The Basics: How To Start Rock Climbing? – Beginner Friendly

Disclosure: Links marked with * are Affiliate Links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases if you decide to make a purchase through these links – at no cost for you!


Rock climbing is one of the best forms of fitness and activity in the world. You get a full body workout with minimal effort (if you’re doing it right), you’re able to take it slow and controlled (slow, controlled movement builds muscle), and your joints will never be in better condition than when you’re an avid climber.

How do I start rock climbing? Go into an indoor climbing hall an practice there. When you are feeling comfortable, you can begin to start climbing outside. Beginners think that rock climbing involves being strong and muscley, but it does not. In fact, you can get a lot of climbing done even if you’re overweight and have weak muscles. It all depends on how you start out. Since rock climbing encompasses such a wide array of activities, you can start out with the easy climbing methods and still be fully and completely legitimate.

To get started here are some useful articles and resources for beginners:


Can I Just Go Rock Climbing?

The best way to just get some basic climbing experience is to go to an indoor rock climbing venue and ask about bouldering or “the easy stuff for beginners”. They will help you get set up right away so that you can start climbing immediately.

What about rock climbing in the outdoors? If you do any rock climbing on real rocks, you need to use the bouldering principle: Nothing higher than 20 feet without specialized rock climbing equipment (here is a list of what equipment you need to start rock climbing). 

Does this mean that you can climb as high as you feel comfortable on a low wall? No, it means that once your head is twice as high as your normal height, you need to start climbing back down. Another big thing to watch out for is the “forest floor”. This essentially means “If you fall, where would your body actually stop?”

This means that climbing on a low wall over a sloping area is actually very dangerous because if you fell, you would roll a long distance before you would stop. Keep these things in mind when taking your first beginner steps in rock climbing. Never go above 20 feet from where your body would stop rolling.


How Are Beginners at a Disadvantage when Starting Out?

Beginners are often at a disadvantage because they don’t know how animals climb walls. Animals use their large muscle groups in their bodies to carry most of the weight. They do NOT use collections of their smaller muscle groups. This would burn more energy doing the same activity and be highly inefficient.

What kind of large muscle groups are we talking about here? Well, professional climbers actually hang from their fingers, allowing their full arms to extend straight, and sinking back into hanging from their fingers and their shoulders. Do you notice how monkeys never “cling” to their perches? They swing back and forth with their arms fully extended. This is what you’re looking to mimic on a rock wall.

Therefore, Tip #1: Keep Your Arms Fully Extended and Relaxed Into Hanging from Your Shoulders and Fingers.

Now we come to the part that most beginner’s feel in their muscles. That would be their forearms. When your fingers are being accustomed to clinging onto a handhold or rocky ledge, the muscles in your forearms are going to get a real workout. Beginners often cite this as the part of their body that feels sore after rock climbing.

Tip #2: Allow 3 or 4 days between rock climbing, in the beginning, to allow your forearm muscles to build (muscles only build during the rest period in between workouts).

Professional climbers learn to climb with their bodies facing sideways and, as they climb, they face their body from one side to another, switching sides when it becomes convenient to do so for the next handhold. Why do they do this? It all has to do with your center of gravity. The more you keep yourself close to the wall, the more your center of gravity is parallel to the wall. However, if you face the wall itself with your butt sticking out, your center of gravity is pulled away from the wall and pulling you outward and downward, which will force you to use more muscles to keep yourself in place.

Tip #3: Keep yourself against the rock wall and facing sideways to keep your center of gravity parallel to the wall.

And lastly, we come to the glutes and hamstrings, the major muscle groups in your lower body. While you are climbing, you will find that you use those major muscle groups more than you use your arms. That is natural and should be continued in the future.


Some Basic Moves that You can Memorize Now

There are a few key moves that you can start memorizing now. These will help your enormously when it comes to rock climbing.

  1. Practice hooking your fingers around over a tall shelf or a high ledge and allowing most of your body weight to swing from your arms. Make sure that you keep a small amount of muscle engaged so that you don’t pull on your shoulder socket, but try to reduce this down the smallest amount possible.
  2. Practice climbing steps sideways, as if you were being very sneaky about it, and practice placing your feet above each other while facing to the side. This will mimic how your body will be facing when rock climbing correctly.
  3. If you have access to monkey bars, practice swinging from bar to bar. This will mimic the overall position your body will be in on the rock face.

The Buddy System in Action

Rock climbing is 2,000 times safer when practiced with a buddy and you should always go with a friend, no matter what. The only exception to this rule is when you are bouldering and are dealing with a wall that is 20 feet or less in height.

When you go out with your friend, you will be using one of two types of buddy systems: Top Rope Climbing/Belaying and Lead Climbing. Belaying is used for both types of buddy systems, but it is most often used for Top Rope Climbing, so we’ll use it here for that.

Top Rope Climbing typically occurs indoors. You have a loop or hook suspended from the ceiling with a rope running through it. One end of the rope goes through your harness and the other end of the rope is held by a person who stays on the ground, the belayer.

Lead Climbing also involves two people: one of them is climbing, the other one is belaying. As the lead climber climbs, he or she “anchors” the climbing rope to the rock face. The rope is running through a carabiner on that anchor down to the belayer. The Belayer adjusts the tension on the climbing rope so that, if the lead climber falls, the weight of the belayer stops him from falling all the way down.


What if I Want to go Climb Real Rocks?

Climbing real rocks is very challenging and involves a lot more setup than climbing indoors. First of all, you will need a lot of water and sunscreen. Even the tannest, most resilient and sunbathing people in the world will need a lot of heavy-duty sunscreen for this. You will also need a legitimate wall to climb because there are rock faces which are specially set up for rock climbers. Always go to these locations and work with these people.

Do you want to impress your friends? Then don’t bring them along when you learn from the experts but you MUST learn from the experts. This will cut your training time down to one-tenth of what it would be if you did it alone and it will show you a variety of individual moves which only each expert knows. This will make you an expert in rock climbing far faster than any other method. Be teachable first and then impress your friends.


Is Cleaning Up My Space while I Climb Really That Much of a Priority?

All professional and high-level amateur rock climbers clean up their space while they climb. They match their chalk marks to the color of the rock so that they don’t leave behind unsightly marks. They unhitch their equipment from the rock face as they climb back down. And, this is the one which bothers other rock climbers when they encounter it, they don’t leave trash behind them or drop it to the ground. Instead, they have a small compartment in their gear in which they put their empty bottles and granola bar wrappers.

Does all of this really matter? Don’t these small items break down fairly quickly in nature and in the grand scheme of things? Yes, they do, but the sight is highly unappealing when you go out to climb Mother Nature and you see various pieces of trash lying around underneath you or even on the climb itself. Always keep yourself heavily guarded on what you do to the rock face and how you preserve the beauty of the splendor around you.

It’s not always about being eco-friendly. Sometimes it’s just about being responsible and keeping the beauty going for centuries to comes.


What if I Want to just Get Some Magazines on This So That I Can Ease My Way into Rock Climbing?

You can get a “feel” for the zeitgeist of other climbers by subscribing to various rock climbing magazines, like Climbing, Rock & Ice, Climber, and Rock: Tools and Techniques. You can also buy books on Amazon* which guide you through the process from the gym to real rock face, all in one go.

How do I use these resources most effectively? Well, one of the best ways is to simply sit down and read through all of them, cover to cover. This is a great way to get a feel for the types of equipment you will be using, look at advertisements targeting rock climbers, and read real advice targeted to people who are overweight, disabled, just starting out, senior, or simply clumsy as all get out.

This is also a great way to start pricing the types of equipment you will be using when you get into the lifestyle more. You can plan to start saving for shoes, belaying equipment or anchoring equipment which you will need six months from now and you can start planning trips that you can take in a year from the time you first start climbing on real rocks. In fact, one of the best things you can do for your rock climbing experiences is practice frequently while planning small milestones for the future, thus encouraging you to go further, climb higher, and take on more difficult experiences as you advance.

Without the challenge of these small advances, you may give up on the activity altogether, and this is a great way to make new friends and explore hidden territories of the world! So, you won’t want to be discouraged in your progress or give any of that up.

Instead, practice the basics over and over, only doing small things with which you are very comfortable. Do this often enough that the experience becomes quite second nature to you. Then, implement a single new technique, practicing that over and over again, until you have it down perfectly. This is a great way to keep yourself in fantastic condition while you are saving up for the next bit of equipment or planning your next trip to an exotic locale.


Can I Take My Kids or Family Rock Climbing?

What about my family? Can I take my kids along? Yes, you can bring anybody you like rock climbing and many kids pick it up, using the correct techniques, with very little guidance or supervision. Being highly resilient and using their bodies in a more natural manner, children are well-adapted to rock climbing.

Have a stubborn child who doesn’t want to exert the effort? No problem. You can invite their friends along with your family for a party. Kids, being both social creatures and highly competitive with their friends, will feel suddenly (and magically) more like climbing if their buddies are shooting up the wall ahead of them. It’s a great way to satisfy your babysitting needs with your friends while also giving the whole family a real social workout.


What Equipment Will I Need?

In the beginning, you won’t need anything special. Simply wear comfortable, loose clothing and sneakers and go to your local indoor climbing wall. In fact, many people climb barefoot, though this may not be allowed in your local gym.

You don’t have to buy your own climbing shoes yet – in most indoor climbing halls you can lend them. These shoes are specially designed with ultra-sticky grips in the toes to help you hang on to a real rock face.

Practice wearing your rock climbing toe shoes on an indoor wall before using them outdoors so that you get a feel for how they work and whether or not they are a good fit for you. They should cling tightly to your feet, holding them firm and snug. They should never slip around like tennis shoes will on a rock wall.

Get some belaying equipment* and practice rock climbing with a friend. If you don’t have any friends who want to rock climb as often as you do, then ask a professional at the gym or join a local rock climbing group to always have a buddy on hand with whom to practice.

When you use your new belaying equipment, practice with it in a safe environment with your friend and be sure to switch out roles so that both of you know and understand both sides of the belaying process. Get a guide to help you if you are both inexperienced with the equipment.


Conclusion

Rock climbing is one of the most enjoyable activities in the world. You get a full body workout, it’s slow and controlled and completely at your pace, and the rock climbing community has a lot of friendships, bonding, and very fit people ready to help you and guide you through to being an expert yourself. Go ahead and go to your local rock wall twice a week, and really get into the zeitgeist of this magical experience. Happy Climbing!


Attention: You have to take care of your safety when climbing! The information on climbtheearth.com only helps you to learn. Before you climb, you should make sure that you have been properly instructed by an expert and that you follow all safety precautions.

Disclosure: This website is the property of Martin Lütkemeyer and is operated by Martin Lütkemeyer. Martin Lütkemeyer is a member of the Amazon Services LLC Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to enable Web sites to earn advertising revenue through advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Links marked with * are affiliate links.