Alex Stiger Interview Details

• Why we can’t train like small men
• How changes in our hormones throughout the month can guide our training
• Being in denial about being a woman in sport
• How we can do better as women and as coaches
• How everything she knew about her menstrual cycle was in hindsight before
• Myths she’s held as a woman
• Fear and pain sensitivity the week before period

Alex Stiger Interview Links 

• Join the Challenge for Free
• Instagram: @alex.stiger
• 1st Interview with Alex on the podcast
• 2nd Interview with Alex: How Getting Stronger Made Her a Better Coach

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Photo Credit

Photo of Alex Stiger on her home wall by James Lucas @james_lucas

Transcript

Neely Quinn 

Welcome to the Training Beta podcast where I talk with climbers and trainers about how we can get a little better at our favorite sports. I’m your host, Neely Quinn, and I want to remind you that the Training Beta podcast is actually an offshoot of a website, I created Trainingbeta.com.

Over there, you’ll find tons of resources, all about training for climbing, including training programs, and we have our new bouldering program, which we’re really excited about, you can find that at Trainingbeta.com/bouldering. But we also have a route climbing training program, finger strength programs, an at home training program, as well as online personal coaching. So you can find all of that at Trainingbeta.com.

 

So in this episode, I’m talking with Coach Alex Stiger, who is a coach for TrainingBeta. She’s also a coach at Movement Climbing in Boulder, Colorado. She’s also a very good friend of mine. And in this episode, we’re gonna talk about how females can climb specifically for their physiology, and our menstrual cycles, and what to know about the different weeks of our cycles, what we can do differently during those weeks, what to sort of expect from ourselves during those weeks, and a whole bunch of other stuff that is not talked about very often. And so we’re really excited about this topic. And Alex is hosting a free challenge just for women next week, starting May 3rd of 2021 goes for five days, part of it is live part of it is recorded, but is all about females training.

 

So hopefully we’ll see you in there. Again, it’s totally free and everything will be recorded and sent to you if you can’t make the live sessions. There’s also a Facebook group that Alex will be moderating and answering all of your questions in there. So you can find more information about that at Trainingbeta.com/women-challenge.

So without further ado, here is Alex. Enjoy. I’ll talk to you on the other side.

 

Hi, Alex. Welcome back to the show.

 

Alex Stiger 

Hello, Neely. How are you doing?

 

Neely Quinn 

Well, I just had my second COVID shot. So I am not doing great. But we’ll see if I get through this without getting a fever.

 

Alex Stiger 

Oh, my. Isn’t it so weird that we’re all scheduling to be sick?

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, definitely.

 

Alex Stiger 

Waiting in my calendar, like, sick. On wednesday.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, we were driving there. And I was like, I am 100 times more nervous for this than I was for this last surgery last week. So..

 

Alex Stiger 

That’s phenomenal.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Um, anyway, we have a lot to get through this week or this week, it’s already happening. We have a lot to get through in this hour. So I want to jump right in. But for anybody who doesn’t know who you are, just give us a description of yourself.

 

Alex Stiger 

Um, I am a female climber, because that is our topic today. And I’ve been climbing for probably 15-16 years now. I’ve climbed up to 5.13d, I’ve recently dove into sex differences and how I could be applying those in that research, which is so fascinating to all my female clients and to our sport and my training for our sport. That’s recent, since the last time I talked to you guys. I’m also five feet tall. So feel anything I could do to boost my performance is needed. And I know a lot of other people feel that way too. So is that enough about me? That wasn’t really — that was more what I’ve been doing?

 

Neely Quinn 

No, that’s fine. I also want people to know that you are performance climbing coach and your coach for Training Beta. And that you’ve been working with people in person and online for years now. And so yeah, that I think that’s pretty good. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to add?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah, I recently just went full time coaching. And that is so exciting for me, because that’s been a goal of mine probably for five years. And to have finally made that transition is phenomenal. I’ve always supported my coaching with manager roles or various other roles supporting. So that’s exciting.

 

Neely Quinn 

It’s good for people to know that you can make it as a climbing coach, which you are definitely doing.

 

Alex Stiger 

It’s possible. Yes.

 

Neely Quinn 

So this this whole topic today goes along with the challenge that you’re doing next week and today is April 27th 2021. And so next Monday, Alex will start her five day challenge for women. So let’s just talk a little bit about that. So people understand what kinds of topics you’ll be going over. So they understand what we’re going to be talking about here.

 

Alex Stiger 

Awesome. So I am so excited for this challenge. And the biggest reason is that I feel there’s just so much important information for women athletes to know about what it means to be a woman in our sport, and kind of opening up that conversation in that like, challenging us to change the way we’re currently thinking, and to really learn and dive in together on different topics relating to being female. So how to track our cycles, regardless of if you’re naturally cycling, or you’re taking a contraceptive, and then how we can be strength training as women and kind of scheduling that around our cycles appropriately. And in the challenge, there´ll be some of my favorite workout combinations and ideas for when and how to use them or change them depending on the cycle. And some, yeah, three great Facebook Live conversations with Q&A so that everybody can chime in with questions that they have.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right. And you’ll also be talking about how to track your cycle, and what kinds of things to be looking for, and all that.

 

Alex Stiger 

Yep, all of that fun things. And I really want the challenge to have a lot of takeaway information that every lady can build upon.

 

Neely Quinn 

So if you are interested in checking that out, you can go to Trainingbeta.com/women-training. That’s not true. It’s women-challenge. Training beta.com/women-challenge.

And it’s totally free, 100% free. And I did this last year with my nutrition program a challenge, I did a five day nutrition challenge. And it’s amazing how much information you can convey in just five days over a short period of time, and everything will be recorded. And so it’ll be sent out to people. So if you can’t make the live events, it’s no big deal. And Alex will also be in a Facebook group that you can join, answering questions through the week too. So hopefully this will help gets you at least started on this journey of learning more about females in — and training. So I — Is there anything else you want to add? Before we get we move on?

 

Alex Stiger 

I’m ready to dive in.

 

Neely Quinn 

Cool. So the first thing is that we we don’t want to be — I mean, we are leaving out males from this conversation. But we also want to give a little shout out to males. So do you want to go ahead with that?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yes, men are great too. And I actually work with a lot of men and a lot of women. And when the whole point of this conversation is just how to understand our female physiology better. That doesn’t mean that men don’t have it hard as well. And they don’t have a lot of fluctuations going on and stressors and things that affect their performance. So just a shout out and a lot of love towards those the males out there.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yes. And I think it’s great for males to listen to this and learn about this too. Because I mean, the more information the better, especially if you’re a coach, or a person who climbs a lot with females. So it’s just good information for all of us.

 

Alex Stiger 

Yes. And actually, I was having a lesson with my running coach who is a male, and I brought up something like, Oh, I didn’t feel great. And he’s like, why didn’t you feel great? And I was like, Well, I think I’m just, it’s the week before my period. I’m late luteal phase. And he was like, well, where do you get that information?

 

And I was like, Oh, let me tell you. And he said something that I thought was really awesome. He said that coaches need to do better. And I was like, yes, male and female coaches need to do better. And as women, I think we could be doing better as well. So, and sports organizations, I think we all have a lot of room to grow.

 

And I do really want to emphasize that the word better means we could do be doing better than we currently are. And I don’t mean that we’re doing bad now. I think there’s a lot of positive energy and momentum going towards. Yeah, all of these things.

 

Neely Quinn 

And so when you say we can do better, I’m sure a lot of women are like, how can I do better? So what kinds of things are you talking about?

 

Alex Stiger 

Well, um, before I dive specifically into that, I kind of want to talk about why I think it’s important that we need to do better, in that in our sport. It’s an outside of competition climbing, we are really in a playing field that is both genders, right? So we’re trying to perform just as well as the guys that I know. For me, I’ve always been striving not just to be as good as I can be as a female athlete, but I want to do better than most the guys as well. So in our sport, that we need to put that emphasis on ourselves a little bit, because we’re not just competing against women, and that conversation isn’t happening for us. 

 

Right? So we need to open that up with our selves. And specifically, we need to start tracking, because I know that everything for me in the last five years since I read Roar, and I could be wrong about five years. I don’t actually know when it came out. But I know I read it kind of a long time ago, which is a book by Stacey Sims.

 

Yeah, it is awesome. And I recommend everybody read it. It gives a good base level of information. I was super excited about the topic. And then quickly was like, Huh, I’m just gonna pretend I’m not a woman for a while, which is okay. But I think there are those big reasons that we should be. And that’s because everything to do with my administration cycle was in hindsight, right? I’d be like, Oh, that’s why I was scared, right? So my period would start and I would look back the last three or four days, or maybe five or seven days and be like, Ah, that’s why I performed worse. Oh, that’s why I was starving and need three charity turnovers and got super sick before getting on my project.

 

Right. So I think we need to be doing these things and tracking and understanding how to modify our training, so that we are really working with our physiology and not against it, and setting ourselves up for success. Just like if we were going on a trip, we’re going to look at the weather instead of going and then wishing we had our raincoat. Does that answer your question?

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, for sure. So when you said that you kind of were like, Ah, I’m just gonna pretend like I’m a man, or that I’m not a woman. What What do you mean? Like, what, what made you feel like that?

 

Alex Stiger 

I guess I got really excited about it. But then it seemed really daunting because I had an IUD a mirena. And it was really hard for me to actually track my period. So I kind of failed at step one. And then kind of just knew I was interested in the topic, but just didn’t really do much. And then pretty shortly after that a lot of information started popping up on social media, about being a woman in training. And I actually took away some things that I felt kind of prevented me from wanting to look further. Do you want me to elaborate on what those were?

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, I would love that.

 

Alex Stiger 

So, um, one of the biggest ones was an overall negativity towards contraceptives. I felt like from what I was hearing that is, if I chose to be on a contraceptive, that it was kind of being a bad woman.

 

Neely Quinn

meaning the pill or some hormonal —

 

Alex Stiger

Meaning the pill or an IUD. Now to say kind of I think, really I want to umbrella this with this was my takes, it’s not actually what was being said, but I think a lot of my insecurities came through and so it kind of altered how I took the information that I was hearing.

 

But um, yes, and I was like, well, I definitely don’t want to go natural without a contraceptive because I really don’t want a baby and I don’t want to be stressed about it. So for my body, and I think that’s something I think is huge in this conversation is that every woman is different and what works really well for one woman might not work for another and that it’s that was something that was kind of a turnoff for me for lack of a better word was that kind of like you You need a natural cycle to be healthy.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense which is which affects a lot of women. Because a lot of women are on contraceptive.

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah. And I do want to say that I feel like IUDs can be misused by a lot of athletic women who might be skinny, they might be low energy availability, but because they have an IUD, they’re like, Oh, I’m sure I’m having a great cycle, but it’s hidden. So it doesn’t mean we don’t need to be tracking with an IUD. And that’s what I learned later on through the Stacey’s Sims course that kind of corrected that thinking for me.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure there’s a lot more to be said about that. And we can’t go into detail about everything. But are there any other reasons that you felt like you were in denial about being a woman?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yes, there are — so only trained for two weeks a month was something I initially was like, I can only do, I can only train for two weeks a month and still be my best, that doesn’t make sense. And I just really didn’t like the idea of feeling limited, right of like, Oh, I’m different. And I can’t train as much as my partner.

 

Of course, I’m going to go into why that is false, that we can train all of the weeks of our cycle and make progress and gains throughout all of them. But that was an initial like, wall for me. And then additionally, that there is a full week that women can’t perform well, that I was like, that doesn’t work, for me. I work full time. I’m a weekend warrior. You know, you can’t choose your race day sometimes. And I can’t choose when it’s the weather’s perfect. And I need to go get on my project and be confident on my project. So I really didn’t want to open the door of thinking that there was a week where I couldn’t perform well. So those were three things that initially kind of made me just say, Oh, that’s cool, but it’s not for me. But I wanted to start learning about it for my clients. Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. And how did you feel when I asked you to do a challenge for women?

 

Alex Stiger 

Well, I am a yes person. And so I was instantly like, yes, this sounds amazing. And I am super passionate about just empowering more women in this sport. And yeah, my initial response was psyched. And then I was like, wait, my only qualifications to teach this course is that I’m a woman. And I’ve worked with lots of women. But I’d actually been pretending I was not a woman for 10 plus years. So I was like, oh, shucks, and I was like, Neely, I need to learn more. And so so you started sending, like resources over and I decided to sign up for Stacey, when Stacey Sims seven week module course, pretty big course. It was amazing. With a pretty big sticker price. So I was like, Oh, no, what am I doing? But it just felt really right. And I am so so glad I did it. Because, yeah, it’s made so many positive changes in my life, and my female clients, and it’s fascinating. There’s so much being discovered.

 

Neely Quinn 

And that course was called the was the —

 

Alex Stiger 

“Women are not small men”. Yep. And it was just kind of an intensive. And yeah, I highly recommend that course, of course. But there is an has been a bridge that I’ve been wanting to cross. And I think there’s several women who are doing a great job with it, like the ladies over at lattice. But a lot of like Stacey Sims, her book, and everything seems a little bit more geared towards endurance athletes. And I’m not one of those. So that was one of the other reasons I was like, well, this isn’t really for me, because I’m not a triathlete, right? I don’t burn, I’m not working as hard as these ladies are working. So. And I think that’s very far from the truth. And actually in the course in which was a big, there were several big differences from the course then from reading more. And I think she’s really, like pulled in a lot more information. And there’s just a lot more information coming in on different kinds of female athletes. So I did learn quite a bit about like, how to how to, you know, train for a strength athlete how to train for different events and sports.

 

Neely Quinn 

So that’s great. And I am so happy that you decided to do that course I was. Yeah, it’s so helpful to just have the basically the one woman in the world who is really putting, you know, studying this stuff quite a bit and teaching about it teach you so that you can teach all of us about it. So I’m wondering if we can just go a little bit into the few things that we had talked about, like, only training for two weeks a month and some of these other things that sort of dispel those things briefly, and how they’re not actually true.

 

Alex Stiger 

I would love to do that yet. So I want to start just by saying that I think all of those things I mentioned are completely not true that we can be athletes and use contraceptives, oral contraceptives, IUDs, any of them. And we can train and improve during all weeks of our cycle, and that we can have our best performances ever on any day. And I feel like I actually have done that. And I’ve seen so many women do that. I think, however, though, to do these things, we really need to track understand fuel and train with our cycles. So it’s not just the stars align, and we pulled it off, that we’re actually doing everything we can to actually like, you know, help. You have the tools we need.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. So yeah, like the stars aligned for my last Red trip where it was like the first two weeks of my period or my cycle, and I was just like, on fire the whole time.

 

Alex Stiger

You were on fire.

 

Neely Quinn 

And that’s what I wanted to just do a brief overview of for people is like, the first two weeks meaning the first day of your period until you’re ovulating is one phase. And then the second phase, why don’t you just talk a little bit about that. So people know what we’re talking about?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah, I would love to so day one of your cycle starts the day you start bleeding. And it goes and this varies for women, which is why it is so important to track because we don’t all have a cycle that is the traditional 28 days. And we could have different lengths of our phases. So tracking for to see what is going on in your body is important. But day one starts bleeding. And then the next cycle, let’s just say like a traditional one is like about 14 days. So that first phase is the follicular, and then you have two weeks of luteal.

 

So the follicular is low hormone phase where we’re most like a man, right? So we’re going to be able to see are better adaptations to high intensity work, we’re going to recover better, we’re going to be able to get in more high quality sessions in that time. And I like to say better because it doesn’t mean that you can’t do all of those things that you can adapt to exercise, you can’t recover. You can’t. You know, just be your best in your luteal phase. The luteal phase is not bad. It’s just we’re better our body’s able to handle it better.

 

And that follicular phase, so those two weeks, and then so week three then would be the first week of our luteal phase. And that that week is still like one of those weeks where I’m still lifting weights, I’m still I’m just doing more descending reps, I’m still getting on my climbing in the gym and climbing my hardest. But instead of doing single pitch efforts, like I might be doing in my follicular phase, I’m going to be doing doubles on like for me 11s or doubles on a flash grade. So that you’re still training, but I’m switching a little bit more to endurance. And it’s also a great time to be working on hand eye coordination and neuromuscular like firing. So using the strength that we worked hard on in the week, the two weeks prior, and then starting to really kind of apply that to power, right? So maybe even campussing, box jumps, agility work, things like that. So it doesn’t mean you’re not doing anything.

 

And I think I might have misspoke about my weeks. But I think everybody will get the gist. And we’ll dive really clear into this in the challenge. But the week before our period is where I’m going to really kind of tone it back a little is far as like the physical fitness and the amount of work I’m doing and I’m going to try and have it be a little bit more skill based. I like to introduce new movements to my clients in this time. So that will be like, oh, have you learned how to do a barbell squat? No, cool. Now’s the time to bring in something new, the time to really critique our form and our ability to do like descending reps to get our muscles tired and still keep our form together when we do get tired but without putting as much stress on the body.

 

Neely Quinn 

And why is that? What happens in that week before your period?

 

Alex Stiger 

We are super high hormone so our estradiol and progesterone levels are kind of spiking and there’s a a lot going on in our body, as well as like our core temperature is warmer. So that changes some things. I’m starting to drink ice water in that week, before my training instead of just my normal luke warm water I’m doing, you know, so there’s lots of fun little interventions like that have ways of kind of bring that body temperature down a little bit.

 

But also just knowing that that’s not the time we’re going to be recovering at our best. So we need to prioritize more recovery. We also need more fuel, we’re burning more calories. And there’s a reason we get cravings just unfortunately, like the midnight binge doesn’t help you it in your sports and fueling for your activities. But eating more throughout that entire week and not like a ton, but just fueling properly. Especially carbs. Because they’re finding that we can’t store glycogen like we do that week, like we as good as we do in the the first two weeks. So we need to be having carbs like pre exercise and during exercise to fuel our bodies.

 

Neely Quinn

Hmm. Okay, so that´s interesting.

 

Alex Stiger

Yeah, it’s fascinating. And there’s so much information like that, that I’m just like, this is so cool.

 

Neely Quinn

Right? It’s like unlocking a secret puzzle that we’ve been trying to figure out our whole women lives.

 

Alex Stiger

Yeah, and my big takeaway from the course is, it’s actually not that difficult to put these interventions into play in place. Like, knowing that if I’m in, let’s say, I’m in Rifle, and it’s my third week, and it’s the week before my period, that one knowing that was my week, I’m going to be eating more, right fuelling properly, kind of upping my caloric intake a little bit. But I’m also going to prioritize carbs for my efforts. So instead of drinking my normal, zero calorie electrolyte mix, I’m going to switch to something like scratch labs that has 20 grams of carbs per serving, so that I’m sipping on something with actual carbs. And then I’m also going to prioritize that dreadful dip in the creek after my burns, just to get my body temperature cooler, because I know, my thermo regulating ability that time of the month is not the best.

 

Neely Quinn 

Which also, I mean, when it’s the middle of summer, whatever, season and it’s hot out and you’re like why am I so hot, I feel hotter than normal, like it, look at your calendar,

 

Alex Stiger 

Look, and you should and that’s my whole point is you should have already looked at your calendar, and know that because it also disturbs your sleep. One of the ways we go into like sleep is that our body temperature drops. So if you’re hotter than normal, it’s really common for women to see disturbed sleep. So Stacy since was like that’s your cue for ice cream before bed? Or tart, you know, cold tart cherry juice is like a little bit more of a healthier alternative, maybe, but I took that as Ice cream, ice cream. But it’s been cool to experiment with those things and to really like them, because I feel like I for one do not perform well when I feel hot.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know who does?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah, I get super cranky. I mean, maybe you could also call it PMS at that stage, though, but our core temperatures hotter. So we just have to make adjustments for that.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. These are all really great little nuggets.

 

Alex Stiger 

I’ve been loving the nuggets. And trying to apply them to myself and my clients has been so fun.

 

Neely Quinn 

So is there anything I mean, in that last week of the month when you I don’t know if you mentioned this, but we also tend to be more fearful sometimes or less confident. Is that right? Is there anything else to add about emotional stuff that we —

 

Alex Stiger 

Well, I am so glad you brought that up because that’s actually one of the biggest things I notice. And that’s always that hindsight piece for me is like, Oh, that’s why I was petrified on my warm up that I’ve led 50 times or on my project where I’m not just saying like, Oh, I’m a little more scared and I don’t want to fall. It’s like I can’t fall. Like my fingers will not let go I am petrified.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right 

 

Alex Stiger 

And then I’m over gripping and then I have no skin and then it’s just like this, like snowball effect, right?

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah.

 

Alex Stiger

That is very common and increased anxiety and sensitivity to pain, maybe which I want to talk about because I hadn’t heard this. Before but my hip chronically hurts here and there and I wanted to get it checked out. So I got an MRI, which was fine. And then I had to appointment with a hip surgeon doctor. Hip specialists, I should say, just to read the MRIs and just told me that it’s fine. Um, he said something that was really fascinating because I told him, I was like, my, I’ve been tracking now for three months, and I realized that my hip hurts more the week before my period. Do you think there’s anything to that? He was like, actually, very possibly. He was like, there is like increased pain sensitivity around that time, potentially, right? This is a new field of study. And I’m like, ooh, where’s the research on that? But he said it really confidently, which I thought was really cool.

 

And then it got me thinking, it’s like, Oh, I can’t wait to track because sometimes my skin is my limiting factor. And I hate it because I look at it, and it’s fine. It’s not like those awesome videos you see where like, Megos is like, taking tape off his fingers. And they’re bloody and raw. And he’s still trying hard. And you’re like, Oh, that’s cool. No, there’s like nothing wrong with them. And I’m like, Why do these hurts so much? I can’t even climb. I’m really curious to see if that lines up. Because I think it might. I´d love to, to start trying to draw some relationships there.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, it’s, it’s really unfortunate for us to because during that week, a lot of times people have breast tenderness, or they have cramping. And so it’s all just feels even worse, potentially. Because…

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah, and I think there are great interventions. And something that I think is really important is that even though this is kind of a new field of study, um, anxiety tools, is not really and especially now that like, we’ve all been locked inside houses and mental health is big, like, bigger issue than ever, I feel like a lot of us have adapted a little more tools. So just kind of knowing like, Oh, I’m going to be more anxious, I need to kind of declutter my schedule this week, try and reduce my stress, try and sleep a little more, maybe that’s the time to, you know, open up that headspace app that I don’t use very often, and I should be.

 

And also just applying common practices and tools such as, like fear of falling principles, there’s some, there’s so many great processes for that. And you can apply those and know you’re going to need to apply them that time of the month. So for me managing my fear, I absolutely have to take baby practice falls, and I’m talking baby practice falls, like I’m out of my bolt to start on my warm ups that time of the month, for sure. And I have to probably take like three to six of them. And then when I’m on my project, I might need to take a few there to baby ones building up into higher just to remind myself that I’m safe, because I really don’t feel safe.

 

Alex Stiger 

Mm hmm.

 

Neely Quinn 

And so just knowing I need to enlist those tools, that part of the month can make a world of difference in performance.

 

Neely Quinn 

But also just knowing that we might just need to be gentler on ourselves during that week. I mean, as far as psychologists would say, you, you should always be gentle with yourself. But you know, during this week, maybe just be a little bit lighter on yourself about expectations. And I know that that’s helped me. And you guys all know that I struggle with like being really hard on myself and knowing now. Oh, this is why I feel scared. This is why I’m crying right now. And I don’t even understand it. Like it’s okay, I’m gonna come down. Maybe I’ll just be a cheerleader today.

 

Alex Stiger 

I love that you said that. Because I think that is ultimately one of the best things we could do. And I really like also that you said it in present tense, like, this is why I’m feeling this way right now. It’s not that’s why I felt that way.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right. Yeah.

 

Alex Stiger

And I think that is so key. And yeah, just knowing that it’s coming can help prepare you for for those like, you know, for that war a little bit, just to call it by maybe what it is.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. And like every everybody’s different. Some people are gonna be more affected by these things than others. All of our hormonal shifts are different. And so you might be a person who really doesn’t feel much of a difference. And you also your best friend might be a person who’s like a total wreck, sometimes. And it’s totally fine either way,

 

Alex Stiger 

Totally. And I think that is so important and such a key takeaway. I also want to make a point that I think our perceived effort and our actual effort, and how we’re performing, we can kind of miss understand those things. I think in that when I know in my, the week before my period, I can be very like things can just feel harder. And now that I’m doing a sport that’s actually really easy to like, record. It feels so much harder. But I was actually only like point five seconds different

 

Neely Quinn 

You´re talking about the sprinting, though.

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah, sprinting and running. Because it’s like, everything is timed. Everything is recorded, it’s super easy to just like, be like, Oh, okay. And I’ll be like, oh, that felt awful. It’s like two seconds slower. And it really was only like a fraction of that. And I think —

 

Neely Quinn 

Because the effort feels so much higher.

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah. So if we kind of know that’s coming, it’s easier to be like, this won’t feel good. But it doesn’t mean I’m not doing good.

 

Neely Quinn 

Hmm, that’s a really good point, too. Yeah. Because we all we all want it to feel easy. And sometimes we’re more prone to giving up if it doesn’t.

 

Alex Stiger 

I know I’m always more prone to giving up if it doesn’t. So I have to prepare myself for that. But really importantly, in that high hormone phase.

 

Neely Quinn 

It’s so crazy, I just want to give my own experience of how I feel a week before my period, which is it’s not every time and it’s not the whole week, but like, I’ll try to go up a climb and I’ll feel shaky, my I’ll get pumped more quickly, I’ll definitely feel more scared. I’ll just feel more emotional in general on it, and but just totally different than I feel on my really good days, it feel like I’ve gained 20 pounds, you know, not that there’s anything wrong with gaining 20 pounds, but you know what I mean? So it can be pretty, pretty extreme.

 

Alex Stiger 

That is extreme. And I feel like you said every woman experiences differently. And now that I’ve been working with so many women and actually talking to them about it, it’s phenomenal the the differences in symptoms and ways people experience their high hormone phase, I know that I get one, I have like two different spikes in my mood.

 

So mid cycle is when we oscillate and that’s when our Ooh, it’s LH luteinizing hormone kind of spikes up so that we what happens with our AIG happens. There are great YouTube videos that actually describe exactly what’s going on. I’m more of a principle person. So I’m not going to describe it personally, or perfectly. But um, that’s also a really common time to experience such things as back pain, some maybe some mood shifts, like some symptoms there. And for me, that’s fascinating, because I’ve started identifying like, oh, that pain I get in my back then I’m like, What is this? And then by the time it happens to me again, I forgotten that it happened when it happened. So now that I’ve actually been tracking these things, I’m like, Oh, no, I was just dropping my egg. It’s cool. I was ovulating.

 

Neely Quinn

Yeah

 

Alex Stiger

And it short it only lasts for a couple days. But even just knowing that, Oh, this is what’s happening. And then the week before my period, I can be very hard on myself and feel like I’m not good enough at anything. Like I get kind of that self deprecating. Just like, this is awful. You know, the red light happens and you feel tears. You’re like, Oh no. I know what this is. And I’m very scared that week. Like, I’m a fearful climber in general, but it is unmanageable, sometimes. So, I mean, I have tools for that of that I don’t get on anything new. So if I’m warming up somewhere, I’m not going to be like, oh, that 11a looks fun. And on lead, I’ll get on it on top rope, but I will not get it on it on lead because one studying fear and helping people overcome fear of falling. The worst thing you can do is have a fear response that just strengthens everything that you were feeling. So kind of knowing that I don’t push the bear. I don’t prod the bear.

 

Neely Quinn 

I think that’s so nice to hear. Because a lot of times when I’m having high fear days, I’ll be like, I just need to push through it and make myself do something scary and it never ever works.

 

Alex Stiger 

It doesn’t work and it actually can really set you back because then you have to do some serious rewiring of that response. Right, because our body doesn’t know the difference of like being chased by a lion versus, you know, falling two feet. If If those hormones and that cortisol spikes in that way. So, yeah.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, so I want to just interject here, my nutrition health care person is sort of coming to the surface here. And I, I just want to say that I know that a lot of people struggle with really difficult periods, like long PMS, really big mood swings, really difficult, actual menstruation. And there are things that you can do to sort of normalize things a little bit. And you can do that through nutrition and supplements. And I’ll just say that, for my own self, I used to have terrible periods where it was super heavy, very painful, I was like, out out for the count for a couple days, and taking out food sensitivities that I had, making sure I was getting enough protein, making sure I was getting enough carbs, and not too many. And of course, you you might have to work with a nutrition professional with these things. But just to know that it can definitely change. And it did for me for sure.

 

But the other thing is, even up until very recently, I struggled with sometimes two weeks of extremely painful breast tenderness. And like to the point where it would hurt to hug somebody. And I finally went to actually an herbalist. And because I was like I’ve tried everything I know, I’ve tried every supplement. And she she’s like a — She’s amazing. Her name is Brigitte Mars, and you can work with her online or whatever. But she gave me this herbal concoction that I now take every day. And since I have worked with her, which was months ago, I have not to actually experienced breast pain at all, as I did on —

 

I know, it’s, it’s like a miracle. And it also changed my period a little bit for the better as well. So just little things that you can do to help make these swings a little bit less intense. So grant over —

 

Alex Stiger 

Can I add? Can I add one thing on that.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah

 

Alex Stiger 

That there is PMS. And then there’s also premenstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD. And PMDD is a clinical condition to so just like you were saying seek help. Like you might just you might not have just normal PMS going on.

 

 

Neely Quinn 

Right? Especially if — Yeah, you mean like depression.

 

Alex Stiger 

Depression, suicidal thoughts, things like that really bad. Like, definitely seek help, because there’s normal PMS. And then there is clinical issues going on.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right. And all of these things going back to climbing, like, these are serious things that we deal with all of the time, that definitely can affect our performance, our motivation levels, all of it.

 

Alex Stiger 

Absolutely. And, yeah, and just like what you just said, I found that so inspirational, because how long did you deal with such bad symptoms around your PMS?

 

Neely Quinn 

I mean, I got my period when I was 11.

 

Alex Stiger 

So a long time

 

Neely Quinn 

30 year, that’s —

 

Alex Stiger 

Not to say, you’re old, but like, I think we just deal with these things. And I really, really, in my own climbing and my own body want to stop just dealing and start kind of thriving and working with it. And understanding and diving in asking questions, being kind to myself, accepting being a woman athlete, instead of just kind of shutting it. And I really want that for all the ladies I work with. And don’t even get me started on girls between age. Well, for you now that you said that 11 and 17. I think it I mean, we we can all really step up to help them.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. And that’s a whole different topic that we’ll never time to know a lot about, which maybe we can go into. We’re going to do another one of these in a couple of weeks. And so we can talk about that more then.

 

Alex Stiger 

I would love to talk about that and Peri menopause and post menopause because I think those are really tumultuous times that that people can have support for.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, that’s a good idea. We’ll talk about those things then. But last thing on what we were just saying is also, I know that it like me telling you when I got my period, and that I have these symptoms and blah, blah, blah. This is really personal information that could seem shameful to be sharing. But like, we have to start sharing it, we have to start helping each other and like using each other’s resources, because it’s not shameful. It’s something that we deal with. And it’s difficult. And we need to start, I think, hopefully start feeling a little less shameful about it all, and just getting it out in the open.

 

Alex Stiger 

I love that you just said that. And I think you said it perfectly. We just have to open up about it. And even going back to that conversation with my male coach. He’s like, Can I ask you if you’re regular? And I was like, Yes. Let me tell you all about it. We’re all overall a little afraid to go there, especially males and male coaches, like, it’s, I don’t envy them. But I think there are really — there are really professional ways that it can be done. But women in general, still need to start opening up and discussing it. And it’s not shameful. It’s actually an amazing way that our body functions, right.

 

Neely Quinn 

Well, yeah, I mean, we make babies. I mean, I don’t personally, but we can. I can maybe…

 

Alex Stiger 

Neely, you’re awesome.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Okay, what, what have we missed? What other things did you definitely want to get to today? 

 

Alex Stiger 

Hmm. So that I kind of want to mention it. There’s a lot of myths out there that could be kind of steering, how we think about a lot of these topics. And I just wanted to kind of give an example of one of mine that just recently, I was able to let go of. 

 

But when I was a teenager, and I was wanting to be like my main lean, 30 year old idol, I read that if you do cardio on an empty stomach that you’ll burn fat. So working out hungry became glorified. Like I was like, This is amazing. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it very often, because I actually hated it. And I felt terrible. But whenever I did, like, I’ve even looked back through my journals, and I could see like, I went jogging before breakfast today, I’m so proud of myself. And I’m like, Oh, my gosh, what misinformation, like that’s exactly what we shouldn’t be doing as female athletes. And I think I just wanted to draw, like highlight, like that of my experience so that women can actually look back through their past and start trying to pinpoint those myths and things that are kind of governing how they view being a woman, and the things we do.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, and I think that a lot of people listening, I know that a lot of my nutrition clients who are females are, in a word doing intermittent fasting, and people are still being told, including women, that it is a good idea. So I think there’s probably a lot of pushback from what you just said. So do you want to go into just a couple of the reasons why you learned that it’s not the greatest thing for women to be doing?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yes, I would love to. I think the big one is kind of bringing up Red S and low energy availability. And I won’t fully go in and explain what those are because I know you’ve done other podcasts about those topics. So I highly recommend if anybody hasn’t listened to those, definitely go check them out. But 46% of recreational female athletes experience low energy availability.

 

Neely Quinn 

Which just means that they’re not eating enough to fuel the activity that they’re doing. 

 

Alex Stiger 

Correct. And that’s recreational, female athletes. That’s not like it goes up as the level of sport goes up as well. So I think one of the biggest things that we could be doing for our physiology and like being women is just eating, eating properly and fueling for our sports and getting enough nutrition in and I that doesn’t mean that you can’t be lean, and you can’t have lean mass and you can’t have the body type that’s best for your sport.

 

I think that just means that if you if you do find that challenging, you need to work with a nutritional professional on how to do it. But fueling is so important for everybody but even more for female athletes just because of how how like many amino acids we burn when we exercise and our recovery windows are a little shorter, and that it requires more protein for us to actually come out of a catabolic state than our male counterparts. And we have a shorter window to so like post exercise, we’re looking at 30 minutes, that we need to be consuming between 30 grams if we’re 30, and under; and 30 and over should really try and aim for 40 is what I’m finding. And I know those are bold things to say, but I actually really believe in them.

 

Neely Quinn 

And so why is it so important to need to eat before exercising? Like why can’t you just get those calories after?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah, so —

 

Neely Quinn 

And I can tell you from a nutritional side of or point —

 

Alex Stiger 

I would love for you to my initial response is just that we have to fuel our bodies so that we could actually have adaptations to exercise and to prevent, like cortisol levels and things like that from just biking and higher anxiety, like I feel like women in general respond to not eating very differently than men.

 

Neely Quinn

Mm hmm.

 

Alex Stiger 

So just kind of just to do everything we can to be our best we need to eat properly. And can you go ahead and dive into from the nutrition standpoint?

 

Neely Quinn 

Sure. Yeah. And I’ve maybe talked about this before. But basically, a lot of times when women do this, it’s in the morning. So you’ll eat dinner, go to sleep, wake up, skip breakfast workout. And while you’re, this is especially bad if your blood sugar is not well regulated through the day, because that means that it’s going to plummet during the night while you’re asleep. That’s why a lot of times people wake up and they’re not hungry. It’s they’re like, beyond hungry because stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol have gotten involved. So in any case, your cortisol levels are higher in the morning, and your adrenaline levels are sometimes in play too, because you’re hungry, and your body’s like, I need you to stay alive. So these hormones help you do that.

 

And then you exercise and exercising also, especially with climbing increases adrenaline and cortisol. And the thing with adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol is that how you make cortisol is, by one way is by stealing constituents from progesterone. And so —

 

Alex Stiger 

Cool.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Which is huge, right?

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn 

So like any kind of stress, any kind of especially working out under a stressful situation like being fasted, it’s all going to affect your sex hormones as well. So it’s, it’s just like, all connected. And it’s so important for women, especially, because I could go on and on about this, but it can definitely affect your thyroid, if you let it go too long, and you stress your body out for, you know, people do this for years, and then all of a sudden, they’re very fatigued, they can’t they they’re gaining weight, they can’t lose it, they can’t sleep, all these things. And it’s because their adrenals have gotten involved. So it’s a whole thing. And so I never ever recommend that people exercise fasted.

 

Alex Stiger 

You just explain that so well, and kind of summed up a huge part of my course, the Stacey Sims course, which was diet trends and why they’re awful for women. So in a nutshell, you just like, boom, nailed it. Um, yeah, fantastic. It´s so good to hear that.

 

Neely Quinn 

Every woman is different. Some people can tolerate that. And some people definitely can’t. We´re all on a spectrum. So I’m not trying to make generalizations, but I am.

 

Alex Stiger 

I think kind of we have to right to grow and to move on. I don’t think, um, generalizations are that bad if there’s no real negative consequence, and it’s just doing the best we can with the information we have available at this time.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah.

 

Alex Stiger 

Yeah. But I mean, I think they’re very, very, very few experts on this subject. So again, I just want to say that it’s just starting this conversation for all of us, and kind of opening those doors and as a coach, I want to be taking this information and funneling it through my lens of just working with a lot of people and being able to talk to a lot of people about getting better at climbing and how how these topics can inhibit or promote their growth.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. 

 

Alex Stiger

Yeah

 

Neely Quinn

Well, should we leave it at that? Or is there anything else you wanted to cover?

 

 

Alex Stiger 

Um, I think we should leave it at that. I think we covered a lot and I’m super excited about the five day challenge coming up. And I think we’ll continue to kind of dive in to this subject, which I’m psyched about. And I’m so excited to learn more about it. One selfishly for myself, but again, just it’s, I think it can help so many women.

 

Neely Quinn 

Oh, yeah. So many women, and the fact that you’re really passionate about training and all of this, it really shows in the way that you speak about it and teach about it. And so I’m just excited to be working with somebody who is passionate about what they do.

 

Alex Stiger 

Thank you Neely, that is straight back to you. And I can’t believe that you were able to do this podcast while probably having a low grade fever. Congratulations on getting your second COVID shot.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, thank you.

 

Okay, so thank you. So just a last reminder, you can find the challenge at Trainingbeta.com/women-challenge. And it is free, completely free. Thank you to Alex for that. And hopefully, we’ll see you in there. There are already a surprising number of women signed up for it in the first day there were like, over 600. So thank you for that everybody who already signed up. And, again, Alex will be doing three live zoom calls where it’ll be informational, and then two recorded information sessions with workouts in them. Is that right?

 

Alex Stiger

Yes, that is correct.

 

Neely Quinn 

And everything will be recorded. So even if you can’t make it to the live zoom calls, we totally understand and we will send you the recordings of them. So hopefully, Alex will see you in there.

 

Alex Stiger 

And we’ll definitely see you in there. And I’ll be very nervous. I’ll be watching my favorite TED talk from Diana Nyad, which I watch anytime I’m scared before every one of those talks because there’s a lot of people. Yeah, more people than I’ve ever talked to ever, but I am very excited.

 

Neely Quinn 

I’m gonna go look up Diana Nyad. Diana Nyad?

 

Alex Stiger

Yeah, I probably watched this talk 10 to 15 times. Diana Nyad, yeah, she’s amazing.

 

Neely Quinn 

Wait, Diana Nyad. Isn’t that an? What´s it called?

 

Alex Stiger

She´s a —

 

Neely Quinn 

She’s a what?

 

Alex Stiger 

She swam super duper duper über far.

 

Neely Quinn 

Oh, like across the —

 

Alex Stiger 

Yep, yep.

 

Neely Quinn 

Ocean or something?

 

Alex Stiger

Yeah, she did that when she was 60.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, I remember her.

 

Alex Stiger

She’s phenomenal. And her talk is just like, yeah, anytime I’m scared, I watched that talk. So there’s another little nugget for people if they want to, if they haven’t seen that Ted Talk, they should go watch that.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right. Cool. Well, as always, thank you very much for your time. And I will talk to you very soon because we talk all the time. But you can also look for another episode on the same topic in a couple of weeks from us. So thanks, Alex.

 

Alex Stiger 

Thank you Neely. Have a great evening.

 

 

Neely Quinn 

All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Coach Alex Stiger. You can hang out with her in the Facebook group. If you join the challenge. Again, it’s free. And I’ve said that 100 times. But I really want you to understand that we’re just giving away that information next week for five days straight.

 

So you can again, go to Trainingbeta.com/women-challenge. And you can sign up there for free and immediately get access to the Facebook group and to the schedule of events, the zoom link and all that. And again, it will all be recorded. So if you can’t make the live sessions, no worries at all, we’ll send you all that and post it into the Facebook group.

 

So I think that’s all I’ve got for you today. I’m going to be doing another one. Another episode on the same topic with Alex, like I said, in a couple of weeks. So if you have suggestions on questions that you want to get answered, please feel free to email me at Neely@TrainingBeta.com or Alex at Alex@Trainingbeta.com and we’re happy to answer your questions. So thanks so much for listening all the way to the end. You can find us on Instagram @TrainingBeta and I’ll talk to you soon.