EP 120: Lea Volpe — The World of Paraclimbing Competitions, How We Perceive Wheelchairs, and Empathy in Coaching

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