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

 

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. 

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

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. 

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:

1. 5-second Hang
2. Aerobic Capacity
3. Anaerobic Capacity
4. Anaerobic Power
5. Finger Max Curl Test

Watch those videos and all the other podcast bonuses by signing up for a free 7-day trial on Patreon.

 

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

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. 

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.

 

----more----   Get More Training Advice on Our Patreon

You can find bonus content from this episode and other climbing training advice, as well as nutrition and mindset education on our Patreon.

Become A Patron

  ----more---- Show Links

• Kelly Birch Instagram: @kellyabirch
• Listen or Watch the the uncut video with no intro or outro on Patreon
• Get nutrition and mindset education and tools on Patreon
• Start a training program built by TrainingBeta

 

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

----more---- 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   ----more----   Get Bonus Content, Ad-Free Episodes, Nutrition, and Mindset Advice on Patreon   You can find even more on all of these topics on our Patreon in the form of bonus episodes, recorded mindset and nutrition coaching sessions, uncut interviews, and nutrition and mindset advice.   Become a Patron

 

       

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

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