Magnus Midtbo

Creator · Verified

Norwegian climbing star; outdoor and competition climbing content (3.7M subs).

3.7MYouTube followers

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About Magnus Midtbo

Magnus Midtbø is the strongest climber on YouTube — a Norwegian former World Cup competitor who turned his training into one of the most inspiring channels in all of sports. Born Magnus Rognan Midtbø on September 18, 1988, in Bergen, Norway, he spent a decade competing at the sharp end of international climbing before retiring in 2017 — and then built a second career that made him more famous than the first one ever did.

The credentials are real. Midtbø started climbing at eleven, won the Norwegian Youth Championship within a year, and took the World Youth Championship in lead climbing in 2005. He moved to Innsbruck, Austria, to train with Europe's elite, and spent the next decade on the IFSC World Cup circuit — medaling at Chamonix in 2011 and Kranj in 2012, finishing fourth at the World Championships in Arco in 2011, and winning gold at the 2013 World Games in Cali. On real rock he was just as formidable: the "Ali Hulk sit-start extension" in Rodellar, Spain (first climbed at 9b, later settled at 9a+), an 8c+ onsight of "Cosi Fan Tutte" in 2013 — one of the hardest onsights ever done — the 9a+ "Papichulo" in Oliana in 2015, and bouldering up to 8B+ (V14).

He retired from competition in May 2017, and what looked like an ending was a beginning. Midtbø had started a YouTube channel back in 2011; after retirement he went all in, and the channel exploded. Training videos, climbing challenges, collaborations with the biggest names in the sport — by 2026 the channel had passed 3.63 million subscribers and 710 million views, making it one of the most-watched climbing channels on the planet.

The content works because Midtbø is genuinely one of the best to ever do it — and genuinely funny about it. His videos mix elite performance with self-deprecating humor: undercover gym tests where he pretends to be a beginner, brutal military-style challenges, one-arm pull-up contests, and sessions with legends like Alex Honnold — including a 2022 video documenting free-solo climbing with Honnold himself. He makes the impossible look joyful, which is exactly why non-climbers watch too.

Beyond the channel, Midtbø is an entrepreneur. In 2019 he founded Rungne, a climbing apparel and equipment brand selling chalk, chalk bags, and clothing — the kind of athlete-to-founder story that has become the modern playbook. He has crossed into mainstream television as well: winning the salmon ladder challenge on Germany's Der Deutsche Meister in 2013 and representing Team Europe on American Ninja Warrior: USA vs. The World in 2020.

His sister Hannah Midtbø is a accomplished climber in her own right, and the family's climbing roots run deep — their mother introduced Magnus to the sport as a kid. Nearly forty, still climbing at an elite level, still uploading, still running a brand: Midtbø is the rare athlete whose second act eclipsed his first. Climbing fans who follow Jeff Nippard's training science will find the real-world laboratory here — strength, skill, and twenty years of obsession, filmed in 4K.

About this creator

Words by Julian Cole

The Magnus Midtbø formula is simple: take one of the strongest climbers alive, point a camera at him, and let him be himself. What comes out is the rare sports channel that works for hardcore climbers and total beginners at once — the training insights are legitimately elite, and the presentation is pure entertainment. Undercover gym challenges, grip-strength showdowns, collaborations with the biggest names in the sport…

The Magnus Midtbø formula is simple: take one of the strongest climbers alive, point a camera at him, and let him be himself. What comes out is the rare sports channel that works for hardcore climbers and total beginners at once — the training insights are legitimately elite, and the presentation is pure entertainment. Undercover gym challenges, "climbing every grade" marathons, grip-strength showdowns, collaborations with Olympic athletes and YouTubers alike: the variety keeps 3.63 million subscribers coming back, and the authenticity keeps them staying.

The 2022 Honnold video is the channel's signature moment. Free-soloing with Alex Honnold — the most famous rock climber on earth, the man who climbed El Capitan without a rope — Midtbø held his own on rock most humans couldn't top-rope, and filmed the whole thing with his trademark mix of awe and Norwegian deadpan. It was a passing-of-the-torch image for climbing's YouTube era: the old guard's boldest feat, witnessed by the new guard's biggest star.

But the channel's real value is quieter. Midtbø's training content — hangboard protocols, campus board sessions, the unglamorous grind of finger strength — is a free masterclass from someone who actually did it at the highest level. Competition climbing can feel opaque to outsiders; Midtbø translates it. When he breaks down why a move is hard, or films himself failing on something for an hour before sending, he's teaching the sport's central lesson: climbing is problem-solving with your body, and the problems are supposed to be hard.

The business around the channel is the modern athlete playbook done right. Rungne, founded in 2019, turned his credibility into chalk, bags, and apparel that climbers actually buy — not a vanity merch line but real equipment from a real expert. Combined with sponsorships and the channel itself, it's a self-sustaining ecosystem: the climbing funds the content, the content sells the gear, the gear funds the climbing.

Why he matters: climbing's Olympic debut and the indoor-gym boom brought millions of new people to the sport, and they needed a guide. Midtbø — elite enough to be credible, funny enough to be watchable, generous enough to teach — became that guide for a generation. He didn't just document climbing's mainstream moment; he helped cause it.

Previously covers Magnus Midtbø because the strongest climber on YouTube is also one of the most joyful — and joy, it turns out, is the best training program of all.