Climbing Podcasts

A recorder can be pointed at the hardest move in the world, the awkward years before a breakthrough, or the conversation that lingers after everyone leaves the gym. The best choice depends on whether you want training logic, climbing history, current hard sends, or the social life around the sport. Some hosts arrive with careful questions and let a guest’s memories unspool. Others sound like friends still brushing holds while arguing about grades.

That range makes the Climbing shelf a distinct stop within Sports. Return to Sports for the broader field: Cycling follows roads, races, and life on two wheels, while Baseball turns toward teams, seasons, and the machinery of a major spectator sport. Stay here when the language shifts to routes, boards, crags, movement, fear, and the complicated business of getting better.

Lives measured in routes

Dirtbag State of Mind podcast, from The Climbing Zine approaches climbing through long, warm interviews rooted in the culture itself. Its questions can begin with a piece of writing or a remembered meeting, then drift toward identity, place, training, and creative life. The guest is given room, and achievement rarely becomes the whole story. That sensibility is visible in Poetry in Motion with Karly Rager, Climbing with Multitudes with Ashima Shiraishi, and From Tech to Tolstoy and Trad Climbing with Sam MacIlwaine. This is a good first stop when the people and language around climbing matter as much as the send.

Alpinist is similarly patient, though its interviews feel more deliberately anchored to routes, places, and past statements. Technical vocabulary is allowed to stand without a miniature lecture, while the questions remain accessible to a curious listener. Babsi Zangerl on Learning, Growing and Flashing El Cap places learning and growth beside a major climbing achievement. Dawn Hollis: Flipping the Script on Mountain Relationships signals a different kind of inquiry, and Mary Catherine Eden: The Importance of Being Bored leaves room for a subject that would disappear in a results-driven show. The pace is measured; the point often arrives after the story has had time to gather detail.

The Enormocast: the climbing podcast brings more dirtbag comedy to the long-form interview. There may be a winding runway, a sponsor riff, or a piece of local scene-setting before the conversation settles into its deeper register. The tone can turn from goofy to grave without making the shift feel ceremonial. Enormocast 322: Beau Martino - The Content Climbing Creator offers a direct entry into that loose, insider-friendly style.

Factor Two is the oral-history choice. Its interviews preserve corrections, digressions, gear details, route names, and the strange side roads of memory instead of polishing every recollection into a clean lesson. A technical detail may sit beside fear or belonging, and the guest’s cadence carries much of the episode. Listen when you want climbing history as lived experience rather than a formal record.

Training, grades, and the hard-move brain

The Nugget Climbing Podcast builds episodes through attentive, context-rich questions. Guests are allowed to follow a tangent when it reveals something useful about training, risk, character, or the culture surrounding a route. The range is unusually practical without becoming clinical. EP 304: Justen Sjong Returns - Unique Challenges for Tall & Short Climbers (And What Actually Helps) takes on differences between bodies, while EP 303: Adam Ondra Returns - How He Prepares to Flash V15, and Why the Best Sport Climbers Are Also the Best Boulderers goes directly at preparation and high-end performance. For longevity, start with EP 305: Dr. Mohammad Ashori - The 5 Things That Will Keep You Climbing for Decades.

The Testpiece Podcast is for listeners who enjoy hard climbing discussed at full resolution. Board grades, hold shaping, training load, outdoor performance, and the status of difficult lines all receive their own episodes. Board Talk #10 with Sam Prior - The 2026 MoonSpray, Board Grades, and Are Board Climbers Bad Rock Climbers? is the obvious route in for board climbers. For strength work, try #186 Tyler Nelson - Building Strong Shoulders, Doing The Right Amount Of Work, and The Problem With Prehab. Good Temps #11 - 16 Year Old Sends V17, Ondra Flashes 2 V15s In A Week, and The Future Of Comp Climbing points toward the faster-moving side of the show.

The Struggle Climbing Show makes progress legible at a more personal scale. Road to V8: The Send captures the clean milestone; Road to V8: Post-Send Adjusting my Training to Support New Goals turns immediately toward what comes after it. The show also makes space for instruction through Louis Parkinson: A Masterclass on How to Improve at Indoor Climbing and Tom Randall: Pro Clinic on How to Climb Harder Without Getting Stronger. It suits the listener who wants a project, a process, and the recalibration that follows success.

The Careless Talk Climbing Podcast keeps one foot in training discussion and another in the personalities of hard climbing. Its episode titles are specific about the tension between improvement and everything that complicates it. E141: Martin Keller - Defying aging and injuries to keep climbing harder than ever pairs longevity with performance, while E143: Allison Vest - Outdoor projecting, dealing with pressure and titanium tendons puts projecting beside pressure and injury. Board specialists can head straight to E145: Will Anglin - Board climbing nerdery, Tension, what is training anyway?

The conversation after the session

Friction Addiction sounds deliberately unpolished. Questions grow out of personal anecdotes, guest backstory, or some practical curiosity about grades, injuries, gym layouts, and training routines. The hosts are comfortable doubling back or admitting uncertainty, and technical language sits inside ordinary conversation. It feels suited to listeners who would rather overhear climbers working through an idea than receive a finished thesis.

South Beta Podcast runs on a sharper social rhythm. One voice may stretch a story while the other interrupts, teases, or asks it to get somewhere. Forgotten names and route tangents remain part of the exchange, giving the show the feel of a climbing-gym friendship that began before the microphones came on. Its warmth arrives through local familiarity and dry needling rather than a polished inspirational tone.

Beyond The Rock takes an even longer scenic route. Horror movies, weather, gym gossip, and old partners can precede the guest’s story, with jokes giving way to sincere questions about fear, purpose, partnership, or community. The duo dynamic matters: affectionate teasing keeps the conversation loose while curiosity prevents it from becoming empty banter. Choose it when a tidy opening matters less than feeling present in the room.

ScotRock brings that conversational looseness to the Scottish climbing scene. Interviews and group discussions make room for interruptions, corrections, dry humour, and the practical texture of walls, routes, gear, competitions, access work, and mountaineering organizations. It assumes some comfort with climbing language but does not demand expert status. The appeal lies in people building the substance through anecdotes rather than a host delivering a polished account.

Where to start

Begin with Dirtbag State of Mind podcast, from The Climbing Zine and Climbing with Multitudes with Ashima Shiraishi for a patient, culturally alert interview. Choose The Nugget Climbing Podcast and EP 305: Dr. Mohammad Ashori - The 5 Things That Will Keep You Climbing for Decades when training and longevity are the priority. Board climbers should try The Testpiece Podcast through Board Talk #10 with Sam Prior - The 2026 MoonSpray, Board Grades, and Are Board Climbers Bad Rock Climbers? For something looser and more social, let Beyond The Rock take the scenic route.

Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.