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)...

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...

Therapist Tyler Stableford talks with Neely about therapy methods and concepts that can help climbers enjoy the sport more and find deeper fulfillment in their lives.

Therapist Sarah Brock Chavez explains how pain can be caused by your negative thoughts & emotions, and what you can do to get out of pain.

Coach Matt Pincus offers advice on how to incorporate climbing drills into your sessions, why you’d do that, and which drills to do, whether you’re a novice, intermediate, or elite climber.

In this short episode, I talk about the incredible sugar cravings I used to have that would lead to regular binges and how I stopped them. I talk about what this taught me as a nutritionist and how I've honed that knowledge into a way of eating that decreases sugar cravings by a LOT.  I'll go over what things to change about what you're eating, when you're eating, and why it's important to make these changes. Today's episode is actually a reading of an email that I put out today to my email...

Alex Stiger describes the skillset, mindset shifts, physical training, and other things that are required to climb consistently at the 5.11 grade.

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...

Coach Matt Pincus offers advice on how to prepare and train for a bouldering trip to Hueco Tanks so you can climb hard while you’re there.

Neely does an in-depth nutrition session (and follow-up session) with a climber who struggles with poor recovery from climbing and training and wants to feel stronger while projecting.

Coach Matt Pincus offers 5 things to take into consideration when preparing for a climbing trip weeks or months in advance.

I talk with Coach Alex Stiger about what and when to train in the gym when you’re trying to send hard projects outside, and when to stop training altogether.

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...

Canadian Olympic and World Cup climber, Alannah Yip, discusses her training and her thoughts on the climbing community’s weight problem.

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...

I do an in-depth nutrition session with a climber who struggles with fatigue every day, especially on climbing days. She’s very dependent on caffeine and wants to fuel better with food. We go through her diet log together and I make concrete suggestions that are very easy to implement to help her feel better.

In this episode, Dr. Tyler Nelson explains how to train finger endurance using a strain gauge or a hangboard without causing too much fatigue or needing too much recovery time.

Matt describes the new Route Training Program and then I do a life coaching session with Coach Alex about performance anxiety on her project.

Matt and Neely each share their top 3 habits that help them be successful in their climbing, work, mental health, physical health, and relationships.

Coaches Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger discuss how they go about finger training in the pursuit of gaining finger strength and keeping everyone’s fingers healthy and injury-free.

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....

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...

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: Listen to my first interview with Thomas   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...

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...

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...