Hello everybody and welcome to the Alchemy Podcast. I am your host, Luca Malaguti. In this episode, we're gonna have something a little different, and we are gonna be chatting with Mr. Tim Emmett. Tim is a world renowned ice climber, rock climber, base jumper, and one of the best athletes out there. He does do some free diving, and he's quite good at it. I've dove with him over a hundred feet, 30 meters in cold, cold waters.
But he is primarily a climber, especially being one of the world's best ice climbers. He has climbed some of the most difficult overhanging routes that you cannot even imagine how challenging they are. Why do we have Mr. Emmett on our podcast today? Well, he can give us a lot of amazing insights of what it is and what it means to be an elite athlete at the peak performance and be at the top of one's game. And a lot of these things translate from one sport to the next.
That's what's so interesting about something like freediving and climbing, is that, for example, just the breathing techniques that we can teach climbers, but climbers can also teach us a very particular mental game that they use as they face some of the most difficult and challenging routes in the world. And so these sports have a lot, a lot in common. I strongly, strongly been believing this for years now.
For example, Tim has been on the forefront of challenging his body by, for example, going to Mount Everest and feeling how the respiration, how hypoxia and hypercapnia elements that we deal with in freediving every day affect him, and how his free dive training has allowed him to push himself in the mountain world and the climbing world. And so this parallel between freediving and climbing is something that Tim and I have been discussing for a while .
And we've been on major projects together because of this core , uh, similarity, including Iceland and Greenland, climbing icebergs together, freediving under icebergs together. And so I think what Mr. Tim has to give us us in the freediving world is gonna be very, very valuable from the point of view , uh, of a father of an elite athlete and of someone that is at the top of their game.
So, without further ado, I would like to present to the freediving world, Mr. Tim Emmett, world renowned ice climber, rock climber, author, father, and just incredible inspirational voice. Welcome to the podcast, Tim. Tim Emmett climbing legend, madman and genius , uh, Multidiscipline athlete. Tim, you used to be a, and still are a free soloist , uh, used to base jump.
You've done some of the most difficult ice climbs and rock climbs in the world, and you also a freediver as well, which is so rad. Um , and that's how we kind of connected just bringing these two worlds together. What does freediving and climbing having common? And we've , we're gonna chat a lot about that cause that's kind of brought us together, you know? It's just funny how the worlds collide.
Like I was your freeddiving mentor and you became my climbing mentor, and that has brought us on some pretty epic trips.
Absolutely. Yeah, it really has. And Luca, we should talk a little bit about where we are right now .
Yes, absolutely. Yes. Actually, I wanted to do that. Yeah , I remember. I didn't , I didn't write it down in my notes, but I wanted to do that. I'm gonna do the best to describe the most incredible sports man cave I have ever seen. So all the gear junkies out there are gonna be incredibly jealous.
We are downstairs in the basement of Tim's house here in Squamish, and Tim has built this insane gear room, but it's also a workout room with what is probably well over what, a hundred thousand dollars worth of gear . Right? Easily, easily. I mean, the Everest suit and the wing suit alone are probably like five, six grand alone. Right.
There's a lot of kit in here for sure.
So I'm gonna try and do a little scope here so people can understand it. We have bouldering crash pads, we have ice climbing, rock climbing, mountaineering, Everest summit boots. We have everything for ice climbing, from ropes to ice axes made of carbon fiber. We have bags, skis, boots , um, mountain bikes , um, paddleboard, surfboards, freediving gear base jumping gear. There's a wings suit . You took it off.
Yeah, it's over there. I've just packed it up.
Okay. You should put it back up. It's quite nice that , that wing suit . It's a base jumping wing suit. So when you jump off of the mountain, you essentially fly like a squirrel, like those flying squirrels. Um, I mean, every sport you can think of, every outdoor adventure sport is here. And the best part is, is you've built, essentially what is a bouldering gym in your basement?
The , um, I call it the power room like this . Um , we're , we're sitting on a mat underneath this 20 degree overhanging board, which is eight foot wide and four foot high, and it's got horizontal rungs on it, which vary in three different sizes going from your first joint on your fingertip , um, as the biggest one down to , um, about a half or a quarter of your first joint. And all the rungs have got pockets in them.
So if you want to, you can climb with your fingers in the pockets or on the edges above them. And then there's some pinches as well. And I've also got these metal rings, which are screwed into the wood, which I use for hooking my ice axes into, so I can do circuits hanging like my ice tools without using my feet to get some really good endurance. So , uh, yeah, it's, I love this place, so it is my happy place for sure. And I spend a lot of time training in here, especially recently.
I've got a whole number of hang boards up there, which are different size finger holes that I hang off either with one arm or two arms, depending on what the hold is. Like today, I actually got, for the first time ever, and I'm 48 years old, I managed to hang off two fingers with one arm for like three seconds. I've never been able to take my feet off the ground with two fingers before on that little pocket up there. And it's less than a first joint.
So if you look at your fingers in front of you, they'll tip at the end. It's like just less than that first crease.
That's insane. Just so people have perspective, that's literally like, imagine hanging your whole body off of a ledge, which is maybe half the width of your pinky.
Half the width, is it ? No , it's about the same, same width , about the same as a pinky. But you're holding on two fingers, on two fingers, holding your entire body on that tiny little ledge. Yeah. With one arm.
It's , that's mad. It's crazy the kind of strength you develop over time to be able to do that.
You know, it's really interesting that we're doing this , this , um, interview today, Luca, because today is a big day for me, and the respect that , um, it's the first time in the last 15 years, or it's certainly, well, maybe not in the last 15 years, but it's, it's definitely the point in my life where I'm at the strongest I've ever been. Like ever.
That's right. Today you did your PB.
I just found that out today. Yeah . Like all I did is , uh, I've been , I've been doing strength training workout since the end of January this year. And , um, today was the first day that I absolutely crushed like all of them apart from two.
That's amazing.
So , um, and I'm about to go to Spain to try and climb the hardest route of my life, which I started working on in 2017 called Aravea.
Yeah, we're gonna talk about that.
Um , which is like a 200 foot route , which overhangs by 40 degrees, and it's got two finger pockets all the way up it , so you just climb, you try and get it from the bottom to the top on two finger pockets without falling off, and it's a real test of strength & endurance.
That's wild. And there's only a handful of people that have climbed this kind of route.
There's quite a few people that have done it. Definitely one of the more popular nine a's , um, but I'm sort of more of an all round climber. Um , so for me, there's not, there's not many kind of alpinists that climb nine a , um, or mountaineers or, you know, that really whits it down. Like there's definitely specialist sport climbers and people that climb indoors that focus on that style of route .
Um , but without getting into too much technical detail, it's , um, it's definitely the hardest thing I've ever really tried in my life. And I've got really, really close to it over four years of effort. So I'm gonna try and do that this year.
Just so people understand what a PB for you means. What a PB in climbing for you means, and why you're saying like, today at 48 years old, I feel stronger than ever before. And I have , I've gotten a PB today, a personal best. In freediving we have PBs when we hold our breath , when we go down deeper mm-hmm . , uh, get to a new depth within the discipline. You basically held your body up on tiny little ledges while also maybe carrying some weight.
And you held it for a ridiculous amount of time, like 10, 20 seconds. And you've increased, you said your PB by 60%, so you've been able to hold on for more weight and for a longer period of time, essentially.
Yeah. To give you an idea, there's a hold that I've been hanging off. I've been trying to hang off with one arm since January, and when I first started trying, I couldn't hang off it at all. Um, and then about five months into the training, I was able to start hanging on it for the first time. And , um, then a week ago I managed to do 10 seconds on this hold with four fingers. And then today with three fingers, I did 16 seconds.
Three fingers, 16 seconds. Again, this is a hold, which is literally six millimeters, a little ledge .
It's a little bit more than that. It's about 12 millimeters .
12 millimeters ledge, which is still incredibly tiny.
It's just over a centimeter. Yeah. With three fingers.
That's insane.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm pretty psyched. I'm pretty psyched right now. I've been like, I haven't drank any alcohol for four months and I've been running a bit, I've been doing loads of training, lots of stretching. Um, and , uh, yeah, I feel great actually. I feel really, really good.
Amazing. That today is your PB and today is the day that Queen Elizabeth the second died.
She did, yeah. Bless her.
Really? Mm-hmm. , you can say anything on this podcast. .
Well, I mean , she's been, she's, she's been in , um, she's been running the uk, she's been representing like the world on many levels for longer than any monarch in the uk , um, as far as I'm aware. And , um, she's been respected a great deal too, you know, so I think she's been a , a very , uh, um, what's the word? Uh , helpful, not very good word is it?
But like she's been, I think she's had a big impact actually on some of the political decisions that have been made and helped to be a bit of a guiding light for , for many over the years. So yeah, I've met her husband, been to the palace three times actually.
Yeah. There's an awesome picture with you and Prince Phillip .
Yeah . Yeah . I was invited there to give out , um, awards to those that , uh, the youngsters that had achieved their gold Duke of Edinburgh award. So there's three different levels, and the gold one's the toughest one to get. And apparently in the uk, like if you've got your gold DOE, it's the number one thing that you can have on your cv. Totally. Yeah . Because it shows that you are a really good person and thoughtful and hard working and persistent and various other things.
So, so you handed those out?
Yeah, I did a , I did a speech and they gave all the , um, gave all the certificates out to the people in the...
Cool. Cool. Yeah. You've been to the palace three times. Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. It's amazing place actually.
I mean, there's something to be said about health. I mean, she survived. She lived at 96 years old. She was still rocking around with those little hats. She's pretty healthy, obviously. She had a whole team of physicians, but you know, you just said you haven't been drinking alcohol and that's made a huge difference. You know, being, being British, you , you , I'm sure you enjoy a pint or two and so in your training that's just something you've gotta give up sometimes, right?
It , yeah. For me, if I want to reach my personal best or, you know, set a new limit for myself, then um, I think about anything on a daily basis that I can do to help me get there. And that's lifestyle, training, anything, it doesn't matter what it is like, so , um, yes, not drinking alcohol is one of the catalysts to be able to , to do that. You know?
I mean, for example, if I was still drinking mm- hmm and I was able to climb really well, then the question would be, "well, what would happen if you didn't drink", you know? And then you could take it up another level. So I'm trying to dial in all those , um, the systems to, you know, trying to get them up to like 10, outta 10, whether it's diet, sleep, stretching, training, running, cardio, strength, you know, all that sort of stuff.
Theory of marginal gains.
Totally. Yeah . Yeah .
It was introduced by the British cycling team.
Of course it was.
Yeah. British cycling team used to be the worst cycling team in the world. They got this new coach, I forget his name, but he was adamant about changing 1% about every aspect. So he would change 1% the interior of , uh, the van where they would store the bicycles, would be painted white. So dust could be seen dust that could affect the gears. They would change 1% improvement on the gear of the clothing of the cyclist.
So more aerodynamic gear, they would test different gels for muscle recovery, 1% gain. And so all of these 1% changes, improvements and different aspects of cycling, which is a phenomenal amount of topics from mechanics to physiology. When you add them all up, theory of marginal gains, they make a big difference. So yeah, giving up alcohol, that's that 1% improvement on that aspect for nutrition. That's pretty cool, eh ?
Yeah, absolutely. And then there's food as well. And I mean, there's all sorts of things. I mean, we could talk about that for a long time, but , um, I definitely notice it's a big difference , um, without drinking at all. I mean, you could drink a little bit and still do be ready , do well, but , uh, imagine how well you could do if you didn't drink at all. And in fact, one of the things that I've been sort of supplementing or replacing alcohol with is just non-alcoholic beers.
So, you know, when I being social, I'll just have one of those instead.
Me too. I've been drinking the Coronas...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Quite good , aren't they ? Yeah . And as long as they're nice and cold, you know, you kind of get into 'em really .
Let's , uh, should we start with the old days? That's a topic I wanted to cover. I mean, that's probably so much, you know, but we're just gonna touch on a few things.
Sure, sure. I mean, how much do you want?
. Let , let , let's start with , um, you had written a book, an adventure book with a buddy, and we're gonna put a link in the podcast cuz I've gone through this book and it's quite awesome, just the different pictures and the different adventures all around the world. Mongolia of Vietnam, and you just traveled the world and, you just, you just went to see the different side of the world through the lens of climbing really, right?
Uhhuh , yeah. It's in Preposterous Tales , um, with Neil Gresham. So the whole concept behind that was actually based , um, round a series of , um, music DJs who were traveling around the world to some of the key cities. And they were doing these nightclub sets, these underground sets in a lot of places that people hadn't really heard of before. And we thought, well, hang on a minute, why don't we do that? We're climbing.
Like, if we can go onto Google and search about climbing in a country and nothing comes up, then let's go. You know, like if there's , if no one's been climbing there before, like Mongolia or like in Cuba where people had just started climbing , um, and we couldn't really find any information about it, that was the ingredient that we were looking for to then go and check it out and go climbing there. So that's what we did.
And we went to Vietnam and we were the first people to go deep water solo in there as far as we were aware . And we put up like over a hundred new routes there. And um , and then we went to all sorts of places. We were like the first, we did the second climb in Mongolia and then we did another 20, I think we did 21 new routes over in Mongolia. And , uh, we developed this cave in New Yorker with Miguel for deep water soloing, which is climbing above water without a rope.
So if you fall off, you just go flying into the air and then you crash into the water. Um , and that's usually up to about 20 meters, not too much more than that. Cause it , it hurts a lot. I mean, it can hurt from, from 10 meters. But , um, yeah, we basically went on tour for 10 years with Neil Gresham and my psychiatrist friend, Dr. Grant Qua and Mikey Robinson, Charlie Woodburn came on some of those as well, and Seth Green as well.
And we , we literally just went on quests to try and develop new climbing areas where there hadn't been any developed before. And then recorded a little bit. And then that's what the Preposterous Talea books are about really. It's like a photo assay of all these like amazing places, incredible places around the world and some of the stories that we thought would be most interesting to read about , um, at each location, you know, or each country. Um , so , uh, yeah, it was fun. It was really fun.
It was such a great expert . I mean, that was like my early twenties to my early thirties.
And there's that Audi story that comes with it , right? That was pretty cool. You got a bunch of a sponsorship from Audi.
Yeah, that was with them . A good friend Leah Holding , um, who I'd met when he was 14 and he's like over 40 now. So , uh, yeah, Leo and I really enjoyed going on , um, expeditions. I mean we still do, but like he lives in Britain. I live in Canada, so we don't really go on trips anymore . We're probably going on next year, but we got into base jumping at the same time and we were the only two climbers in Britain that were base jumping.
Only two?
Yeah. What we started to do was combine climbing with base jumping and it was like this new thing that only literally a handful of people in the world were doing. Um , and then a year after we started base jumping, Dean Potter started base jumping with a similar idea...
Famous American Dean Potter .
And then there was , um, Sean Leary too in the US and um, there was like a French buddy of mine, two French chaps actually , um, Jerome and Mangi . And uh , yeah, the whole concept really was to just climb up a big cliff and when you get to the top, instead of walking down, you put your base rig on and jump off and we called it para alpinism cuz it seemed to make, you know, it's a combination of like parachutes and alpinism, you know, you see what I mean?
Before it was called base jumping, you guys called it Para Alpinism?
Well, so base jumping is like you walk up to the top and then you jump off. Para alpinism is when you climb. Oh , you up like the front side of a cliff.
You do a full on climb?
Yeah. Proper climb and then you jump off.
You don't take the helicopter or ?
Yeah , exactly. Yeah , you don't walk. I mean, you might walk to the start of the climb , but you're fully climbing. Like we , we were doing , um, oh, there's a few things that , oh , there's all sorts of stories there actually. They just coming flooding back. But , uh, it was just, I mean, going climbing's fun, right? It's really exciting, especially, you know, if you've never done it before, but like , um, or never done that particular route before.
But going climbing, knowing that you're gonna base jump off afterwards totally takes it to the next level, you know? Cuz the higher you get, the more excited you are.
That's redefining the dopamine rewards. Totally .
And like , you know , normally when you get to the top you're like really made up and then you gotta get down. Yeah . And it's like, okay, we've done it. Right. When you gonna base jump, you climb up and you get more and more and more excited and you get to the top and you're like, ha , here we are right then. And it's like, that is the gateway to the, the really fun bit, you know? Right .
And of course the other thing is, is you get down so much faster and so much easier than you do if you have to walk or outside . Not only is it incredible fun and like, it's really exciting, but it's also a very good mode of transport. Um , so anyway, we started doing that and uh , we, we were like the first people to base jump off in Iran... Uh , we climbed up there .
In fact, the first time we went up there, we got, we , we were trying to figure out whether you could jump off it cuz it's , it is like a , a dome where it's, it's steep at the bottom and then it's kind of more slaby uh , at the top. So the thing with that is that when you're at the top, you can't jump because you're not gonna get enough clearance to get past the cliff into the air. Right . You see .
So we were trying to find this spot to jump off there and we just weren't really sure whether it was gonna go or not. And , uh, we were like throwing these little rocks off and we'd hear them hitting a ledge and then bouncing off and then we're like, well we can't jump off there cause you're gonna , you are gonna hit some things .
So , um, we ended up taking the long way down regrouping, having another look at the cliff and going up a few days later and finding a better spot that really you could jump. And then we , we jumped off there and it , but it was amazing actually because all the time that we were climbing, there was this fog in the valley underneath where we were climbing, but it was kind, kind of coming up the side of the mountain and we were in the fog for a lot of the climbing .
Eventually when we got to the top, we only had about 40 minutes before it was gonna get dark and we really wanted to jump, but like, it was so cloudy, there's no way that you could do it cuz you just had no clue where you were going or how high you were and things like that. And uh , all of a sudden like the clouds parted and we could see and we were like, yeah, we can do it. We can do it.
And it was, you can imagine the adrenaline flooding into your bloodstream when you suddenly realized that not only you can do it, but you gotta go now. Cuz if the clouds come back together again, then you know you can't go and then you're gonna have to spend maybe 10 hours trying to get down another way. So anyway, we jumped off into the clouds and landed and it was brilliant. But , uh, yeah, so we did a lot of that, a lot of that. And because we're talking about Audi, aren't we?
Yeah. So Leo was asked to do this , um, Audi TV show on Top Gear , uh, with Jeremy Clarkson in it . And uh , he invited me along and we basically raced Jeremy Clarkson while he was driving a , a like this red RS 4. The idea was that we were gonna climb up this cliff as fast as we could and he was gonna drive on this one way route that was quite long. To get to the top of the cliff is like a two hour drive or something.
And , we uh , raced at the cliff and it took us just, I think it was just under two hours or was it just over two hours anyway. And it took Clarkston a bit longer, so we beat him to the top. Oh really? And then he was like, I really like that car. I really enjoyed, so let's do what about like a double o quit , so I'll race you back down again and you jumped off. And then we had our base rigs so we jumped off and we beat him as well. So , uh, yeah, that was really fun.
And we ended up working with Audi after that cuz they wanted us to create some really some content for the Audi TV channel. So we basically spent two years , um, doing fun things like ice climbing and um, rock climbing and base jumping and jumping out of hot air balloons and landing next to the car and generally having big smiles on our faces. And we , we ended up, I think I had seven cars from Audi, yeah. Which was pretty, pretty good value.
It's definitely one of the , the good times in it as a professional climber. Um , although there've been many. So yeah, that was , that was a good, good , good little quest . We did some , um, did a base jumping advert for Range Rover as well actually i n O mar. In a cave there jumping into a cave. Which h as only been done by one person. Felix B ogart, y ou k now the guy that jumped o utta space? Yeah.
The guy who , who did the , the Red Bull stunt jumping?
He was the first person jump that cave. U m, so yeah, that was pretty scary c uz it was totally dark and you a re literally looking down into this dark hole and you've g ot a b ase jump into it.
Just so people understand base jumping is statistically one of the most dangerous sports you can do.
Well it is THE MOST.
The most dangerous. I mean...
Yeah. Wingsuit flying is wingsuit base jumping Yeah .
Specifically mm-hmm. A nd, and you've had more friends than you'd like to count that have died from doing that.
A lot. Yeah.
It's two hands.
For sure.
Two hands. I remember we talked a lot about this and it's just like, it's such an incredible way to experience mountains.
I mean all , all of my, all of my base jumping friends are either dead or they stop base jumping apart from three. Really top end sort of the originals, you know? Um, I'm not gonna mention their names, but they're like, they're the like the most elite of the wingsuit bass jumpers and they're still alive. But , uh, yeah, it's , um, it's one of those things that's really, really fun but the more dangerous it gets, the more exciting it is. So it's really tricky.
It kind of lures you into this place, which is got, it's just got zero room for error.
Zero room.
So if you make one tiny little mistake, that's it. You know.
That's nuts. Cause I mean, you're flying at 200 kilometers an hour?
Yeah. About that. Yeah.
You hit anything...
But then you could , I mean you could say the same with with freediving though. You know, it's , it's one of the questions that I've always thought about with freediving is that if you're in a competition or if you're trying to break a world record, you, you've only got one chance, haven't you? Really?
It depends how deep you are. And, and what happens down there cuz you are by yourself. We have counter b allasts.
Yeah .
Yes we have safeties, but the safeties don't go as deep, but something happens down there, and I've had a friend who, I won't say her name, but she got stuck at 85 meters.
Did she black out ?
Yeah, absolutely. She got pulled up and luckily there was an amazing crew of guys that knew what was going on and dialed in and her dive time instead of being like two, three minutes became like five, six minutes. But the fact that she blacked out, it means she was able to preserve life and she's badass. She's so strong. But anybody else in the same situation, you get stuck down there at those kind of depths and people don't know how to bring you back up. Yeah, yeah.
I mean you stay down there for sure. Yeah.
She she's still alive?
She's still alive and rocking.
Wow. Wow. I mean like that's um , amazing that you can survive something like that.
I think it's cool because as a freediver, when we look at base jumping , we're like, that's extreme. And then sometimes you hear people like you who base jumped and climbed and they look at freediving, they say, wow, that's extreme. And we're like, no man, this is not...
When you , when you're doing it the right way with the right support team.
Exactly. That's an interesting perspective I've always appreciated and admired when you look into somebody w ent into somebody else, what they're doing. C uz you've developed a r isk tolerance into what you're doing.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool. Um, let's just finish the old days then on that amazing base jump you did where you almost lost your life and you decided to call it quits because you had met already your amazing wife by then, you already had a son coming along. And so you said after that accident with your buddies it was in Yukon?
Yeah. Yeah . The Northwest Territory.
Northwest Territory. And this is on film and it's one of the wildest things I've seen on camera. And you just, you almost had this, you had this accident and it could have gone bad in so many ways and you got so lucky.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I mean, I base jumped for how many years exactly...Yeah. It would've been 10 years.
Tons of experience under your belt. Tons.
And um, it was 11 actually. And I flew wing suits for most of that time, like 10 years I guess. And this particular jump was off Unju Peak called Vampire SPS in the Northwest Territories. And we climbed up there during the day and uh , it had taken us a bit longer to get there cause we were in a team of four with Jimmy Martinello and Trevor McDonald and Sean Larry .
And because of that we got to the top and it was starting to get dark and we didn't really wanna rush jumping off in the fading light. So we decided to spend the night up there and we didn't have any sleeping bags or anything like that. And it was in the summer, so it wasn't super cold. But none of us got any sleep cuz we were shivering and Sean and I wore our wing suits.
And , um, in the morning when the sun started to rise, it warmed up a little bit and uh , we literally, Sean and I stood up and then jumped off the top of this cliff and it was a , it was a pretty harsh wake up call, but we'd tested to make sure it was steep enough. And that the first part that John went really well , uh, I flew away from the ball exactly how I wanted to and Sean was to my left.
And then you had to turn 90 degrees left to then, cause otherwise you'd fly to the other side of the valley. And I did the turn and it was all really good. And then I went to reach round and pull my pilot shoot and I pulled it and my canopy opened like it normally does, but one of the wires, one of the lines got caught around the GoPro on my helmet. And I was spinning really slowly, but in a way that I couldn't stop the revolutions. And I ended up spinning around four times.
And that basically put a knot in my lines coming down from my canopy to where I was. And it meant that I wasn't able to steer, um, the direction that I wanted to go. And I was flying backwards and I knew that I was flying towards this massive boulder f ield with really small landing areas like the size of a couple of tennis courts. And I just thought not only can I not see where I'm going c ause I'm flying backwards, but I can't control the direction that I'm g oing e ither.
And I think it was about 10 seconds from the canopy pressurizing to then landing in this b oulder f ield. And like all of my base jumping l ife, I've always been in control of where I'm going. But this one particular situation, like the last three or four seconds, I just h ad to accept that I had no control at all of where I was gonna land. And I didn't know if I was gonna hit these rocks or not. And that really scared me actually. I didn't like that at all.
C uz I suddenly was like, oh my God, this could be it. This is it. This could be, this is, this is that time when like people get really messed up. You know, they either end up in hospital for months with like a load of broken bones or they die, but like, you know, a nd it's gonna be you and it's just about to happen i n three, two, one. A h. And it was, it scared me so much. I mean, I got away w ith i t. I was really lucky I didn't hit anything apart from a few small rocks.
I got a puncture wound in my arm and I broke my helmet and things like that. B ut I really didn't break anything, which i s amazing. U m, but u m, and of course, yeah, a few weeks later the chap S ean, who I was jumping with passed away and, uh, I became a dad and he was just about to become a dad as well. And h e died. He died. Yeah. W ow.
And like those two things, and then becoming a dad literally in like a month was, I just saw a bunch of red flags and I was like, you know what if I keep b ase jumping knowing that that could potentially happen again and I've got a kid that I'm responsible for. U m, it's just really selfish and it's actually not that fun either. C ause like going, the one thing t hat I couldn't bring myself to do was to turn a round t o K atie, K atie, my wife, and say, okay h un, I'm gonna go jumping.
I'll see you later. Y eah. Knowing that she's gonna be like, well, I hope so.
Yeah. Knowing that you could just become a statistic.
And by the way, do you wanna say goodbye to your son? It was weird. Yeah . It was really weird. It suddenly changed the dynamics Yeah . In a very profound way. And it made me realize that it was an incredibly selfish thing for me to do and I really didn't need it that much in my life. You know, this was a new step in my life where I was gonna start being a bit more responsible.
Um, and luckily, and I say this with so much sort of gratefulness is that I had climbing to fall back on, you know, because like , you know , climbing's fun and like, I mean, I didn't really freedive much then. Um, but , um, having another activity that you can , um, that you're really passionate about that can bring you into the moment and get you into that state of flow, like climbing or freediving is like a really good way of dealing with the loss of a activity that you love so much.
You know, like, I mean, for sure wingsuit base jumping and climbing. Uh , like the best experiences I've ever had in my life. Like for sure, there's no question about that. You know, I can list a whole number of different things I've done that are just like, mind blowingly incredible. So to stop doing that is like, whew . It's, a big change, you know, psychologically and you know, everything else.
But then , um, you know , being a new parent, I'm sure a lot of people who don't fly wingsuits or base jumping um, would probably be like, well, hang on a minute. You've gotta take control of your things that are important to you. So that's what I did. Um , but uh , yeah, I still do miss it a little bit.
Well thanks for sharing that story. Cause I know it's not , it's not an easy story to share. It brings up a lot of emotions and uh , I've seen the video a couple times and every time I watch it just, I get the goosebumps. You're literally flying backwards blind into a field of rocks and just even grazing one of them just is gonna just turn you into ground meat essentially. Mm-hmm . just shred you to pieces. Mm-hmm . It's wild to have that on camera too. Mm-hmm.
, I know you've shown it like a few film festivals already. It's, I think it's really inspirational. It teaches people to evaluate the risks, you know, is it worth it? Mm-hmm . likelihood and consequence, what's at risk?
The the thing is, before that happened, like I always, and I mean 100% of the jumps I did, I felt in control always. I never felt outta control. There were a couple of situations where it was a bit spicy, but um, whereas that one I just wasn't, you know, and I realized I was absolutely in the lap of the gods, you know, I mean like anything that happened basically.
Um , but yeah, talking about injuries , uh, in 2019 I got a shoulder injury and I couldn't climb for a year and that's when I met you.
Yeah .
Yeah . And that's really like , um, like freediving was my rescue remedy for not being able to climb and not being able to face jump and all that sort of stuff. And , uh, it was, I really am gratefu for that and for meeting you and getting into the local free diving around here. Uh , cuz it opened up my eyes to the fact that yeah, you can go free diving in cold water and it's actually not that cold. You know, like the freediving technology these days, the wetsuits, I mean they're amazing.
I always thought that. I was just like, there's no freediving round here, the water's what, like 10 degrees or something. And it was just gonna be so cold. Cause I've been in cold water with a wetsuit for surfing loads of times and got headache and like, you know, I mean it's savage.
Totally different.
Um, yeah, the 7mm freediving wetsuits, I mean you can free dive in like January when it's four degrees and be in the water for like an hour and a half.
I think it's natural you made that transition cuz after your base jumping days, and that's as we transition and talk about freeddiving now, like you spent, you did some of the craziest ice climbing feats in the world and that involved climbing in some of the coldest temperatures, right? Like falls in the winter. That's northern British Columbia, Canada in the winter time . I mean, it drops down to negative 30 degrees Celsius, if not more sometimes, right?
Yeah. More.
You're climbing, you're doing an intensely physical activity. You're climbing essentially an upside down waterfall cave and you're doing this in freezing weather. So I think the transition between ice climbing and then cold water freediving for you is just perfect.
Yeah, it is interesting. I think when you are in these environments of intense cold, you rely on your equipment a lot more than, you know, when you're climbing in a pair of shorts or going swimming in a pair of shorts.
Absolutely.
And , um, ice climbing is very equipment , um, intense, in the respect that you, you really need. It makes a massive difference if you got a good kit . You know, not only is it more fun, you stay warmer, it's easier. Um, and also from a life preserving perspective, like good kit can keep you alive, you know, in really savage weather and , uh, with ice climbing it's really key. I mean, and I've been working with Mountain Hardware for 23 years, you know, and using their kit for , for that long.
Yeah . Starting off doing the World Cups back in 2000, you know, and then , uh, and then more recently Helmcken Falls... To give you an idea, imagine a building that's 75 stories high, that's a big building that's like 750 feet and then lean it, like lean it over at 45 degrees.
So it looks like it's gonna fall over and then add another like eight buildings that are exactly the same size and stack ' em up next to each other in a big circle like a horseshoe, and then spray the whole lot with water that then turns into ice and then put a river running over the top of it that falls over 500 feet. So that's those falls are like. It's massive.
And the icycles are like the size of a bus. Bigger sometimes, bigger than a bus. So if one of those things even comes close to you, you become annihilated. You are gone from the face of the earth.
And there's like thousands of them up there, you know, I mean, most of them is a bit smaller than that, but I mean, Helmcken Falls really is an unbelievable place. Like nothing I've ever seen anywhere in the world.
For the front cover of this podcast I don't know if I'll either put your picture of climbing Helmcken Falls or your picture of free solo in the icebergs in Greenland. I'll have to decide which one is more appropriate. We might have to go with Dan's.
Mean ice climbing on icebergs. I mean, there's definitely some risk involved there, but like ice climbing at Helmcken Falls is absolutely at the top of the top of the game. I mean like when I first went in there with Will Gad, who was like the Nat Geo Adventure of the year. Yeah . Um , we went in there in 2010 and the first climb we did was like the hardest ice climb in the world. And then every other route we did in there became the hardest ice climb in the world.
I mean, in like, even still, like, I went there in 2019 and did another one and that was the hardest. Ice climbing, I mean it's, I mean it really is next level. And um , I mean, climbing to the top of the cave , uh, my civilian friend Clem and Prema and I, we did that, it took us three years to establish that route and we climbed it in one day and it's eight pitches. It's 240 meters of climbing.
240 meters of climbing. So in a few days, you guys became the best ice climbers in the world, essentially. You did , you did what nobody else has ever done before.
It's because there's nothing else like it anywhere in the world.
Unique to British Columbia.
Yeah. And it's, it's really steep and really hard and really long and it's wild. It's really wild. So yeah, going back to the whole temperature thing, I mean , um, in fact Will Gad has actually got a film coming out which is , um, with Jimmy Chin. About Helmcken Falls It is gonna be on Disney plus like in the next day or two. Um , so keep an eye out
For that. I saw the trailer.
Yeah.
As we transition to this, I just wanna throw in a little neuroscience. Cause I've been listening to a lot of Dr . Andrew Huberman. He has an amazing podcast called Huberman Lab .And I've been really interested in the neuroscience of things. I just wrote an article on this , uh, the neuroscience and neuro circuitry of athleticism especially.
And, and what's so cool about base jumping, going from base jumping to freediving is that when you're base jumping, you're essentially getting a hit of epinephrine, adrenaline, dopamine, you're changing your baselines for dopamine. And I mean, you are stressed out so your cortisol levels are through the roof. And then when you're freediving, it's the exact opposite.
So when you're , when you're base jumping, you , the , the sympathetic nervous system is kicked in the fight or flight mechanism 100%. When you're freediving, it can't be more than the opposite. It's the parasympathetic nervous system. The rest and digest serotonins being released in the body. And I had read , read a fact, it's super interesting that a lot of skydivers, a lot of them actually don't die skydiving.
They die doing other things because they have changed their body's ability to buffer, essentially epinephrine adrenaline. They set the baseline so high that they're always in search of something else. It's quite interesting.
Right. That is interesting.
And I wanna know where climbing comes into this. So we know the extremes of base jumping and freediving and they're kind of on different spectrums in terms of central nervous system. Right. Again, one on the sympathetic nervous system, one on the parasympathetic, but when you climb, you're kind of in between both. Right?
Well, I mean it depends what sort of climbing you're doing. And it depends whether you're climbing with a rope or not. You know you can adapt your climbing to be at any, you know, each end of that spectrum, right. Where it's you training in a climbing wall where the danger aspect is very low or you are doing something where if you fall you're gonna die. And , um, so depending on what type of climbing you're doing. So what I mean by that is , um, you could be climbing indoors.
You could be bouldering, which is climbing without a rope above a crash mat. Or if you put take crash pads outside or you could be climbing , um, with bolts in the wall so that you clip the bolts and they are close to each other so they keep you safe when you clip them all. That's called sport climbing. Well then you've got like climbing with gear where you gotta put the gear in yourself.And if you don't put it in properly, it'll come out and if your gear comes out you can hit the ground.
So that's more sort of skills based . And then you've got climbing without ropes.
Free solo.
Yeah . Free solo. Which I'm sure many of you might have seen Alex Honnold's film.
But that's exactly what I wanted to touch on. You, Tim, often free solo, t he Squamish Chief, a very famous place here in Canada.
A little bit.
A little bit but you solo roots that are so easy and familiar that you go up hundreds of feet without rope. And when you do that, you're calm the whole time. Right? When you're doing these kind of roots , they're so easy for you that you are relaxed. Probably almost like when you're freediving.
Yeah.
That's what's interesting. Someone could be looking at you from outside and think, man, this guy's an adrenaline junkie. He's free soloing this route on the Squamish Chief, he has no rope. But the reality is, is that your mind is so calm and adapted to that route . Cause you've done it hundreds of times maybe, and you're so relaxed that you're actually in the parasympathetic zone and you're calm and there's no adrenaline. Would you say, would you say that makes sense?
Oh totally. And I've been base jumping like that too. Honestly.
Even base jumping?
Yeah, yeah. Like when you go, when you jump into the air and you got and you're flying, when you do it a lot, you become familiar with it. Sometimes there's no adrenaline at all.
There's no adrenaline?
No.
Or maybe you've set your adrenaline baseline too high?
Um one of the agreements that I made with one of my best friends , um, Sean Allison , who's still alive , uh, when we first started jumping, was that if it ever gets the point where you a re not getting the flow of adrenaline anymore, it's a really good idea to stop.
Oh.
You know , because if you are searching for something more, then it's probably gonna kill you.
Oh man, that's a good one.
Um, so , um, I mean it is fascinating actually that the similarities and the disparities between base jumping and freediving in the respect that, you know, base jumping generally is like, especially when you're with other people. Cuz it can get pretty exciting when you get close to the edge. You know, people, people get giddy and they start making funny comments and you can just tell that people are getting twitchy.
You know, especially non climbers , like people that come into base jumping from the skydiving world, which is most people , um, they're not used to standing on the edge of a cliff. And as long as they got the parachute on, they're good. But whereas with a climber coming into base jumping, they've been hanging out on cliff a lot, quite often they have. So they're much more generally , um, familiar with being on the edge of a cliff.
So , um, yeah, I mean I've been in situations with base jumpers that getting close to an exit point is, that's what we call the point where jump off, and they are absolutely tweaking big style, you know, I mean they are, they're just fully loaded with adrenaline and they're giddy and they're like dry mouths and all that stuff. And I've been like, been like that too. But then when you get really current, sometimes you just, just don't feel any of that at all.
And you are looking for the feeling of being in the air free, flying and you just wanna fly. You know? Cuz that's what, that's what you're there for. That's , and um , when, when I'm free diving, for me, I mean my deepest dive has been done with my eyes closed and being as really focusing on being as relaxed as possible.
But I might add, and I was talking to someone that I was coaching , um, climbing this morning, that there was a time where the hardest and most dangerous climb of my life, where there's no protection at all and if you fall off, you're gonna nail yourself big time . It's about 50 foot high and uh , the landing's just hideous. It's all these like sort of boulders and gullies and stuff like that. But my point is, is that when I did that route, when I got to the hardest part , I shut my heart .
Just like in freediving.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
And what that allowed me to do was to really focus on my body and my mind and the feeling of what I was doing so I could do it as well as possible. Like really concentrate on how connecting with my body and , um, and that allowed me to do all the things I need to do. And then I opened my eyes and reach the hold and I could get it. Cause I'd done all the right things you see.
And it's funny how with freediving, I use a similar technique, you know, even though you might think that that's crazy or it might not, you know, why would you shut your eyes going free diving ? Surely people, some people might think that's really strange.
No, this is super cool. And just yesterday I was listening to an audiobook by James Clear called Atomic Habits super good book. And he said, we have 11 million sensory receptors in the body, and we have the five senses, right? Smell, sight, touch, taste, feel. 11 million sensory receptors, 10 million of those 11 million are dedicated to vision. You believe that? Yes.
You serious?
I swear to God, I listened to this yesterday. The reference to this quote is James Clear, atomic habits. So if he's wrong, he's sold more than 50 million copies. He's an amazing author. 11 million sensory receptors, 10 million of which are dedicated to the visual. So that means if you close the visual, you are tapping into all the other senses .
Wow.
And I love the parallel you just made in climbing, base jumping and freediving. That is epic. Closing your eyes while climbing. Maybe some people close their eyes in certain parts of the base jump flying.
I've never shut my eyes base jump . Kind of need to know what's going on.
That is amazingly cool. And, I think how you can find that piece , that parasympathetic piece of the nervous system, even in base jumping, I mean, what you just said here just completely changed my mind.
Well, well , well, so when I'm coaching, climbing one of my strategies for clients who get , um, overstimulated by the environment that they're in, you know, basically they get really scared. Um , what I do with them or what I suggest them to do is, is this. And it's um , it's like a reset protocol. Uh , the first thing you do, this is like imaginary situation where you are just, there's too much going on. You can't cope, right ? You're about to cry, you're about to have an overload.
You just can't deal with the situation. It's too much for you . Um, first thing you do is shut your eyes. Number two, relax. Like you normally have a lot of tension in your body that you don't need, especially around your shoulders and your neck. Um, the technique that you can use for that is you can pretend or you can imagine you've got a scanner going down your body, either starting from your feet or, or your head, and then you can relax all the muscles in your body.
But that can take sometimes take too long. But, so the key thing really is shut your eyes first, relax and then take a deep breath and open your eyes again. And if you do that, it gives you a chance to reset your body and your mind and then you are like, okay, right. What do I need to do?
What's next? Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly.
Some very good advice. I think a lot of freedivers can relate to that.
Yeah. Right. Cuz that, I mean, in a climbing environment, if you are really scared, maybe the exposure or something like that. Um , and I've done this a bunch actually on really hard route where I really need to not fall off cuz I'm gonna hurt myself big time for do . Um , it enables me to really concentrate on the important things that I need to do right now to get myself outta this dangerous or tricky situation.
Amazing, amazing. On that note, I'm gonna transfer you the ball here and you're gonna start massaging. So just so the listeners know, again, we're here in the cave, the super awesome gear room, training room, power room cave, and we are essentially rolling. We're not rolling joints. We are rolling joints, but no illicit substances. We have these balls and we are just essentially driving these balls into the deep tissues to relax , uh, different muscles and tendons in our body.
We are lying on this , um, very thin foam mat , which is about , um, 15 foot long and about eight foot wide. And it's, it's about, I don't know , a centimeter thick. It's nice and soft and we've got a ball underneath a part of our body. And then I'm sitting on my , um, on my glute here. I've got the ball between me and the mat and I'm roll moving my body around a little bit to try and get the right spot.
So the ball's right in that point where it's like really tender and then you just hold it there and you can release, you can just feel the tension go. It's like trigger point release. Um , and it's really good for , uh, unlocking stiffness in your body.
That's right. That's right. So a note to the editor listening to this, if you hear some background noise this time, it's not the goats in Dahab this time it's us rolling on our balls . Um, awesome . We were transitioning, w e left the old days behind with t he b ase jump. We were transitioning to freediving and climbing. How we met was an incredible circumstance. You got into freediving, you're like, man, I've been doing these crazy ice climbs. I've become the best ice climber in the world.
And or one of, y ou k now, with Will Gad, l et's, let's respect t hat. I said that one of the best ice climbers in the world and I'm addicted to this cold and now I w anna freedive in the cold. And that's how we got connected. And, and so I started training you n freediving right here in u m, Squamish BC essentially.
And then we went on a pretty epic trip in Iceland where we were freediving under icebergs and you were ice climbing above them, which, uh, as many people know, icebergs are some of the most dangerous things you can climb because they can roll at any time. And u h, they're incredibly spontaneous. So Tim , um, how is , how is that transition? Like, how is that connecting those two worlds? Cause I know we've, we've chatted a bit about this.
We've, we've even presented this topic, this above and below the obsession of the connection between climbing, especially ice climbing and freediving, especially cold water freediving. And so it was so obvious to go somewhere where we had icebergs where you could climb above and I could freedive below that kind of really connected these two worlds of climbing and freediving.
Well I think it's important to point out here Luca as well is , uh, so that people are listening can be aware of this, is that , that you are also an ice climber. And um, when we were freediving, you were really excited about the idea prospect of going ice climbing. You knew I was ice climber too . And you were like, well what about I wonder if we can combine ice climbing and free diving on the same trip? And then that got us thinking and I said , well, where could you actually do that?
And what time of year could you do that? And from an ice climber's perspective, like the only, there's not many places you can go ice climbing in October or November , um, apart from Iceland. And u h, you know, you've got these glacial caves there. I mean, I'm sure there's a few o ther spots as well that you can go to in different parts of the world. But that definitely came to the forefront of the conversation as to, you know, that c ould be a good place to explore.
U m, so, um, so yeah, w e w e went over o ver there, didn't we? And it was a n absolutely amazing trip a nd we added a bit of surfing to that too. Oh man. That was like one of my best d ays surfing ever. A nd a t, i n the north o f, in the Greenland Sea, the air temperature was minus five and it was really windy. So the actual, you know, the wind ch ill w as probably about minus 12 or minus 15 or something. And the water wa s f ive de grees c entigrade.
And I was surfing there with Jimmy, my friend Jimmy Martinello. And it was just amazing. I was in the water for about three and a h alf hours, I think ju st g etting continuous waves of t his point break. It was like absolutely mega and all the land around was just totally white covered in snow. And the only dark color was really the sky an d t he water. Cu z t he cold waters such a dark color, isn't it?
Northern Iceland. Yeah, I remember those days. Um, I had just busted my back at that point. So I remember taking that day off and actually going to the mountains, which was quite stupid cuz I ended up free soloing up a mountain by myself. And it was pretty sketchy. But at that point I remember I had really , uh, given myself a spinal injury. I had , uh, damaged my spine at that point. And that was an amazing trip.
And even though it's been a hard injury t o keep working at, it was probably th e m ost special place to get it.
How did you actually do that?
Oh, it was in , uh, it was that day we dove that secret si friend the north. Right, right. Yeah. And we had been going nonstop. We were, like you said, we were surfing, we were ice climbing, we were repelling into the glaciers. Climbing out of the glaciers. We were paddle boarding out to icebergs, ice climbing the icebergs, freediving under the icebergs. It was nonstop.
We had two weeks, a very short weather window and we had to get as much content and we had to do as many sports within that window, which I don't think anyone's ever done. And I remember one of the last days that we had gone north, we had just all gotten sick. Right. Remember that?
Yeah.
We'd all gotten sick. Uh, just so the listeners know, Tim got sick first and passed it on to everybody else, . Uh , and we were, I just remember being exhausted. We weren't stretching, we weren't warming up. And we saw that water and it was some of the clearest water in the world. And I remember as I was putting on my wetsuit, something clicked. I remember a click and I remember feeling a paralysis on the left side of my body, a n electrical shock.
And from that day on, I couldn't, I couldn't sit, I couldn't bend over. I was sleeping on the floor. I remember Jimmy just working at me c uz I was in such pain. U m, yeah man. I had herniated the L five s one d isc fully and I had a fullon sciatica, so like the entire left side of my body was paralyzed, numb, tickling pins and n eedle sensation all the time. I c ouldn't, I couldn't sleep for, um, I think I couldn't sleep well for six months in the end.
Geez.
I'd be sleeping on the floor with my legs raised. Yeah. But I've loved it. I've, I've been enjoying this suffering and this pain that's been teaching me a lot about my body. That's why we're here right now. Rolling and massaging the muscles.
And after that you still managed to get the Canadian national record?
That's right. After Iceland, I flew to Egypt. Uh, and on the last day of the last competition of the year, I don't know where that energy came from, but , um, I got that record and it was all mine. My body was destroyed, but my mind was so ready and I was so happy from Iceland that , um, yeah, I just, I got it done. Absolutely.
That's really impressive, Luca.
Um , thank you. Um, that's, that trip really defined everything for me. And , and cuz you had done many trips at that point , uh, I know that trip was very special and unique to you too. But that trip for me really changed a lot and it made me , uh, get a different outlook and it , um, it led me to get motivated for the next trip where we ended up going back to Iceland in June of 2022 for another project and ended going to Greenland, which was essentially Iceland 2.0.
Iceland on crack this time . And we really freedove under icebergs.
Yeah. Greenland was absolutely amazing. Yeah, it was , uh, I mean I just remember coming into land and the whole sea was just ice. It was , it was, it literally just broken up and uh , it was totally white with little , um, blue flex in with the cracks in the ice, you know, but like, it was like 98% icebergs and ice.
That's right. It was three hour boat ride, which should have taken us 15 minutes. Yeah. Navigating through all the icebergs.
But then the water was so clear and like swimming down next to an iceberg, a really big one. I mean, these icebergs were like, I don't know , maybe a hundred foot deep under the water or something.
They were huge.
They were absolutely vast. Like , like buildings that were sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor and then sticking out the water on the top, swimming down these grooves. It was like being in another world like nothing I'd ever experienced.
Yep . And uh , we were in , we were doing this amazing project for mental health awareness with Movember and uh, this, on this trip, Tim, we got that picture, that picture that obsessed us, this split shot , um, where you could see a climber above the water on ice, you and a diver me beneath the water on ice, so on the iceberg. And those split shots are incredibly unique. I don't think many people have taken shots like that. And it was taken by none other than Dan Verhoeven.
Legend.
The legend himself. An incredible, incredible photographer. And man, these pictures really represent what climbing, ice climbing and freediving have in common, especially when they're pushed to the edge. You know, ice climbing in cold weather, freediving in cold water. Um, and these pictures where you see you climbing the iceberg above and me freediving the iceberg below all in one picture, two worlds merging together, I think are so unique.
Um, we are gonna ask Dan if we can use one of those maybe for the front cover of this podcast.
Yeah, it was, it was incredible to finally get those shots. Cause we tried to get that shot in Iceland, but it didn't work out because , um, the water wasn't clear enough to see you in the water, was it, whereas in Greenland it really was and it was so much more impressive. It was super cool.
And it was clear because it was minus two degrees centigrade. And the reason why the water can be negative is because the salt concentration lowers the freezing point of water. So the water was negative two degrees centigrade. And on the last day you also jumped in the water , uh, just in your shorts.
and then swam down.
And then swam down. That's right.
Which was a new experience. Yeah . I was so impressed with Luke though. I mean, like every day Luke was, Luke was , um, creating the material for this , uh, for this film about men's mental health. And every day he would go into the water in his shorts for like two or three minutes at a time. I mean, it was incredible to watch. I couldn't believe it actually that he was able to endure that.
He did so good. And the , the film's actually coming out this September. So we're , when it comes out, we'll put a link into the podcast.
That's now.
Yeah, it's coming out now. And again, it's for mental health awareness working together with Movember. And we had such an amazing crew, you know, like you taking care of ice operations and safety and Daan on camera. And I had trained Luke to be able to freedive under an iceberg. And you know, when he came to the Caribbean four months earlier to train with me, he couldn't even swim.
I mean he came out and I was worried like he couldn't swim t o the platform, but he was so motivated and so strong in his mind that he did all the work, the freediving, t he equalization, the cold w ater tolerance training. And when we saw him in Iceland for the pre-training, he was just so ready. Mentally, physically he was strong, but mentally it's all about the mind.
Oh, big time. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
If you haven't been in really cold water before, the way I see it is, you know, that sensation or maybe you don't, but like you dip your toe or you put your hand into really, really cold water and instantly it's like that freezing sensation and it's really gets painful, you know, and to immerse your body into that it takes a lot of physical preparation, but mainly men for preparation where rather than repelling against the feeling that you are getting, you know, this really uncomfortable like
pain, if you embrace that sensation and you let it in and you accept it, then you can tolerate it. If you are really , um, determined, I think. But you have to let it, you have to go with it rather than repel against it, you know. And I think , um, as humans on initial response is to like get out instantly or like, you know, if something's painful, like you remove yourself from that environment, it's an instant reaction that's very natural.
And with cold water swimming, it's really the opposite to that. You know, you embrace it and accept it and go with it. Um , and I'm sure lots of the work that he's been doing with cold water immersion.
But when you're freediving, you can't hyperventilate at all because the difference between just general cold water swimming where your head's above the water and being under the water is that when you hold your breath and immerse your head, that sensation of cold is like really all over your face, you know, all over your eyes and your ears. And it's a very sensitive part of your body. You know, your brain is like the key hub for everything really.
Um, so, and also you don't wanna be hyperventilating and then going freediving cuz then you can um , you can black out get into all sorts of troubles.
Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's, that's a really good point. Very stoic and by stoic I mean Greek and Roman stoicism philosophy, when you say that, you know, you gotta embrace it, surrender to the outcome, let yourself go. That's, that's wonderful. That's, that's a really good way to put it. Um, awesome Tim, we are pushing an hour now cuz obviously when we have these conversations they just flow. Um, man, we talked about the old days base jumping free, soloing, ice climbing, freediving.
We talked about going to Iceland, Greenland , um, this connection between above and below the beautiful split shot . Uh , let's just end on you talking about your next project in Spain, one of the hardest rock climbs in the world. And maybe just shoot a couple of, uh, training tips if you want to our listeners. You just gave me one that's amazing before I wrote it down. So simple and yet so obvious.
U h, and effective volume makes you fit, intensity makes you strong and that applies to climbing and freediving. Think about it, volume makes you fit, intensity makes you strong and strong to go up a climb or down a dive. So yeah. Tim, let's just finish off now here and just tell us a bit about this project coming up in Spain and u h, shoot us a couple of your awesome little climbing tips that could apply to freediving.
Sure, sure. So Araveya in Spain, it's a , it's a route graded 9A it was put up by a chap called , um, Chris Sharma , who's a total climbing legend. And the reason why I'm trying this route is because it's like the perfect route for me. Like if I think about my climbing strength , um, this is that route. It's really steep, it's really long. It involves a lot of endurance. The climbing's really tough, but it's not like really desperate in anyone's spot .
So , um, I really wanted to do this or to try this route because I love climbing pockets and it's, as I say , it's got these two finger pockets that basically go all the way to the top from the bottom. So it's like join the dots with your fingers and it's a real test of , um, physical performance. Like it's a test of strength, is a test of fitness.
And the objectives to try and climb up this 40 degree overhanging wall that's 200 foot high , um, before, without falling off, you know, you're not allowed to sit on the rope or pull on a quick draw . You've gotta literally climb the whole thing from bottom to top without touching or so without hanging on the rope. So , um, I first tried it in 2017 and then I went back in 2018 and I went back again in 2019. And then I went back again in 2019. So I've had four trips there, four.
And on the last trip I got eight moves from the top and uh , I was like 99% there and um, my foot popped and yeah, basically I didn't quite, I needed an extra 1% to get to the top. I run outta gas, you know, I wasn't quite fit enough to get to the top. So , uh, a couple of days later, just before I was due to fly home, I went back up there, there to try and do it again. And I ended up breaking a foothold on the top tricky section.
So you broke a piece of the rock, which is essential to the climb, making the climb harder.
Yeah. So I'd used this hold like at least a hundred times and I'm not exaggerating. And um, yeah, on this particular go I felt really good. It just broke. So , um, I then had to figure out a way of doing it without this foothold, which is harder. And uh , I was tired after that, really good go. And anyway, I didn't do it. Now the year after that I got shoulder injury and I didn't climb for a year, so I then got back into climbing in 2021.
And this year I've been training to try and get back to the level that I was at before I took a year off climbing. And I've been training since the beginning of February and now I am officially in the best shape of my life from a climbing perspective. Like I'm stronger than I've ever been ever. And u h, yeah, I'm really, really psyched about that. And, um, it's coming together and I'm heading out there in 11 days and I've got a one w ay ticket < laugh>.
So I need to negotiate with my wife, um, a lot to try and get enough time to be able to complete this project. And, uh, yeah. Fingers crossed I've got enough fitness and strength to get me to the top, so we'll see.
It's gotta get done. Yeah, you're gonna do it. And then afterwards, since you'll be in southern Spain, make sure you bring your freediving stuff cause you can go freediving. Yeah. South of Spain, Tenerife.
That's a great idea. Hey, you know, the other thing that I really wanna finish this off on actually, which I think is really, really important is , um, for me to be able to climb this route , I need to be able to recover on good holes so that I can then keep going. Because what happens on a climb like this is you get so much lactate in your muscles that your fingers just don't, you can't grip on anymore and your fingers open up and you fall off.
So what I've been training is recovering on small holes, like on these pockets. And what I've noticed, and this is totally fundamental and whether this is the first time this is being kind of like recognized between these two sports or not, I don't know. But when you're a freediver and you go down to your deepest depths coming back up to the surface, when you reach the surface, what's the most important thing you need to do? You need air into your body.
That's right. As fast as possible. So you do recovery breaths. And one of the things I've noticed with climbing is that if I do the same style of recovery breaths where I breathe in a lot of air very, very quickly and then as I let it go out passively by making a really small hole in my mouth, I can increase the pressure in my mouth and which increases the partial pressure of the air in my body. And it just enables me to recover faster than when I used to breathe .
I've been a professional climber for like 24 years, been climbing for 35 years now and it's only in the last year with freediving and like honing the skills of the recovery breath that I've realized that if you do that same style of breathing wheν you're climbing, it actually really helps you to speed up your recovery. It makes a difference. Like, and I've tested it on this board that we're sitting under right now.
This campus board a lways holds on these c ampus rungs and it's u m, it's so profound that the other day, like two days ago I did a 12 m inute circuit on this board where I'm just climbing on my fingers for 12 minutes and 11 minutes I took my feet off and I started climbing, like canvasing u p the board and back down again with no foot a lls at all.
And I was like just blown away that I was able to recover sufficiently so that I could use that kind of power a t 11 minutes after climbing on this wall. Just so people understand, you are talking about climbing with your fingers overhanging at an angle without using your feet.
At all.
Okay. So people have to visualize that cuz a lot of people won't understand that.
So your body's hanging in the air...
Your bodyia hanging by your fingers for 12 minutes. You're climbing with just your fingers. Oh ,
Whoa , whoa , whoa . No, no, no , no, no. That's not , it's not like that. So you're climbing, I'm climbing for 12 minutes with my feet on the wall.
Okay.
But , uh, the six minute mark and the 11 minute mark, I take my feet off the wall. And then I climb without my feet.
Which is still insane.
. So, so I do these like really powerful sequences with no footholds. So I'm pulling my fingers, my body up with my fingers only. And that here , the , here's the thing is that I was able to recover sufficiently to be able to do this, which is something that I've never been able to do that ever in my life. Like there's just no way. There's no way. And I really strongly believe that the reason why I'm able to do this is because of the way that I'm breathing.
Because I'm doing the recovery breaths. Yes . I've learned through freediving and I'm doing them while I'm hanging off the holes with my fingertips trying to recover. You know? So I'm trying to reduce , I'm trying to get rid of the lactate in my muscles , um, by the high levels of co2.
This is such an amazing topic. Um , a note to the editor here, we should probably bring this to the beginning of the podcast cuz this really connects the whole mountain and sea , what is above and below what climbing and free diving have in common. And the fact that you are maybe one of the only people at this level of climbing and also freediving as deep as you go to recognize the usefulness of freediving and specifically freediving breathing techniques.
Yeah.
Yeah. And how they can give you an edge in your sport is so cool.
Totally.
It can really revolutionize. And I , and I hope when you give talks cuz you travel a lot to give talks, you're gonna include this stuff, how freediving gives you an edge in climbing.
Yeah , yeah.
And just so people understand the kind of recovery breaths Tim is referring to, we were talking about this before , um, people also do this in boxing, in jujitsu. You know, there's a saying in boxing that if you lose the control of your breathing, you lose the fight. And martial artists know this, the importance of breathing and breathing techniques and recovery breaths when you're getting choked out in jiujitsu, very essential, the recovery breaths you were just describing.
And so it's amazing how you've applied it and it's been just bringing you to the next level.
But I mean, as you're saying, Luca, this is, this is literally something that you could potentially adopt in any sport. Like any sport.
Any sport.
If you want to speed up your recovery so that you can do more of it or you can perform at a higher level if you were to do recovery breaths, that would allow you to perform at a higher level.
Yeah . And make sure that you also do a lot of nasal breathing. We've talked about nasal breathing, in fact, we've got a short film going , uh, by a very talented filmmaker , Brian Hawkins team called The Air We Breathe, which is about breathing and lung health and how that is not just great for your life, but amazing in all these different sports. It started in our trip in Iceland, the air we breathe. Yeah. We'll make , definitely talk more about that next time. Um, but yeah, absolutely.
It's, it's essential in freediving and in climbing, just breathing through the nose, breath holding, recovery, breathing.
I mean, imagine if you are in a competition and you're trying to beat someone who's the same ability as you and you know this and they don't, there's a good chance you might win.
Absolutely.
You know, absolutely.
A few months ago I was in Calgary, Calgary's at 3000 feet of elevation with my coach Ian Holmes at his gym. And he has a machine that you strap your face to and it sucks out air, it sucks out the oxygen and it applies a resistance. So it mimics what it's like to breathe at 8,000 meters. Okay. And I was on that machine for an hour. My oxygen saturation dropped down to 31%.
31%?
Yes sir.
Wow.
I could feel hypoxia and I could control it. I could feel it. Yeah. And one thing I noticed counterintuitively is that when I would be doing exercise, so I'd be doing pushups or , or run intermittently, my heart rate would go through the roof and I would feel hypoxic obviously, and I would see my oxygen saturation tanking and I would get an immense urge to breathe because of this resistance. Again, I am simulating being at 8,000 meters here.
You know, what I noticed was that when I would hold my breath, when I would do my recovery breaths and hold my breath for five seconds, thus increasing the in pulmonary pressure, I would recover faster.
Really?
Yeah. I would do my recovery breaths and then hold my breath for a few seconds, thus allowing a little bit of carbon dioxide to increase, thus dilating my blood vessels and promoting that arterial blood flow, increasing the pulmonary pressure in the lungs. And my oxygen saturation would raise quickly or quicker and my heart rate would stabilize faster.
And then when you started breathing again, what would happen?
When I would start breathing again, I would get back to my baseline, which would be 45, 50% oxygen saturation and my heart rate would drop down beneath a hundred beats per minute. But basically I would be strapped of this machine for an hour, simulating being at about 7,600 meters. It was a total of about 25,000 feet, give or take. And I would do some exercise, you know, and man, I would like...
That must have been savage!
It was brutal. It was like oxygen saturation tanks, heart rate goes through the roof, I feel hypoxia coming on. I'm like, I'm about to black out . I would do my recovery breathing, my recovery breaths, and I would hold my breath after for a few seconds and I would recover faster. Very interesting stuff. Just is , I'm still gonna be testing this out. Yeah . But , um, I found that very interesting. Yeah. So , um, absolutely focusing on breathing in these situations is...
And the way you breathe...
And the way you breathe.
So the key for me, just to clarify this, is that rather than , um, breathing like that where uh , I'm taking quite deep breaths, what I'm doing is I'm actually opening my mouth more to take the air in so I can take the breath in faster. And then instead of just letting it go out, I'm making a small hole by pursing my lips so that the air can't actually go out of my mouth as fast as it normally is.
You're you're applying a resistance on the exhale.
Exactly. Yeah. So it's more like this, it's more like....
Nice. That's right. You're increasing the pulmonary pressure in the lungs by doing so that's exactly what you're doing.
And so I'm taking more oxygen into my lungs faster and then I'm holding it there as I'm letting the air go out rather than going, so if I do that, I'm pushing the air out. Yeah . So I don't wanna do, I don't wanna push the air out. You just wanna let it go out slowly.
That's right.
So that's, it's so similar yet so different.
It's a form of recovery.
I can feel that by taking those two breaths, I can actually feel that sensation in my brain, like right instantly that, you know, I feel suddenly feel a little bit lightheaded cuz I'm absorbing so much oxygen.
It doesn't have as much to do with the oxygen. Let's remember that the oxygen in the air , your breathing is the same. Yeah . I think it has more to do with the fact that by doing that you're increasing the pressure in the avios and that's allowing the fusion of oxygen to be more efficient. So oxygen can then be transmitted into the red blood cells and go to the brain while at the same time that pressure and I think it increases the vasodilation of the blood vessels as well.
Do you know, I've definitely , uh, heard about , um, pressure breathing from mountaineers actually. Mm-hmm. , it's a technique that's used at a high altitude to try and make the most of the air that you've got.
It's amazing. Yeah. And you're using it in climbing. Yeah, we're using it in freediving. These worlds are , these worlds are connected man. And we're, I think we're the only two people that are talking about this connection. Like, hey, freediving under an iceberg and ice climbing the iceberg. And it has to do with the fact that you are a professional ice climber among many other things and an amazing and amateur freediver. And I'm a professional freediver and I'm an amateur ice climber.
I really love ice climbing, but I'm a very much an amateur and it , I think it has to do with that we've got this, this love for all of these things that connects.
But also a lot of , um, knowledge about those two sports if you combine what we know and the experiences that we've had.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Tim, thank you so much. Um, gimme two more little tips , uh, quickly. One, let's say again, volume makes you fit, intensity makes you stronger. I love this little quote you just told me, me casually before, volume makes you fit, intensity makes you strong.
But the the one thing you really need, like if you want to get stronger or fitter or perform at a higher level, the most important thing is consistency.
Consistency, that's right.
So if you are consistent over a long period of time, you're gonna , you're gonna change. You know , our bodies adapt t o the stresses, um, that we expose t hem to. A nd i f you a re consistent with that, it's gonna change you.
And lastly, what else off the top of your head?
You only live once.
You only live once .
Make the most of it while you can!
You know , I love it. Uh , thank you so much Tim. This was amazing. Um , best of luck in Araveya. You're gonna crush it and I think you're also gonna go to Everest and climb that and do it without supplemental oxygen.
Not on the first go!
On the first go . You only live once. The Alchemy podcast is supported and sponsored by Alchemy. They are always on the forefront of researching and developing new products. Uh , their latest product. The Alchemy Neck weight is one I'm a huge fan of, and many other free divers are also really enjoying its use. So a big shout out to Alchemy and thank you for supporting this podcast.