How yoga and slacklining can help with your climbing

Yoga and slacklining are great additions to your climbing routine. For most of us, our standard way of warming up is to just climb easy terrain. While this is an effective warm up it can be quite harsh on your body, especially on those cold winter mornings increasing the risk of injury.

Before you start climbing, it is better to mobilise your body gently through activities like yoga in order to prevent injuries. Here are a few poses to help you warm up;

• Shoulder rotations

• Cactus flow to full prayer

• Upward bound finger pose

• Gate pose

• Wild thing variation

• Plank rolls

Other than helping you to warm up, yoga is actually great for strength and flexibility. A lot of movements on the wall require you to use your body very differently to how you normally would. Yoga helps strengthen your entire body, which helps you reach into positions you normally can’t, opening up new betas for each problem. 

Slacklining is another fun way to hone in on skills that may help your climbing. It helps with strengthening your core and lower body strength and more importantly your balance. When you start bouldering the foot holds are quite secure but as you quickly level 1UP, you will find the footholds becoming smaller and smaller, requiring more and more balance.

Other than warming up, both yoga and slacklining are a great way to finish off your climb, using up the last bit of your energy in a fun way to cool down!

Slackline