General Climbing

Do you need upper body strength to rock climb?

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2  Answers
First asked   Oct 1, 2022,
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Top Answer
Oct 10, 2022

You actually don't need prior upper body strength to start climbing. You will gain that strength as you climb.
Many people believe that to climb, you need to pull your whole body's weight with your arms, essentially doing pull-ups to get to the top of the route. This, though, is very far from the truth.

Think of rock climbing as climbing a ladder. You would not just pull yourself up a ladder with your hands, right? No, you would use your legs to push yourself up, and your hands to slightly pull, but mainly to balance/navigate yourself. The same logic applies to climbing, especially in the easier routes.

Beginner climbing routes tend to have large holds that are easy to grab on to and hold. These routes are essentially ladders, they usually go straight up. All you need to do is to climb them just like you would a ladder. Their purpose is to slowly get people used to the feeling of climbing, the shoes, and the holds. As the routes get harder, the holds get smaller and harder to hold, and the routes get technically and physically harder.

By the time you get to those harder routes, though, you will have built up the upper and lower body strength that would allow you to climb them. But for the easier routes, and for beginner climbers, you can just start climbing without worrying about having prior upper or lower body strength.

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1 More Answer
Oct 15, 2022

You do need certain levels of upper and lower body strength, but, the amount of strength really depends on the grade you want to climb.

If you are a beginner, then you don't really need any extra strength to start climbing, as the beginner level routes are very easy. They are similar to climbing ladders, just with some curves.

If you want to climb harder grades, then yes you will need upper body strength, and lower body strength also. Though, by the time you get to these harder routes, you will probably build up that strength anyway through your climbing journey to those grades, and if not, you can include some additional training into your schedule.

Just to point this out though, I have quite a bit of upper body strength as I have been lifting weights for many years on and off, and I climb v7/v8 normally. I have a friend who is significant weaker than me, but, he climbs v8+ and is a much better climber than me. The point is that even if you do not have a lot of upper body strength, you can still be a great climber and climb hard routes. The upper body strength helps, but it's really a combination of strength and technique that will make the biggest difference.

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