The Best Workouts For Rock Climbing
Rock climbing is a highly intense, body-demanding activity. Climbers adapt, train and diet accordingly, living their lives around the activity. Casual climbers, experts, and beginners will have various reasons, but it mainly links with safety reasons and competitive advantage. Below is a list of attributes that all levels of climbers should aim to have:
- Mobility – Rock climbers must put their bodies in weird and wonderful positions. To do this, you must rotate your joints fluidly and effortlessly. Your hinge joints must bend and straighten; your ball-and-socket joints must be able to move in a full circular motion.
- Flexibility – Rock climbers can be short or tall, slim or large, but the rocks will never change position. Therefore, you must be flexible enough to reach far from your center point of gravity without causing pain. Flexibility reduces your chance of injury by 40% and creates a smoother, faster climb
- Balance – All humans are born with some balance, though rock climbers must have this in abundance. The climb becomes similar to standing on your tip-toes when dealing with small rocks. Rock climbing is nearly impossible without significant balance, and there will be lots of slipping!
- Upper body strength – Rock climbers have to lift themselves during their climb constantly. Raising yourself in a pull-up motion is a skill all rock climbers will learn, which will be tested during the climb.
- Muscular endurance – You must be able to put your body through strain for an extended period, as the last thing you want is to be exhausted halfway through a climb! Muscular endurance becomes more critical when performing outdoor free climbs (without a rope) because there is no rope to bring you down safely.
Why Bar Hanging Is Excellent For Rock Climbing
The ability to hang on a bar is a fundamental skill that will improve the more climbs you do. Find a strong object above the ground (by 1.5x your height) to grip and hold onto – making sure your feet don’t touch the ground. This exercise will strengthen your core, fingertips, forearms, and upper back; however, you can adapt this to suit your needs. For example, only using your fingers will focus more on your fingertips; the wider a grip, the more your upper back engages, and the more you tense your abdominals, the greater the focus on your core.
How Pull-ups Improve Rock Climbing Ability
Pull-ups are great. They work all our upper body muscles and can be done anywhere! Pull-ups enable you to become a great rock climber and empower you to do more challenging climbs. Pull-ups are favored over chin-ups (in the climbing community), as your wrists are unlikely to be rotated towards you during a climb. Even though chin-ups are more straightforward, I always recommend practicing pull-ups. Do as many pull-ups until failure at least once a week to see improvement!
Abdominal Crunches Are Great For Rock Climbing
Crunches help strengthen your core, stabilizing and controlling your body during the climb. It is imperative during your climb because your core must be solid to stay glued to the wall while planning your route.
Why Forearm-Wrist Curls Benefit Rock Climbers
The forearm is the real force when climbing and will be the muscle that aches the most the day after! Therefore, it must remain strong to endure lots of tension to keep you going, even through the most challenging situations. One of the most focused and intense workouts is forearm-wrist curls; always work with low weight because of how delicate the forearm is. When doing this workout, rotate the wrist in both directions to get the most out of the exercise.
Rock Climbers Benefit From One-Leg Squats
The legs are usually overlooked, but all power will originate from the legs. Therefore, having explosive and robust legs will undoubtedly help when climbing. The one-leg squat improves ability and balance, meaning it’s ideal for rock climbing. This exercise engages your quadriceps and glutes in a motion that simulates being on a wall.
Calf Raises Improve Rock Climbing Ability
The better you become at rock climbing, the more challenging walls you want to climb. One key factor that increases difficulty is the size of the rocks. The more complex a wall is, the smaller the rocks will be! As a result, you will be on your toes for much of the climb, which can get exhausting, especially the longer walls. To make you well-equipped, you should practice calf raises. The exercise strengthens your calves to withstand tension and builds muscle memory when using your toes.
Planking Is Near The Best Exercises For Rock Climbing
The plank uses many muscles involved in rock climbing; the core, deltoids, glutes, calves, triceps, and many more. Furthermore, it is both practical and easy to learn! To do the plank correctly, ensure your elbows are directly below your shoulders at a right angle, and your feet are shoulder-width apart. Individuals from all levels of fitness, weight, and body shape do the plank, so never compare yourself to others. Instead, you should do the plank until failure. Doing this lets you focus on your ability instead of comparing yourself to others. This isn’t just good for your rock climbing ability but your mental well-being.
Why Rock Climbing Can Replace Gym
Rock climbing is another form of exercise that can replace going to the gym. Going gym offers muscle development, improved cardiovascular endurance, and a highly intense workout; all of which can be achieved, in abundance, via rock climbing! Moreover, the nature of rock climbing often results in longer commitment than the gym as athletes find it more engaging, friendly, and exciting. However, depending on what you want to get out of the workout will depend if rock climbing is the most effective to do so.
Rock climbing and the gym each offer their individual benefits, and one will be more suited than the other depending on your targets and goals. If you want to put on size by gaining lots of muscle with minimal calorie usage, then the gym will be a far better place to exercise than a rock climbing wall. However, if you want to get ‘ripped’ and have a considerable strength-to-mass ratio, rock climbing is the most effective way to achieve this.
All-in-all, rock climbing is an excellent form of exercise, and you will reap vast physical and mental benefits from it. Moreover, It makes you sweat, and your body will ache the next day! Rock climbing can replace the gym if you want to improve your fitness and overall health. On the other hand, if you are looking to put on muscle mass and isolate muscle groups, it will be more productive to spend your time in the gym.
Summary Of Exercises For Rock Climbers
Overall, you can do all the exercises to improve at rock climbing at home, in the gym, or outdoors. They are versatile, and most use body weight as resistance; instead of external mass. This is why rock climbers are great at calisthenics – it is the basics of their trainload. As a result, comparing your exercises with other climbers is difficult because of different body weights.
For example, a 60kg climber may do more pull-ups than a 100kg climber, but the 100kg climber may be able to do more single-leg squats than the 60kg climber. The point I want to get across is it is your journey, so you should stay focused on your goals and targets, not others.
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