7 Reasons Why You Should Try Rock Climbing

1: It’s Easy To Pick Up

While rock climbing might at first appear daunting or something that’s hard to learn or get into, its actually incredibly easy become involved. The first step is visiting a rock climbing or bouldering gym.

Usually, these gyms offer taster sessions to let you experience climbing which is the best way to get involved. If the ropes and gear intimidate you then you can opt for a bouldering-only session which is climbing but on much smaller walls using safety mats to break any falls rather than any climbing equipment. It requires a small induction and you can be let loose on the gym to climb to your heart’s content.

One great thing about climbing is it doesn’t really have any rules other than getting to the top. this allows for a lot of creativity in your climbing that allows for all sizes shapes and heights to work out different ways to get to the top with none of these ways being wrong or right.

2: It Doesn’t Feel like a Chore

The whole reason I tried climbing was to try and lose some weight and get fitter. Previously I was in the gym cycle. Stopping and starting, slugging it out just trying to put the hours in to transform into that better, stronger, healthier me. But it’s just plain repetitive running on a treadmill or lifting weights all the while spacing out to music and podcasts in an attempt to distract yourself from the undesirable activity. When I first tried climbing its the only exercise in my entire life that felt fun and didn’t feel like something I had to force myself to do.

I found myself wanting to go to the gym and wanting to climb. Suddenly my goal to become fitter was transformed into a goal to be better at climbing and the side product was getting into shape

3: Its a Social Sport

Let’s face it the older you get the harder it is to meet new like-minded people, the one benefit of climbing is it attracts people from all walks of life, and it’s an incredibly social sport. This means tons of new friends, which is never a bad thing. Climbers are always looking for belayers which one of the easiest ways to meet new people and see if you click.

The great thing about climbing is due to the wide range of difficulty it doesn’t matter if you climb with someone better or worse you can always hop on different routes when out at the crag or indoors at a gym.

All of this leads into some great life lasting friendship and amazing memories along with new opportunity’s.

4: Its Great Exercise

Climbing is a full-body workout which means it hits all the muscle groups and targets a ton of different areas.

Core: Climbing at an incline or staying close to the climbing wall helps build up your core strength.

Arms: Your arms get the real workout and are used when your legs cant provide enough force to push you upwards towards the next climbing hold.

Legs: Your legs are going to be used to push yourself upwards towards the next climbing hold and to keep you steady along with taking most of your weight.

Glutes: combined with your leg muscles to propel yourself upward.

Back: just like your core muscles your back muscles are used to keep yourself steady and in a position close to the wall which allows your body weight to be supported by your legs.

Not only is it a great workout for your muscles it’s also aerobic and the average climbing session gets your heart racing to 120-180bpm. Another added benefit is an increase in flexibility due to reaching and stretching into different positions in order to grab the next climbing hold.

An average climbing session can burn 500-700 calories per hour which makes it an idea sport for weight loss and can help you work towards your beach body.

5: Builds Self Confidence

One thing I love about climbing is how confident it has made me in other aspects of my life, when you are climbing you tend to push yourself outside your comfort zone. Sometimes this is in the form of trying a hard climb or experiencing a fall you weren’t quite ready for, other times it’s approaching other climbers and asking for advice or help. While this might not seem like much over weeks and months it slowly trickles into other areas of your life and builds into confidence.

Along with confidence climbing gives you an activity to vent your frustrations into it allows you to climb furiously and pull hard or you can relax and take it slow. You might find yourself heading straight to the climbing gym after a particularly rough day at work as a good climbing session is extremely therapeutic.

6: It Makes You Want to Travel

After a couple of indoor sessions climbing, you start to wonder about the great outdoors. You want to test these newfound skills on some real rock and put them to the test. Most climbers very quickly adapt to the outdoor setting which often leads to great experiences with friends along with seeing some beautiful places from cliff faces or mountaintops. This soon leads you to plan your time off work around climbing trips and making sure the next city you visit has at least 1 climbing spot fairly local.

7:Its an All Year-round Sport

One great thing about climbing is it’s available all year round, In the summer months, you can spend it outdoors trying to track down every crag, cliff, and quarry in your local area or just hit the gym during the week. As the months get colder and the outdoors seems like less of an exciting prospect you can choose to head indoors or layer up and start branching into ice climbing which is a whole beast in its own right and comes with its own set of climbing techniques and pitfalls.