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Snowbat
Oct 5, 2012, 3:06 PM
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Registered: Oct 5, 2012
Posts: 14
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Hello all, I recently picked up rock climbing again. I did it a lot as a kid years ago and stopped for reasons I cant remember. Now I found a couple of friends who do this so I picked it up again and I love it! It's really a great and satisfying sports that somehow manages to greatly increase confidence as well. Anyways, I'm kinda confused about working out outside climbing. I mainly do pull-ups, dips, push ups and squats (wearing weights when it becomes too easy)... but these excercices will increase muscle mass too right? Isn't that actually a bad thing? I heard that when you're bulky, you're not as flexible and agile to climb. I'm not sure how much truth is in that "too bulky to climb" statement though because when I went indoor climbing earlier this week, I saw that most of the more experienced climbers were not exactly looking like huge bodybuilding tanks, but they were still kinda bigger than average. They were certainly not skinny. So what's the deal? Work out or not? Sorry if it's a silly question but as I said, I'm new so bear with me :-)
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Ned_Ludd
Oct 6, 2012, 6:49 AM
Post #2 of 5
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Registered: Sep 9, 2010
Posts: 42
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go running
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granite_grrl
Oct 6, 2012, 2:11 PM
Post #3 of 5
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Registered: Oct 25, 2002
Posts: 15084
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Snowbat wrote: Hello all, I recently picked up rock climbing again. I did it a lot as a kid years ago and stopped for reasons I cant remember. Now I found a couple of friends who do this so I picked it up again and I love it! It's really a great and satisfying sports that somehow manages to greatly increase confidence as well. Anyways, I'm kinda confused about working out outside climbing. I mainly do pull-ups, dips, push ups and squats (wearing weights when it becomes too easy)... but these excercices will increase muscle mass too right? Isn't that actually a bad thing? I heard that when you're bulky, you're not as flexible and agile to climb. I'm not sure how much truth is in that "too bulky to climb" statement though because when I went indoor climbing earlier this week, I saw that most of the more experienced climbers were not exactly looking like huge bodybuilding tanks, but they were still kinda bigger than average. They were certainly not skinny. So what's the deal? Work out or not? Sorry if it's a silly question but as I said, I'm new so bear with me :-) The reason serious climbers don't like the idea of bulking up because bulking up = extra weight you have to pull up a climb. Is this something you should be worried about? Probably not, not if you're just doing general workouts and not trying to increase muscle size (someone who is a bit more of an expert than me can explain the difference between getting big muscles and recruiting muscle fibers). Now, I will say that your workout of pullups, dips and squats aren't very likely to help you in your climbing. If you're newer at climbing time on the wall will help you the most. I'm sure you already have more than enough muscle to climb the climbs you want to do, you just need the technique so you're not fighting against yourself. If you are managing to climb a decent amount a good workout would concentrate on preventing imbalances. Working things like chest and triceps that don't really get worked when you're climbing. Also working on flexibility and work out your core, you can never have a strong enough core.
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occlimbing
Oct 15, 2012, 4:20 AM
Post #4 of 5
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Registered: Oct 15, 2012
Posts: 7
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granite_grrl wrote: Snowbat wrote: Hello all, I recently picked up rock climbing again. I did it a lot as a kid years ago and stopped for reasons I cant remember. Now I found a couple of friends who do this so I picked it up again and I love it! It's really a great and satisfying sports that somehow manages to greatly increase confidence as well. Anyways, I'm kinda confused about working out outside climbing. I mainly do pull-ups, dips, push ups and squats (wearing weights when it becomes too easy)... but these excercices will increase muscle mass too right? Isn't that actually a bad thing? I heard that when you're bulky, you're not as flexible and agile to climb. I'm not sure how much truth is in that "too bulky to climb" statement though because when I went indoor climbing earlier this week, I saw that most of the more experienced climbers were not exactly looking like huge bodybuilding tanks, but they were still kinda bigger than average. They were certainly not skinny. So what's the deal? Work out or not? Sorry if it's a silly question but as I said, I'm new so bear with me :-) The reason serious climbers don't like the idea of bulking up because bulking up = extra weight you have to pull up a climb. Is this something you should be worried about? Probably not, not if you're just doing general workouts and not trying to increase muscle size (someone who is a bit more of an expert than me can explain the difference between getting big muscles and recruiting muscle fibers). Now, I will say that your workout of pullups, dips and squats aren't very likely to help you in your climbing. If you're newer at climbing time on the wall will help you the most. I'm sure you already have more than enough muscle to climb the climbs you want to do, you just need the technique so you're not fighting against yourself. If you are managing to climb a decent amount a good workout would concentrate on preventing imbalances. Working things like chest and triceps that don't really get worked when you're climbing. Also working on flexibility and work out your core, you can never have a strong enough core. This is something I realized only recently, that pull ups help you develop strength to pull your body up, but that shouldn't be something you do very often in climbing.
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piotrB
Oct 15, 2012, 3:43 PM
Post #5 of 5
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Registered: Oct 11, 2012
Posts: 9
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Tell us what is Your climbing level now? And how strong You are at GYM. It's hard to tell You the best way to improve your climbing if We don't know you better :) For instance if You can do 20 pull-ups and You climb 6a than You should definitely give up working out and try to transform Your strength so it would be useful at rock. If You do only 5 this may be to lees for climbing good. You should decide by your self whether You need more strength in some parts of Your body or not. Try to find Your week points and terminate them!
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