Climb the Rock Climbing Wall with these Movements
Rock climbing is a popular activity these days. If you think about it, it’s just about as natural as walking. Just notice how young children try to use any wall or tree as a makeshift climbing frame for fun. Even so, in recent years it’s exploded in popularity among adults as well.
Rock climbing has become so popular that it’s even going to be included as an Olympic sport (it’ll debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games). Climbing on the rock climbing wall has become an escape for so many people these days too. They’ve come to realize that it not only strengthens the body, but it also sharpens their mental abilities.
As with any activity that requires physical effort, there are certain guidelines you should always follow. These norms are absolutely essential to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself and enjoy the benefits of the exercise. They’re also necessary for maintaining minimum safety standards and avoiding accidents or injuries.
First steps: warming up
Just as when you go to the gym to lift weights or go on to a court to play tennis, before even touching the rock climbing wall, you should warm-up. Your muscles have to be at the right temperature and prepared for the upcoming effort.
As with other exercise disciplines, from weight training to tennis, skipping the warm-up phase is a very bad idea. Trying to get by without warming up is the source of many injuries incurred during training. This is especially true for athletes who aren’t professionals.
Exercises in preparation for scaling the rock climbing wall
The main objective of these adaptation exercises is to increase the temperature of the muscles. You should get to this higher temperature progressively and gradually. Likewise, you’ll reach higher heart rates as well as breathing rates.
Stages of warm-up
- Activation: if you have to travel between one and five miles to arrive at the rock climbing wall, you should make this trip by foot whenever possible. This holds true whether you’re going from your house, from the office, or from school.
- Another option for activating your body, which can be used as a complement or as a supplement to your walk, is jumping rope. You can do this with an imaginary rope if you don’t have access to one.
- Joint movements: these static exercises aim to activate and lubricate all of your joints. This includes everything from the joints in the neck down to those in the toes. In order to perform these successfully, you should follow a clear and logical order. That is, warm up from top to bottom or from the bottom to the top.
- Warming up in blocks: in order to finish up the process of getting your muscles ready for exercise, the last step is to go through two blocks of ten movements each. You should perform each of these exercises with the highest level of intensity possible.
Climbing circuits
An indoor rock climbing training session is nothing more than the recreation of a climbing route “on boulders.” Before getting started, you have to determine the number of movements that the whole routine is going to take. You also have to choose the color that you’re going to use until you reach your goal.
These circuits have some important advantages. On the one hand, they’re helpful for trying out new movements, postures, and holds. They can also be good for increasing your strength, agility, and endurance. Aside from that, you can go through them alone, without needing a partner to go along with you and secure your rope.
In one training session following this method, you should go through four circuits. Each of these should be of different levels of difficulty. Experts recommend that you start off with the hardest one as the muscles will be more energized at the beginning.
Save the least difficult routine requiring the least number of movements for the end. It’s at this point that fatigue will probably have started to affect your performance.
Training for enjoyment
This is another methodology that’s popular for training on the rock climbing wall. After all, the fun factor is an element that you should never underestimate for any sport.
In practice, if you want to see and enjoy the added results on your body from physical activity, it’s essential that you do it for pleasure rather than because you have to.
Another routine for indoor climbing consists of a partner telling you where to go from the ground. This route may have been predetermined, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. You can set rules for only using specific parts of your body, such as the hands or feet. On the other hand, you can leave this to the discretion of the climber.
Why climb the rock climbing wall?
It’s a challenge. Everyone who signs up for this sport goes beyond their limits – much further than even they themselves might have imagined. It’s also a tool for overcoming fears and limitations. With these routines, you’ll sharpen your physical and mental abilities.