Alex Honnold On How a Rock Climber Takes Care of Their Hands | The Rich Eisen Show | 8/23/19

I very rarely say this about guests I shook your hand didn't feel very calloused at all it seemed like you you got a nice sort of non calloused hand does that mean you're not climbing these no no actually and people say that it's because my whole hand is busy one callus and that's sort of sort of ice and my tips all the time is say my skin just skin is pretty hard or not not really yeah so you spend time just sitting around and sanding down your hand yeah using sandpaper to like trim all the extra skin off your hand what have you ever measured your hand cuz that's in the NFL business a hand sizes is a immeasurable never measured your hand no and actually in for climbing it would honestly be better to have a smaller hand I think why because the actual climbing holds are having an objective size you know they're say a 10 millimeter edge you know like a like a quarter inch edge right you know this bigger your hand is the smaller the edge feels relative to your body no kid I mean so if you have smaller fingers that I just feel bigger because I would think you'd need more gripping space for your work no it's going to sound like a total idiot when it comes to talking about rock climbing just so you understand I don't know no not ready well I mean in basketball they call it the rock shooting the rock I mean I have spoken to the actor the rock but other than that word you're kind of the first oh but so I would think again that you'd need to have more of a hand know if anything there's more mechanical advantage if you're if you have smaller you know smaller fingers say so so climbers often talk about it as a one pad edge or a to pet edge basically the pads of your fingers like how big the edge is relative to your hand right and so if it's a two pad edge it feels quite big just a lot of your hand is on it right if your hand is really big then you know everything feels small so um what is what is the toughest thing you've you've you've had to grip that's not a rock well actually the the clip we were just showing that the boulder problem ah no cap I mean a few of those holds are very very small they're you know say one-sixth of the the width of the edge of my thumb you know I mean it's it's really hard to apply leverage you've got something that small so how do you do it how in the world do you do it well I mean the thing is be clear you're not holding your whole body weight I folds like that you're using them as sort of counter pressure between your feet so in the case of the climbing on El Cap you know I'm balanced on my footholds yes and I'm pressing up into the hand holds and sort of maintaining tension you know with your core between you know hands and feet do you work out at all no no but I'm just wondering if your rock climbing does the is the exercise enough so climbing is most of the exercise and then I also do extra core workouts I do you know opposition things like push up something to you know maintain you know healthy balance right because climbing is all pulling muscles all the time so sometimes you have to work the pushing muscles separately just to make sure that you don't over develop so the core is basically your your lifeblood pretty much yeah I mean so your legs are should be the thing driving you up a wall when you're climbing and then your core is what sort of connects your arms to your legs so yeah I mean you have to sort of keep them all okay well alright so that's the how in a way the why why do you do this otherwise a large or - that's that's different why do you do this Alex we're the basic level because I love climbing I mean I just love the movement of it I love the feeling I like going climbing and then if you mean the Y climb without a rope I think that but we can get to that sure we can get right down to it I mean I think that has more to do with you know sort of testing myself to some extent or I don't know it's a certain kind of challenge you know it's a unique kind of challenge I would say so that you decide that I'm going to take on one of the most remarkable physical feats anybody could do where the penalty is death I mean that's it that's all she wrote pretty yeah yeah the thing is I am taking on that challenge on my own terms with my own timing after as much preparation as I want so you know unlike other sports it's not as if a coach telling me like get in there and perform you know it's up to me to spend as long as I want and then if I don't think I can do it then I never have to do it you know and so really I'm seeking out a challenge that I want in order to test my own skills well I mean right now in the NFL Antonio Brown one of the best wide receivers in the game right now is having an issue because the helmet that he's always worn in the first nine years of his career the NFL is saying it's outdated outmoded he can't wear it more for safety issues do you have a piece of equipment that you're superstitious about that you will not climb without at all not superstitious about but um but I can imagine you know like my climbing shoes are probably the most critical component you know particularly when free soloing because really it's the only equipment that I'm using for player safety issues yes exactly right and so I mean if somebody just told me I wasn't allowed to wear the shoes that I'd always practiced in I mean I would be a big deal right but you should have to sort of relearn Andry practice everything using new equipment well I mean professional golfers need to use a putter or use right so what at what point are you feeling comfortable with the shoes that you how often let's put it this way how quick how quickly do you go through shoes um I can I wear through climbing shoes in a handful of months I hope you use but um but I use the same model all the time so at least I kind of know you know I know how it wears over time okay and for the hard free solos you have to have a perfectly broken in pair of climbing shoes that just the right state you know and so for the free solo ball cap I broken a pair of shoes right - and where they were perfect and then I sort of shelved them for several months until I was actually ready for the climb and then the day before the actual free so I took them back out of the box and sort of played with them a little to make sure they still felt perfect how do you do that like what's your process I just did a little bit of bouldering with really small just so basically some practice climbing with really small footholds to make sure that the shoes felt perfect on the footholds it's just I mean what about the clothes you told me something backstage yeah the clothes I just wore I wore the same clothes for all the practicing and then for the actual climb just because I wanted everything to feel exactly the way it had when I practiced I mean I assume that's the same with all sports or anything people I mean I need to clarify the same exact shirt or same make of shirt no the same shirt yeah but I mean to be I mean I was living in a band I don't have a watch you know you didn't wear the same shirt so yeah I mean you know hygiene wasn't on so bellas by myself in a car I mean who cares for more of the Rich Eisen show tune - 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Channel: The Rich Eisen Show

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Id: oeZV5ib1Ld0

Length: 6min 31sec (391 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 23 2019