The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

TBP 188 :: Rest - How Much Is Too Much and Navigating the Holidays

About Matt Pincus Matt is a boulderer and a sport climber based out of Wyoming. He splits his time between training at home in Jackson and traveling to pursue his climbing goals around the world. Matt is also a coach at TrainingBeta and he’s been seeing clients from around the world since 2017. He’s currently taking new clients, so if you’d like to work with him, you can sign up here. Matt just started offering 1-hour remote coaching sessions so you can get your training questions answered and have guidance on how to build out a training program for yourself. Consider this offering as a gift for the climbers in your life, or for yourself if you’re not ready to commit to a coach full-time. >>>Get an Hour of Coaching with Matt       Rest – How Much Is Too Much and How to Navigate the Holidays In the episode, Coach Matt Pincus and I talk about rest. We’ve been getting a lot of questions from our clients who are scared to take off any time from climbing over the holidays for fear that they’ll lose all of the gains they’ve worked so hard for. Matt describes 3 client scenarios with different circumstances and the guidance he gave about rest: A person who just came off a performance cycle and is a little tweaky and is going home to visit family for a week. A person who has a climbing trip coming up 2 weeks after a trip home to visit family for a week. A person who doesn’t have a climbing trip coming up and is going home to visit family for 10 days. We give our own anecdotal stories about whether or not resting has hurt or helped us in the past, and we talk about professional climbers’ use of long and short rest periods. We also discuss what the research says about how long it takes to actually lose strength and endurance during taper and off-season periods in other sports. Enjoy!   Episode Details My story about sending after 5 days completely off How Matt is guiding his clients during the holidays Expectations for when you come back from a full rest period What to do if you really want to keep training while you’re on vacation and only have minimal equipment What the research says about how much rest it takes to see declines in performance   Show Links Do an hour coaching session with Matt Bouldering Program (Levels 1-3) to help you work your way up the grades Work with Matt as your coach Work with Neely as your nutritionist Have topics you want us to cover? Email matt@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com Research Mentioned https://greatist.com/fitness/how-long-lose-your-fitness#nonathletes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17762369/ https://www.pnas.org/content/107/34/15111     Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.   Photo Credit Photo of Adam Peters on Make It A Double by Matt Pincus @mpincus87    

TBP 187 :: Matt Samet on Training and Climbing Hard at 50 and Route Development

  Matt Samet is the editor of Climbing Magazine, the author of several books, a prolific route developer, and a very strong and dedicated climber. He’s also a friend of mine and someone I respect a lot, so I’ve been wanting to interview him for a while. He’s a father of 3, works full-time, and just sent a 5.14 project a couple days before his 50th birthday, which is the same max grade he was sending 20 years ago. It’s always inspiring to me to see people just make it work in climbing, even if they have a million things going on in their lives and are at an age many climbers believe to be limiting. Another notable thing about Samet is that he battled an addiction to benzodiazapenes and other psychiatric drugs for over a decade, and he still deals with neurological consequences of that. He’s had to alter the way he trains and his expectations of himself, and yet he still gets out climbing and trains more often than most of us ever will. In this interview we talk about his dedication to route development, how his training has changed over the years, his stint with anorexia and how he’s overcome it, among many other things. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.   Matt Samet Interview Details Why he loves route development so much How route development can be a thankless job (and why he doesn’t care) Gender bias in route development How he’s doing now since being off all drugs since 2006 Long-term nervous system effects from psychiatric drugs How he makes time for climbing while being a dad and working full-time How his wife deals with him wanting to climb all the time How having kids changes your relationship How age plays a role in his climbing at 50 His decades-long bout with anorexia How he’s changed his eating and how that affected his climbing What he hopes to achieve going forward (he’s not slowing down)     Show Links Instagram @phorrizzler6514 His book about Benzos: Death Grip: A Climber’s Escape from Benzo Madness The Crag Survival Handbook: The Unspoken Rules of Climbing  The Climbing Dictionary: Mountaineering Slang, Terms, Neologisms & Lingo: An Illustrated Reference His article in Outside Magazine about benzo addiction: “Beauty in the Breakdown”     Photo Credit Photo of Matt on Nephson (5.13+) at Hillbilly Rock in the Flatirons by Ryan Pecknold   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.    

TBP 186 :: Dr. Tyler Nelson’s New Injury Prevention and Warm-Up Protocol

Dr. Tyler Nelson’s New Injury Prevention and Warm-Up Protocol In the episode, Tyler explains how we should be warming up our youth teams (and ourselves) in order to make climbing sessions more effective, and more importantly, for injury prevention. Once again, Tyler pored over the research and came up with a very progressive way of doing things – much differently than what we’re used to. Gone are the days of just warming up for climbing by doing some easy climbing: there’s actually a better way. Tyler Nelson has a lot of qualifications, so I’m going to let his website sum those up for you: Tyler is a second generation chiropractor whose father was a leader in chiropractic sports medicine for many years. In graduate school he did a dual doctorate and masters degree program in exercise science with an emphasis on tendon loading. He completed his masters degree at BYU and was a physician for the athletics department for 4 years out of school. He currently is the owner of Camp4 Human Performance where he treats clients through his license as a chiropractic physician. He also is an instructor for the Performance Climbing Coach seminar series and a certified instructor for gobstrong. When he’s not working he’s climbing or hiking outside with his family.   You can find Tyler in Salt Lake City at his clinic, Camp 4 Human Performance, where he tests athletes, creates training programs, and treats all kinds of athletes for injuries. Tyler’s ability to question what we take for granted and provide relevant research is unparalleled, and I was psyched to hear about this new way of doing things. He is well-spoken and a wealth of knowledge about how the human body responds to climbing and training. Other Episodes with Tyler 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   Tyler Nelson Interview Details Why just climbing easy stuff isn’t the most effective way to warm up How to warm up instead using a series of exercises to prep your whole body to try hard How this way of warming up is good for injury prevention for climbers The youth teams he’s tested this on have all had great results How to incorporate it into team practice or your own climbing   Tyler Nelson Links Personal website: camp4humanperformance.com Take an online class with Tyler: camp4humanperformance.com/store Do a consultation with Tyler Instagram: @c4hp Facebook: @camp4chiropractic Learn More from Tyler: If you want to work with Dr. Tyler Nelson on an individual basis for injuries or strength training, he offers remote consultations to people all over the world. He also teaches online classes on strength training and injuries. Learn more.   Training Programs for You Do you want a well-laid-out, easy-to-follow training program that will get you stronger quickly? Here’s what we have to offer on TrainingBeta. Something for everyone… At-Home Training Program: trainingbeta.com/covid Personal Training Online:  www.trainingbeta.com/coaching For Boulderers: Bouldering Training Program for boulderers of all abilities For Route Climbers: Route Climbing Training Program for route climbers of all abilities Finger Strength : www.trainingbeta.com/fingers All of our training programs: Training Programs Page   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.

TBP 185 :: Running for Climbing Fitness: Does It Work? And How to Avoid Common Mistakes

Running for Climbing Fitness: Does It Work? And How to Avoid Common Mistakes In the episode, Coach Matt Pincus and I talk about running for climbing fitness. In our practices as a coach (Matt) and a nutritionist (me), we see a lot of people who run in the name of climbing training. But there are some common mistakes we see people making in their training schedules, their nutrition practices, and their reasoning behind their actions. We talk about some better choices people can be making with their running, whether it’s scientifically been shown to help with climbing fitness at all, and how to proceed with your running and climbing regimens. Enjoy!   Episode Details How common running is among our clients #1 Question to ask yourself about running if you’re a runner Running for weight loss from a nutritionist’s perspective How Matt creates training programs for people who want to run Pushback that runners give Matt and his responses to that Transitioning from one sport to another, whether it’s running, skiing, biking, etc What needs to happen nutritionally to train running and climbing at the same time 3 biggest mistakes people make nutritionally with fueling for exercise How to recover really well   Show Links Bouldering Program (Levels 1-3) to help you work your way up the grades Work with Matt as your coach Work with Neely as your nutritionist Have topics you want us to cover? Email matt@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com     Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.

TBP 184 :: Carbs for Climbers - How Much, What Kind, Timing, and Why

TBP 184 :: Carbs for Climbers – How Much, What Kinds, Timing, and Why In this episode, I talk all about carbohydrates and how to use them properly in your diet to help your climbing performance, energy levels every day, overall mental well-being, and body composition. Carbs are a tricky topic because we’ve been taught to fear and hate them, even though in reality they’re what fuel strength and power activities. They’re also paramount to keeping your blood sugar and mood stable all day every day, as well as helping you to fall asleep and stay asleep. If you’re eating the wrong kinds of carbs in the wrong amounts at the wrong times of day, in conjunction with the wrong amount of protein and fat, you’re going to have issues. But if you know some basic guidelines around carbs, including what kinds to eat, how much of them, and when, it can make a world of difference in your life and your climbing. These changes can literally happen overnight, so listen carefully to this episode and try to make some tweaks to your diet for some potentially big changes. This is a recording taken from a 5-day nutrition challenge I did last year 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). 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. You can find more information about my services and the program at www.trainingbeta.com/nutrition. You’re welcome to email me at neely@trainingbeta.com if you have any questions at all.   Episode Details Common symptoms of low and high carbs in my clients.  The right kinds of carbs help stabilize blood sugar, which keeps your energy levels up for longer.  What about vegetables? Sugar consumption guidelines Sample meals afternoon fatigue Low energy for workouts Poor recovery the next day (especially after big day outside) Sugar cravings Food obsession Always hungry Snacking a lot at night Poor sleep Things I see happen when people don’t eat enough carbs or too many, especially in the morning   Show Links Work with me one-on-one or do my self-paced program

TBP 183 :: How to Break Into 5.13 with Alex Stiger

How to Break Into 5.13 with Alex Stiger In the episode, Coach Alex and I tackled the topic of breaking into 5.13 and what you need to do physically and mentally to do it. We both share our experiences of our first 5.13’s, which were quite different actually, and our processes of projecting things that are hard for us. We talk about how to turn the try-hard switch on and off on hard routes, and how to stay focused and calm enough to not overgrip and get super pumped. We also talk about resting tactics, and how important it is to be able to rest on hard routes, whether it’s on the route, between burns, or the days leading up to getting on your project. Alex even shares some resting drills to use to practice at the gym. We discuss how your training needs to change from generalized strength and technique to more route-specific technique and strength building. And how to do that in the gym. I talk a little bit about proper nutrition on projecting days (and the days leading up to them) and Alex shares her story of how I helped her tweak her diet to make her projecting days more productive. We also discuss advanced techniques like heel hooks and knee bars, as well as some mental tricks for avoiding overwhelm on big projects. I loved this conversation with Alex, and whether you’re breaking into 5.12+, 13- or 5.13, the tips in here should help you.     Episode Details Our first 5.13a’s and how hard they felt for us, mentally and physically Our processes for projecting hard things How to turn the try-hard switch on and off on routes Resting tactics and drills Why skipping clips is not always the answer to being pumped Transitioning from general training to specific technique building Nutrition for big projects Avoiding overwhelm on a daunting project How many tries is too many tries Why it’s ok to not get to the top on your first tries   Show Links Work with Alex as your coach Join Alex’s next Team Program Work on your nutrition with Neely Have questions? Email alex@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.

TBP 182 :: How He Climbs Outside 4 Days a Week With a Demanding Job

TBP 182 :: How Brian Lichtenheld Climbs Outside 4 Days a Week With a Demanding Job Brian Lichtenheld is one of my close friends and one of my favorite climbing partners. I asked him to be on the show because I don’t know another non-professional climber who is more psyched on climbing, and I wanted to share his infectious positive attitude with you. No matter what season it is, Brian climbs outside a LOT. During the spring, summer, and fall, he’s basically outside 4 days per week, and that is on top of having a very demanding 50 hour-a-week job as a Certified Financial Planner. He’s also devoted to spending quality time with his girlfriend, as well as having regular volunteer commitments, among other interests. Despite having time commitments and life stressors like the rest of us, Brian just makes it work all the time, rain or shine, and I’m constantly inspired by him. In our conversation, we talk about why climbing is so important to him and how he manages his schedule to accommodate everything. We talk about his level-headed approach to long-term projects and how he never tosses wobblers or seemingly ever even gets upset when he fails. Over the years, Brian has only gotten stronger and better at climbing, and at the age of 36 he has climbed 182 routes between 5.13a and 5.14a. He’s a solid climber, and we can all learn something from him about making it work, no matter what. Brian Lichtenheld Interview Details Who Brian is: his work, other activities, relationships, volunteering How he climbs 4 days a week outside How he balances his relationship with his girlfriend with climbing (she’s not a climber) How he injects his core value of sustainability into his job as a certified financial planner How he structures his days to fit it all in What he loves about climbing soooo much What he’s learned about his vegan diet and recovery/fueling How resting more actually helped him What training he does and how he fits it in Show Links Brian’s Instagram Brian’s 8a.nu scorecard Brian’s work bio Our training programs   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.    

TBP 181 :: Understanding and Assessing Your Injuries with Dr. Evan Ingerson

Understanding and Assessing Your Injuries with Dr. Evan Ingerson Dr. Evan Ingerson is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Board Certified in Orthopedics who works at his practice Mend in Colorado. Evan is a physical therapist who specializes in treating rock climbers. He uses the most up-to-date evidence in his practice to get climbers out of pain faster. Evan works to identify the underlying cause of the problem and uses a combination of manual therapy and advanced exercises to return climbers to the wall better than they were before. He treats climbers at all levels, from beginners to international competitors and has the experience and equipment to create high level exercise programs specifically catered to the unique challenges of rock climbing. In addition to being a board-certified specialist in orthopedics, Evan is a lifelong climber and 10-time national competitor. Evan is also one of Coach Alex Stiger’s physical therapists, and she recognized that his cutting edge approach to injuries was something she wanted the TrainingBeta community to be exposed to. So she interviewed Evan all about how to assess and understand your injuries as a rock climber so you don’t feel lost when you have one. In this interview, she and Dr. Ingerson discuss how to know when to go to a doctor, a surgeon, the ER, a PT, an acupuncturist, or some other specialist. They also delve into the contentious topic of whether or not to ice an injury, and so much more… Even if you don’t have an injury right now, this interview will help you figure out a plan if you ever do get injured.   Climbing Injury Interview Details What to do immediately following an injury When to get an x-ray or other imaging When to use a brace When to do dry needling, and what that is When to get spinal manipulations/adjustments How to choose a medical professional to help with sport specific injuries When to consult with a surgeon Managing low-level injuries on a climbing trip     Show Links Work with Evan at his clinic Mend Evan’s article on TrainingBeta about the posterior chain  Work with Alex as your coach Gymnastic Rings Workshop for Climbers   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.

TBP 180: Grades - How to Keep Your Ego in Check with Matt Pincus

About Matt Pincus Matt is a boulderer and a sport climber based out of Wyoming. He splits his time between training at home in Jackson and traveling to pursue his climbing goals around the world. Matt is also a coach at TrainingBeta and he’s been seeing clients from around the world since 2017. He’s currently taking 4 new clients, so if you’d like to work with him, you can sign up here. Matt created our Bouldering Training Program, which is a non-linear plan that will help you gain strength, power, skills, and work capacity. There’s also a maintenance block worked into the program so you can continue to train lightly during your performance phases. Learn More about the Bouldering Program Here   Grades – How to Keep Your Ego in Check and Use Them to Your Advantage In the episode, Coach Matt Pincus and I wax philosophical about climbing grades. This is a ubiquitous topic that all climbers discuss, and a topic that can derail a climbing day or motivate the heck out of a climber. We go over why there is so much discrepancy in grades between different crags and bouldering areas around the world, as well as within climbing gyms. And we talk about why ultimately it doesn’t matter what something is graded – it’s about what a climb can teach you. But there are some grievances aired and some pleas for certain behaviors to change when it comes to discussions of grades. This conversation definitely included some coaching tidbits from Matt on how to approach grades, but we also just kind of… talked. I hope this helps you get your thoughts on grades more crystal clear so you can more easily move through any discomfort about grades (“This climb is WAY harder than what the grade says!” or “Why can’t I do this – this grade is usually easy for me?” or “That can’t possibly be that hard of a grade – I did it so easily…”). Enjoy!   Episode Details The subjective nature of grades around the world Importance of taking grades with a grain of salt Why things are graded the way they are, and why some areas are stouter than others Particularly why Rifle has an abundance of hard 13d’s How to think of a route that’s hard for the grade as a personal challenge rather than a punch to the gut How I deal with the “unfairness” of being short The importance of climbing style and perception of difficulty Remembering that it really just doesn’t matter   Show Links Bouldering Program (Levels 1-3) to help you work your way up the grades Work with Matt as your coach Work with Neely as your nutritionist Have topics you want us to cover? Email matt@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.   Photo Credit Photo of Matt Pincus on The Plastic Shaman 5.14a by Liz Rasnick @escharas21

TBP 179 :: How Small Changes to Her Diet Led to Big Changes in Her Climbing

I’m Taking New Nutrition Clients I’m currently taking on 5 new nutrition clients, so if you’re looking for help on optimizing your diet for climbing, or you have some other health issues you’d like help with, I’m here for you! You can find out more about my nutrition offerings here. About Laura Schmidt My original idea for this podcast was to have a former nutrition client on the show to do a refresher session with them. I thought I’d show you how I work with clients and let you learn from their situation and how I worked with them. When my former client Laura Schmidt responded to my call for potential interviewees, she said she’d love to be on the show and that things were going really well for her. But I had no idea how well they were going until this interview happened. She basically had a life transformation since working with me a year ago, and it had a lot to do with her willingness to fully embrace the suggestions I made for her diet, sleep, and exercise habits. In the episode, Laura Schmidt talks about the changes she made to her diet and lifestyle since we worked together and how they improved her energy levels, her climbing, and her quality of life. We worked together for one month, and when I first met her, she had a food aversion, meaning she really didn’t enjoy eating, and she had some disordered eating behaviors. Her energy was very low most of the time, and she had a hard time getting through workouts or climbing days without feeling totally exhausted during and after her sessions. She was underweight and not where she wanted to be with her climbing. Through working together, I made suggestions to make her meals more palatable, encouraged her to eat 3 full meals per day instead of snacking all the time, and I gave her some solid recommendations for calorie and macro amounts to help stabilize her energy. In this conversation we talk about the changes she made, what it meant for her lifestyle to make those changes, and how they affected her health and well-being. Her energy is much better, she’s climbing harder, her mood is better, and she has a much better relationship with food now. Honestly, Laura’s eating was pretty similar to what I see most of my clients doing when we first start working together. Don’t feel like you won’t be able to relate with Laura because she has an aversion to food; she was forcing herself to eat, and it was the same types of things (and at the same times of day) that most people do, so these changes I suggested to her will likely apply to you, too. She is so passionate about this topic now because she feels so much better. We discussed in detail the changes she made, talked about how she fuels now for climbing days, and how all of this affected her relationship with her daughter and her daughter’s relationship with food. I’m so excited for this episode to be out in the world because it just shows you how incredibly powerful small changes to your diet can be. I hope you enjoy it! Laura Schmidt Episode Details Her aversion to food How she overcame a plateau in her climbing through food She was “on paper” doing all the right things, but it wasn’t working So tired she couldn’t train or climb really Doctors couldn’t help her Her thoughts on caffeine now and before we worked together What happened with her body image through this transformation How she has energy to have passions now How her energy increased so much A diet log analysis to help her make things even better Show Links Work with me on your nutrition Laura's Instagram: @girlmeetsjoy   Please Review The Podcast on iTunes Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.