The fact that you don't use chalk, I find it very fascinating.
Have you tried it?
Like I feel like it's not only about preventing sweats, but it's also something about the
stickiness of the holds.
Have you ever tried like climbing with chalk and without chalk and see how much, oh yeah,
how many grades apart?
Huge difference.
Huge difference?
For me yeah huge difference.
Is it like two three grades?
I think four or five yeah.
What?
According to Magnus, since he climbs V15 with chalk, he is a V10 climber without chalk.
I am currently a V6 climber without chalk, so if chalk has the same effect on me, I should
be climbing V11, which means me with chalk climbs harder than Magnus without chalk.
Obviously, this is impossible.
In this video, I will conduct a few experiments to find out how much exactly chalk helps for
an average climber like myself.
In order for the measurements to be as accurate as possible, I will be doing the measurements
on two separate days, one day entirely without chalk and the other day entirely with chalk.
I will attempt this orange V7 without chalk.
As expected, I failed.
So I'll be measuring how many seconds I can hang on a 10 millimeter edge without chalk.
Let's do it.
That was tough, that was tough.
I'll be hanging on a good old 20 millimeter edge without chalk and see how long I can
hang.
Let's do it.
Actually pretty tiring.
That was quite a while though, okay.
I'm happy with my hang.
So now next we'll hang on this sloper.
Based on intuition, Sloper is the one that will matter the most with or without chalk.
I'll be hanging on the sloper without chalk and see how long I can hang on it.
If I didn't hang on the 20 millimeter edge I could have hanged longer, but you know what
this will be a fair test, because on the second day when I have chalk, it will be the same
sequence, so it will be a fair comparison.
So I'm going to attempt to hang on the beastmaker, so first on the slope out wide first.
I remember I wasn't able to hang on it for even one second before, maybe things change,
but I'm going to try.
Okay, I can't.
Okay so this sloper is too difficult to hang for me at the moment, so without chalk at
least.
Now I'll hang on this sloper, this should be easier.
Oh my god, that was difficult but uh I was happy I was able to hang on it.
The last thing we will be measuring is pinching.
We'll be testing our pinching on an 18-pound and see how long I can hold on to it.
One two three, go.
Oh my gosh, that's actually pretty tough.
Okay, that was tough.
I haven't pinch training for a long time, and I'm happy that I can actually pinch it
quite a while.
This is what my hands look like without chalk, only some residual chalk from the climbs I
did when I warm up, that's pretty much it, that's how I climb all the time.
I can't wait to you know test the whole thing again with chalk and see how much exactly
does chalk help.
Does chalk actually help?
We'll find out.
Today we are back to the gym with the Magdust chalk.
Magnus personally uses this chalk to climb four to five grades harder, so there's no
better chalk than the Magdust for this experiment.
So now it's time to test the Magdust chalk and see if I can see any improvements.
Alright so now I'll be climbing my orange V7 project with chalk, and see if there's
a difference in terms of how long how far I can get.
That's an improvement, I think.
Previously the right-hand crimp was very difficult to hold on to without chalk, but now with
chalk this actually feels a lot more solid, so I can actually make moves on it.
The next hold is still too far away, so still couldn't get it.
And now we'll be hanging on the 10 millimeter with chalk and see how long I can hang on
it, so Magnus said we have to get our hands all with chalk even though it's only the fingertips
that will be touching the hold, so we'll see what will gonna happen.
That feels a little bit longer than the previous one.
Alright, so I'm gonna hang on a good old 20 millimeter edge with chalk and see if there's
a difference.
It felt pretty long.
I'm not sure if it's longer than the previous attempt without chalk, but I'm happy with
the hang regardless.
Alright, so I'll be hanging on the sloper with chalk and see how long I can hang on
to it, and I'll make sure that I get the chalk on my entire hand.
Based on my intuition, chalk should do wonders on the sloper.
Feel like I could have hanged a bit longer if I didn't hang on a 20 millimeter, so again
same sequence, so fair comparison.
Alright so I'm gonna attempt to hang on the beastmaker sloper on the side again and see
if I can actually do it this time because I remember last time I wasn't able to do it.
It's still too hard for me okay so even with chalk I still isn't unable to hang on the
side so next I'll hang on the middle sloper.
I'm gonna get my hands with full chalk.
Oh my god, oh my god, that hurts.
Yeah, so for some reason you know I started to feel a little bit of swing and I kind of
you know swing it swings, and then it's like a sloper, so it's really hard to catch myself.
So the last thing we'll measure with chalk is pinching so again like last time we'll
be pinching 18 pounds on the frictitious port-a-board and see how long I can pinch onto it.
Oh my god.
Okay that feels pretty long.
I'm not sure if it's longer than last time but regardless I'm happy with how long I can
pinch onto it.
So I'm gonna go back and check the footage and see how much I improve or even like regress,
and we'll do a summary for you guys.
Based on the results of the tests, it seems that using chalk does help someone like me
who doesn't sweat, although it doesn’t help me as much as it helps Magnus.
The only test in which I regressed is the beastmaker middle sloper, and my guess is
it’s because I put too much chalk on my hand, which actually made the surface feel
more slippery.
Therefore, I swung and popped off the hangboard, even though I was trying hard not to.
Another surprising finding is that the most improvement I got isn’t in the slopers,
and nor in the pinches and the larger 20-mm edge.
It’s actually in the smaller 10-mm edge.
It was also my first time being able to hold onto the right crimp solidly that feels around
10mm-ish and being able to make a decent attempt with the big left.
I guess that explains why high level climbers like Magnus feel chalk is essential because
these kinds of small crimps only appear in higher-level climbs.
In any case, I understand these tests aren't super scientific and there are a lot of variables.
The subject is equal to one, and maybe my body was simply in a better state on the second
day, or maybe I simply subconsciously went harder on the second day because my mind assumed
chalk should help.
The conclusion is that I can’t say for sure whether chalk is 100% helpful, but I can say
that there’s a high probability that chalk helps in climbing.
Thanks for watching.
I am not sponsored by Magnus, nor do I receive any commission from Magnus for this video.
After I met Magnus in person, I dug out my old chalk that I brought to America 12 years
ago and tried climbing with it, but my skin cracked after using it, so I stopped using
it and went back to my old ways of climbing without chalk.
I was hoping that Magdust wouldn’t crack my skin, but unfortunately it also did.
I decided not to climb with chalk in the near term again, mainly because grade chasing is
not the top priority in my life at the moment and the skin crack affects my day job since
it stings when I type on the keyboard.
However, if you don’t have dry skin and grade chasing is your top priority in life,
you should definitely consider climbing with chalk if you haven’t yet.
Check out the link in the video description below to find out more about Magdust.
See you in the next video.