Could indoor rock climbing be the best workout for your body? We think so, and here’s why.
Not only is indoor climbing a fun and interesting way to mix top your fitness routine, it can easily be done alone, with friends and family, and is not restricted by the weather. Meaning, it doesn’t matter if it’s too hot or too cold or if it’s raining outside.
And there are loads of health benefits to why you might want to start indoor rock climbing.
Exercise is about engaging your muscles, increasing stamina and building cardio. From increasing the strength of your heart, to improving the circulation of blood and oxygen flow throughout the body. When it comes to activating and training your body on all accounts, few exercises can match that of indoor climbing.
Research has suggested the kind of dynamic muscle activation required for climbing is more challenging for the body, with the pushing, pulling and lifting involved in climbing, it essentially mirrors aspects of resistance exercise, and it’s also an excellent cardiovascular workout for the body too.
With the endless variable series of movements required too climb, you work out the entire body, unlike other forms of exercises like weights and running, which focus on specific parts of the body section by section as your workout. Climbing works on all parts of the body at the same time.
Running, cycling, rowing and most conventional gym workouts teach the body to perform consistent, repetitive motions. either to build strength, increase cardiorespiratory fitness or both. As climbing is more complex movement, with no climbing surface or route being the same as another, you are asking muscles to perform different actions each time your exercise and make a different climb.
A professor of kinesiology at the University of British Columbia in Canada, William Steel, conducted a study on the body and how it functions whilst climbing in 2004, discovered climbers use a significant portion of their aerobic quality, increasing flexibility, improving heart health and improve overall health of blood and oxygen flow throughout the body.
Apart from all the health benefits of indoor climbing, it’s a fun way to stay fit this summer and an interesting way to spend time with friends and family over the holidays.
The BB team were invited to try the new Climb Fit Indoor Climbing facilities at Kirrawee, approximately thirty-minutes drive south of Sydney CBD.
It was such an interesting and unique experience. And where some members of the team had done indoor climbing before, other had not. It was a lot if fun trying out the stand alone climb where you are hooked up to an automated pull back system which assist you with single climbs when you are alone, to get up and back down again.
And if course, it was a great team building exercise where you had too rely on one another to get up and down the climb, trusting your partner would help you for the trip down.
The team tried the unassisted bouldering too, which is where you climb shorter distances on creative angles, trusting your own body strength to help you navigate the climb going up and down without a harness for support. Scary at first, but a lot of fun, and a great workout for the overall body.