#80 Lexicon, Boldness, and the Long Game: Training Smarter, Climbing Harder, Peaking Late—Because Age Doesn’t Matter

Ageless Athlete - Neil Gresham
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kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: ~Okay, we are recording. Neil, it is such a treat to have you here and honestly, there aren't many people who have, uh, stayed at the top, both a coach and an athlete. Like you bring this dual lens, which I think is. Pretty rare. And, and not just in climbing, but I think in, in, just in, in sports overall. But, you know, I, I wanna start simple and this is how I usually start these conversations.~

~Where are you right now and what did you have for breakfast today?~[00:00:00] 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I'm a little bit keto at the moment. Um, so I had, I had eggs for breakfast and, um, and a keto coffee um, with MCT oil and a bit of butter blended in. It was really nice. Sounds disgusting, doesn't it? But I know there's gonna be plenty of people listening to this who know what I'm talking about, that comment's

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Well, yeah, no, I mean, I love my eggs and I maybe I can force myself to eat my eggs without, you know, some kind of starch on the side. But I feel my, my, my coffee is kind of sacrosanct, so. I don't even like people adding, adding milk, you know, or creamer. So,

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I see what you mean. It's just gotta be straight. No, no ingredients. Just black coffee.

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: I mean, good coffee is the best ingredient. So if you get good coffee and you, I don't know if you make it right, but, uh, but whatever you're doing with your [00:01:00] breakfast, uh, Neil, obviously it's working for you and there are takeaways in some form for the rest of us.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: don't have, don't have takeaways. Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. That's not what you meant. Yeah. Well, um. I mean, where do we start? Nutrition's clearly, uh, an important aspect and, um, the older you get, the more important it gets. It doesn't seem to matter much in your youth, does it? I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Yes. Your son.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: you,

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Yeah, I.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: get on the podium. I don't talk about my son's nutrition.

Less debt. Let's not get started on that. Like toughest part of parenting is getting them to eat nice stuff. And reverse psychology and all that sort of thing. But no, I mean, I, I just think in my younger years, you know, I, I think when you've got, I mean, as a male athlete, testosterone like coursing through your [00:02:00] system, you know, that's your main rocket fuel, isn't it?

But then when that starts to, when the count starts to lower, when you've gotta have some, uh, hacks up your sleeve, isn't it?

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Well, we are eager to get a peek into some of these hacks that you have refined over the years. Um, also, uh, where are you this morning or this evening actually, because you are in the uk?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Yeah, I'm at home in

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Yes.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I am, yeah, I've

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: And Kendall is, I'm not familiar with. Okay.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Kendall's in the northwest of the uk. It's the la it's the lake district. I've been living here for the last 10 years, but I've lived all over the uk Really. I'm from London. Uh, I lived in Sheffield like most up and coming, aspiring British climbers do at some point.

I lived there for 12 years. I lived in North Wales for a little bit, but I've settled here [00:03:00] in, in the late district.

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Got it. You know, uh, normally when I ask people where they live, I think people were just broadly, uh, use the term the Lake District, and you were kind enough to be more specific and I could not catch onto the name of the town.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Yeah, sure.

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Neil, I, I just wanna, uh, jump right into this and I wanna talk about lexicon and when.

We were trying to set this together. I didn't, uh, think that that's where our conversation would begin, but

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: You are

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: we've just had this,

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: You're gonna be begin at the end of my climbing career. I said after that I wasn't

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: it.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: anything hard, didn't I? And I've stuck to that.

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Well, Neil, I mean, you know, we are lucky to have you on this podcast, not just as an athlete, but also as somebody who's, um, who's coached, mentored, and is inspiring [00:04:00] generations of climbers, and you just inspired somebody who a lot of people believe is perhaps Yeah. The greatest or one of the greatest of all times.

So you just belayed Adam Andra on this kind of, uh, genre defying ascent of the climb. But many people listening, they are not even climbers, right? Because this podcast covers different outdoor sports.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Okay.

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: would would love us, love, love it if you would behoove us and. Tell us about what is lexicon and why is this such a sought after climb?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Wow. long have we got? This is, it's, this could be a, a one answer question that goes on an hour. I'll,

kush--he-him-_1_06-18-2025_121912: Let's put it this way. Let's say, let's, let's pretend, you know, you [00:05:00] were on an elevator going up 20 stories, and then somebody had like a minute or two maybe.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Well. Climbing's a an odd sport, isn't it? Um, we see veteran athletes hitting personal best in their later years, um, because there's so much more to climbing than just raw strength and, and what you've got in the tank. There is so much scope for using, you know, skill tactics, nerve head game to, to, to, and sort of good movement, good technique to, to get the best out of yourself.

So. I hit a bit of a, a renaissance in the last sort of 10 years of my climbing between the age of sort of my early, between my early forties up to the age of, well, fif 50 when I did, when I did Lexicon. and as a result of so many things, I, I mean, it's a separate conversation, but improved nutrition, improved training [00:06:00] strategies.

It just like refining my game using the kind of marginal gains type approach. ended up. Climbing my hardest sport route. I did my first eight C at the age of 45, and then my first eight c plus at the age of 47. and this was something I never expected as an athlete. I mean, why, why would you, you know, in fact, I'd considered when I turned 40 that I'd had my best days.

But the truth was that I'd hardly got started now. Um, there was something 

else. Was there. In my younger years, um, certainly the way I started climbing was doing what's called traditional climbing, which is when you have to, uh, place natural protection, um, you are reliant on cracks in the rock in order to secure yourself.

And these, when I started climbing, that was the norm. That was the kind of stuff that was the type of climbing that we were all brought up on. These days, it's regarded as something of an offshoot, almost a bit esoteric, and it's also. [00:07:00] Misunderstood quite widely. A lot of people think, oh, that's crazy.

That's dangerous. You'd have to have a death wish to do that. So-called trad climbing can actually be quite safe, can also be quite dangerous too. The, the risk level varies constantly in trad climbing. That's that's in the nature of it. Now, having had this bit of a surge with my sport climbing. I decided to get back into trad because I kind of gave it up in my early thirties.

'cause I pushed it and pushed it and pushed it. And to be honest, it was starting to become a bit of a dice game. And I, I, I reached that point. In fact, it was when I got married in, um, 2002 and I was like, I'm not gonna push my trad climbing anymore. I've, I've had the best of this. So I kind of gave it up. But then this surge that I had in my sport, climbing in my, in my forties, made me think, well, what if I went back to trad? Now that I'm a, a stronger, fitter, more technical climber, you know, could I, could I push my trad again? And sure enough, living in the late district, that was the perfect opportunity for that. [00:08:00] I started off looking around in the late district for, for, for new lines for, for, for unclimbed routes to do. I did a couple of new routes that were like equally as hard as the roots that I climbed in my twenties and early thirties, like an E nine and e and an E 10, and. I had this feeling that everything was kind of escalating. know, not only was I improving in my climbing, but of course you have to find the right projects, the right challenges, that, that are a kind of a sounding board for your methodology. You know, like, okay, feeling like I'm climbing better, but I need, I need the vehicle to kind of prove that to myself. And sure enough, the roots just kept coming and. Yeah, say sometimes in climbing that you don't so much pick your projects. They, they pick you. And that was when I dis I found when I was, uh, up on this crag in the Lake District called Pa the ark. I, I, I saw this unclimbed line, uh, the line which became lexicon. [00:09:00] I'd gone up there with a friend of mine, uh, a young Lake district climber called Anna Taylor. We'd gone up there just for a. Like normal days climbing. And, um, and I, and I saw this incredible new route and I just thought, wow, that looks amazing. Um, and the process of new routing for those, for those listeners who are not so familiar um, you know, you see this piece of rock.

You, you, you realize you work out from the guidebook that no one's climbed there. And then you have to try and establish if it's possible to be climbed at all. You know, maybe no one's climbed it for a reason. Maybe it's, it's got no holds on it or whatever it might be. So first of all, you have to sort of brush, there's a lot of lichen on the rock, and I sort of brushed it off and I found that these small, like tiny little crimpy holds going all the way up. Um, the, the lower part of the route had already been climbed, but then the upper part of the route was the kind of new section and. The thing that jumped out straight away was that, uh, there was [00:10:00] what, what we call a, a run out, which is when kind of run out of protection, uh, like, uh, you, there's no, no further place to secure yourself and you have to climb further and further and further and further above your protection, meaning that the further you climb, the further you're gonna fall. this culminates in this kind of sort of make or break section where. You've got some very difficult climbing and if you, if you were to mess it up, you'd fall the entire length of the wall and you, and you may or may not hit the ground. , So. This was the kind of the point on the route that, you know, I realized that you, have to just do everything in your power to not fall off this, this final last move. Um, so I set about training and the route felt like it was an opportunity for me to put into [00:11:00] practice.

the deeper I got into this project, the more I kind of felt that the planets had aligned for me that this was the moment in my entire climbing career, the moment in my entire life when I, I had that this was my big opportunity, this was my chance.

And the thought of actually back in a way and not going for this route never crossed my mind. It was more a matter of when I was gonna be ready. And, um, it's a strange feeling being drawn in like that, you know, I'm sure any athlete that's approaching. A big tournament, a competition, a fight, the Olympic Games, you just have, you, you, you know that at some point in the near future, you are gonna be stepping forward to meet the kind of ultimate challenge, and you're gonna have to deliver.

And that was the feeling that I got with, with Lexicon. And I, and I felt like, like I said, every, not just every positive experience where I've been successful, [00:12:00] but every experience when I failed and, and learned, you know, it was all, it was all channeled into this. It was the, it was the perfect level for me in terms of if it had been fractionally physically harder, this piece of rock, which is just a, it's just a random piece of rock sculpted by glass ears in the elements, right?

You know, it's not been made by, it's not like a, a competition climb that's been made by root set to be a certain level, but it just so happened that this piece of rock was the perfect level to challenge me physically. If it had been any harder, I wouldn't have been able to do it. If it had been any easier, it might have been more of a done deal.

And similarly, the danger level, if it had been any safer, it would've been, well, you know, not something to get too worked up about and not something to lose sleep over. If it had been any more dangerous, I wouldn't have gone for it because, you know, I, I intend to enjoy a, a retirement in climbing and, uh, I've got young chil, I've got young children, and [00:13:00] I, there's a, there's a certain point beyond which I won't go in terms of the risk level in climbing and lexicons right on the cusp of that.

I mean, some people would look at that and go, well, hey, he did that as a father of two. He must be a pretty foolish, reckless, irresponsible individual. Some people would think that and they would be entitled to their point of view. Other people who know the game a little bit more and understand how we approach these route and how we prepare might say.

I get that it's on, it's on the limits, but I, I understand it. But yeah, for me, I had to ask some tough questions, you know, was I prepared to go through with this? Sure enough, I, I did go through with it. I did complete the climb, and I just had this immediate sense of, I actually can't describe the sense of relief because climbers are, I, I'm sure like most other athletes, inherently dissatisfied.

You know, you never, you, as [00:14:00] soon as you do something, it's like, I need to do something else. You know, I've done something hard. Oh yeah, but I can do something harder. Or maybe I can, what's the next thing gonna be? What's the next thing? And you, you're constantly looking forward to your next hit and your next challenge, and you're constantly wanting to better yourself, push yourself.

But, but the minute I climbed lexicon, that all just, that collapsed. That all just fell away. And I was like, that was it. Was my big one. You know, and, and I, I've seen, I've seen some Olympic athletes talk like this, you know, they know that it's their last big shot. They get on the podium, they finish with a gold, and they're like, okay.

You know, but, but sometimes they completely quit. Now, now I have it now. The great thing about climbing is it, it's not all or nothing. You don't only have to do route like lexicon, you can just drop the bar a little bit or quite a lot in fact, and still cruise around and enjoy it. And I would say that's the phase that I'm in at the moment.

And [00:15:00] you kind of asked me where I was at at the moment. I think you meant physically as in, I mean, Kendall in the lake district. But, but where I'm at kind of more metaphorically with my climbing is I'm just enjoying not having some epic mega project that's just burning away at my conscience. And, and, and you know, like I.

These things when we do them, they are a source of like stress, I mean, or it, but it's positive stress. It's self-induced, positive stress, nonetheless. It's a sort, it's a source of stress. I feel like I've had that type of stress on my shoulders my whole life, and I've put it there, you know, but now it's just, it's pretty nice.

It's quite cathartic to just go, oh yeah, well, I'm still climbing, but you know what? I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say that it's become more like a hobby because that's just not true, but it's just, I'm a lot more chilled and a lot more flexible about what I do at the moment, and it feels pretty good. [00:16:00] Uh, but that's, but that's hopefully answering that, that's my story with regards to lexicon.

Uh, I think you were also interested to know about Adam Andra and how he fitted into things. Is that right? 

Kush: Yes. Yes. And before we go in there, um, thanks for sharing. The beginnings of the story, and you left a few different breadcrumbs for us, Neil, on things I want to ask you about, but before I go too deep, for those of us who don't know about you, uh, you threw some clues already, but can you tell us who are you and what do you do?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Oh, right, okay. Um, well, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a professional climber. Uh, I've been a pro climber for, uh, well half my life over just over 25 years. Um, and, uh, I do a, a [00:17:00] variety of different styles of climbing. I don't do himan, mountaineering or high alpine climbing, but I do, I do, uh, sport rock climbing, traditional rock climbing.

Um, I do something called deep water soloing, which is when you climb on sea cliffs without ropes and you fall off into the water. And I do do ice climbing in the winter, like as in frozen waterfalls with ice axes and crampons and ice screws, but, but not high altitude stuff. And, and I'm a and, uh, well, you've already said I'm, I'm a coach and I've, I've been a coach like for a very long time, but, uh, over 30 years, 

Kush: yes.

You wear a few different hats, but, uh, first and foremost, I wanted to just quickly talk about this part of new route Discovery before we move on and forget about it. And what I find so [00:18:00] remarkable, Neil, is that you found this line and mm-hmm. Know this is not, you know, I don't know. This is not part of like the endless cliffs of Southern Europe.

Maybe the, the Cliffs of England see a lot of climbers and a lot of traffic. So you managed to spot this line and you talked about beautifully on how it has to meet these criteria. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Mm-hmm. 

Kush: Safety, uh uh Yeah, safety and risk level. Also difficulty level, difficult difficulty. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Correct. Yes, 

Kush: yes, yes. So curious, okay, so when you were out there looking for scouting for new lines, were you just simply trying to find like a nice, or was there like sort of this deep like desire to find this one, one line that [00:19:00] you know?

Yeah, I 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: wanted to find the ultimate line. Yeah. You know, I wasn't just out to find, I mean, you know, I've found sometimes I've found climbs before that, uh, that are too hard for me. And, um, I've, uh, I've passed him on to your, your good friend and former guest on this show, Steve McClue Hope, uh, yeah. Yeah. He's, um, you know, like if you, if the piece of rock turns out to be too difficult for, for me, it could well be climb by by someone else, you know?

And that's, that's happened before. But, um, and sometimes conversely they can turn out to be a bit too easy and, I mean, there's still fun to climb, but you just think, well, that wasn't really much of a challenge. But I was looking some for something that was going to just be at my absolute physical and psychological limit and the chances of finding that, and also it's gotta be good as well.

The quality's gotta be there. You don't wanna climb something that's like. Poor quality rock, like loose holds a bit [00:20:00] dirty and scrappy. You wanna climb like a really beautiful piece of rock with like amazing, elegant fluid movements. And, and I found it, and I mean, I'm, I'm not a particularly religious person, but the chances of that thing appearing in front of my eyes at the time in my life when I was looking for it and ready and, and you know, things change at the, I mean, at the, I've, my, my, I've had some difficulties in the family, the last couple of couple of years of bereavement, family members being unwell, you know, the need to actually relaunch my business, you know, your, your circumstances change.

And the fact that lexicon was there then at a time when I was able to do it. 'cause if it appeared now, I actually wouldn't be able to commit to it because. There's other stuff going on in, in, in my private life that I, that is more important than climbing. [00:21:00] You know? So I feel, I just feel incredibly fortunate, 

Kush: your level of, uh, let's say delight and contentment, cannot be overstated because you found this line maybe at the right time of your career where you still had the appetite to go after a goal, maybe just as audacious as this, and you were able to make the capacity available.

And I'm, yeah, in, in many ways this is like not dissimilar than somebody who's maybe preparing for, let's say, an Olympic medal, and they may have just a shot in this one time window, and that's what it takes to go after. A goal like this, and then there's this other kind of pressure as well. Right. Because, you know, uh, Steve Cle, who you just mentioned mm-hmm.

And other accomplished, uh, warriors at that level, but probably also chomping at the bits [00:22:00] because, everybody wants to claim that, uh, prized for success. And I know that there is great comradery amongst you, but I'm sure there's some pressure that this thing is not gonna wait around forever.

You have discovered it. People know about it. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Well, there is great help. The, the, the good thing is that wasn't something that was concerning me because the only people who would've been capable of taking that line off me were just really good friends. People like Steve who just wouldn't have done it.

There was one or two people who might have liked to have done. And I wouldn't have trusted them, but they weren't good enough to climb it. So, you know, it was, that side of things was, was, was okay. But, but yeah, I mean, climbing does differ from other sports. When you've got that, that side of things, I wonder if there's an equivalent in, in other sports, I dunno.

But it, um, in the past it's been a concern. You know, I've, I've been trying a new route and thinking, is someone else gonna [00:23:00] come in and do this? But that wasn't a concern with lake Skin.

Kush: Off late. The UK has been producing this incredible new legion of climbers, maybe more in the modern, like sport climbing, bouldering, uh, genres. So, yeah, maybe fortunately for you, they hadn't yet arrived or turned their sites onto, onto your route. And, uh, so. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I mean, there's plenty who are strong enough, and that's where we're at these days in climbing.

I mean, you know, young and old, that there's, there's plenty who are strong enough, but Lexi's much more about keeping your head together, you know, and you can't go. And we are, we're also in an age where, you know, everything's gotta be quick and media, isn't it? And you know, some people who, uh, have the genetics and the know-how and the motivation can get strong incredibly quickly, especially [00:24:00] kids, you know, before you know it, they're doing bolder problems that are twice as hard as anything I've ever done.

But the kind of what we call boldness in climbing, you know, the ability to cope with the pressure or the, the, the danger and the threat of a fall and, you know, uh, just to kind of keep, block it out and stay focused on the, on the task at hand. But that, that's something that's built up over, over many, many years of practice.

You know, I think these days we're seeing a lot of people just not having the time, you're not being able to put the time into that. Um, but, um, it's also gone out of fashion. You know, I don't think it's, um, when youngsters get into climbing now, they talk about strength, they talk about technique, they talk about endurance.

I don't think they talk about being, being bold. It's just not even a, it's almost just being, it's almost just being canceled as a, as a component of climbing performance [00:25:00] in, in the new generation, you know? Right. Rightly or wrongly. 

Kush: Yeah. Interesting observation there. Well, I don't wanna dwell on the entirety of the, say I'm 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: generalizing, of course.

Sorry. But there are, there are extractions, of course, but, sorry, carry on. Of 

Kush: course. Well, like I was saying, I don't want to take all the time today so much to cover with you and just talk about this one climb. One thing I will certainly encourage people listening or watching is to go watch the excellently made movie about your ascent, the whole story on Vimeo.

I actually watched it last night. I, I somehow, yeah, I followed the arc over the years. Somehow I hadn't actually watched that particular, uh, video, so I went and [00:26:00] watched it last night. It is so well made, and I think it also captures the drama and the, the boldness you speak of the kind of falls that people who are trying it are, are taking.

yeah. I think seeing is believing in this case, I want to, Move forward a little bit. Uh, still staying with that climb though. So Adam Andra just came and, uh, did this flash ascent of the route 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: mm-hmm. 

Kush: And ascent that you, I believe were closely engaged in. Yeah, very much so. So can you take us to the story of, of how did Adam come into the scene and how did you become this, uh, supporter?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: so yeah, after climbing lexicon, it got me thinking [00:27:00] whether climbing had evolved to such a level where someone would be capable of flashing a roof like that. And as said before, you know, there's so many strong climbers around, but who, you know, who would have the level of boldness as well as the skill and the strength.

You know, that climber would have to be the ultimate all round package. And I was thinking about this person and thinking, yeah, maybe they're strong enough, maybe this person, maybe they're brave enough, but they're not strong enough. And I'm whiling away all the options. And then of course, the only person left on my list is, is added.

Um, you know, but. Obviously I'm not gonna blow my cool and like con because he's, I, I have climbed with him. I'm, you know, he's a really, really good guy. I know the reason I, the reason I reached that conclusion is because I've seen him climb myself. I, I've be laid him on route in the UK sport route. I now, I've good.

Um, but I'm not gonna like ring him up and go add him, come and [00:28:00] try my route, you know, or even send him a message to that effect on, but rather, like, it was such a mad, not a mad coincidence that I found lexicon, and maybe it was just destiny fate, the planet's aligning. There was another element of that.

You know, I, I had thought strongly that it would be this amazing, amazing thing if Adam came over to the UK to try and flag Lexington. But he was like, yeah, what, what are the chances of him without me, without me contacting him? What are the chances of him deciding that that would be a cool thing to do?

And then I got the message from him. You know, I mean, it's just bizarre. Oh, 

Kush: wow. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Bizarre. So 

Kush: you were, you were, you were actively, uh, thinking about, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: about I was totally thinking about it. Oh yeah. Wow. I was totally thinking about it. But, but like, 'cause you, you because, 

Kush: because because Lexicon had seen, [00:29:00] has seen maybe a, a few odd ascents 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: That's 

Kush: right.

Since then, right. A handful that people Yeah. But it hasn't seen. So you were, hadn't seen like a flash ascent, so in your mind. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Exactly. So, you know, it was done by Steve Mcclar, uh, Dave McLeod, Matt Wright, and James Pearson. All who, you know, either top roped it or checked it out on an absel, wrote, you know, before, before doing it.

So it hadn't been flashed, but I just. I thought, and it was such a, in a way, like why would I even think that? 'cause E 11 is so beyond the current flash level in trad that the reason I thought it was because, you know, climbers like Adam haven't yet got round to it. You know, there's no one in the UK operating it anywhere near that standard.

But it was just a matter of convincing or, or not, and this is the point, I was never gonna play the game of trying to convince [00:30:00] Adam because it's just not cool. I mean, Adam gets people, Adam gets people saying all the time, come here Adam, come there, do this, Adam do that. You know? And like, he's the guy who makes up his own mind what he does.

You know? He's not, he, he's not gonna, like, in fact, if you ask him to come and throw your ru it, it's probably gonna be the kiss of death. He's, he's gonna go, nah, I'm not bothered about that. You know? Or he's gonna be like, sorry, I'm too busy. Or, you know, something else, he, he, he decides his own path, right?

But I'd be totally thinking about this. It's like, I know Adam could flash it. I know he's got a really good chance of it. And then I just got this WhatsApp message from him. I could read, could I read it to you? Oh yeah. Um, dunno, maybe he should. Yeah. I don't see a reason why I'm not. Um, Adam Ra, um, there's quite a lot of correspondence here where we're talking about this and that, uh, to do with the re um, [00:31:00] there we go.

Um, hello. Hey, uh, let me just check It's okay for me to read this before I do. Hey Neil, I hope you're doing well. I'm thinking of making a trip to the UK and I'm very keen to try lexicon. Are you at home midday? Maybe you, sorry. Are you at home mid May? Would you beed to, would you beed to join me? 

Kush: Yeah. Adam, the, the.

uh, student and, uh, yeah, just this devotee of the sport, you know, just Absolutely he knows the, when 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: he sees one. 

Kush: Yeah,

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: no, 

Kush: it's, incredible. And, and I'm so, and I mean, there aren't many people who can, you know, I don't know, climb 15 d uh, nobody actually, [00:32:00] uh, and then, uh, do a bolder V 17 then have both the, I mean the, the, the competence and the, the desire, right, to want to, uh, commit to this task.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: So the thing is, all the previous ascension, as I say, had. Worked it on a rope. Okay. or checked it out on Absel at the very least. Now, Adam doesn't say in that message, I want to come to the UK and try and flash lexicon. Does he? He just says, I wanna come and try it. But of course I know what he's thinking.

It's obvious that he wants to try and flash it. That's what he's trying to do. And it was not even something that we had to discuss. Like it, it was just, uh, you know, until it got down to actually discussing the, the nuances of the root and the strategy, it was clear that he was gonna try and flash it.

That was the, that was, that was the obvious challenge for him, you know? I mean, it's, [00:33:00] it's already been done by, you know, four others. It's like, well, he's, he's gotta raise the bar, hasn't he? 

Kush: No, a hundred percent. I mean, uh, you, you, you saw right through his. Intent. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Yeah, of course. Uh, 

Kush: take us to that day.

Neil. Take us to the day at, at some, I mean, you obviously, uh, escorted him, showed him the climb, uh, gave him all the information he needed, likely, but maybe not anymore. So share, share with us how that took place and then take us to the moment where you were getting ready to belay him. I believe you did belay him on that climb.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I did, I did. Well, it's, it's a strange game. This, this, this game of like hard elite trad climbing. [00:34:00] And it can be hard to find B layers, especially these days, you know, with the consequences as they could be. It's one of those things, it's a little bit like people who run ultra marathons who it requires volunteers to turn up and, and man, the checkpoints doesn't it?

You know, it's like if you're a trad climber yourself and people have Bela, you, then you have to return the favor and, and belay others. And, you know, I'm not going to, if Adam's saying that he wants to try my route, really, to be honest, I'm one of the best people, if not the best person to be, let him on it.

Because the, the margins of, of holding this fall are so, so slim. If you put too much slack in the rope, the climber's gonna hit the ground. But if you keep the, if you keep the rope too tight, you're gonna pull [00:35:00] the climber off. It's a really, really critical belay. I've got some experience there because I've been laid, Steve and Steve of course, fell off and I managed to catch Steve two meters off the ground.

Um, and also I know the moves. I know, you know, like it's, I know where the protection goes. I was, I was, of course, I was an obvious candidate to be lay at. But the other weird thing is that he didn't actually ask me, you know, it was like, again, it was sort of an understanding between us that yeah, of course I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, you know?

And also something that we do is, again, some might argue this is like self delusion. This is a little bit, you know, reckless or something. But in the game of bold pride, you have to exude confidence. And it is if, if you are the climber, you have to, you have to believe in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, then you are playing a very dangerous game indeed.

And it's like, [00:36:00] you know, you have to. Like kind of understand the risks, embrace the risks, but yet be confident in your ability to deal with them. And you have to do the same as a belayer. Now, once, well, kind of twice, but certainly once I went to do a bold trad route with a belayer who was very uncomfortable about the situation.

And it was a really, really dodgy experience that we had. I, I won't go into detail, now's not the place, but let's just say it proved to me something, which I've always really known, which is that you've got, you've got to have a belayer who's giving you the right vibes. Now, equally, you don't want some belayer going, yeah, high five, dude.

Yeah. You are so rad. Oh, you man, you're gonna crush it. You're gonna, you, you, you don't want that type of shit. That's, that is no good, right? You just want a belayer who's, who's, who's chilled positive, who's, you know, reflecting your, your energy back to you. [00:37:00] Who kind of, who kind of gets it. So, so yeah, I guess I was, I was, I was clearly like the, you know, the, the obvious person for that task.

But, and I, because I believe you know so much in Adam and his ability, and I, and I know that he's not gonna take on a task like that, like sort of lightheartedly with, you know, without fully embracing it. So I've got total confidence in him. But, but nonetheless, I must say the night before it did kind of dawn on me that, you know, what we were gonna go and do.

And the trouble is with that last move of lexicon is almost maybe no matter what you do as a belayer, you know, you're not a magician. You can't reverse the forces of gravity. You can't that, that, that, that with all the, all the will in the world, if. [00:38:00] You saw how close Steve McClure came to hitting the ground, and he weighs like much less than Adam, and he is shorter and a taller.

And, and yet there's still another hard move to go. The last dynamic move is a move higher than Steve got to. So

there's a, there's a possibility that if, you know, Adam had, had messed up that last move, something really, really bad could have happened. And even if it hadn't been my, my fault as such, I'm doing an inverted comm sign there. Um, I would no doubt feel the, the weight of, I would feel responsible for that for the rest of my life.

And also, you know, crumbs every life is, is equal. But nonetheless, we, we can't avoid the facts. And the facts are he's the most famous climbing on the planet, you know, and I had his life in my hands. [00:39:00] Um, and, 

Kush: and not only that, he's a husband and a father. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: You know, like you're Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All those things. All those things. But I had to just flip it back and go, you know, look, don't let this, it was almost, you know, it was, it was almost overwhelming for me. Um, but I had to just be, uh, you know, I had to do what I would do if it was me. Well, when it was me climbing the route, which is you have to, you have to take emotion outta it, and you have to be very, very practical about the task at hand.

And I was like, is he good enough to get up to that last move? The really dangerous move? You're damn right. He is. And in some ways, that's the problem. He's good enough to climb into the dangerous position. So then the next question is, is he good enough to get himself out of that position? In other words, if he gets there, can he either do the move or if he thinks that he can't?

Rather than fluffing it, can he maybe reverse one move and [00:40:00] shout, take and I pull him off and he falls 25 meters, but he hopefully misses the ground, you know? Could that work as well? Yeah, that could work. And that's how we spoke about the route beforehand. What we couldn't have was any sort of, you know, it's the, it's the classic Yoda, isn't it?

It's the do or don't do, you know, there is no try. Uh, and that's the way we, we kind of spoke about the route beforehand and that was the way he, that was the way he approached it, and sure enough, it all, it all worked out good. 

Kush: Incredible, Neil, well you made this careful informed assessment. Adam's abilities before agreeing to be his, his partner, his belayer, and like you said, maybe he is the only person or one of the very, very few people who are [00:41:00] capable of this thing.

Mm-hmm. However, as he was climbing and reaching near, you know, let's say the no fall zone, I'm sure there was a lot going on in your mind. Neil, was there any point of doubt? Yeah, just, yeah. You're so articulate, Neil and you. Yeah, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I, I, I think the work, the, the, the toughest part was the bit beforehand. You know, when it's just the pressure is just building and building and building and you're still all going through a little bit of a, is this like a, kind of like a pantomime or is this actually really happening?

It's like the minute you touched the rock. It was such a relief 'cause it's like we are no longer thinking about it. There's no more anticipation. It's actually happening now. And really, I mean, when Adam, as soon as he touched the rock, I know what he's gonna be thinking. He's just gonna be thinking, [00:42:00] get the next hole perfectly.

Do this move, put this piece of protection in know, just process, process, process. But equally for me as a BL I'm thinking I've gotta just, I've just gotta keep the rope exactly the right tension. I've gotta play out the slack now, readjust it, check that I'm stood in the, my check that my stance is stable, dah dah, dah da.

You know, like I'm just thinking about not messing it up and you, you know, so, but once I got into that headspace, you again, you know, as a belayer, I was more process focused. And, and, and then before we knew it, it was on the top. So you're not, you're not like, whilst deep climbing, having all these like wild emotions of it's, you're just, you're just focusing on, on your job that you gotta do.

Kush: I know that, there is this movie in the making of Adam's client, so I don't want to steal that thunder early. can you take a moment and reflect on what you noticed in [00:43:00] Adam? uh, yeah. I'm guessing it was more than just, oh, of course. I know I could do it kind of expression. I I I I'm guessing it was more complex than that.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Well, yeah, he's, um, of course this thing we hear in climbing all the time when you see it on social media, oh, so and so, there's so strong, such a crusher. Adam Andre, he's so strong, you know, but like calling him strong is just selling him short. I mean, I'm not saying he's weak, but he'll be the first person to tell you that there's a lot of people who are stronger than him in terms of, you know, raw output or.

You know, strength on a hang board or something. But what, what is quite mind blowing is the, the, the intellect of this guy. I mean, he, his ability to store complex beta, you know, his, his brain, it is like a computer. I mean, something a really, like lexicons pretty complicated. It's not like following pink holes on a climbing [00:44:00] wall.

I mean, just actually getting each handhold right is really intricate. If you watch the film of me doing it, you'll see Dave McLeod talking about this and he says, if you get this hold, it's like arranging your fingers in the keys of a piano. If you get this hold exactly right, you can just about use it if you get it fractionally wrong.

If your finger's like a millimeter out or two mil out, suddenly this hole is really bad. So just how you arrange your hands on the hole is one thing. And then it's like the, the, the foot beta, you know, the different, like the, the, the movements. It's like there's so much to put together. He just, um, he'd obviously watched the video of me climbing it, and then it just took me to show him, like, actually, like on the piece of rock itself, he was obviously viewing from a distance.

He wasn't like on the route with me. He was three routes across. But I'm going, this is this old Adam. This is this move. This is the bit where you step through. This is the bit where you switch the undercut. This is the side pull. Be very careful to [00:45:00] put your thumb here. Not there. This is the, you know, and I'm talking about it all like this.

And it just goes in. And then when he comes to climb it, it's like, it's like a robot, just like a tot machine. It's like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Um, a friend of mine who was there, Craig met Craig Matheson, said he is like a metronome. It was like bump, bump, bump, bump bump, bump bump. Like he's climbing on this big, there's none of this.

Like how, you know, anyone else would be, oh, well I'm not sure about this hole, or I'm gonna just. Change my grip. Oh, oh, oh. Where's the next hold? Oh, is it that one? No, it's that one. Oh, no. Oh, I've got this foothold. Oh, I need to just, oh, my, my foot's slipping. I, I'm gonna readjust it. Like, you know, there's none of this.

It's literally just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Oh, he's on the top. You know? It's, it's just, it's, it's, it's magic. It's, it's ridiculous, you know? Yeah, 

Kush: yeah. I mean, all that we [00:46:00] hear about and see about Adam's abilities to visualize routes, sounds like all of that came into, came to bear on this client because Yes.

People who have seen him climb, or his videos of him trying to onsite a flash clouds, I think they will attest that like he gets on these routes that he's never been on, and it seems like he's attempting a rehearsed, uh, red point. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Hmm. 

Kush: At the same time. At the same time. Thank you for acknowledging that.

Yes. You know, he all said, all, all said and done. He's not a, not a robot. Right. He's human and he just puts insane, insane levels of preparation. Mm-hmm. I mean, just like you have done, um, coming back to you, uh, Neil, so now Adam has done this climb. I, I I wonder like, even though you thought it was possible for Adam to do this [00:47:00] thing in the style, that's why you mm-hmm.

Decided to support him. Mm-hmm. Did it still shift something for you? Like just about climbing and about like human performance? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Did it? Sorry, say again? Did it shift something to me? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Like obviously you just, it was this incredible, like, people who were there when the first, you know, when Roger Banister did the first four minute mile or like, you know, the first sub 1,000 meters, there was this definite sense of you've just seen the bar be totally raised in front of your eyes, you know, that you, uh, so, so there, so there was that.

But, you know, I, I, I, I, I've said a lot and I also feel like I do wanna leave some stuff open-ended for people to go and watch this film. And, you know, in many ways I haven't touched upon the, the most important part for me, or the bit that you might not [00:48:00] predict is, is how, how Adam was after doing this really, how he, how are he reacting?

It's almost like place your bets answer on a postcard. Did he? Did he get really quiet and, and subdued? Did he burst into tears? Did he, did he rejoice? Like what, what, what did he do? Like, how do you think, you know, because remember, he's the greatest and he's done a lot of hard climbs. Was it just another day at the office for him?

You know, just another, because when I climbed with him on Gritstone, there was some roots that he went up, which I was expecting a quite big reaction. He was a bit like, oh yeah. You know, reminded me of the Czech sandstone I did, you know, like, onto the next one, you know? So, yeah, it's, um, that was the, that was the interesting part.

And so I, I do urge people to watch the film, which is gonna come out very soon. 

Kush: Yeah. Folks, uh, folks who are, uh, with us in this conversation, yeah. Uh, take this as, uh, a teaser, uh, go watch. [00:49:00] I think you should watch it. This order watch, uh, Neil's climb first, his video, and then that, that link will be on the, on the show notes.

And then I'm not sure if Adam's video will be out, uh, by the podcast, but yeah, I think that's the order. Okay, Neil, um, one of the things that I think fascinates a lot of us is you have done some of your hardest climbing, later in life, and like you said earlier, after 45. So why do you think that happened, Neil?

I just leave it open-ended. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I can summarize the, what I think were the key three areas. Maybe four, maybe five, maybe. No, no. I, I'll try and I'll try and there's, there's so many components to this. I'd say. [00:50:00] In the, the top three or four are in no particular order, and they're probably of equal importance.

One was, uh, discovering the importance of nutrition. Um, I can go back to, we can go back into that in detail in a minute if you want. Uh, the other was understanding how not to get injured, uh, which was a combination of, uh, really understanding the importance of antagonist training, training the opposite muscles, but also just really feeling like I'd bo down the, the kind of the structure and sequencing of my training and the progression of load and when I needed to come off the gas and when I could ramp it up.

And, you know, just, just knowing how my body responded to, to climbing based training. That was the second one. The third one was, um, moving from London near to through amazing climbing areas. Yorkshire [00:51:00] limestone for sport climbing and the late district for trad. The fourth one, I dunno why I've said this last because it could be the mass most powerful of all was, was not caring.

Was not caring about, about like feeling like I'd done enough. Like I didn't have anything to prove to myself as such, and that I was out for the fun of it, like the pure fun of it and not, when I say not caring, I mean just not getting stressed out if I failed and just being happy to come back another day and another, and another, and another and another, and thinking, well, maybe I'll never do it, but that doesn't matter.

Like just being released from that kind of the prison of expectation that was massive. And then probably lots of other small things. But I'd say those are the. If I list too many things, it's not, there's almost no point in creating a list is there? [00:52:00] It's like, yeah, yeah. Like those are the, those are the prior, those were the, the four biggest things.

Kush: Neil, out of those things you shared, I am the most fascinated with the, the very last point, which is, which is this attitude that you brought of not caring. Mm-hmm. And sometimes, you know, it seems almost paradoxical to, let's say, us aging, uh, enduring athletes. Because sometimes the older you get, the more you realize that time is running out in your twenties.

Uh, maybe some, maybe, maybe even your thirties. You think that life is forever. And then, you know, you hit forties and then you feel like you have this compressed time mm-hmm. And physical capacity to make your mark. So can you speak about this mindset? How did you [00:53:00] arrive at this mindset? Was it conscious?

Was it accidental? Was it, was it just 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: something else? So I, I went on the quest to climb eight C because I thought I might be running outta time at 45. And when I started the quest, I was so shocked by what happened. What actually happened was this, this kind of, if you like, life deadline, which I thought was, was, was bearing down on me and coming closer was actually just my, it was moving further away.

It went off into the distance. I couldn't even see it. It was like, I've still got so much bandwidth for improvement here. I'm not even close to reaching the plateau. And I actually felt quite relaxed about it. It was like there was me thinking, oh, you know, I bet climb AC before I run out of time. It's like, well actually I could climb to climb AC plus.

Which I did, and I could climb nine a, but it's, but I didn't do that. Instead I climbed E 11, you know. Um, but I, [00:54:00] I'm, I know this sounds like could've, would've, should've, means nothing in sports. Like it's only about what you did. But I I, one of the reasons I didn't go Chase nine A was because I just had this feeling that I could have done it.

Um, I did E 11 instead, and you have to make your choices. Doing both might have been quite tough, but I feel also that I could do nine a now if it weren't for some of the external factors, things that are going on in my life, which I mentioned earlier. One things for sure, you know, if I was gonna climb nine A, I'd have to have a, a level, like a, a, a blank say.

I'd have to have everything in its place because, you know, I'd have to go back to really living like an athlete again. But, but I know the process. Um. I think I've gone off on a tangent. I can't remember the question now, but, um, but, but the thing that definitely blew my mind was that it wasn't like this awful feeling that as I was chasing [00:55:00] it, it was slipping away.

It, it was like, oh, actually, yeah, this is fine. I'm gonna achieve this and I'm probably going to go beyond that as well.

Kush: I mean, it makes sense. yeah. You went and climbed this eight c uh, uh, again, elite, elite grade and, and rock climbing, and then you just found yourself that there was still more room. Mm-hmm. How did you, how did you come to that realization? Because like, yeah, as we get older, like, uh, you know, you sometimes find that, hey, you can't do as many pull-ups as you used to.

It takes longer to recover. What was your, uh, revel? I 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: did cons. Well, I did considerably more pull-ups in my late forties than I could in my twenties, and I used to train pull-ups in my twenties. Do you know what I mean? I used to hang a lot of weight from my waist, and I used to drink protein shakes and I used to train pull-ups.

But my best effort in my twenties, [00:56:00] you know, when I had testosterone racing around my system was, I managed two and a half, two and a three quarter, one arm pull-ups at the age of 47. Was it 48? I did six one arm pull-ups. And the main reason for this, um, it's funny enough, do you know what I actually got? Um, actually I'm not gonna go off on a tangent.

A a, a troller, like an online hater accused me of taking steroids because, um, they just couldn't quite believe what I was doing, you know? And. If you wanna know the, if you wanna know the answer, the truth, it's, it's pretty simple. It's, it's low inflammation eating, like eating foods which don't cause inflammation in the body.

All the stuff you read, you know, all the stuff we see on social media or we see everywhere. It's all about, oh, this type of protein shake, whey protein versus collagen. You know, like, and and, and it's all this talk about protein. For me, this stuff [00:57:00] doesn't make any difference. It's like when I'm following my nutrition plan, I'm eating enough dietary protein anyway, so I don't really, really feel like I need to supplement with protein.

But what makes all the difference is eating, for example, if I'm eating carbohydrates, eating carbs that are very low on the glycemic index scale, and also cutting out things like dairy. Obviously all processed foods are out, but basically eating. Because what you come to realize when you dial into this is that when you just eat like.

Let's call it a normal diet without actually paying attention to this. You are eating a lot of these, um, inflammatory food sources and a lot of your energy, which you should be using to recover from training is actually used, is being used to reduce inflammation in the body before you can recover from your training.

Thus increasing the length of the recovery time. Soon as you start, you cut all those foods out and you start eating like low inflammation foods. I just recover twice as quick, three times as quick, and no, I'm exaggerating twice [00:58:00] as quick. And I also notice all sorts of other things. I feel more flexible, like I can suddenly do the splits.

My body's looser, you know, and, and this is, this is like, because people sort of think, oh yeah, aggression and is, is. Nutrition. Oh, he is just, he is just, it's about losing weight. And look, I, I won't lie when I get on my strategy, I, I do lose weight because I'm eating well and healthily. But I would suggest that the main value in, in the nutrition strategy that I use is, is improving my recovery, which means I can do more training and, you know, more training within a given time period.

And you know, from what I understand, that's kind of similar to what performance enhancing drugs do for you. Right? But you can just get that from nutrition. And the irony is that I was recovering almost twice as quickly in my late forties as I was in my twenties. As a result of what I eat now, I arguably should eat this type of diet [00:59:00] all year round.

And people like Dave McLeod do, um, in his case it's for other reasons. He finds that that type of eating is very good for his, improves his mental health. I agree with that as well. My mood is better when I eat this, you know, when I follow my nutrition strategy, there's a spinoff benefit there. But, you know, I actually find that it works better if I cycle my nutrition and I have an off period when I just, you know, eat cakes and drink wine and just let my hair down a bit, you know?

And that kind of coincides with a period when I'm not particularly pushing my training, I'm not pursuing a performance goal, you know, I'm just being a dad, hanging out with a family, all that kind of stuff. But then, you know, as the next cycle comes around and the next project is kind of, I, I set a timeline for the next project, then I go through a cycle of this and, um, I time it so that I, you know, I, I switch from.

I follow, I [01:00:00] start off with a balanced macro. Sorry, I'm probably talking a lot about nutrition, aren't I? But no, I think this is worth, uh, deep diet. It's just so important. 

Kush: Yeah, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: it's so important. Like when I start off training, I'm following a balanced macro, you know, if you call it an inverted as like a normal sort of, but healthy diet, then as the performance period approaches, I'll switch to a low carb diet with really low inflammation protocols.

And then when I hit, when I start to come up to the performance period, which is either a grip or a project, then I switch to keto. And keto just works unbelievably well for me. Not everybody does. Of course. I'm not coming on here advising everyone to go keto. You have to with nutrition more than anything.

You have to experiment, you know, and you have to find out what works for you. A lot of people won't get on with it, but for me, keto is like, it's, it's it's magic. It's like rocket fuel. It's incredible. I mean, I climb like so, so I, my climbing will vary by get this. Four [01:01:00] grades throughout this cycle. Like I will be able to put onsite or flash grades that I can't project when I'm off this, you know, like when I'm, I'll be like, you know, flashing aa uh, well, no, I, I maybe I, I exaggerate.

No, it will vary three grades and it will vary between three and four grades and sometimes at the end of the cycle I can flash grades that I couldn't project at the start of the cycle. 

Kush: Neil, this is Yeah. Truly fascinating. You also coach clients and normally when we work with a climate coach, you know, nutrition may come up, but it's not like the centerpiece so does Right.

It become a part of your conversation with your clients. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: So it doesn't, and I have to be professional. I, I, I'm not qualified. And, um, but I do work closely with, uh, I mean, my, [01:02:00] the person who put me onto this, a chap called Glen Burrows, I mean, I, I've spoken about him extensively before in podcasts that I did with David McCloud.

And, um, you know, I, i, Glen kind of, I feel like I owe him the last 10 years of my climbing career because he put me onto all this, and I was one of the biggest skeptics. I was one of the biggest s out there. I was like, oh, this just just sounds like, you know, mumbo jumbo from the diet industry designed to make you part of your money.

You know, it's what, it's not gonna make any difference. And he was like, well, you with respect, he's like, you're quite out of touch, you know? And, and he said to me, you know, how much are you bothered about the next 10 years of your climbing? You know, do you still see yourself being a pro athlete? And I was like, well, I don't really know.

And he said, well, you know, give this a go. And I, and I followed him and I took his advice. And it blew my mind. And he's also, he's helped a lot of my clients. So I passed clients on to him. But in the end, what we did was we produced, uh, so apologies if this is the [01:03:00] bit when it looks like I'm trying to sell my product, but, but genuinely, this is something that I believe in so passionately about Glen.

And I realized that this information just needed to be in the public domain. And it need to be, we need to just get information, which is all this information. You can Google it. It's all stuff that's been out there for not even new. It's been out there for like, you know, best part of two decades. And, but the thing is, it hasn't been collated into a single source that's speaking to climbers in the language that, that they wa climbers don't wanna read.

Well, some climbers, people like Dave McLeod do wanna read endless research papers, but most people just wanna read something that's very easy going, speaking in a lighthearted tone, lots of practical tips. Tells you what to do, and we, we put together a, a guide and we sell it on my website as a PDF. It's called, uh, introduction to Nutrition for Climbers.

And, um, we, we, we've been [01:04:00] pulled over by the amount of feed positive feedback that we've had, because the trouble is, you know, you have to be very careful how you speak about nutrition, uh, publicly in, in any sphere, but especially in climbing because, you know, we, we have, there is an issue of eating disorders in climbing.

And, you know, the c the anyone who's feels remotely susceptible to that, or anyone who has a, you know, an illness or a condition that's related to diet, it should go to a dietician of course. But at the same time, there's a huge number of people who don't fall into that category, who just want to read good information that's practical and geared towards, I now.

This is the age this athlete podcast. Right? And, and, and one thing I said to you right at the very start is something I'm gonna repeat. And that is that I strongly believe that this stuff is more important for older athletes, I think, because when [01:05:00] you're younger, but hormonally, you're at an advantage. You know, the older you get, the more the, the cleverer you have to be with this.

And the more you have to deploy these various acts. Um, and, and, and, you know, this is the kind of, this is what's at the heart of our, of our guide. And the problem is of course, it's, it's not, it's not a one size fits all model. You are not gonna buy my nutrition guide and it's not gonna say, eat this, eat this, eat this, and don't eat that.

And that's the, that's the strategy. I'm afraid. It's not simple as that. You have to, but what it teaches you to do is experiment using these principles. Um, and hopefully it enables people to find the strategy that works for them. Well, it does, because that's.

Kush: Certainly Neil. Uh, I have two follow up questions here. One is from what I know about the keto diet, and many years ago, I think I did experiment with it. Uh, it didn't last very long. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Okay, well, there you go. You see? 

Kush: [01:06:00] Yeah. Yeah. No, maybe I did, I was not as, uh, focused and as goal oriented, but my other blocker was that I gave up eating meat like several years ago.

So I am like plant-based. Yes. So is is following that kind of diet still possible for people who are not eating meat? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I, I think if you eat fish, it's just about possible, but if you don't eat fish, it's extremely difficult. But, you know, again, our, our guide isn't just about getting people on keto and it's like, well, if you're a vegetarian, sorry, we can't help.

It's not about that. It's like, you know, as I say, we talk about balanced macro strategies. We talk about low carb. I think you can adopt, um, a low carb, which if you like, is a, call it a less strict version of a keto strategy if you're a vegetarian. And, and you can certainly experience the advantages of, of low inflammation eating, which is [01:07:00] what I was talking about earlier.

So, You, you could certainly follow a balanced macro strategy, you know, which is just the usual, uh, like usual dietary composition. Uh, or you could go for a low carb strategy, which is slightly higher in fat, slightly lower in carbs, but it's like, you could call it a less strict version of the keto diet.

And if you do that, you can also, uh, bring in the advantages of, of low inflammation eating, uh, which, which is the, for me, the key part of it. And Neil, you 

Kush: have been very focused all along as a professional athlete on planning these cycles of rest, of balance of performance. So for people listening here, who, for the everyday athlete out there who doesn't have quite the same.

Periodized schedule. What kind of [01:08:00] diet would you recommend for like, let's say, uh, not Apex performance, but just like sustained performance to be able to Well, I would, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: yeah, I, I would say the low carb. I mean, but, but I, I'm really have to qualify here that nutrition more than training more than anything.

You, you, you've gotta find what works for you. But, but just by, it's got to the point now where Glen and I have worked with a lot of people and we got a pretty good feeling for what, you know, uh, I, I don't wanna snooker myself here by saying something that, that I'll be held to account for. But, but I, I can say for sure that you, you know, you would, as I said about keto, it's probably more likely to not work than it is to work.

And then here's you saying that you tried it and it didn't work for you. That doesn't surprise me. As I say, it works brilliantly for me. Um, but, and keto is also less effective for women generally as well. Um, [01:09:00] but the low carb strategy I've hardly ever seen not work. And low carb is effectively, it's like keto during the day, but you eat carbs.

Well, there's, there's various interpretations of it, but the one that that Glen got me doing, which I think is fantastic, is, um, low carb with what we call back carb, back loading, which is when you eat carbs in the evening. And this is very like contrary to the, I mean, I was brought up on this whole, you know, carbs in the morning for, for, to fuel your day, but then no carbs in the evening.

Now like for me, that's just hell on earth. That just does not work at all. Um, the, the idea behind the carb, the low carb with back loading strategy is that you run on bats during the day. Beauty of running on factors is that you experience these very like. Even sustained energy levels, like any type of carbohydrate, even if it's a low GI carbohydrate, is gonna give you a bit of an I insulin spike.

And you're [01:10:00] gonna get a bit of a slum of that. So, you know, I mean obviously if you, you're drinking Coca-Cola and eating Mars bars, the day's gonna be a total rollercoaster. But even if you're eating clean carbs, you know, your energy levels still ebb and flow. But if you're eating fat, you get this sustained steady flow of energy during the day and then carbohydrates at night, you think, well, why, why would that be, why would you wanna take on energy before you go to bed?

Like, well, the answer is because that's when you recover, like you recover at night. And so the carbohydrates assist the, the recovery process and like boost up that, you know, they spike that anabolic curve. So you know, while while you're asleep in your bed, that's when you're getting stronger. Um, and I've found that strategy.

To be that I could follow that strategy all year round, no problem. And I, I kind of do, I, I don't like to deviate from that too much because [01:11:00] it just makes me feel so good and it doesn't take any real willpower to follow it. Whereas strict keto does take some willpower. I won't lie. 

Kush: I'm guessing people who are listening to this are probably like, you know, sighing in relief that they can continue eating rice and pasta for dinner.

But I'm guessing it's also not quite as simple. So are you, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: maybe not pasta, but go on. 

Kush: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So how so? You know, like, I think I eat a pretty healthy diet. I don't eat a lot of carbs. Mm-hmm. But when I go out to the crack or when I go surf, like, and I'm not right, or let's say I am performing, I. It can sometimes be difficult to distill down what part of my, uh, preparation is, is, is causing me to perform or, or not perform.

I mean, there's some obvious things, you know, like if I've slept well and [01:12:00] I'm feeling good, uh, if I'm feeling rest is, some things are more obvious, but how does one learn? Mm-hmm. To like tune into like, because with, let's say with nutrition, like usually I'm like, okay, either I am under fueled, right? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Mm-hmm.

Or 

Kush: I am feeling bloated. Like it, I I'm just wondering like, what, what, what do you, uh, uh, I mean, should we start, I'm gonna, should we all start wearing like, CGMs, you know, and like, I don't know, monitoring our, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I'm gonna send you, I'm gonna send you a free copy of the guide because that will, that will really answer this for you.

I mean, in terms of, you know, you, you just have to be a little bit of a detective. If you're eating a meal and you're feeling bloated after that, you gotta, you know, next you have a suspicion. It's because like maybe you had like, you know, too many refined carbohydrates like wheat or grains or something.

You know, you take those out and see how you feel and, and, and, and, and, and keep some notes [01:13:00] on that. No. So 

Kush: what I'm saying is between those two extremes, you know, like either when you are feeling weighed down by your meals or you are feeling like you haven't had enough. Like, you know, in, in, in that spectrum, when it becomes more, when it becomes harder to like, fine tune, like, you have obviously learned that 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: what can, well, I, I think also I've gotta be conscious that there's people listening to this who do different sports to me.

And I, you know, I, I, I have to just repeat that. What I've been talking about is nutrition for like hard single pitch rock climbing bouldering. Mm-hmm. You know, like when it comes to like endurance events or, you know, did you mention surfing? You know, like I. You, you kind of, your nutrition requirements are gonna differ there.

And so, you know, I have to be careful just advising climbers, let alone am I gonna speak out of, turn about sports that I don't know about. So, you know, um, I'm gonna answer this more philosophically rather than technically [01:14:00] and say, I think this is another one of the great things that comes with age. Like, you know, just, just like I now know how much training my body can take.

I also now know how much, how much food it needs, you know, and I also know how to adjust that to a given workout. If I'm gonna do a hang board session, I don't need to eat much before that, you know? Whereas if I'm gonna do like a really long, exhausting endurance session, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna fuel up a little bit more beforehand and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna match that.

I'm gonna match the, the, the meal that I take on board beforehand to the, to the type of workout that, that I do. Um, you know, I can't, I can't answer this in terms of like, it, it, it's just, it's just different for the individual, right? 

Kush: No, that is a, a, a good balance, uh, uh, response. Neil, . Uh, a couple more things to cover with you here.

Are you able to stay on a little bit longer? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: [01:15:00] Yeah, I can. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

Kush: Okay. Okay. Appreciate it. Uh, one other thing that I, I find fascinating, Neil, is that, um, you have said that becoming a, a father mm-hmm. Gave you new focus and even helped your climbing and that kind of perspective shift is so powerful.

Mm-hmm. But if someone hasn't had a big life event like that, any advice on, on, on, you know, on finding that new stroke or clarity, you know, without waiting for a life event to shake things up? Yeah. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Well, okay. So for me, I will just clarify. It was two things. You know, one was becoming a father. You, you suddenly realized that actually it doesn't matter how hard you climb or.

The other was just watching the greats in action. Uh, [01:16:00] maybe this is a more helpful part of the answer to the question. You know, like, I, I used to be that guy who was getting really stressed out with, with, with failure and putting a lot of pressure on myself and, you know, self-sabotaging because I was just, um, yeah, I just, I mean, not, not, I, I got to the point where I, I'd stopped enjoying it and that's why I stopped climbing hard projects, uh, and moved on to other styles of climbing more, if you like, adventurous or fun style of climbing, because, um, yeah, I just couldn't hack the pressure of hard project.

So, so what I did was, when I returned to hard project climbing, I saw people like Steve Macur on the Crag and Chris Sharma, and these guys who are just, you know, when they fall off, they're not spitting the dummy and having some big tantrum. They're like, oh, you know, that was, that was a fun go. Oh, I tried my best.

I'll come down. Have a rest. You know, they're, they're enjoying talking to their friends. They're enjoying [01:17:00] being in a nice place. They're genuinely enjoying being in the nice place, even though they're trying this super hard project, you know, and they're enjoying doing these. And they say things like, I just better than being indoors, you know?

And, um, like, the moves on this project are so cool. I'm enjoying doing. Um, and they're just, whether they're doing this like, like they, they're doing it as a hack or whether they're just doing it naturally. I honestly don't even know. I can't believe it's something that I haven't actually asked. If I asked Steve, I know exactly what Steve would say.

He would never confess that it was a hack. He'd say, oh no, that's just who I am. That's just, yeah, I just like being out on the Craig. You know, that's what Steve would say. And it, it's as simple as that, right? You, you've gotta just, you've gotta get back in touch with those reasons why you started. You started because you just liked being out on the crowd.

You liked the feeling of the movement. You liked being in nature, you liked being with your friends. You've just gotta get back in touch with that. We lose that, [01:18:00] you know, the, the obsession with performance just takes over and just sabotages the whole thing. So you have to just try and get back to those.

Um, you know, I think, especially as we get older, because a day, a day spent on the crack, having a tantrum and getting stressed because you didn't do your route is just, it's a day wasted.

Kush: A hundred percent. And yes, somehow the greats and I, you know, I think of you as part of them, are able to tap into that feeling of joy Whether they're trying easy things or hard things, you know, they bring maybe this, uh, enjoyment of the process that sometimes we lose mm-hmm. When we have been doing something so long.

So I think your, um, your advice is well heated. It is not easy, but the rest of us need to figure out how to, yeah. [01:19:00] Just enjoy going out and finding the right kind of people to go out with and find that stoke. Neil, you have been. Coaching now for a few decades, and it's 1993. Amazing. And I, I remember when I started climbing in the early two thousands, you know, and I was like kind of just, uh, you know, soaking up whatever information I could find.

I remember reading your articles from back when, when there was really little information out there. That's right. How has, can you talk about maybe a couple of like principles or things that, how your training has evolved, things that you believe or you advise people to like double down on or maybe some things that don't work?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: My, my, so my manifesto as a coach is, um, [01:20:00] to, the, the people I work with, I want them to be kind to themselves. And enjoy their climbing. And, you know, to, to understand that sometimes the harder you chase something, the, the, the, the more it moves away from you and, you know, things ebb and flow. And by kind of making that steady commitment over time, you, you will get there in the end.

Even if there's setbacks on the way, you know, there could be, you know, meaning that you might not get your project or you might get a finger tweak or something like that. But in the end it all balances out. And I just see too many people chasing things, too hard, getting frustrated, getting injured, getting burnt out.

This is, this is not the way to go. We're all under a lot of pressure at the moment in our private lives. [01:21:00] Climbing needs to be the antidote to that, not something that's making it worse. And I also believe. So strongly that the approach to training for climbing is holistic. You can't just, it's easier to get tunnel vision on things like finger strength.

'cause you can just measure it. You know, you can get one of these pickup trainers and lift up weights and you can feel your finger, you can measure your fingers getting stronger. Will that make you a better climber on its own? No. You've gotta be doing all the other stuff as well. And you know, like to remember that the, the best climbers like Adam aren't necessarily the strongest.

They're the whole package. They've got the movement, you know, they've got Jedi like, um, ability to, to, to read sequences and retain data, you know, footwork as accurate as a ballerina. You know, that's, these are all the things that we're, that we want, not just this, not just this, uh, quest for finger strand, which we, which we see on social media.[01:22:00] 

Um, and sorry, this is a rather long manifesto, isn't it? But, um. WII, the, the, the main thing that I do in the training plans that I set for people is I, I divide the training up into chunks and this avoids repeating the same thing over and over again, which is what most climbers not, which without a training plan.

A lot of climbers, they just do the same training over and over and they plateau. If you divide the training up into, into like bite-sized chunks, give each chunk long enough to have a chance to work, and then when you start to plateau, you move on and you introduce the load progressively over time, and you make sure that all the strength and endurance work is accompanied with skill related goals.

By which I mean stuff like, focus on this aspect of technique when you're climbing. Focus on this aspect of mindset when you're climbing. Like, don't just think about the physical side of it. Constantly give [01:23:00] yourself a steer when it comes to trips and tactics. I'd say that's probably about my manifesto down there.

Kush: No, that's a great manifesto. I'm wondering, uh, Neil, if you may have a story or two, we don't need real names of maybe an athlete, let's say an old athlete who came to you because they were, you know, battling a few, few of the different things, you know, injuries or maybe psych and maybe you helped them through a transformation.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Oh, I mean, just, just so many. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know where to start, but I mean, there was a chap, um, I'm not gonna name him even though I know he wouldn't mind, but, you know, I haven't checked First I'd like, I'd like to have named him, but you know, I should be professional. And, um, he came to me in his late forties and, um.

Put on a lot of weight [01:24:00] and you know, he, he really thought his climbing performance really dropped off. He thought he'd had his best days and um, you know, gave him a nutrition guide. The weight came off. Then we started talking about like goal setting and you know, he just, he was thinking that coming back to do seven A would just be like an ultimate, you know, he'd climbed seven a like 10 years ago or something and he, he didn't imagine he could ever climb it again, you know, and of course he's now on citing seven A, isn't he?

And he's Red Point 70 plus, and he just did his, he's red pointing 70 puff pretty consistently, and he's just done his first seven C you know, and it just goes to, but this is just judging it on purely on the statistics and the grades that this guy's achieved. But the thing that gives me the most pleasure is, you know, I've got, I follow most of the people that I trained on social media, is that.

He's just having so much fun. He's just really enjoying it, you know, and he's just [01:25:00] got this, the thing that I know that you promote so strongly in this podcast is that this feeling that like, wow, you can still do it. And, and moreover is the, the party isn't, isn't gonna be ending any time soon, you know? So that's a 

Kush: great story.

Uh, Neil and I think many that, uh, a story that many people listening to this podcast can relate to because, you know, they are likely closer to this person than they are to Adam Andra, maybe one or two, like key B breakthroughs, like broadly, like what was it like just the, the mental part, or was it like, uh, refining their training or, or something else that helped them like really exceed maybe even the goals they set out for themselves?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Well, I think in the case of this person, it was, it was the holistic approach. It was, it was, it was the nutrition, it was the, I mean, his technique was actually [01:26:00] pretty good, to be fair. But, you know, he needs to get a lot stronger as well. He lost a lot of strength, uh, the endurance to go with that. Uh, but also just, um, I think mindset stuff.

He was fine about taking Leader Falls, but he just lost so much confidence, you know, so just helping him to just really believe in himself again, because that's the, that's the key part in all that, you know, is that having that belief as the, as the engine. Yes. The belief. 

Kush: Yes. I mean, there's so much, um, I, there's so much wisdom that's backed into all your years of coaching and working with athletes.

One other I thought, example we could, uh, touch on is. We just had, Rob, yeah. Rob Matton on the podcast, still sending bold pr. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Kush: 74. And he credits, [01:27:00] uh, a lot of his, uh, ability to the work that you and he have done together. So what was it like coaching someone like Rob? Like, it's funny, one of those things that Rob told me was like, I have like janky, I have like, like a, a shoulder injury that I've been trying to manage.

Mm-hmm. And one of the things Rob was saying was like, how he doesn't do any pull ups. He's like, no, you know, you should, uh, you know, do like those, uh, those, those rows, you know, on cable or something. So maybe that is just like a, like a kind of a tactical thing. But yeah. Can you talk about like your approach with, uh, something like Rob.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I, I think what I'm gonna say here might surprise you. coach coaching Rob was no different to coaching anyone else. If you, if I'd never been able to actually see him and see that he looks like an older guy, if I'd just, you know, like only ever spoken to him on the phone, say, or I, I, you know, [01:28:00] I'd seen video of him climbing and hadn't seen his face.

He's no different to anyone else. And I think that's the magic of it. sure he's got his weaknesses, you know, he's, um, he's half crimp, you know, he needed to do some work on that, needed to troubleshoot that a bit. He had a grumbly, um, upper back, like, um, sort of run boy type injury that, that, that needed a little bit of careful handling.

Just sounds like the next climber to me. I'm not aware that this guy's 74, he could be 24. He certainly got the outlook of a 24-year-old. 

Kush: I don't see, he does, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I don't see, I didn't have to, you know, manage this guy. I didn't go to this guy. Oh, you're 74. Oh, maybe you should just do a few, a few stretches and a few pushups and just go and do a few six A's at the wall.

I just, I've trained him like I've trained anyone out.

Kush: Yes, that is, [01:29:00] that is true. Even though, yes, some of us would be hoping for some kind of a magic bullet, but no, I think it is exactly that. Like he, ah, Rob or, or anybody else, I, 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I've just given you the magic bullet. That was the magic bullet and that's why I answered it that way. That's the positive message.

You're not gonna have some coach like making these. You see, I wrote those articles in the, uh, I dunno if you ever saw what I wrote on this subject in the early north for Rock and Ice Magazine, when I was their correspondent, I wrote these totally demotivating training articles saying older, the older you get, the less you should do.

Oh, you shouldn't train strength because you might get a finger injury. Oh, don't do long endurance sessions because you won't recover because your recovery's like totally gone. You know, like in fact, you might have not give up. You know, I, I wrote those articles. I was wrong. I wrote those [01:30:00] articles because there was no data, there was no, there were no Rob Mathesons around to prove that, that, you know, that like.

Climbers are like in that film, Ben, you know, that film with Brad Benjamin button? You know, like climbers just keep, climbers keep getting better as they get older. I didn't know that back then. I just went on what they were saying in other sports. I looked at the re you know, you look at all these decline, these depressing decline curves, and I just applied that to climbing.

But, but the, but I, I'm so glad that I was so wrong. You know, and I'm the living proof of that in my own climbing, and so are all the older athletes that I've worked with. And that's why I'm quite proud to say that I didn't treat world mathes and dignity to how I would treat anyone else. Like sure. You know, I, I, I gave him the right amount of work, like, and the overall amount of load to, to, to, you know, to suit him.

But not because of his age, because he's who he is, you know? And like [01:31:00] some climbers will tell me they can train three days in a row. No problem. Some climbers will say to me, they have to go day on, day off. Some, some will say they can do two days on one day. You know, like everybody's different. And it's more just down to individuality than age.

I, I, I, you know, I, I don't particularly see the pattern, you know, I, I don't see an age related pattern, you know, like I, I, I've noticed, um, most of, a lot of the people come to me of all ages who say that they've tried to follow some crazy plan that they heard about that like, you know, Alex Megas was doing, or like some top superhero climber was doing.

They tried to follow this plan and they got overtrained and they got shut down, but they didn't say that because of their age. They just, you know, like, it's just genetic su susceptibility. So I think we all have to find a. I think we all have to find the right rhythm and tempo for our training. And this is [01:32:00] something that I try and do with every, per, you know, obviously it's a key thing that I do with everybody who I train, but I don't make some like sweeping assumption, oh, you're 74, I'm gonna give you one half hour training session a week.

I, I, I don't do that. 

Kush: This one thing that you said, Neil, I am tempted to steal it, which I think is so powerful that it is not your eight, it is your individuality. Mm-hmm. And, and I think it goes back to just the assumptions we make about what happens with aging. That, trainers like you and athletes like Rob are completely debunking.

You have been in this game a long time, both as a coach, as an athlete.

What is still exciting or unknown for you if there is something out there? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: so much. I just love [01:33:00] the fact that, I mean, I believe in other sports, we're now getting close to the point where AI can just write you this training program. Like I believe that, you know, I've been wrong about many things over the years, but one thing I'd like to think that I'm right about is that we are nowhere near the point where we're ready to surrender the controls, uh, to machines.

When it comes to, to something as, as, as, as human. And nu as as training for, you know, it's actually quite scary when you try and get, um, if you, if you ask BT for a training plan it give you something. It, it looks scary. Good. Yet there'll be something like seriously wrong with the kind of absolute core of it that you won't necessarily notice because it's, it's dressed up with all the right language.

It's like a total smiling as satin. So, you know, I, I think that [01:34:00] like we are so, we're so far away from having all the answers or using science to give us all the answers. And we see a lot of pseudoscience as well in climbing, you know, and people think, and, and I also see this quite, quite, in my opinion, like misguided approach where people will say, if something hasn't been studied, it's, it's not real, you know?

Uh, whereas like we've seen a, a lot of good climbers doing a lot of things over time, which haven't necessarily been proven or studied, but which clearly work, you know. It's very fashionable to say, oh yeah, but there's no study on it. So that's just not even a thing. And it's like, well, if you've been around the block as many times as me, you'll know full well that this particular thing actually does work.

You know, so when we coach, we are coaching from a combination of, you know, our own climate experience, the people that we've worked with, and that's [01:35:00] the biggest thing. It's, it's, it's, it's all about the amount of time you spend working with people, but then you are, you know, you're cross-referencing that with the science, but you're not suddenly abandoning everything that you know, just because one study says X or Y.

Because the thing is, most of these studies have long lists of caveats and limitations, and most of them are really narrow. They'll study like one thing, like finger strength, but they won't tell you how finger strength fits into a, an overall training plan with all the other different components. The only way you can really get a feel for this is, is by, by coaching it over a long period, and it's all about recognition.

You know, understanding that, you know, you, you see a set of, of you, you see a particular climber and then you think, oh yeah, I've seen someone exactly like you before. In fact, I've seen another 20 people like you before. And, and some of them I tried this on and it didn't work so well, but some of them I tried that on and it worked brilliantly.

So I'm gonna do that with you. You know, and it's like you, you have to [01:36:00] train a lot of people in order to be able to sort of spot those sort of patterns. Um, and, and the way I see it is there's no, you know, there is, we couldn't be further from a one size fits all model. We have lots of different coaches approaching this in lots of different ways, which is fantastic.

And it's great for the, the, the, the, the consumer out there, people who are looking for training. You know, you can try a certain coach, see if you like their approach. Even if you like their approach. It, it, it often makes sense to move on and, and try someone else. Um, but yeah, I, I'm just so glad that it's not.

I dunno if I've even answered your question here. KI might have gone off on a tangent, but I'm, I'm just glad that when you look at like swimming training and cycle training, it's just like punch in your metrics, get out your plan and off you go. You know, climbing could not be further from that at this current point in time.

Kush: Yeah, that rings true. There is [01:37:00] just so much potential for, uh, discovery on the training end of climbing at the least because yes, the training has, I mean, yes, there, there have been pioneers like you and others, you know, who have been, creating information for us. But overall, the science in climbing still seems primitive compared to many sports for all kinds of reasons.

I am not. Sure. Where you are with your coaching. Are you currently taking clients, Neil, and if people want to maybe avail of your services, how can they find you? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Well, thank you for asking and, and I, I am taking clients now, and I'm so excited about this because I took, um, I, I've just taken seven months out from, from offering any type of coaching because I've just done an extensive research project.

I've got all this data that I've collected over, over three [01:38:00] decades. I trained over 3000 climbers. I just couldn't believe it. I was like, this must be some sort of mistake. And I did all these spreadsheets and it was 3000 and those were just, and those were the successful ones, you know, and, and there was some that I didn't have data from, but you know, there was, I had all this data and I just thought, I'm gonna use this to actually kind of.

See if I can see patterns in my own methodology and see if I can use this to actually improve the way that I structure training plans. And I've, I, I collaborated with a friend of mine who's a, an analyst and, and we, we've just found out some really, really cool things about the, kind of the actual methodology for compiling training plans.

'cause there's not much research into this. You know, there's a lot of, as I said, these like narrow studies into the individual components, but not much in the way of like studying the whole kind of, the whole beast, the whole collective thing of, of, of, of producing training plans. So, [01:39:00] so I'm, back in business.

I'm offering training plans. They're available at my website, which is neil gresham training.com. I do all the plans myself. I pride myself on that. I don't have an admin assistant, well, I, I have an admin assistant who helps me with correspondence, but I actually, you know, I do all the training plans myself.

And I just love it. I mean, I, I love, you know, each climate, everybody answers the questionnaire differently, you know, and you go, oh, well these aspects are similar. These ones are a little bit different. You know, and it's like, um, making a training plan, it's, it, it's, it's like kind of mixing from a palette, you know, you, you, or having, or maybe it's more like, um, a, a, a doing mixing sound audio.

You know, you've got all these different sliders, you've got all the different grips, all the different like, types of strengths that you're trying and, and you're, you're turning some of these sliders up and you're turning other sliders down and you're just, you know, overall creating this like [01:40:00] degree of balance for each individual.

Um, and um, yeah, that's, that's, that's mainly what I'm doing. Um, and I'm still, I've been off, I was the first British coach to offer personalized training plans. You know, I started over a decade before anyone else, and, and I, and I'm really proud that I've kept this service going. I mean, it's, um, it's been a life's work for me, and, and I do do like in-person coaching and like online calls, like consultancy, but, but really the engine of it are the, the personal plans.

And I, and I do ones that are, you know, specific to people's needs. If you wanna do like a track, you're going trad climbing. If you're getting like sport on sighting, sport, red pointing, bouldering, competitions, whatever it might be, or whether you wanna work weaknesses or whether you wanna prepare for a trip or a particular goal, whatever it might be, I will tune the training so that it's designed exactly for that.

Kush: [01:41:00] Incredible. Neil, appreciate your work in the decades that you have put in towards honing your craft and now. You have also been able to compile, distill, and offer up like all the data to people. And it sounds like you are also able to accept remote clients given that people are climbers listening are from really all over the world, right?

Oh yeah. So if people was to work with you remotely, they can certainly avail of your services. We will put links on your website on how to connect with you. Definitely. And Neil, just some final, let's say more fun questions as we run out this conversation. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Please? 

Kush: Yes. What [01:42:00] is your favorite climbing training tool? You swear by 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: my favorite climbing training tool? As in like a piece of equipment or, yeah, sure. Um,

I think it would have to be my, like my forearm extends the trainer because that has kept me, that has kept away elbow tendonitis for the last, it must be nearly 20 years now since I've had elbow tendonitis. But I used to get that all the time and that was the biggest thing that held me back in my twenties and thirties, uh, or twenties and early thirties.

But in my late thirties, forties and fifties, I've never had any elbow tendonitis. And it's because I use these forearm extensor trainers now. It's funny 'cause I, I actually sort of. I didn't, I I, I would never get involved in a dispute with a coach online, but I had a private dispute with a, [01:43:00] with a particular coach who pulled me up on this and said, you know, you're saying that these extensor trainers help with tendonitis that isn't proven.

And I was like, yes, it is, mate. I've got 120 emails from clients who I've recommended these things to, and they've all said that their elbows feel a lot better as a result. I said, that's a study, as far as I'm concerned. That's proven 

Kush: amazing. And Neil, I've, I've heard you talk about your, uh, training with the, uh, the finger, uh, extensors before and in, in your case.

It has been great to alleviate, uh, uh, uh, tendonitis. But if somebody like, I don't have tendonitis, does it still offer utility to me? Yeah. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: So I, I can only speculate about that, but, but what I've also noticed is quite a few of the people who I've, and myself included, but also people who I've recommended these things to have said that their, their fingers have felt stronger [01:44:00] in a, in a climbing sense.

You know, I'm not just talking about the extensors, which are obviously used for opening the fingers. I'm talking about their flex tendons, which are used for closing the grip and actually hanging onto holds. Now, you'd think, well, why would that be? Because the extent is the opposition muscles. Well, my theory on this is that it's because you are addressing an imbalance and that you are, flex tendon can only get so strong if you don't address the strength in your extensive tendon.

And sure enough, I think, well, I, I'm, I'm so sure that as soon as I started training my extensors, it facilitated further strengthening of my flex. Now, you know, this is a little bit more speculative, but I, I've, I've had a lot of people say it to me. They start using extensive trainers and, and almost as if by magic, their, their flexors get stronger.

Um, you know, there'll be a lot of coaches listening to this who are gonna want to pick me apart on that, but, you know, you are welcome to I, but I, I think that's, I think, I think [01:45:00] there is definite value for everybody in using them. 

Kush: Awesome. Neil. And, you know, uh, getting, yeah, getting this tool is a little bit simpler than trying to install, you know, a tread wall at your house, so it's much, much, uh, simpler.

So I feel like the downsides are low and, uh, yeah. People, is there a particular one that you recommend people can, can find? 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Um, well, I'm not sponsored by, uh, any company that produces them. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to like, you know, promote, uh, a particular brand, but the ones that I happen to use are the power fingers.

They, they work well. I. The key is that you need to be able to train strength. You, you need to have high resistance. It's no good if you can just do like 50 or a hundred reps really easily. You've gotta be able to really like, you know, do sets of six or seven or eight or nine or 10 reps and find them really difficult to open so that you're actually training strength.

That's the key. [01:46:00] 

Kush: Almost treat them like you would treat maybe, uh, doing a hard bouldering problem or doing let's say exactly a set of a set of deadlifts. You know, exactly where you're trying to Yeah, yeah. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: It's bouldering for the extents. 

Kush: There you go. There you go. Perfect. A favorite way to recover after a long day out.

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: I dunno about favorite, but I know about, uh, let's, let's, let's change that to effective, um. Right. Well, because I live in the Lake district, go and jump in a cold lake, you know, or go and jump in a river. Um, it's, it's type two fun, but it, it certainly does the job. 

Kush: No, that's a, that's a great, uh, reframing, but I will still actually, yeah.

Thanks for that. I still insist on my, my original question. Okay. But I'll change that. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Okay. I changed that and I would say, sorry to rephrase the question. 

Kush: No, it's all good. I, I love the, I [01:47:00] love the, the cold plunge, uh, added, uh, uh, added, uh, pip that you shared. But I will ask a different question, maybe related, which is a, a favorite way to, to decompress things we know of you as, oh, you know, a father, uh, an elite climber.

A, um, a pioneering, oh, just something 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: fun. Something fun to do on a rest day. Not something that actually helps you recover, but something that just makes you feel good. Maybe it does a he 

Kush: cover 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: too. Do you know? Do you know? I think it would be the same thing. I'd go to the plunge, I'd go to the river or the lake, but I'd go with my kids and we'd take the paddleboard and a barbecue.

There you go. And then it's both. 

Kush: Love it. Love it.

final question, uh, Neil to run out this conversation and ask this from everybody, which is, what does Ageless mean to you now?

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: Wow, that's a powerful question. [01:48:00] Um, the, the, the freedom to really be me with no strings attached to really enjoy what I'm doing and, and be in the moment with it.

Kush: Short, uh, yet profound. Neil, thank you for. Coming on to the show today. Thank you so much. 

neil_1_06-18-2025_191911: My pleasure. It was an honor, and I'll look forward to following the, the future of the show. Thank you so much. K. ​