The Power Company Climbing Podcast

You nailed the training and showed up stronger. Still, things went wrong.   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 ad-free by becoming a Patron for as little as $3 a month! Find full episode transcripts and more at our website .

The year is 1991. No woman has ever climbed 5.14. One French superstar says that no woman ever will. But Lynn Hill didn’t listen... And years later, Katie Brown wouldn't either.   This is a sample of Episode 1 of Written In Stone: Climbing's Most Important Ascents, the latest podcast from Power Company Climbing & Plug Tone Audio. To hear the rest of the episode and learn more, head over to: ww...

Training principles are important, but when they creep into performance, your climbing will suffer. Nearly every time.   Taped Tips is presented by Power Company Climbing and Plug Tone Audio . You can help us keep episodes sponsor-free by becoming a Patron for as little as $3 a month. Find full episode transcripts and more at our website .

Written in Stone tells the (mostly) true stories of the most groundbreaking ascents in rock climbing history. Hosted by Kris Hampton, you’ll hear the narrated, sound-designed stories about what led to new levels in climbing, alternated with conversations with today’s top climbers about what inspired them about what went down way back then. Season One is focused on the 1990’s, and will tell the sto...

If you’re a climber and you haven’t been to Miguel’s Pizza, you probably want to go, or you’ve at least seen a dozen people wearing their t-shirts. Forty years ago, Miguel Ventura moved from Connecticut to Slade, Kentucky and started what was then known as The Rainbow Door, a pizza and ice cream shop that has since become an icon to climbers all over the world. REWIND with us to this classic episo...

Looking to climb on gorgeous streaky sandstone cliffs full of high-angled crimps? Look no further than the Blue Mountains, sport climbing mecca of the land down under, boasting thousands of routes. Legendary Australian climber Lee Cujes spent more than 20 years taking trips to the Blue Mountains before eventually moving there, and now it’s been his local crag for nearly a decade.   Head over to th...

You know what highpointing is, and definitely redpointing, but what about lowpointing? And for those of you who know what we’re talking about, do you actually do it? Chances are, you’re not using this tactic to its full potential, which means you’re not using it to your full advantage. In this Board Meeting, Kris and Nate discuss the tactic of lowpointing, when and why you should use it, and some...

Five years ago this week, Ravioli Biceps walked into the gym, did his usual detailed warmup, and then set his camera up pointed at the Moonboard. It had only been a year since he'd started climbing on it, and he'd obsessively worked his way through the benchmarks. And on this day, he pulled on and finished the final benchmark of the 2016 set, becoming the first person to do so. This kind of dedica...

There’s more information out there than ever. When I first started Power Company Climbing, there were very few training blogs, no training podcasts for climbers, maybe one other remote climbing coach, and honestly, very few reputable sources for information on how to improve.  That lack of information, or of people willing to offer advice, is certainly no longer the case. It’s quite the opposite n...

Does kneebarring hard boulders make you stronger? What if it IS a kneebar boulder? Is it good for training? We're conflicted. And how does Chris Sharma feel about it? This is a bonus Board Meeting episode from our new series, CONFLICTED. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, become a Patron or Apple subscriber today! Head over to www.patreon.com/powercompanypodcast or subscribe to Power...

Training is training is training. You’ve done your homework, you know how to periodize a training plan, you understand set and rep schemes and RPE and autoregulation, you’ve got all the latest tech and warmup tools, and you’ve somehow figured out how to fit all 482 things into a week, including recovery time and self-care mental health days. You’ve optimized. Congrats. But now you have a climbing...

For most climbers, a 100-foot ground fall would be the end of their lives, or at the very least, the end of their climbing careers. Not so for Craig DeMartino. 21 years ago this week, while climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park, a moment of miscommunication nearly cost him everything, and did lead to the eventual amputation of his right leg. But instead of letting the resulting limitations do j...

In this episode, which comes to us from The Struggle Climbing Show podcast, Kris sat down with host Ryan Devlin to talk tactics. Kris took a look at episodes from the show’s second season – which included interviews with some of today’s biggest names in climbing, like Jonathan Siegrist, Tommy Caldwell, Melina Costanza, Matt Fultz, Alison Vest, and more – and breaks down the biggest tactical takeaw...

As climbers, we fail a lot. And yet, we don’t even like to hear the word. Our ability to return to unsent projects time after time, season after season, along with the deeply ingrained idea that every failure ought to be reframed as a successful learning experience means we rarely – if ever – actually confront the concept in our sport. But maybe we should. In this REMIX episode, we'll hear from cl...

Today we REWIND to this classic episode with living-legend and climbing pioneer Paul Piana himself, 35 years after he and Todd Skinner completed their historic first free ascent of El Cap’s Salathé Wall on June 15, 1988, helping to shape the dreams of many generations of climbers to come. Lynn Hill doing the Nose a few years later, Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall, and the new generation of climber...

Whether you are a pro climber, small business owner, coach, writer, filmmaker or any other entrepreneur in the climbing industry, Taylor Swift has something to teach you. In this Board Meeting, Kris and Nate draw what might seem an odd comparison: pro climbers and Miss Americana herself, Taylor Swift. With some of the recent industry drama surrounding the Eddie Bauer athlete team firing and the sh...

Looking to spend your summer sport climbing on gently overhanging crimps on beautiful limestone cliffs? Look no further than Ten Sleep, a picturesque canyon nestled high in the Bighorns of Wyoming offering tons of generously bolted lines up to grades of 14+. Our very own coach Taylor Fragomeni started climbing in Ten Sleep more than a decade ago and it’s where she experienced many of her “climbing...

We begin this REWIND episode a little differently, with a call to Jonathan Siegrist while he was recently in Catalunya, Spain, to find out if he knew why we're releasing this on May 18th. It's an interesting fact about his own climbing that he wasn't aware of. Until now. Since this episode first aired, Jonathan has climbed 5 routes at 5.15b (9b), with his most recent send of “Stoking the Fire” bei...

When it comes to skincare in the climbing world, Rhino Skin Solutions is the one name you need to know. They’ve got a complete line of products to help you address whatever skin woes you may be having, whether your tips are too wet, too dry, or just totally torn up. Rhino’s founder and CEO Justin Brown joined Kris to explain the different products they offer and how best to use them. And then they...

In an ideal world, grades would be objective and we’d have some universal formula for how they’re decided. But we don't live in an ideal world. In this bonus Board Meeting episode, Part 1 of 2 on grades and what affects them, Kris and Nate talk about some things that should be considered when deciding on a grade, but rarely are. They break down these things into two main headings: physical factors...

In this, the second of two episodes with seasoned big wall climber Josie McKee, she and Kris sit down to discuss how her recent trip to Yosemite turned out – what went well, what didn’t, what she might do differently to prepare for future trips, and so forth. But the conversation goes far beyond training and tick lists as they consider some hurdles every climber faces at one point or another, hurd...

Josie McKee has been climbing for more than 20 years, racking up speed records, FA’s, and a huge wealth of experience and knowledge in that time. She’s been up El Cap more than 20 times, even working on the YOSAR team for 3 years. Now based in Lander, she found herself with limestone sport climbing as her primary means to train for a recent Yosemite trip. This is the first of 2 episodes where Kris...

13 years ago this month, British climbing legend Stevie Haston climbed 14d, for the second time that year, at the youthful age of 52. Even more impressive is the fact that Haston did this after recovering from a snowboarding accident in his 40’s that left him questioning if he'd ever climb hard again. So what are the complex intricacies of his training that led to such success? Plain and simple co...

It's all the rage. Watching Will Bosi and Aiden Roberts work on the Burden of Dreams replica is fun, but is it valuable for the rest of us? This episode is the first half of the full episode our Patrons and Subscribers get today. To get bonus conversations like this every month (over 100 in the archive currently!) you can become a Patron or you can subscribe to Power Company + in the Apple Podcast...

Most of us have never given 100% to an attempt on a rock climb. Most of us just don’t know how. It’s one of the hardest to cultivate components of high performance: effort. So, the big question: How can we all learn to give more effort? In this REMIX episode, we'll hear from climbers Bill Ramsey, Jonathan Siegrist, Jason Kehl, Hazel Findlay, Troy Fauteux, and more, as well as author Alex Hutchinso...