TBP 224 :: Dr. Jen Dragonette's Psychological Tools for Climbers
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
Release Date: 02/01/2023
TBP 235 :: How to Get Better at Climbing by Watching World Cups
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
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...
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TBP 234: Thomas Cunningham on Biohacking for Climbing Performance
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
Back in April, I published an episode with Thomas Cunningham all about how he trains efficiently as a busy dad and ER physician to be able to send up to 5.14c projects in only 10-15 days outside climbing per year. You can listen to that episode in the link below: In that episode, we started talking about how he uses the Whoop (a wearable bio tracking device), continuous glucose meters, and some other biohacking type stuff, but the interview would’ve been reallllly long if we’d gone into all of it in details. So I asked him to come back for a second interview to talk about all of that....
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TBP 232: A Roadmap and a Checklist for Sending Route Projects Faster
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
In this episode, I sat down with Coach Matt Pincus to talk about his infamous “checklist” that he uses when he’s projecting a route (or a boulder – but usually routes). As a coach, often Matt’s job is less about creating strength training programs and more about using tactics to get people up their projects in an efficient way. He’s found that he’s been having a lot of conversations with clients lately about how to approach their route projects, now that it’s climbing season in a lot of places. This episode is dedicated to helping people approach hard projects (and sometimes...
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TBP 231: Common Sense Energy Systems Training with Alex and Matt
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
In the episode, I sit down with Coaches Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger to discuss how they go about training their clients in the different energy systems. The “energy systems” we’re talking about are power endurance, endurance, strength, and power. Basically, they both feel like these things are extremely confusing to climbers, and they wanted to simplify what those systems require, what it takes to train them well and efficiently, and what workouts they prescribe for each of them. The thing is that it’s not super clear-cut because in climbing, we’re constantly switching from energy...
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TBP 230 :: Alex Stiger on How to Approach the Different Angles of Climbing
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
Steep Climbing Workshop May 2nd, 2023 Coach Alex Stiger is hosting a 2-hour presentation + Q&A on how to train for steep climbing on the wall and off the wall. She’ll be using a series of videos and other resources to describe some climbing drills, strength training tactics, and mindset shifts to help you feel less intimidated and more confident on steeper angles of climbing. Alex will show you all the drills, all the strength exercises, and all the mindset practice you need to unlock steep climbing for yourself. You’ll find out exactly what to incorporate into your training plan and...
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TBP 229: Thomas Cunningham Climbs 14c as an ER Doc and Father of 3
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
A couple weeks ago, Sam Elias texted me and said, "Hey. This ER doctor here in Louisville just sent his first 14c... He's SUPER intelligent and really researched about training, nutrition, and personal optimization. I think y'all should have him on the podcast. He has a lot to offer." Turns out this was his second--not first--14c, which I found out in my interview with him, but everything else Sam said about Thomas was spot on, and I was psyched to reach out to him for an interview. Thomas is a 36-year-old emergency medicine physician and father of 3 children from Louisville, KY who's been...
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TBP 228 :: Majka Burhardt on Being a Pro Climber while Raising Twins
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
In this interview I talk with professional ice and mixed climber, , about her new book, . In it, she describes the transition she went through from being a full-time pro climber to having twins and balancing her life with her two children as a new part of it. The book is a compilation of letters she wrote to her kids through the first 6 years of their lives about the emotional rollercoaster she went on trying to balance it all. Not only is Majka a climber and a mother, she also founded an international non-profit called that works with indigenous cultures to make sure they...
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TBP 227: How to Stay Motivated (Almost) All the Time with Alex Stiger
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
Climbing Fitness Breakthrough Series Before we get started, Coach Alex Stiger is hosting a 4-part series all about how to increase your overall climbing fitness. She will do 4 weekly 90-minute zoom calls starting March 21st all about how to use efficient, quick sessions in the gym to reliably make you feel stronger and have more endurance. The cost is $147 (2-payment option available), and you’ll get all of the recordings of the zoom calls, a group Slack channel where you can ask Alex questions for the month, plus a bonus recorded coaching session with one of the participants. How...
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TBP 226: How Bridget Roell Went from 13a to 14a with Coach Matt Pincus
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
This episode is a bit different in that Coach Matt Pincus is the interviewer/coach and I (Neely) am just in it to introduce Matt and his guest, Bridget Roell. Bridget is a long-time climber who was working her first 5.13b when she first reached out to Matt a few years ago to coach her. Through the training and tactics they employed, she was able to send her first 5.13b's, her first 5.13c’s, and her first 5.14a, which was her long-term goal. In this conversation, they talk about the changes they made in her physical training and her redpointing tactics that helped her the most. They also...
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TBP 225 :: Dr. Tyler Nelson on Unlevel Grips for Finger Injuries and Training
The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
In this episode, Dr. Tyler Nelson talks about a small but very effective change to make in your finger training protocol to help you get stronger and avoid injuries. Last year, Tyler saw over 600 patients with finger injuries, and he believes that using unlevel edges that are bigger than what we’ve been told to use could have, in part, prevented those injuries while still making the climber stronger. This interview was really fascinating to me. I didn’t even know what an unlevel edge could possibly look like, but Tension Climbing has created a board with them and it’s called the...
info_outlineThis episode is one of the most meaningful episodes I’ve ever done, and I’ll tell you why in a sec. In it, I talked with psychologist Dr. Jennifer Dragonette about DBT, which stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy, for a whopping hour and a half!
DBT is a set of psychological tools developed by Marsha Linehan to help people truly process and deal with emotion dysregulation, interpersonal conflict, and the everyday issues of daily life. DBT is very important in my own life because it’s what lifted me out of my most recent major depressive episode in 2017 and has helped me have way lower levels of anxiety and depression than I ever have before.
It helped save my life, to be honest. So when Dr. Jen contacted me to be on the show to talk about how DBT can help climbers, it was a full-body yes from me. I’ve incorporated DBT into my own climbing, and I’ve seen the incredible results it can produce in every part of life.
Dr. Jen does an excellent job of explaining some of her favorite DBT tools and how they can be used in climbing for things like:
- fear of falling
- knowing how you want to proceed when you’re having a bad day climbing
- managing the urge to grab a draw, say take, give up, or not take enough rest
- communicating effectively with your partners or spotters about what you want from them
- how to allow our emotions to flow through us and out of us so we can move on
I also go into some very personal details about how some OCD tendencies played out in my life to contribute to severe anxiety and how DBT helped me stop the OCD behaviors. As well as how I’ve been using DBT tools to help overcome body image issues.
As a climber and a psychologist, Dr. Jen has such a deep understanding of how these tools apply to climbing that you’ll hopefully feel confident using them in your very next climbing session. She’s clearly very adept at teaching DBT, and I enjoyed every moment of this conversation 🙂
Show Links
- Dr. Jen’s website: drjenniferdragonette.com
- Some basics about DBT and workseets: https://dbt.tools/
- The program I did in Boulder, CO was the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Intensive Outpatient Program at BCH