The Power Company Climbing Podcast

ONE MILLION DOWNLOADS. Thank you for the continued and growing support! It means the world.  In this episode, Nate and I sit down to talk about where it all started and why we keep doing it.  We don't tweet. We scream like eagles.   The Power Company Podcast is brought to you by Power Company Climbing and is a proud member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective . You can help us keep episodes sponsor-f...

Bill Ramsey is a legend. He had achieved near mythical status in the Red River Gorge by the time I started paying attention to sport climbing. Pioneering many of the best hard sport climbs that now draw flocks of people to Kentucky’s steep sandstone crags, Bill wasn’t the typical 24 year old developer with a part time job and nowhere specific to be. He was a Professor of Philosophy at The Universi...

For Dr. Jared Vagy's third appearance on the podcast, we decided to tackle a few hotly debated topics - things like stretching, prehab, training "dangerous" grip positions, and more.  If you haven't listened to Episodes 88 and 107, featuring Jared's Rock Rehab Pyramid, they are worth the time.  You can find Dr. Vagy online at www.theclimbingdoctor.com You can get his book, Climb Injury Free, at  h...

Episode 12 with Will Anglin and Rowland Chen quickly became a cult classic. Today we bring them back for P.O.E. Part 2, a follow up to examine how the P.O.E. path they had both embarked on had worked out. If you haven't yet, it will be to your benefit to go back and listen to that episode. Go ahead. We'll wait.  Both, despite their lives getting busier, have made big progress - not an easy thing t...

Science and Data are increasingly popular in training for climbing, and for good reason. Leading that charge is Dr. Tyler Nelson of Camp 4 Human Performance. He's built a strong following on Instagram, and is giving solid information to coaches and climbers all over the world, but as with any post on social media, much of the context is lost. Context that I feel is massively important.  In this ep...

A home wall can be an extremely valuable tool to have at your disposal. Deciding to have one is easy, but that one decision will open up a world of damned near impossible to make decisions. Set board or spray wall? If a board, which one? If a spray wall, what angles, what density, WHICH GRIPS?? So. Many. Decisions. In this episode Nate and I sit down at Tension Climbing to talk with Will Anglin an...

"A room full of superheroes," is how this conversation was described by an Australian climber at Mt. Arapiles. He's not wrong. In this episode I sit down in Blackheath at the home of Tom O'Halloran and Amanda Watts with a who's who of Aussie climbing to discuss the idea of Intentional Community. Besides Tom and Amanda, we talk with Lee Cossey and Andrea Hah, Lee and Sam Cujes, Julian Saunders, Dav...

Hangboarding is overrated, but it's also important. Please, for the sake of all that is good in humanity, listen to Episode 143 before you listen to this one. Every time someone listens to this episode out of order, the climbing gods will remove the obvious start to another undiscovered classic boulder. Don't let this happen!  In this episode Nate and I sit down to discuss the antithesis to the pr...

Yes, you read that correctly. OVERRATED. In this episode Nate and I sit down to discuss the top 5 reasons why one of the most popular forms of training for climbing is simply being blown out of proportion. Sue me. We don't tweet. We scream like eagles.   The Power Company Podcast is brought to you by Power Company Climbing and is a proud member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective . You can help us k...

I'm fairly sure I've gotten more DMs asking when this episode is coming than any other. And it's a good one.  Today's guest is Moonboard legend Ravioli Biceps - the first (and currently only?) person to send all of the Benchmarks on the 2016 Moonboard set. We discuss his history with the Moonboard as well as his struggle with the transition to identifying as a "Moonboarder". We also find out about...

Sometimes you're improving, but the grades don't reflect that. Does that mean you're on a forever plateau?  In this episode I sit down in the Red River Gorge with Aussie legend Lee Cujes  - really just to learn more about him. We didn't have a specific direction we wanted to go when we sat down. I just knew I should turn the mic on and ask him questions.  Besides being always stoked for climbing a...

In this Board Meeting, Nate is temporarily replaced by our Strength and Conditioning Coach, Paul Corsaro. Paul is a kettlebell expert (among other things), and has converted me. We discuss our top 5 reasons for continuing to use kettlebells in our own training as well as in programming for our athletes.  You can find our Kettlebells for Climbers plan at  https://gumroad.com/l/LNxaD You can find Pa...

If Australian Lee Cossey lived in North America, he’d be a name mentioned alongside Tommy Caldwell and Sonnie Trotter as one of the best all around climbers on the planet. That’s because he IS one of the best all around climbers on the planet. For some reason, despite the internet making information easy to share, we in the US are largely blind to what else - or who else - is out there. Lee has no...

Honorary co-host Dru Mack is back in the building, and this time we're talking about what might be Dru's bread and butter - endurance climbing. We both learned to climb in the Red River Gorge, an area famous for it's steep, pumpy climbing, so we both think we're experts on the subject, and we both believe that many of today's coaches are getting it wrong.  We're also, concurrently with this episod...

In this episode Nate and I sit down to discuss an important topic - the top 5 reasons why people who train and train and train still can't improve their climbing outdoors. It can be a struggle - there isn't a 1:1 return on training investment, particularly if you don't have a few key things in place.  Do you fall into one of these categories? If so, level up! We don't tweet. We scream like eagles....

As the National Coach for Sport Climbing Australia, Will Hammersla has a tough job. The Olympics are now in play, and in a country as spread out as Australia, where it can be 10 hours between major cities, cultivating a "team" is damn near impossible. But he's working at it on a bedrock of solid principles and philosophies, and the work seems to be paying off.  Support the Australian National Team...

The first of the Oz Tapes! In this episode I sit down with Anna Davey, a professional climber from Perth, Western Australia. Anna has a healthy following on social media, and as a result, gets her fair share of haters. But I know that's only a tiny part of the story - one that starts with a big dream and a lot of hard work. Anna puts in that work and is living her dream.  You can find Anna on Inst...

Nate and I aren't always in the same place, but we still want to talk about things. So this is going to be a new, ongoing format - short board meetings done remotely. We plan to discuss current events, hot topics, training ideas - whatever. Could be damn near anything.  In this episode we discuss an often argued about aspect of training - Should you or shouldn't you train the full crimp and pocket...

Created by the coaches of Power Company Climbing, "EMPOWERED: A Bouldering Intensive" is a 3 day bouldering seminar aimed to provide the self-coached climber with the tools and tactics needed to construct effective training plans, analyze their own movement, track measurable progress, and engage a productive mental approach when bouldering. Where: Crux Conditioning, Chattanooga, TN When: December...

Every week I get emails asking about how to start a small business in the climbing space. While I do my best to answer these questions, I also have many of my own. Dave and Yusuf, along with Dave's brother Dan, are some of the people I turn to when I have those questions - or just for short chats that I always walk away from with several important ideas.  Climb SoiLL is opening a new gym, and as a...

Epic. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, go do it NOW. It should already be right there in your pocket super computer. In this episode I sit down at a campfire in the Red River Gorge with Mo, who recently completed her trip to Lotus Flower Tower and the World Championships. Find out how it all went.  You can find Mo at www.moinmountains.com You can find her on Instagram at  https://www.instagr...

Mo Beck is a professional climber, 2019 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, multiple time World Champion, stand up comedian (not really but she should be) and all around BADASS.  In this episode, Part 1 of 2, we sit down in a busy Outdoor Retailer hallway to discuss a little of her background, her work with the US Adaptive Athletes, and her big looming trip to the Lotus Flower Tower in Can...

Mina Leslie-Wujastyk is one of the most open pros out there, and this conversation is no different. Between competition and notching ascents of some of the planets most inspiring lines of up to 14b and V13, she's waged her fair share of battles. In this episode we sit down and discuss roadtrip projects, the difference between competition pressure and redpoint pressure, and what it means to try som...

In this episode I sit down for an emotional conversation with my good friends Dru Mack and Lee Smith about the interesting topic of mentorship. How it starts, what it means, and what happens when the student surpasses the teacher.  Some say that mentorship is dying. I'm not sure that's true, though mentors are definitely outnumbered by new climbers. As such, it's evolving into something entirely d...

Sam Elias really needs no introduction. He's one of America's top sport climbers, so it's likely you've heard of him. While some climbers cultivate an image that is extremely shallow and limited, it's not so with Sam. He wears his heart on his sleeve - as well as his ruminations with that fact. It's been fascinating to watch Sam openly mature in both his climbing and his approach to life, and it's...