Ondra Interview on Training Beta

Reboot,

Yes. Excuse me, per calorie.

Perhaps a misleading comparison but calorie density isn't too important unless you only eat one meal a day. It does contain the amino acids, just not to the same degree. But that doesn't matter in a well balanced diet as one would get more than a sufficient amount of protein from a variety of foods including beans, nuts and grains.

Point being vegetables contain protein and obtaining sufficient protein from a plant based diet is quite easy.

Broccoli is a better source of calcium than milk.

This was fascinating despite the sometimes inept questioning. He has frightening self-awareness, I was clueless at that age. My favourite bit was the audible 'tell', the slight catch in the nutritionist-interviewers voice, when Ondra said he didn't take any supplements and from the tone in his voice suggested that you'd be fool if you did. A middle finger to the whole body dysmorphia industry.

He does no hang boarding, virtually no 'supportive' (not directly climbing-movement-related) training, and what he does seems like it's a recent Paxi addition. There is no great emphasis on worthless 'core' exercises and he only started campusing quite recently. The ultimate rock prodigy uses the anti rock prodigy training program! Given his strengths and weaknesses this is entirely logical but it takes an immensely independent character to do something so different to the current 'wisdom'. Not fingerboarding makes sense to him, he has been crimping small limestone holds since he was 6 years old. It's just not his weakness. Fingerboards have become increasingly popular with the advent of modern climbing gyms, people get good at pulling on relatively large plastic blobs, so your average gym-trained climber needs some small hold training to compensate for the resulting relative weakness.

The bit about the weight vest screwing up his movement was interesting. He clearly understands movement efficiency is the most important (physical) factor in his success - clear from any film of him climbing. He recognises training could reduce movement efficiency by 'teaching' non-optimum movement even as it increases strength. A message to all those personal trainers advocating not-very-specific 'conditioning' programs.

There were numerous more interesting questions that were crying out to be asked but the interviewer let several of his most intriguing comments hang in the air and didn't follow them up. He says right from the start that there was no parental pressure on him. I believe him (watch Wizard's Apprentice). But he also says that he was climbing nearly every day from the age of seven. Nearly every day? This suggests a phenomenal amount of parental support if his mum or dad went to the wall with him or a phenomenal amount of trust from an early age if they didn't.

He is clearly intensely driven but appears extremely well-adjusted. It's a rare combination and perhaps the ultimate reason for his success?

duncan... wrote:This was fascinating despite the sometimes inept questioning. He has frightening self-awareness, I was clueless at that age. My favourite bit was the audible 'tell', the slight catch in the nutritionist-interviewers voice, when Ondra said he didn't take any supplements and from the tone in his voice suggested that you'd be fool if you did. A middle finger to the whole body dysmorphia industry. He does no hang boarding, virtually no 'supportive' (not directly climbing-movement-related) training, and what he does seems like it's a recent Paxi addition. There is no great emphasis on worthless 'core' exercises and he only started campusing quite recently. The ultimate rock prodigy uses the anti rock prodigy training program! Given his strengths and weaknesses this is entirely logical but it takes an immensely independent character to do something so different to the current 'wisdom'. Not fingerboarding makes sense to him, he has been crimping small limestone holds since he was 6 years old. It's just not his weakness. Fingerboards have become increasingly popular with the advent of modern climbing gyms, people get good at pulling on relatively large plastic blobs, so your average gym-trained climber needs some small hold training to compensate for the resulting relative weakness. The bit about the weight vest screwing up his movement was interesting. He clearly understands movement efficiency is the most important (physical) factor in his success - clear from any film of him climbing. He recognises training could reduce movement efficiency by 'teaching' non-optimum movement even as it increases strength. A message to all those personal trainers advocating not-very-specific 'conditioning' programs. There were numerous more interesting questions that were crying out to be asked but the interviewer let several of his most intriguing comments hang in the air and didn't follow them up. He says right from the start that there was no parental pressure on him. I believe him (watch Wizard's Apprentice). But he also says that he was climbing nearly every day from the age of seven. Nearly every day? This suggests a phenomenal amount of parental support if his mum or dad went to the wall with him or a phenomenal amount of trust from an early age if they didn't. He is clearly intensely driven but appears extremely well-adjusted. It's a rare combination and perhaps the ultimate reason for his success?

Just to point out, as others have said, one of the most common pieces of bullshit (imho) is that we can 'learn' stuff from these pro-climbers, especially the elite of the elite, aka Ondra.

- Doesn't take any supplements? I'm sure he has the time and money to eat a pretty fantastic diet. All of the vids of him at the crag I've seen, he is always eating uber healthy grub. Just saying that not everyone may have the time/money/knowledge/motivation to do this.

-hangboarding as you say, if you don't have access to quality limestone routes with tiny holds then it's the way to get strong fingers

- He wouldn't need core exercises, he seems to spend most of his climbing life climbing overhanging limestone routes, his core must be crazy strong ;)

-as for all the 'non climbing/movement' type stuff, people often have very specific weaknesses that could do with shoring up. My lower back is weak as a kitten so I do stuff to try and keep it strong.

I think Ondra's interview could be summed up as: "very thoughtful, has identified his weaknesses and spends most of his time working those"...pretty much the opposite of most climbers then :P

duncan... wrote:There is no great emphasis on worthless 'core' exercises

I didn't hear the word "worthless", and I did hear Ondra express definite enthusiasm for training "all muscles" on TRX - and I sort of rememembering that he mentioned he felt his TRX training helped him to discover some new muscles to use in actual climbing moves.

duncan... wrote:he only started campusing quite recently.

I heard him say he did no real "training" (which I take to include campusing) before about age 17. I heard him say that in his Power-training phases recently he's been doing an amazingly high volume of campusing.

I did not hear him say he did no campusing between age 17 and recently (and I doubt it's true).

duncan... wrote:Ondra said he didn't take any supplements and from the tone in his voice suggested that you'd be fool if you did.

I heard no such tone. He did not "dis" supplements, just felt he could get similar stuff from natural sources (then give a sample list of sources most of which I never heard of and I never saw in my supermarket -- though I bet the nutritionist interviewer knew them well).

Fingerboards and climbing gyms: No shortage at my usual gyms of Top-Rope routes with edge holds just as small as on any fingerboard. And 99.99% of the use of the fingerboards out available at those gyms is only to do pull-ups on the buckets on the top. Sounds like plenty of young gym climbers are developing at-least-decent finger strength on modern plastic about the same way Ondra did on limestone.

kenr wrote: Fingerboards and climbing gyms: No shortage at my usual gyms of Top-Rope routes with edge holds just as small as on any fingerboard. And 99.99% of the use of the fingerboards out available at those gyms is only to do pull-ups on the buckets on the top.

Jeez Ken, where do you climb? The Elmer Fudd Wock Cwimbing Cwub for Cwusty Old Twaddies?

Very few in the climbing population should engage in Ondra's specific workout, bc our goals are vastly different and we don't have his genetics. But there are some things we can learn from this interview:

short, frequent sessions - if you can do this, probably a better way to train than 3-4 hour sessions. Being fresh for power/max strength workouts is really important

focus on weaknesses - I would argue people are not good at identifying weaknesses, or don't know what to do to turn a weakness into a strength or don't want to work on this. Personally, it took me 3 years to effectively train the power I needed. Lots of trial and error.

alternating 4 week blocks between power and volume/capacity- again, a good idea for everyone

focus on one thing at a time- again, lots of research point to the fact that changing /improving 1 factor at a time is way more effective than doing many at a time.

Core- TRX / ring exercises are effective to train the core. Easy to scale these.

if I could 'like' your post I would :)

Long Duk Dong wrote:Broccoli has more protein per gram than beef and whoever wants to point out that it's not a complete protein should also explain why that doesn't matter.

Who would want to eat a POUND of broccoli for a petty 13 grams of protein? Alternatively, you could eat a 3 ounce piece of tuna (the most protein dense meat, BTW) for 25 grams worth of protein.

"Broccoli is a better source of calcium than milk."

No, it isn't.

Yes, it is.

It's qualitatively better from what I've been told by Drs. given hormone use in a lot of cattle. Hopefully my $4 organic shit is OK though.

Long Duk Dong wrote:Yes, it is.

Define "better."

If you're going to make the pointless "more nutritious per calorie" argument, you might as well just take a supplement. Or are you going to tell me that calcium in the form of supplements is not absorbed as well? If you're going to go down that road we're going to have to start talking about gastrin, pH, ionic bonding, lipophilicity/hydrophobicity, and pKa. I'll hazard a guess you don't even know what the latter means.

Then, provide sources.

What's your source, bud? A milk commercial? You tell me why broccoli is better. It only takes about 5 minutes to find out why.

Climbing friends,

Would you be believing what he says in the eveningsends.com article? It sound like he would be complaining of being "tall" and "heavy" compared to world lead comp climbers. I believe climbing friend Ondra already looks like emaciated manboy and may need to do some sculpting of his guns and eating of the cheesesteaks to climb even harder!

Long Duk Dong wrote:What's your source, bud? A milk commercial? You tell me why broccoli is better. It only takes about 5 minutes to find out why.

Broccoli is obviously healthier if that's what you mean. Pretty much any vegetable is going to be more healthy than milk.

As far as calcium goes, milk is more calcium-dense. Even if your argument is PER CALORIE, you're still wrong - they're about even. Whole milk is used to give you the benefit of the doubt:
nutritiondata.self.com/fact…
nutritiondata.self.com/fact…

Aleks may be right about the cheesesteaks.

with the 4 plan practicings and the correct nutritions to include cheesesteaks and raw cold fishheads from the bucket, I believe climbing friend Ondra may soon make glorious, bold, difficult, enjoyable pumping flash of 5.15a route. Also he must do more lying in a cold mountain stream and bench pressing of the massive boulders.

Brad,

Think outside the milk carton man it's called osteoporosis and you get it from drinking milk. Milk leaches calcium from bones so it doesn't matter how much is in there if it's making your bones weak in the process.

Aleks,

Your shits played out like a nube at REI buying there first pair of climbing shoes. You've had some great sends but you need to eat some broccoli like a man and flash some new posts.

Long Duk Dong wrote:Brad, Think outside the milk carton man it's called osteoporosis and you get it from drinking milk. Milk leaches calcium from bones so it doesn't matter how much is in there if it's making your bones weak in the process. Aleks, Your shits played out like a nube at REI buying there first pair of climbing shoes. You've had some great sends but you need to eat some broccoli like a man and flash some new posts.

How does this work? What makes milk leach calcium from bones? Is it possible?

A few hundred articles indicate otherwise.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?te…

Climbing friend Dong,

I do not understand why you are named after a penis. Please do not do the denigrating of my love for bold flash, posting on the internets to be repeating my lovings for the flash and high quality cheesesteaks.