Here at Training Beta, we talk a lot about diet and how it can effect performance.  Usually, most of the articles we post deal with the idea of loosing weight as a way to increase climbing performance.  While many of these articles acknowledge that weight loss as a way to increase performance is not for everyone, they don’t delve into what effectively maintaining an ideal performance weight looks like.  It’s true that staying light and lean can be effective, but it’s far more important to make sure you are giving your body and metabolism the fuel it needs to perform on the rock.

To help you better fuel your climbing while maintaining an effective performance weight, here’s an article from Climbing Nutrition that outlines the relationship between your metabolism and weight loss/maintenance/gain.

In his article, sports nutritionist Brian Rigby describes how the caloric requirement for weight maintenance is not a fine line between weight loss and weight gain and is instead a much larger range along the spectrum of caloric intake.  He then goes on to describe how even if you are within this necessary caloric range for weight maintenance you can still be under-fueling your climbing performance.

“Most people think of the relationship between weight loss and weight gain as dichotomous, with only a thin swath known as “weight maintenance” dividing the two. And almost invariably, they assume that this swath is closer to the weight loss end of the spectrum than the weight gain end, or at least that they’re better off maintaining weight on fewer calories rather than more. They short themselves, and end up shorting their performance as well.” – Brian Rigby 

Click through below to check out the complete article.  It is full of detailed information about how your metabolism works and relates to athletic performance.  Give the the article a read.  It may just change the way you view your diet and how it can effect your climbing.

If you are looking for more help with nutrition and how it can effect your climbing, Neely is now offering Nutrition Consulting to help you fine tune your diet so it will help you send as much as possible.

Click Here: Understanding your Metabolism and Climbing

(photo courtesy of climbingnutrition.com)

Other Articles You Might Like:

• Nutrition Tip for Breaking Plateaus: Eat More!
• Teal Dreher – Climbing & Eating
• Introduction to Losing Weight for Climbing
• Introduction to Losing Weight for Climbing II