Benefits of Yoga for Rock Climbing

If you have set foot in a rock climbing gym recently, in a newer facility, you’ll likely notice signs for yoga classes and a separate yoga room off the main gym. Maybe you’ve even taken some yoga classes at your local climbing facility. From an outside perspective, it may seem that the two forms of fitness have collided because the participating populations are both prone to classifications of “granola,” “tree-hugger,” “hippie,” and “free-spirited.” However, yoga and climbing are physically complementary activities, benefiting the other.

Rock climbing movements are like a dance on a wall. They require strength, mobility, flexibility, and body awareness. Yoga is like a dance on a mat, with poses and flows requiring a strikingly similar skillset to climbing. However, as a climber, the odds are high that you found rock climbing first and are hesitant to give up training time on the wall for time on a yoga mat. Yet, to improve your climbing, dropping into a yoga class or two is in your favor. Keep reading to learn the benefits that await you if you incorporate yoga into your training regime.

Benefits of Yoga for Rock Climbing

Improved Body Tension

Rock climbing heavily depends on the climber's ability to create and maintain body tension effectively. Many yoga poses require the activation of muscles from head to toe, mimicking the same tension needed when actively ascending a boulder or route. Think about the Warrior 2 pose. Your front leg is bent, firing up your quadricep, your glutes are engaged to pull your back hip open, and your back leg is actively pushing away from the floor. Meanwhile, you must extend one arm forward and the other back, which forces you to activate your core, shoulders, and triceps.

Improved Mobility

First off, let's clarify mobility versus flexibility. Mobility encompasses the active engagement of your muscles in a stretched position (i.e., standing out of a high-step move). Flexibility is your muscles' passive range of motion (how far they can stretch). Both are useful in improving your climbing, and yoga can help increase both. The critical areas of yoga that can help increase mobility are the shoulders, hips, ankles, and back. For climbing slab, you'll want mobile ankles to drop your heels low and increase friction; for toe-hooks, you'll need good dorsiflexion ability. Solid and mobile shoulders will make gastons and mantles feel easy and painless. Good hip mobility is critical for high-stepping and hand-foot matching. Every yoga pose will target one of these areas, at least one at a time!

Improved Flexibility

Improving your flexibility goes hand in hand with improving mobility, but yoga is also great for enhancing static range of motion. Whether it is the splits (front or side), backbends, forearms, or wrists, many yoga sequences are designed to slowly and safely deepen the stretch and range of motion. 

Improved Mental Focus

Many yoga practices center around the breath. Each inhalation and exhalation corresponds to a movement, or the instructor draws your attention to the breath to maintain a challenging posture. Learning to recognize the role of breathing translates to rock climbing. Too often, climbers hold their breath or take small, shallow inhales. The telltale sign is heavy breathing when they come down as if they’ve just sprinted across a field. Holding your breath works for a tricky move or two, but the ability to calm your breath on the wall is generally powerful. It serves as a mental reset. In yoga, the general pattern is to inhale when you are moving with gravity and exhale when moving against it. Intentionally exhaling as you launch into a challenging sequence can help indicate to your body that you must try hard.

Protect Joints

Rock climbing is physically demanding. It engages the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints more than most daily activities. Bouldering landings strain the hip, knee, and ankle joints excessively. Ensuring all the stabilizer muscles and tendons around those joints are healthy and robust will extend your pain-free climbing career. Depending on the yoga practice, the movements will either serve a therapeutic or a strengthening purpose for your joints and the muscles surrounding them.

You can be a phenomenal climber without ever stepping onto a yoga mat, but it's no coincidence that yogis offer classes in climbing gyms. A quick YouTube search yields ample yoga routines specifically for climbers. If you have the opportunity at home or in the gym, try yoga. Even once a week will pay off for your climbing and overall health and fitness. And, if you've been looking to improve your body tension, mobility, flexibility, and mental focus or protect achy joints, you should look to attend a class. Comment below with questions, or share your favorite type of yoga for rock climbing!