The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast

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

TBP 238: Performance Anxiety Life Coaching Session with Alex and Neely

Performance Anxiety Coaching Session and Some Route Training Advice
This episode is a little different than normal in that I put two separate topics together to make one episode. I talked with Coach Matt Pincus about the new Performance Route Training Program for about 10 minutes and then I did a life coaching session with Coach Alex Stiger about her performance anxiety she experienced this past weekend. 
The first clip with Matt is to help you understand how he goes about training his route climbing clients, and how he put all of that wisdom into our new Performance Route Training Programs (see more below). He goes into what you need to train to have better endurance and strength, but also better skills and tactics on the wall. It will help you decide if you want to start the program, which is a subscription membership at $18 per month.
The second clip is a 45-minute life coaching session where I coach Alex Stiger about the performance anxiety she’s been experiencing on her route project. She goes into what it felt like to “freak out” while trying her project last weekend, and we dive in deep about her thoughts, emotions, limiting beliefs, and past experiences that have led her to this point. We come up with some strategies going forward that will help her process the anxiety in the moment and ways to take off some of the pressure she’s feeling to send.
This was super fulfilling for me to help Alex with, and these are honestly my favorite topics to talk about (the deep, important ones). If you want to work with me as your coach on climbing or anything else in your life, you can find more info on that here.
Show Links
Try out the New Route Training Program by Coach Matt Pincus
Work with Neely as your coach
Work with Alex as your coach
Performance Route Training Program
If you’re tired of going into the gym without a plan and you want a clearly laid-out program made by an experienced coach, our Performance Route Training Program is just that. And it doesn’t cost nearly as much as working one-on-one with a coach. Matt Pincus created this online subscription route program based off of what has been super successful with his clients over the years.
There are 3 levels of training available to you, depending on how much experience you have with climbing training and how much route climbing you want to do during the program. You’ll go through non-linear cycles (learn more about what that means in the link below) of training strength, endurance, skill drills, and throughout it all you’ll be gaining all-day capacity.
You could see an increase in your route climbing ability within weeks of being on this program. You get a 7-day free trial to see if it works for you and you can cancel at any time. Go to the gym with a plan in your hand, trust the process, and see results, all for just $18 per month.
CHECK OUT THE ROUTE PROGRAM
 
 

TBP 237 :: Our Top 3 Habits for Success in Life and Climbing with Neely and Matt

I recently read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and, while it’s a really good book and I gleaned some things from it, I also realized that my habits are (humbly) already pretty good. This has been by necessity because there were years of my life when my habits were not good at all. That led me to experience extreme amounts of anxiety, depression, a lack of motivation, and terrible self-care, which amounted to poor health, complete apathy about climbing, failure in my business, and really hard times in my relationships.
That just got personal really fast!
But all of that is to say that I understand quite intimately what it feels like to be unsuccessful in my own life, and I had to make a lot of changes in my habits and mindset to get to where I am now, which is generally content and feeling pretty successful most of the time.
Coach Matt Pincus also feels pretty content in his personal, work, and climbing life, so in this episode, he and I sit down and talk about some of our most important habits that help us to be successful.
Everyone has their own definition of “success” and we both define what that means to us in the episode. We’re not saying we’re the most successful people or that we’re amazing, but we do find that these habits really help us to show up as our best selves most days.
Here are some of the habits we discuss:
Making sleep an absolute priority
Eating well every meal of every day
Having a mostly set schedule/routine
Reading and learning daily
Climbing with people who are stronger than us
Varying climbing workouts to stay motivated and consistent
Showing up consistently in climbing, even when conditions are not optimal
This is a look into both of our personal lives, how we approach the world, our work, our climbing, and our happiness. I hope you enjoy it!
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 236: Common Sense Finger Training with Matt and Alex

In this second installment of the “Common Sense Training Series,” I sit down with Coaches Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger to discuss how they go about finger training with their clients and themselves in the pursuit of gaining finger strength and keeping everyone’s fingers healthy and injury-free.
Basically, they both feel like this topic is extremely confusing to climbers, and they wanted to simplify what you should be thinking about when you’re trying to plan your finger training protocol. Matt talks about his minimal hangs protocol that he does every day, how that might apply to you, and why he thinks it’s so effective.
Alex talks about how she incorporates finger training into her warm-ups with a hangboard and in her climbing sessions just on the wall. They each give examples of some of their clients’ sustainable finger training protocols. Sustainability is a huge theme in this conversation because most of the time, people go in over their heads with finger training plans and they just can’t be sustained with busy schedules.
Then they give their 3 most important tips for making an effective, sustainable finger training plan for yourself.
As always, they did an amazing job of preparing for this interview, and both of them have so much experience at this point with training people that their advice is truly simple and easy to follow. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.
Show Links
Try out the Bouldering Program by Coach Matt Pincus at the new $18 price
Work with Matt as your coach
Work with Alex as your coach
 
Bouldering Training Program
If you’re tired of going into the gym without a plan and you want a clearly laid-out program made by an experienced coach, our Bouldering Training Program is just that. And it doesn’t cost nearly as much as working one-on-one with a coach. Matt Pincus created this online subscription bouldering program based off of what has been super successful with his clients over the years.
There are 3 levels of training available to you, depending on how much experience you have with climbing training. You’ll go through non-linear cycles (learn more about what that means in the link below) of training power, strength, skill drills, and throughout it all you’ll be gaining all-day capacity.
Hundreds of people have felt an increase in their bouldering ability within weeks of being on this program, and you can too. You get a 7-day free trial to see if it works for you and you can cancel at any time. Go to the gym with a plan in your hand, trust the process, and see results, all for just $18 per month.
CHECK OUT THE BOULDERING PROGRAM SALE

TBP 235 :: How to Get Better at Climbing by Watching World Cups

In this episode, I talk with Coach Alex Stiger about what she learns from watching all of the Climbing World Cups and how she uses those videos to teach her clients about their own climbing. You can passively watch any sport you want, but if you’re actually an athlete in that sport, you can turn those viewings into active learning sessions by asking yourself a few questions and being really observant. Here’s what we talked about: Why she chose this topic right now Why it’s important to have heroes in your sport What World Cup climbers can teach you What good climbing actually looks like What trying hard looks like How to be brave and try hard til the end Awareness of rope management while climbing Confidence in your body type by watching similar climbers at an elite level Normalizing success, failure, disappointment, elation, etc. while climbing What questions to ask yourself while watching in order to get the most out of it Having goals after watching Why you should actively watch other climbers at the gym and at the crag (and who to watch) Specific resources to watch Things to be aware of for your own well-being while watching I really loved how organized and thoughtful Alex was about this interview. I learned a lot and will be watching World Cups with a new lens now, and I hope you will too. Show Links Enroll in Alex’s 5.12 Breakthrough Series until July 28th, 2023 Work with Alex as your coach Try out our Bouldering Training Program Have questions? Email alex@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com