- I'm Alex Honnold.
And today I'll be answering your questions on Twitter.
This is part two of "Climbing Support."
[dynamic music]
First up, from Jordan Harlowwww.
How do the really hardcore rock climbers
that go on multi-day climbs go to the bathroom?
Do they just go and hope no one down below gets hit?
So that is how people did multi-day climbs
in the '60s and '70s.
Way back in the day people would just go to the bathroom
into like a brown paper bag and just throw it off the wall.
That is incredibly frowned upon now.
That is definitely not the way.
Nowadays, you pack everything out.
So when I go multi-day wall climbing
I typically use my used water jugs.
Basically you poop into a bag, you bundle up the bag,
you can like duct tape it up
so it's like a little sealed bundle.
And then you can leave it in like your used water jugs
and then seal that up with tape.
And then you basically wind up with sort of jugs of waste
dangling below your actual haul bags as you climb the wall.
And then when you get to the top
you just like hike your waste out
and throw it away in the dumpster.
Next question's from Kate Warburton, who asks,
doesn't a bunch of climbers climbing a mountain mess it up?
That's a fair question.
Though it could also be applied to
don't a bunch of hikers going outside mess it up,
or don't a bunch of fisher people overtax a stream?
I would say that in terms of outdoor recreation
climbing probably has a lower impact than many sports.
And there just aren't that many climbers.
Though, as climbers, we aspire to leave no trace
and to leave things how we find them.
So, not to make a mess, not to disturb anything.
Climbers definitely aspire to be
good stewards to the environment.
Uloha Hawaii.
Can you find what's wrong with their rappelling technique
seen in a physics textbook?
Well, first off, they spelled rappelling wrong.
So that's what's wrong with the question.
Second off, oh my God,
I can see what's wrong with the technique.
Yeah, the first problem is that there's a guy
holding the other guy who's rappelling.
And this is all very dangerous,
and they're both about to die.
But I do think that the point
of this illustration is to show the forces,
and I think their forces are technically correct.
But everything else about the technique is a death trap.
Next question comes from Zach Rudenn.
He says, I need help with my footwork.
It's frigging lousy.
Who's got insights here?
And this is actually something I could talk a lot about
'cause I think footwork
is the most important thing in climbing.
Your hands, your arms should be
just maintaining your balance,
like keeping you attached to the wall.
But your legs are what I actually push you up as you climb.
The biggest beginner mistake with footwork
is that they place their whole foot onto a hold
the way you would if you're just
like walking in street shoes.
They just kind of put the meat of their foot onto a hold.
But really you wanna place the tip of your toe on that hold
because that allows you to be a lot more precise
in how you maneuver your foot afterward.
Because if you just put your whole foot flat against it
you can't swivel and like turn your hip
either way afterward.
You're just kind of locked into
the position that you put it.
Whereas, if you place the tip of your toe,
then as you move higher you can swivel your foot around
as you need to maintain your balance.
Next question from Jeff Ballard.
Okay, about to tackle each of these, a rose move,
bat hang, kneebar, and bicycle.
Who's got tips for Jeffrey?
Jeffrey just listed every sort of trick move in climbing.
Like every sort of bizarre, rarely used,
but very showy and sort of fun maneuver.
Basically, each of these moves is something
you only use when nothing else works.
'Cause typically when you're climbing
you can just hold onto holds and sort of climb normally,
the way you imagine climbing,
where you like raise your feet,
and you stand up, and you grab the next hold.
It's very rare that you have to
use something like a bicycle,
which is what it's called when you push one foot one way
and then tow hook with the other foot.
So you're basically applying counter pressure
with one foot pushing and the other foot pulling,
to like squeeze the same hold.
The only time you really do that is when you're climbing
in really steep caves, and roofs, and things.
And there aren't any other foot holds to use,
and you have to like squeeze the same foot together.
A rose move is what it's called when you take a hold
and then you swing through underneath to the next hold.
And it's actually so named from a root in France
called the rose et le vampire that a man chipped,
he basically artificially created some pockets
that forced that kind of movement.
And it looks like a circus trick.
It's pretty cool.
A bat hang is when you hang upside down by your toes.
If you imagine like a bat hanging out of a crack.
A bat hang is a legitimate way to rest sometimes
because if you find the right little thing
to hook your feet on you can let go
with your hands and rest your hands.
But it's rare that you wanna dangle
upside down by your toes intentionally.
Kneebars are probably a more common way
to rest when you're climbing.
A kneebar is kind of like a bat hang
in that you wedge your knee against a hold.
But they're kinda like bat hangs.
It's just a way to take weight off of your hands.
Next question comes from Jamila Williams,
she says, serious question.
What does a professional rock climber do?
Like they work for a company,
or they just compete in competitions?
That is a fair question
'cause professional climbers don't necessarily do that much.
No, there are many different paths
to being a professional climber.
Some people do just compete in competitions,
and earn money from the winnings,
and then sort of support themselves that way.
Most professional climbers make a living through sponsors.
So they have a contract with say
equipment manufacturers, or apparel manufacturers.
And then they get paid
for a certain number of appearances a year
so they show up at climbing festivals or events.
And they they maybe give talks,
or show films, teach clinics, things like that.
They write books, they write guide books.
And then a lot of professional climbers
are also just guides.
So they take people climbing.
Next question is from Stanky Hazel.
Someone please show me a proper sloper technique.
I can't figure it out.
And a sloper is like a very sloping hold.
It's something that you can't just hold with your hands.
It's like brute hand strength isn't necessarily enough.
You need to engage your whole body
to stay tight to the wall.
And then mostly, you position your body in different ways
to make the hold feel better.
For really bad slopers, keep your center mass below it,
stay underneath the hold more.
But I think a lot of being able to hold onto slopers
has more to do with strength in your core,
and your shoulders, and sort of like your whole body.
If you're reaching to some hold and it feels terrible
you're like, okay, that's not a great hold.
But then if you shift your whole body to one side,
all of a sudden the hold feels a lot better
'cause you can compress it between some other hold.
You can engage it in a different way.
It's not always that the hold is the problem.
I mean, oftentimes your body position is the problem.
Next question comes from Laura Owen-Onsea.
Help needed from the climbing community.
How should I improve jumping and dynos?
It's partly a question of confidence
and partly I'm just not that bouncy.
Well, I feel like she answered her own question.
If she is struggling with dynamic movement
because she's not confident and not very bouncy.
Those are two obvious ways to improve her dynamic movement.
Dynos, or dynamic movements, big jumps,
come from confidence and physical dynamicism,
like the bounciness that you have.
So some of it is the springiness
and the amount of power that you can generate.
Like how much can you actually jump?
Some of it is the confidence to believe
that you can jump to a hold and actually catch it,
and not swing off and hurt yourself.
You know, I think that confidence
gets developed through practice.
If you do a bunch of dynos
you're gonna have some confidence
that you can actually do them.
And then the bounciness is just
a matter of plyometrics and stuff.
Can you jump, can you catch things?
How powerful are you?
Michael Torres 45.
So rock climbing is harder on my shoulders
than I thought it would be,
any suggestions to minimize injuries?
That's a good question.
Climbing is relatively hard on your shoulders,
or it can be 'cause it's an overhead sport.
So you're like loading your shoulders
in a fairly vulnerable position all the time.
You can minimize injuries by focusing on technique,
sort of building up to it over time.
Strengthening your shoulder joints as you go,
trying not to like shock load your shoulder.
Focusing on form, like how you engage your shoulders.
Keeping your shoulders down and low,
not hunching too much so you don't don't scrunch the joint.
And also just maintaining mobility, flexibility,
like stretching, doing opposition stuff,
making sure you're all balanced.
There's a lot to maintaining healthy shoulders,
Question from Explore It.
It says climbers,
what's a good but cheap entry level climbing shoe
good for all types of climbing?
That's actually not the best question for me
because I haven't used an entry level shoe
since I was about 11, I think.
Well, depending on how serious you are about climbing
I think you outgrow entry level shoes relative quickly.
Most entry level shoes are just cheaper,
but they're also typically flatter,
which makes it more comfortable on your foot.
Like elite high performance shoes are often more curved
and hook shaped, more like a talon,
so that you can pull with your toe.
Basically climbing shoes are all built for specific tasks.
Like they do different things.
It's like a different arrow in the quiver.
It's like you want the right arrow for the right task.
Yeah, so the shoe I here is,
this is like a high performance shoe.
You see it's ultra soft so you can bend down.
It's also sort of naturally hook shaped.
It's downturned.
It's asymmetrical where the shoe curves around
to put all the weight on the big toe.
This is my go-to gym shoe.
This is what I use for climbing indoors,
and for climbing, like training on boards.
Basically this is like a very high performance sock
that puts all of your weight onto the tip of your big toe.
Another question from Stanky Hazel.
I just turned 30 and I'm climbing better than ever.
But when should I expect to feel my body slow down?
I wanna age gracefully on the wall, like a mountain goat,
not like some old worn out chicken
tumbling down like a fool.
There's a lot to unpack in there.
It concerns me that they're worried
about aging at 30, 'cause I'm 36 now.
So I'm sort of like, wow.
I feel like I'm climbing better than ever
and I'm doing well.
So hopefully they can make it at least six more years
before they begin their steady decline.
I would say that climbing has more longevity
than most sports just because it's relatively
low impact on your body.
So you can be climbing at an elite level
into your 40s, 50s, 60s.
For example, actually in town here,
I've been climbing with a professor who has a full-time job,
who's climbing 5.14s.
So climbing at an elite level as a 61 year old.
Ethan Whitehill, is bouldering just rock climbing
where they charge you more
and give you less safety equipment?
That's not far off.
'Cause if you go to a bouldering gym in a lot of cities
they do charge you a lot and they give you nothing.
But bouldering gyms are very fun.
I think he's being facetious,
but you know, it's kind of clever.
Next question comes from Do Now Imagine L8r.
Please help, should I eat this 20 piece McNuggets
before climbing stones in Joshua Tree?
What are climber's diets like?
You should not eat a 20 piece chicken McNugget
before going climbing.
in general you shouldn't eat it at all 'cause it's gross.
But I would say most climbers
are relatively mindful of their diet.
Next question comes from MSR Gear.
For mountain climbers,
what's your favorite season for climbing and why?
Almost everybody likes the autumn, you know, fall.
People call it a Sandtember or a Rocktober,
things like that.
Basically when conditions start to get
a little bit cooler, but it's also dry.
Nowadays, September is kind of too hot in the Western US,
so it's kind of drifting into November and December even.
But yeah, basically the fall
is ideal for climbing conditions.
Pallymigo.
I wonder who first tested those tents
that mountain climbers sleep in,
hacked into the side of a mountain?
I wager they were insane.
Most of the big equipment manufacturers
were founded by climbers who were
manufacturing the gear for their own use.
Companies like The North Face,
and Patagonia, and Mountain Hardware,
they were all established by climbers who were making
the gear that they needed to go on climbing trips.
I would say that that they tested their own gear.
Nowadays, most of that gear is tested by athletes.
So for me as a North Face athlete,
I get a lot of prototype North Face gear
and then use it in all kinds of crazy places.
Like I went on a climbing expedition
to Antarctica where we used a whole new kit of gear.
And we're like, well we survived Antarctica.
I guess it works okay.
It's probably all right for Brooklyn
if you can make it through Antarctica.
Next question is from Townes Widger.
What does it take to ascend the hardest climb in the world?
It takes very strong fingers.
From Jake Ireland.
How does a climber approach climbing
different types of rock?
Kind of a broad question,
but I think the simple way is you just practice
on a lot of different types of rocks.
So you sport climb on limestone, you climb big walls
on granite, and sandstone is sort of like a fun in between.
And then of course you can find all kinds
of other sorts of rock around the world.
But those are the main kinds
that you spend most of your time climbing on.
The next question comes from Max Zolotukhin, Sea of Czars.
And he asks, where do you see
the future of rock climbing in 2040?
It's kind of hard to imagine
because if I think of climbing in the year 2000
versus where it is right now,
it's hard to imagine what another 20 years will do.
I think one of the things that interested in,
in the sort of future of climbing,
is in the next 20 years will equipment manufacturers
sort of up the level a little bit?
So far, I don't think there have been any big incentives
to make cutting edge, futuristic,
ultra light gear just because there's not
that big a market for it.
But with climbing in the Olympics now,
and people competing at a much higher level,
I wonder if there will be more money in the sport.
Like there will be greater incentives
to create sort of futuristic gear.
And I think that'd be pretty cool,
harnesses that are basically like mesh bags,
things that are ultra, ultra light.
Those are all the questions.
Hope you guys learned something.
Until next time.