About Eric Hörst

In this episode, I talk to Eric Hörst about how older climbers (over 35) can change their training to avoid injury and fatigue while still being as strong as ever. Eric Hörst is a well-known climbing trainer, having written some of the most popular books on the topic, including How to Climb 5.12, Training for Climbing, and Maximum Climbing. He’s a climber in his 50’s who still climbs as hard as ever (5.13 redpoints) due to his smart training methods, which he’s catered to himself to fit his mature body.

His 2 boys are living proof of his training methods, regularly climbing 5.14’s by the time they were each 11 years old. Eric keeps an active blog on training for climbing, aptly named www.trainingforclimbing.com. He also runs the company Physivantage, which sells supplements for athletes.

My New Puppy 🙂 

I said I would put a photo up of our new puppy (we don’t have her yet) and here she is! She’s a heeler/border collie mix, just like our other dog. We get her in three weeks and we are SO EXCITED!

Eric Hörst Interview Details

• How to support recovery
• How to train when you’re over the age of 35
• Physiological changes that happen as you age
• How to slow the aging process
• How to know if you’re training too much
• Why you shouldn’t be sore every day
• The importance of sleep
• Bloodwork to consider
• Why your ability to recover declines

Eric Hörst Links

• www.trainingforclimbing.com
• www.physivantage.com
• Instagram: @training4climbing and @physivantage

Rock Climbing Training Programs 

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• At-Home Training Program
• Personal Training Online
• Bouldering Training Program for boulderers of all abilities
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• Finger Strength Programs
• 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. So you can check that all out at trainingbeta.com. And you can find us on social media @trainingbeta.

So a little update on me, I got my second surgery on my wrist, I got my stitches out. And then I went to my doctor, and he told me I could start climbing four weeks earlier than I thought I could. So at eight weeks out, I had my first climbing day, the other day, and it was good. It wasn’t super painful. It’s just weird and weak. And I didn’t want to push it. I did some 5.6´s, 5.7´s, then I tried a 5.8, backed off. So I’m just gonna take it really slowly. But it was really nice to just move that way again. You take for granted what that movement does for you. Actually, we don’t take it for granted because all of our gyms have been closed. So you all understand. 

The other piece of news is that we’re getting a puppy. And I’m so excited. I didn’t even think I wanted another dog. And then all of a sudden, last week, I decided I wanted a puppy. And so we are getting a heeler border collie mix. And she’s only four weeks old right now. So we have to wait a few weeks to get her. Actually, I’m gonna put a picture of her on the show notes just because she’s so dang cute. So anyway, lots of exciting stuff happening in my life. And yeah, so today on the podcast, I have Eric Hörst. And he has been writing and speaking about climbing training for a really long time. He was one of the first people to actually put it into a book and start talking about it. So he has a website trainingforclimbing.com, and he does a podcast over there. And he also runs the company, PhysiVantage, which you may have heard of, they sell collagen and whey protein and stuff like that, specifically for climbers and other athletes. So in this episode, we’re gonna be talking about climbing training for older people. Eric is in his 50s. And he’s still sending just as hard as he ever has. He’s a 5.13 climber. He travels, he trains he climbs all the time. And so in this episode, we’re going to talk about training for older people. And what that means is when I think of older climbers, I guess I conjure up like somebody in their 50s or beyond. But the truth is that our bodies start changing much sooner than that. And I see that in my nutrition practice, all the time where people in their 30s will come to me and they’re saying, I’m not recovering as well as I used to. I hit a plateau, I can’t stay at the body composition that I want to. I’m more tired. I can’t sleep as well. Like all of these things. So in this episode, we were gearing it towards people in their 30s and beyond. And really for anybody who isn’t recovering well and is hitting a plateau and just feels tired a lot. So I hope that you gained something from this here is Eric Hörst and I’ll talk to you on the other side. Enjoy. 

 

Neely Quinn

Alright, welcome to the show. Eric. Thanks so much for talking with me today.

 

Eric Hörst 

I’m happy to join you, Neely.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, so for anybody who doesn’t know who you are, which I doubt there are many, but can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

 

Eric Hörst 

Sure. First of all, my last name is spelled h o r s t. But there’s actually a umlaut over the O, so it said Hörst and so my close friends get that or people that listen to my podcasts get that pronunciation, but a lot of people see the written word and say Horst, which kinda bums me a little bit.

 

Neely Quinn 

Like I did for a while.

 

Eric Hörst 

Yeah. And that’s okay. It’s my German heritage that I’m trying to hang on to a little bit. But uh, you know, I’m in my 50s. I’ve been climbing for more than 40 years. I started in the 70s when I was a teenager, when there weren’t many teenage climbers. And, and it’s been a passion of my life ever since, you know, and I, in high school, you know, was an athlete and back then there wasn’t really training for climbing but I conjured up ideas and gathered ideas and that kind of started me down a road of training for climbing, which back in the 80s wasn’t something anybody talked about. In fact, there was no magazine articles on training for climbing, like there are today, until 1988. And I wrote those first articles for rock and ice and climbing in the late 80s. And so that got me started in writing. And since then I’ve written seven books, my bestseller is training for climbing, which is on its third edition, and has six or seven international translations. There’s actually a Russian translation coming out in January. And so it’s been really fun for me to be involved not only as a climber, but increasingly as a coach over the years. And you know, I have a climbing family, my wife climbs my kids climb, and we do other things. We’re not just climbers, I place a high value in being well rounded. I think that’s why I’m still climbing after all these years is that I never did it so much that I burned out, I guess you might say. And so I’m an advocate of climbing as a life sport, that that complements the other things in our lives, family career, so on and so forth. And so it’s a message that I love to communicate. And that just because now being in my 50s, I’m not taking a knee and saying that’s enough with climbing. I’m still motivated to train and to try to climb my best, and project a route. If I find one that inspires me. And so, you know, I’m probably twice the age of a lot of people listening this podcast, but I would like to think I have a lot of wisdom and experience to share. And so I’m happy to be here doing that today.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, well, and that’s why I asked you honest, because you do have a lot of wisdom and knowledge to share. And we’ve talked in the past about doing a specific topic, which I have not completely neglected, but pretty much neglected on the podcast, which is training for older people. And by older we’re gonna have to do some defining, but it’s not as old as we think. But so —

 

Eric Hörst

Right.

 

Neely Quinn

Let’s talk a little bit about that. Like, we can start with your own experience, maybe as, as far as training at an older age and and what that means for a climber.

 

Eric Hörst 

Right? Well, you know, a lot of these things that I — that we’re going to talk about are things that just really dawned on me in the last decade, as I’ve kind of wrestled with aging myself, and what it does to your body, because you don’t respond to training in your 40s or 50s, the way you do as a teenager, or as a 20 something. And there’s a myriad of other changes that occur. And really, biologically, those changes begin in your 30s. And so, you know, as soon as you kind of turned 30, you need to at least start thinking about some of these things they’re not — you know, they’re very subtle initially, but then as you get in to your 40s, they become a little more noticeable. And, you know, so from my journey, you know, let’s say a decade ago, when I was in my 40s, there wasn’t anybody who had written or communicated about training for older climbers. So I have kind of researched it, and, you know, figured out what works both, you know, experientially, but also, what is there a research basis to support in terms of changes in your diet or ways to train or things to not do in training that might be interest. And so there’s actually many facets to staying active and training rigorously, but also keeping it safe. And, you know, we could go a lot of different directions on this. So —

 

Neely Quinn 

And what have you noticed about your own climbing and training over the years? Like, how specifically has it changed because of age?

 

Eric Hörst 

Well, you know, the most noticeable thing is recovery ability. And I know pro climbers in their 30s, who I talked to, that say they begin noticing it in their 30s. You know, when you’re a teenage climber or 20 something climber you have boundless energy, your metabolism is fast, you tend to eat a lot, and your testosterone level is high. And you can really handle — you have a high capacity for exercise. And although there are genetic factors at play, you know, younger people recover quickly. And so you can train or climb kind of two days on one day off two days on one day off indefinitely and have a pretty high performance level. When I got into my, let’s say, 40s, and certainly in my 50s, you know, although I still do at times a two days on one day off schedule, Especially when I’m in a performance climbing situation, like when I’m traveling, I’ll be more one day on one day off, you know, and try to make the most of that one day on. And then the one day off, I really am conscious about things I can do to support recovery and accelerate recovery during that 24 hour window. Whereas when I was a younger climber, and I think a lot of younger climbers, listening, probably, on the rest days, don’t spend much time thinking about how they can accelerate recovery, because they recover so quickly already that, you know, is there really a need to accelerate it, you know, get a good night’s sleep and eat the right foods. And you know, that’s about all you need to do. But now I’m thinking about what things can I do to be more engaged in the process. For instance, five years ago, I bought a, a sauna that’s in my garage, you know, and I’ve begun using a sauna based on research that shows you know, healthful benefits, and also performance related benefits, potentially, to frequent sauna use. And so I’ve kind of, you know, experimented with a lot of different things over the last decade, and tried to identify what personally would help me out, and then I can share some of that, with, you know, other folks experiencing the same thing. But you know, there’s, you know, we talk, what is most obvious to someone that’s passionate about climbing and training is that loss of recovery, but there’s a lot of underlying changes that occur during your 30s and 40s onward. You know, slowly, your bone density drops, your muscle mass drops, your — when it comes to performance indicators, your aerobic capacity drops, your muscle glycogen stores, decrease. Neurologically, there are changes that make your nervous system less active, or you have the loss of neural drive, let’s say and perusing power, your metabolic rate drops, so it’s easier to put on weight as you get older. You know, hormone levels, testosterone and thyroid tend to decrease with age, because of these changes, fiber types, you tend to lose fast twitch fiber that atrophy with old age, it’s called sarcopenia. So you have a loss of fast twitch fibers, which you can combat and that’s something we’ll talk about. But if you don’t, aren’t proactive in doing things to kind of countermeasures, all these things can happen, you know, your nitric oxide release drops and results in increasing vascular stiffness. And, you know, so blood pressure can go up and, you know, that affects performance and circulation, and you can develop insulin resistance, you know, some people that tend towards diabetes as they get older, you can, therefore accumulate advanced glycation end products in your connective tissues, which make them stiffer in a not beneficial way. And so, all of these changes are slowly playing out, you know, they’re genetically programmed. And, you know, 100 years ago, the average life expectancy was about 50 years. Well, now, it’s nearly 80 years old, the life expectancy. So we’re talking about, you know, being in your 40s and 50s, and trying to be a high performance athlete 100 years ago, was something that didn’t exist. Because people, you know, again, the life expectancy was around 50. But now we have all these extra years to, you know, add value to our lives and to be active and travel and, and so there really is a need now to — if you are informed and take some action, you can stay in the game a long time. And there’s, you know, a handful of climbers in their 60s, people like Chuck Odette, and Bill Ramsey, and Lee Sheftel, and there’s others that climb at a super high level into their 60s, but there’s definitely a formula to that.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right? Yeah, those are really interesting physiological changes that, you know, it’s not just the thing that’s in our heads that it’s — it’s actually all of these things combined, that decrease our recovery and decrease our strength if we’re not really paying attention to it. So — 

 

Eric Hörst 

There’s these cliches that are around like one cliche is, you know, age is simply a state of mind. And while that’s a nice feel good attitude, it’s basically lying to yourself, because, you know, there are changes that take place, you know, as we age, chronologically. So while in my state of mind, I think I’m in my 30s, that’s kind of what I feel like energy level wise, and motivation wise. But the fact is, I’m in my middle 50s. And so to act and train, like I’m in my 30s, would be a disservice and would get me injured probably pretty quickly. So, I think the mindset of being younger than your age, that’s great. But you do need to embrace what your age is, and that there are these biological changes. And that if you just walk up to a campus board cold, when you’re in your 50s, you’re probably not going to get away with that. Whereas maybe in your 20s, you would. It’s not a smart thing to do, but you can probably get away with it now and then. And so you do need to be older and wiser, as they say.

 

Neely Quinn 

Hmm, all right. So what are the things that you that you do personally, and that you would recommend that people do to, to mitigate these things?

 

Eric Hörst 

Right, well, um, first of all, you know, I think it’s important to have compelling goals, like, you know, I have a fitness goal, you know, to, like, I kind of, you know, I’m a, I’m a scientist, and I love to track metrics, you know, and so, you know, I have been keeping written records for ever, you know, when it comes to things like my body weight, and, you know, different strength metrics, and, you know, with every passing year, I kind of test myself on different things, you know, finger force, and, you know, can I still do a one arm pull up, you know, because I’ve been able to do one on pull up since I was like, 15. So like, every year, when I have a birthday, it’s like, okay, is this the year, that I’m not gonna be able to do a one arm pull up. Now, I don’t want to get injured doing it. Because that — that’s a game ender, potentially for an older climber. But you know, things like that I like to keep track of and, you know, having climbing goals, travel goals, you know, that kind of gives you a reason to stay motivated and commit to the program. And as an older person, you know, if you’re into your career and your family, you know, when you have — maybe you start your family in your 30s and 40s. and that, that changes your life in terms of time available. And so it is easy to kind of fall out of the sport. You know, I will often hear from people that are in their 50s, saying: Hey, I haven’t climbed in 20 years, but now my kids are out of the house, and I’m starting to climb again. And, you know, I would encourage climbers to try to stay active throughout those family and career years, as much as you can. Because, you know, regaining fitness, like after a long layoff, and recapturing your abilities, it’s certainly possible, especially in a skill sport, like climbing, but as you get older and older, it’s tougher and tougher to make that comeback. But you asked about, like tips and things that I do. And the first is to do something physically active every day. Now, I’m not climbing at my limit or training hard everyday, but you know, it might be going out for a 20 minute jog, or even on a busy day, just getting out of the house and going for a walk, like sometimes I’ll do business phone calls, and I’ll grab my phone and go out and walk around the neighborhood while I’m doing that, that call. So trying to be you know, find clever ways to stay active, you know, basically to elevate your heart rate and to consume oxygen, you know, keeps mitochondria function up. And, you know, that’s one of the markers of aging is mitochondria loss and dysfunction that leads to many illnesses.

So, I think I’m really an advocate of doing some aerobic activity. It could be running, biking, hiking, running, you know, or other. But doing some aerobic activity, I think is really quite beneficial for a number of reasons. And then the other side of the coin is resistance training, doing some resistance training. I’m not an advocate of climbers doing anything crazy, you know, when it comes to weightlifting, you know, certainly a bodybuilding program or CrossFit program would be time, you know, misspent and could be counterproductive. But doing some resistance training, especially during the climbing off season is helpful to kind of fight the battle against that natural tendency for fast twitch fibers to shrink and go away as you get older. And then obviously climbing a few days per week is beneficial. You know, when I’m at home, I will do a climbing workout four days a week, you know, I’m a very veteran experienced climber, so I need to do a lot of capacity training, whereas a newer climber would probably not want to do that much. It could lead to injuries. You know, so there’s a lot of facets to it, you know, aerobic training, doing some weight training, obviously, the climbing specific activities, you know, climbing and climbing, training. And doing, you know, kind of picking, and choosing from all of those and making sure you do something every day. And honestly, there are some days where I double up and I do two a day workouts, it could be a morning run and an afternoon climb. It could be you know, if it’s winter, it could be a morning, hangboard workout and an afternoon, you know, climbing, endurance workout.

And, you know, doing, you know, if you have, especially if you have training equipment at home, it’s very time efficient to be able to get in, you know, workouts like that, despite a busy day otherwise, and then, of course, nutrition, which is something you know a lot about, and I’m sure have talked a lot about over the years, but you know, when you’re young, you can get away with a lot of bad nutritional practices, or at least you think you’re getting away with them. And as you get older, those nutritional practices can really, you know, be counterproductive in terms of your weight gain, and, you know, just making your recovery even worse. And so I’ve personally really redoubled my efforts. I’ve always been kind of keen on tracking diet, and, you know, all the, you know, basics, having everything covered in my diet. But as I’ve gotten older, you know, I’ve recognized that it’s really a powerful tool, if you get the nutrition, right, something as simple as just making sure you get enough protein every day. And specifically, leucine, which is, you know, this trigger for muscle protein synthesis, if you’re not getting 10 grams of leucine per day. And if you’re not getting a few, two or three gram doses at a time, then you’re kind of blunting muscle protein synthesis, because leucine is one of those — It’s almost as powerful as exercise for turning on muscle protein synthesis. And so a diet that has adequate protein, and specifically leucine is is important. And so now we’re kind of getting down into the weeds here. But that just kind of speaks to, if you’re really serious about getting the little details, right. You need to go into the weeds sometimes.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. And we just, you just covered a lot of things. So I kind of want to go back a little bit. You were saying? I mean, basically, you’re listing off just continuing to train. And you’re saying do some aerobic work, do some resistance training. And I think that the question, though, that a lot of people have is how much because what you’re saying that you do is far more than what some people could handle and I don’t want people to, to walk away from this conversation thinking: Oh, I need to do for four days, at least of training every week. And I need to do two a days. And I need to — like you’ve been doing this for years and years. But I think that that’s what a lot of people are doing after the age of 30. And they’re suffering because of it. So I guess the question is, how much of these things and how do we know what each person’s tolerance is.

 

Eric Hörst 

And that — that’s a tough, that’s a tough thing to say. You know, I, because of my profession as a climbing coach, I’m, you know, hyper aware of volume and, you know, if I’m overtraining and or if I’m starting to feel tweaked, I’m hyper aware of this thing’s and able to react quickly. Whereas, you know, the average climber isn’t you know. They might be feeling weak and not recovered and starting to feel tweaked but they just forge on in their program because they’re enthusiastic and they don’t want to adjust things. And so yeah, that’s that’s kind of — I was talking about, you know, program design and making those adjustments throughout the year are — it’s tough you you need to become a self coach. You need to become educated so that you have some knowledge there. You know, listening to podcasts like this is obviously a great way to do that. But also, if If you have access to a veteran coach is a great way to do it. You know, someone that can, you know, look at your track record and see where you’re at. And, you know, your climbing history, your injury history, all those things need to be taken into account when you’re designing a program and deciding how much do I need to do. But in terms of, you know, all those things that I mentioned that I do, yeah, I’m a climber of 40 plus years, and I climb it up pretty high level for my age, you know, in the 5.13 grade.

So I’m doing more than somebody else in midlife would probably want to do, if they were, you know, had less experience and less history training and climbing and weren’t quite at the same level. And, but kind of a couple of the take home points are, one is just to do something active every day. You know, especially after age 40, I think is so important. It’s good for your mental health, just to do something active, even if it is just that 20 minute walk over lunch break, or while you’re making a phone call. You know, though, that’s not a game changer. It’s, it’s something and I think it has a tangible effect, mentally, and perhaps physically. That said, it is the higher intensity training that is more of the difference maker, you know, whether it’s doing some resistance training, and really, you know, you could do resistance training, just two days a week, and you could get some beneficial results out of it, you could climb just two days per week, and get positive results out of it. Or do climbing training, you know, maybe a hangboard program twice a week if you’re at home and don’t have access to a gym. So it’s not that you need to do a lot of training. But as you get older, you need to pick and choose. And really, I think I should probably broaden that out and say to all climbers, I think there’s a you know, this is a sport filled with passionate people really stoked people that have goals, climbing goals, and in their rush to reach those goals very often actually train too much. And do you know too much. And, you know, I know a lot of climbers and I was that climber for many years that don’t feel like you had a good workout unless you leave the gym or leave the crag just destroyed. But not every workout should end up with that feeling of you being destroyed.

And especially as you get older, you know, knowing when to say when is a is a big thing, and in terms of not tempting injury, but also, you know, part of accelerating recovery is not digging yourself too deep of a hole to recover from. And so again, you know, there’s a lot of angles here to consider. But I guess the kind of bottom line things are, do something active every day, it doesn’t have to be climbing specific, it doesn’t have to be long duration. And two, when you do engage in more high intensity type activities, pick and choose the right things, you know, what is appropriate for you what is you know, going to be the payoff, and just don’t do what your friends are doing or do what, you know, you did last year, but try to be a little more thoughtful about it. And

a little more evidence based about it, perhaps if you can collect some data about your strengths and weaknesses. And again, I’m a big advocate, if you have access to a coach who can help you out on that. I think it’s really beneficial to kind of steer the ship a little bit.

 

Neely Quinn 

Right. And we talked a little bit about or you’re saying like, figure out these things for yourself, basically, which can definitely be applied to any age climber, like any, any nutrition client that I have, who are all climbers, we end up talking about their training. And a lot of people even in their 20s or teens are overtraining and they don’t know it because they think that the way that they feel is just normal, but let’s talk about some symptoms of overtraining.

 

Eric Hörst 

Right, well, um you know, you don’t want to wake up every morning sore, I mean, there are times you will have muscle soreness the next day. You know, probably after a long day of outdoor climbing or hard bouldering and maybe after a hard workout, but not every day should you be sore. If you have chronic soreness then you’re you’re doing too much, you know, if you feel lethargic, and you know, starting to lack motivation to train or to get out of bed in the morning, I mean, those are, those are signs and you know that, that, I guess a common thing is, and I experienced this every now and then is feeling a little pain in my joints like specifically for me it’s medial epicondyle area, which of course that’s a common climbing injury is medial tendinosis. And though I’ve never had a raging case of it, it’s something that tries to surface every now and then. I think probably 10 or 20% of climbers are in the same boat, because it’s just such a common thing that climbers elbow.

And so you start to feel something like that, or maybe an A2 pulley pain and not — not a tweak or a rupture, but you just start to feel a little bit of ickyness when you’re crimping, you know, those should all be kind of attention getters, that, you know, I just need to dial things back, often you dial things back for a week, and those little problems go away. Whereas if you just keep training, you know, and, you know, quote, climbing through them, then you will often descend down that overtraining, you know, hole that, you know, could end up, you know, in a in a bad or injury or perhaps illness. And, you know, and there’s a lot of factors that come into it, obviously, diet can can play a role, if you’re training hard and not consuming enough calories, obviously, that there’s are kind of compounding factors and or getting enough sleep, obviously, is a big one. I think, for much of my climbing life, I didn’t get enough sleep, I was a busy person, I kind of just, like, type a nature, I kind of always had this attitude that nothing gets accomplished when you’re sleeping. So, you know, don’t sleep too much. But becoming older and wiser, I realized I really need seven or eight hours, or if I’m on a climbing trip nine or 10 hours sometimes to feel fully refreshed the next day. And that’s not always possible, the way our lives are so busy, but, you know, you know, there’s so much more to recovering and making the most of your training than just training right. I mean, you need to get that right, what you do in the gym has to be appropriate and properly matched to your goals and needs. But the nutrition and, and sleep sides can either help you or hinder you in that, in that journey. And so, my experience Neely, and I’m sure you sense this, too, is people who are into climbing for a decade or more that you know, listen to their body, start to figure it out, you know, they might not know the science behind it, but they start to figure out what you know, works and what doesn’t, and what makes them feel good and what doesn’t. And they kind of over a decade or more suss that out. But again, you know, somebody that doesn’t have that knowledge or that experience, maybe we can help them on that journey, you know, through coaching, or through podcasts and things like this.

 

Neely Quinn 

Mm hmm. Yeah, so it really is just an n=1 experiment through our whole lives.

 

Eric Hörst 

It is and you know, the wildcard is genetics, obviously, you know, a lot of these, you know, these biological changes that I mentioned earlier, you know, the drop in bone density and muscle mass and, you know, insulin resistance, and, I mean, there are known genetic variants that play a role and in those and so, you know, we are, you know, all slightly different in terms of those genetic factors. And even if you have one of these variants that isn’t ideal. It doesn’t have to be your reality, you know, you can, you know, this field of epigenetics you can exert influence over gene expression, through nutrition and training and you know, the things you do in your life. You’re not in many ways, not defined by your genes, though, that does kind of, you know, set the table a little bit for you. But yeah, it is to some degree an n=1. And I think if somebody is self aware, and becomes educated and is in the sport for a decade or more, they can really figure it out. And you know, those 50 and 60 some something climbers, you know, like a Bill Ramsay is that kind of person, you know, and I know, you know him, you know, he’s someone who’s not only really into training, but he’s just a very thoughtful person and has over decades kind of sussed out and determined what works for him. And, you know, makes changes, I’m sure as he gets older, that hopefully are appropriate to keep him in the game. And I guess that is one of the things I try to express to people is, yeah, when you’re in your teens and 20s, you kind of, you know, just throw a bunch of training at the wall and hope that hope that something sticks, but as you get older, that’s not the approach you have to be, you know, the sooner you learn to kind of sort out what works and what doesn’t, you know, there’s, I like to, I’m fond of pointing out that, you know, there’s two types of training that we engage in, in the gym. One is, you know, an exercise or activity that actually has a meaningful stimulus that makes us stronger or better in some way. And then the other type of training is training at the gym, that just creates fatigue, it makes you tired. So it gives you an illusion of, Oh, I did something that made me tired, that’s going to be beneficial. But something — an exercise that creates fatigue, isn’t necessarily an exercise that’s going to help you become a better climber. And so that’s something that a climber of any age should ponder, every time they walk into a gym, or every time they, you know, you know, do any type of a workout is, is there something beneficial that can result from this activity or exercise? Or am I just creating fatigue? And, you know, wasting my time.

 

Neely Quinn 

Which takes some training know how to know if the answer to that question is yes or no, because, I mean —

 

Eric Hörst 

Oh yeah. Believe me, I wasted a lot of days, and probably years, doing things that created fatigue. And, you know, I know climbers who, maybe they bump into somebody who’s into CrossFit, and so they go into a CrossFit gym, and they really enjoy that they just in an hour got themselves destroyed by a workout. Created incredible fatigue. And then they’ll ask me, Eric, is that gonna, you know, how’s that gonna help my climbing, I’m like, it’s not gonna help your climbing. If you enjoyed it, go do it. But just don’t do it thinking it’s going to help your climbing because CrossFit is CrossFit and climbing is climbing. And there’s not a lot of meaningful overlap there. And you can say that about a lot of sporting activities, you know, though, you just can’t throw everything out that’s not climbing, you know, there is some value and other activities. But to invest your training time wisely becomes more important, because again, as you get older, as your recovery ability decreases, it’s just that much more important that what you do in the name of training, is —

 

 Neely Quinn

Useful

 

Eric Hörst 

Is useful, right? It’s not wasted energy, it’s not digging yourself a hole to recover from, that has no value. And so, you know, one thing I often do, Neely, when I’m at the crag is, you know what I do climb two days in a row, like, let’s say, a weekend, a Saturday and a Sunday. I’m someone I love climbing and I love like — I love being first in last out that type of person at the crag you know, hiking out at sunset or beyond. But that’s not necessarily the best thing for me as an older climber. And so, if I’m going to climb two days, and then take one rest day and try to hopefully climb hard, when I come back, you know, the next day after that, what I’ve learned, really helps me is stopping climbing on that second day, kind of early to mid afternoon. So I you know, I’ll do an all day Saturday, and then I’ll come out Sunday, maybe, you know, send a few routes or get on the project, a couple more goes. And instead of just, you know, telling myself, Well, tomorrow’s a rest day. So I’m just going to keep flogging myself on the project. You know, I’m going to put all these extra burns in. When I have, let’s say little shot of red pointing, well, then why, you know, dig that, that deeper hole to recover? Like give it two or three good goes. You know, think about the moves. Think about the feeling of the moves. Make sure I know the sequence and the route, and the strategy and don’t climb late into the day on day two and dig myself a deeper hole, but instead, stop climbing that afternoon, immediately eat like a protein bar and drink a water. And, you know, be proactive and starting that recovery process immediately. And, you know, you almost get in one day, two days worth of recovery by by doing that, or you get more than you would if you climbed till dusk, a second day in a row, it’s a little adjustments like that can be a big difference maker. And I — you know, even for a younger climber, that strategy I just expressed, you know, kind of calling it quits on day two a little earlier than you might otherwise could be a real smart thing if you want to rest one day and hopefully be back to near 100%.

 

Neely Quinn 

Well, and vice versa. If you have like a prot — like a project that you’re going to on Sunday, but you’re also climbing on Saturday, maybe do a half day on Saturday or quit earlier, or definitely quit before you feel like you’re just totally —

 

Eric Hörst 

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, just just refilling your muscle glycogen stores is something that takes you know, 15 to 20 hours. So if you would stop it, you know, mid afternoon, on Saturday, and immediately get a decent feeling, you know, eat a bagel sandwich or, you know, a good protein bar with carbohydrate and just get that, you know, get that recovery process started at three in the afternoon, instead of at eight or nine at night. Could be a real difference maker, if you think you can do the red point the next morning, you know, like on a Sunday. And so — absolutely.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Well, and as far as nutrition goes, while we’re on that topic, I think that that’s where a lot of people could do a lot better during the day when they’re climbing and every day. Because if you if you are one of those people who goes to the crag and you don’t really eat while you’re at the crag, your body’s sort of trying to make up for that all day. And, and then into the next day. And so if you just make yourself eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks throughout the day, while you’re climbing, it can make a huge, huge difference too.

 

Eric Hörst 

Yeah, for sure. Especially, you know, in terms of recovery ability, and, you know, your, your fore muscles, your climbing muscles only have so much glycogen in them. And so, you know, if you do a bunch of routes on on a Saturday, you know, you can blow through that, and your power is going to be way less until that gets recovered. And, you know, there’s a lot of other aspects to it. But yeah, you know, definitely going all day without eating isn’t a smart thing for for most people. And, you know, I’m a big fan of kind of the bagel sandwich like pb&j bagel sandwich and a banana. And, and protein bars, not because of the most healthy thing, but because they’re so convenient to pack in and you know, to gobble down. And if there’s one thing I do every crag day, it’s have a protein bar, when I’m walking out, you know, just the idea of starting that recovery process. You know, if it takes you time to hike out and then get to your house or to a restaurant or to camp, it could be a couple of hours, it could be two, three or four hours until you have a meal. And that really handicaps recovery, if you’re just still kind of fasting through that period, as opposed to if you have something nutritious to eat with, ideally some protein and carbohydrate, that´s substantial in your pack that you know, you take your harness off, and boom, you pull it out of your pocket and start your recovery.

 

Neely Quinn 

Mm hmm. Right. Yeah, that’s great advice. And I, I think that — I’m a fan of bringing your normal foods to the crag just so that your body gets what it normally gets, plus some carbs. Because like you said, most people aren’t getting enough protein or, or you have to make sure that you are and when you’re just depending on snacky foods, you’re definitely not going to get enough. And I just have seen so many clients have an extraordinary difference if — on their second day on if they’re eating enough protein on their first day, but I would actually like to go back to what you were talking about about leucine because I think that a lot of people don’t even know what leucine is. Do you want to talk about that?

 

Eric Hörst 

Sure. Well, leucine is one of the branched chain amino acids and when it comes to muscle protein synthesis and recovery, it says branched chain amino acids that are most important although we need to have the full spectrum amino acids in our diet, it’s if you are deficient in those, it can really hamper recovery. And so leucine, there’s a large body of research showing that it specifically out of all of the amino acids is one that is responsible for triggering muscle protein synthesis kind of flicking the switch and telling your body to start to, you know, repair contractile proteins in our body and probably force transfer proteins in our connective tissues as well. But in any case, what the research shows is, a two or three gram dose, in a sitting – in a feeding is what is required to kind of flick that switch. And so if you’re, if your snack is something that let’s say it’s just a plain bagel, there’s no way there’s, you know, there´s probably, I don’t know, do you know how many grams of protein, the complete protein isn’t a bagel, maybe six, seven, eight, something like that. So there might be, you know, a quarter gram of leucine, nowhere near that two grams. But a protein bar, like a 20 gram, whey protein bar would have two grams of leucine in it. And so that might be enough to flick that switch on for you just by consuming it. So just as resistance training, like lifting heavy weights, is a stimulus that switches the body into muscle protein synthesis, consuming two grams or more of leucine has the same effect. And so even on your rest day, you can flick that switch on to get your body to kind of start that muscle protein synthesis process again, or to, you know, ramp it up a little more, by consuming meals that have two to three grams of leucine. And so, you know, if someone eats a pretty diverse diet, especially if there’s a lot of animal based products in it, there’s a good chance they’re, they’re turning that switch on two or three times a day, you know, because a piece of lean meat, like five ounces of lean meat would have more than two grams of leucine in it. A glass of skim milk with a scoop of whey protein would have more than two grams of leucine in it. And so every time you consume something like that you flick that switch on. And so if you can do that, especially on your rest days, it can help accelerate recovery. On the flip side, if you’re — especially if you’re a plant based athlete, you can still reach that two to three gram leucine level in a meal, if you know what you’re doing, and you would know, Neely, how to do that. But a lot of people that, you know, are trying to live a plant based diet don’t quite know how to how to get there. And it can be challenging for sure. I’m not sure I have the knowledge to quite get there if I was purely plant based. And, you know, it’s probably beyond the scope of this discussion. But it would be something that people should think about is, first of all, just in terms of protein, I know from being around climbers, a lot of them don’t consume enough protein, you know, I think probably on the order of 80 to 120 grams a day is what — what I shoot for and what I think a lot of people should shoot for. There’s good evidence supporting that consuming that RDA amount of protein might work for a sedentary person, but it’s not sufficient for an athlete. And then that leucine, you know, your goal in a day should be 10 grams of leucine with at least a couple of those two or three gram doses. Again, it can be done pretty easily if you know what to eat. Or if you use a good whey protein isolate, a scoop of that will get you there. And so that’s one of the benefits of kind of that convenience of doing some supplemental protein. But you can do it with obviously whole foods as well.

 

Neely Quinn 

And you have you make these products right, and PhysiVantage.

 

Eric Hörst 

Yeah, exactly. I, I threw my you know, this kind of lifelong study of climbing performance and training kind of led me into this path in my 50s that I was putting puzzle pieces together when it comes to muscle recovery and strength gains and connective tissue health and, you know, I’m a research junkie and about three or four years ago I started to kind of, you know, see things coming before me that there was this need for some climbing specific nutrition. And so I founded a company called PhysiVantage. And we have, you know, I designed with the help of some food scientists, a line of products, totally from scratch. You know, these aren’t pre existing products with a new label on them. But they were designed with a research basis, you know, and with climbers in mind. And so PhysiVantage launched about a little over two years ago. And I’m happy to say, you know, we’re growing month over month, and we have a growing group of raving fans, both professional climbers and recreational climbers. And, while I don’t think every climber needs, you know, nutritional supplements, they are a convenience, you know, that if you don’t have the knowledge, the know how to make perfect meals, you know, to put, you know, everything together to kind of meet your protein needs, let’s say, then a high quality, you know, trusted, you know, protein supplement could be beneficial, you know, whether it’s a plant based or whey based, we make both. And so while I don’t want this to turn into a commercial for PhysiVantage, if people want to learn more about it, they can go to physivantage.com, it’s spelled p h y s i v a n t a g e .com. And maybe you can put a link in the show notes. 

 

Neely Quinn

Yeah, sure.

 

Eric Hörst  

People can read about the products, the product line that we developed, there’s now six products. And again, I don’t think you need all of them. And I don’t think a climber necessarily needs any of them. But if you’re doing everything right, in terms of training, and your regular food diet and your sleep, I believe certain supplements can make a difference. But I’m also very upfront to people telling them if you’re not training, right, if you’re not eating right, you know, you live on a junk food diet, then don’t waste your money on supplements, because you got other things that you need to change before you have any benefit from investing in nutritional supplements. But uh, you know, but you know, there’s a lot of weekend warriors out there who are doing everything, right, you know, they train as hard as the pros, or at least they are as, you know, passionate and intense as the pros are about trying to live their life the right way, so that when they get to the crag that evening, or that weekend, that they can do their project and climb their best. And so for the person that’s really thoughtful and trying to do everything, right, and investing, you know, time and energy, then the PhysiVantage could potentially support the recovery of connective tissue health, aerobic performance, I mean, we have a few different products that address different needs that, you know, people could read about if they visited our website.

 

Neely Quinn 

Cool. Yeah. And I recommend your product. So I’ll put a link below into the show notes for people to check that out.

 

Eric Hörst 

I was just gonna say I, you know, I am a strong believer that, you know, first and foremost, we just need to climb. Second of all, we need to train appropriately. And then, you know, kind of one of those things that runs in the background, that doesn’t get as much attention paid to it as it should, is the role of nutrition, as we’ve just, you know, discussed, you know, it affects how you feel at the crags how you recover, how you respond to training. And so, you know, I think it is a topic and an area where a lot of climbers could improve. I mean, I don’t know how you feel about it from just being around climbers, but I kind of feel like a lot of climbers could improve, you know, on the nutritional front a little bit.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, I mean, I do think that people could, for sure, improve what they’re eating and like the amount of effort that they’re putting into researching what they’re eating, because it is like very low hanging fruit. And as far as I’m concerned for people to make huge improvements in their climbing, in a very short amount of time, so yeah, I totally agree with you.

 

Eric Hörst 

Yeah. Good.

 

Neely Quinn 

So I wanted to go back a little bit. And maybe we could do like a pretend case study on somebody who, as a younger climber, maybe was training quite a bit, doing a lot of supplemental exercise. And then as they get older, or maybe into their 40s and 50s. They start to notice that their performance is waning, they’re feeling tired. I just want to give an example of like, what a training program maybe used to look like and what it could change to look like. And I don’t know if you could do that with your own program, but — because I think that these changes are very subtle, and people don’t even know where to begin.

 

Eric Hörst 

Sure. Okay, so, um, and that is a good question. Because even you know, with myself, I, while I mentioned earlier, I like to try to do the things that I was able to do in my 30s, you do have to, you know, embrace the reality that you are no longer that person and your body is not quite the same. And so, you know, for climbers that, say, from age 40 and beyond, you need to be a little more careful with things that are dynamic, like I do a very limited amount of, let’s say, campus training, or even dynamic bouldering. You know, again, I love climbing, but I don’t love it so much that I want to get injured and lose it, you know. And so I’m, I’m pretty quick now in both training, and especially when I’m out of the crags if there’s a boulder problem, or a route or in the gym and exercise that on a given day just feels injurious, I kind of have my, you know, I just have an intuitive sense that, you know, there could be an issue, whether it’s a finger or it’s actually my shoulders, I worry about, you know, because climbers shoulders age really poorly, sometimes, and, you know, so I’m quick to to say, okay, this route, or this boulder is not worth the risk of getting injured over. You know, I want to live to climb another day type thing. So yeah, dynamic moves, not that they need to be removed from the program, but you just need to be more cautious. Do them when you’re well warmed up. And when you’re really fresh, like I still on my strength power workout, I’ll spend a few minutes on the campus board and do some laddering. And if I’m really feeling dialed on a given day, maybe a little bit of double dynos, though every year, I get a little more scared of doing double dynos. So you know, again, you need to be more thoughtful, pay more attention to, you know, warming up properly. You know, I — a lot of days that I might, like if I’m in the gym for two hours doing a workout, like the first hour is this long, progressive warmup, and it involves a lot of climbing and climbing exercises. But it’s all part of this long arc of proper warm up. Whereas the younger version of me in my 20s, I would have just like skipped all that, or I would have done a five minute warm up and been on to you know, limit bouldering or something. And as an older climber, and again, this could be anybody over 35 or 40. Pay more attention to that warmup period. And don’t rush to the limit bouldering, or the hardest, you know, like, if I’m going to do weighted hangs on a hang board, I I’m not there until an hour into my workout, you know, so that long arc of a warm up to get to that point, or campussing, again, I’m an hour into my workout too, I do something like that. So being more aware of dynamic moves, avoiding ones that could be potentially injurious. When it comes to dynamic training, I don’t think you need a lot. In fact, even for younger climbers, you don’t need as much as you think. I mean, the campus board might be fun, but you only need it’s like cooking, you only need a dash or two. To properly season your workout with campussing. If you’re spending an hour or two at the campus board, you’re not training effectively. And so, you know, that type of wisdom for the older climber. And so, you know, I’ve heard people say: Oh, well, you know, older climbers shouldn’t do, you know, heavy lifting or heavy hang boarding or campus training. And, you know, everybody’s a little different. You know, maybe if you have a history of elbow and shoulder injuries, that could be the case, you probably shouldn’t risk it. But for someone who’s still pretty healthy, like myself, given a proper warm up, and just the right, appropriate amount, sure, I can still do some of those things. 

In terms of climbing volume, like when I’m doing routes in a gym or routes at the crag I’ve kind of I’m pretty much done with the days of trying just to pack in as much as I can sunrise to sunset. I mean, I love that feeling, as I mentioned earlier, but it’s just not the best thing in terms of recovery. And I don’t know that if I do six pitches in a day. versus 10 pitches in a day, I, the 10 pitches might be more fun, but maybe the six pitches was a better choice, just in terms of the workout, and not digging myself too deep of a hole. And a lot of injuries, no matter your age happen when you’re doing hard things in a fatigued state. And so to kind of reduce the number of times I’m in that situation, doing hard moves in a fatiguec state is a smart thing. Whereas when you’re young, I mean, young climbers, you know, are doing that a lot of the time and can get away with it. But as you get older, you have to be, you know, wiser in that regard. And, you know, even at the crags the routes, I pick are you know, I tend to favor more resistance or endurance oriented routes. Just because if I get on a route that has known hard boulders and dynamic moves, though, I might be able to fight through it, it might also be something that gets me hurt, you know, and then there’s not only the end of the day, but maybe the end of the season or worse, you know, and so changing your climbing goals as you get older, right? I talk to a lot of climbers in the 30s and 40s, and try to communicate to them, even if they’re really passionate about bouldering at the time is like open your eyes to rope climbing as more of the long term or future arc of your climbing. Because, you know, the evidence is that that’s a little more forgiving. And you can still perform at a super high level as a rock climber. And probably less so as a high end boulderer as you age.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah, those are all extremely helpful tools and tips. That’s great. Thank you.

 

Eric Hörst 

Sure.

 

Neely Quinn 

I don’t even think I have any follow up questions. That was — That was great. That was what I was looking for is like these little cues for people to look for in their own bodies, and like things to maybe avoid, or at least consider avoiding. So hopefully, people were taking notes while you were talking about that.

 

Eric Hörst 

And you know, and some of these, you know, some of the points that I’m making transcend age, because really, to even to a 20 something, they might be pretty relevant points. For instance, the idea of going to the gym and just not flogging yourself and creating fatigue, but trying to have a thoughtful design to your program. And while it is really fun to train with people, it can be motivating to Boulder with people, it’s important to kind of know what is the right thing for you in terms of a given workout or exercise, and not just do something because your friend is doing it or you’re seeing somebody else do it. And you know that that’s climbing training from 30 years ago, it was just all copycat, like, Oh, this great climber does that. So I’m gonna, you know, do what he does. And there was no reason or, you know, science behind a lot of it. We did a lot of ineffective things back in the day in the name of training. But now we do have more knowledge. And there is more evidence of things that work and things that don’t work or might get you injured. And so having that knowledge and becoming a self coach is valuable in your 20s or in your 50s. And one more thing, Neely, that I wanted to mention before we sign off here that I am a really big fan of and I would encourage middle aged climbers to do get an annual physical exam and ask your doctor to order a comprehensive blood panel. And also, you know, maybe a thyroid and free testosterone test, they can draw a couple tubes of blood and most insurance will pay for it. And it’s very revealing. Not only that, that, you know, could potentially identify if there’s something bad going on in your body as you age that needs to be addressed. But, you know, knowing your red blood cell count, like I am a little anemic. And so I want to do things that will help foster you know, higher red blood cell counts and my thyroid is low and i’m i’ve learned just in the last two years I need to start taking daily thyroid medication. And it’s it’s a very minor thing, but those little tweaks can make a difference in terms of your metabolism. You know — you know women go through their changes in their 40s that in a similar way can — you know the chemistry can change in their body. And there are some things you can do to – with the help of a physician – to, you know, react and through diet and through exercise as well. And so again, the more data you have available, the better. And so, and I think just for, you know, general health purposes that annual physicals are really good idea for, like anybody over 45 or —

 

Neely Quinn

30.

 

Eric Hörst

Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn

We’re here.

 

Eric Hörst

Yeah. I mean, if you have insurance, I guess that’s the wild card these days is, you know, if you know, can readily get it done, do it.

 

Neely Quinn 

Yeah. Agreed. That’s a great point. Well, I think that’s all the questions I had, unless there’s anything you want to add, but —

 

Eric Hörst 

I guess just to, you know, let people know, I do have my own training website. It’s called trainingforclimbing.com. And so there’s, you know, I archive of articles and videos that I’ve written and recorded over the years, I do a monthly training for climbing podcast that hopefully everybody listens to along with trainingbeta podcast, and, and then my company, PhysiVantage, hopefully people can check out if they’re interested in learning more.

 

Neely Quinn 

And are you taking clients right now?

 

Eric Hörst 

I am not doing that. I refer — I hear from a lot of people, you know, on a, basically a daily basis. And I try to refer people to coaches that I know they can trust and that they can work with. I’m just so busy with PhysiVantage right now that that’s where I’m spending pretty much the hours of my day, so.

 

Neely Quinn 

Well, congratulations on your successful business. It’s always cool for me to see people start businesses and have it become their full time thing. So that´s great.

 

Eric Hörst 

Yeah, well, thank you so much.

 

Neely Quinn 

All right, well take care of Eric and good luck with all of your climbing goals this — this season.

 

Eric Hörst 

Good, thank you, and same to you.

 

Neely Quinn

Alright, thanks.

 

Neely Quinn 

I hope you enjoyed that interview with Eric Hörst. You can find him on Instagram @PhysiVantage, and also @training4climbing. And it’s the number four. And then you can find him online at trainingforclimbing.com, and physivantage.com. So he is a wealth of knowledge, he has written a lot of books, you can find them on his site. And I put links to all of that in the show notes as well. So I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Just remember, if you need any help with your training, you can go to trainingbeta.com. And we have all kinds of ebooks or subscription services or online training with our personal trainers or nutrition services with me. Also, we’ve been working on this other training program for boulders and eventually for rock climbers as well, we’ve been building out a platform, and it is pretty much done, amazingly. We’ve been having beta users or beta testers use it and tell us bug reports and there’s not been too many. So I think in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be launching it to the world. And I will definitely let you know about that when it happens. So it’ll be a bouldering program for all levels. There’ll be three levels for you to choose from. And it’s written by Matt Pincus, our trainer here at Training Beta. So stay tuned for that. And stay tuned for the next episode of the podcast. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. Don’t forget to check out the picture of my puppy on Training Beta on this episode page. And you can find us online at trainingbeta.com or @trainingbeta on social thanks. Talk to you soon.