How Two Boulderers Freed The Nose

In this episode of the Lattice Training Podcast, host Tom Randall chats with climber and coach Billy Ridal about his recent free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan. They explore Billy's journey from competition climbing to the world of big walls, discussing the physical preparation, mental resilience, and tactical planning essential for success on one of the world’s most iconic climbs.
Billy shares his insights on transitioning to big wall climbing, the endurance training required, and how his competition experience played a crucial role. The discussion also highlights the upcoming film, The Nose Job, set to release on November 7th, which captures Billy’s and Alex Waterhouse's climb of The Nose. Their journey from the competition circuit to Yosemite's big walls is a tale of adaptation, physical preparation, and mental resilience on one of the world's most iconic routes.
If you're curious about the skills, strategies, and mindset needed for big wall climbs, this episode is packed with valuable insights from one of the sport’s rising stars.
Key Takeaways:

• Billy Ridal's free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan
• How competition climbing skills apply to big walls
• Endurance training and preparation for big wall climbing
• Highlights from the upcoming film The Nose Job

Join Tom and Billy for an in-depth discussion that offers a mix of technical advice and gripping adventure stories from the world of big wall climbing.

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.

Transcript

Tom (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Lattice Training Podcast. It's Tom Randall today and I'm sitting down with one of our coaches, Billy Rydell. Now the name Billy Rydell will be familiar to many of you listening as last year in November, he made the historic free ascent of the nose on El Cap with his climbing partner, Alex Waterhouse. Now whilst this route has seen a number of repeat ascent since the FA by Lynn Hill,

think it still remains one of the most revered LCAP Big Wall routes as it's just so hard to put the whole thing together and make a clean red point. Basically, it's one of the very last choices that any free climber makes if they want to climb LCAP free, which says quite a lot. Even more impressive was Billy's meteoric rise to Big Wall proficiency, I'm gonna say, having come from

mainly a background of indoor comp climbing and single pitch trad climbing and sport climbing. In this episode, what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to Billy about what he's taken away from his journey from plastic, plastic indoors to big wall and how this has affected his coaching and training plan work here at Lattice. And we're to tackle this in three main topics. First off are.

multi-pitch or big wall climbing lessons. So Billy's going to share the sort of key things that he's learned on his personal journey and how he integrates those into his own coaching practices. Secondly, we're going to talk a little bit about his transition from competition to outdoor climbing and how that looks. And then thirdly, his overall coaching and training strategies, particularly when preparing any of his clients or athletes for competitions or

bigger wall, multi-pitch outdoor climbs. So welcome back to the podcast, because I think you've definitely been on this one before, haven't you Billy?

Billy (02:00)
Yeah, I've done it once before. Thanks for having me, Tom. And good work smashing the intro out first go.

Tom (02:04)
Yep, it's always nice to get the on-site on the intro, you never know.

Billy (02:07)
I think it's an oppressive effort every time.

Tom (02:11)
So, I mean, I said at the start that I feel like quite a of people recognise your name now, and I feel like for a number of years, you've kind of been a little bit of a dark horse of British climbing, ticking pretty hard stuff on boulders and sport and comp results over the years, but not, you know, one of the people that's just pumping out nonstop Instagram comment.

all over YouTube, et cetera, et cetera. So can you give everyone listening a bit of a background, like an overall background away from the nose ascent of where did you come from in your climbing? What's your kind of experiences with it and what you do at Lattice?

Billy (02:55)
Yeah, sure. So I've been climbing for a fair amount of time now. I'm 27, started climbing when I was nine. So I kind of started climbing, I take just before the kind of boom in indoor climbing. The gym I started at was still Bencrete walls and properly old school. So I've kind of been in the climbing community through that whole transition. I started pretty early in the road towards

climbing competitions but I was never I was never only a competition climber I was started doing a little bit of outdoor stuff from very early on actually my very first outdoor experiences were like super easy trad climbing on the grit but even if that's like my first outdoor experiences I wouldn't definitely wouldn't say that that's my bread and butter nowadays far from it and so

Yeah, for a long time, my main focus was competing. I went through the whole youth circuit and then for a lot of my sort of, well, my entire sort of young adults from 18 through to a year and a half ago, I was a competition climber competing internationally for the GB team. And that was kind of the main focus alongside climbing outside when I could fit it in. And that kind of, as I got more

focused on competitions, rock kind of by necessity became less and less of a priority just because for me competitions, was never, it never came easily for me. I felt like I was always kind of battling to be good enough to be there. And so I was always putting more and more work into to keep up pace. And so other things kind of had to be left on the sidelines. Then...

Couple years ago I started working for Lattice at the point where I was still competing and was sort juggling those two things for a little while. And then, yeah, the last winter I stopped competing and since then I've been more focused on rocks with the specifics of first objective or first big objective, I guess, going to El Cap to free the nose, which was...

I guess it was a bit of a change for me in terms of that's definitely the biggest thing that people have ever taken notice of in my climbing. And I think I've been around the scene for a long time and I go, I know a lot of people in the scene and I think a lot of people, especially in Sheffield know who I am, but certainly doing the nose has sort of put me in the spotlight in a slightly different way to what I'd ever had before.

which has been really interesting. It's obviously something that I'm super, super proud of. But there's also things in my climbing before that which I'm really, really proud of, which because it's not the nose and it's not that like huge headline, people obviously haven't taken as much notice for, is totally natural. But it's been an interesting one for me because I've just not had that experience before where, yeah, certain things spark a lot of interest and other things.

not quite so much. my competing, for example, I poured a huge amount of energy into, but because I wasn't Toby Roberts, you don't like people don't really notice if you've made a World Cup semi-final, whether or not that's a big personal achievement or not. Whereas, yeah, climbing the nose is a big deal. So yeah, I guess that kind of brings to where we are at the minute. yeah, I'm outdoor climber and sort of...

semi-ish professional climber but I obviously also work for Lattice as well part-time and so I kind of juggle those two things.

Tom (06:18)
Yeah, okay. Well, that's a good little summary there. And I think people will find it interesting in that perspective from you about doing a lot of really hard climbing, especially from the competition perspective as well over the years and the amount of time that you put in. But actually this really weird disjoint that we sometimes get for the recognition of climbing performance and achievement and stuff just doesn't get the same.

of traffic or attention in ways in climbing and that is just its own thing and I'm sure people will hear that and go that's kind good to know that Billy has experienced that and it's not just you know everyone else out there thinking that they've put a load of work into something and they haven't received the accolades for it because I think it is that it can be like that.

Billy (06:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think you must have had this a lot in your time climbing and being in the spotlight as well. And I think people have this on a small scale as well, if it's not like a famous climb or something that's like known within your local community or something, it might be a really big personal achievement for you. But you won't necessarily get that much praise from it if people don't sort of have that much concept of what the achievement is. And I think that's just a...

It's a useful reminder to not put too much heed in other people's where other people place value and to, yeah, trust in, trust in what you find valuable and yeah, follow that, I guess.

Tom (07:43)
Yeah, I think that's a great way to look at it. And it comes down to that kind of internal and external validation factor. And I suppose like internal and external motivation, the good thing on the whole, I think is actually a balance between the two and they both serve their purposes. You just don't want to go fully off the spectrum on one side and completely ignore the other if you want to have or get plenty out of it, I guess is the answer.

Billy (08:12)
Yeah, I completely agree.

Tom (08:14)
So if we just kind of reference your Ascent of the Nose with Alex, can you, I know some people listening will have listened to the podcast that you recorded with, I think it was Maddie on your Ascent of the Nose and then also you did a podcast maybe with Aidan as well.

Billy (08:37)
Yeah, I did the Careless Talk one with Aidan and Sam Pryor not long after The Ascent as well. there's, yeah, people who are avid podcast listeners will have probably heard me talk about it little bit before, but...

Tom (08:48)
For anyone not having not listened to those, can you give them a summary of what you did and what the kind of headlines on that. And that will kind of frame everything for where we go with comp to big wall discussion today. Because I think a lot of people will go, right, you did that as one of your first very, very big things.

Billy (09:09)
Yeah okay so the nose is like probably it's the most famous route in the world. I think that's a... I don't know what other route you would give that status to and it has like huge amounts of history in Yosemite which is kind of like already one of the places in the world which has the biggest spotlight on it for climbing. A super rich history of

development in Yosemite between like Roy Robbins and then Warren Harding and then coming into the sort free climbing era it was done by Lynn Hill as the first free ascent and the first free ascent on El Cap, pretty sure that's right it was the first free ascent on El Cap full stop in 1993 which was just like totally stratospheric when that happened like everybody before that assumed that free climbing El Cap was impossible

and especially with a space of dominated by macho men and then a woman comes and does the first three ascents on it which is like so good. So like it's always had this massive reputation and I don't know if initially it was sort of people realised how physically difficult it was but over the years it's had really not that many ascents for how

Tom (10:11)
Mm-hmm.

Billy (10:27)
how famous a route it is. I don't think it was too big a gap before Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden repeated it. But then it was 2014 until Jorv Hauven then made the fourth ascent. for 20 years it had three ascent by some of the biggest names in Yosemite climbing. So it just sort built

built this reputation for having specifically two really difficult pitches on it. The Great Roof and Changing Corners. So yeah, even up until the point that me and Alex did it last year, it had had like between eight and 10 ascents, depending on sort of how you judge ethics and style and done by a British team. So

From me and Alex's perspective, it seemed like quite a cool prize. it's a good headline, right? Two comp climbers that have never done any big walling go and do the most famous route in the world. So there was definitely a little bit of like, is a dangling carrot, like an obvious carrot being dangled that we could go after. But aside from that, it had just been something that

Tom (11:25)
you

Billy (11:36)
both myself and Alex had were really inspired by this side of climbing aside from being primarily competition climbers. And I think that's a side that not very many people had seen. It's like, especially in the current day, like if you're a competition climber, you kind of are defined primarily by being a competition climber. There are obviously some notable exceptions to that, but it necessitates so much from you that you kind of have to be primarily that. And we, course, hadn't done anything.

remotely on that scale before. We'd done, I'm pretty sure I'd never done more than three pitches in a row. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd never done more three pitches in a row beforehand. But we were, were psyched and inspired by El Cap and we wanted to...

Tom (12:09)
Was it that bad? I didn't realize that.

Billy (12:19)
Like, and I was wanted to sort of stop in competing to feel like a kind of end of our sort of, it's not an end for a passion of climbing, but an end for the kind of like, like extreme focus on climbing, I suppose. So we kind of just replaced competition climbing with another big goal and just sort of set off towards that instead. And then just sort of

cobbled together some bits of experience to try and figure it out, which we knew it was going to be a lot of work on the logistical side of things, and it was. But we were kind of just maybe blindly optimistic that it was possible if we figured it out. Being a competition climber, you have to have a lot of confidence and trust in your climbing ability across a broad range of styles. So we were kind of just like...

Yeah, we can probably do the climbing. It was like whether or not we could do the climbing in the position that it's in and having like organized everything effectively enough to mean that when we arrived there, we were still physically capable, was that was by far what felt like the big question mark for us was whether we could sort ourselves out on the technical, logistical side of things so that we could climb to our ability that we

Tom (13:07)
Hmm.

Billy (13:30)
we trusted that we had. As it turns out, think, especially on my side, I was slightly overconfident in my ability to apply my skills to hard Yosemite granite. It definitely turned out harder than I was expecting on specifically changing corners. But as people will know, it turned out it was just enough, which kind of made it all the better. It did kind of come down to the wire in the end.

Tom (13:47)
Yeah.

Billy (13:51)
Yeah, that's the nose.

Tom (13:51)
So I space that.

Okay, so I suppose that begs the initial first question that I think a lot of people are or probably are thinking is how much does preparation from a tactical and experience perspective and training matter for being able to pull off a really big wall perspective?

big wall project or multi-pitch, given that you come from a background of being a really good climber. Like, let's not get away from this, you know, font 8B +, 8C plus sport routes, really good competition results, you climb really well. But how important do you think that preparation aspect is? Because loads of people, there might be people out there that will be listening and thinking, on paper,

can climb hard enough to go and climb a really cool iconic big wall. But what's Billy's perspective on how much work do I have to put in for this?

Billy (15:00)
So I'm almost certain if we tried to go ground up on even like free rider, one of the more sort of attainable free routes on El Cap, I'm pretty certain we'd have got completely shut down if we tried to go ground up. We just did not have the logistical experience to be able to put all the moving parts together and effectively climb. Yeah, I just don't think there's any way. The approach that we took by

going for a hard route, there was kind of no real question in our minds that that was even an option. So we we'll go, we'll go top down and we'll work moves. And in doing that, it meant that we kind of like drip fed the like big walling skills over the time that we were there. we like firstly, we were sort of getting proficient with repelling and doing a little bit of hauling and just sort of like

existing on the wall, like being comfortable on ledges, like organising a belay so that you don't make it into a total cluster. We did these things fairly gradually over the course of a month before we went for the ascent and that was instrumental I think. Aside from just gaining confidence in the climbing, we gained so much confidence in our systems and in how we were sort of working together.

on the wall. And so that I think, yes you can go on.

Tom (16:15)
Okay, just summarise that, you put in a solid month's worth of preparation off the wall beforehand. So even...

Billy (16:26)
No, so this was on El Cap. This was like the month before we went for our push from the ground. But like working the route, we did some little like single day light pushes where we just went from the ground and sort of went as high as we could before wrapping off that kind of stuff. Just sort of building confidence specifically on El Cap, which is by far the period where we learnt the most about how to big wall.

Tom (16:42)
Okay.

Billy (16:53)
Before that, we had a week or so just doing bit of smaller single pitch and few pitch trad climbs together just to climb as a party. And before that, again, I was trying to get out trad climbing a reasonable amount and trying to build up a bunch of volume. But all of that felt not that relevant compared to this month of work we did before the route specifically actually on El Cap, actually big walling, actually messing around with portal edges.

and that was so important. And we were gonna sort of get on some other routes in El Cap before, in Yosemite, sorry, to sort of get used to climbing on the granite and yeah, sort of get our systems down. But in the end, we just did all of that work specifically on the nose. And so probably by the end of the month, we were quite proficient specifically on that route, whether or not if we went and got on another wall,

Tom (17:23)
Mm.

Billy (17:48)
whether it would still apply i'm not really sure but by the time we went for the push we were quite specifically proficient for that route and yeah i think that was that was completely key for us

Tom (18:00)
Yeah, I think the way to view this kind of approach in a way is, cause I've done similar kind of things to this is going and doing your prep on the route that you want to go and do itself on the big wall, multi-pitch, well, whatever it is, is almost like replica training. It's going to have the heart really, really high degree of specificity. So any time that you put in the return is just excellent because

It is basically exactly the thing that you'll be doing when you're doing your push. The timings might be a bit different. Some of the psychology might be a little bit different, but there's just like amazing specificity. And just like a replica is that if you were doing, I don't know, a replica of, like take Will, replica training on Burden of Dreams, that works really well to transfer onto Burden of Dreams. But if he was doing that and then wanted to do onto Return of the Sleepwalker, there's

transfer but it's not going to be as good in the same way that when you said I don't know whether if I went on another big wall that would be quite as good I think you'd be spot-on there'll be some transfer but it's it's just not as specific and what you've done is kind of hack around the system of not having years and years worth of experience and just getting highly specific which in climbing works really well

Billy (19:23)
Yeah, exactly that. We had a very finite amount of time in the grand scheme of things to become competent. So we're like, don't need to go on loads of other Yosemite climbs and be competent Yosemite climbers. We just need to be competent nose climbers. And I think that's what we are. I I could now go on to another big wall and know how to big wall.

But wouldn't necessarily say that I was especially competent in that arena. Maybe more competent than some of the people we saw attempting the nose in our time there, but maybe not particularly competent either.

Tom (19:54)
Hmm.

And as a result of that now, what do you often find yourself recommending to anyone that you work with from a training coaching perspective in terms of how much prep they put into understanding the big war game, I guess we could call it.

Billy (20:14)
So this is depended. I've worked with a few different people who have been psyched towards big walls and specifically towards El Cap actually. And it really depends on the background that they're coming in from. I work with some people who are really experienced big wallers but don't really have the physical constituents to do it free or to do something hard free. And in those cases, like it's...

I'm kind of training them like a regular person because that's mostly what they're missing. They're really, really sound logistically. They're really experienced with big days. They're great at suffering, but they're just not very strong. And really they need to go away and they need to do some finger boarding and they need to do some pull ups. They need to get on a board and just like level themselves up physically. And yeah, that kind of training plan would look a lot like what you see so many people doing down the wall.

Then there's kind the other side of the spectrum a bit closer to what I did where they're pretty strong and the level is there on that side of things, but the competency is just totally absent. in the way that we coach this, that's mostly then been about me facilitating their learning outdoors and really encouraging them to get outside as much as possible, pointing them in the right direction for

skills that they need to be acquiring, really looking out for all those styles which don't come up very much in every day, like finding every size of crack you can find, finding something to stem up, like really thin, glassy face climbing, seeking this stuff out wherever you can, and just having days where I'm like, right, this today is going to be going out and faffing around with logistics and

This is I put I'm programming this into your training because it's really important even if it's not like it's not like physical attributes, but you need to go and do some ascending and some repelling and like the set up a portal edge and stuff. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if you can do 400 pull ups. So it really, really depends. And it's yeah, it kind of as any coach, trying to sort of adapt what you're doing to to what is limiting that person. I think we're big walling more than anything that the variation in that is.

Tom (22:10)
Mm.

Billy (22:22)
is really huge depending on what their of start line is.

Tom (22:25)
And what do you think are the typical issues that you find people face from a physical perspective on Big Warp? Because you kind of said there's almost two categories of people, physically very capable, technically, tactically, psychologically, maybe not as good and then vice versa. What would you say are the typical issues in each of those baskets that you would look to address? And I'll come on later to like the sort of things you actually do.

Billy (22:37)
Yeah.

Tom (22:54)
in practice with trading plans and things for that.

Billy (22:54)
Yeah, yeah. So on the sort of experienced big walling side of things where they're like really good at big days out, I kind of initially assumed that that category of person would have really, really good low end fitness and could just go for days, which on paper is true for them when they go out in the mountains. from the way that we test, like put a

critical force diagram together and test aerobic and anaerobic fitness. On that side of things, what I've seen is that really they're not actually very developed at all. Because aerobic fitness is much more applicable on medium to long sport routes where it's steep and you're really hanging in your arms. Most big walling stuff is slab or vert and you're not necessarily getting that pumped. You're just maybe getting really sore toes.

It's mostly been about getting that lower end and like kind of the whole range, right? Like lower end aero, mid to high end power endurance and finger strength. All is just low. And so whenever they come across like a hard move or a really sustained sequence, and it gets a bit steeper, they've just not got, we've not got the building blocks in place. So it's, yeah, it's all the, it's the basic stuff really that loads of people need to be working on.

on the other end of the spectrum, the biggest one ignoring that the logistical side of things is kind of like tolerance to suffering. And you just don't people just don't do that if they go down the wall and they go to the crag every now and again at the weekend. You don't have those huge days out where you're just like switched on all the time. You're just working really, really hard. And so it's it's getting people out of like long sustained periods of

mild suffering basically just like do as many routes as you possibly can in a day. If you've not got access to any long routes go and just take a really long time and faff around on routes but just get used to being out in out of the crag or out of the mountains for a really really long time and kind of understand how to how to sit with yourself when maybe like the it starts being a little bit less fun and you've got a crack on.

Tom (24:46)
Hmm.

Billy (25:02)
and being comfortable with that. I saw it load specifically on the nose where anybody that wasn't very experienced and these guys are going for it in aid style, so it's a bit different, but they were making progress, but I just don't think they were used to being on the wall for a really long time. And by the time they'd done a day and then maybe they not got quite as far as they hoped they would, they're their confidence in their ability to sort of exist there and like,

trust themselves to carry on going just totally plummets. And as soon as you've lost that confidence, I think you've, yeah, there's no hope, right? You've got to be okay with it being a bit miserable and it being really hard and just being trusting that you'll get through it basically. finding small challenges to sort of slowly progress that before is really, important, I think, when you're coming from more my kind of background where you're just not used to that.

Tom (25:45)
Yeah.

I it's a really good point because it's like the way in which big walling often feels easier or more copeable with as such is that once you've trod the journey a few times of the full spectrum of right starting off on a long

day or multi-day experience and being really enthusiastic, loads of energy and having that all the way through to the point where you are just so broken, but you're just about still pulling it together. You just need to...

take that journey and know what it feels like so that you understand that there's just a process to it. Like it feels to me just as crap as any other time that I've been on a wall on day two when you're already, I don't know, 800 foot up and you look down and you go, it is so far down. I've come so far. Well done. Yeah, this is good. But then you look up and you go, what? That's just...

Billy (26:32)
Exactly.

there's so much more!

Tom (26:56)
so far and even after multiple times my brain does freak out and think this isn't possible but because I've done it a few times you just know okay no no this is a normal thing here and yes the first time you just wanted to go back down to the ground because it just felt too much but once you've done it five times ten times you know that you just ignore that thing just put it to the side and tie into the rope and do the next pitch and

Billy (27:23)
It's like those thoughts I think they're like entirely rational like looking up at something like that and being that's huge that's stupid I shouldn't be doing that like that makes total sense so it's it's it's yeah it's trusting that in that and knowing that your like your limit or tolerance for it is much is always much bigger than it kind of feels like it is in the moment I mean you can always eke out a little bit more even if it feels like there's

Tom (27:26)
You know?

Yeah, yeah.

Mm.

Billy (27:51)
there's nothing left and you just need to have done that a bit to know that it's possible.

Tom (27:56)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. think another really good example that I think of that I got from Steve McClure, who told me about this in terms of becoming familiar with the unfamiliar when it comes to climbing. And I think that should be really relatable for almost anyone listening is that when you first start climbing and you do route climbing and you have that first experience of getting pumped, you go, whoa, don't like this. And in your head, you're thinking I'm going to fall off in

two, three seconds because it's so unfamiliar. But just like kind of running your car constantly with that light on with the, you know, like the fuel gauge and you're constantly in the red over time, years and years, you go, I think I actually know I have another 30 miles once that light goes on. And you just get really comfortable with that same thing. And Steve always explains that in the sense that when you get pumped, as soon as the light comes on, don't freak out because actually you might have

15 moves more on you, 20 moves maybe, just push on through it and I think it's the same.

Billy (28:58)
So the lesson here is really you should run your car until empty so that you know when it's empty. But no, the analogy is totally true. If you know how far you've pushed before, then you can be confident in like, well, this sucks, but I know I can do it.

Tom (29:10)
Yeah. Yeah, basically.

Yeah, yeah, So if we talk about the transition from your background of competition climbing and single pitch sports, load of bouldering outdoors, some single pitch track climbing outside, what do you think are the parts of that history of you as a climber that

were the most useful and other people can go, yeah, Billy got loads of benefits from those parts of his climbing away from Big Wall. So those are really worthwhile on me working towards if I have long-term Big Wall aspirations. And which are the bits perhaps at the end that you think, nah, it just isn't that useful.

Billy (30:11)
So I do think that if you're going to split it into like sport climbing, bouldering, competition climbing, I do think I drew the most physically and psychologically from the competition side of things. Firstly, because as a specifically a competition boulder, like you, one of the biggest objectives aside from being really strong is trying to be as rounded as you possibly can and being able to adapt to whatever is

Tom (30:23)
Mmm.

Billy (30:38)
put in front of you through a really, really broad range of styles. And for both me and Alex, that was kind of the part of competition climbing that we enjoyed the most was trying to be a really balanced climber and finding a lot of joy in sort of exploring new movements. And any time something comes up and I've not seen this before, it doesn't quite make sense. It doesn't feel quite right. And going through that process of

figuring it out and putting it into your skill set. So I do think from that side of things we were both quite adaptable to a lot of climbing styles that could be put in front of us and there's certainly some comparisons you can draw between at least some kinds of competition slab climbing and Yosemite granite where you've got these like

quite low friction surfaces and it's not that you can sort of necessarily smear your way through it and you're having to use really specific little edges. I do think there are some similarities there. Definitely, like it still felt like a big learning curve from a style side of things when we got there, but I do think that put me in quite good stead to figure things out as well on a crack climbing side of things, like whether or not, whether people like it or not, and you're partly responsible for this Tom.

cracks do appear in comps so again we both spent time trying to be least somewhat competent on this on that side of things and I'm not like an experienced crack climber but I've got the basics down so I had a bit in that region to apply even if I've not done really much of it at all outside

And the psychological side of competitions as well is that whole sort of melting pot of pressure and being able to switch it on in the moment and perform in the moment, which is felt like really, really key on the hard pitches. Whereas you've got to find out amount of resources. You've only got like a certain weather window. You need to make it happen now and flick that switch. And that's very much a competition climber skill. So, yeah, I do think that applied quite well.

What I really don't think applied very well was like traditional sport climbing fitness and like being able to hang on a 40 degree roof forever or being able to like redline yourself just didn't really come up very much at least on the route that we were on like it was much more about your technical competency and like

Tom (32:39)
Hmm.

Billy (33:03)
again at least for this route, intense bouldery sequences. The Great Roof was maybe a bit of exception to that in that it was bumpy but that was, in terms of what I've done before, that felt like the area that came up the least in and then obviously like pure power moves as well like on a or like compression style climbing like that doesn't that didn't really come up. It'd be cool if it did I'd like a compression boulder like two thirds of the way of our cap that'd be really cool.

But that side of things didn't really come up but being really well rounded from a bouldering perspective and enjoying slab and technical climbing and having strong fingers, that was really applicable. yeah, sport climbing fitness and like power style bouldering, not so much.

Tom (33:28)
Okay.

Mm.

So what you're saying here is if you're a relatively high level climber, you're going to get more transfer and benefits to big walling if you go and regularly get involved with your local indoor comp scene perhaps and do some national comps and do some climbing for that versus spending all your time on the moon board.

Billy (34:10)
Yes, I would agree with that statement. I also don't think that becoming a comp climber is the most efficient route to being a good pig walk climber, but I do think it probably applies more than moonboarding. no, it definitely applies more than moonboarding.

Tom (34:17)
you

I was going to say, I'm sure we need a bit of extra qualification on that. Okay. Sort of related to that question is I think there's lots of people who have big wall, L-cap aspirations and they...

Billy (34:46)
Mm-hmm.

Tom (34:48)
They've started climbing maybe in the last year or they've been climbing for five years, maybe even 10 years. And they are at some point, I'd love to go to Yosemite and free climb something on El Cap. What do you think are the critical checklist of items in terms of climbing ability that...

You would want someone to say, yes, I can do those things. I'm at those levels to be able to free climb on El Cap. And before you answer that, can I ask, has it started absolutely pouring down a rain wherever you are? So if anyone's listening, thinking that Billy's running the tap in the background, he's in his van.

Billy (35:18)
Whoa.

Yes, it's absolutely pissing me off. Wicked.

Yeah, I'm sat in a tin can and it's... we're thinking there's a bit of a storm outside so... I apologize. Okay, yeah, I think this is very difficult question. If we're going for specifically El Cap, the obvious route is Freerider, which is the lowest graded route on El Cap that still gets 13a or

Tom (35:38)
No, it's all good. Carry on.

Billy (35:56)
70 plus in in european money, so it's still quite hard.

it's difficult because I work with a client who has climbed Freerider and the hardest they've ever climbed is 70 plus and it was on site on El Cap. So you can do it with a very low physical level but that is also somebody who's spent a lot of time in Yosemite and is really really proficient in that style.

most people aren't going to have those skills, especially if they're coming from specifically the UK, where you've got there is bigger stuff in Europe, though it's still not the same. You're going to have to be turning up with some physical margin for the vast, vast majority of people, especially if you were on a bit of a timeline, like if you're turning up in Yosemite for a week and you're like, I'm going to free the free LCAP.

You've got to be way, way overstrong and be very confident.

Tom (36:49)
So if you had to put a number on it, what would you put?

Billy (36:52)
Let's go for 8a plus sport but not in like Spanish style like something that's maybe a little bit lower angle a bit more technical not like hanging on your arms for a long time and boulder

Tom (36:53)
And then I'll give you my answer.

Billy (37:12)
V9, we'll go with V9. Something that's going to give you more, but again, not Moonboard V9. This has got to be kind of techie V9. I think that would, yeah, more than the grade, I think it's the, I think it's the style that you're operating that level. Like you could be, you could be climbing 8B on the kilter boards and there's a certain amount of transfer, but if you've not also done

a fair amount of tech like it's just going to be so foreign to you. So yeah, let's go. A plus bought V9 Boulder in a relatively technical style in an ideal world on like low angle granite, but that's practical. And I don't know whether you could put any meaningful like testing metrics on it.

Tom (37:57)
think the specificity is very, very low. And because there's just so many, so many pitches, so much involved with a big wall. think the, the sport grade and bouldering thing, especially in relevance to technical terrain. I'd say I would, I was going to say exactly the same thing. I would have said eight A plus sport Red Point grade on, on technical terrain. has to be technical. I would have said a little lower actually on the bouldering grade. I would have

Billy (37:59)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe that's...

Tom (38:26)
I would have maybe said V8, but not like the...

Billy (38:28)
Yeah, I think I've guessed for specifically Freerider that the boulder prom on it is like V7, V8, so I was like, I agree, if you're... If that's a technical V8, then yes, and you've done it in not too large a time period, then that would be fine. Yeah, I went for V9 for some margin, but yeah. Yeah.

Tom (38:44)
Mm.

Yeah, extra margin, yeah. Okay, that's cool to hear that we more or less, yeah, think the same thing. And what would you say in terms of the amount of volume that someone could handle in a week for actual climbing? Because I think it's another important aspect because

I don't know if you have had this experience, but I've worked with some clients over the years who have really got into a phase of a number of years of having a lot of work on doing a lot of desk-based work and they're only getting down the wall twice a week and having relatively short focus sessions. And that is a small amount of total volume and that that sets you up poorly for big multi-day stuff.

Billy (39:38)
Yeah, I agree. First you need to be able to handle just like a large amount of volume through a week and then as I said before, you need to be able to handle a large volume within a single day. So if you're not able to get out on the weekends and have like some mammoth days out, I think you're giving yourself a lot of... You're just not prepared for what you're going to get when you get there.

And then, yeah, you need to be able to go multiple days on and kind of be okay with climbing when you are fatigued. Like there's loads of boulders out there that climb and do like three pretty much maximal sessions a week when and they're like day on day off or have two rest days and they feel pretty rested whenever they go climbing. And again, that's just not that's not what you're doing on a on a big wall. You're for 90 percent of it. You're knackered. And you've got to you've got to be okay with climbing like that. And that's another one actually from

from comp climbing which I think is quite relevant because the training load of competition climbers is massive. Of all the people that I work with, it's always comp climbers that have the highest volume. And they're just okay with being climbing whilst they're tired and working their way around that and still finding ways to climb effectively when they can feel that their things are a bit tired or the pulling strength isn't quite there. They can still use their bodies in a way to make things work.

Tom (40:38)
you

Billy (40:56)
That is definitely a skill that you can learn.

Tom (40:58)
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. Actually, you made that just as you started that sentence. went, I remember this kind of transition in my own climbing of understanding how to be. I suppose it's like a combination of being intentional and strategic and good. Body awareness of how when one part of my body is kind of just failing and getting really tired is going. I've got to make something work.

on my feet here, like I have absolutely got to, or I've got to work out a different way to climb the crack sequence because I'm totally blown on lay back and I'm just going to have to find a way of doing way more technical straight in jamming, that kind of thing. And I think that's a skill that you develop over years and years and years.

Billy (41:42)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, maybe actually slightly retract my previous statement on on like steep sport climbing in that that does teach you how to how to like make things work when you're absolutely ruined and really really pumped. So maybe that side of things from sport climbing is applicable.

Tom (42:01)
And do you think that you coach and train differently now that you've had this journey into the big wall world and what perspective has that given you overall in your coaching and training when you're working with clients?

Billy (42:20)
I certainly think I have more of a respect for...

people's climbing for themselves, guess, basically, coming from a competition background is it's like a very regimented schedule and you're of optimizing as much as you possibly can within your life for a training schedule. And A, just aside from big walling, that's just not the reality for almost everybody. But then for big walling side of things, there's so much skill is gained from

doing the thing and it's yeah it's it's having respecting that side of things and making that a priority above and beyond training. I've programmed something in for a week and I've not managed to get this conditioning session in but I can get out in the mountains for a day there might be some exceptions for this but most of the time having that big day out in the mountains is going to be more useful than doing that extra session of pull-ups.

And some people, I think you someone specifically, I think that is true the other way around. And then it's trying to figure out how to manage people and getting them to recognise where their weaknesses are, if they have a very specific goal that they're working towards and making sacrifices in that regard. But most of the time, yeah, it's about

Tom (43:23)
Mm.

Billy (43:44)
facilitating people's recreational climbing around training and not putting too much sacrifice on them, I guess.

Tom (43:52)
Yeah, interesting. And if I was to take the three, no, let's call it four actually, four main areas of physical training that climbers will often complete in their daily monthly training plans. that being strength training, power endurance, endurance, and then off wall conditioning. If I was to break

Billy (44:17)
Mm-hmm.

Tom (44:20)
either of those categories down, what would you say for, and I know this is kind of hard to do because it is very generalised and you know, we can make those caveats right away, but what would you say the main differences in the types of, and let's start with endurance sessions that you would give someone who was going to do, had a big wall goal versus someone who had a competition route climbing goal?

Is there a difference in the endurance sessions you give people?

Billy (44:52)
Yeah, so for obvious one for big wallers is they need to be doing long end stuff. So there's kind of two parts of this. Firstly, really quite chill, like arc style training for a long time, which is as much of a for me as as much about psychology as like physical adaptation is just being like just hanging out on the wall and sort of getting bored and it being like a bit uncomfortable. Just that side of things I think is really valuable.

And then it's just kind of doing as much volume as you can possibly do in a session, like getting down to the lead wall and just banging out loads of moderate intensity routes until you flop basically. And it's not super complicated from an energy system side of things because it's just building up your tolerance for workload.

And so it doesn't need to be super specialized in terms of what we're hitting. It's just be able to handle more. On the competition side of things, especially nowadays, it's super, super dominated on the power endurance side of things. Most competition routes that you're getting on, you'll be on between, if you're fit, four to five minutes. If you're less fit,

and half to three and a half that was kind of more where I sat at least and so it's going pretty far down the rabbit hole on really high intensity power endurance and so it's like your your boulder triples or doubles at the real top end and then like a really classic one is 20 move circuits for a sport climber is just being outside on a a on

competition climbers already like when you get into that second half of the route and you just got put the afterburners on and just bang out a lot of hard moves and Yeah, that kind of thing. I'm a real big I really like making hard circuits on a spray wall for competition climbers. I think that's You can just get the intensity So so high like that in a way that there's loads of skills to be gained from going on hard competition routes And that should be a priority for any competition sport climbers getting on competition specific routes for sure

Tom (46:43)
Mm.

Billy (46:57)
But if you're trying to get onto the energy system, I think getting on a spray wall and putting together as hard sequences as you can in that 20 to 40 move region is really, really valuable.

Tom (47:08)
And what sort of power endurance training would you typically give someone who had big wall objectives? How would that look different compared to a comp climber?

Billy (47:17)
I just wouldn't be trying to go for quite the same level of intensity, which to be fair, it might not be. This is going from kind of my big wall experiences. I didn't come across anything that was really, really sustained on the power endurance side of things. So I'd still have classics in there like boulder triples where it's that high intensity. Yeah, how it's kind of bouldery power endurance.

think is really valuable for kind of repeatedly being able to go close to your bolder bolder max.

but not quite so much in that kind of extending it out in a kind of power endurance-y sport climbing way. Yeah, probably a more kind of boulder style power endurance, which might not be correct. If you're going for something like the Enduro corner on Freerider, it's probably going to be more about that kind of middle intensity, you kind of, well, aero power style, where you're of flicking between, it's more about doing like root doubles and that kind of thing.

Tom (47:53)
Hmm.

Billy (48:12)
But yeah, my experience was more kind of that boulder, bouldering, sort of durability and then just like really long end.

Tom (48:19)
Yeah, I would say I would exactly agree with that. There is some variation depending on the specific big wall goal you'd have. And I think some routes on El Cap do look quite different physically in terms of the demands of them compared to others. But yeah, the ball into your ability thing, I think is such a good shot. I remember when me and Pete went out to Yosemite and we had a season there freeing a number of big walls on El Cap and we were basically going down to the

climbing wall three times a week. And we were doing huge sessions of just back to back boulder problems in the V4 to V8 grade range, just one after another, after another with very small rest, maybe 15 to 30 second rest between them. And it did quite, quite technical terrain. So it wasn't a lot of steep stuff. And so you weren't really getting

Billy (48:59)
Okay, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Tom (49:18)
threshold pump, you know where you're just about trying to maintain the pump. It was more like, you're just getting tired. Really tired and fatigued. Yeah.

Billy (49:19)
Yeah.

yeah yeah yeah like full body fatigue kind of thing yeah and just like just like hovering on that threshold of powered out but like recovered just enough to come put out a few moves without really being yeah like thresholdy like traditional pump yeah

Tom (49:40)
Yeah. And I think that that works really well with the caveat that this will only work if you're a climber that has least done the endurance base and you're not coming at it going, I'm a boulder and I'm trying to convert into this. If you haven't got a decent endurance background and me and Pete had 10 plus years of doing plenty of volume. Yeah. So, so we could build that on top. So I think that's always important to sort of understand in terms of the,

Billy (49:58)
Yeah, you guys definitely had that side of things covered, I think. Yeah.

Tom (50:09)
wider picture of how you pull everything together.

Billy (50:12)
Yeah, for sure.

Tom (50:13)
And when it comes to your big walls and success and failure on them, and then also in competition climbing, where do you think the focus should be for a comp climber versus a big wall for where they put their focus? And I'll...

frame this as being you and I both know from a coaching and training perspective, you can work with anyone and there's like 10 things that you could work on. And even people when they self coach, they go, I could do this, this, this, this, and this. they just list real out this shopping list of things that they want to improve on. But ultimately actually a really good seasonal training plan or a one year training plan has a significant focus on

one or two key areas, maybe three, otherwise you're just too diluted in all of your efforts. Where would you say in an overall sense that focus should be for comp climbers versus your big wall climbers?

Billy (51:23)
Okay, the number one thing for a comp climber I would say is not getting too bogged down in energy systems and, no, no, not, you should obviously do all that like strength, strength training, conditioning, all of that stuff is bread and butter for a comp climber, but it's not forgetting about the movement side of things and making sure that in every single session you're doing some playing, you're exploring on the wall. If that...

isn't there all the time and you're not logging like a huge volume of variety of movement you just won't get to the you won't acquire all of the skills that you need and that's the number one thing you see it loads in competition climbers that are a bit more isolated and they haven't got like a group of people around them and they end up and they're training for competitions they

Yeah, and maybe they don't have like amazing facilities at a climbing wall. They get really focused in on the physical side of things, which is really important. You need that level there. But if the technical and tactical skills aren't there, it doesn't matter how strong you are. You just won't you won't be able to put it together in the time. From a more so traditional training perspective, then it's

a lot of conditioning, it's like full body strength, like climbing on a board is valuable but it just won't be, it's not diverse enough, it's why so many comp climbers train on a spray wall for their kind of highest intensity physical sessions to get that sort of greater variety of hold type and movement style where it's a lot more full body and a lot more physical. So actually, yeah, maybe number two is like max intensity sessions on a spray wall instead of a board. And then,

If you're a boulder, it's that kind of durability style training where you can put together some really quality efforts with not too much rest. And a sport climber side of things, it's that really, really high intensity threshold training where you're of extending it out over 20 to 40 moves and being able to stay right near your limit for that kind of duration.

Tom (53:15)
Mm.

Billy (53:16)
on a big wall side of things. Again, coming from my position, it's still doing the logistical stuff is still the most important thing to focus on. I would say for most people. And then second to that, it's session durability, being able to have, do a lot of climbing, have long days, be able to do days.

back to back and probably to go and do some leg conditioning honestly. That's one of things that I really didn't do. I didn't really think that much about S &C when going to El Cap, I just felt like my massive deficiency was in logistics and that's fully what I focused on. In hindsight I should have gone and done some squats. I couldn't, I

It absolutely ruined me, the amount of hauling and walking. My legs just got ruined. I gained a lot of leg weight in the time that I was there because I had little comp climbery noodle legs when I got there. And yeah, I would have done that because that was probably the bit that felt like it was breaking me down the most and having built my legs a little bit to be used to that kind of workload.

have been really valuable but that one probably doesn't necessarily apply to everybody that was maybe specific to me that one.

Tom (54:23)
And what do you think are the two...

the areas of critical failure that occur in both those two specializations of comp climbing versus big wolf.

Billy (54:35)
Competitions, I would say it's so cliché, trust the process analogy, but it's being able to see, find successes in what to many people looks like a failure. Unless you're Yanya, like most, you can easily frame most competitions as

failure, you didn't win or you didn't flash all the balls or whatever, there's always something that you can look at as being a negative. So it's being really, really good at looking at the positives for you, reframing situations to be a success for you and for it to have this process orientation of sort of constant development rather than looking for an end goal, which yeah, it's so cliche that one, but it's really, really important for competition climbers because otherwise you'll just

you'll get so demoralized with the whole experience because most of it is failure. And if you're comparing yourself to other climbers in that space who maybe are having a slightly better season or on a certain boulder, they did a little bit better. If you fixate on that side of things, it won't be a sustainable practice for you because you'll stop having fun and it'll stop being about personal development and enjoying the overall experience.

Tom (55:52)
Mm.

Billy (55:53)
You see this loads in youth comp climbers getting to that kind of transition stage towards seniors where they've got to be loving it for the process, I'm saying it again. Because otherwise you'll go to seniors and you'll get a bit of a smackdown and it won't be fun like it was at youth comps.

you just got to be okay with that and be able to continually reframe things into a positive light and yeah, just keep working on those areas of weakness and being proud of the things that you're good at as well and remembering the things that you're good at whilst working on all those weaknesses and yeah, staying positive basically I think because it can be a real slog competition if you've not got that mindset.

Tom (56:42)
Yeah. I'd say one thing that I would add to that, from framing things in a positive light, because I wholly agree with that. But I've sometimes found that some people, when I've taught them about this, they say, but that thing that happened, that's not very positive. So how am I framing that in a positive way? And I will often say to them, well, maybe you can swap over the word positive to useful. So...

Billy (57:09)
Mm.

Tom (57:10)
It may not be that positive that you lost and this happened, or it may not be that positive that you, I don't know, even from the worst case, you got injured, but you can frame it in a way that might be useful for your next steps. And I think sometimes that can help jump over that hurdle because both me and you, I would say are good at reframing things. And you typically are if you spend all of your.

Billy (57:37)
Hehe.

Tom (57:37)
life trying to be a really decent athlete. But it can feel a bit of a jump trying to get from that was quite, that was kind of crap what happened there and now trying to get this to be positive.

Billy (57:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's like, okay, that wasn't good, but it's highlighted an opportunity for development, which maybe in the heat of the moment doesn't feel very positive and constructive. But if you can then like, back to it a day or two later and be like, no, actually, I can work on this. And that's something I can take forwards. And that is really valuable. But yeah, also, maybe as a coach.

Tom (57:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you

Billy (58:13)
maybe don't say to say that to somebody as they've just come off the mats and they're they're really upset or disappointed because it's it's not what you want to hear in the moment give a little bit of time to cool off and then you take the the constructive useful this is an opportunity for development approach

Tom (58:25)
Yeah.

And for big walling, major failure, I'm guessing logistics are you gonna say?

Billy (58:31)
Big Oling!

Yes, logistics, but then also the other point I made of sort of trusting in the uncomfortable and being okay with it being uncertain. And yeah, it's another kind of psychological aspect more than anything else. And that's from when we were on the nose, there for a month, we watched a lot of parties on it. And no, again, they're all A climbing, it's nobody was failing because they physically couldn't do it. They failed because they

decided that they couldn't do it anymore. And for a lot of them it was trusting that they could carry on and that it would be okay basically. Yeah, having confidence in the uncomfortable and the unknown.

Tom (59:07)
and

So for everyone having listened to your personal journey through all of this, and it's been really nice hearing about it from you actually, and kind of framed as well around that perspective of you as a coach and a training plant writer, I'm sure people will be wondering about maybe the film which is coming out. Am I correct in saying it's called The Nose Job?

Billy (59:33)
Yes.

It's called Nose Job, yes. That's Alastair Lee, the filmmaker. He likes a comedy name.

Tom (59:38)
Who came up with that name?

So say what what when is the film out? Is it just about the nose you and Alex or is it other stuff?

Billy (59:51)
So it's premiering in Sheffield on the 7th of November. I think there's still tickets available. And then there's a bunch of showings sort of through November, December and into the new year. It's very much focused around the nose and then kind of the story of our transition, I suppose. So there's like a little bit of...

archival footage and photos and stuff in there to kind of highlight where we've come from and then the bulk of it is about us on the nose and like the history of the nose as well to kind of frame what we're doing. So yeah, out in 7th of November we did a reshoot for it back in May, went back and got a bunch of shots so hopefully it looks nice, hopefully we did a good job of...

recreating some of the experiences that we had.

Tom (1:00:41)
Mm. I'm looking forward to that. I do like a big wall-suffering film.

Billy (1:00:43)
I'm excited and a little bit a little bit nervous as well. I've not seen myself on the on the big screen before so Yeah, yeah, I'm be good. Yeah

Tom (1:00:53)
I don't know, it'll be good. And what's next? More big walls or going back to more sport climbing, trad climbing? Like what, what, are where are you heading?

Billy (1:01:04)
So I definitely am excited to do more big walling at some point in the future. I don't know when that is. Since then, I've gone back to kind of my roots in more bouldering and sport climbing performance. I spent the spring focusing on bouldering. Right now I'm in Spain focusing on some sport for a little while, which is kind of an area that I've not put.

loads of sustained period of focus into. So I'm quite excited to sort of explore that a little bit and see where that takes me. But yeah, at some point there'll be big walling again. I'm not quite sure at the moment how to kind of juggle that. I'm sure you've had this before and I had it when I went away that doing a big walling trip has a pretty big impact on your physical performance.

I felt like a potato when I got back bouldering and it took a fair period to get that back again so I'm kind of trying to do more performance side of things right now and take that as far as I can but there's big walling in in the future as well.

Tom (1:02:06)
mega, yeah, I know the juggle. And it's funny you say the potato thing as well because me and Pete have complained about that many times. it's sometimes hard to even be okay with it, even though you know it's so normal to be climbing really well on trad, big wally, slabby things and feel awful on something where it suddenly gets 25 plus degrees overhang. And you just...

Billy (1:02:13)
You

Tom (1:02:34)
It's just very hard to be good at both or at your own personal peak at both. I think it's good to be, it's possible to good at both. It's just your personal relative peak is hard to be perfect at both.

Billy (1:02:36)
Yeah, so hard. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I had a really stark experience of this a few days after I got back from Yosemite, filmed this video on the moonboard and felt comically terrible. So yeah, if there's any doubt that moonboarding doesn't apply that well, I can tell you I lost a lot of moonboarding strength whilst I was away because it doesn't apply.

Tom (1:03:04)
There's a place for everything, always a place for everything. Well, thanks so much for joining us on this episode, Bully. It was really, really nice to chat about it. And I feel like actually in a weird enough way, the first time that me and you, even though we've had like these parallel crossed paths in both of our styles of climbing, we've never actually sat down for this amount of time and chatted about what we both love doing.

Billy (1:03:07)
Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, No, it's been really nice. Yeah, we got so at the crossover in what we do. So yeah, yeah, it's just good to keep out about climbing.

Tom (1:03:34)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip over in Spain and I look forward to seeing what you get up to out there and we will see you back in the office in the UK at some point, I'm sure.

Billy (1:03:48)
Yeah, thanks very much for having me now. I'll see you back in UK soil soon.

Tom (1:03:52)
Yeah, cheers, buddy.