EP 26: Ben Herrington — Go-To Training Sessions, Skateboarding, and Obsessive Compulsion

Ben Herrington is a professional route setter and likely Washington’s most prolific boulderer. We talked about why Ben performs best as a “weekend warrior”, his three go-to training sessions, mistakes he sees other boulderers making, climbing vs. skateboarding, his history with drug abuse and addiction, the path to sobriety, some of his most meaningful FAs, and V15 potential in Washington.  

Support on Patreon:

patreon.com/thenuggetclimbing  

Show Notes:  

http://thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/ben-herrington  

Nuggets:  

1:56 – Feeling aimless without work, missing purpose, and the subtle curse of being a full-time climber  

4:09 – Skatingboarding vs. climbing: mastering, achieving, and style  

7:37 – Ben’s three climbing categories (strength, technique, and try hard) and which one holds him back  

9:31 – Practicing “try hard” with a three-try limit  

10:31 – Skateboard culture, proving your right to be there, and “success days” vs. “training days”  

12:30 – Why Ben feels like he performs best as a weekend warrior  

13:38 – Ben’s three go-to indoor sessions  

14:52 – The Sharma philosophy: flash or limit  

15:42 – Ben’s “Strength Day”  

17:24 – Why Ben prefers climbing other people’s hard boulders, wanting to be good at every style, the ego beatdown of changing styles, and The Red vs. Smith  

21:21 – Why hard climbing isn’t type-1 fun, and why the variety in climbing appealed to Ben so much after skating  

22:40 – Ben’s strength/power bouldering session length, gym climbing vs. outdoor climbing in terms of weight lifting, and gym climbing because it’s fun  

25:54 – “Medium Day”, “Endurance Day”, and the benefits of down climbing for fitness  

27:44 – Transfering sport climbing fitness back to bouldering, and climbing ‘The Reckoning’  

29:11 – St. George bouldering vs. sport climbing, and expanding your horizons to have more 5-star lines to do  

31:09 – Ben’s interest in trad/mixed climbing, and the routes that pull at him most  

33:03 – The fun vs. suffering spectrum, and “everybody knows what it takes, they just have to be willing to do it.”  

34:51 – What motivated Ben when he was younger vs. now  

37:04 – Ben’s oppositional strength training routine,  training front levers once every two weeks, and the evolution of Ben’s core training  

39:48 – How Ben can tell if a climber has good core strength, and the importance of core strength for hard climbing  

40:38 – Training Front Levers, plank variations, and the feeling of being wrecked  

42:37 – Lack of training consistency due to COVID, the approach of summer, and missing the climbing gym  

44:55 – Ben’s weekly climbing schedule, and always taking Friday off  

45:26 – 14 years sober, addiction to pain pills, and how Ben got started in climbing  

49:19 – Obsessive-compulsive behavior, losing friends and his dad to drugs, moving to WA to get sober, and early bouldering in Leavenworth  

55:27 – The obsessed bug  

57:04 – Exploring for new routes, and bolting ‘Imagine’  

1:03:41 – Cleaning and climbing ‘Imagine’ during quarantine  

1:06:31 – John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, the setting, the rock, and everything you’d want in a route  

1:07:53 – The story behind ‘Inception’ (Ben’s favorite FA)  

1:11:00 – Ben’s early progression in climbing, the “spurge and plateau”, and filling out the repertoire  

1:12:54 – Some of the best hard boulders in WA, Newhalem bouldering, and endangered moss  

1:15:58 – V15 potential in WA  

1:17:45 – Ben’s ideal boulder condition for NW granite, giving credit to “the cracking” of a sequence or boulder problem, and the challenge of grading FAs  

1:19:33 – What holds back climbers in the gym  

1:21:38 – What holds back climbers when projecting outdoors  

1:23:26 – How Ben decides whether to keep trying a climb, optimism vs. pessimism, and ‘Singularity’  

1:26:52 – Gratitude  

1:27:30 – Missing the gym  

1:28:25 – Ben’s plans for the summer, and chasing conditions  

1:32:24 – Ben’s Instagram, his recent Squamish video (that you should all watch—see show notes), and not knowing where to post climbing content  

1:34:46 – Ben’s latest skate trick project, and influencing kids at the skate park