This is a guest post by Courtenay Schurman, MS, CSCS

People who are just beginning to learn how to climb will often go to a climbing gym with friends who have some knowledge about technique, rope handling, and body maneuvers unique to climbing — enough to get them up several gym routes safely. It’s tempting and quite common for beginners to try progressively more and more challenging routes until they realize, too late, that perhaps this is NOT the best way to go about climbing.

Just like you wouldn’t jump to heavier and heavier weight in your very first strength workout, you need to ease into climbing the same way: progressively — in order to let your muscles, tendons, and ligaments adapt to the new stresses put on your body. Leave campus board training until you have climbed for at least a full year!

Enlist the help of a qualified climbing instructor who can teach you some basic techniques, including how to find rest positions and shake out your arms so your body builds endurance gradually. Within the first few visits to the climbing gym, determine a few routes you can comfortably climb all the way to the top without stopping.

Practice rest positions so you can shake out your hands and fingers to avoid getting pumped out. Once you have the endurance to be able to climb continuously for 10 minutes without getting engorged forearms, then move up to the next level. If you try harder and harder routes too quickly, before you’ve built up your hand, forearm, and finger endurance and strength, you run a greater risk of finger, elbow, and shoulder strains and tendon issues.

The biggest mistake beginning climbers make is overusing the arms, completely forgetting to use their powerful legs. You have far more strength in the lower body than you can ever develop in the upper body; use that strength. Look carefully for places to walk your feet up just a little higher rather than doing a “dyno” (an explosive, dynamic movement) to a hold just out of reach. By moving the feet up even 3-4 inches you will have a far easier time getting to the next hold.

Core strength endurance is also crucial, so you can link together the power from your legs and movements with your upper body. Include strength movements such as variations on pushups and pull-ups in a balanced upper body strength program and supplement with planks, hanging knee raises, and oblique exercises to make figure 4, overhangs, and other such movements more comfortable.

Finally, just like with strength training, put 48 hours between climbing sessions to allow the pulling muscles in your back, arms and fingers to adequately recover. As you get more and more accustomed to climbing, you may be able to increase to 2-3 days in a row, especially if you go on a cragging road trip for an extended weekend, but even then it’s a good idea to alternate hard climbing with really easy endurance climbing. START SLOWLY so your body can adapt.

Courtenay Schurman is co-owner of BodyResults.com, a website devoted entirely to the physical training for wilderness sports such as climbing, mountaineering and hiking. She and her husband Doug authored the book The Outdoor Athlete. To see more climbing training recommendations at their site go to climbing training.

Body Weight Exercises