The benefits of including climbing in a fitness program
NOTE - This post was originally written for our 'weekly warble' segment in a few Facebook groups for the community local to our gym.
Welcome to the weekly warble here at Ideanthro Movement.
This week I'd like to share with you some thoughts on the benefits of including climbing in a fitness program. Climbing is one of many types of movement that we practice during class at Ideanthro Movement, so let's talk about why we do it and how it can help you (whether that's with us, at a climbing gym or simply by getting on the play equipment with the kids).
So what are the benefits of climbing as a part of a fitness program?
To answer that, the first thing that we need to do is to define 'climbing'. Climbing comes in many forms. Climbing sometimes looks like rock climbing. Sometimes it looks like scrambling over obstacles like a child might at the playground. At other times it looks like pretending to be a sloth hanging around under a tree branch. It can even simply mean getting onto a chair or the table to change a light bulb. And that should give us an indication of the first two benefits of climbing in a fitness program...
... it's highly varied!
Variety is really important in a fitness program for several reasons. One is that it keeps things interesting. There's a place for repetition in fitness in terms of sending a message to our bodies that we want to get stronger, more flexible etc, but variety helps us to stay interested and motivated.
The second benefit of variety in fitness is a benefit for our bodies rather than our minds. In the scientific literature, 'evolutionary mismatch theory' is the term used to describe the phenomenon whereby a species (that includes us humans!) developed in one environment but now lives in another that it may not be as well suited to. In fitness terms, we humans evolved in environments that required much greater amounts of movement and in much more variety than we currently encounter in our daily lives. A fitness activity such as climbing that adds this variety back in is typically a good thing for us.
A third benefit of climbing is the strength that it builds. As soon as you start climbing you start asking your upper body to support and move the rest of your body around. That requires upper body strength, and hence sends a potent message to your body to become stronger. Now, of course the strength built by climbing isn't the only strength that you may wish to develop (it primarily develops upper body pulling strength) but it's great for developing that particular aspect of strength.
Another, fourth, benefit of climbing is that it helps you to develop mobility, particularly in the hips. This is often overlooked, but climbing well is aided by quality hip mobility. The positions you will find yourself in while climbing will thus help to build that mobility. Similar to the situation with strength, this probably won't be the only mobility you would benefit from developing through your fitness program, but it's part of the puzzle.
Finally, let's talk about 'a sense of achievement' as a benefit from including climbing in your fitness program. The thing about climbing is that when you first consider doing it, it will probably look much tougher than it is. Make no mistake, the things the best climbers in the world do are incredibly difficult, but much of the climbing that you see in a climbing gym or in our photographs is probably more achievable for you than you think. Some of it might only need a relatively small amount of work to achieve, and some you might in fact be able to do right now with a few pointers in the right direction (in fact that was precisely the case for one of our clients this morning). Long story short, because climbing seems tough but is in fact doable it can give a strong sense of achievement. And with essentially never ending variations and incrementally more difficult options, that sense of achievement can repeat itself over and over again!
Well, that was a long warble. Time we went and climbed on something...
You might also like…
If you liked this post you might also like these other resources: