The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

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.

TBP 241: How Delphine Chenevier Sent Her 1st 14b (8c) at Age 48

In this episode, French climber Delphine Chenevier talks about the injury that led her to train for climbing, which led her to her first 5.14a (8b+) at age 47 and her first 5.14b (8c) at age 48.
I was scrolling through 8a.nu news headlines the other day to look for people to invite on the show, and among the slew of V16 and 9a+ ascents by teenagers and pros, there was a little hidden gem: Delphine Chenevier climbing her first 5.14a (8b+) at the age of 47. I immediately reached out to her and she was kind enough to give me an interview.
As a 45-year-old woman myself, Delphine Chenevier is inspiration embodied, and I learned throughout our conversation that her attitude towards life and climbing and her pure passion for the pursuit of excellence in climbing were even more inspirational than the grades she’s recently been taking down.
Delphine is a French climber who has a high-pressure full-time+ job and a teenaged son. She still makes it outside climbing several times per week and finds time to train on her small home wall and on a hangboard to improve her climbing. Last year, she got injured and reached out to a trainer to help her rehab and get stronger. With the help of that trainer, she was able to make her fingers and shoulders stronger than ever and learn how to be a more technical climber, leading to her first ever 8b+ send, then another, and another (in a day), her first 8a+ (13c) flash, and her first 8c (14b) send at the age of 48.
Amazing.
I asked her about how she trains, how she makes time for everything, how she stays so psyched all the time, no matter the weather or conditions, and what her hopes and dreams are for the future. We talked about what she’s changed about her climbing due to the changes she’s noticed in her body as she’s gotten older, whether she’s a competitive climber, and what advice she has for us.
I loved this interview, and I hope you do too.
 
Show Links
Delphine Chenevier’s Instagram @chenevierd
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 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 

TBP 240: Nutrition Session with Climber Who Has Fatigue at the Crag and Poor Recovery

In this episode I do a full nutrition session with a climber who has been struggling with feeling fatigued most days, especially at the crag. Fatigue is something I see in a lot of my nutrition clients that is often improved really quickly with nutrition, so I thought this session would be great for everyone to be able to listen in on.
My client was Leah Thomas, a 31-year-old climber who is basically living at a crag and climbing most days of the week. She just feels tired and is very dependent on caffeine to get her through her days and she wanted to change that by trying to eat better. She just was confused about how to do that, which is not uncommon at all.
In this session we talk about her weekly schedule of exercise and work, her daily schedule of eating, climbing, working, and sleeping, and then we looked at her diet log on myfitnesspal to see what was going on to contribute to her fatigue.
I gave her really concrete suggestions for small changes to make in her diet every day, what to do differently at the crag, and I gave her some advice about her climbing schedule to decrease her fatigue levels and increase her recovery so she’s not feeling so tired all the time.
I hope, if you struggle with similar things, that this episode is helpful for you!
 
 
 
 
Work with Me on Your Nutrition
I’m currently taking new clients for the first time in many months, 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 package, 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
If you’re not ready to pay for nutrition services quite yet and you just want something free to get started, I have a mini-course you can sign up for that includes 6 days of informative emails (with a discount code for my Nourish program included).

TBP 239 :: Dr. Tyler Nelson on Training Finger Endurance

In this episode, Dr. Tyler Nelson talks about how we can increase our finger endurance without putting ourselves in a huge recovery hole from the session. Tyler uses a strain gauge (in this case a Tindeq Progressor) for this kind of workout (as he does for a lot of his training).
I actually ended up being so convinced by this episode that I finally got a Tindeq for myself! He has a code you can use for $10 off, which I used. It’s “C4HP” at this site. This isn’t meant to be an advertisement for them and I have no affiliation with the company, but after hearing Tyler talk about this thing for literally years, I needed to have one. I’m about to start doing these endurance workouts this week.
So in this episode, Tyler goes into a lot of detail about what your workouts should look like to get the most out of an endurance finger training session, why what we’ve been doing traditionally doesn’t make quite as much sense as what he’s recommending, and how it’s helped his athletes with their route training.
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 at Camp 4 Human Performance, where he tests athletes, creates training programs, and treats all kinds of athletes for injuries.
Other Episodes with Tyler
TBP 225 :: Dr. Tyler Nelson on Unlevel Grips for Finger Injuries and Training
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
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 from TrainingBeta
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…
Personal Coaching Online
Bouldering Training Program
Route Climbing Training Program
Finger Strength Training eBook 
Nutrition for Climbers
Mindset Coaching for Climbers
All of our training programs