The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

TBP 254 :: Kelly Birch on Training, Nutrition, and Mindset to Climb V14

Kelly Birch is a 29-year-old climber living in Boulder, Colorado who sent her first V14 last fall. She has many, many double digit boulders under her belt.
She is an incredible climber and has been really vocal on her Instagram about using weight training in her climbing training. She actually competed in power lifting for a while when she took a 5-year break from climbing after getting burnt out on competition climbing as a youth.
We talk in depth about the following:
her training program
how and why she incorporates heavy weight lifting into her program
what she thinks are the most important things to focus on when training for bouldering.
how she manages her schedule with a full-time job
how she fuels nutritionally for climbing and training
some of the difficulties with nutrition and body image that exist in the climbing world
how she approaches climbing with a mastery mindset
There’s some bonus content at the end of this episode about core training, hip mobility, how she deals with failure in climbing, and how to train efficient movement that you can find on my Patreon page.
 

TBP 253 :: How to Feel More Fulfilled in Climbing with Tyler Stableford

I talked with psychotherapist Tyler Stableford about some different therapy modalities that are super useful for rock climbers to help us feel more content and fulfilled in climbing (and in life). Tyler is a long-time climber out of Carbondale, Colorado, who recently switched careers to become a therapist.
We talk about how Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Ketamine Assisted Therapy (KAT), my coaching techniques, and other modalities can help release trauma and build awareness about how our minds work. This can help us create new, positive behaviors and thought patterns.
Tyler and I got very personal and vulnerable, talking about how these modalities have helped us continually work through our own stuff, and how they can be applied to climbers who struggle with things like:
low self worth
trying to find happiness through achievements
not accepting where they’re at in climbing
feeling shame about their climbing
We tried very hard to give tangible, useful advice that you can use right now without seeing a therapist or coach. But we both strongly urge people to work with someone if you can.
I absolutely loved this conversation and it’s one of my favorite episodes ever. I really hope you enjoy it too.
Show Links
Tyler Stableford private practice: www.stablefordcounseling.com
Tyler’s portfolio from his previous career in film
The Body Keeps the Score book by Bessel van der Kolk M.D
Work with me on your mindset in climbing

TBP 252 :: Is Your Pain a Product of Your Thoughts & Emotions?

I talked with psychotherapist, Sarah Brock Chavez about neuroplastic pain, which is pain that comes from a sort of misfiring in your brain because your thoughts and emotions cause you to feel unsafe when you experience the pain. I don’t want to say that this kind of pain is “all in your head” because that’s probably not how the professionals would want me to refer to it, but it’s kind of that.
This past October 2023 I had a lot of neck pain and nothing was helping it. Finally I was introduced to the concept of neuroplastic pain and I immediately felt relief from the pain simply by recognizing that I was afraid of the pain and that I had been sending messages to my brain that I was not safe.
By doing somatic tracking (objectively and calmly noticing the pain) and sending messages to myself that I was indeed safe and that this was just a misfiring in my brain, the pain subsided.
Sarah Brock Chavez works with people on all of this as a therapist and she is incredibly well-versed in the science and the practicalities of getting yourself out of pain. If you’re experiencing pain of any kind, it’s worth listening to this episode to find out if your pain qualifies as neuroplastic and what to do about it.
 
Show Links
Sarah Brock Chavez private practice Blue Sage Therapy: www.sarahbrockchavez.com
The Way Out book by Alan Gordon
Podcast “Tell Me about Your Pain” on neuroplastic pain
Work with me on your mindset in climbing
Work with Me to Start Loving Climbing Again 
I’ve been talking to a lot of climbers lately who have lost their passion and joy in climbing because they’re comparing themselves to others, feeling disappointed with their performance, and putting a lot of pressure on themselves to be doing better, faster.
I have been there myself, and I’ve worked on all of it intensively over the last few years. Through all of this work with coaches and self-reflection, I’ve come out on the other side having WAY more fun in my climbing and feeling mostly positive emotions in all of my climbing sessions. I went to school to become a coach to help people on exactly this thing (among other things, but this is my favorite).
Let’s work together by having skillful conversations over zoom to uncover what’s going on underneath all those negative thoughts and feelings and make a tangible plan for you to start enjoying the process of climbing more and caring less about what others think of you. Let’s get your joy back in climbing.
WORK WITH ME ON YOUR CLIMBING MINDSET

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