For most climbers, the standard method of warming up is to just start climbing on easy terrain. While this is definitely part of an effective climbing warm up, simply jumping on the climbing wall or rock before doing any activity can be extremely harsh on your body contributing to the risk of injury. Before you start climbing, it’s better to gently mobilize you body through activities like a yoga warm up as a way of readying your body and nervous system for the activity ahead.
To give you an easy to follow yoga warm up routine, here’s an article from Crux Crush by Colorado-based yoga instructor and climber Emma Murray that outlines a warm up consisting of a series of yoga poses specifically targeting the muscles you use most in climbing.
“Get on this yoga routine to activate all your climbing muscles. When warming up, movement is key. Dynamic stretching that targets shoulders, hips and lats is particularly important and helpful for climbing. Warming up the muscles in these areas can prevent muscle and soft tissue tears or overstrain on tendons and ligaments. Climbing is a strenuous sport; be kind to your body and take care of it so you can continue for the rest of your life!” – Emma Murray
Yoga Warm Up Poses:
As Murray states, these poses function as a series of dynamic stretches that will help you mobilize your shoulder, hips, lats, and chest and prepare them for the abuse hard climbing puts on them. Here’s a list of the yoga poses used in this warm up routine:
- Shoulder rotations
- Cactus flow to full prayer
- Upward bound finger pose
- Gate pose
- Wild thing variation
- Plank rolls
Click through below to read more about all these poses and how they will help you ready yourself for your climbing session. So you know exactly what you are doing, Murray describes what each pose is targeting, how to effectively do each pose, and provides photos to make things easy to understand and follow. Give this warm up a shot. It only takes a few minutes and may go a long way towards improving the quality of your climbing sessions while preventing injury in the process.
Full Article: The Yoga Warm Up for Climbing
(photo courtesy of cruxcrush.com)
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