In this episode I chat with Juliet Hammer and her dog Addy. Juliet is a climbing coach and an experienced boulderer and sport climber. She has a degree in biology and she's a certified strength and conditioning specialist. We talked about:

• Juliet's climbing history
• Differences between bouldering and sport in terms of preparation, mindset and tactics
• Being a short climber
• Board climbing
• Coaching philosophy and shop talk
• Personal grades
• Social media, content creation and voluntary hardship
• Value capture as both a coach and climber
• Dangers of focusing on dopamine hits

00:00:00 Intro 00:02:43 Juliet's sport/bouldering identity & seasonality 00:16:02 Proper introduction, comp/cordo climbing, coaching indoors vs outdoor clients 00:25:27 Board climbing & being a short climber 00:30:31 Strength training 00:37:27 Coaching philosophy and shop talk 00:48:07 More short climber tips, self-comparison 00:54:43 Personal grades and the toxic wasteland of 8a.nu 01:00:41 Motivations 01:02:38 Jesse is ignorant about the southeast and complains about summer 01:05:51 More seasonality / sport & boulder logistics questions 01:08:08 Hot take 1, is climbing harder always more fun? 01:12:28 Hot take 2, are sport climbers better climbers? 01:13:56 Sport climbing vs bouldering popularity and value for progression 01:16:37 Content strategy and value capture as a content creator and coach 01:26:33 Dopamine hits, voluntary hardship, video beta and availability bias 01:42:55 Addy 01:45:09 Work with Juliet

Questions from my Patrons and clients for April 2025. Thanks to Ryan Frecka for joining me for the weight management questions. Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jfireclimbing Questions: 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:45 Jishnu - What is good footwork? 00:09:35 Jishnu - Modern classics 00:11:01 Nico & Giancarlo - Returning to a project after a tweak/injury 00:16:28 Briana - Managing detraining on a long trip 00:20:37 Victor - Indoor vs outdoor technique 00:25:32 Caleb - Cycling between bouldering & sport climbing 00:29:54 Jeffrey - Podcast update 00:31:11 Brian - Motivation behind doing first ascents 00:35:33 Stephanie - Strength to weight ratio (w/ Ryan Frecka) 00:43:01 Stephanie - Body composition (w/ Ryan Frecka) 00:47:46 Stephanie - When to put on more muscle (w/ Ryan Frecka) 00:53:07 Stephanie - Signs of a strength deficit (w/ Ryan Frecka) 00:58:42 Stephanie - Nutritional approach (w/ Ryan Frecka) 01:06:02 Ryan's additional comments on set point theory 01:09:02 Outro

In this solo episode, I do my best to explain the rules of bouldering: what some of them are, why they're arbitrary, how they're changing over time, and how we should all proceed.

Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jfireclimbing