Climbing For Yogis

Yoga can benefit climbers in so many ways: increasing the core strength and full-body flexibility and facilitating mindfulness and body awareness. But does it work the other way around? Can those who practice yoga on a daily base benefit from occasionally replacing their mat for a cliff?

Certainly! In general, yogis can significantly benefit from varying their routines with different forms of exercise. However, they often can’t connect to the primarily aesthetic focus of, e.g., strength training. That’s why a performance-based activity, such as climbing, can be a more suitable choice. But that’s not the only reason. Let’s see some other significant benefits yogis could have from learning and experiencing climbing.

Though yoga and climbing can mistakenly seem like entirely opposite activities, they have a lot in common.

Firstly, they focus on the collaboration of the mind and the body. Both activities require building body awareness and maintaining mental clarity to be performed safely and to their full capacity.

On the physical aspect of things, both yoga and climbing incorporate advanced movements and positions, that can take years to master. Unlike cardio and strength training, these activities focus not only on how you look but also on how you perform your training. Though yoga and climbing have many things in common, another fantastic thing is that each of these activities provides what the other one lacks.

Climbing And Yoga Perfectly Complement Each Other

As we mentioned before, yoga complements climbing by building greater flexibility and mindfulness. And climbing can boost your yoga practice by building a different kind of strength, as well as getting you out of the comfort zone of your mat. Let’s take a deeper look at these benefits.

Building Strength

Practicing yoga can strengthen your body and improve your endurance. Climbing also does that – but in a different way.

Yogis can benefit from climbing primarily by building upper body strength with pulling motions. Though yoga does increase upper body strength, it’s all through push-focused positions. Looking at the Vinyasa flow positions incorporated in most classes, such as Chaturanga, Down Dog, and Plank, allows you to see these all involve pushing the floor away from you. This predominantly activates your push muscles, including your pectorals, shoulders, and triceps.

If you only work on these movements, you can develop muscle imbalances. Though your front body gets stronger every day, your back muscles don’t progress as much. Pulling movements are predominant in climbing, making it a great way to avoid this imbalance – while also being infinitely more fun than simply lifting weights.

In climbing, you’re literally pulling yourself up a vertical wall or a cliff. You’re mainly activating your forearms, biceps, and back muscles – the exact opposite of where the focus lies in yoga. Additionally, climbing strengthens your hamstrings and wrists, which can often get overstretched in yoga.

Once you start incorporating climbing, you will notice your posterior chain is stronger, your posture is better, and your endurance has begun to increase.

Breaking Barriers

Except for the empowering strength building aspect of climbing, the practice also encourages you to face your fears. While yoga also has ways to get you out of your comfort zone with all the inversions and hand balancing postures, climbing, again, does it differently.

Climbing challenges your body and mind in ways no other type of exercise does. You have to face your fear of losing control and falling. You don’t get the chance to have a wandering mind – you need to concentrate to safely reach the top.

Climbing is challenging and can be dangerous, but is in a way, also a type of moving meditation. Once you overcome the first challenges, you will see that climbing is no different in yoga. When it comes to mind-and-body connection, using your breath to focus on each move, and finally, helping you to become more aware and at peace with yourself and the world that surrounds you.

Therefore, if you want to complement, grow, and balance your yoga practice, try climbing, and observe the profound impact it has on your body and mind.

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