ALEX HONNOLD
Alex Honnold’s best advice for improving climbers
Stay sport-specific
“The most important thing is the sport-specific training: the actual climbing,” says Honnold. “I climb all the time. Five or six days a week, I climb in some way.”
So the message is: spend as much time climbing as you can, but also adapt your training to your goals.
“Climbing is such a broad sport,” continues Honnold. Mountain climbing requires cardio and endurance training. But bouldering is all about upper-body strength. “It totally depends on what you’re training for,” he adds.
Build strength and skill
“Depending on my level of motivation and what kind of project I’m training for, I then start adding in extra layers,” explains Honnold. “That might be callisthenics: hanging leg weights for core, maybe weighted pull-ups and front levers, which are like core exercises. Then in more sports-specific directions, I might practise hanging from small edges or hanging with weights.”
Keep cardio fit
“I rarely do cardio, mostly because in the course of normal climbing you get a lot of cardio, as you hike to and from the crag all the time,” says Honnold. “You’re hiking up a big hill for 40 minutes, you climb for the day, and then you hike down. For the average person, that’s more than enough.”
However, for specific projects, Honnold cranks up the cardio drills. “For the HURT, I was doing more volume intentionally, so jogging and things like that,” he says. “I am in jogging shape still, so I’m trying to hold onto that a little bit by just running once or twice a week.”
Harness plant power
“I went vegetarian, mostly for environmental reasons: caring more about the impact on Earth and trying to minimise my footprint,” says Honnold. “Now I’m still mostly vegetarian, though on expeditions I eat whatever is available. So in Greenland, I was eating whatever freeze-dried food was served: bolognese or whatever. But I read the Michael Pollan book, In Defence of Food, and the thing that comes up is: eat real food, mostly plants, not too much meat. That’s what I aspire to.”
