The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

TBP 251: Climbing Drills for Beginner to Elite Climbers with Matt Pincus

Coach Matt Pincus uses climbing drills in his coaching (and his own climbing) all the time. He also put them into every single training session in the Performance Training Programs he built for TrainingBeta. But what do you imagine when you think of climbing drills? Maybe practicing heel hooks or drop knees? Perhaps you imagine practicing dynamic moves or campusing?
Or maybe you have no idea what a climbing drill is or why you would do one. That’s what this episode is for. In every other sport, there are drills: basketball, soccer, baseball, horseback riding. Heck, in every HOBBY there are drills: piano, singing, chess, etc. – all in the name of getting better at the activity and making certain movements or thought patterns second nature. But in climbing we sort of gloss over that, opting to just have fun and climb instead.
In this episode, Matt is going to talk about some of the drills he uses in his coaching, why he uses them, why it’s so important to practice them regularly, how to incorporate them into your climbing, and how even the most elite of climbers benefit from doing drills.
More Details:
Why Drills?
Elements of Deliberate Practice
Being Intentional
Appropriate Difficulty
Getting Feedback
Willingness to Struggle
Willing to Struggle
Examples of Drills
Contrast Warmup + One-Leg Climbing
Memorization Drills
Pacing Drills: Attack and Defend and Sprint Laps
Common Pitfalls and Questions
I hope this helps you gain more mastery in your climbing – this info has definitely helped Matt, his clients, and the community in our Performance Training Programs.
Show Links
Performance Bouldering Training Program ($18/mo with a 7-day free trial)
Performance Route Climbing Training Program ($18/mo with 7-day free trial)
Train with Coach Matt Pincus
Train with Matt Pincus
If you want Matt to help you with your own goals, whether they’re with bouldering or route climbing, he’s available for month-long commitments where he’ll talk with you over zoom and create a program for you and keep in touch with you via the TrueCoach app throughout the month.
He’ll help you get stronger and he’ll cater to your specific goals so that the timing is right for you to send when it’s time to send.
Learn More about Working with Matt

TBP 250 :: How to Stop Your Sugar Cravings Once and For All

In this short episode, I talk about the incredible sugar cravings I used to have that would lead to regular binges and how I stopped them. I talk about what this taught me as a nutritionist and how I've honed that knowledge into a way of eating that decreases sugar cravings by a LOT.  I'll go over what things to change about what you're eating, when you're eating, and why it's important to make these changes.
Today's episode is actually a reading of an email that I put out today to my email list. I'm doing a 5-day deep-dive into nutrition this week with my email list, and if you'd like to join that list you can do that here. 
Join the Email List for Regular Training, Nutrition, and Mindset Content
I'm also doing a flash sale of 40% off of my Nourish program, which is an online video program that takes you through the process of working with me as a nutrition client and educates you on deep learning topics. 
You'll learn:
How much you need to be eating at meals and snacks
When you should be eating during the day to optimize energy levels, performance, and recovery
How many grams of protein, carbs, fat, and sugar you should be consuming every day and every meal
Nutrition 101 on macros, calories, etc
Primer on how to deal with emotional eating
What to eat out at the crag
Which supplements to take, if any
Meal plans for many different caloric needs 
Use Code "Save40" at Checkout for 40% Off Program Until Sunday the 29th

TBP 249 :: How to Break into 5.11 Climbing with Coach Alex Stiger

In this episode, I talk with Coach Alex Stiger about the most common mistakes made by climbers who are trying to break into 5.11 climbing. 5.10 climbers make up the bulk of Alex’s clientele, so her experience with this group is vast. In this episode she outlines the most important things you need to do in your climbing and training to reliably climb 5.11’s.
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 5.10 who can not climb 5.11 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:
How to practice technique and skills
Which technique and skill drills to do
How to practice staying composed while climbing
Honing the skill of resting
How to decrease intimidation of the grade
How to learn from your falling experiences
How to structure your climbing days and weeks to reach this goal
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 level or below, or if you’re just not consistently climbing 5.11’s and you’d like to. Even if you are climbing 5.11’s consistently, I think a lot of her tactics will help you!
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic in a really immersive way, check out the 5.11 Breakthrough Course coming up January 16th.

TBP 248: Climbing Trip Types and Their Pros and Cons (Projecting vs. Just Having Fun)

Last month, I went on a climbing trip where I just let myself do whatever I wanted, whether it was toproping 5.11’s or taking big whips on 5.13a’s, onsighting runout 5.12’s or toproping 5.12+’s. I did what my heart told me it wanted to do and I almost never felt stressed while climbing. It was the epitome of fun, and it was very different than my normal approach to climbing trips where I pick an objective and focus on it for the trip.
In contrast, last month Alex Stiger went on a trip where she picked a project and focused on it her whole trip. In fact, including her warm-ups every day, she only climbed on 3 routes the entire time she was in the Red River Gorge for I think a 10-day trip.
Both of us walked away feeling like we’d had great trips and wouldn’t change anything about them. We both had fun, we both stayed true to our goals, and we both felt accomplished at the end.
In this episode, Alex Stiger, Matt Pincus, and I discuss the pros and cons of each of these kinds of trips as well as a different kind of trip where you’d pick a goal other than sending one route, but the trip would be goal-oriented nonetheless. Perhaps you’d try to do a certain number of a certain grade, or onsight a certain grade.
We talk about different trips we’ve gone on and what we learned from each, how each left us feeling at the end, and why Alex and I chose to have the trips we just did. This is a bit of a meandering discussion between climbers who are also friends. There’s no real “training” advice in here – just a lot of insight into how each of us operates, where we are in our lives regarding climbing, and how we try to make our experiences as positive as possible.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did 🙂

TBP 247 :: How to Train and Prepare for a Trip to Hueco

Are you preparing for a trip to Hueco Tanks? Whether that trip is coming up in a month or sometime in your future dreams, this episode will help you know what to train, how long in advance to train, and what other preparations you can make to have a successful trip to this magical sandstone bouldering area.
In this episode, we talked about the following:
Who this episode is for
Minimum amount of time you need to prepare for a bouldering trip
Challenge of talking about this in general terms
What Matt is focusing on now in preparation for his trip to Hueco in January
Hard projecting or lots of boulders on your trip?
How to prepare for a more grueling climbing schedule on a trip
How to train in the gym for Hueco
Injury prevention for Hueco specifically
Training for stand-out or extreme holds/body positions
Matt’s training schedule every week until his trip
Matt will be doing a couple more episodes on specific climbing areas to help you have a successful trip. Most likely he’ll be talking about the Red River Gorge and Wild Iris, but let us know if you have suggestions!
Show Links
Performance Bouldering Training Program ($18/mo with a 7-day free trial)
Performance Route Climbing Training Subscription Program ($18/mo with 7-day free trial)
Train with Coach Matt Pincus
 
Try the Performance Route Climbing Training Subscription Program
If you want Matt to help you with your route climbing goals, he created an extensively detailed route training program that will help you gain strength, endurance, and work capacity so you can climb harder routes, get less pumped, and have more deliberate training sessions. There are 3 levels of the program with 50 days of training in each of them – that’s 3-6 months of training written out for you step by step.
The program is $18 per month and you can try it out for free for 7 days and cancel any time.
Learn More about the Performance Route Training Program 

TBP 246: Nutrition Session with Climber to Improve Recovery and Performance (It Worked!)

In this episode I do a full nutrition session with a climber who has been struggling with poor recovery from climbing and training. I go through his diet log, ask him a bunch of questions to help me understand his situation, and give him really concrete suggestions to change small things about his diet. We then did a follow-up session at the end where he talks about how the changes helped his climbing (spoiler alert: he had some amazing success due to the diet changes!)
Alex Aguilar is a 28-year-old male climber from Keystone, Colorado, who was climbing every weekend outside in Rifle, Colorado. He was also training in the gym during the week. He was experiencing a lot of fatigue and muscle soreness and just not feeling great during his climbing sessions, so he wanted to see if nutrition could help him.
If you or anyone you know has similar issues (it’s common – it’s ok!), please listen to this episode because I really go in-depth with him and the changes we make to his diet are basically imperceptible. They are not difficult things to do, which is how I like to do things because it’s easy, sustainable, and doable. Here’s what Alex emailed me a few weeks after this session took place, and we’ll talk all about his results at the end of this episode.
Just wanted to send a follow up to our consult from a few weeks back. I have been feeling amazing! Recovering well from sessions, sleeping better, and have even skipped the coffee on a few mornings which is a rarity for me.
On top of that I made really quick progress on some limit routes for me and had my hardest flash in rifle this season. I have felt energized and ready to perform all day on my outdoor days.
It’s been so awesome feeling this good for the start of my fall season.
Thanks again,
Alex Aguilar  
I hope you enjoy this episode!

TBP 245: Five Principles of Climbing Trip Prep with Matt Pincus

Are you planning a climbing trip sometime this winter? Next spring? Any time in the future? Are you wondering what to do to prepare for that trip, whether it’s a month-long European extravaganza or a 5-day trip to Wild Iris? Well, Matt Pincus works with his coaching clients on this all the time, and he’s successfully prepared for many climbing trips himself.
So in this episode, Matt is going to lay out the main principles of preparing for a trip (training, mental prep, etc). He made a handy dandy outline for the episode, so I’m just going to copy and paste it here for you. This is everything we talked about in this episode.
Matt will be doing a few more episodes on specific climbing areas to help you have a successful trip. Most likely he’ll be talking about Hueco Tanks, the Red River Gorge, and Wild Iris to start.
Outline of Episode
Start with broader thinking/considerations and zoom in
Where are you in your year?
Are you fit and in season or will you be coming off a training block?
Is this a period of transition?
Changing climbing styles: i.e. sport to bouldering
Indoors to outdoors
What kind of trip are you going on?
Onsighting vs redpointing? Quick sends/volume vs projecting? 
Are you trying to break into a new grade/climb at your limit or climb a lot of different routes/boulders at a lower intensity and experience a lot of a new area/areas?
How long is the trip and what is your planned climbing schedule?
1 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off, ect?
What your planned climbing schedule is should be reflected in your training. 
A long trip where you can climb yourself into form versus one where you need to hit the ground running?
Area-specific characteristics
Injury concerns with a climbing style – what do I need to work on to ensure I stay healthy? 
Climbing area characteristics: this is where most people start
General angle
Common length of routes/boulders
Predominant hold type
Specific goal climbs 
Do you have a singular or couple of main climbs in mind? If not, that’s ok and stay general.
Stand out or extreme holds/positions?
Time under tension demands?
 
Show Links
Performance Route Climbing Training Subscription Program ($18/mo with 7 day free trial)
Train with Coach Matt Pincus
I’m taking new life coaching clients
 
Try the Performance Route Climbing Training Subscription Program
If you want Matt to help you with your route climbing goals, he created an extensively detailed route training program that will help you gain strength, endurance, and work capacity so you can climb harder routes, get less pumped, and have more deliberate training sessions. There are 3 levels of the program with 50 days of training in each of them – that’s 3-6 months of training written out for you step by step.
The program is $18 per month and you can try it out for free for 7 days and cancel any time.
Learn More about the Performance Route Training Program 

TBP 244: Training Guidelines while Projecting Outside

Even when we’re climbing outside a bunch on projects, for many people there’s still a lingering question about what we should be doing in the gym to stay strong, powerful, and have everything we need to send those projects.
How much should you be climbing outside of your project? How much should you be training fingers, weight lifting, doing core, etc. when you’re climbing outside 2-3 days a week?
In this episode, Coach Alex Stiger talks us through the ins and outs of this and we go over some sample situations of different kinds of climbers’ schedules. This one will really help you prioritize what to work on, when to work on it, and when to stop training altogether.
Show Links
Learn More about the Climbing Video Analysis Workshop
Work with Alex as your coach
Have questions? Email alex@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com
 
Climbing Video Analysis Workshop
Coach Alex is hosting a Video Analysis Workshop on October 17th, 2023 where she’ll analyze 5-10 people’s video footage of them climbing on their projects and explain the main things to look for when looking at your own videos.
Video Analysis Workshop Details
Date: Tuesday, October 17th
Time: 6-8pm Mountain Daylight Time
Where: Zoom (link sent immediately after purchase)
Cost: $39
What: 2 hours of video analysis of participants + pro tips
Ongoing Support: 2 weeks of video analysis in Slack channel by Alex
Recorded: You don’t have to be there live because it’ll be recorded!
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE VIDEO ANALYSIS WORKSHOP
 
 

TBP 243 :: How Alex Stiger Sent Her First 5.14a (8b+) over 5 Years

In this episode, I talk with Coach Alex Stiger about her recent send of Homunculus 5.14a (8b+) in Rifle Mountain Park, Colorado. I’m SO excited for her as this has been a 4+ year siege for her with lots of ups and downs. Alex went through 3 pretty serious injuries on this route, was thwarted by fires and floods, and yet she stuck with it with a positive attitude almost the entire time.
Having been on the route over 100 times, this is a story of determination, tenacity, and grit. She learned SO much over the course of her journey on this route, and she’s going to to tell us all about what those learnings were and why this project was so important to her to complete.
Work with Alex as your coach
Have questions? Email alex@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com
Alex Is Taking New Clients
Now that Alex has sent her long-term project, she has some unexpected openings in her schedule to take on new climbing coaching clients. The options to work with her include the following:
Initial Coaching Call – A 2-hour Zoom call to talk in depth about what you need to do in your climbing, training, and mindset to reach your goals and become a better climber overall. Alex will provide 1-2 weeks of sample programming for you, and you can talk about next steps in your training with her.
3-Month Coaching Deep Dive – A 2-hour initial zoom call, then 60-minute follow-up calls every 2 weeks, access to 3 of Alex’s workshops or courses, full training program for the 3 months, and anytime Q&A with Alex.
1-Hour Coaching Call – Chat with Alex about your situation, training equipment, and goals to learn what you need to do moving forward to reach those goals.
If you’re ready to take your climbing to the next level with an experienced, seasoned coach, click the link below.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WORKING WITH ALEX

TBP 242: Alannah Yip on Her Training & Climbing’s Weight Problem

I LOVE watching climbing competitions. We have regular watch parties with our friends, and I’ve always loved Alannah Yip’s commentating. She’s also an incredible athlete to watch – so powerful and smooth. When I saw her Instagram post recently about wanting the IFSC to have more stringent regulations on climbers’ health and weight in order to be able to compete, I knew I wanted to have her on the podcast.
Weight and health monitoring among our top athletes in climbing is something I’m passionate about, and I think this topic is incredibly important to be talking about and taking action on. It’s easy for climbers to go down the rabbit hole of “lighter is better” and end up with an eating disorder and RED-s (relative energy deficiency in sport), which can lead to low bone density, hormonal imbalances, loss of menstruation, infertility, digestive issues, and more.
It’s a big deal and I was glad to see such a prominent person in the climbing community speaking up about it, as have several others including Janja Garnbret recently.
Here’s Alannah’s Instagram post about it.
We also talked about Alannah’s personal struggle with an eating disorder at a young age, her training, her mental game and how she’s had to work really hard on it since the Olympics. We talk about what the Olympics meant to her and how she’s trying to qualify for them again in 2024, and how she’s planning to retire from comp climbing after that.
This was a really engaging interview with an incredibly thoughtful and intelligent person. I loved it and I hope you do, too.
 
Show Links
Alannah Yip’s Instagram: @alannah_yip
Performance Route Climbing Training Subscription Program ($18/mo with 7-day free trial)
Performance Bouldering Training Program – ($18/mo with 7-day free trial)
Personal Coaching with One of Our Coaches
I’m taking new life coaching clients
 
Try the Performance Route Climbing Training Subscription Program
If you want help with your route climbing goals, Matt Pincus created an extensively detailed route training program that will help you gain strength, endurance, and work capacity so you can climb harder routes, get less pumped, and have more deliberate training sessions. There are 3 levels of the program with 50 days of training in each of them – that’s 3-6 months of training written out for you step by step.
The program is $18 per month and you can try it out for free for 7 days and cancel any time.
Learn More about the Performance Route Training Program 
 
Photo Credit
Los Angeles (USA), February 29: Alannah YIP of Canada competes in the women’s Combined finals at the Sender One Climbing Gym during the 2020 IFSC Pan American Championships in Los Angeles (USA).
© 2020 Daniel Gajda/IFSC.