I recently started indoor rock climbing for realsies. By that I mean instead of usually going once every couple of months or so with friends, I bought a subscription and decided to go roughly twice per week after work either on my own or with friends.
After doing this for a few months now, I thought I'd write down what I think because it was super fun and I learned a lot.
How passionate are you?
As with most new things, you need to do a bit of trial and error to find out if you like something or not.
For rock climbing, you can easily work this out by going with friends a few times and then going by yourself a few times. Every time you go, make sure you get the climbing shoes (they make everything so much easier).
If you enjoy going with friends only, then there's a bit of passion there. If you enjoy going on your own, then you're hooked!
If you enjoyed it either way and know you'll come back again at some point later in life, then buy some equipment.
I made the mistake of not getting harnesses or shoes until this year and I've probably spent more than double the cost of them on renting them out in the years before!!!
When you're starting out, just get the harness and shoes. Once you go up to the intermediate to difficult gradings, then you'll want some chalk and a chalk bag.
In my opinion, it doesn't really matter where you get the equipment from. They are roughly the same price whether or not you buy it from the climbing place itself.
Lingo
When you are a beginner, thankfully you don't really need to know stuff, but it does help. Here are some basics you might wanna know:
- Belayer: the person (or machine) that holds the rope and allows you to come down in a controlled fashion.
- Auto-belayer: machines that look like cylinders. They are usually bolted to the ceiling and allow you to climb solo up a wall.
- Bouldering: rock climbing without a rope. Most places have a few bouldering walls.
- Top-rope: Technical name for a regular a wall climb with a belayer. It's the one that you usually see with a rope and a pulley at the top.
- Lead climbing: For more advanced climbers, this is where you attach yourself to a rope at the bottom of the wall and then gradually hook yourself in at various points up the climb.
- Grading: Refers to how difficult a climb is. Sometimes it's done with colours, other times, with numbers.
- Slack: When the rope has some 'give'. Like if you were to let go of the wall, you'd fall a little.
- Volume: Basically a thing that they add to the climbing wall that's not just a flat wall. They often come in funky shapes and usually the same colour as the wall. These are really handy when climbing and you should definitely learn to use them where you can because it can be used for any colour and often are required to complete the climb.
Fear of heights?
Although I didn't have a fear of heights, when I first used an auto-belayer, I was petrified to go above halfway up the wall. For me, this was a trust issue, not a height issue, but I feel the same principle applies here after belaying a few people with height phobias.
If you are afraid of heights but really like climbing, here are my tips:
- Go halfway up and then come down. Then next time, go a little further
- Always face the wall when you come down. If you're scared, you'll probably forget this and then hit or graze yourself on the way down. Think of it like abseiling.
- Pick walls at an obtuse angle (where the wall is angled away from you when you climb it). This is more like climbing a really steep hill.
- Fear can be overcome by confidence. If you feel like you are going to lose grip on either your hands or feet, try finding a better hold, an easier grading, some chalk, or better shoes. These will improve your confidence in being able to grip the holds.
It's a super social activity
I think I've only met one or two people who haven't been rock climbing ever. Part of the reason I started rock climbing was to meet some new friends, and that's just what happened.
Not a lot of people do rock climbing more than once per week so it can get kinda lonely climbing alone. Find an online group chat or ask your local climbing place if there are any groups that meet up regularly. This way you'll have people to belay and people who can belay you if you really like Top-rope. It's also fun challenging other people to do certain bouldering courses.
Some climbing places also have like a sign up sheet where you can put your phone number down and find a climbing buddy. I haven't used it personally, but this might be a good idea if you don't like groups.
Fitness
Starting out, you probably won't be that good. Rock climbing requires an enormous amount of upper body strength and endurance, but don't let that dismay you. I've seen plenty of people who aren't very fit go rock climbing, they just tended to take breaks more frequently or ask to belay more instead.
The other reason I wanted to do rock climbing was to get fit since I'd stopped doing kung fu. Here's what I think about it from a fitness perspective:
- In order of most gains: Upper body, cardio, core
- Rock climbing is not a full body workout, it is biased towards upper-body
- If you use the auto-belayers a lot, then I was told a 3x3x3 workout is great for cardio. Do 3 walls, each 3 times, and for each wall, complete all of those reps within 3 minutes.
Looking back on it now and I'm happy with how my body has turned out. However, I was lucky that the climbing place I go to has a gym inside of it because otherwise I wouldn't be able to work on all parts of my body.