10 Rock Climbing Exercises

Rock climbing is a very strenuous physical activity that you need these 10 rock climbing exercises to keep you fit and going. Over the years, rock climbing has become a very famous sport and a hobby as well as it provides a great physical training to keep the body healthy. Indoor rock climbing facilities are now open to the public to accommodate the growing numbers of people interested in this sport. To avoid potential injury, you need to learn these exercises for rock climbing. 

1. Always begin your exercise with warm up activities and end it with cool down exercises. No matter how very eager you are to start with the exercises for rock climbing, you need to realize that potential muscular injury could happen if you do not warm up your muscles before exercising and to let it gradually relax as you end your exercise. Stretching is a great way to prepare your muscles for the activity and it allows the muscle fibers to adjust its tensile strength to prevent injury. Avoid abrupt end of your exercise. Gradually slow down your movements for at least five minutes to allow the muscles to relax.
2. Do cardiovascular exercises. Not only does rock climbing require strength, it also demands endurance. Try to jog for 30 minutes to 1 hour, 3 to 4 times a week initially. Begin with fast walking to warm up followed by fast running. This will help you prepare your leg muscles as well.
3. Do weights. Because rock climbing requires power and strength, you will need to perform resistance exercises to allow your muscles build up strength. The use of weights will provide the right resistance for your exercise training. Begin with a weight that you find tolerable and increase the weight by increments as your muscle strengths gradually adapt to the resistance applied to it.
4. Strengthen your forearms by doing static hanging on a bar. This is a great way to improve the strength of your forearm and grip. Grip strength is very important in rock climbing and you should concentrate improving its strengths if you don’t want to risk falling. Hang on to the bar as long as you can.
5. Do pull-ups. This exercise is excellent for developing strength to multiple muscles of your body namely the shoulder, back, hands, forearm, and stomach. This is an integral exercise for rock climbing.
6. Do the torso twists and crunches. This kind of exercise will strengthen your oblique muscles, which are responsible for keeping the body stable during climbing while adding the right body tension for improved balance and stability. The oblique muscles allow the trunk to twist more flexibly during climbing.
7. The biceps curl is the best exercise for upper extremity strengthening. Do this with the use of a dumbbell of the appropriate weight that you can carry about 10 to 12 times. Keep the arm on your side as you do the curl. Do the bicep curls of 10-12 repetitions in 5 sets with a 5-10 seconds of rest interval for each set.
8.  Strengthen your legs with quadriceps exercises. You can do squatting exercise with an elastic band to add resistance on your legs. Stand straight with the elastic band below your feet and wrap the other ends of the band around your shoulder while performing squatting movements.
9. Try the bench press exercise to strengthen your upper extremities and torso. This is a famous exercise for weightlifters and is excellent in bringing your pectoralis muscles and upper extremities to work out in a unified movement using weights such as dumbbell or barbell. This improves the body’s ability for powerlifting, a very important movement in rock climbing.
10. Try to climb. There is nothing better than to do a climbing exercise from indoor facilities so that you can use all parts of your body that are vital for rock climbing activities. This will also allow beginners to understand which body parts are important in rock climbing.