Indoor climbing is one of the most physical and newest trends of the decade. As more people discover its benefits, indoor climbing has become increasingly popular. With indoor climbing gyms found all over the United States, it’s easier than ever to take on this exhilarating sport!
17 Amazing Benefits of An Indoor Climbing Gym
Here are the 17 benefits of an indoor climbing gym.
1. Full-Body Workout
One of the first health benefits of rock climbing is the full-body workout that it offers. Full-body workouts are often hard to come by, even in regular gyms. If you begin to rock climb even a few times a week, you’ll receive a full body workout every single time.
When you begin to rock climb, your core body will become more challenging and more vigorous without hurting your neck or back. Areas of your body such as your arms, back, and shoulders will become toned, in addition to building muscles in your legs without the need to pick up a weight.
2. Improves Endurance
When you have no choice, you might find it surprising the amount of endurance your body has. The same applies to rock climbing. When you encounter a tricky area on a rock, you’ll find yourself holding on longer and tighter than you might think you’re capable of doing.
The more you rock climb, the better your endurance will improve. As a climber, you’ll be able to hold on tighter for longer.
3. Improves Flexibility
As a beginner rock climber, if you’re not a flexible person, you’ll surely end up only after a few months. If rock climbing isn’t enough, you’ll find yourself improving your flexibility even outside of an indoor climbing gym.
In addition to rock climbing, yoga is a great pairing when it comes to improving your flexibility and enhancing your climbing skills.
4. Increases Balance
While rock climbing as your core continues to improve, so will your ability to remain balanced while rock climbing and will further enhance your climbing skills. As you become a more experienced climber, your muscles will allow you to stay centered, even if you find yourself in a unique position.
5. Burns Calories
An indoor climbing gym will allow you to burn calories and a bunch of them! We’ve always dreaded the hoops we need to go through to burn calories throughout the day, but with rock climbing, you can burn a lot of them and enjoy it! The number of calories you burn solely depends on your height, age, weight, and even gender.
The average man can burn up to 899 calories per hour while rock climbing, and the average woman can burn 774 calories per hour. Obviously, the number of calories you burn highly depends on the actual time you spend rock climbing.
Check out this epic drone fly-through of On The Rocks Climbing Gym!
6. Low Effects on the Body
As with any type of physical activity, there are bound to be injuries, and rock climbing is no exception. The primary difference with rock climbing is the low impact your body endures. While climbing, there’s minimal repetition in physical movements such as cardio activities, and even the movements you endure have minimal impact.
From time to time, you may feel some shoulder discomfort and occasional falls may seem like a pain; however, you won’t endure these movements often and feel very little impact.
7. Improves Cardio
Your muscles aren’t the only thing getting a workout with an indoor climbing gym workout. When you’re working out every muscle in your body while rock climbing, there’s another part of your body that’s working to make things easier. Oxygen comes into play and starts pumping where it’s needed the most.
With that additional exertion, your lungs will be in full workout mode, giving you a cardio workout when you don’t even know it!
8. Enhances Meditation
While rock climbing, many climbers give extra focus to the climbing wall, enhancing their self-awareness. Meditation in itself can become challenging to master, and many who find it difficult have noticed the excellent benefits of meditation that climbing gives.
9. Improves Focus
While climbing, your extra focus will be on the wall and not falling, no matter how safe the fall might be during training. As humans, we’re naturally nervous about falling from high heights. The main part about climbing is to get over your fear of heights.
While some climbers are able to manage this fear, many do their best to focus their minds and to keep their body fully controlled. This fear itself creates an effective focus exercise and happens without even realizing it.
10. Improves Technique
As a beginner climber, at first, you might be a little nervous when learning the ropes. However, as you become familiar with climbing, your love for the sport will continue to grow. Very rarely will you find a climber that doesn’t want to improve and try something more complex.
Even those who don’t consider themselves competitive are willing to push themselves further to improve their technique. With climbing, every route is unique, and knowing the challenge of what the end brings makes it that much more exciting to push yourself to the next challenge.
11. Relieves Stress
Not only does indoor rock climbing improve your body and focus, but a huge benefit of rock climbing is that it’s also an excellent stress reliever. The amount of physical activity and the endorphins that are released generally make you feel better and assist with reducing your stress levels.
12. Builds Your Confidence
After you’ve completed a climb, you might feel like you’re on the top of the world and can take on any challenge! Even if you have days where you can’t complete a climb, there are many days where you’re constantly improving, taking on challenge after challenge, and really building your confidence.
The great days you have climbing will make you realize that with a little bit of hard work, you can take on just about anything.
13. Enhances Problem-Solving Skills
As you climb different routes, you’ll begin to notice your problem-solving skills are improving. This might happen by completing routes over and over and becoming familiar with foot placement and how much weight is needed by different parts of your body.
Once you’ve solved these problems, everything will come together like a puzzle. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself mastering some of the most challenging climbs.
14. Sociable
If you’re a regular climber at the gym, you’ll quickly become part of the climbing community. If you speak with many climbers, they’ll tell you how excited they get to meet and climb with other people. Climbers will look for any excuse to get outdoors and are always interested in socializing.
Once you become a part of the climbing community, you’ll quickly notice the energy and want to be included.
15. Improves Communication
In addition to socializing with new climbers, climbing gyms are also an excellent way to improve communication. During your climb, your communication skills will improve. This happens when you’re communicating with the belayer, which requires you to be one hundred percent clear with communication when giving instructions.
You and the belayer will quickly begin to communicate in order to provide support and a safe climb.
16. Enhances Your Trust in Others
As a beginner climber, you might at first feel hesitant when putting your trust in a belayer. This is why communication skills are essential, as we discussed above. After you have the communication part down, it’s all about trust after that.
The more rock climbing you do, the easier it will become to put your trust in the hands of someone else. Trust is a hard thing to come by, so we understand why this may seem not easy at first; however, climbing gyms are an excellent way to enhance your trust in others.
17. Open all Year Round
Rounding off our list of benefits of an indoor climbing gym is that they’re open all year round! Climbing gyms are available all year round, giving you access even during those cold winter months. Even if you’re unable to regularly visit a climbing gym, you can also put in a pull-up bar and board in your home.
Some avid climbers have even built a bouldering wall in their garage!
Come Climb in Cleveland with Us!
Are you in the Midwest and looking to take your climbing skills to the next level? Don't overlook our detailed review of Cleveland rock climbing gyms, which can help you find the perfect spot to challenge yourself.
Benefits of an Indoor Climbing Gym: FAQ
1. Can you go to the climbing gym every day?
It is not recommended to go to the climbing gym every day as you can put a strain on your body.
2. What is indoor climbing called?
Controlling the rope is referred to as belaying, with the person controlling the rope as the belayer. The two main ways of indoor climbing are called top rope climbing and lead climbing.
3. What is gym climbing called?
There are three types of gym climbing: bouldering, top rope climbing, and lead climbing.
4. Does bouldering make you fit?
Bouldering is a full-body workout that works most of your muscles, reduces stress levels, challenges your mind, and helps you become social.