Secret training method of the World’s strongest climber - Alex Megos

[Music] this is Alex Megos one of the most insane climbers to have ever lived you guys have wanted me to make a video with this man ever since I started the channel and so have I he's won World Cups done 9B plus and has the reputation of being the physically strongest climber out there even according to Adam Andra so who do you think is the strongest climber Alex Megos some of the Japanese climbers so to show you exactly how strong this guy is I traveled all the way to Germany to meet up with an old friend [Music] it's really nice to have you on the channel I think you are probably the most requested guest out of everyone Wonder I've seen so many comments about Alex Megos and you know when I talked to Adam he said that he thinks you're probably one of the strongest climers in the world well thank you and I think that's why people want to see you before we got here today he already trained for hours so this is your local gym not the one that you own cuz Alex recently bought a gym that he now owns 100% off uh with Chris with Chris and a few other people are there any Bowlers hard enough for you in here they occasionally set some hard stuff but usually when I come here I only warm up on the commercial Boulders I usually do finger boarding and kilter boarding okay so how does the grade Works in here um one is easy eight is hard some of the eights I would say are lot harder than S 7 a or 7 B okay and then some of the eights occasionally are like 8 a or 8 A Plus or 8 B depending on how Psych the setas are okay so you're the local you know pretty much all the bowlers here I guess I'll let you decide what we should get on first let's start easy over here it's not trust him when he says easy not one bit well yeah okay that looks okay yeah I'm also not the best at jumping around so I have to I have to practice it a lot yeah yeah for the World Cups yeah are you competing in all the bouldering World Cups this year I'm actually competing in none of the bouldering World none of them you don't have to to qualify for the Olympics no you only have to qualify at the qualification competition there's like two and there are bouldering World Cups before the qualification series but they are in China and in in America in salake city and I feel like it would be so much stress traveling like to all the places and then traveling back to China to qualify or to do the qualification event but I just said well I think it makes more sense for me okay let's uh see if I can do this uh kind of a comp style a little bit right [Music] now well that's a pretty far jump but it's a good hole you're going for I guess [Music] yeah a little bit then so that was a six yeah it was a six German [Music] six what was your uh you came second at the world championships this year third third right it's all right that's crazy good no that's insane what do you think about the bouldering style though the the way has been evolving and I struggle a lot like I I see how people that do it more often they get so much better at it but if you started climbing you know like 20 years ago and when you started climbing like the biggest hole was like this big yeah it's crazy when I look at some pictures of like when I started competing 2005 I'm like oh my god did we actually climb on that stuff I know it looks so ancient those holdes don't exist anymore it's crazy and now like the bigger the better and then you have like a volume that's like yeah three square m and costs like ,000 or something pretty crazy and then you set it on a slab as a foothold yeah what's next Let's see we kind blue I not done blue I looked at Blue while warming up that looks hard actually that kind of does look hard the jump out left looks hard yeah you see that just locking off with that left arm that was actually hard I wonder if we did something there's only one grade harder but it looks quite a lot harder than the other [Music] one the pop is relatively easy super chill yeah it's only the jump yeah it's like a one move Wonder so usually when I train fingerboard I I switch between like power endurance and like purely Max finger strength where I just tried to hang on a smaller Edge yeah for as long as possible or with additional weight I think that helped me a lot through my climbing to just like improve in my finger strength you guys should listen to that because that's uh this some of the strongest fingers in the world right here so he must be doing something right it's good it's a good program I think yeah and part of the reason why we're here is because Alex is launching a course on altitude about how to train for bouldering with his coach Patrick right I look forward myself to taking the course cuz I feel like I mean you are the strongest climber in the world in my eyes thank you and like learning from the best that's always the best way I think so what what exactly what what are you going to focus on in that course well we'll focus on a variety of things we'll definitely have like two main parts which will be training on the wall and training Off the Wall okay and training on the wall will be like how to use a kilter board how to use a spray wall what can you do in a bould ring gym how to use like power enduring circuits and then we have a big part also training off the- wall that'll include finger boarding campus boarding like additional strength exercises so you guys should stay tuned uh it will be live on altitude climbing.com [Music] so what is next well there's like a slab I haven't done yet it's a com style slab around there we can check that out we can try it yeah that kind of looks hard uh it's red yeah yeah that looks super hard you haven't done this right no I have no clue what's what to [Music] do oo that's not so easy do you think you would jump into this position or even like that or what you think I mean if you can cheat the boulder then you should nice I'm using the screw hold a little bit yes I'm cheating a little bit no it's oh yeah this hold I forgot about that why are you climbing with so much tape on you uh I have like bad skin bad skin like this one is a split and these ones were splits before I've always admired people who can climb with tap because even if even if I have just a little piece of tape on me I just feel so restricted for some reason I think I've never ever climbed any bould or any hard route without take ever in my [Music] life oh no that's a slippery foot though yeah well that that's it that's exactly what a competition is like you do one move and you're like ah it's fine and then for like 4 and a half minutes you can't do it anymore how many days do you rest before a competition usually usually I don't rest the day before the competition before yeah before that again usually ideally you feel Rusty before exactly yeah I usually have like a rest day then like activation day and then the competition day okay yeah okay it's a good position if you just get higher it's like so stable when you get high but coming from below it's not so easy good bowler it is a cool bowler yeah do you train a lot on the campus board not really no no I feel I usually when I do campus then it's rather on the kilter W or on a spray wall yeah I haven't found it super beneficial either I think for some people it can be beneficial but for a lot of people it doesn't always work out and doesn't always translate to climbing that well it's cool to hear a German say that because the campus board was invented by a German so actually the original campus board is still in nberg oh really W in a fitness gym the one where Wolf Gang actually that Wolf Gang Gish built with very cool and the ones that he trained on for Action Direct that's still hanging there have you tried some of the stuff that he did on that campus board like the the mono campusing crazy is it hard it's hard was campusing with just using one finger he was doing like what 158 what one I don't even know like there's only like the picture of him but it's insane but you are very strong and pockets and open train it yes yeah yeah but also Franken your right because you climb bunch in Franken exactly I I heard that you've done how many times have you done action directs seven seven times that is crazy so that used to be the hardest route in the world it's a 9A that W Gish did it's like a test piece uh the best climbers in world come struggle a bunch and then maybe do it once but he's already done it seven times so yeah it's your training route it it used to be my training r i remember that actually when we were in columnus together MH you did that inshah that HC plus you did that five times in a row exactly exactly that is just crazy I could hardly do it one time I did it like one time in later and he did it just five times in a row for training I think he might have failed on the fifth attempt or something but I remember but yeah because I had already done most of the roots there so was like don't know what to do and then I thought well go train Training [Music] Day you actually did a good thing here like you grabbed this and then that huh and then you went there yeah so left hand right left yeah nice come on oh no my foot slipped that was pretty good yeah that works nice yep there you go easy come on [Music] man yes [Music] this was a little bit weird to me this last super weird [Music] yeah it kind of feels good when you like stand super close to the wall but it's exactly those competition moves like you are like nervous and the time is running out you don't know what to do exactly and you like fuff around then you fall yeah yeah I'm just going to try like one more time and then now we can like do the other Feelgood eight bolt over there which is much easier okay cool yeah sounds good got to build up some confidence again yeah [Music] exactly come on out the foot all right leave it this where's it where's the other B blue this blue the the Feelgood Boulder that's what we call holds that's that's more like it that's more like it yeah have you done this before this I have done I think some suay ago come on nice nice come on yeah the volumes are also in we don't do the top out yeah otherwise we'd have to climb down again okay so it's not not not as easy as I thought no it's like it was a bit weird first hole was pretty [Music] slopey yeah nice is that up yeah yeah nice all the yellow ones are also in the yellow volume [Music] okay that's more like it yes exactly so you have like a huge difference in there between the grades look at this burden of Dreams replica oh yes have you tried that no we should do that e people would love to see you try that those of you who don't know burd of Dreams is the hardest Boulder in the world so they've set a replica on this wall but not with the exact holds let's have a look oh yeah that's weird easy what wo okay that's we burden of Dreams wa you should go and try burden of Dreams man burden of dreams will be like the one bowler that I would be really interested to try out of the N9 a yeah let's see [Music] bit higher left bit yeah oh yeah come on okay I'll give it one more try yeah like the top hole is right on the lip it's literally is it sharp yeah cuz you do feel like it I don't know that evil laugh [Music] nice yeah you see what I mean now that Spike oh jeez yeah we catch me right there well congratulations I think we should go to Finland we don't need to anymore we' already done it [Music] nice come on yeah come on come on nice yeah that didn't feel easy to me that's also where I think pain tolerance uh makes makes a difference I feel like I could have done a knee bar there but I didn't want to do it cuz I know you would give me minus points well believe it or not I'm actually like learning to KNE bar as well now look he's talking while he's climbing it so crazy to see how strong you are in this style looks like you could just campus this you know you guys should by the way follow his YouTube channel it's really fun uh you do it with your friend Chris right yes exactly yeah um we're we're having a fun YouTube should be fun yeah exactly we'll at some point invite you for like a uh collab a collab and a strength challenge that would be cool pick all like I mean I know you always pick like some Swedish strong man who's like 200 kg but we can make make the lightweight category open the lightweight category good fun the chicken leg [Laughter] category but this black is pretty hard you said right this black is probably one of the harder ones [Music] yeah [Music] spicy on and then you go into gas St and then you go I guess [Music] so yeah that is hard there's no tow oh yeah you can tow here yeah you can probably oh yeah true yeah come on man [Music] o that is a hard move come on [Music] man hell yeah that was that looks super hard I didn't know what to do like just go for it are we able to climb shirtless at this gym yeah okay cool a little bit and our gym will be mandatory to come shortless is it yeah going up there it looks so hard man it's crazy [Music] okay come on come on nice come on come on sick [Music] nice quite bright yeah yeah it was cheating though cuz I didn't have my shirt on that for me though is probably the move that I'm the best at when I can just use the shoulders I remember like a long time ago in Jungle speed in sir there's like this picture of you doing like the gone move so good I remember kind of simp [Music] yeah so this is a competition style right kind of yeah it's like the commercial competition style okay this looks weird I can try it first just to see uh cuz you tried before right tried to flash this but it looks really far I got to [Music] say w no I should have looked more at it before I I forgot completely where this was there's also a um a little Tri you can just stand on there that's what I see people do in the World Cup all the time exactly cheat you mean cheating ah that is so cool but that's usually what everything is about in the World Cup yeah it's about [Music] cheating yeah okay [Music] [Music] it's funny you only learn that though it's so easy when you know what to do know I think this is going to be the favorite part uh we're going to do some hangboarding yeah I did that this morning already perfect you did this morning already I don't think it matters uh cuz uh Alex is perhaps the strongest climber in the world when it comes to hangboarding so now we're going to see exactly how strong he is so this is your office right yeah this is uh one of my two favorite training tools the Beast maker 1,000 the Beast maker 2,000 the one for warm-up and the other one for proper training it's that easy right I think we need to do the section shirtless though shirtless session with Alex Megos this is on my bucket list the guns are out still feel sore from like a competition we had um oh yeah it was a you would love this a proper German competition you uh Boulder yeah you do push-ups and you drink beer all three I would love but you have to drink before climbing so you climb drunk or no you have uh I think a window of 4 hours for the balers and a window the same window for drinking beer Plus another extra hour afterwards so you can drink as much as you want during bouldering and every beer counts every Boulder counts and every push-up counts okay so what would you do on a I mean you already done this today for like four hours but I usually always do a warm up on the fingerboard because I feel like warming up climbing very often you grab certain holes that don't feel super smooth and com comfortable that's why to make sure that in a controlled environment like the fingerboard I can warm up every individual finger I would up on the fingerboard and I literally would you know hang here with my pink just I was about to say I would literally just stand on the ground like pulling with like each individual finger just to get them warm and like move them a little bit just to have this feeling of every finger being warm and then my power endurance session is like on the Beast maker middle Edge I would hang 7 seconds 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and then I would take 3 seconds rest i' would hang again 7 seconds and the same hand the same hand wow yes and I would do that four times look how comfortable that is 3 seconds rest and then I hang again 7 Seconds yeah and after hanging four times 7 seconds I switch hand and then right take 2 minutes break and then do the same thing again do you never add any additional weights to that this is like the power endurance session when I do the uh the the max fingerboard session then I uh I add weight yeah how much weight do you add on that Crim on this crimp my best times I could add 30 kg at the moment I haven't trained very much because I've been focusing more on like um straight arm hangs on the the smaller be maker Edge and there I can quite comfortably hang now let see how comfortable that [Music] is yeah it's pretty comfortable but it's still quite comfortable okay let's let's see what I can do and keep in mind that he's already trained for like 4 hours today on this [Music] yeah hard it's it's [Music] hard nice you also have like one side that's better than the other yeah mhm actually my my shoulder is stronger on the left but my fingers are stronger on the right how many one arm pull-ups can you do just regular maybe five but then strict ones I guess I have never figured out the swing thing like the oh right yeah the kiing uh yeah so he says for him it makes a difference of like regular ones he can maybe do like seven or so and with a kick he can say he can do as many as he want because for him it makes a big difference I never figured that out so for me I always just do like normal ones stct ones Adam said the same actually he said that he can do like 20 with Kipping and zero without if I really try to use all the momentum all right like that it's like no effort but can you do one strict and I'm I'm stuck yeah on the fingerboard what I occasionally do is I train finger pairs often in rock climbing you have holes where you can't fit four fingers and you can't even fit three fingers so to make sure I'm I'm prepared for that I train finger pears but I'll just take the middle Knuckles and like hang to get this feeling of hanging there okay I think there's a very big difference between what looks good on camera and what is actually good training you know cuz I feel like a lot of people get the wrong impression when they look through Instagram and stuff cuz they see a lot of like one arm the crazy stuff and then they don't realize that the best training is actually pretty boring yeah oh geez yeah no I can't hang it like that I can hang open hand but but not in a half crimp I feel like my fingers would break like for me this is much more comfortable than open hand really yeah wow I'm so far from being able to hang in that position with like 90 de like he is and there's there that's like that's disgusting that's disgusting I think 30 is quite good where you would go like that and then you would roll this in okay I feel like that also helps change from like open hand strength to like grip strength like half Crim strength it feels so painful though doing that but that's why like almost 30 kg to get used to it is like way too hard already yeah yeah yeah that is to even too much yeah exactly if we take now 20 and like the bigger Edge like this like just to get used to it it technically means like you would with this part touch your your pals right so that's how far up you go yeah yeah yeah that already is like it's not easy no yeah you get definitely pump doing that that is very interesting cuz that's like something I've never done but I always kind of wanted to start trying but just feel so bad for my fingers I know but if you start like with easy weights like 20 kg not more like it makes such huge difference yeah and I feel like after doing this as a warm up I even hang better on the fingerboard yeah it's good exercise for a lot of people I think all right man it was awesome climbing with you thank you thank you so much I feel like I learned a lot good make sure that you check out Alex's course on altitud climbing.com also make sure that you check out Alex on Instagram YouTube wherever and uh see you next time see you nice

Channel: Magnus Midtbø

Views: 1,080,948

Keywords: Climbing, Climb, Boulder, Bouldering, Rock Climbing, Training, fitness, Alex Megos, Magnus Midtbø, Adam Ondra, Alex Honnold, Frankenjura, Insane, Climber, Workout

Id: aMoBcKnJ_h4

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 10 2024