The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

Back in April, I published an episode with Thomas Cunningham all about how he trains efficiently as a busy dad and ER physician to be able to send up to 5.14c projects in only 10-15 days outside climbing per year. You can listen to that episode in the link below: Listen to my first interview with Thomas In that episode, we started talking about how he uses the Whoop (a wearable bio tracking device), continuous glucose meters, and some other biohacking type stuff, but the interview would've been reallllly long if we'd gone into all of it in details. So I asked him to come back for a second interview to talk about all of that. We'll be doing another one soon on using bloodwork to optimize supplementation, etc. for climbing performance soon. So who is Thomas? Thomas is a 36-year-old emergency medicine physician and father of 3 children from Louisville, KY who's been climbing for around 20 years. After talking to him for a while, I realized he is SUPER scientific about everything he does in climbing. This is no surprise because he's quite an overachiever in his academic/professional life as well. He's published a bunch of academic papers, he was chief resident at the University of Louisville Department of Emergency Medicine a while back, and WHILE he was doing that, he started a medical device company, Inscope Medical, and was VP of Innovations. He also completed an IronMan while he was an intern resident. Here is his CV if you're interested. He's an ambitious person, to say the least, and that means he has less time than some of us for climbing and training. Only getting outside climbing around 10-15 days per year, and focusing all of that time on very hard projects, he has learned that his training and all of his days outside have to be hyperfocused and specific. He also has to optimize his body for all the training he does and to be in peak performance mode when he's trying to send. He's used a continouse glucose meter (CGM) on himself in the past and he asked Sam Elias and Jonathan Horst to start wearing one in order to help them optimize their fueling for climbing. He came into this interview with data on both of them (and himself), including what they were eating before using the CGM, the changes they made to their diets after and while using it, and the effects it had on their climbing. The CGM basically takes a reading of your blood glucose every 5 minutes so you can see in real time how each food/meal affects you. We also talk a little more about the Whoop in this episode, which I've now gotten 6 of my friends and family using. It's really interesting looking at the data each day about your sleep quality/quantity, how recovered you are, your HRV, and all kinds of stuff I've never paid attention to before. Thomas goes into how exactly he uses the whoop and how I've been using it myself. This episode was really fun for me because this stuff as a nutritionist is extremely interesting. I hope you love it too! Oh, and if you want to work with Thomas, you can do that by clicking on the link below: Work with Thomas on Your Own Biohacking

In the episode, I sit down with Coaches Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger to discuss how they go about training their clients in the different energy systems. The "energy systems" we're talking about are power endurance, endurance, strength, and power. Basically, they both feel like these things are extremely confusing to climbers, and they wanted to simplify what those systems require, what it takes to train them well and efficiently, and what workouts they prescribe for each of them. The thing is that it's not super clear-cut because in climbing, we're constantly switching from energy system to energy system. We're not usually climbing at an easy steady state for very long, and we're also not usually climbing super powerfully for very long. We go in and out of trying hard, resting, climbing easier stuff, etc. So they do their best to explain what is categorized as which energy system and exactly what to do, and when, in order to get better at one or all of them. As always, they did an amazing job of preparing for this interview, and both of them have so much experience at this point with training people that their advice is truly simple and easy to follow. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. Show Links Try out the Bouldering Program by Coach Matt Pincus for 35% Work with Matt as your coach Work with Alex as your coach Bouldering Training Program 35% Off If you're tired of going into the gym without a plan and you want a clearly laid-out program made by an experienced coach, our Bouldering Training Program is just that. And it doesn't cost nearly as much as working one-on-one with a coach. Matt Pincus created this online subscription bouldering program based off of what has been super successful with his clients over the years. There are 3 levels of training available to you, depending on how much experience you have with climbing training. You'll go through non-linear cycles (learn more about what that means in the link below) of training power, strength, skill drills, and throughout it all you'll be gaining all-day capacity. Hundreds of people have felt an increase in their bouldering ability within weeks of being on this program, and you can too. It's 35% off right now, and you get a 7-day free trial to see if it works for you. Go to the gym with a plan in your hand, trust the process, and see results. CHECK OUT THE BOULDERING PROGRAM SALE

A couple weeks ago, Sam Elias texted me and said, "Hey. This ER doctor here in Louisville just sent his first 14c... He's SUPER intelligent and really researched about training, nutrition, and personal optimization. I think y'all should have him on the podcast. He has a lot to offer." Turns out this was his second--not first--14c, which I found out in my interview with him, but everything else Sam said about Thomas was spot on, and I was psyched to reach out to him for an interview. Thomas is a 36-year-old emergency medicine physician and father of 3 children from Louisville, KY who's been climbing for around 20 years. After talking to him for a while, I realized he is SUPER scientific about everything he does in climbing. This is no surprise because he's quite an overachiever in his academic/professional life as well. He's published a bunch of academic papers, he was chief resident at the University of Louisville Department of Emergency Medicine a while back, and WHILE he was doing that, he started a medical device company, Inscope Medical, and was VP of Innovations. He also completed an IronMan while he was an intern resident. So he's an ambitious person, to say the least, and that means he has less time than some of us for climbing and training. Only getting outside climbing around 10-15 days per year, and focusing all of that time on very hard projects, he has learned that his training and all of his days outside have to be hyperfocused and specific. He takes us through his training program, including how he trains aerobic capacity, power, power endurance, and strength. He also talks about his research (he's also a researcher!) on the use of a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to figure out what food fuels him best, and at what times of day. He's currently doing some experimentation with Sam Elias with a CGM, and Thomas and I talked about having a part 2 to this discussion to go more in-depth about that and how he uses other monitors like the Whoop in his every day life and training. More to come on that, though. This interview and our talk afterward actually inspired me to get a Whoop myself (no affiliation, but check it out if you're interested in biodata). Oh, and we also talked about how he rehabbed not one but two pulley ruptures and came back stronger afterward. I loved this talk - it was super inspirational on all levels - and I hope we hear a LOT more from Thomas in the coming years. He will be an asset to the climbing community to take us to the next level in training scientifically, like so many other mainstream sports have already done.

Climbing Fitness Breakthrough Series Before we get started, Coach Alex Stiger is hosting a 4-part series all about how to increase your overall climbing fitness. She will do 4 weekly 90-minute zoom calls starting March 21st all about how to use efficient, quick sessions in the gym to reliably make you feel stronger and have more endurance. The cost is $147 (2-payment option available), and you'll get all of the recordings of the zoom calls, a group Slack channel where you can ask Alex questions for the month, plus a bonus recorded coaching session with one of the participants. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FITNESS BREAKTHROUGH SERIES How to Stay Motivated in Your Climbing In this episode, I talk with Coach Alex Stiger about the ways she stays so motivated in her climbing almost all the time. It's actually really amazing to me that she's so psyched so often… Alex is a firm believer that if we are enjoying what we're doing, we will make the most progress in whatever we're doing. AND we'll have an amazing happiness-building activity for the long haul. These are some of the questions we pondered in this episode Should training be torture?? Why is that concept so romanticized Why do we treat climbing and training like two separate things? How did old school mentalities shape how we are approaching our sport today? How can we stop believing that doing things we don't want to do will make us better? How did our childhood sports and gym class shape the way we think about climbing and training? One of Alex's superpowers is staying psyched 80+ % of the time, and she thinks that partly comes down to her being homeschooled and always being able to choose what she was doing with her time. We talk about how her habits and her great success with horsemanship in her younger years really shaped how she thinks about climbing now. She doesn't do what she doesn't want to do. She gives herself freedom to choose between structures and that works really well for her. She knows exactly what is on her "love to do" and "don't love to do list" and she checks in regularly because it changes. She recognizes that what might affect her climbing and training psych the most is life factors and she takes that really seriously. Her desire to enjoy her sport is a driving force to de-stress, optimize, create space, and in general increase her well being. Stress is a big enemy of motivation! The Tools She Uses to Help Keep Motivation High We talk about all of these tools in detail in the interview. Other people Routine Timers Measuring progress Setting mini goals Having a hard session time stop Regular "want" weeks Fueling for my sessions Strategic planning to avoid feeling late or rushed Mental check ins (green, yellow, orange, red) Acknowledging "druthers" out loud Gratitude practice You'll find a lot of common sense tactics to make our sport sustainable, but also some surprising little hacks that Alex has come up with to make it fun for herself almost all the time. I loved this talk with Alex 🙂 Show Links Enroll in Alex's Climbing Fitness Breakthrough Series Work with Alex as your coach Have questions? Email [email protected] or [email protected]

In this episode, Dr. Tyler Nelson talks about a small but very effective change to make in your finger training protocol to help you get stronger and avoid injuries. Last year, Tyler saw over 600 patients with finger injuries, and he believes that using unlevel edges that are bigger than what we've been told to use could have, in part, prevented those injuries while still making the climber stronger. This interview was really fascinating to me. I didn't even know what an unlevel edge could possibly look like, but Tension Climbing has created a board with them and it's called the Whetstone Board. Here's part of the description of it from Tension: The top jug on the Whetstone is something new. The edge profile was designed to promote a more "active" grip and reduce "over-wrapping" the wrist. A series of "ergo-bumps" was included to both improve the comfort of the grip and also to act as an edge that can be draped in an open-handed grip to more evenly distribute force between each finger as an aid for rehabilitating some finger tweaks. This is not meant to be a Whetstone advertisement and I have zero affiliation with them, just fyi. But what Tyler is talking about in the episode are those "ergo-bumps" you see in the photo above. As always, I learned a lot from this episode and now I kinda want to get a Whetstone board… About Tyler Tyler owns and operates Camp 4 Human Performance, a chiropractic sports medicine clinic and strength & conditioning business in Salt Lake City. While earning his doctoral degree, he completed a dual program Master's degree in exercise science at the University Of Missouri. While in graduate school he worked with the University of Missouri athletics department and currently is employed through two colleges in Utah. He is certified through the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and spends any extra time in his life with his wife and 4 kids or trad climbing or bouldering. You can find Tyler in Salt Lake City at his clinic or online, Camp 4 Human Performance, where he tests athletes, creates training programs, and treats all kinds of athletes for injuries. Other Episodes with Tyler TBP 212: Dr. Tyler Nelson's New Insights on the Limits of Fingerboard Training TBP 202: Dr. Tyler Nelson on Finger Injuries in Youth Climbers TBP 168: New Insights on Finger Training TBP 162: Dr. Tyler Nelson on Endurance Training for Fingers TBP 155: Dr. Tyler Nelson on High Volume Power Training TBP 149: The Different Roles of Stretching for Climbing TBP 133: The Simplest Finger Training Protocol with Dr. Tyler Nelson TBP 084: Injury Rehab and Blood Flow Restriction Training TBP 098: Isometric Movements to Prime and Test Your Body TBP 108: Bood Flow Restriction for Injury Healing and Performance TBP 118: Latest Technology for Finger Training and Performance Testing TBP 128: Surprising Methods for Healing Tendon Injuries TBP 186 :: Dr. Tyler Nelson's New Injury Prevention and Warm-Up Protocol Episode Links Personal website: camp4humanperformance.com Take an online class with Tyler: camp4humanperformance.com/store Do a consultation with Tyler Instagram: @c4hp Facebook: @camp4chiropractic

In the episode, I sit down with Coaches Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger to discuss how they go about training their clients to be better boulderers. They're both pretty psyched on bouldering themselves, so we also talk about how they train for bouldering in their own lives. When we started talking, I was assuming they were going to tell me all the ways they have boulderers get stronger in the weight room and on the fingerboard, but we really only talked about that for a little while. What they did focus on were the things they find to be way more important for that in real life… things like how to get yourself to try harder, how to change your sessions to be more structured and less "just bouldering," and how important mobility training is to boulderers. There's a lot of tactical talk in this episode about what it takes to be a good boulderer overall. More Details How to get yourself to try harder and how to quantify it Structured flash practice drill Hardest boulder circuit drill How to approach a boulder strategically instead of just throwing yourself at it Thinking in terms of style instead of grade, and how that helps you work your weaknesses Some talk about how to fall appropriately, and when not to fall Finger training, what weight training to do, and why it's all even more important to do for bouldering When to shelve training and just go bouldering, and for how long that's sustainable Show Links Try out the Bouldering Program by Coach Matt Pincus for 35% off through January Work with Matt as your coach Work with Alex as your coach 35% Off Bouldering Training Program If you're tired of going into the gym without a plan and you want a clearly laid-out program made by an experienced coach, our Bouldering Training Program is just that. And it doesn't cost nearly as much as working one-on-one with a coach. Matt Pincus created this online subscription bouldering program based off of what has been super successful with his clients over the years. There are 3 levels of training available to you, depending on how much experience you have with climbing training. You'll go through non-linear cycles (learn more about what that means in the link below) of training power, strength, skill drills, and throughout it all you'll be gaining all-day capacity. Hundreds of people have felt an increase in their bouldering ability within weeks of being on this program, and you can too. It's 35% off right now, and you get a 7-day free trial to see if it works for you. Go to the gym with a plan in your hand, trust the process, and see results. CHECK OUT THE BOULDERING PROGRAM SALE

In this episode, Coach Matt Pincus and I discuss the extremely important topic of crag etiquette. As more climbers join the sport and crags and boulder fields become more crowded, there's a growing need for us all to be on the same page about who gets to climb when, how to communicate with each other, and what our expectations are of each other in general. This conversation's purpose is to bring some difficult topics into the light and hopefully to help climbers understand each other better, have more tools to use with each other in sticky situations, and to–more than anything–help us all have an amazing and safe time climbing outside with each other. Here's what we talked about: Communication a. Who's climbing when b. For how long c. Permission to join bouldering crew d. Brush holds e. Beta sharing desires f. Encouragement desires Taking up space a. Yard sale b. Loud conversations c. Taking long time to get ready when there's a queue d. Talking to belayers Impact on others a. Smoking b. Music c. Screaming performatively on climbs d. Wobbling e. Yelling at ppl for waiting for a route you're currently on f. Dogs I hope this conversation sparks conversations of your own with your climber friends! Show Links Do an hour coaching session with Matt for 15% Off Work with Matt as your coach Do Matt's Bouldering Training Program for 35% off Have topics you want us to cover? Email [email protected] or [email protected]

David Farkas is a 49-year-old climber who works as the Adult Programming Manager at The Front Climbing Club in Salt Lake City, UT. He's been climbing since 1991, and found himself in a bit of a slump with his climbing and nutrition when he signed up to work with me in 2018. After working together on his nutrition and him working on his climbing training with various trainers and coaches, he went from climbing 5.10 to 5.12 in about a year, lost some weight he'd been trying to lose, and found that his energy levels were much better. He also found relief with some digestion and skin issues he was having. In this episode, we talk about the struggles he went through before, during, and after working with me, and what kinds of things we changed about his diet and lifestyle to get him the results he wanted. He was living in a van at the time, so we talk about how to improve your diet even if you don't have a kitchen of your own. David is one of my all-time favorite clients, and the results he's seen are inspirational (but not abnormal when working with nutrition), so I asked him to share his story. I was impressed with his willingness to be vulnerable and honest about his journey, and I hope you love it as much as I did. Work with Me on Your Nutrition I'm currently taking new clients, and if you'd like to work with me to improve your climbing performance, overall energy levels, digestion, and blood glucose, I'm here for you. We can do an hour session, a month session, or you can do my self-paced nutrition course: Nourish and add a single session onto that for more personalization. >>>Find Out More about My Nutrition Services

Kevin Roet is a climbing instructor from the UK who's been teaching workshops on climbing psychology for about 7 years now. He recently wrote a book, Climbing Psychology: Mind Training for Optimal Climbing, all about the topic, and I wanted to have him on the show to talk about the things he most commonly helps people with in regards to climbing psychology. This was a really enjoyable conversation for me, not only because Kevin is a humble Brit who's well-versed in this topic, but also because it's one of my own favorite topics. We talked about how he helps people with the fear of falling, the fear of failure, and recognizing their negative mindset. We also went over the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, what exactly the flow state is, the psychology of pumped forearms!, and performance anxiety. We also discuss the overlooked importance of communication between belayer and climber, and how much that can affect your climbing negatively or positively. I hope this conversation helps you dive a little deeper into your own psychology, and maybe take some steps to work on your mindset in climbing. Show Links Kevin's website: riseandsummit.co.uk Get Kevin's book in the UK here or in the US here Rise and Summit Instagram @rise_and_summit Work with me on your nutrition: www.trainingbeta.com/nutrition

In the episode, I sit down with Coaches Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger to discuss how our coaching styles, confidence levels, and tactics with clients have changed over the years. Matt and Alex talk about their practices as climbing coaches and I discuss my practice as a nutrition professional. Some things we all have in common are that we're less perfectionistic and rigid in our coaching now than when we first started, and that we focus on different facets of climbing or nutrition now than in years past. We also go over what we believe to be the most important values of coaching, like professionalism, honesty, and compassion. We also do a check-in about all of our big fall climbing projects, and some of us are doing better than others… 😉 Show Links Do an hour coaching session with Matt Work with Matt as your coach Do Alex's new workshop on Skills and Drills Work with Alex as your coach Work with Neely as your nutritionist Have topics you want us to cover? Email [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected]

In this episode, I talk all about what to eat at the crag and the couple days before going to the crag so that you can have all-day energy and climb hard. I know it's tempting to just not eat all day at the crag so you can feel "light" and climb hard, but the truth is that we need food at regular intervals every day, especially when we're trying to perform athletically at a high level. So I'll tell you what foods to pack in with you, what kinds of nutrients to focus on, and how to structure your day so it feels doable to get all the food you need. Not only will this help your performance on that day, but it'll also help you recover better so you don't feel like you got hit by a truck the next day. This is a recording taken from a 5-day nutrition challenge I did in 2020 in front of a live zoom audience. I talked for about 15 minutes on the topic and then took a bunch of questions from the audience (very common questions, so they're quite relevant). Nutrition Podcast Episodes in This Series TBP 209 :: Calories for Climbing Performance and Body Composition TBP 190 :: Meal Timing for Climbing Performance and Recovery TBP 184 :: Carbs for Climbers – How Much, What Kind, Timing, and Why TBP 175 :: Protein for Climbers 101 – How Much, What Kind, Timing, and Why A Little about Me After completing my Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Zoology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, I did a 4-year nutrition certificate program at Seven Bowls School of Nutrition, Nourishment, and Healing. I graduated in 2007 as a Certified Integrative Clinical Nutrition Therapist. During those 4 years, I learned about not only nutrition, but herbs, homeopathy, and other alternative practices. I've been seeing clients since 2007 and I've worked exclusively with climbers since 2013. Nutrition Coaching with Me If you're looking for help with your own nutrition and you feel like you need personalized coaching, I'm taking new clients right now. I also have a program that is self-paced with 4+ hours of video from me, PDF's, and meal plans laid out for you. LEARN MORE ABOUT MY NUTRITION OFFERINGS

In the episode, Coach Matt Pincus talks about the different kinds of "endurance" in climbing, and how to train each of them. We go over the anaerobic lactic system (power endurance), the aerobic system (long-form endurance), and the anaerobic alactic system (power) and the differences between them. Then Matt goes through some different training methods for each and how to incorporate those into your training program. I also selfishly ask Matt about what I'm doing to train endurance to get his opinions on it, which was super helpful for me. Show Links Do an hour coaching session with Matt Work with Matt as your coach Do Matt's Bouldering Training Program Have topics you want us to cover? Email [email protected] or [email protected]