What are the measurable prerequisites of strength and/or flexiblity for starting to climb in a climbing gym?

Question

If I were a couple of decades younger, I would seriously consider trying climbing in a climbing gym, but I doubt I have enough flexibility, and I would feel horribly out of place. The thing that attracts me is the total concentration required; there are things I want to put right out of my mind at least temporarily.

But I am curious: is there a measurable criterion for what level of upper body strength a person should have before even beginning? Are there any other measures of strength or flexibility that are pre-requisites for starting this sport?

Answer 1

No, there are no particular prerequisites for indoor climbing. Strength, flexibility, endurance will come along the way. Just take a look into any gym, you will see small, large, fat, weak people. In my place there regularly is a one-armed guy...

The gym

Look for a large, well-run, popular gym. Good signs are:

• A nice, inviting website which shows all rooms/walls of the gym; explains how everything functions; explains any rules.
• Beginner and advanced courses.
• Being chock full at prime time.
• There should be a small gym-inside-the-gym with assorted equipment (boards to hang from, maybe some weight training stuff).

I would strongly suggest taking a beginners course. Those are available for adults. While it may feel weird, just shrug off the feeling. Do not be shy, talk to the coach, ask questions, actually do what she says, and so on.

A partner

But the main reason for taking a beginners course would be to find another beginner to start your journey with! Exchange phone numbers with someone who seems to be close to your level of body strength, fitness, etc.. Find a weekly "jour fixe" where you regularly meet. The time/day-of-the-week of the course is a good starting point, as both of you obviously had spare time right then!

Then just go and climb. You will find that you will improve very quickly. Do not be shy watching better climbers (i.e., everybody else). Nobody will think bad about you; most people will remember how it was when they started.

The partner is important because a) motivation and b) talking about how to tackle different problems. As both of you will have different arm/leg lengths, mobilities, etc., you will quickly see that you will take different approaches to climbing, so you will learn from each other, even if you both are beginners.

Bouldering

I tried to get into indoor top-rope climbing twice, and it did not work out. The problem is that you are absolutely tied (sic) to having a partner around (so no spontaneous night at the gym) and downtime is much worse. One of you is always not climbing; and when the gym is full, the fullness is much worse, so to speak, since each climb takes longer. Also, frankly, I had incidents with lazy/inattentive partners while my life was literally hanging from a thread...

Bouldering to the rescue! I encourage you to skip all the complexities of top-rope climbing, and go straight to bouldering, if you have a gym that focuses on that. Bouldering might not look like much, but it is very intense, and since you do not have a long climb for every route, it is much easier for the route setters to give you many, many more diverse problems.

If a bouldering hall is full, it's not such a big problem. You get queues in front of the walls, but since each attempt takes only a few dozen seconds, 1-2 minutes max, you get to climb rather sooner than later. Also, when the difficulty rises, you need the time between tries to recover your strength anyways, so it is actually good to see what others are doing at "your" problem.

Answer 2

I am going to say that there aren't any. I have always heard stories of big beefy guys who can a zillion pull-ups getting out into real climbing and then realizing that there are very few features that remotely resemble pull up bars.

For that matter I have gone climbing and rappelling with a person in a wheel chair and people with other handicaps. Here is a story and here are some pictures of what that looks like.

With that said, stronger is usually better and the same for flexibility, but I don't think there are any prerequisites for doing it.

Answer 3

If you can climb a ladder, you can start rock climbing.

You won't be doing crazy stuff unless you get more practice and go often enough to build strength, but there will be routes you can work on.

Where arm strength really matters is overhangs. Unless you're doing those, you'll likely find your hand strength is your limiting factor than your arm strength. Unfortunately hand strength takes longer to develop safely than arm strength.

Just go one day and see what you can do.

Answer 4

One aspect not yet touched on is that for beginner climbers, upper body strength is not actually as important as you might imagine. If we exclude overhangs (which is reasonable for early stages of training) then legs really are where all the power requirement sits.

In fact when teaching folks on climbing walls, most of my effort has been in persuading people to relax their grip, lean in, and even let go entirely when resting, in order to focus their attention on legs for lift and arms for control

You can climb at a basic level, if you can walk up stairs. As you progress, you will find the areas you need to develop strength. If you are like me (strong, but should be lighter) overhangs present a challenge to be passed as fast a possible before lactic acid buildup puts a stop to things, whereas my teenage kids find that sort of thing really easy.

Answer 5

I know some amazing climbers who can't even do a single pull up.

Climbing is more about balance and technique than it is about upper body strength. I'm a skinny guy, and one of my favourite things was when some gym rat would wander over from the weight room into the bouldering cave to check it out. They'd see us skinny kids flash up some problem then decide they were going to give it a try. The looks on their faces when they couldn't even grip the holds, or when they'd explode off the wall because they don't understand beta (the sequence of moves required), was always amusing.

When you start climbing is when it's going to be hardest, but after a couple of weeks your muscles will adapt and you'll start to feel stronger. It's the same with any strength training; your measurable gains at the beginning are from your existing muscle becoming more efficient.

Where you'll notice it the most at first is in your forearms; climbing requires a lot of strength in open hand grips. Take your time when you first get on the wall and climb easy for the first 15 minutes to warm up your muscles. This will help prevent the lactic acid buildup in your arms. Learn how to do some forearm stretches too, you'll be doing lot of those.

In your first year of climbing you'll advance tremendously in your abilities. This is because you learn the basics of climbing technique and how to climb more efficiently. In your second year though, you'll notice that you sort of hit a ceiling. This is you reaching your physical limits. The only way to advance beyond this point is to develop your muscles and grow stronger.

Climbing regularly is important. As soon as you stop climbing, there will be measurable strength loss after only 2 weeks.

The most important thing is to have fun, which is easier if you make some friends who climb at the same level as you do. You don't have to worry about people judging you either; one of my favourite things about the climbing community is how inclusive it is. Everyone bonds over rocks and talking about projects and their beta. Just tell people you're new and you'll have no shortage of people encouraging you and offering tips.

Answer 6

Often absolute strength isn't that important and it's certainly not just a case of dragging yourself up with your arms and really it is more about technique than brute force.

Equally many people will find that finger strength (and abrasion resistance) is the first limiting factor and it's fairly hard to train that other than by climbing.

Most climbing walls will offer taster sessions and beginners courses which will allow you to try it out and learn the basic skills and safety for very modest expense and the chances are that there will be routes which you can manage without a great deal of difficulty.

There are various grading systems in use for difficulty but the easiest are not much harder than climbing a ladder so it is very likely that there will be a few that you can successfully climb on your first day and then just step up the difficulty to see where your initial limit is.

Also if you do a day course for beginners you will be with a group of other novices and an instructor who knows that you are novices and has an strong incentive to encourage you to come back so there should be no particular reason to feel awkward. Equally while indoor climbing is usually done in pairs with one climbing and one belaying in turns there is no reason why you both have to do the same routes so it is perfectly feasible for two climbers with different levels of ability to partner up as long as you are both happy with the other person's competence in belaying.

For many people the challenge and excitement is in progressing and it is just as satisfying to master your first route at the next grade up whatever the level of relative difficulty.

Equally doing a challenging move 20 m above the ground will get your attention and demand the sort of concentration you are looking for at whatever level of difficulty.