The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

TBP 263: From 5.13 Big Walls to 5.14c Sport - Bronwyn Hodgins' Training

Bronwyn Hodgins is a 31-year-old Squamish-based professional climber and climbing guide whose main focus until recently was big wall and crack climbing. In 2022 she sent Necronomicon (5.13d/14a), which is one of the hardest roof cracks in the world. Before that send, she had climbed up to 5.13d sport and 5.13c trad.
In the summer of 2022, Hodgins and a team (including her husband, Jacob Cook) made a film about an expedition where they spent 65 days putting up many first ascents in Greenland, traveling between climbs via sea kayak. In fact, she’s made a lot of films and you can find them all here.
Needless to say, she is an accomplished, well-rounded climber and adventurer and I have a lot of respect for that. When I read about her recent ascent of La Rubia (5.14c / 8c+) in Villanueva del Rosario, Spain, I was intrigued. How did a big waller who’d climbed just one 5.14a sport route sent a long, burly 14c in Spain? So I asked her to be on the show to talk about her training and preparation for the route.
Turns out it’s a great story and she has a lot of wisdom to offer us.
Bronwyn Hodgins Interview Details
Her climbing story – how she became a pro climber
Big wall experience
Crack climbing training
How she got shut down hard on La Rubia and then trained for a year to send it
Visualization on projects
Managing fear of falling
The festival for women and gender expansive people she’s putting on in July
How running mid distance for so long prepared her for route climbing
Bonus Content on Patreon
redpointing tactics on outdoor routes
her diet
what her lifestyle and finances are like as a pro climber
sexism in climbing and guiding
Support the show and get all of the bonus episodes plus nutrition and mindset training at www.patreon.com/trainingbeta
 
 

[Replay!] TBP 262: Alex Stiger Tells You How to Break into 5.12 Climbing

This is a replay of an episode that originally aired in January, 2023. I talk with Coach Alex Stiger about the most common mistakes amde by climbers who are trying to break into 5.12 climbing. Sending 5.12 is the most common goal among her clients, so she has quite a bit of experience with the minutiae of what it takes to do that.
She will share her personal experience of her first 5.12’s and what she learned from her trials and tribulations. She’ll then go into the mindset shifts that are required to jump into the coveted 5.12 territory, and how she helps people do that.
While you might predict that strength training is one of the main tools Alex uses with her clients in this situation, it is not, as she says it is very rare to find a person who is climbing 5.11 who can not climb 5.12 with the strength they already have.
So while we spend a few minutes talking about strength training, you’ll find compelling evidence in this episode that that may not be your issue. Here are some of the other topics we discuss:
Why technique and staying calm are so important
Honing the skill of resting
How to decrease intimidation of the grade
How to learn from your falling experiences
How to have more of a competition mindset
What to climb on in the gym if you’re trying to send 5.12
A better alternative to having a perfect pyramid before entering into 5.12 territory
Why repeating climbs that are sort of hard for you is an important strategy
We talk about a lot in this episode, and I highly recommend it if you’re at the 5.10 or 5.11 level, or if you’re just not consistently climbing 5.12’s and you’d like to. Even if you are climbing 5.12’s consistently, I think a lot of her tactics will help you!
Show Links
Get the 5.12 Breakthrough Series AND the Steep Climbing Workshop for 30% Off
Work with Alex as your coach
Have questions? Email alex@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com

TBP 261: Ben Hanna's Training and Mindset for Competitions and Sending 5.15a

Ben Hanna is a 25-year-old professional climber originally from New Mexico. He climbs hard sport routes outside and he’s active in competition climbing. He started climbing at the age of 10 and quickly gained notoriety as a youth competitor. He’s gone on to podium at 2 national championships and climb 5.15a. I wanted to talk to Ben about how he trains, what his competition mindset strategies are, and what it’s like to be a professional, full-time climber.
He goes into detail about his “early life crisis” when he decided to put his faith in a coach to help him really level up his climbing abilities. It worked, and we go into exactly what he did during that long training phase and how it changed his body.
We also talk about the mindset tools he uses, the books he reads on the subject, and how he implements having a growth mindset and having a different definition of success than just winning and sending.
Bonus Content on Patreon
redpointing tactics on outdoor routes
his diet
honest conversation about his weight management tactics and my thoughts on that
You can find all of that bonus content and the uncut, ad-free video episode without intro or outro on my Patreon page.
GET THE AD-FREE INTERVIEW AND BONUS CONTENT

TBP 260: Short Climbers - How to Feel Less Frustrated about Your Height

In this episode, I talk about how I've worked through my negative feelings about being a short climber. I used to care a lot about not being acknowledged for things I thought were harder for me as a short climber, and I used to feel envious of taller climbers' long reach.
But having done the kind of work I will guide you through in this episode, most of the time I honestly don't care anymore what other climbers are doing or how hard something feels for me as a short climber.
This episode will give you a roadmap to look at your own feelings, values, and thoughts about the situation so that you can enjoy climbing for what it is to YOU - not how it compares with someone else's experience.
Get more mindset and nutrition coaching advice like this on my patreon: www.patreon.com/trainingbeta
 

TBP 259: Sleep Researcher Aric Prather's Tips to Sleep Better and Longer

Author, psychologist, researcher, and clinician Aric Prather, PhD  talks about the practical advice he wrote about in his book The Sleep Prescription: 7 Days to Your Best Rest and the work he does in his sleep clinic. In this interview he offers clear steps to help you sleep better so you can feel more recovered, energetic, and calm in life and in climbing. 
Things people do to help them sleep that actually undermine sleep
How to use cognitive behavioral therapy to sleep
How to properly wind down before sleep
Thoughts on drugs and supplements for sleep
Using sleep diary
Importance of standardized wake-up time
Using sleep deprivation to increase “sleep drive” to eventually improve sleep
How to deal with rumination that keeps you awake
Bonus Content on Patreon
There’s some bonus content from this episode on Patreon.
what he thinks of the drug I was on (mirtazapine) for sleep and histamine use for sleep
why my alphabet game puts me to sleep most of the time
some thoughts on biomarker testing to figure out why you’re not sleeping
why nightly wake-ups might not be so abnormal.
You can find that bonus content and the uncut, ad-free episode without intro or outro on my Patreon page. 
Help support the show and get nutrition and mindset coaching on Patreon. 

TBP 258: Training and Climbing for People with Full-Time Jobs

I talked with coaches Alex Stiger and Matt Pincus about how they coach their clients to make the best use of their time outside of work to train and climb. And I talk about how to eat well throughout every day to fuel yourself for climbing and training, regardless of what your busy schedule looks like.
We looked at three case studies:
The 9-5 employee
Shift workers (health care workers, etc)
Parent who may or may not have a job
Things We Covered
How to fit training in even on work days for a shift worker
What to do on days off after shift work stint is over
Nutrition tips for shift workers
Should 9-5’ers focus on bouldering to make the most of their time?
How often to be training and climbing
Making sure to vary sessions
Different climbing/training schedules for weekend warriors
How to avoid overtraining
Importance of having a plan B if you’re a parent
Usefulness of home walls for parents
Bonus Content on Patreon
Patreon Bonus Content
There’s some bonus content at the end of this episode about:
Having FOMO when we see pros’ training plans on social media
How to know what’s right for YOU
Minimum effective dosage of hanging and weight lifting
How my climbing training has evolved to be almost completely on-the-wall and why that’s still considered “training”
What is “training” exactly?
You can find that bonus content and the uncut, ad-free episode without intro or outro on my Patreon page.
GET THE RAW INTERVIEW AND BONUS CONTENT

The Nugget Climbing Podcast: Neely Quinn on How to Find Contentment in Climbing, Banish Shame, and Climb Harder Than Ever

This is a repost of the interview Steven Dimmitt did with me on episode 214 of The Nugget Climbing Podcast. In it, I talk about how mindset coaching massively improved my climbing and my life, why I got into coaching, and we do some coaching on Steven throughout the interview. Thank you to Steven for having me on the show again. I always love talking to him :) 
After the interview, we did some bonus questions from his patrons about nutrition, coaching, and the business side of things. We get into it about being entrepreneurs and what it's really like for me/us as business owners, and you can find that plus the uncut video of this interview on the TrainingBeta Patreon. 

TBP 257: Finger Endurance Training Advancements with Tyler Nelson

In this episode, Dr. Tyler Nelson talks about some advancements in training finger endurance that he's discovered with his patients and in the research. He describes in detail how we can be more efficient with our finger training to get the most out of our sessions.
More Details
Continuation of our last episode on finger endurance
Difference between passive and active grip in finger training
What a protocol using this new info looks like
Research backing it up
His thoughts on the no-hang protocol
Why he sees pulley cysts all the time in his injured patients
Get Bonus Content on Patreon
Tyler was kind enough to provide me with 5 videos from his upcoming course on Upper Extremity Testing for the TrainingBeta Patreon page. In these videos, he clearly demonstrates how to do these 5 tests on your fingers using a Tindeq:
5-second Hang
Aerobic Capacity
Anaerobic Capacity
Anaerobic Power
Finger Max Curl Test
Watch those videos and all the other podcast bonuses by signing up for a free 7-day trial on Patreon.
 

TBP 256: Climbing Nutrition Questions Answered by Shaina Savoy and Neely

Shaina Savoy is a 30-year-old climber who lives in Las Vegas who also happens to be a very good friend of mine AND TrainingBeta's social media manager. I've known her for years, and have watched her evolve into an amazingly strong 5.13+ climber who has a strong passion for nutrition. She recently finished a program at NTI to become a Nutrition Therapist Master and is now seeing nutrition clients.
I'm an Integrative Clinical Nutrition Therapist and have been seeing nutrition clients since 2007. I've been working almost exclusively with climbers on their nutrition since 2013 and I have an online nutrition program for climbers. 
Shaina and I answered a bunch of questions we received from our Instagram audience about nutrition for climbers.
Questions We Answered
Some general indications for water consumption?
What is the best advice that climbing coaches can give youth athletes?
When to diet & drop fat?
Plant based nutrition for climbing
Supplements!
Favorite crag candy
Is it common to be more injury prone when dieting?
Nutrition tips for waking up in the middle of the night
Nutrition for aging climbers and injury prevention
Most accurate way to determine daily caloric needs?
Thoughts on sugar, specifically foods with added sugar?
Advice for people with history of disordered eating who want to be lean
Bonus Content on Patreon

TBP 255: Emily Harrington, Paige Claassen, and Angie Payne on Motherhood & Climbing

I sat down with current (and past) professional climbers Emily Harrington, Paige Claassen, and Angie Payne to talk about how becoming mothers in the past couple years has changed their lives as climbers. 
Emily Harrington is known for her hard sport ascents (up to 5.14b or 8c), her one-day ascent of El Cap, her ascents of Everest and other big peaks, and her epic skiing accomplishments. 
Paige Claassen is known for her hard sport ascents (up to 5.14d or 9a) and her recent ascent (post baby) of a V14/5.14d in Rocklands. 
Angela Payne is known for her accolades as a competition climber in the 2000's and the fact that she was the first woman to send V13. 
But beyond that, they're really incredible, dynamic, intelligent people who grew up together. Their close relationship and the fact that they all became mothers at around the same time is part of why I asked them to be on the show all together as more of a friendly conversation between old friends.
I wanted to give the world more of an in-depth picture of these elite climbers' lives than we see on social media. 
What We Talked About
How they all love being a mom even more than they thought they would
How being a mom has changed their climbing
What's been harder about motherhood than they thought it would be
Any long-lasting physical changes they've experienced, and how that's affected their climbing
Where they are now in their climbing compared with pre-baby
Some interesting comments they got on social media throughout pregnancy and motherhood
Some awkward comments they got in person about their bodies, etc
How they've been affected mentally in their climbing by having a child 
Whether or not they think their best days of climbing are still ahead of them
Bonus content on Patreon
There's some bonus content at the end of this episode about how they would've liked to have been talked to by strangers and friends during pregnancy and afterward, whether they want more kids, and how their sponsors responded to their pregnancy. You can find that bonus content and the uncut, ad-free episode without intro or outro on my Patreon page.
I hope you love this conversation as much as I did! It's not only for mothers, but for anyone who wants to understand motherhood through elite climbers' eyes.