{"id":114943,"date":"2026-01-28T12:19:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/114943\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T12:19:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:19:04","slug":"how-sasha-digiulian-stays-in-big-wall-shape-in-manhattan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/114943\/","title":{"rendered":"How Sasha DiGiulian Stays In Big-Wall Shape\u2014In Manhattan"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may come as a surprise that the world-championship climber’s natural habitat isn\u2019t the mountains, it’s Manhattan<\/p>\n

\"sasha<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in moderation, always.” (Photo: Cameron Maier\/Bearcam Media)<\/p>\n

Published September 26, 2016 12:00AM<\/p>\n

DiGiulian won her first national title as a 14-year-old and has gone on to podium multiple times at the World Championships while sending some of the hardest routes in the world, including the first American ascent of Magic Mushroom<\/a> on the Eiger, in Switzerland. So it may come as a surprise that her natural habitat isn\u2019t the mountains. It\u2019s Manhattan, where she lives and recently completed degrees in business and nonfiction writing at Columbia University. So how does a Gothamite stay in big-wall shape?<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as the weather is nice, I walk everywhere. But I don\u2019t do my workouts at public parks. I go to the gym. Every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI target sport-specific muscles that apply to the type of climbing I do on rock. It\u2019s an upper-body-dominated sport, but you need to work your legs for long approaches and certain moves on the wall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI use a Treadwall<\/a>, like a vertical treadmill with holds on it. It\u2019s great for endurance. I can train for a 3,000-foot climb without going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI rely on caffeine. Currently, I have a coffee in my hands. As part of evening training or if I have class, I\u2019ll drink a Red Bull\u2014but I\u2019ve never had more than one in a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in moderation, always. If your body wants to eat something, have whatever you want\u2014just don\u2019t go overboard with it. If you\u2019re working out regularly, your body needs the proper fuel to keep performing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I live far away from most good climbing destinations, I\u2019m traveling all the time. I always joke that I want to make a video of an in-hotel workout. I pack a yoga mat so I can at least stretch out or do push-ups and abs. Just a little bit of cardio before or after a flight makes so much difference for jet lag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone loses motivation, and you can easily fall down a slippery slope where one more day without training accumulates into one more week. But training is my job. So even when I feel terrible and I don\u2019t want to go to the gym, I force myself to go, because some effort is better than none. My coach, Kevin Paretti, always tells me, \u2018Find a way.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI use BellaBeat<\/a>, an app that tracks fitness and sleep. It graphs everything, so you can see when you felt great and were performing at your peak, and how you were sleeping during those times. You can see when your body operates optimally and then make adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It may come as a surprise that the world-championship climber’s natural habitat isn\u2019t the mountains, it’s Manhattan \u201cEverything…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63,51017,51021,51018,51019,51020,12771],"class_list":["post-114943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-parent_category-adventure","tag-tag-athletes","tag-tag-climbing","tag-tag-outdoor-adventure","tag-tag-sasha-digiulian","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}