Ep. 175: Board Meetings | Top 6 Training Myths

Recorded November 2018.

Nate and I sit down with our fellow Power Company coach, Paul Corsaro to discuss the Top 6 Training Myths we see persisting in the climbing industry. 

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kris Hampton  00:00

Hey everybody, Kris here. Just a quick heads up. This episode was recorded in November of 2018, so there may be references to some outdated things. I know we referenced the Olympics happening in 2020. Obviously, that didn't happen. And I know that we also mentioned Nate's Instagram handle, which has since been changed to @NateDrolet. Spelled "dro-let". I'm sure there are others. Alright, let's get into it. 

Kris Hampton  00:53

What's up, everybody? I'm your host, Kris Hampton. 

Nate Drolet  00:56

This is Nate Drolet. 

Paul Corsaro  00:57

And I'm Paul Corsaro

Kris Hampton  00:59

Together we form Larry, Moe and Curly. Nate, who are?

Nate Drolet  01:05

 The Three Stooges.

Kris Hampton  01:06

Alright! Nate got an old one. 

Nate Drolet  01:08

I got one. Jeremy Ho will be proud. 

Kris Hampton  01:10

He will. Haha

Nate Drolet  01:11

Haha. He won't have to email you this time.

Kris Hampton  01:15

J.Ho emailed me and was like, "How old is Nate? He doesn't get any references. Is he like 12?" Haha.

Nate Drolet  01:21

Haha. I just get stumped easily sometimes. Always.

Kris Hampton  01:27

Alright, today, we are again sitting here and Rachel and Eddie's basement. Thank you guys for letting us do this. Our female counterparts are sitting across the room watching doggo language videos

Nate Drolet  01:44

" Doe-go"

Kris Hampton  01:45

 Doggo.. I don't even know what this shit is. It's crazy. You guys should be looking at powercompany climbing.com or CruxConditioning.com. Those are the only websites that matter right now. Anyway, I digress. We are here today to talk about the top six. It was originally top five, we moved it to top six. I feel like we can move it to the top 27. And we could do this...we do a whole new podcast on 

Nate Drolet  02:14

Just training myths

Kris Hampton  02:15

 Just training myths. The top six training myths. That's today's topic. And I think we had a tough time coming up with these and ordering them. And I feel like we like I said we could have just kept going. It seems like myths are pervasive. And maybe we're part of that problem for putting out so much information all the time. Even though I do try to filter a little bit and make sure I'm not speaking in absolutes. And maybe that's the problem here. Like a lot of people love to speak in absolutes, that "This is the way. This is the only way." And then it somehow catches on and becomes this myth that just gets repeated over and over and over throughout time. Do you agree with that? Is that...am I on the right track here? Am I just being angry? 

Nate Drolet  03:18

Uh let's not rule anything out here? 

Kris Hampton  03:20

Haha. All right,

Paul Corsaro  03:24

I think it comes down to the fact that a lot of times people looking for the magic bullet and you know, sometimes when people 

Kris Hampton  03:30

And people want to give it to them. 

Paul Corsaro  03:31

Yep. And when people... training can be a difficult process at times, you know. You're not... you may not see immediate improvement. And a lot of times it's easy to see this new thing that's come out, or especially now because we're in an interesting time because you know, climbing is gonna be in the Olympics in 2020. Climbing research is still very much in its infancy. Like there's very little that's coming out in research 

Kris Hampton  03:53

Like not even toddler stage. 

Paul Corsaro  03:55

Yeah, that's definitive, or even tells us stuff we don't already know. Like, a lot of the research out right now is like, "Oh, hey, hangboarding is useful."

Kris Hampton  04:02

 Like, "Oh, look the coaches were right."

Paul Corsaro  04:03

 Yeah, stuff like that. But, um, you know, we're in a stage where a lot of this information is coming to light. And it's easy to take new information or something that's been seen, or someone who promotes a narrative in a very aggressive or strong fashion and use it as kind of your parachute into getting out of a training method that's challenging for you which could be causing some growth into something that maybe fits what you think is helpful or just is feels easy for you to start out with and lets you kind of escape a little bit of the struggle because struggle is good sometimes.

Kris Hampton  04:46

Yeah, totally. That's a really good way to say this. Do you want to be co host? Because I could just kick Nate off this thing.

Paul Corsaro  04:52

I don't think I could handle the pressure.

Nate Drolet  04:56

It requires a lot of drinking.

Kris Hampton  04:58

It does require a lot of drinking, so. Well actually, I think that sort of takes us right into our number six, because you mentioned that it's sort of a parachute. It's, it's almost an easy way out. And I see this quite often. And number six is that you should be you should be doing corrective exercises. That's the myth. That you should be doing all these correctives. And I think for a lot of people, it's "I don't want to put in hard work. I'd rather do 500 of these different, really easy band exercises every day, to correct all these little things I have wrong, rather than do the hard work to make myself better."

Nate Drolet  05:44

You know, now that I think about it you are angry. That's

Kris Hampton  05:47

 I am what?

Nate Drolet  05:47

 You're angry.

Kris Hampton  05:48

You're right. I am. Yeah, I'm totally fine with that. I'll own it.

Nate Drolet  05:52

Haha. Yeah, so this is our number six. And I think this one's really important. And I feel like a lot of people stumble across this with, you know, good intentions and they feel like they're in a tough spot. Like they, they get injured, and their shoulders hurt, elbows hurt, fingers hurt, whatever, and man, they want anything. They don't care if it's all the mobility exercises in the world, anything that they've ever read online, all the fucking band work that they can do with horrible form. And the thing is, they do it with great intentions. But the problem is, so many of the things that what a lot of people will do, let's say, they do get hurt. They want to do all these correctives. But a lot of times, they get stuck and they don't actually end up getting better from them, because they're just doing a slew of random things that they saw on the internet or Googled. But also what we end up seeing is there's a lot of people who they are like, "Oh, well, I'm getting older, and I don't want to get hurt. So I'm just going to do..",  rather than getting stronger and strength is a great way of protecting yourself from getting hurt, they start doing all these ridiculous

Kris Hampton  07:07

Frankly, once you're older, getting stronger is harder.

Nate Drolet  07:11

It is, yeah. And it's a lot harder to get stronger, the older you get, but it's also the way to protect yourself.

Paul Corsaro  07:19

I would argue it becomes more important as you get older. 

Kris Hampton  07:21

It does.

Nate Drolet  07:21

Absolutely. 

Paul Corsaro  07:22

You know, muscle mass is harder to maintain. Muscle mass is protective.

Kris Hampton  07:26

That's why I was saying I think these bands are the easy way out for people. They don't want to do the hard work. Instead, they would rather do all these band exercises that aren't challenging. 

Nate Drolet  07:36

Oh I feel like that's what old people are relegated to

Kris Hampton  07:40

A lot of are. It's all ll I do. I go to the crag intending to climb and I just do flippity floppity band exercises

Nate Drolet  07:46

Before you know it, you're girth hitched to a tree and you're just you're tied down to it. You've just got to do shoulder exercises, every rotator cuff... I think there's like 47 rotator cuff muscles.

Paul Corsaro  07:56

Haha

Kris Hampton  07:56

Haha I do.

Nate Drolet  07:56

 You got to hit every one.

Kris Hampton  07:57

I do 48 different exercises.

Paul Corsaro  07:59

Uh there's 48 haha. 

Nate Drolet  08:00

There's 48 haha. Let me tell you about this new research. Yeah. But so we have everything from people who get injured, and suddenly they're paralyzed to the point to where they they don't think they can get stronger. They just need to fix the problems. And and I get it. Like and there are so many people out there ready to prey on these people who are just like, "Oh, I see you have a problem. I have I have the solution, right over here. Just follow like, you know, follow my snake oil."

Kris Hampton  08:32

Yeah, all these things. 

Paul Corsaro  08:34

Fear mongering is a huge problem right now.

Nate Drolet  08:36

Totally. It's just, you know, there are all these things that probably aren't even issues that people want to... people can make a living out of terrifying people.

Kris Hampton  08:46

Well, I mean, people can't get better unless they're doing a Power Company Climbing custom plan.

Nate Drolet  08:51

I mean, but these are facts, Kris. 

Kris Hampton  08:52

I know. That's all I'm saying. 

Nate Drolet  08:54

But going back to opinions: bands

Kris Hampton  08:58

Haha

Nate Drolet  08:59

But but the other thing...like, another thing that happens with correctives is people suddenly think that that's what they need to do is "Oh, I need to prehab against everything in the world."

Kris Hampton  09:13

Yeah. 

Nate Drolet  09:13

And so rather than getting strong, they're trying to prevent the onslaught of every injury known to man.

Kris Hampton  09:20

Yep. And I think things like, like lacrosse balls and foam rollers sort of fall into the same category. While I like them and I use them, I think their their usefulness is far overblown, as an easy way out. Like I'm going to do this because I don't want to go lift heavy weights or I don't want to try really hard on my boulders. Instead, I'm just going to foam roll my lats for the next hour

Paul Corsaro  09:49

At crux, you know, our form of warm up is "Hey, you know, take five minutes. Grab a foam roller. Roll what feels good to you. And after that we're gonna get going."

Kris Hampton  09:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Corsaro  10:00

Other than that, if you're spending 30 minutes foam rolling, you're wasting a lot of time, and not a lot changing.

Kris Hampton  10:06

Yeah. Is there a better method, like instead of all these corrective exercises, and you know, tiny little things that everyone is trying to add into their training program? I mean, I saw a training program that that Nate had sent to him that was

Nate Drolet  10:25

Oh, God

Kris Hampton  10:26

That was literally, I don't know, 50 or 60, individual little things

Nate Drolet  10:31

It was remarkable 

Kris Hampton  10:33

Being done. And, and that's not uncommon.

Nate Drolet  10:38

And also, let's just clarify, that was not training. These were all mobility, band work, things that you would do with a two pound dumbbell,

Kris Hampton  10:49

Right. And I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus here.

Nate Drolet  10:52

No

Kris Hampton  10:52

 I think it's pretty common to see that because so many people are telling you different things. 

Nate Drolet  10:56

Yeah. And the thing is this person

Kris Hampton  10:58

You want to fit it all in.

Nate Drolet  10:59

Yeah. And this person was like, "Hey, I'm getting older. I noticed, like, I love rock climbing, I want to keep rock climbing. So I want to do everything I can to be able to continue doing this without getting hurt, because I am not a naturally strong person. So I feel like this is what I need to do. This is the avenue that I've been told to go down." 

Kris Hampton  11:19

Right.

Nate Drolet  11:20

 But I mean, it was quite literally five hours a week of.... shenanigans. 

Kris Hampton  11:26

Yep,

Paul Corsaro  11:27

I think it's important to either reach out and connect with someone you trust, who's gonna empower you and give you a few amount of paths....That was a horrible sentence. A small amount of paths down the road

Paul Corsaro  11:45

That was a better sentence

Paul Corsaro  11:46

 That's a much better sentence haha. A small amount of paths to follow that, you know, you'll be able to move on from that. If you're doing corrective exercise, and you're doing the same movements

Kris Hampton  11:58

Right, right

Paul Corsaro  11:59

A year down the road, they're not correcting anything, they're just time wasters. You should do them for a short period of time, and things should get better, and you shouldn't need them anymore. 

Kris Hampton  12:07

Yeah. 

Paul Corsaro  12:08

And it's important to find someone you trust or a clinician, or you know, a coach you trust, who's going to take you through some sort of process that's gonna let you zero in on what that is. I'm partial to the functional movement screen, I like it. That doesn't mean it's the only way. There's never one way. We'll get into that later. But um someone who has a process to like really zero in on what you need to focus on as opposed to the shotgun approach where we're just going to do everything and just, we're just going to do that. Time is important. And it's important to really look at, look at the things that you need to focus on. And this can be different for everybody.

Kris Hampton  12:48

 Yeah, I'm glad you said what you just did. Because, you know, even though I'm not a fan of all these tiny little corrective exercises, there are times when they're really important. So they're not just completely useless. When I was rehabbing from shoulder surgery, initially, I couldn't lift any weight. I couldn't do core exercises, because it just hurt to have my shoulder in that hollow body position. So anything I could do to start building a little bit of resiliency in that shoulder, and get it moving again, was good. And that was funny little band exercises, and that I don't know what the hell they call that thing...it might as well be a Shakeweight for all I know

Nate Drolet  13:37

Body Bow.

Kris Hampton  13:38

Body Bow?

Nate Drolet  13:39

Let's go with you using a Shakeweight.Haha. Let's pretend I didn't say anything.

Kris Hampton  13:43

Haha .It might be on YouTube, you guys should go search around. So that stuff was really important for me then, but as soon as I could, I moved past that into lifting heavier weights.

Paul Corsaro  13:57

You know, that's kind of the whole basic concept behind strength training is progressive overload, right? Doing the appropriate load, but slowly and safely, doing a little bit more to spur the body into changing and adapting and moving towards your goals.

Kris Hampton  14:13

Right. What about those little exercises, like Nate mentioned that I go out to the crag and girth hitch myself to a tree and I'm just there all day. What about using those sorts of exercises as warmups? People are out there with these bands, doing Jazzercise at the crag to warm up the rotator cuffs. How do you feel about something like that?

Paul Corsaro  14:40

I think they're appropriate for a certain amount of people who may be recovering from a shoulder surgery or maybe have diagnosed mobility issues or structural issues in the shoulder. I don't think that everybody should be doing them. And I think that's where kind of the problem lies is that where everybody is starting to think they should be doing band external and internal rotations and seven different angles of their shoulder

Kris Hampton  15:08

Yep. Okay

Paul Corsaro  15:09

 It depends on you know, your past history. And I think those are, I think those tend to be a bit more post rehab post injury side of things. And I think they can be very useful there. But a lot of the times the rotator cuff is more of a stabilizer and not a prime mover. And a lot of those movements, a lot of those movements, train the rotator cuff to move the joint, compared to you know, where it's supposed to just contract to keep the humeral head in the socket while aa lot of the larger global movers should move the joint.

Kris Hampton  15:39

Right. So there's a better way to be warming up the whole system?

Paul Corsaro  15:43

 Yes. 

Kris Hampton  15:44

Okay.

Nate Drolet  15:45

Get ups, Turkish get ups

Kris Hampton  15:47

At the crag. Carry your kettlebells to the crag

Paul Corsaro  15:50

Or just grab a rock. Shit

Nate Drolet  15:51

Or loaded carries into Turkish get ups. Super sets.

Paul Corsaro  15:55

Take two ropes out to the crags, just hold a rope in each hand.

Kris Hampton  15:59

Yeah, carry my gear,

Nate Drolet  16:00

I use chains. 

Paul Corsaro  16:02

Even better

Kris Hampton  16:04

Well, you just mentioned that it's not for everybody. That some people should be doing it. And that sort of leads us right into our number five training myth. And that's that there there are these universal technique rules, things like "You should always be climbing with straight arms."

Nate Drolet  16:29

Ugh

Kris Hampton  16:29

 You should always be turning your hips to the wall. 

Nate Drolet  16:33

Son

Kris Hampton  16:33

Get your hips as close to the wall as possible at all times.

Paul Corsaro  16:35

You should always squat with your feet pointing straight forward. 

Kris Hampton  16:38

Right. Exactly. Same thing with with strength training as it is with climbing. There are all these technique rules that we've been told, that aren't necessarily true all the time. Any others you can think of Nate?

Nate Drolet  16:54

Hold on, let me reference my elaborate list. 

Nate Drolet  16:59

So this is a little bit of a hot button topic for me. The thing is, so to say that there is a perfect technique would be to say that there is only one body type and only one type of person, only one type of strengths, only one type of weaknesses. The thing is we are all different. What is ...now  I can tell you, when I watch someone I can say, "Oh, that looks, that looks good. That was very smooth." But can I tell you that was the most efficient way to do something for that exact person? No, I can't. No one can say that. We don't know that.

Paul Corsaro  16:59

Haha.

Kris Hampton  17:33

But I've seen videos that have angles drawn on people 

Nate Drolet  17:37

Oooh

Kris Hampton  17:37

And that's important. That means something. 

Nate Drolet  17:40

Oh, yeah, arrows, lines, Coach's Eye. It's all...woof...facts.

Kris Hampton  17:44

If you can draw an angle and tell me that's 110 degree angle, then it must be right.

Nate Drolet  17:50

So just to list a couple. Three points of contact on the wall at all times.

Kris Hampton  17:57

Nope. 

Nate Drolet  17:58

Get the fuck out of here. That, like that you need to be... like so...these two are very close to my heart. One is that you should feel in control all the time. We... I was just talking with a guy today. We're talking about a kind of a difficult, a somewhat difficult sport climb... for it's like an upper level moderate if you were a Dru Mack. And we were talking about

Kris Hampton  18:27

Haha Dru Mack now or Dru Mack 2012? 

Nate Drolet  18:31

I'd say Dru Mack now. 

Kris Hampton  18:31

Okay. 

Nate Drolet  18:32

Yeah. Somewhere in the moderates, soft moderates, soft upper moderates.

Kris Hampton  18:36

Soft, upper level moderates

Nate Drolet  18:39

And we were talking about this move on it. And we were saying like, "Okay, you just have to go." And it's like a trust fall, this move. You just have to go, blindly trust that you hope your hand will close around this next hold. And it's just like, that is not how sport climbing is supposed to feel. 

Kris Hampton  18:57

Right

Nate Drolet  18:57

 Like, you should feel like you're in some form of control. But the thing is

Paul Corsaro  19:01

What's that saying? The leader must not fall. That was like the old adage. 

Nate Drolet  19:04

Yeah, exactly.

Kris Hampton  19:05

 Yeah.

Nate Drolet  19:05

But it's one of those things, you know, in bouldering, it's completely fine if you're like, "Hey, I'm just gonna scrap my way to the top of this." Yeah, that fine.

Kris Hampton  19:12

As soon as you tie into a rope though, all control, all the time. 

Nate Drolet  19:16

Exactly. And so this is one of the things that you know, going into it, "I'm going to feel like shit and I'm just going to go for it. And I'm probably not even going to, in the back of my mind believe it's going to happen, but I still have to go for it. And it might work out."

Kris Hampton  19:29

 Yep. 

Nate Drolet  19:29

But that is that goes completely against what "good" technique should be. You should feel in control. You should have this confidence that it's going to happen. Sometimes you just got to get scrappy.

Kris Hampton  19:40

Yeah, I agree. And and I do think in a strange, abstract sort of way, there is a level of control in releasing control.

Nate Drolet  19:50

Oh, yeah. I think the best boulderers and this is something that I struggle with, so it's something I very much see in other people. There are a lot of great boulderers who you watch them and you're just like..... Dave Graham's a great example. He has this level of tenacity that is above anyone else. He...there's a video

Kris Hampton  20:10

He searches for crystals, all the time

Nate Drolet  20:13

Searches for crystals. 

Kris Hampton  20:14

He's really tenacious?

Nate Drolet  20:16

But there's a video of him doing Bridge Of Ashes and it shows in projecting it over a season. It's a really wonderful video. 

Kris Hampton  20:23

Totally. 

Nate Drolet  20:24

But oh my God, when he... I think it's the send go...but multiple goes like, it just looks like everything is falling apart, like as he's climbing, and he just like keeps his head down and keeps moving. Like, even if his foot starts slipping, he just moves. Like hand starts slipping, keeps, like trucking along. Everything looks out of control but he just keeps his head on and keeps moving. 

Nate Drolet  20:47

And it's awesome. And there's another video of him doing Dures Limites in Ceuse. It's like an 8...I think it's that or I think it was an 8c or 8c+ out there. I forget exactly what route it was. But watching him gives me anxiety because I'm just like, "Man, you, you look like you should be off on every single move. " But he just can stay composed, keep moving, even though, you know, maybe a foot slips or he misses a hold initially. And these are things that you might say are technical errors, but it's like, well, you know, dude, he's one of the best rock climbers in the world. And he can stay composed and climb well through this. I think this is a very valuable skill.

Kris Hampton  20:47

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  21:29

Yep, totally.

Nate Drolet  21:31

So those are some big ones. One that's also kind of close to my heart is the idea that you should only climb as fast as you can without

Kris Hampton  21:45

Sacrificing precision 

Nate Drolet  21:47

Sacrificing precision 

Kris Hampton  21:48

Quality. 

Nate Drolet  21:49

Yeah. Which nothing in life has ever been learned by staying in your comfort zone. So why on earth would you say, "Hey, just climbing as fast as you can comfortably like, because if you make any mistakes, that's a problem."

Kris Hampton  22:02

I did that for a long time. You know how much faster I got?

Nate Drolet  22:05

You didn't.

Kris Hampton  22:06

None. 

Nate Drolet  22:07

Yeah, Ninja Turtles over here

Kris Hampton  22:08

Haha. Yes. Not even Ninja Turtles, I was just a non-ninja turtle haha.

Nate Drolet  22:13

But this is the thing that's been said forever, like you should only move as fast as you can, with perfect technique. And it's like, you know, typing is a good example. If you want to get faster at typing, you have to push so fast that you make errors. You understand why you make the errors, you've corrected that issue and then you keep going. I think climbing is the same way. I think you can push it too far. I don't think it's necessary to like, sprint up things. But if we say that we always have to be under this perfect control where everything is perfect all the time, you're never growing. You were stuck in this comfort zone.

Kris Hampton  22:52

Yep. And you know what's funny, I was just recently watching a video of Adam Ondra, who everyone always references when we're talking about climbing fast, because he does move at a crazy pace. 

Nate Drolet  23:05

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  23:07

Watching a video of him, and I had this thought that I almost was like, "That's blasphemy!" But I think I was right, that it looked like he was just being sloppy with his feet, like just flopping his feet on to hold. But it was the same situation as you were talking about with Dave Graham. Like, I'm like, he didn't place that foot precisely at all. He just slops it there. And it works and he just keeps moving. And he's gone from that horrible foot placement in .02 seconds and it didn't matter in the slightest.

Paul Corsaro  23:41

Compared to like the two seconds it would take him to like watch the foot onto the hold

Kris Hampton  23:45

 Right! Exactly. And it worked perfectly fine. You know, I would be like laser precision, trying to put that toe on correctly. And here I am on the same move and he's clipping chains, you know, 20 feet above.

Nate Drolet  23:59

 Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  23:59

So there's something to be said for allowing yourself to be a little bit sloppy, a little bit out of control and, and moving a little faster all at the same time.

Nate Drolet  24:11

Yeah. I... you know, I think there's there's a skill to that.

Kris Hampton  24:16

I did just call Adam Ondra sloppy on my podcast. 

Nate Drolet  24:19

Yeah. Shots fired.

Kris Hampton  24:20

Okay. I just wanted to make sure that happened.

Nate Drolet  24:24

So yeah, I think any...so this topic is universal training rules...or...universal technique roles. Anytime someone says that this is the only way, turn in the opposite direction.

Kris Hampton  24:38

 "You should always be in this position when you're doing this." Negative. Not true.

Nate Drolet  24:42

Yeah. There. I mean, it's not even just like, "Oh, there are a few outliers". Yeah, you need to understand the full breadth. Like, I do believe that...I do believe in the idea that you need to understand the rules before you can break them. So understanding that a lot of times If you twist your hips into the wall, you're going to get more extension from your arm. You're gonna be able to reach further. If you place your foot into the best part of the foothold, you're going to be able to weight that foothold better. There's some fundamental basics. And I think it's important to start by trying to learn these things. But once you understand them, I think you start to understand that you can break these rules. These rules are...they're not solid.

Kris Hampton  25:28

Right. Is it the same way with strength training? Are there lots of rules that you've heard put out over the years that you think are...?

Paul Corsaro  25:37

I think one of the most classic examples is, you know, "Deadlift always with the straight back"

Kris Hampton  25:42

Yep

Paul Corsaro  25:42

 You look at some of the world record breakers in powerlifting for deadlifting, they use a rounded back technique. Would I tell people who are new to deadlifting to start doing that? Absolutely not. That's a problem. Um, but yeah, so you know, again, learning the basics. And then after that, utilizing your structural anatomy and your leverages to get the best performance out of that. So another good one is foot position. A lot of times people are told to squat only with their feet pointed forward, or at their feet just outside of hip width. You know, it's gonna be a little bit different for everybody. I know....I believe he is a chiropractor. Ryan DeBell wrote an article about squats and hip anatomy. I think it's on The Movement Fix, is his blog. But it's been shared around, you'll probably be able to find it pretty easily. But it actually looks at a bunch of different X rays of hip anatomy, of pelvises and femurs, and there's different angles for everybody. There's a little bit of variation. So if we told everybody to squat with their feet pointed straight forward, we'd have a lot of hip issues, we'd have a lot of lower back issues. And there's basic rules like sitting back in your hips, letting the knees bend, but you know, using your whole body to get through it. But your stance and setup is going to be different depending on your anatomy,

Paul Corsaro  25:44

Right

Paul Corsaro  27:09

 So 

Kris Hampton  27:10

Same as all these climbing moves. You're built different, you're going to do it a little different,

Paul Corsaro  27:14

Yeah. Taking basic concepts and then bending those concepts or morphing those concepts in a little bit to fit you and your goals.

Kris Hampton  27:23

Yep. I think that carries us right into our number four. And that's the, the myth is that there's a best way to strength train. And this goes beyond just form and technique. We're talking about kind of the whole the whole enchilada here. Like whether it's.... some people prefer and preach barbells only, you know, or bilateral only. Some people love kettlebells Some people love bodyweight. Some people love unilateral. Some people are all about five by five, everything. You know,

Nate Drolet  28:05

Some people say you shouldn't even be training errr.... like your strength training should just be... it should only move your rock climbing further.

Kris Hampton  28:14

Right.

Nate Drolet  28:14

 Like, it needs to be as specific as humanly possibl to climbing. If you're not doing just loaded pull ups 

Kris Hampton  28:21

On edges 

Nate Drolet  28:21

And heavy, heavy hangs, what are you doing? Everything else is a waste of time.

Kris Hampton  28:26

Right. Yeah, and that there is a best way to strength train, I think is a myth.

Paul Corsaro  28:33

Yeah, there's no best way. You know, again, like he said, this is piggybacking off of what we just said, but people have different anatomies. They have different goals. People have different fiber types. You know, some people have more fast twitch, some people have more slow twitch. You know, obviously, if someone who has a predominance of slow twitch fibers, does a lot of slow, high rep lifting, they're really not trying to change a whole lot, especially if they're trying to be a powerful, snappy rock climber. They're gonna continue to be more slower, you know, crawl up the rock face. Which, you know, isn't a bad thing. It just depends on your goals. But you know, and also depending on unilateral, bilateral, I think a mix is pretty helpful, especially as a climber. Like yes, we do a lot of unilateral stuff on the wall. We also do a lot of bilateral stuff. We place both feet, we drive with both feet. Sometimes we pull with one foot. Sometimes we pull with both arms, sometimes we pull with one one arm. It just really depends on where you feel you're weak at that point in time. And who's to say two months down the road, you need to work on something a little bit different. 

Kris Hampton  29:43

Right

Paul Corsaro  29:44

Depends on your mobility characteristics. You know, a lot of people who have had a previous shoulder injury.... I think there's someone here who had a pretty catastrophic shoulder injury. I'm not sure.

Kris Hampton  29:55

Wasn't catastrophic. Feels fine. 

Paul Corsaro  29:57

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  29:58

I just went straight into overhead military press immediately after.

Paul Corsaro  30:03

Yep, and you know, there's some difference in mobility there. And I think gluing both arms to one implement, something's got to give somewhere. And, you know, if you are only.... if unilateral strength training is perceived as the only way to go about it, there's going to be some problems down the road. Likewise, if your issue is generating as much force as possible throughout your whole body, and you're only lifting one implement in one arm, there can be some problems down the road there too. So it's really important to look at what you're trying to do with your strength training, and how is that going to support your climbing. And, you know, that's gonna require different implements, methods and tools for different people. You know, if someone's telling you, there's only one way to do it, and you only need one implement, again, use caution.

Kris Hampton  30:51

Yeah, and you know, having worked with a wide variety of clients, I would bring in the idea that just because someone doesn't have something available to them, equipment, or facilities or whatever, as a coach, I'm not going to say, "Well, you don't have the best way available. So you just shouldn't even do it." You know, that would be silly. There are all sorts of ways to accomplish a lot of these goals. Almost none of the strength training goals that we have, are like there's one path to it. There's almost always a bunch of different ways to get there.

Nate Drolet  31:36

You know, I think one, one thing to take into consideration when we talk about, like evidence based coaching, one of.... a lot of people say that there are four tenets to it. And one of them is the client's preferences. Because the thing is, it doesn't matter what you think is best if the client's like, "Look, bro, I can do bodyweight."

Paul Corsaro  31:57

You don't throw research studies at your clients? Give them required reading?  

Nate Drolet  32:00

Haha. Exactly. "But have you have you read the research... the literature?" I'm going to need some citations. But the thing is, if someone's like, "Hey, I've got some gymnastics rings, and I can do bodyweight stuff. That's literally all I have access to.", that's what you've got to work with. So I think it's really, you know, it is very important to look at personal preferences. And something else that I think is very important to talk about on this is I've been.... so I've been climbing I think 14 years now. Kris, how long have you been climbing?

Kris Hampton  32:36

Approximately 75 years

Nate Drolet  32:38

Haha. Okay, yeah. Paul?

Kris Hampton  32:41

Twelve...eleven

Nate Drolet  32:42

Okay, so

Kris Hampton  32:43

I think  25 actually,

Nate Drolet  32:44

Okay, so collectively, that's a lot like, I don't know, we've got like, 50 plus years,  between the three of us

Paul Corsaro  32:49

I think like 100 p

Nate Drolet  32:50

Yeah

Kris Hampton  32:51

But at least a decade of mine was trad climbing, so that doesn't really count

Nate Drolet  32:54

Oooh. Edit that part out. Um, so something that's kind of neat about the longer you've been climbing is you get to see cycles. When you first start climbing and you've been climbing for a few years, it's kind of easy to think that you know everything, and to say, "Oh, like, you know, this is how this works."A common instance is you go into the gym, you climb and there's this guy who climbs, you know, the super strong guy in the gym who climbs V11. And you're like, "Well, he just comes in climbs, like campus boards, does heavy pull ups and that's all he does. He doesn't do any strength training or anything like that." And the thing is having climbed, you know, like 14 years now, I've seen a lot of these people go through this full cycle of they, they just want to do anything to make themselves climb harder. And then they hit a fucking brick wall really hard. And they get hurt and it takes them a long time to get out of it, if they ever do get out of it. And it's cyclical, like then you see the next person who's like, "Oh, man, this guy, he's like, he's a, he's the next prodigious kid, like he's gonna be an absolute crusher". Crushes for a little while, either comes into an injury or something like that and it just keeps happening. But people who are robust and who are able to make themselves climb for a long time because they've built up this necessary strength, like they're the ones who over time, are able to climb really well. Like, as far as I'm concerned, if you look at climbing, and this is something I wish I would have known when I was younger, I would be much more concerned with acceleration over velocity. So just because I am able to jump up to a really fast, like speed or say like, "Oh, I can get to this like climbing level." Like, that's cool. But if it's at the cost of health, which is something like something that I did. You know, I pushed things very hard to the point to where I had elbow injuries, severe shoulder issues, a lot of finger issues that took me years of stepping back away from to be able to start building up again. You know, if I could have just said, "Hey, I'm going to be smart about this. I'm going to build a well rounded base. These things may not make me climb harder tomorrow. They may not make me even climb harder next year. But they're going to be the things that allow me to keep pushing myself as hard as I want five years from now, 10 years from now." If I could have done that, like man, that would have been amazing. Like, if I could pass one piece of information on myself when I was younger, that would be it. It's like really look at the long run. Because it's so so easy when you've been climbing two years, to just say, "Oh, I'm man, I'm just gonna keep pushing harder and harder. Like that's what all the guys around me I see are doing."

Nate Drolet  33:08

You wouldn't have passed yourself information about your La Sportiva pajamas?

Nate Drolet  35:55

They are pretty amazing. And I've got the matching top on now too. I switched between our last few podcasts.

Kris Hampton  36:00

I think what I hear you saying is that there actually is a best way to strength train, and that's slow and steady and consistently, but not being this like bright burning comet who's just gonna die out.

Nate Drolet  36:19

Yeah. Like, I think you can get away...and here's the issue. You can, you can hangboard hard and campus board hard. If you had told me when I had started climbing, like, if you told a 18 month into climbing Nathan, "Hey, I want you to campus board five hours a day, seven days a week, and it will make you an amazing rock climber." I'd have been like, "Cool, yeah, I'll just stop sleeping, that's fine. I will make the time. It would not have been an issue. Like I wouldn't have even questioned it. But I'm...and that's just it. It's like, early climbers are so psyched. And it's so easy to fall into that trap. And yeah, I wish I could have just told myself, "Hey, like, if you can actually take the long run approach to this, like you, you will continue getting better, you won't hit, you won't hit all these, like hard stops." I have a friend who I was just talking with who he climbed V9 in two years. And this was quite a while ago. And he had read an Eric Horst book that said that once you climb V9,  you are elite, and you can campus board. He was like, "Fuck yeah, time to campus board." Blew himself up, because he had been climbing two years. And it took him another I think seven years to be able to get back to where he was.

Kris Hampton  37:40

Right

Nate Drolet  37:41

 Because it just took him sooo long. Because he you know, blew up, kept trying to push hard, another thing went wrong and that just kept happening. And this is something that it's so easy when you first start and when you're only a few years into climbing.... the human body is really resilient. Like it can handle a lot of fucked up stress for for kind of a while.... until it doesn't. And then but you don't want to be on the end of it, when that does, when that happens, when your body's just like, "Hey, dude, we've been trying to work around this, but you're moving like an asshole. And you're just like treating me like shit. Like, this is where we're at now." And you don't want to get to that.

Paul Corsaro  38:24

I think it's a good analogy...a lot of that high intensity training stuff tends to, you know, you've got a cup. And you know, all the fluid in the cup is your training capacity. All that high intensity stuff, take stuff out of it, and then it gets refilled a little bit higher. But you know, your movement quality work, your basic strength work, your technique work, that makes that actual cup a lot bigger. And a lot of times people tend to just focus on putting stuff into the cup and at the same time taking a lot out of it and not doing the boring stuff that helps make that cup bigger. And you know, that's really going to be the key to the longevity of a lot of it. 

Kris Hampton  39:05

Well I think now that Nate's brought the mood down, talking about people crashing and burning and failing to ever see their potential and falling apart, maybe we should just take a break.

Nate Drolet  39:18

Sounds good.

Paul Corsaro  39:19

Hahaha

Kris Hampton  39:24

 What's up everybody, Kris here. I'll keep this short and sweet. I just wanted to let you guys know about our new updated Proven Plans that are now available on the website. These are the patterns that we've seen emerge after years and years of training hundreds of climbers, the patterns that at a specific level help those climbers reach the next level and this includes our two newest Proven Plans: Just Climb More Boulders and Just Climb More Routes, written specifically for the new or novice climber. Why "Just Climb More"? Because frankly, we feel like the advice that most new climbers get it, "Just climb more", is a lazy cop out answer. While you will be climbing more, you won't just be climbing more. Instead, you'll be climbing more focused, more intentional, and you'll be learning a more efficient way to progress. We've updated those with weekly progressions, all of the most recent ideas and concepts that have been proven to work in training for climbing, as well as new videos for every exercise and every drill that you'll do. This is all laid out for you, week to week delivered in our mobile app. And you can choose to work with a coach. We've just hired a new coach to work specifically with everybody in these Proven Plans. And you can also join a group chat that's filled with other people also doing Proven Plans at the same time as you. Honestly, I don't think there's a better value in training for climbing. You can check these out at powercompanyclimbing.com. Click on the Train With Us tab. Alright, back to the show. 

Kris Hampton  41:01

Right, we are back. We are to our number three in our top six training myths. And all of these are things that we see pretty commonly. Obviously, they are our top six. But I do see this one really often that people think their training needs to be really highly structured. Frankly, most of us just can't do that. Like we don't have the capacity to have these super structures and these complicated things in our lives. If you do and that's good for you, and that works for you. Great. But I think it's a myth that for your training to be effective, it has to be really highly structured.

Paul Corsaro  41:53

Yeah, a lot of times people see complicated as guaranteed success, because it's complicated. 

Kris Hampton  41:57

Yeah. 

Paul Corsaro  41:58

And, you know, we tend to forget that life tends to be complicated, too. And most of us who are climbers have other stuff going on, too. We're not all paid to rock climb. We have jobs, we have families, we have kids, we have other responsibilities, and trying to plug in a super complicated training plan is it going to lead to things getting off the rails. And more often than not, we're not going to see the gains, hashtag gainz, that were promised 

Kris Hampton  42:36

With a Z?

Paul Corsaro  42:37

 Oh, yeah. A couple Zs haha. Yeah. That were promised, you know, by sacrificing 72 hours in two days for climbing.

Kris Hampton  42:49

Are there 72 hours in two days? 

Paul Corsaro  42:51

Some of these plans think there are haha.

Nate Drolet  42:54

Haha. What's bad it is I didn't even pick up on that. 

Kris Hampton  42:57

Hahaha

Nate Drolet  42:57

I was like, "Oh, wait, hold on. Shit. There's not."

Paul Corsaro  42:59

I was trying to do the math for a week, but I gave up and just picked a couple days. 

Nate Drolet  43:04

Numbers are hard. 

Kris Hampton  43:05

I've seen a lot of people start these really highly structured plans and get, you know, a month, maybe two months in

Nate Drolet  43:14

Who's making it a month? I got so many blank journals,

Kris Hampton  43:19

Haha. I'm just throwing out numbers here. But then just crash and burn, then they're off the plan. And they can't ever say whether it was helpful or not because they never finished the plan. They have no idea. 

Nate Drolet  43:32

Mm hmm. 

Kris Hampton  43:33

And that takes up season after season after season for a lot of people. And people think, "I'm off the plan. I just I missed my workout. It's done now. It's over." And then it just all stops, because if it's not a structured, it is not right.

Paul Corsaro  43:51

I think it's pretty, it'd be interesting to see this because you know, we all have a good amount of autonomy in how we build our training plans for the folks who work with. Do you have unstructured climbing days or training days in most of your clients plans?

Kris Hampton  44:06

Yeah, totally.

Paul Corsaro  44:07

 Yep. Do you Nate?

Nate Drolet  44:08

Sometimes, yeah. 

Kris Hampton  44:09

Or at least some, like freestyle areas within their more structured plans.

Paul Corsaro  44:15

Exactly. Yeah. And it's important to have a couple of those days in there. Because, you know, sometimes structured stuff doesn't fit. And instead of saying something that's structured needs to happen to me to force it to happen, we're better off just getting in and having an unstructured day compared to, you know, not going in at all because what we have planned isn't going to work.

Kris Hampton  44:37

Yeah, and I will say this, you know, just in contrast to that, I do have clients who, whose lives are very unstructured, and, and sort of chaotic. And it's really helpful for them to have a structure when they go into the gym. 

Nate Drolet  44:55

Sure.

Kris Hampton  44:55

 So sometimes it is helpful to have that structure. But I think the myth is that you're not going to get out anything out of it unless it is really highly structured

Nate Drolet  45:06

Everything has to have a rep and set scheme and things like that

Kris Hampton  45:10

Right. 

Nate Drolet  45:10

And I think something that's important about that is just because let's say you have a rep and set scheme for everything you do, and it can all fit in an Excel spreadsheet, it doesn't mean it's actually ideal. It just means that it's measurable in one specific way,

Kris Hampton  45:27

I think we've...man I think we can prove that very easily. Because there are 400 different hangboard protocols, you know,

Paul Corsaro  45:37

Actually there are 401,

Kris Hampton  45:39

There's probably 400,000.

Kris Hampton  45:41

 But which one is the best?

Kris Hampton  45:43

Exactly, only one of those can be the best

Kris Hampton  45:46

What did Eva say?

Kris Hampton  45:48

We're gonna save that for the Eva podcast. I can't tell the people. Not just yet. They can't know the truth. They're not ready for the truth. But no one would be doing all those others if there was a best. But all of these things are so... there are people out there for every one of these hangboard protocols who tracks it religiously and has these complex programs to tell them what they're getting out of it. And I mean, 399 of them aren't the best way. So why are you tracking it this way? Why are you paying that much attention to it? Why all the structure? So I think we can prove that just because it's complex doesn't mean it's the best way to do it.

Nate Drolet  46:42

So who do you feel like, would be best served by having slightly less structured training?

Kris Hampton  46:52

I... frankly, I think people who think they have to be structured. Not that they need it for some reason. But if they feel like they have to be structured, I think those people should have some sort of freestyle time, some sort of, don't keep track of your hangs. Go hang for a few seconds. Don't use a stopwatch, don't use a timer, don't count the reps, let's just go hang for 15 minutes

Nate Drolet  47:24

Don't even measure how deep that hold 

Kris Hampton  47:26

Don't measure how deep, don't choose an RPE for your hang. You know, just go do these things. Find a small hold. What's the smallest hold you can hang on today? Hang on it three times throughout your session. You know, if you're super into measuring all your hangboard, I think just letting go of that, being able to let go of that is really important. So people who latch on to it and that's what drives their training, drives their climbing, could really benefit from getting outside of their own heads a little bit. That's one person.

Nate Drolet  48:04

Any others that jump out to you?

Kris Hampton  48:06

Right away...the people who can benefit from less structure? 

Nate Drolet  48:12

Yes

Kris Hampton  48:13

 I think people who travel a lot. I have several clients who are traveling a ton. If we can come up with really effective strategies that aren't super structured, it's really nice for them because they're in different gyms all the time. They're in hotels with different equipment. So tons of structure just stresses them out, like, "I can't get my workout in because I don't have this available or this was available. It's not the same hangboard as the other gym. This gym didn't have kettlebells. That one did."  You know, so a little less structure for them is really, really helpful.

Paul Corsaro  48:51

Do you have any concepts or kind of underlying strategies you use for those people to kind of design sessions for them, or you just give them themes? Or?

Kris Hampton  49:03

Actually, I, I mean, I do use some of the ideas that we talked about in our episode on time efficient training strategies. Such as if they're traveling to different climbing gyms all the time, we'll use you know, go into the gym and you're just going to spend the first half of your session finding eight boulders that feel, you know, that are about 50% of your max. And we're gonna try to do those eight boulders on the minute, for four rounds. You know, so you'll spend 30 minutes finding those eight boulders and then the next rest of your session will be just sort of a density on the minute boulders. And they can do that in any gym and it doesn't have to be the same boulders week after week after week. It's just a good exercise for them if they need a little structure, but it can be a little freestyle as well. There are also lots of sessions where, especially if it's a strength session, where I'll have people just go in and work on their Turkish get ups. You know, if, if they have access to kettlebells, but going in to do a full workout just doesn't work out for whatever reason, because they're on the road, they can just slip little things in. We'll just go focus on the, you know, the ascent of a Turkish get up and that's it. You know, so I do choose little themes and play around with little things, to help people make the most out of those sessions. And then we have some exercises in the app that we like, like single session sends. You know, that's just a, that's a wide open thing. Go choose some boulder problems that you think you can send in a single session, and work on those.

Paul Corsaro  51:08

Cool

Kris Hampton  51:08

You know, and that helps teach tactics. It kind of forces you to rest and be more tactical, not just about how you approach the boulder problem, but how you approach the whole session. And that carries over to your rock climbing, period. So I think there are lots of ways to make these less structured sessions work for people.

Nate Drolet  51:37

So let's say you got someone who's just sloppy with everything they do and they need a little more structure. Because there are...this...everything lies on a spectrum. So while I think there are a lot of people who, such as beginners, who don't, I think they're going to benefit more from having a slightly less structured system, than more structured. There are some people who, you know, maybe if they had a little bit of a game plan, they'd, uh, kind of get a little further. Are there any specific examples that you can think of, of people who are types of people who would really benefit from adding just a touch more structure?

Kris Hampton  52:24

I mean, I think you just, you just said beginners and I, I do think that all of us are guilty of using the "Just go climb more!" answer for how to get better as a beginner

Nate Drolet  52:39

Totally.

Kris Hampton  52:40

But lots of people are really hungry for "But climb how? Like, there's so many ways to climb now. Do I go in and boulder? Do I go in and climb routes? Do I get on the auto belays? You know, what do I do?"

Nate Drolet  52:52

And if you don't tell them, they're just gonna do what Google tells them to do.

Kris Hampton  52:55

Yeah, they're gonna get on there and find something from somebody.

Nate Drolet  52:59

And because our SEO isn't the best, they're not hitting us first.

Kris Hampton  53:03

Haha. Exactly

Paul Corsaro  53:04

Hangboard and overhead press.

Kris Hampton  53:06

Yeah, totally. Lifts and hangboarding, that's what they're gonna come across. So I think those people can use a little more structure. I think people who've been freestyling forever, can use a little more structure. And it might be nice for them to have that change. That it's going to be adaptations they haven't been asked to make before, you know, so could be really helpful for them. What about you?

Nate Drolet  53:06

 Yes

Nate Drolet  53:33

Um, I'm going to hit you up one more follow up.

Kris Hampton  53:36

Damn. I'm answering all the questions. I'm the host of this motherfucker, why am I answering all the questions? Go ahead.

Nate Drolet  53:44

Hey everybody, this is your host, Nate Drolet.

Paul Corsaro  53:45

Haha

Nate Drolet  53:48

 So let's say you have people that would benefit from a little bit more structure there. They've got kind of a laissez faire approach to rock climbing and training. Is there a good first step that either of you all can think of, to just adding a little bit more structure to their training?   <<whispers>> Process journals

Kris Hampton  54:10

I don't I don't know what you mean by "process journal". Is that something we sell? Actually, that's not where I would start, frankly. I would, I would start by taking the things that they already do and and calling them structured already. You know, like a lot of people will go in and boulder and they'll boulder in a specific zone. Some people are really good at just falling into that limit bouldering zone. Some people are really good at only being in the middle zone, where they're basically doing power endurance. And I would, I would start by showing them, "This is the zone you're in. And this is what that is. Here's a session that does that. Here's a session that does this. Let's break those up and let you see that there are these different things." So give them that sort of structure. 

Nate Drolet  54:26

I like that. 

Kris Hampton  54:32

And I think that will help them understand that my laissez faire attitude toward climbing results in doing the same thing over and over and over, even if I think it's something different, I fall right back into that same mode all the time, and might help them break out of it. Why why do you like the process journal as an intro to structure?

Nate Drolet  55:44

I think so I think as far as building structure goes, I think there are two ways to approach it that work really well. One is front loading it. So one of my favorite things is just buy a pack of sticky notes. And I used to do this...I

Kris Hampton  56:01

Do you have a preferred color? Classic yellow?

Nate Drolet  56:04

No, I never had yellow, I always had a mixed pack. So my dad's a home inspector and he always kept note cards or sticky notes up in like sunvisor of his van, which I now own. And so they're like neon green, pink, blue. And I think it's just those three colors. So I would pull one of those down. I'd pull up in the gym parking lot. And I already knew roughly what I wanted to do. But I would write down on a sticky note, every night before I go into the gym, exactly what I was going to do. So "15 minutes of one touch warm up, 30 minutes of perfectly repeats"... whatever. Go through the whole thing. If I was going to do a hangboard workout, I would write out roughly what it would be. And I was like, "Well, whatever I'm doing, it will fit on a sticky. If it can't fit on a sticky note, I'm doing too much." And I would just take that, I would tuck it into the pocket of my bouldering bag, and I would reference it. I would start a timer on my phone, reference a sticky note and the second I hit you know, 30 minutes, its like okay, I switch. 

Kris Hampton  57:11

Yeah.

Nate Drolet  57:12

 So I think front loading it and looking at, "Okay, go in with a plan so that you know what you're doing." But I think also what's really important is recording what you're doing. So I think you can do it either way. But if you have something that you're doing consistently, writing it down and just so that you can look a month later and say, "Oh, this is what I did for the last month. You know, I went in and Moon Boarded for an hour, three times a week. And I wonder why I don't have any power endurance. It's because I haven't done more than five moves."

Kris Hampton  57:46

 Right 

Nate Drolet  57:47

You know, I think knowing having both having a plan and knowing what you've been doing are both really important.

Kris Hampton  57:53

And I think that's a really important part of important part of that sort of structure that a lot of people miss. A lot of people record what they've done, but they never go back and look at it. So I think that has to be in place. That's probably my only....and I'm not I don't have a beef with our Process Journal...but I do think that's the one thing that's missing is that we are not like, tucked into the pages so that when they get to the end of it, we're like, "Hey, go back and look, look through this thing. You know, do it right now." It does say to do that in there, but by the time people get to the end, they've forgotten what they read in the instructions. So maybe we need to put some pages....

Nate Drolet  58:36

 I've actually 

Kris Hampton  58:36

Just tucked in the middle of it that just say, "Go back and review the last month. 

Nate Drolet  58:41

Yeah, so the one

Paul Corsaro  58:42

 Yeah, like every month or every couple weeks.

Nate Drolet  58:44

Yeah, the one I've got right now, it's every 10 days, I have a star in the top corner of it, of the page. And so I'm like, "Okay, go back. Look at the last 10 days, 10 climbing days. What have you, what do you see? Are there any patterns?" Which typically there are.

Kris Hampton  59:01

Yeah. 

Nate Drolet  59:01

And you know, what can we learn from that? 

Kris Hampton  59:05

Yep.Have you seen any, either of you... have you seen any big problems with having highly structured training, other than what we've already talked about? I mean, it's I mean, especially you, you're in a world, Paul, where a lot of people are very, very analytical and numbers based and have been for a long time. It's still a somewhat new thing for climbers.

Paul Corsaro  59:32

Outside of what we've talked about, no. I do think it takes reinstating that being highly structured when you have a highly structured job, and highly structured outside of climbing life...you know, sometimes climbing is gonna have to make some sacrifices to make that happen. But

Kris Hampton  59:55

I think all we have to do really is look at most of the best climbers in the world right now. And they didn't get there by being super highly structured...most of them

Nate Drolet  1:00:07

if I could see Adam Ondra's Excel spreadsheet from since from the time he was eight years old until now, that'd be great.

Kris Hampton  1:00:13

Haha. Right. And, you know, that's not saying that it's bad to be highly structured. It's just saying that it's not a way that you have to be.

Nate Drolet  1:00:21

Right 

Kris Hampton  1:00:21

Doesn't mean you're slacking if your training plan isn't super complex and structured,

Nate Drolet  1:00:26

Yeah, certain times, I don't think it's completely necessary. Some people also do thrive off it though. Like, if that's what gets you psyched and you...you know, you write a training plan, and you stick to it, fantastic. Good for you! You are

Kris Hampton  1:00:39

 Yeah, I had a consultation with a woman. 

Nate Drolet  1:00:42

I remember this.

Kris Hampton  1:00:43

 Yeah, we were in....where we? 

Nate Drolet  1:00:47

Oh, God.

Kris Hampton  1:00:49

 Oh, we were in Knoxville. 

Nate Drolet  1:00:51

Yes

Kris Hampton  1:00:51

Because we were at that little coffee shop. And I had a consultation with this woman whose training program was very, very complicated.

Nate Drolet  1:01:00

 And very long 

Kris Hampton  1:01:00

And very long. And that was the first thing she said to me was, "You're going to tell me it's too complicated. It's too long. I will stick to this. I'm good at it. I can totally do everything on here. I've done in the past." I was like, "Okay, we won't even talk about that, then. If you know this, how you operate. Great. Do it." Anymore, either one of you want to say on that topic, before we move on?

Paul Corsaro  1:01:32

Think I'm good to move on over here.

Nate Drolet  1:01:34

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  1:01:34

 All right. This next one is yours, Nate. And I think it's an interesting idea. I think we could do a whole podcast, separate podcast on this. But it's that you can't really piece together a good climber. You know, this myth that there's no assembly required. Like you can you can take little pieces, train ends of the spectrum and somehow it's all just going to gel together automatically. That's not a real thing.

Nate Drolet  1:02:10

Yeah. You know, you can look at someone like Alex Megos and say, "Oh, he's got really strong hands. He's got strong shoulders, strong core and there you go. You know, he's got some decent endurance. So that makes 15c rock climber. "

Kris Hampton  1:02:25

He's got rosy cheeks

Nate Drolet  1:02:26

Very rosy cheeks. 

Paul Corsaro  1:02:28

Haha

Nate Drolet  1:02:31

But the thing is, you know, it's funny, actually. I remember one of the first times he posted a video of him doing his one arm hangs, his one arm dead hangs. And he did it with I think it was with half body weight, which he's a little human. But it was something like 28 kilos. And he was holding...I think it was like a shopping bag with weights

Kris Hampton  1:02:52

Haha, right, right

Kris Hampton  1:02:53

Right

Nate Drolet  1:02:53

With like a 20 kilo kettlebell. And he was doing a one arm hang on a one pad edge. And I remember seeing that and I was just like, "That's unbelievable. If I could do that, there's not a rock climb I've tried in my life that I wouldn't just do tomorrow." And so he posted that, and I think it was maybe a day later, he posted a video of him doing something like 14 one arm pull ups. And I was like, "Yeah, this is it." Like you...you know, it's so easy to look at that and be like, "Duh this is why he's great." And what's funny is on Instagram, I came across a video of a guy from South America, who he was like, "Hey, he was like a buddy of mine put me up to putting this on Instagram." It was him doing, at more or less the same bodyweight, the exact same one arm hang that Megos did and even more one arm pull ups. And I was like, "Who the fuck is this person?" And I scrolled through his Instagram,and he is sending like V11s, V12s. Not V16, not like 15c

Nate Drolet  1:02:53

 Like, this is someone who is pound for pound one of the strongest climbers in the world, who none of us have heard about, or I'm sure plenty of people, some people have heard about, but it's like, he is not a world class athlete. He is not a world class climber. It's hard to it's hard to keep in mind that when Megos goes somewhere and does something.... like when he went to the New, he did like 25 or 30 5.14s in two week..... without a rest day

Kris Hampton  1:04:26

Right. 

Nate Drolet  1:04:27

His rest day was he drove to the Red River Gorge, did two 14ds and drove back. I don't know the I don't actually know how that was a rest day, but he somehow he classified it. He was just like, "Yeah, I took the rest day.I went down and I did the two hardest things in the Red and I came back." I.... my rest days aren't that productive. 

Paul Corsaro  1:04:46

Haha

Nate Drolet  1:04:46

The thing is, it's very easy to look at these people, these great climbers and say, "Oh, you know, this person has this. That's necessary."

Kris Hampton  1:04:57

 "That's what I need."

Nate Drolet  1:04:58

"That that's what I need." Like, "I need this, I need that." Though I will say one of my absolute favorite quotes ever, keeping on the Megos... is someone in an interview asked Megos, what he needed or if he could have any skill, what would it be? And he said, "I would like to have Jan Hoyer's sloper strength because then I would be the ultimate climber." Okay, well there you go. That's it, just that one. He would also be the ultimate German climber, which I thought was a nice

Kris Hampton  1:05:30

That's true 

Nate Drolet  1:05:30

Addition to that

Kris Hampton  1:05:31

Really good point. You know, what else is funny is that we often say, "If I could have Daniel Woods' lock off strength and Jimmy Webb's ability to jump and you know, Dave Graham's creative beta."

Nate Drolet  1:05:49

Nathaniel Coleman's chin

Kris Hampton  1:05:54

Hahaha. Yeah, I say that all the time. 

Nate Drolet  1:05:55

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  1:05:58

 But the fact is, none of those people have those other things. Like Daniel doesn't have Jimmy's jumping ability. Jimmy doesn't have Daniel's crazy, lock off anything to your waist ability. They don't have Dave's creative beta. And none of them have Nathaniel's chin. 

Nate Drolet  1:06:17

No

Kris Hampton  1:06:18

But somehow they've all become world class athletes without having those things. So I think that, you know, that sort of just highlights the fact that all these things that we want, that think are we're going are going to make us the complete climber, it's just not true. There's some sort of something in there, that we're not seeing... some intangible, unmeasurable thing.

Paul Corsaro  1:06:46

I think they all have, you know, above a certain minimum percentage of all that. But it takes a unique thing to put it all together. 

Nate Drolet  1:06:56

Yeah,

Paul Corsaro  1:06:56

You know, being able to synthesize all those things, and all those movement qualities, and all just the simple strength in certain patterns to bring it all together. 

Kris Hampton  1:07:06

What is that thing? Because I need it. 

Paul Corsaro  1:07:11

Process journal, we talked about this before, right?

Nate Drolet  1:07:13

Haha. Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  1:07:16

That's exactly what it is.

Paul Corsaro  1:07:17

Yeah. Who knows? And like, that's kind of the issue is, it's, it's, it's still out there.

Kris Hampton  1:07:25

Yeah. And I think it goes for training as well. You know, I've alluded to this a little bit. But there's this really popular idea in training right now that we should only be training at the top and at the bottom, so to speak. So really low end climbing, and really high end climbing, low intensity/high intensity. And I've done this sort of method. And I like this method quite a bit. But I spent a fair amount of time leading up to that learning to climb in the middle zone, getting really comfortable in the middle zone, and being able to take that really low end and that high end and gel them together. And if you've never been there, if you've never climbed in that middle zone and gotten pumped out of your mind, but continued climbing and holding it together, then the first time that happens, you're going to fucking fall apart, no matter how good your high and low ends are. So I think that.... I mean, I think it's being missed all the way around that you can't just get the parts and then assemble a good climber. 

Paul Corsaro  1:08:38

Yeah

Nate Drolet  1:08:38

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  1:08:40

 Any more you guys want to say about this one?

Nate Drolet  1:08:43

No, I think this kind of segues us really well into our final topic

Kris Hampton  1:08:48

Which is?

Nate Drolet  1:08:51

Y'all rewrote the name....uh...so someone else say it.

Kris Hampton  1:08:56

Haha...that the answers are clear.

Nate Drolet  1:08:59

Yeah,

Paul Corsaro  1:09:00

That's a myth

Kris Hampton  1:09:01

It's a myth.

Paul Corsaro  1:09:02

The answers are not clear.

Kris Hampton  1:09:04

Yeah. It's, especially in today's age, where a lot more money, effort, time is being put into trying to understand climbing training. And there's all this data data via via whatever coming out and being looked at. People see these numbers and they think, "Oh, that's it. That's a fact. And that must mean we have this answer. This is exactly what I need to do, to get more strength, to get more power, to get more power endurance, to climb X grade." And it's not that simple. I mean, the data just doesn't show us that yet. May never. And we don't have all of these answers. We have some basic ideas, some basic principles, but but the how we get there is a little less clear. 

Paul Corsaro  1:10:04

We're in the infancy like, you know, certain directions are starting to pop up. But who's to say five years from now we'll look back and be like, "Oh yep, you know, what  we thought was the way to go was wrong", because that's a very likely possibility.

Kris Hampton  1:10:19

It's happened over and over. 

Nate Drolet  1:10:22

No, absolutely. I mean, that's...there are two things to look at here. One is that so much of information comes out on social media nowadays. And with social media, gray zone is not taken too kindly. You need to have a hard stance on whatever you say

Kris Hampton  1:10:40

. Right

Nate Drolet  1:10:41

 So it's either, "Hey, this is this is the truth. This is it. Everything else is wrong. Like I have the motherfucking answer."

Kris Hampton  1:10:49

Yep. Absolutes and blanket statements make good posts.

Nate Drolet  1:10:52

 Exactly. Like no one wants to hear, "Hey, guys, uh, you know, this is something that we think works. We're not entirely certain. We kind of believe it. Like, it might not be true for everyone. There's a lot of gray zone here."

Kris Hampton  1:11:07

"I've seen it work for a lot of people. But I've also seen it not work."

Nate Drolet  1:11:11

Exactly. No one wants to hear that. They want to, they want to hear, "Hey, this is the perfect solution. We have the answer, the magic bullet, like drink the snake oil." Do you drink snake oil? I don't actually know what you do with snake oil.

Nate Drolet  1:11:24

Haha Power Company Snake Oil. 

Kris Hampton  1:11:24

I don't know what to do either. But I'm gonna start selling it: Power Company Snake Oil 

Paul Corsaro  1:11:28

Snake oil sounds disgusting

Nate Drolet  1:11:30

We need a hoodie that says, "Power Company Snake Oil". 

Kris Hampton  1:11:34

Hahaha

Nate Drolet  1:11:37

But yeah, so that's like, that is one huge thing of having having the answers is that on social media, there is no room for gray zone.

Kris Hampton  1:11:48

And as you know, I'm just going to say that if you have a coach or you want to work with a trainer, and they just say, "Oh, I have the answers. I can tell you exactly what's going on. And I can fix you period, make it better. I can get you there, no questions.", I would beware. Because it's going to take a lot more than just a workout that's put down on paper.

Paul Corsaro  1:12:18

You should be looking for someone who wants to create an open dialogue and wants to work with you and not just tell you what to do. 

Nate Drolet  1:12:24

Yeah

Kris Hampton  1:12:25

None of us. None of us, not just us, but no one not, not Steve Bechtel, not Lattice, not Natasha Barnes. 

Nate Drolet  1:12:35

What about Eva? 

Kris Hampton  1:12:37

Not Eva

Nate Drolet  1:12:38

She's my favorite.

Kris Hampton  1:12:38

We're going to.... the Eva podcast will come out one of these days. You just wait. 

Nate Drolet  1:12:43

Ugh, waiting. 

Kris Hampton  1:12:44

We're talking. She's writing something for the blog. 

Paul Corsaro  1:12:47

Nice

Kris Hampton  1:12:48

And none of us have the answers. We have ideas. We have successes. And we all have failures, too. So these answers just aren't as clear as everyone would like to believe that they are.

Nate Drolet  1:13:01

Yeah. You know, and I think something that's really important to understand is that data in science is.... these things are our best explanation of what's going on as far as what we know right now. 

Kris Hampton  1:13:15

Yep

Nate Drolet  1:13:15

We say, "Hey, this is the information that we know currently. And this is what we can explain." But in 10 years, we will have...know more information. Like we will have different explanations. You know, things that we would consider a fact 10 years ago may not be a fact right now. A lot of things change. And that's like the beauty of sciences is that it is, it isn't this strict, rigid thing that "Hey, this has to be this way". It's it's a very curious thing. It's you know, we're trying to find that the best information. We're trying to make the most educated guess we can. And so to say, "Hey, I have the number one best method possible." is to say that nothing can ever be improved upon

Kris Hampton  1:13:58

Right. It's really short sighted. 

Nate Drolet  1:13:59

Yeah.

Paul Corsaro  1:14:06

I really don't have anything to add.

Kris Hampton  1:14:08

That's because we have all the answers. 

Paul Corsaro  1:14:10

That's right. Haha. That's right. Yeah. No, um, yeah. Like, I don't have anything to add. We're good.

Kris Hampton  1:14:21

 It's getting late here. 

Nate Drolet  1:14:22

Yeah

Kris Hampton  1:14:22

We're gonna head back to the Red so we can get up early and go climbing. And in the meantime, you guys can find Nathan Drolet, the official host of this podcast 

Kris Hampton  1:14:34

Boom. 

Kris Hampton  1:14:36

@cruxpadwell on the Instagrams, look for him on there. Go way back to a couple Christmases ago and look at his Amazon Christmas list,

Nate Drolet  1:14:45

Or just type in "#25daysofAmazonChristmas". You're welcome. 

Kris Hampton  1:14:50

Do that. 

Paul Corsaro  1:14:50

Which one's simpler? Haha

Nate Drolet  1:14:53

Haha. I don't know.

Kris Hampton  1:14:54

 It's a lot of letters. my thumb's are fat. I can't. I'm not gonna happen. You can find Paul @Cruxconditioning, at Cruxconditioning.com

Paul Corsaro  1:15:05

Crux Conditioning on everything but Twitter

Kris Hampton  1:15:08

Everything but Twitter. You know where to find us. PowerCompanyClimbing.com, @PowerCompanyClimbing on all the things. Paul,  are you on Pinterest? You should be on Pinterest.

Paul Corsaro  1:15:20

I have a Pinterest account, but it's Sanders Sanderson, and I don't think I've used it since the day I created it. I get random emails from time to time and I'm confused.

Kris Hampton  1:15:30

I've blocked all those emails. I don't even get those anymore. But we are on the Pinterest in case you need something to pin to your inspiration boards. I don't even know if that's the thing. But pin some of our stuff if you're on Pinterest and you can try to retweet us all day. That's what it's called right? Retweeting?

Nate Drolet  1:15:49

Yeah, yeah,

Kris Hampton  1:15:50

 I think I see that posted on people's Instagrams. You can try to retweet us. You're never going to be able to because we don't tweet. We scream like eagles.