The Nugget Climbing Podcast PREMIUM

Jana Švecová is a professional rock climber from the Czech Republic who has emerged as one of the top female boulderers in the world. We talked about her upbringing and her early success in competitions, her pivot to outdoor bouldering, her inspiration for choosing ‘Terranova’ 8C+/V16 as a project, making the first ascent of ‘Nova’ 8C/V15, using her finger injury as an opportunity, current training, and much more!

Jana and I were talking after the main episode and luckily I was still recording! We talked about being interviewed in a foreign language, and Jana told me about her trips to the United Arab Emirates to establish new boulders, including her first ascent of a new 8B/V13 called 'Lion King', and we talked about the climbing scene in the UAE.

References:
Video of Jana Bouldering in UAE (Lion King is at 03:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLq3T4hlNwQ

Nuggets:
(00:00:00) – Languages
(00:03:30) – Developing boulders in the United Arab Emirates 
(00:10:33) – Establishing ‘Lion King’ 8B/V13
(00:11:49) – The climbing scene in the UAE
(00:14:56) – Logistics in UAE 
(00:17:29) – Getting off the beaten track

Aidan answers questions from my Patrons about board training, finger training for The Midnight Project, reframing failures, developing local areas, Arnold Schwarzenegger posters, quitting climbing, favorite foods, hard projects, and more! We also had an honest chat about losing weight for climbing and some of the struggles we've both had with navigating eating.

Nuggets:
(00:00:00) – Siblings, upbringing, and phones
(00:07:32) – Frankenstein climber continued
(00:21:20) – Board training
(00:28:57) – Finger training for The Midnight Project
(00:37:14) – Replicating failure points
(00:39:43) – Board training continued
(00:52:56) – Reframing potential failures
(00:57:39) – Accessing flow
(01:07:31) – Developing local areas
(01:15:20) – Arnold Schwarzenegger
(01:17:51) – Losing the path
(01:28:39) – Taking a step back
(01:31:10) – An honest chat about losing weight for climbing
(01:55:35) – Raspberries and a healthy palette
(01:59:22) – Beans
(02:00:20) – The Sams
(02:02:45) – V17 projects and reality checks
(02:04:23) – Excalibur
(02:08:35) – Aidan’s first 8A
(02:10:45) – Terrenova
(02:12:05) – Desert Island boulders and the Sisu project
(02:19:56) – Wrap up

Aidan Roberts returns to the podcast! Aidan is at the cutting edge of bouldering and is one of the most genuine people I’ve had the pleasure of talking to. We talk about professional climbing and today’s media landscape, and he brings us up to speed on the last year and a half of his climbing and shares the full stories of ‘Spots of Time’ and ‘Arrival of the Birds’, two new boulders proposed 9A/V17.

We recorded this a couple of days after my chat with him and Sam on their podcast. I was honored to join them and I loved the conversation. Check it out for some reflections amongst the three of us about our podcasting and climbing.

Paul helps me rehab a minor A2 pulley injury in my pinkie, and he shares some general advice about pulley injuries. We were chatting after the podcast and I thought this might be helpful for some of you.

Paul Houghoughi (The Climbing Physio) returns for our promised part 2! This was every bit as good as our first episode. In part 2 we focused on how to build bulletproof knees and hamstrings for heel hooks, how to prevent shoulder injuries, how to strengthen and mobilize your neck and back, some of the most common changes to climber’s bodies as we age, and more. Paul also shared helpful advice for folks who feel overwhelmed by the endless possibilities of injury prevention.

We covered fingers, wrists, and elbows in our first episode:
EP 207: Paul Houghoughi