Alex Honnold Answers MORE Rock Climbing Questions From Twitter

I'm Alex Honnold.

And today I'll be answering your questions on Twitter.

This is part two of Climbing Support.

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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.