The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast
Sports:Wilderness
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 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. We’ll be doing another one soon on using bloodwork to optimize supplementation, etc. for climbing performance soon.
So who is Thomas?
Thomas is a 36-year-old emergency medicine physician and father of 3 children from Louisville, KY who’s been climbing for around 20 years. After talking to him for a while, I realized he is SUPER scientific about everything he does in climbing. This is no surprise because he’s quite an overachiever in his academic/professional life as well.
He’s published a bunch of academic papers, he was chief resident at the University of Louisville Department of Emergency Medicine a while back, and WHILE he was doing that, he started a medical device company, Inscope Medical, and was VP of Innovations. He also completed an IronMan while he was an intern resident.
Here is his CV if you’re interested.
He’s an ambitious person, to say the least, and that means he has less time than some of us for climbing and training.
Only getting outside climbing around 10-15 days per year, and focusing all of that time on very hard projects, he has learned that his training and all of his days outside have to be hyperfocused and specific.
He also has to optimize his body for all the training he does and to be in peak performance mode when he’s trying to send. He’s used a continouse glucose meter (CGM) on himself in the past and he asked Sam Elias and Jonathan Horst to start wearing one in order to help them optimize their fueling for climbing.
He came into this interview with data on both of them (and himself), including what they were eating before using the CGM, the changes they made to their diets after and while using it, and the effects it had on their climbing. The CGM basically takes a reading of your blood glucose every 5 minutes so you can see in real time how each food/meal affects you.
We also talk a little more about the Whoop in this episode, which I’ve now gotten 6 of my friends and family using. It’s really interesting looking at the data each day about your sleep quality/quantity, how recovered you are, your HRV, and all kinds of stuff I’ve never paid attention to before. Thomas goes into how exactly he uses the whoop and how I’ve been using it myself.
This episode was really fun for me because this stuff as a nutritionist is extremely interesting. I hope you love it too!
Oh, and if you want to work with Thomas, you can do that by clicking on the link below:
Work with Thomas on Your Own Biohacking
TBP 214: Matt Pincus’s 4 Most Common Pieces of Advice to Climbers
What to Eat at the Crag for Optimal Climbing Performance
TBP 212 :: Dr. Tyler Nelson’s New Insights on the Limits of Fingerboard Training
TBP 211: Matt Pincus Talks Endurance Training for Climbing
TBP 210 :: Crag Dog Training with Jenna Teti
TBP 209: Calories for Climbing Performance and Body Composition
TBP 208 :: Alex and Neely's Biggest Nutrition and Training Mistakes
TBP 207 :: Allison Vest on Transitioning from Comp Climbing to Rock Climbing
TBP 206 :: How Matt, Alex, and I Are Approaching Our Mega Projects
TBP 205 :: Going from 5.11 projects to 5.11 Warm-ups with Erin Ettenger
TBP 204: Mistakes Made in Matt Pincus's Own Training Plan
TBP 203 :: Under-the-Radar V14 Boulderer Katie Lamb
TBP 202: Dr. Tyler Nelson on Youth Finger Injuries
TBP 201 :: Dr. Jared Vagy on Finger Injuries and Protocols
TBP 200 :: Coach Alex Stiger's Training Plan to Climb Her First 5.14a
TBP 199: Alternatives for When You're Too Tired for Your Session - Pincus
TBP 197: Sending 50 5.13’s by the Age of 50 - Lillian Chao-Quinlan
TBP 196 :: Keenan Takahashi's Pursuit of Progression and Perfection
TBP 195 :: How to Assess and Improve Your Climbing Skills with Coach Alex Stiger
TBP 194 :: Goal Setting in Climbing with Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger
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