Lea Volpe is a paraclimber for Great Britain and a 2x medalist at the IFSC Paraclimbing World Championships. Lea holds down a 9-5 job working in health policy, coaches junior athletes, and is essentially a professional climber on the side. We talked about paraclimbing competitions, being diagnosed with Ataxia, how we perceive wheelchairs, empathy in coaching, and much more.
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Show Notes:
thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/lea-volpe
Nuggets:
0:07:04 – Getting over covid
0:08:06 – A normal weekday in Lea’s life
0:11:32 – How Lea recharges her mental batteries
0:14:14 – Balancing an intellectual and sedentary job with the physical activity of climbing
0:16:54 – How most climbers feel guilty for taking downtime
0:18:59 – Lea’s energy reserves, and learning to budget her energy
0:21:28 – An introduction to paraclimbing, Lea’s disability of Ataxia, and strategies she uses to climb around a coordination and balance impairment
0:26:32 – Why Lea uses a wheelchair day-to-day, and climbing with her disability
0:31:33 – Experiencing imposter syndrome as a strong para athlete
0:34:04 – How climbing levels the playing field, and how many of us start at V0
0:36:58 – Failure is part of climbing
0:39:06 – Lea’s life as a kid and teenager, and getting diagnosed with Ataxia and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome in her early 20s
0:44:21 – How Lea discovered climbing
0:46:10 – How we perceive people in wheelchairs, and feeling self-conscious at the climbing wall
0:53:00 – What we can learn from Lea in regards to how we think about disability
0:58:01 – The paraclimbing competition format, and some of the different athlete categories
1:02:04 – Climbing to be in the paraolympics, and classification systems
1:07:03 – How athletes get assessed to determine their classification
1:17:35 – How route setters influence competition outcomes, and setting guidelines in paraclimbing competitions
1:20:47 – Working with a coach vs. being self-coached
1:24:51 – Keeping training sustainable
1:28:49 – What a “bad day” looks like for Lea
1:35:48 – How Lea got into coaching
1:42:24 – What Lea hopes to pass on to the kids she coaches, and the role of coach/teacher
1:48:10 – Having the questions vs. asking questions, and qualities that make a good coach
1:51:40 – Empathy in coaching, and how climbing brings out our deepest and darkest fears
1:56:12 – Inspiration porn and how it can reduce people down to a tool, and how Lea wants to use her platform
2:02:42 – The barriers involved in climbing outdoors
2:13:22 – What’s next for Lea
EP 133: Neil Gresham — Using Ballet to Climb Harder, Developing Your Finishing Game, and Extensor Training for Stronger Fingers
EP 132: Rebecca Williams — A Deep Dive Into Fear of Falling, the Self-Soothing System, and Climbing Smarter
EP 131: Ryan Devlin — Life as a TV Actor, Progressing From 11b to 12c in a Year, and How Pro Climbers Relate to Struggle
EP 130: Stian Christophersen & Martin Mobråten — Writing The Climbing Bible, Finger Strength vs. General Strength, and Strategies for Improving Technique
Follow-Up: Matt Fultz — How to Train for the Hardest Crimp Boulders in the World (Teaser)
EP 129: Dorian Evers — How to Navigate Different Stoke Levels in Your Relationship, and Getting Vulnerable with Your Partner
EP 128: Callie Joy Black — Training During Pregnancy, Climbing Hard with Kids, and Being Your Own Project
Follow-Up: Steve Maisch — My Summer Training Plan, and How to Get Stronger on the Moonboard (Teaser)
EP 127: Jesse Firestone — Bouldering Tactics, Quantum Leaps, and Non-Physical Factors That Affect Our Performance
BONUS: Michelle LeBlanc — An Upcoming 2SLGBTQ+ Pride Event in Squamish
S1E2: The Great Equalizer (Repost from The American Climbing Project)
EP 126: Devin Dabney — Getting Uncomfortable, How Climbing Saved His Life, and How Competition Makes Us Better
Follow-Up: Alita Contreras — Sending Her First 5.14a, and Training With Lattice (Teaser)
EP 125: Zofia Reych — The Heritage of Climbing, Breaking Down Gender Roles, and What It’s Like to Be Autistic
EP 124: Karly Rager — Mental Strategies for Developing Focus, Learning vs. Performing, and Building a Coaching Business
EP 123: Magnus Midtbø — The Hard Work Behind Success, Go-To Climbing Workouts, and Takeaways from Training with Adam Ondra
Follow-Up: Chad Andrews — The Pros and Cons of Living on the Road to Climb, and Having a Healthier Relationship with Money (Teaser)
EP 122: Jared Vagy — How to Prevent Knee, Shoulder, Elbow, and Finger Injuries as Climbers
EP 121: Carol Simpson — Being a Girl in the South in the 1950s, Yoga as the Fountain of Youth, and Ageism in Climbing
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