About Alex Stiger

Coach Alex Stiger recently had surgery on her finger to repair a ligament she tore when she accidentally smashed it on a hold while bouldering. I also just had surgery on my wrist (same surgeon, one month apart), so we’ve been in almost daily communication about our progress, frustrations, and small victories as we recover.

Between the two of us, we’ve had a handful of pretty serious injuries, so we thought we’d discuss how we’ve dealt with those setbacks and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. It can be difficult to stay motivated and take care of yourself when all you really want to be doing is climbing. It can feel sort of like punishment sometimes, but the main things to remember are that you’ll get through it and you can (usually) become just as strong or stronger than you were pre-injury. In the meantime, we’ll tell you how we have learned to honestly enjoy being injured sometimes.

Alex Stiger is a Certified Personal Trainer, Sports Performance Coach, and Head Coach at Movement Climbing + Fitness in Boulder Colorado. Alex spends most of her week working with clients of all levels and ages to help them reach their climbing goals. She has climbed 5.13d and is working towards her goal of climbing 5.14. If you’d like to work with her doing remote coaching, you can find more info on that at www.trainingbeta.com/alex.

Alex Stiger Interview Details

• Brief overview of our injuries
• What our recovery times are/were
• What we’ve been doing to stay psyched and happy despite injury
• Why it’s important to still be around climbing if it’s part of your social life
• Strengthening other weaknesses while your injury heals
• The frustrations of the medical industry
• Why we wish we would’ve sought help earlier

Alex Stiger Interview Links 

• Work with Alex as your coach 
• Instagram: @alex.stiger
• 1st Interview with Alex on the podcast
• 2nd Interview with Alex: How Getting Stronger Made Her a Better Coach

Training Programs for You

Do you want a well-laid-out, easy-to-follow training program that will get you stronger quickly? Here’s what we have to offer on TrainingBeta. Something for everyone…

• At-Home Training Program
• Finger Training Programs
• Injury Protocols
• All of our training programs

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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 sport. I’m your host Neely Quinn, and I want to remind you that the podcast is actually an offshoot of a website, all about training for climbing, trainingbeta.com. Over there, you will find tons of resources to help you get stronger and better at climbing. We have tons of blog posts, training programs, online training with Matt Pincus and Alex Stiger.

Welcome to Alex. She’s a pretty new addition to the site. And then nutrition services with me. I am a nutritionist. You can check that all out at trainingbeta.com and you can find us on social media @trainingbeta.

Neely Quinn

A little update on me, I did get my puppy. Her name is Willa. She is a heeler border collie mix, and she is the cutest thing I have ever seen in real life. I can’t even deal with it. Sometimes I just — like my screen time on my phone is down by quite a bit because I just stare at her and play with her and train her all the time. So I think it’s a really good addition to our lives. She’s eight weeks old, if you want to see pictures of her you can go to my Instagram @neelyquinn.

So that’s been exciting. In the meantime, I’m also climbing and having a really good time doing it. I went to Evo this weekend in Louisville. That’s one of my favorite gyms. And it’s long and the route setting is really interesting. And I got on some 10b´s on lead. And it didn’t hurt that much. And I have never been so grateful to climb 10b´s. So I was super happy with that it didn’t hurt my wrist very much. So yeah, progress is being made, some exciting things have happened in my life. And despite having an injury. So that leads me into this episode, which is with Alex Stiger. 

Neely Quinn

And Alex is a coach. She’s been a coach for a long time. She’s also a really strong climber. She is now a part of the trainingbeta team, as I mentioned earlier as a remote coach, where she’s training people from all over the world, giving them programming, doing calls, doing voxer support, which is like voicemail, basically. And she’s doing 75 minute consultations or eight week programs where you get constant support from her plus programming.

But Alex recently had surgery herself on her finger, and she has had a shoulder injury. And we’ve both had all these injuries, and we’ve always come back stronger. And this particular injury for me, I’ve become a happier person. And she is doing really well too. We’re both sort of thriving, doing other things with our lives, taking a break from climbing and actually appreciating it this time. And so we wanted to talk to you a little bit about our experiences, because we know that getting injured can be traumatic. It takes you away from climbing or other sports that you do, which can be awful and feel like the end of the world. And we want to tell you about how we are getting through this injury. Her surgery having been last month; mine was in November, how we’re thriving, how we’re getting back to sport, or I am at least and what we’re doing in the meantime to keep ourselves occupied, and what you can do if you have an injury as well. So hopefully this is helpful. Again, if while you’re listening to this, you want — you decide that you want to work with Alex or learn more about her you can go to trainingbeta.com/alex. And here she is, and I’ll talk to you on the other side. 

Neely Quinn

All right, welcome back to the show, Alex. Thanks for talking to me today.

Alex Stiger

Hello, Neely. I’m so excited to be back, and thanks for having me.

Neely Quinn

Yeah, of course. So if anybody doesn’t know who you are, and you’ve been on the show a couple times and now you are a part of trainingbeta officially, which is so exciting, but tell us a little bit about yourself.

Alex Stiger

Awesome. So as you already know, my name is Alex and I am a full time climbing coach. So that is now my life and I love it very much. I’m based out of Longmont, Colorado, so we live in the same city. And I’m currently injured and kind of enjoying it, actually. And I know that’s what we’re going to be talking about, so I’ll leave it at that. And yeah, I’m 31 years old, and I’m 4″11′ and three quarters on a short day and five foot on a tall day depending on my footwear. Yeah, so I’m pretty small. And I love climbing.

Neely Quinn

That’s great. Like, I don’t know, when it was maybe 2007 was when we met. And I was living with Johnny Hawk at the time, and he was like, do you know Alex Stiger? And I was like, no, he was like, you have to meet her, you guys would be great friends. Also, you’re the same size.

Alex Stiger

I felt a lot of pressure when meeting you actually, because he told me the same thing. And it was very nerve-racking.

Neely Quinn  

And then we met and I was like, I love this girl. And actually, I thought I was five feet. And then a CrossFit gym told me I was five one. And then yesterday, my handyman measured me and I was five feet again. So I have no idea how tall I am. And I keep finding myself saying I’m five feet to some people and 51 to others. So I just don’t know. But it’s fun to have somebody who understands the difficulties of being a short climber.

Alex Stiger  

And I get asked quite frequently about specifics. So I think at some point, we should also have a chat about what we found that works for our body types. But I know that’s not the topic of today. But it is definitely nice to climb and be around and get help from other short climbers, because it is a little different. And I think the same for tall climbers, too. It’s like anything outside of the normal doesn’t mean it’s a problem. It just means things are a little different.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah. Yeah, we should definitely do an episode on that. It would be really funny if we did an episode all about how tall climbers can — can maximize their efforts.

Alex Stiger  

Yes, and we should get some tall people to do the short person side of it. I think that would be great. Cool.

Neely Quinn  

But today, we’re talking about injuries because as you guys know, I had wrist surgery. I did that in December, November, oh my gosh. November at the Steadman clinic in Vail with Dr. Viola because I had a torn ligament in my wrist and a torn tendon sheath. And then shortly after, actually, during that — my whole injury, Alex why don´t you say what happened to you?

Alex Stiger  

Okay, so I was bouldering in the gym. And I pulled onto the start of a crimpy V7. And with all of my power and all of my might, I moved really dynamically up to the next hold. Unfortunately, there was a very large foothold in a way that I just didn’t see. And I smashed my hand into it. And it made an awful noise, and it hurt a lot. And I went straight to the urgent care because I thought it was broken, but it wasn’t. And I know I talked to you after that injury because I tried to rehab it for quite a while. So that was in the end of September. And then mid October, it wasn’t getting better. So I got an MRI. And it showed that I had a partially torn ligament. And I was correctly told that it could heal. And I had a trip planned to the red that I really wanted to go on. So I decided just to keep climbing on it. And I was climbing and I was climbing well, but I was very limited. So I could not close crimp on that finger. And I couldn’t do anything that kind of pulled it in the direction towards my pinky because it’s my right index finger that’s injured. And it’s that first knuckle. So it’s the collateral ligament. So yeah, it’s a unique injury that is more common to mountain bike riders and football players and basketball players. Not so much climbers. But it wasn’t getting better. And so I saw Dr. Viola and I almost didn’t. But thankfully, you told me that the consultation time was the most valuable time because I was having a problem with the idea of spending 30 minutes with somebody and driving for hours to do so. And it was so worth it. He looked at my finger and basically was just like you should get this repaired. So two weeks later, I had my surgery from him on January 7. And now I am — this Thursday will be four weeks. So we’ve had surgery from the same person in the last couple months, which is awesome. 

Neely Quinn

It is pretty awesome.

Alex Stiger

Yeah, and your recovery actually in your return to sport protocol has been really inspiring to me because you had your surgery when I was in the red, kind of struggling through and knowing that if it didn’t get better surgery was potentially in my future. And and you were so positive through it and you were miserable, but you were still positive and I think that was really inspiring to me. And then just yeah, you’re out of your brace, you’re moving around, you’re doing things. So it’s very helpful to me. So thank you for recovering. 

Neely Quinn  

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But, but that’s funny that you say I was so positive because I remember distinctly not being positive. But thanks. I’m glad that I could at least fake it for you. So, so yeah, so the point is that, and I just want to clarify, because when Alex told me about her injury, I didn’t quite understand where it was. But if you look at the back of your hand, and you look at your index finger, it’s where your the back of your hand meets your index finger. And so that’s where her like big incision is, and she is now in a brace pretty much full time. And my mind was, I was supposed to be in a brace for six weeks, I was very bad about it, because my body does not like braces. But I was basically immobilized from pins, so I couldn’t move it anyway, really. So the point is that both of us are going through pretty serious injuries. They’re more than injuries. We’ve had surgery on them. And we’re recovering. So this is like the epitome of injury, where we —

Alex Stiger

And they´re random

Neely Quinn

And they’re totally random. Yeah! Mine was a handstand, yours was hit – like who does that? So. So yeah. Now, the point of this episode is to talk about like, what tactics we’re using to get through this, and how we are staying motivated and psyched. And Alex has already said that like seeing somebody else go through it has been inspirational to her. And I’m going to talk a little bit – so is Alex – about past injuries too and what we’ve learned along the way, because both of us are sort of veterans at this now we’ve both been training hard and climbing hard for many years. And, and so really, injury is inevitable for a person like that. And so like I’ve had two other shoulder surgeries, which you guys know about. And those ones were much more difficult than this. And that’s because there was a lot of resistance to the injury. And I’m sure that you can relate with this, Alex, from other injuries, but I was like, I don’t care. I’m going to climb through pain. I’m going to like, I just need to climb. And I hear a lot of people saying that, like I can’t be away from climbing. And this time, I think both of us have just been like, I’m just gonna chill.

Alex Stiger  

Yes. It´s so much better this way. Like, encourage anybody to listen to this. And if you were to take one thing, it’s that when you’re hurt, it’s okay, just to chill and stay positive about the things you can do. And not be forcing it because yeah, the other way sucks.

Neely Quinn  

It really does. Have you experienced that with other injuries?

Alex Stiger  

Yes. So last year, I partially tore my supraspinatus. And I did not need surgery, I was able to rehab through it.

Neely Quinn  

That’s the shoulder rotator cuff. tendon or ligament – tendon. 

Alex Stiger  

Yeah, ligament, I don’t know, Oh, my gosh, I should know. But first spanatous, my rotator cuff – partial tear. And through the rehab process, thankfully, I got some great advice and a great return to sport protocol. But it was a long process. And my shoulder is now doing awesome. And I haven’t thought about it in a while in partial thanks to this finger injury because it kind of slowed my roll down a little bit. And I focused a lot on strengthening that shoulder because climbing kind of hurt my finger. But I could, you know do my overhead presses and all the things I should be doing for my shoulder. So my shoulder is now great, but that’s over a year out. And there were some months where I was like, I’m gonna need surgery. I’m sure I told you that. I know I’m gonna need surgery on this. I need to get better insurance because I’m going to have to go to the Steadman clinic because this shoulder sucks. Which is a big point that I want to make – that these injuries. It’s never the steady upward progression that we think it is right. It’s kind of a roller coaster-y.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, it really is. And you’re seeing that now too. Like your pain got worse over the past week. Right? And you’re in week. What? Four? 

Alex Stiger

Four

Neely Quinn

Yeah

Alex Stiger  

When I was expecting to feel like amazing by now. I was like, Oh, this is awful. It’s keeping me up at night – it sucks. Um, yeah. So it is a roller coaster.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, it really is. And it’s, that’s to be expected. And so Alex wrote out some thoughts on this which is going to become a blog post. So stay tuned for that in the next week or so. But I think that the first point that she made, is giving yourself a set period of no pressure time. If you have a big injury, or even a small injury, the worst thing that we can do to ourselves emotionally, and potentially physically is to be like don’t care climbing through it. Some injuries, it’s okay to climb through, but you need to get professional advice on if that’s the case for you, first of all, so in any case, we need to give ourselves a sub period of no pressure to just chill and exercise only when it feels right. So Alex, do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Alex Stiger  

Yeah, I would love to. So in the case of my finger: the day after my injury, I had an appointment with a certified hand therapist. And with her help, and with the advice and consultations of two other therapists, actually, I decided I could actually climb through the injury while recovering it after two weeks of rest. So I think with the going trend of injury rehab, we’re really finding that to heal, we need to be stressing our bodies stressing the injury a little bit, like progressively. And I think we misinterpret that sometimes it’s like, oh, I can continue doing my sport. And that’s not always the case. And then usually, before we start stressing the injury, we do need to give it a time to chill out, right. And our mind has to chill out because I think it’s so traumatic when we have something that we’re worried will pull us from our sport that we want to just dive in. I think for an example, when I hurt my finger, within point, I’m not even kidding. Within five seconds, I was back on the wall. The first thing I wanted to do is prove to myself I wasn’t hurt. So I hit my finger and made a really awful noise. It hurt a lot. And I jumped on a warm up like VB on a vertical wall. And I was trying to prove to myself It wasn’t hurt. But it definitely was hurt. I was like Oh this hurts. So that’s kind of I think where our mentality goes is that if only we could keep doing our sport, then we’re not really injured. 

Neely Quinn

Right. 

Alex Stiger

But that’s not — that’s not necessarily the case. And I think we can’t skip over that period of time where we just need to let the tissues chill, we need to let our brain chill. And it’s so important just to take the pressure off of yourself. Right? Do you feel that too?

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, definitely. Because I did the same thing. I injured it. During the handstand fall. I knew I was injured. I even said to Sett the next day. I was like, I’m going to have to have surgery on this. Like you just know sometimes. And I was like: don’t care – climbing. So I just kept climbing like we were working on Psychatomic while I had my wrist injury, I was still doing wall sessions. It just hurt on certain movements. And because I did that, I think what happened was it was partially torn when I first injured it. And then I kept climbing on it. I was like climbing on Tomb Raider on it. And then I did a big wall session and I tried hard, and it tore completely – I like felt it happen.

Alex Stiger  

You told me about that. And it sounded like such an acute moment.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah. And I was like, alright, I guess I can’t climb anymore. But, but also what I was gonna say is we have this tendency to be like, I don’t care, it’s fine. And ignore things, when in fact, what I should have done was go to the doctor, like two weeks after it happened when I was like, okay, this is legitimately injured, there is something wrong, I need to go to the doctor to see what what’s going on. Because if I had done that, I would have been on the track to recovery much sooner. Instead of like going through — it was April and then I got surgery in November. And I could have probably gotten surgery in like June or something and gotten it over with instead of being in pain and then being braced and then being — having surgery and being braced again and all these things you know, so I just really encourage people to a) acknowledge that it’s a thing, get it checked out and do what you need to do because the better you get it figured out or the quicker you get it figured out the quicker you get to climb again.

Alex Stiger  

Yeah, and I agree completely because like I witnessed with you and your wrist injury, you are actually climbing really, really well while injured. And once you’ve started doing that, it then becomes way harder to to kind of make that change and make those adjustments and get seen. And then I don’t know I just see so many people who have gnarly kind of post injury mobility issues way down the road because they never did get it seen. 

Neely Quinn

Yeah, yeah. 

Alex Stiger

You know, like, like gnarly, like elbows that don’t bend anymore.

Neely Quinn

Right 

Alex Stiger

Or elbows that don’t straighten anymore or fingers that don’t bend or straighten anymore. And I think that’s just all signs that it is so natural for us as athletes to keep going. Yeah, so that no pressure time. And I love that you reflected back that you wish you would have been seen sooner. Because I actually wish I would have seen a surgeon sooner.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, instead of just going to a PT.

Alex Stiger  

Mm hmm. Which the PT is awesome. And we’re very honest with me that if this doesn’t get better, you need to see a surgeon. But I was also very adamant that I keep doing my sport. And so they did everything they could to keep me doing my sport. But, you know, I don’t think it’s worth thinking back too much. 

Neely Quinn

Yeah. 

Alex Stiger

But I think the takeaway, like and I’ll keep trying to say the takeaway from this, because I know it’s more discussion based, is get professional advice and consult with somebody.

Neely Quinn  

I mean, I think that we should dwell on it a little bit. Because same thing with my first shoulder surgery, injured it in April, I had surgery in November was so injured between that time and just didn’t want to even know the truth. You know, like, I was like, what, what if I find out it’s really messed up? I didn’t — I was scared to have surgery. So, so yeah,

Alex Stiger  

That is so true.

Neely Quinn  

I just think it’s so important. And just to reflect on, I do understand why people don’t want to get it checked out. Because like you said, I was climbing really well, when we were climbing together right after I injured myself. And it’s because I had been training my ass off for the last four months. I was like, you know, doing all the things, and I probably was stronger than I’ve ever been in my life. So the last thing I wanted to do was admit that I had an injury. And I so I get it like I do get it but but we have to think about long term. And like, just stop resisting what could be the truth. So So that’s all I’ll say on that. And we can move on to the next one. 

Alex Stiger  

I have one other thing to add, though. And that’s the only time I bawled my eyes out and was truly distraught about my injury was in the car right after the gym going to the urgent care. Like that was the hardest moment for me. But from then on, it’s just like you accept it for what it is, you know, it’s there. And when I got news that I had to get surgery, I was actually just relieved that I would have a, like an end time to this open ended injury. And so I think what people are afraid of is actually not the hardest part of being injured. That initial moment of hurting yourself and then not knowing is so much worse than knowing.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, that’s funny, because when he told me I had to have surgery, as you know, I bawled my eyes out.

Alex Stiger  

I guess that’s different for everybody.

Neely Quinn  

But I hear what you’re saying, you’re like, okay, I have a path to success. So yeah, but so I think people are probably interested in, like how we’re getting through now and what we’re doing to keep ourselves busy and not going crazy. And like how to expect to get back into our sport. And the first thing I want to say about this is that for both of us, and you can speak to this, I think that people are most concerned that if they take time off, really take time off, they will never get back to where they were, they’ll never be as strong, they’ll never get stronger. And I just want to personally say that, that is definitely not the case. And I after both of my surgeries got stronger than I had ever been. And after this one, I don’t expect that it will be different than that. So — and I had doubts about it myself, and Alex, I know that you can say the same thing for yourself.

Alex Stiger  

100%. And I really blame kind of the overall view from like when we’re children in youth sports, to now is just kind of all wrong. Everybody tells us that we have to do our sport more than anybody else if we want to be better than anybody else, or we need to do it as much as we can to get as good as we could possibly get. And I just think it’s so wrong. But we have a lot of those beliefs from childhood that we kind of have to break down and be like, wait, rest is good and time off is good. It’s actually recommended to take three months a year off of specialized sport. And climbers just don’t do that in general. And I know people hear that number and freak out so I never tell any of my athletes they need do that because they would go nuts. But rest is awesome. And I’ve come back stronger as well from any time I’ve been out or injured. And not just physically but also mentally, and you get more skills and you like — your macro picture of why you love your sport kind of get to mature and change during those breaks. And I think that’s really important. So when you take time off, I think not only are you healing physically and your body gets a chance to rest, but mentally, you get to take some pressure off of yourself, you’re not constantly trying to be better. And you also get a chance of really kind of maturing with how you feel towards your sport and understanding those feelings because you’re not just constantly staying busy. But you get to think about it. And every time I’ve taken time off and come back, I’ve been mentally stronger. Like even with my head, like even, I’ve been less afraid of falling even because I know I love my sport. And I love what I do. And I’ve been way more psyched. Which is kind of a lot. And it’s a big deal. And that’s — I would take that extra psych over three extra months of training any day, because that psych is going to stay with me and you go in and out of fitness.

Neely Quinn  

That’s totally true. That’s totally true that a lot of times people psych wanes, and then when you take time off, it almost always comes back. And that’s a benefit of having time off.

Alex Stiger  

I think it is a huge benefit of time off. And it’s it’s often neglected. And I get — I get asked a lot. Why am I not more motivated? I really want to be better. But I don’t actually feel like trying harder. And I think that’s kind of a complicated question. But to me, one of the biggest reasons is overtraining, and people don’t realize they’re overtraining because they think they’re not doing enough in the first place.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, I’d like to take a moment and talk just a little bit about that. Because this doesn’t just apply to people who have injuries. It’s everybody. I’ve recently gotten a spate of clients, nutrition clients, where I always ask people about their exercise schedule throughout every week. And most all of them are climbing too much and training too much like almost every day of the week. And they’re not climbing as hard as they could, because they’re not taking enough rest. And it also really can affect your life, like these people are so afraid of not climbing because they don’t think that they’ll have anything to do. And they think they’re just going to be sitting there with their thoughts doing nothing. And people are afraid of that. And this is what I’ve seen. And so I strongly recommend to all of my clients to take more rest. And this one woman is coming to mind right now where she’s been trying to climb V7 for a long time, she trained seven, six or seven days a week. I asked her to take some time off, she was like: what am I gonna do with this time off. And the next time I talked to her, she was like, I sent my V7´s – two of them. Also, I’m remodeling my parents beach house.

Alex Stiger  

Amazing. Amazing.

Neely Quinn  

To do with your life. And so that kind of thing happened to me this time to where I was like, alright, I can’t climb. I can’t really do anything except for, you know, YouTube workouts after the surgery. So what am I going to do? I’m going to do YouTube workouts and like them, I’m gonna do like dance workouts and actually enjoyed dancing. I started writing music, I got a puppy. I’m like way into puppy training. I have been like remodeling my bathroom. There’s just so many other things to do that, when we’re so focused on climbing, it’s like, we don’t even think there’s anything else. But there really isn’t. I for one don’t want to be on my deathbed thinking to myself, Oh my god, what did I miss out on? I missed out on so much.

Alex Stiger  

And arguably and not arguably, I mean, I think your quality of life is so much higher because of all of those things than it would have been with three months of hard training, and maybe even sending and I know people love sending and we work really hard to send. But I’ve always been underwhelmed by the feeling of sending.

Neely Quinn

Really?

Alex Stiger

You send and then you’re like, well, that was fun. And then you’re really psyched for — for me like two days. Like I’ll have two days where I’ll just lay in bed and I might even have trouble sleeping because I’m so excited and I keep revisiting it. And it’s awesome. And then that goes away. But your puppy isn’t going away. And your bathroom is going to be awesome. And every other thing that you’ve been doing just to stay happy and then — and learn how to fill the time — like those are really lasting happiness boosts to your life. Right? 

Neely Quinn

Yeah, totally.

Alex Stiger

And I think that’s really awesome.

Neely Quinn  

And it gives you time to sort of, I’m wondering what you’ve what experience you’ve had with this. But for me, it gives me time to really reflect on what climbing means to me – how I want to be as a climber. In the future, what makes me happy about climbing, like if I can maintain this level of happiness as a climber, because a lot of times when I’m climbing, I am anxious. And I’m like, disappointed in myself. And right now, I’m just not, you know,

Alex Stiger  

Isn’t that a nice feeling? Just to feel good enough. And it’s crazy to feel that way while injured. 

Neely Quinn

I know

Alex Stiger

Technically, it’s not good enough. I’m looking at my hand, and I’m like, you can’t even put my hair up right now.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah

Alex Stiger  

And all these things that it can’t do. But in a way, I feel very fulfilled. 

Neely Quinn

Yeah.

Alex Stiger

Yeah.

Neely Quinn  

Well,what other things are you doing with your time?

Alex Stiger  

Well, I’ve. So I gave myself four weeks of just anything I want to do, I could do it. And, and I made some goals for the next period of time where I’m like, oh, it’d be awesome if I was to get into a regular stretching routine and have my hips be a little more open and flexible, when I get back to climbing in 12 weeks. That would be great. And I’ve had some hip health issues. So really kind of diving into that. So I put those for, after four weeks, I gave myself four complete weeks of I could do my HIIT PT, if I feel like it, I go for a walk if I feel like it. And I made some work goals for myself that I was really excited about. I signed up for a virtual — the performance coaching summit, which has been amazing. And it fills my time and I’m learning. I have contemplated starting to study chess again, I haven’t done it but even the idea of doing it is exciting. And I’ve just been really enjoying myself. Kind of diving in, yeah, diving in learning new skills, like how to make a PDF document that I could attach to a YouTube video – like little things like that have been really fulfilling. And normally, I wouldn’t have that time. Because I would say I normally climb or train like 20 hours a week. And that’s a lot of time just to enjoy life, during these periods of time and start new things. 

Alex Stiger

And yeah, also, I wanted to say that I just got not scolded. But I got scolded by my finger. Because I started doing some track workouts. And I started getting pretty psyched on them. And I was starting to up my mileage and up my amount of sprints, and all really slow, like personal trainer approved. But my finger just started to hurt a lot. And I think we got some great advice who’s like, you shouldn’t be doing track workouts right now. Because you’re making it angry. You have no way of getting out that swelling that I’m getting a lot of blood flow there, but I’m not able to get rid of it. And so it’s just making everything angry. Even though I’m not actually hurting my finger more. It’s been really uncomfortable. But I realized that I without noticing it and it being pretty organic, my mind gravitated towards that kind of obsessive must-be-progressing mentality. And I’m so actually relieved to have been pulled back away from that and be like, hey, it hasn’t been four weeks yet. This is okay. And even if it’s six weeks, that’s no pressure time. If that’s what my body needs to heal. That’s fine. And it was actually relieving. Because I started to get that like compulsive athlete thought, you know, of like, I must be doing something I must go to the track. I must. And it was so refreshing to be like, wait, I don’t and actually my body’s telling me not to.

Neely Quinn

Mm hmm.

Alex Stiger

Yeah. So it’s easy to start converting. So what I recommend is don’t be obsessive about something else. Don’t take your obsession and transfer it to something the time should really, like, aim to be growing and curious and playful and trying new things.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, not to say that if you can’t — like some people will get injured and then they’ll start mountain biking or something and that that takes up their time and it’s fun and all these things. She’s not saying that you shouldn’t do another sport, I don’t think. If you can. But listen to your body because even mountain biking if you had a finger injury like you do it´d probably be terrible for it, you know, even before your splint.

Alex Stiger  

Dr. Viola said it really well. He was like, if you were a golfer or mountain bike rider, you’d be golfing or mountain biking in eight weeks. And I was like oh, that’s funny, you say that I really like golf, I’m learning but I actually hurt my other hand golfing. He was like, not you. A good golfer could be golfing. So. So yes, explore new sports and activities. It’s really awesome. But I would just caution you not to get obsessed.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah, yeah, I’ve had shoulder injuries before. And I started trail running. And I just wasn’t really strong enough to be doing what I was doing. And then I sprained my ankle. I’ve done this twice now. And then I could do nothing. I couldn’t climb. I couldn’t walk even. And so I was like: ugh, what have I done?

Alex Stiger  

Yeah. And I think that happens to a lot of people actually. So don’t hurt something else. Or overwork yourself in another area when your body just needs to recover, because I think the body does actually need a lot of energy to recover. Bur that’s just my two cents on that.

Neely Quinn  

No, I mean, I think you’re right. I think it’s exhausting. I don’t know about you, but I was exhausted the first three weeks after surgery.

Alex Stiger  

Yes, I was. And I think it’s a really traumatic event for the body. And it takes time. And I and I just, yeah, I feel like there’s just so much pressure to get started too soon. Yeah, with anything with life, like, I had scheduled private coaching sessions, three days after my surgery, and I’m so glad I reached out to you. And I was like, Neely: How long did it take you to want to start working again. And you were like, minimum five days. So I cancelled those lessons. And on the third day, I think I was puking all morning. So I’m so glad I asked you that. Right? Because it really was five to seven days where I was like, I don’t feel like doing anything. Even if I feel fine, I don’t feel like doing anything. I’m tired.

Neely Quinn  

Yeah. Which kind of brings us to an another point that you wanted to make was about finding a buddy who’s also injured. And we have definitely been that for each other. Which has been really nice. Like, we can commiserate about our frustrations, we can, you know, celebrate little victories, like I would text Alex and be like, I put my hair up.

Little things like that. But it’s also like, you don’t, you don’t constantly have to hear about other people’s climbing successes or, you know, not being included in things because you’re unable to actually do the activity. And so finding somebody who’s sort of in the same boat could be helpful. Do you want to talk more about that?

Alex Stiger  

Find an injury, buddy. And you’ll be surprised. I don’t think there’s a shortage, especially if you’re over 30, you’ll probably find one. But I think it is really important, actually. And that’s been key to my motivation. And I do want to just emphasize that I’m actually really happy right now being injured. Way happier than I was with my shoulder injury. And I credit that a lot to having you to go through this with. And, yeah, so find that injury buddy. It doesn’t even have to be the same injury. But it helps so much just to normalize the situation. And like you just sent me a bunch of YouTube mad fit videos that I can’t wait to try, and they’re your tried and true ones. So it’s really, really helpful and very comical. I think it adds a lot of humor to the situation that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Neely Quinn

Yeah.

Alex Stiger

And I think that’s key is find the funny moments about being injured. And kind of emphasize on those because it’s so much better to dwell on those then like, this really hurts. 

Neely Quinn

Right

Alex Stiger

Right?

Neely Quinn  

Right. Well, yeah, and you are really good at making things funny. Like your whole Instagram is basically making light of your life.

Alex Stiger

Thank you.

Neely Quinn

Like the other day, you’re like, I helped Luke cleane the house, and I can move things from one place to another. I sprinkled cleaning stuff in the bathtub, Luke had to do the rest. You know, like talking about it in a funny way. But I think another thing that you’re really good at, and I could take some cues from and a lot a lot of us could is you sort of anthropomorphize your injured area. So you’ll say you just said earlier, I got scolded by my injury, and you kind of like make it its own entity, and you listen to it, you really do. And I think that that’s a really nice way to separate yourself from the injury a little bit.

Alex Stiger   

I do that a lot. And I think that’s actually, I do that in a lot of different situations. But I think as an athlete, that’s a really big tool that we could all utilize a little more, because it’s not my identity. My identity isn’t my injured finger. And sometimes it’s really hard to step away from that because even when I walk into the gym, it’s all well hearted and awesome and I really don’t mind talking about it. But I explained this injury probably five to 15 times a day, even the waitress at the breakfast restaurant, I was just at right. As I explained, so I think it’s really easy to become your injury, or to become like whatever’s holding you back. And if it’s its own thing, it’s like I’m describing my dog. I’m not describing me. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s — it’s kind of out there. But it definitely helps me.

Neely Quinn 

No, I think that’s really great. One of the other points that you wanted to make speaking of your job, because you work at a climbing gym. So one of the things you said is you want — you think that people should be around climbing. And you are every day. Tell us — I think that sometimes that would be frustrating for some people. But talk a little bit about that.

 Alex Stiger 

I would love to talk more about this, because the first time I really saw this in action, I was head coach at this spot, and one of the athletes broke their arm. I believe this, this has happened many, many times, like many, many times, but the first time, I think it was a broken arm, not related to climbing. And that athlete showed up to practice every single practice with a cast on. And they would help us coach we would give them tasks and hang out with them, they would participate in all the workouts they could do, we would make workouts for the athlete that they could do and that the whole team would do together. So we kind of changed things around because that athlete was there. It was such a positive experience for the whole team and for that athlete just to stay involved in their community. And the parents were so thankful that that was an opportunity that that their child could actually still come to practice, even though they were hurt. And I know that kind of goes against what I said about just chill. But I think there is a really important side of our sport that that’s actually very healthy. That’s not the obsessive, I have to be doing something to be better. But that’s our community. And I think when we get injured, it’s easy to remove ourselves from our community where we really need to be inserting ourselves into it.

Neely Quinn

Yeah. 

Alex Stiger

And like I gone climbing. Yeah, imagine my fingers quotations above my head: climbing now twice, where I just hiked out to the boulders and hang out and have fun and be around it. And it’s so much fun. And you learn a lot, because you’re not, you’re not trying to perform. You’re not involved, you’ve taken yourself out of that now you just get to watch people and be supportive. And it’s pretty special, actually, I think and it’s something we can miss out on when we’re hurt. Or we’re even, even if you’re choosing to take time off of your sport. You can still be around it. And I think it’s healthy.

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, definitely. We’ve both gone bouldering with people and just like chilled in the freezing cold. It´s fantastic.

 Alex Stiger 

In very pretty places. And I think it just kind of can remind you of why of all the other reasons you climb that it’s not just to feel challenged and progressive. Right. Yeah, there’s a lot of other benefits.

Neely Quinn

to be outside

Alex Stiger

Or inside, right, just show up to the gym and just hang out with your friends. It’s so fun.

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, totally keep your social life happening. I mean, my entire social life is with climbers. So I’ll just follow them around wherever they go.

Alex Stiger 

I think it’s so important. And I mean, I took a whole year off when I wanted to be a breakdancer remember that embarrassing time in my life. It’s not embarrassing. I love it. It´s awesome. I own it. But I live with climbers. I still went out to the boulders and it really kept me sane. 

Neely Quinn

Nice.

Alex Stiger

Yeah. So I think I’m just a huge fan of that. And like I witnessed with that youth climber. They got through their injury so much faster, and with the healthier mindset. And they didn’t come back into the gym being like, I’ve gotten so weak. This is so awful. I don’t deserve to be here anymore, because they never left. 

Neely Quinn

Mm hmm. Yeah. 

Alex Stiger

And I see that happen to a lot of injured people where they, they don’t feel adequate enough to even start back up. And I think that’s terrible. And we should always be avoiding that. And we could avoid that just by still kind of showing up now and then.

Neely Quinn 

You see that with kids and adults?

 Alex Stiger 

Yeah, especially like post COVID and now having like multiple times where teams have been cancelled and suspended for a length of time and then restarted. I see that a lot and I see a lot of attachment to a previous level. And it can be really hard for an athlete to start back at a lower level, and I think that’s another point I really want to make. So I think that’s a good transition is like fantasize about the easiest version of your return to sport protocol or time not your biggest. Not your big goals. Right, because I think people like, visualize climbing hard. Like, I can’t wait to go back into the gym, because that one moment I had when I sent that 12a was amazing. And I can’t wait to have another one of those.

Neely Quinn

Yeah, yeah.

Alex Stiger

That can be really daunting. And it’s just not realistic. But like, I watched somebody come in the other day, and they just did all the V0´s and all the V1´s, and left. And I was like, I can’t wait to do that. That’s gonna be so amazing. Just to move, and catch. And so if I catch myself wanting to think about sending Homonculus this year, I completely divert that thought. And I’m like, Oh, that’s nice. Maybe. But let’s think about this instead.

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, that’s, that’s a good point. Because with other injuries, I’ve always been like, Oh, yeah, I’m going to get through this. And then I’m going to send this on this date, or this month of this year, and it’s going to be done. And then it doesn’t happen for whatever reason, and then I’m disappointed. And, and so now and people are like, so what’s your plan for this year, and I’m like, I literally have no plans. I’m really psyched, though. Because I went into the gym last night. And I did my first 5.10a´s. And I didn’t, I couldn’t even believe it. And so just like you’re saying, focusing on the small things, like doing all the V0´s and V1´s, and like you’re saying you can’t wait to do that. But when people come to you, and they say they don’t – in so many words – they don’t feel adequate. Coming back, like, how do you get them out of that mindset? 

Alex Stiger 

I’m scaling their sessions a lot. So when I work with a client, my goal is for them to feel positive and have a positive takeaway from every single session. And I want them building confidence instead of having confidence blows that they’re going to have to recover from. So that person who steps back into that gym, and their expectations are high. And I see that on their face. Like from the moment they warm up. They’re like, I feel so weak. My instant go to is like, Oh, isn’t it amazing? How hard climbing is that even the easiest climbing is still really hard? And it’s really good, you get a chance to remember that?Because after a month, you’re gonna feel great. And you’re gonna forget about that. So take a mental picture of this. Because isn’t it fun? Climbing is hard, and it hurts. And we have to have so many things going on in our body for it to feel good. That just to appreciate it for what it is and the challenge. And that climbing is hard. And it’s hard, at the easiest levels. And just to kind of celebrate that. And then the second part of that is to really scale the sessions. Like I do not let the athletes climb on anything harder than a V3. If I know that’s going to put them in a negative space. Right. And I’ll just make their workout all around like volume and more fitness base and more positive — kind of do what you want. Do what’s fun. But just try and spend as much time as feels right on the wall. But you cannot climb over a V2. So yeah, just really trying to craft and we can be our own coach with that. Like if I walk into the gym, and I’m like, what sounds easy and what sounds hard, then kind of like go in that direction of easy. And say like, I’m gonna stay easy for the next three weeks. 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, I think it’s also like you’re saying it, you can be your own coach. But sometimes we can get ahead of ourselves. Like, we’ll be on the wall, we’ll be midway through our recovery. And then all of a sudden, we’ll try a little bit too hard, and it’ll hurt. And we’ll be like, it’s fine. I’m just gonna climb through the pain. But for me, it’s easy. It’s better to have Seth with me who can be like, that looked hard. It looks like you’re in pain Do you need to take? And I’ll be like, yes, please take, but I wouldn’t have necessarily done it right away for myself. So having somebody who you trust, you know, sort of keeping the reins on you a little bit.

Alex Stiger 

I think the reins are really important. And another big thing I do with athletes returning to sport is limit their amount of time. Right? So and for myself with my shoulder, I would when I started to be able to try more things I would say okay, I could try anything I want, but I can only climb for 30 minutes. And then next week, I can climb for 35, right? And then you slowly increment, like get it up but it’s really hard and climbing and there’s some great PTs doing work on this, but actual like, return to sport protocols for climbing, because it’s actually pretty easy to escalate up intensity and duration in like running. But so much of climbing, it’s, you know, it’s just not that easy. You’re like, well, but this V4 doesn’t feel hard, but that one does. So you have to really know what you’re doing to be able to, like, progressively increase in small increments. 

Neely Quinn

Yeah. 

Alex Stiger

And I think I would suggest people work with a coach, if they’re coming back, and they don’t know how to scale appropriately. Because the worst thing you want to do is get pain and experience pain and try and go through that, because you’re creating a lot of negative pathways. And even, like, even after the injury is healed, you’ll still experience a lot of pain and have to work through that because you’ve created that road from your brain to your injured body part.

Neely Quinn 

Honestly, I think that’s part of — that’s like, one of the hardest parts for me is because with injuries, we — I mean, my PTs have said to me, all along the way, you want to have some amount of pain. And then you want to back off, if it gets to this, you know, it’s basically you want to be in a level 4 pain tops, and no more than that, on a scale from 1 to 10. And so for me, it’s like, I’ll go to the gym, I’ll have maybe a four or five. And then I’m like, well was that too much? And so it’s, it’s a really fine balance, knowing have I done too much or have I not. But one good, one good, like sign of doing too much is that you’re in a lot more pain the next day. I think it’s okay to have a little bit of pain during the session and a little bit after the session. But if it doesn’t go away, right away, you know, within 15 minutes or whatever, then you’ve done too much. And that’s kind of what my PTs have told me. But what is your thought on that?

 Alex Stiger 

I think that is great advice. And I think if you can control that, that is definitely the way to go. But I think in climbing specifically, it takes a really experienced climber to know what — it’s way easy to go all of a sudden really quick up to a six or a seven. And that’s where I don’t, yes, I agree completely. But I think it does take quite a bit of experience to know what that is. 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. And climbing slowly, is really helpful. Like, don’t just go into the gym and be like, Oh, I’m gonna get on this. And then you just like do your normal movement patterns. I — it took me literally three minutes or four minutes to get up my first five, six, and it’s very slow still. Because I’m like, is this hurt? Do I need to adjust, you know, and so I’m like really taking my time with it. And I think that that’s a good strategy.

Alex Stiger 

I think that’s a great strategy. That is like a goldmine tip of if you’re recovering from injury, think of slowing everything down. And actually getting speed with my injured shoulder was the last thing to have happen in my recovery process. Like I can move it in all the different areas and I could load it and all the different areas, but actually moving that hand fast. Didn’t happen till like way later in the recovery process. 

Neely Quinn

Yeah. 

Alex Stiger

And I think too, just not feeling like you need to accomplish a lot in one session, you will get better, you will get stronger, but you have to just be really patient.

Neely Quinn

Yes. So patient.

Alex Stiger

Because it’s way better to do a little bit and then see if you’re sore the next day then to do too much and be sore the next day and then have to go schedule time with your PT because you’re worried you´ve injured yourself. Like anything like that. So I think just being really patient. But there are people who really do know what their return to sport protocol should be. And I think you can seek them out. I mean, you´re doing it super smart.

Neely Quinn 

Do you have people who you trust with that?

Alex Stiger 

Um, yes, but –. 

Neely Quinn

Do you know?

Alex Stiger

I don’t know. Okay, so maybe I just lied. But I know I have a great friend. Her name is Rachel Meyers and she is in PT school at Duke and she’s really working a lot on a lot of the return to sport protocols for different injuries in specifically with growth plate injuries in youth climbers. And so when I had a injured athlete with a growth plate injury, we were able to get a really clear return to sport protocol that was awesome and super easy to follow. And then I usually just ask my PT what that should be, and get great guidance on that, too.

Neely Quinn 

I want to go back to one thing. But then I want to talk about PTs and stuff. When we were talking about people not feeling adequate. I think that this is something that we should focus on just for a minute. Because there’s a lot of shame involved in like not performing at, like you were saying, you know, some, some old standard that you have for yourself. And so we come into the gym, when we’re when we’re, our back is facing the rest of the gym. Honestly, sometimes we assume that everybody is watching us. And they know how hard we’re supposed to be climbing in quotes. And they can see how much  worse we are now. And that’s just not the case. Like most people in the gym are not focusing on you, they’re focusing on themselves. And even when you are climbing a 5.6 on top rope, when normally you would be climbing 12+´s on lead, like people don’t care. They just really don’t care. And I even said it to a friend of mine in the gym the other day, I was like, I just had surgery. That’s why you’re seeing me climb 5.9´s on top rope. And he was like, Yeah, I saw that. There’s no judgment here. Like, I’m also getting back into climbing after COVID. You know, so — 

Alex Stiger 

I love that your friend said that. Yeah, that´s so. Yes, we put that monster on ourselves. Nobody cares. And I think that every 5.10 climber wants to be seen on 5.11´s. And every 5.11 climber wants to be seen on 5.12´s . And so that’s a very normal feeling. No matter if you’re healthy. If you’re — if you’re injured, if you’re coming back. It could be particularly difficult when you’re coming back, because you’re so far away from what you think the ideal picture of yourself should be. But it’s everybody experiences that. And I actually have that be. It’s a very big topic for me when I work with my clients, because so many people won’t want to put in time on the climbs in the levels, that’s actually going to help them be better. Because they always want to be seen on something harder. And I’ve I have been that person and I have spent so much time on way too hard of things for myself. Because I just wanted to be seen on them. And that’s how I wanted to identify. So and there is there’s so much shame in being like, I got hurt. I’m not supposed to get hurt. This injury has been pretty easy for me with that, because it was so random. And one of my team kids said it so well. I was just I went up to him. I was like, look what happened to me: I did this. And they just looked at me with a sincere face. And is like, that is so incredibly unfortunate. And in that moment, I was just like, you’re right. There’s no shame. My shoulder was a different case, because I always prided myself on having healthy shoulders and knowing all the shoulder exercises, and I’ve always been complimented on my shoulder strength. So I felt really betrayed. But what’s your experience been with that and your injuries? Has some been harder and more shameful than others?

 Neely Quinn 

Oh, God, I had so much shame with this wrist injury. I had so much shame. I was like I did something wrong. I for me, it was like nutritionally there’s something wrong with me. And finally, I was just like, no, I took a actually traumatic fall and landed all of my body weight on the side of my wrist — like it but it took a month to not feel shame about that. And with my shoulders, I also felt just like shocked by it because it wasn’t a climbing thing. Like I remember, before my first shoulder surgery, I literally said to people at the crag because they were talking about their shoulder injuries. I was like I’ve never had a shoulder injury before. And then three days later, or no, three weeks later, I couldn’t climb because my shoulders hurt. And it was because I had sat hunched over a computer for three weeks straight working like 100 hour weeks. And something happened in there. It just changed my anatomy and I couldn’t rehab it. So yeah, like, there’s so much shame involved. I was like, what did I do to myself? Why? Why would I do that to myself?

 Alex Stiger 

Yeah. And I think that just has to like, I’m so glad we’re talking about it because I don’t think it’s talked about very often. I know we mentioned it in our last podcast and I’ve actually had some great conversations with people because of it. Because yes, it’s really hard and it’s really hard too when you — when it’s just so much of your identity is on being an athlete and being healthy and being resilient. Cuz it feels very, like, how fragile am I that I hit a handhold and like, partially tore my ligament. But actually, I need to flip the way and I caught myself saying that and thinking that once and I was like, no. How amazing is it that I could generate that much power?

Neely Quinn 

Amazing, Alex. I love that.

 Alex Stiger 

Right, I’m so so proud of myself that I could generate that much power on two bad holes and two good feet. Because the feet were good, that I was able to smash into that foothold that hard. 

Neely Quinn 

Wow. Yeah.

Alex Stiger 

Yeah. So I think we have to catch ourselves there. And, yeah, and it’s just often so far from the truth. It’s just we want to put the blame on something. 

Neely Quinn 

Well, you know, it’s not always just shame. It’s like victimization, you know, I felt like a victim really after my first one. In my second shoulder surgery was from that same event, it just, I just didn’t do it for three years, like I knew that both of my shoulders were messed up, the left one was just worse. And what that taught me like, those two surgeries have made me never work 100 hour weeks again, which is something that I was doing for these big projects that I was having, and I would just work myself to the bone. I was up all night, I was hunched over a laptop, like on the floor on the whatever. And it I’ve never done that again. 

Alex Stiger

Was that when you were writing the book?

Neely Quinn

No, it’s when I was doing one of the bundles sales for paleo.

Alex Stiger

Wow. Okay.

Neely Quinn

And, and it was super stressful. It wasn’t only that I was hunched over it was that I was very stressed out like panic the whole time. And so I just got really tight, but the point is that these injuries, we like Alex just said, like, we have to see the positive in them somehow and learn and, and try not to do those things again, like, I’ll never sit over a computer like that, again, because it’s just bad for you in general.

Alex Stiger 

I love that you said you’re never gonna work 100 hour weeks, because I mean, so what that each — it like — maybe a year of your life was dealt like — was impacted potentially negative by your shoulder surgeries. And actually, like, I would argue that the negative period of time for that is actually like eight weeks when you just really can’t do anything. And even that is like a learning opportunity. But then that’s like 45 plus years that you’ve made a positive change for your life.

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, mm hmm. Yeah, exactly.

 Alex Stiger 

Yeah. That’s a great point. Thank you for saying that. That makes me feel better. See, this is why it’s so important to have an injury buddy. Yeah, this is what our conversation sound like to each other.

 Neely Quinn 

We’re just trying to eke out little positive things all the time.

Alex Stiger 

Like when you had to do up my zipper. Anyway, total struggle, it almost didn’t happen.

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, that was amazing.

Okay, and just be open to like, accepting your fate. And knowing that you can get back on the horse, and you will, and you can get stronger. And you can strengthen other things in the meantime, like Alex has been doing. I mean, I’ve been working on my ass for the last six months. And I finally like my ass.

Alex Stiger 

I’m so proud of you. That´s so exciting. Yeah, my butt’s definitely getting bigger and my arm is getting smaller. And I am not super happy about that. But I was just like, this is fine. This is what it is now.

Neely Quinn 

That’s the other thing is like your muscle is going to go away if you’re not using it. And I can tell you and Alex can attest to this, like, I’m a pretty muscular person normally, and I have shrunk three times now.

Alex Stiger

And we’ll come back.

Neely Quinn

And it came back each time. So —

Alex Stiger 

I think that’s very important for people to hear and to stay motivated, just like you will get through it. And I think, just don’t try and do it alone. And don’t try and do it without a plan. Choose the option that has a clear, progressive step to recovery. And you told me this even before my surgery, and it was such a great tip. You’re like just ask for your layout of recovery. And I did and they sent me three pages of week by week. This is what it’s going to look like. 

Neely Quinn 

Oh, sweet. Why didn´t I get that?

Alex Stiger 

Well, you didn’t ask for it before your surgery. You told me to ask for it. So I did. And it was awesome. I got it. And I was like, oh, this is fine. This is handleable. In six weeks, I started squeezing putty. In eight I start doing gradient strength exercises and at 12 I’m back to easy climbing. And it was so relieving to see that. So I would just say like alternative therapies are amazing. And there’s so much amazing research going into them and studying them, and they’re seeing great outcomes. But also, you have to protect your sanity sometimes. And for me, I didn’t want to be an experiment, in this case. I just wanted to know what it was going to look like. 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Well, I think that we have sufficiently told everybody of our frustrations and the woes of the last several months, six months of our lives. And hopefully, we’ve also imparted some reassurance that things can get better and you — there is life beyond climbing, and it can be a really good thing to get out of it sometimes, and all these other things. So hopefully, it’s helpful. And if you have like a not so serious injury, and you can climb with it, that’s the kind of time when I think it’s helpful to work with a coach, do you work with people like that?

 Alex Stiger 

Yes, I do. And I actually love working with them. Because I think it can be really hard to know how to scale your own climbing and your own exercise program. And an outsider can really help you with that.

 Neely Quinn 

Yeah. So do you have any last thoughts.

 Alex Stiger 

It’s just been so good to talk about this with you. And not only this conversation for the world to hear, but I feel like I’ve laughed more in last four weeks since my surgery than I had in the last like, six months prior. Because I was so performance oriented, and kind of like, I must be progressing that I kind of forgot to just take some time and enjoy life. So enjoy being injured. And I know that’s so weird and hard to understand, but it can actually be a really amazing time in your life. And everybody asked, like, offers to help me like, I think I’m gonna actually really miss wearing this splint, because people even offered to hand me eggs in Whole Foods. Like, like, it’s kind of nice to be pampered, sometimes. And when I have to do my own hair again, I don’t even know. I’ll be bummer. 

Neely Quinn 

But no, every every morning still, I’m like what I have to make my own breakfast. Ugh.

 Alex Stiger 

Yeah. So I guess my parting words are just enjoy wherever you’re at. Because it’s not like it’s that much better. Yeah, it’s like we’re living in the moment we’re living. So —

 Neely Quinn 

We’re living in the moment we’re living.

 Alex Stiger 

Enjoy it and laugh about it. And injuries can be really funny.

 Neely Quinn 

Yeah, for sure. And I really appreciate talking to you through this. And we’ve definitely laughed and giggled quite a bit, as everybody can see. So, thanks for your wisdom on all this. I’m sorry that you’ve experienced these injuries. But I’m also glad to talk about it with somebody who I love and trust. So if you want to work with Alex, you can find her at trainingbeta.com/Alex. Super easy to find. And she is currently taking clients for 75 minute consultations which have proven to be really effective with people just like a one time conversation. And then also an eight week program. So again, trainingbeta.com/Alex. And I’m so glad that you’re part of the trainingbeta team. So thank you very much.

 Alex Stiger 

I’m so excited to be part of the training beta team. And thank you so much, and I can’t wait to talk to you soon.

 Neely Quinn 

All right, I’ll talk to you soon. 

Neely Quinn

All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview. Well actually discussion more, with Alex Stiger. You can see we are pretty close, spend a lot of time together. And I am so happy to have her at trainingbeta. And you can work with her if you go to trainingbeta.com/Alex. She, like I said is doing 75 minute consultations where she will talk with you over the phone. She’ll talk to you about your situation, what equipment you have available, how much gym access you have, what your goals are, what your current abilities are, etc. And she’s really good at being super efficient with time. She’s very professional. She’s really good at pinpointing what people’s issues are because she has worked with so many people over the years. So she’s definitely helpful even with a 75 minute consultation. She’s also really effective as a long term coach and she’ll do eight-week programs with you where you’ll have constant access to her basically, whether you’re leaving her voxer messages, or you’re, you’re having conversations with her regularly on the phone. She’s doing video assessments of your actual climbing technique. So she will also do programming for you where you get a program, a training program where you know exactly what to do when you go into the gym, or if you’re training at home. So you will have no questions about what to do. And you can again, find that at trainingbeta.com/Alex. Don’t forget, we also have other training programs on the site. And every time that you purchase something from trainingbeta, you’re helping to keep this podcast going and helping me and Alex and Matt, and all the people who are associated with Trainingbeta have the life that they want. So we really appreciate your support. And I really appreciate you listening all the way to the end once again. So thank you and I will talk to you next time.