About Matt Pincus
Matt is a boulderer and a sport climber based out of Wyoming. He splits his time between training at home in Jackson and traveling to pursue his climbing goals around the world. Matt is also a coach at TrainingBeta and he’s been seeing clients from around the world since 2017. He’s currently taking new clients, so if you’d like to work with him, you can sign up here.
Matt created our Bouldering Training Program, which is a non-linear plan that will help you gain strength, power, skills, and work capacity. There’s also a maintenance block worked into the program so you can continue to train lightly during your performance phases.
Learn More about the Bouldering Program Here
Running for Climbing Fitness: Should You Do It?
In the episode, Coach Matt Pincus and I talk about running for climbing fitness. In our practices as a coach (Matt) and a nutritionist (me), we see a lot of people who run in the name of climbing training. But there are some common mistakes we see people making in their training schedules, their nutrition practices, and their reasoning behind their actions.
We talk about some better choices people can be making with their running, whether it’s scientifically been shown to help with climbing fitness at all, and how to proceed with your running and climbing regimens.
Enjoy!
Episode Details
- How common running is among our clients
- #1 Question to ask yourself about running if you’re a runner
- Running for weight loss from a nutritionist’s perspective
- How Matt creates training programs for people who want to run
- Pushback that runners give Matt and his responses to that
- Transitioning from one sport to another, whether it’s running, skiing, biking, etc
- What needs to happen nutritionally to train running and climbing at the same time
- 3 biggest mistakes people make nutritionally with fueling for exercise
- How to recover really well
Show Links
- Bouldering Program (Levels 1-3) to help you work your way up the grades
- Work with Matt as your coach
- Work with Neely as your nutritionist
- Have topics you want us to cover? Email matt@trainingbeta.com or neely@trainingbeta.com
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Photo Credit
Photo of Dan Mirsky on The Plastic Shaman 5.14a by Matt Pincus @mpincus87
Long time listener, first time caller!
Excellent, excellent topic. I suspect extremely relevant to the audience. Definitely relevant to myself!
Something that struck me about the nutritional side was the notion that glycogen stores would be so severely depleted from non-climbing activities. I don’t run anymore but having been an adherent to the Steve House’s Uphill Athlete program for several years for ski touring, my experience has not been at all consistent with glycogen depletion after I took the time to become “fat-adapted”. My ski partners reluctantly followed the path (I think because they wanted to keep up) and concur that we can go for hours on relatively few (if any) calories, usually starting in fasting state and suffer essentially zero to few episodes of “bonking” and feel fresh at the top of the peak. I have always viewed “bonking” as glycogen depletion and when I was not fat-adapted and trying to push too hard, it happened fairly frequently. Sounds like what Pincus described with his early morning ski tour experience.
Wonder if Pincus could shed some light on his experience with athletes that have become fat adapted and subsequently began working low-level training days (i.e. long and ‘slow’ ski tours) in with their climbing training. Maybe the Smileys would be a good example? I don’t doubt that training is training and everything has a cost, but wonder if activities using such vastly different energy systems can’t be trained together with only minor detriment to either?
Also wonder both of your thoughts on Dave Mcleod’s recent discussion about Keto, which seems to support the notion that developing a fat-adapted metabolism can support the alactic and lactic anaerobic system?
Hi Dave – Lots to say on this topic! That’s great that you found something that works well for you! I don’t talk much about becoming fat-adapted or address our fat-adapted listeners/readers, but I know you’re out there. It makes sense that it would work for ski touring since it’s such an aerobic sport and that kind of work can be well-fueled by fat. With climbing as a power/strength sport it’s a little more difficult to make it work. I haven’t seen Dave MacLeod’s recent discussion on keto, but when he was on my podcast a long time ago what he described was more of a carb-cycling type of diet where he’d work carbs in before and after difficult climbing sessions. That seems to be the way to stay fat adapted while also using glucose as fuel at specific times. Having said that, I don’t see it working with many of my clients, nor do I see many people adhering to a fat-adapted diet, much less keto for very long. It’s so difficult to maintain when you’re trying to eat socially or eat “normal” foods that it’s just out of the question for most people. And I see people do a lot better with climbing, even if they’ve been fat-adapted or keto for a long time, when they move to a more balanced way of eating. I also don’t think it’s great for females for various reasons, to try to be keto. Having said all of THAT, there are absolutely outliers who can thrive on that way of eating. I’m not sure if that answers any questions you had, but those are my basic thoughts on the topic.