, I'm trying to improve on my weaknesses. I'm trying to improve on my strengths. I'm trying to improve in every aspect because you what's your other option? Yeah, did she just give up on improving? Yeah, I guess that's true. She's that's who she is.

1:21:58 That's her life. It's like the best of anything has to It's just because you're just cuz no one else has been there. It's it's like if the people who set the You know the first mile Record in the first person who ran sub four was like, all right Set done did it. Yeah, I'm already better than everyone else like well Someone's gonna beat you dude. Obviously someone can beat that later. So See how far can I set that mark? That's I guess that's a way you can find an extrinsic motivation as well Like I want to make it so that future generations won't be able to ever achieve what I've done But I think it needs to come from within I just want to see how far I already have proof of concept. I can achieve

1:22:45 incredible You know limits and I want to push them See what I can do. Okay, so then let's get into some of the audience questions I think this first one is very interesting from discord How often do coaches at kids levels see elite talent and how easy is it to recognize? Is it possible to coach a seven -year -old and immediately?

1:23:09 Be able to tell yeah, that's gonna be like a V 17 climber No, you can't tell that seven you can have an idea Yeah, what? everything when they're that young, I mean, really at any age. I mean, here, if I get a seven -year -old, you know how I know that they could be a V17 climber? If they have all 10 fingers. That's it. If they have all 10 fingers, they can be a V17 climber.

1:23:40 That's it. They're seven years old, right? Adam started when he was nine, climbed that V17. So that kid has two years on Adam. kid can just mess around for two years, do nothing, still get to V17 and he did V17. It didn't take too long. I mean, yeah, it wasn't insanely fast, but that's what I think that people have to realize that V17 is not that hard. If you start at a young age and you climb and you're psyched and you keep climbing and you get into outdoor climbing and you just want to do it. You just want to get better. sure there's like a lot of things you got to do but it's not yeah it's not like the the hardest thing in the world it's not like you have to be a prodigy you just have to be

1:24:32 really psyched and stay really psyched and have a parent that will give you the opportunities a coach that can show you the way or not you just need a parent that can just bring you everywhere sometimes you see kids that are naturally gifted but you have no idea what they're going to turn out to be like you know some kids just fall out of love with the sport. It's all about longevity.

1:24:54 Adam could have been twice as talented, but had parents that just didn't want to take him places, didn't want to bring him to practice more than three days a week. He didn't have that. He has the best parents. So does Austin. They just did everything for those kids to have the best opportunities on the planet. Austin Hoyt is potentially the most He's put up the most FAs, has done the most repeats, is unbelievably diverse in his styles.

1:25:28 And one of the reasons was because, one, the kid's the most psyched person I know on the planet in climbing. He's the only person I think that's more psyched than me. I openly admit that. But his dad, Craig Hoyt, would take him outdoors whenever he wanted, anywhere, and would carry the pad, and would just be there. And Austin would carry a pad too, but Craig would be there carrying pads. schlepping around, doing whatever he could to support that kid. Yet he is the most supportive parent I've ever seen. But and Arik Shahar and Dana Shahar sent Adam wherever he wanted, training camps, sent him to all the comps.

1:26:03 And they have three kids, you know, like they just went above and beyond. So any kid with supportive parents That's the biggest thing, supportive parents or a coach. I used to also go crazy above and beyond for them. These kids just had two enormous advantages, but that's really it. You just need the opportunities. If the kid says, I want to go climb and the parents say, yes, that kid will get to climb and we'll get better.

1:26:31 And if the kid says, I want to climb and the coach says, you're going to actually climb these. How cool are these, huh? And the kid's like, whoa, this is so sick. I'm so psyched. Oh my gosh. Kid couldn't have a talented bone in his body. Could be the least talented kid on planet Earth. But if every time they go to the gym, their brain is lit up to 10 out of 10, like every time those kids came in, I had something new.

1:26:53 And I would, every time they'd show up, I'd go, yo, dude, dude, come here, check this out. When a kid walks in the gym, they hear, dude, dude, come check this out. I set this for you. You know what fireworks go off in a child? It's, it's, yeah. And the coach too, like I was the best feeling on earth when I'd see their eyes light up and they'd be so psyched to try it, run back to the bag, get the shoes. Like, oh man, so they all have it. Never give up on a kid. Even if they seem like they don't like the sport and it's not clicking, never give up. I had so many kids that for like three, four, five years, it was just like, man, this kid's just not, he doesn't love it. He doesn't have the work ethic. He doesn't want it. And then one

1:27:29 day, you have no idea what happens. And one day they show up and boom, there it is. and game on, and that kid could be a V5, they turn 14, by 16, they're climbing V15. You've seen that? Yeah. Okay, cool. Next one is from Filthy Little Crimses. Thoughts on finger boarding versus board climbing. Is board climbing more applied and practical? Answer is yes. I mean, by definition, it's more applied, right? Yeah. It's the thing.

1:27:59 Yeah. Practical, totally depends. Would you like... advise against finger boarding? No. That's the same. Would you advise against putting weight through your fingers in a climbing specific grip? No, I do actually advise that because that's what you do when you rock climb. So finger boarding is just statically loading. I would advise finger boarding over board climbing if... you've got any injured fingers, or you've got synovitis, or you've got anything that's not going to like high velocity finger loading. That's what the hangboard is great for static control. Also, if you are a fan of logical progression, I think if you're doing any testing or measurements, and you want to know on an absolute level, am

1:28:54 I stronger? Use the hangboard, dude. Don't get on the board. look at this I couldn't do this folder but now I could do it that's a huge improvement or I could only do one lap in 10 minutes now I could do three okay great are you stronger or are you better or did you improve your RFD or your peak force we have no freaking idea the hangboard can't really get better at that I mean sure you can you totally can it is a skill hanging but it's way way more one -dimensional pretty simple answer there then Next one from Samantha Bellingham. What is the most effective way to train big dino moves? You asked for the most effective way to train big dino moves. Most effective way is to do big dino moves. 100 % Samantha.

1:29:40 Do, but here we go Samantha, you ready for the, because you're never going to get that type of answer from me. It's just for dramatic effect. Here we go. Big dino moves that you can stick, but feel challenging. Okay, it was hard. It felt like an RPE, so rate of perceived exertion of let's say an eight. It was really tough. It wasn't like your limit, but it was really tough. Okay, great. Do it again and again and again and again until that comes down to about an RPE of five or six. Once it gets down there, trash it, get rid of it. Don't do that one again. Maybe you come back to it two months later if it was novel enough, but now go find another one that's an eight. Okay, great if it takes you three four

1:30:24 five tries to stick it maximum. I'd say like again five to twenty five Awesome, do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again Once it becomes too easy get rid of it done. You're done with it move on Do this with like three of each session if you do that for a month, you're gonna see incredible returns That's the trick. Don't get caught up on doing ones that are impossible Don't get caught up on doing ones that are too easy other than to warm up Sounds solid. So nothing about Explosive training like stuff Yes, okay here. That's a that's a great question if your skin so that's what you do to start, right? That's the most specific. That's your highest return somebody who does that will destroy someone who does Incredible

1:31:09 high quality plyometric training off the wall because they it's so much coordination. It's so much everything in the trick the chain but then once you're weak link is done. So this is whatever goes first, probably going to be skin or fingers. Let's be honest here. Could be power. Could totally be pull power in the upper body.

1:31:29 Could be legs. If those go, but the other ones can still benefit. Now you leave that and go do supplemental training for those. So I just did my dinos. My fingers are sore. Great. Grab the bar and do some plyometric power pull -ups. Okay. Great. My arms are tired. Okay. Now do plyometric legs doesn't even need to be today could be tomorrow so you're just whenever one has your you know the weak link of the chain dies go do the next one but priority is first highest power is first and and then you go down the the chain solid answer for samantha um and i just want to keep track of time so i'll just do one last one from show 8675 who are your dream clients oh my dream clients My dream client is somebody who wants to get better and wants to

1:32:25 learn and likes to ask questions about what is it that they don't know what can they get better at and Fills me in on what they're thinking fills me in on what they're doing keeps me updated Really wants to go into the weeds of everything is psyched on learning concepts is psyched on you know, just learning how to do all the right things the right way. It's not someone who is just really good and wants to get better and kind of knows the ways that they work for them and they only want to do that and they think they know what the right path is. Sometimes those climbers are right or they've got a bunch of the assumptions correct and they're easy to help get better. But I'm much more into taking someone

1:33:15 who's basically lost. or they're in a dark room, giving them a flashlight and then pointing them towards the light switch and then walking them through the entire house, turning on all the light switches. And if there was like one pro athlete World Series climber that you would want to train, anyone come to mind? Adam Shahar. OK, you can't say that. That's not fair when I cop out. I know. Oh, man. If, uh, who I would want to train. Oh, um, no. Well, Imori would be my dream to be able to coach Imori because she's, she would be so easy to make a champion if she were down to just let me take the wheel. I could, I really think I can make Imori the best in the world. Just because of the lack of willing to

1:34:07 commit to dynamic moves. Yeah. Just lack of power. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Um, but. I mean, the thing is, I would think it's not like I can't imagine that she doesn't know that that's her weakness. I think she's probably just unwilling to do that. So that's kind of like the opposite of your dream client. Right. I know. I know. But if I could.

1:34:29 That's the thing, though, it's like I can I can see it's just like the most black and white, I guess, like there's an issue and it's like and then so clearly. Yeah, so easy. But maybe, oh man, I don't know. That's a really great question. I want to say Meji, but that's just because I like him because he's a really nice person and we talk sometimes. But I don't know because Meji is so well -rounded. I don't know how much I'd be able to give him in terms of revolutionizing his climbing. I mean, I know I could help him get better, but I don't. Yeah, I want to work with someone who has a crap ton of opportunities.

1:35:12 If you ever think of anyone else, let me know. But yeah, I think that's all the questions I had then. Thanks for joining me today. Any other things you want to shout out or last minute words of wisdom that you want to get out there? Not really. I guess just raising awareness of if anyone is has been inspired by any of the things that I'm saying in any of my ideas towards teaching people the right way and making sure that people have a life in this. long career in climbing and do it the right way and the best way possible is that that's why I created the bouldering progression formula was so that people can go through a full year and experience what it's like to truly train the right way and see the long -term improvements

1:35:56 that come from when you stay consistent and learn all the right things through that year because I'm confident that when people come out of that and you've improved two to three grades in a year and you've learned through that experience that the rest of your career takes care of itself, because now you have all of the understandings, you know, the right habits, the way to approach it, the way to, you know, manage your load and approach each day with the intention of improving that skill on that day within that focused phase, or that's your focus of that, you know, two month period. And I think people are just so scattered because one were presented with so many ideas and also climbing seems so different at every

1:36:41 move that you make. Whereas if you focus, it's kind of everything. It's like, we're always distracted, but if you focus on the right things at the right time, declines take care of the, you know, the variety, whereas your focus should be, you know, pinpointed basically, but, uh, and it doesn't have to feel like training. It can, it can be very fun. And, uh, yeah, so that's really what I've, my tool that I'm trying to use to to accomplish that 100 ,000 people goal in a profound way.

1:37:14 Okay. And then do you want to tell people where they can find you and find all your links? I'll also add them down below. Oh, yeah. Paradigm Climbing coaching on Instagram and Paradigm Climbing on YouTube. And I have a TikTok, but I don't post enough. And my website is Paradigm Climbing dot com. Well, thank you again. It was amazing to talk to you. You too. Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun. Thank you for listening to this episode of the That's Not Real Climbing Podcast. If you've been enjoying the podcast, I would appreciate if you like it on YouTube or rate it on your podcasting platform.

1:37:48 And please leave a comment or reach out at any time if you have any thoughts. I try to read all of the messages. If you want to continue the discussion, join the free competition climbing discord where we chat live during the World Series comps and talk all things climbing. The link is in the description and see you next time!