Transitioning from Overtraining to Disciplined Climbing

Charlie Schreiber is a climbing coach who runs Paradigm Climbing and works with all levels of athletes–including elite, competitive ones–from all over the world. He’s also a very strong boulderer, having sent up to V13 and continuously training to improve his own climbing.

In this interview, we talked about a range of topics, including how he used to overtrain and how his climbing and physical well-being improved when he learned to be more efficient with his training. This concept permeates the rest of our talk, as it guides him as a coach to do the best job possible.

• His experience as a youth coach
• Overtraining vs. Disciplined Athlete
• Training for an overhung crimpy boulder
• Linear periodization vs logical progression
• Case study of sport climbing’s 3-month training plan
• How to know when you’re fully recovered
• Why he has a coach himself
• How he uses video analysis
• How to have process goals vs outcome goals in training and climbing
• How to access flow state
• Making the tedious into the enjoyable and habit stacking