Indoor rock climbing- perfect way to get a great body and brain workout, all while staying warm inside! With the increase of climbing gyms, we’ve seen an increase in climbers and wanted to cover ways to prevent injury!

We recently worked with Steep Rock Bouldering (https://www.srbnyc.com) to present an injury prevention clinic to their climbers, here are a few things we covered that could help improve your climbing and prevent injuries-

Core Strength

Climbing challenges our bodies to reach in multiple directions so it is important that the base of our appendages that are doing the reaching is strong.

A strong core does not mean a solid six-pack or sculpted abdominal muscles, what it means is being able to maintain good stabilization in the core and appropriate breathing techniques. For example, “turning on” your abdominals before reaching or taking a breath out when reaching vs. holding your breath. These techniques will decrease pressure on the pelvic floor and help to provide a more stable “core”/base to move from.

Balance Training

When we think of balancing, we typically think of balancing while standing on a flat surface. For climbing, balancing means being able to keep your body balanced against a vertical surface. Since you’re moving up or down in various directions, climbing gets a little bit tricky.

You want to use physics to your advantage by thinking about maintaining good tension in your body when appropriate.
- While pushing with one arm or leg, you can pull with the opposite appendage or vice versa to create the amount of stabilization you need to climb.

Mobility

In addition to the good upper body flexibility that climbers need in their fingers, shoulders, and neck, there needs to be good mobility in the hips, knees, ankles, and toes.

We have a few exercises to introduce you to that will address all of the elements above-

Brill Chicken

Tuck in chin, pull head back to elongate the back of your neck. Pinch shoulder blades together. Bend arms, keeping elbows close to the torso with wrists pulled back.

6 seconds hold x 6 every 2 hours

Quadruped Lift Off

Align hands underneath shoulders and knees underneath hips on all fours. Tuck your toes under, lift your knees and hover 6" off the ground.

Hold x 10 seconds x 5 reps x 2 sets.

Deep Squat

Hold the inside of a door frame with your arms at shoulder height. Squat down as far as you can as your hands slide down the door frame (heels must remain flat to the floor).

Hold 10 seconds