Taking a break from training on the bike for a while following Cyclocross season. I’ve been looking for another activity for a change of scene and have ended up going bouldering the past few weeks.
I was wondering if anyone on here does both sports, and if they are in any way complimentary. I figured I’d try and do something to balance out upper body strength a little (while avoiding traditional gym workouts). I’m a complete beginner and I really notice it in upper arms, forearms, fingers, shoulders next day.
Things I like so far: It’s kind of cool to be at the absolute beginner end of a sport (but this can also be pretty frustrating); I love how limited the amount of equipment required is (at this level anyway I basically only need shoes and chalk); good in winter - I can go climb indoors and be warm and dry - no mud / road spray / general grime to clean up afterwards!..Although saying that I have been traveling there by bike.
Anyone have any tips? Have you found climbing helps on the bike in any way (or vice versa)? … Or is it in fact massively detrimental and I should just give up now!?
I mean are you being paid to ride your bike? If the answer is no then do what makes you happy. It might help a bit with core strength but I doubt it would have other benefitial effects that carry over. At the end of the day if you like climbing keep climbing.
Thanks, I am enjoying both, so I will keep going with both for now. I was really just interested in others personal experiences with both sports more than anything else. If there’s anything you’ve learned from one that can help the other.
One thing that springs to mind for both which I think I need to improve is reading routes - I tend to not be too good at reading the best lines on the bike, and I’m not good at reading routes on the wall. I’m more of a throw myself at the situation and see what happens type. I think I could benefit in both by being more analytical.
Having gone climbing for a few years I personally feel it will help balance out your body physically. Though it is also an unbalanced sport in the sense that you are going almost all concentric movements. It is good to balance this with power yoga or some other eccentric exercises.
Another thing which I think is correct, but could be totally wrong, but I think it would stress your bone structure and may help in increasing upper body bone density which is a problem with cyclists. But that is me theorizing that this is the case.
Also helps with stress and concentration. You won’t get far if you panic on the wall. You learn to hold stressful/painful positions while not panicing. It is also mostly a thinking sport rather than physical. You have to solve the puzzle while maintaining good posture/position/breathing etc.
So for myself it became a sort of meditation. Which I actually experience on the bike as well when TTing.
Climbing is awesome by itself. Even if there was no crossover benefit to cycling, it’s a ton of fun.
The two biggest things I found are core strength (climbing requires a ton) and forearm / grip strength. Arm pump on the mountain bike became a thing of the past for me.
The other thing climbing and biking enable is big days out in the mountains. Eg aerobic fitness from cycling and climbing ability mean you have the fitness and skills/confidence to climb some big mountains. Build up to something like the Grand Teton - it’s a bucket list thing something like an Ironman or Leadville.
I love bouldering. I bouldered for quite a few years before taking up cycling. I tore a tendon while climbing a while back and haven’t been back since. I do miss it.
I can’t think of too many benefits to cycling. While it’s true that it is largely concentric, there are also lots of isometric contractions. If you watch good climbers, a lot of the time, one part of their body is locked off and stabilized while one arm or leg moves. In the beginning, lots of climbers move their whole body, lunging from one hold to the other. There are actually some eccentric contractions when bouldering though. Every time you fall, you are eccentrically loading your legs (pretty intensely) to cushion the fall. Hopefully you’re landing on your feet anyway:)
In terms of tips. Just enjoy it. Have fun learning and getting stronger. Feel the movement, the balance, the flow. To me, that was the most fun part. The other part which I especially enjoyed was figuring out little tweaks to body position which would allow me to succefully climb what previously felt impossibility. Be careful not to stress your joints too much. Especially in the beginning, if a hold feels like it is putting too much stress on your joints, don’t risk it. There will be lots of other problems (Boulder routes) to challenge yourself on. A basic tip which you may have already figured out is to keep your hips close to the wall. Experiment with moving your hips side to side and rotating them to figure out the best position. In no time that will become automatic.
Bumping up this topic, with arising importance of strenght training and core mobility for cyclist, does anyone practice rock/boulder climbing and has observe positive impact on comfort on a bike?
I am mainly performing body weight excersises which I would complement with bouldering this off season.
Climbing is good for grip strength, the brakes on a bike have to be really bad before I notice because I can pull the lever really hard.
People that complain that their brakes aren’t good enough would often be better working on their grip strength, rather then buying expensive new brakes.
My wife is a very accomplished climber, and I hit the climbing gym 2-3 times a week typically. I think there is very little direct crossover between climbing and cycling, but I consider this to be a good thing. Climbing involves tons of core strength, flexibility, balance, and upper body muscles that cycling just never activates, so I find regular fairly low-intensity climbing workouts to be a nice complement to cycling. I don’t know that they make me faster per se, but they promote a well-rounded physique and probably reduce my chances of overuse injuries.
Climbing is also really fun, with cognitive and social aspects that are very different from cycling, so all in all it’s a great thing to do if you can. I normally do a relatively short climbing workout and then some resistance training (my gym has a great weight room) so it works out well.
I will say that becoming a high level climber can carry a huge risk of overuse injury. Climbing hard mainly comes down to developing exceptional finger strength, and unless you’re genetically gifted or do this very early in life, it’s very hard to avoid connective tissue injury to the hands and wrists. Any time I’ve actually done much climbing-specific training I’ve experienced some type of (fortunately mild) finger pulley/ligament/tendon twinge, and these injuries take FOREVER to heal. Unlike cycling where the key muscle groups are huge and durable, hands/forearms are delicate and complicated, and connective tissue generally strengthens more slowly than the muscles it’s connected to. So if you do get into, just take it slow and build gradually.
I believe that an overlooked benefit of bouldering, especially outdoor bouldering, is that every fall is a ground fall. Impact is good for your bones, and learning how to hit the ground should help with any bike crashes.
I have done both and living in Boulder Co for 10 years in my 20’s Climbing and riding bikes are the main 2 sports there and I competed in both (bouldering contests but my main sport was MTB XC/road, was/still not really that good at either, but, put a sh^% ton of hours in at both;).
I think there is cross-over but obviously not direct. We would ride to climbing and bouldering spots and longer hiking approaches helped i think with not developing overuse injuries especially with knee overuse injuries that my bike-only friends would develop. I think one of the biggest things is grip strength. There was some study out there that studied common strength performance factors (measuring squats, pullups…basic S&C bellwether indicators) among competitive MTB XC racers and the study found that grip strength was a big (#1) consistent indicator of fast MTB racers/riders and climbing is a win for this. I still climb a bit and have noticed my peers complain how worked their hands were following a techy MTB marathon race, mine were pretty much fine.
I did not see much crossover for climbing from cycling but i’m sure the basic aerobic capacity has gotta do something. I found that my climb-only friends would not fair well with long approaches and not have much in the tank for the actual climb, also found i was a faster climber but could just be me. Cycling helps keep your weight in check as well which many climbers would struggle with, a bit. Both great sports!
People told me to watch out for neck discomfort when I first hopped on a tt bike but found that looking up while belaying was very similar. I thanked my girlfriend for projecting so many routes this year when I finished 18ish hours on that bike.
Many folks above have mentioned grip strength gains. I find that climbing forces me to work on my balance and engaging different leg muscles to make difficult moves. I’m not a fan of single leg squats but I can do them all day on the wall.
I believe climbing can make you more resilient as an athlete. You may avoid a more serious injury from a fall or overuse.
I did indoor bouldering all of last winter/spring and loved it! A great way to work your entire upper body, and the technical/problem-solving requirements made for a fun way & exciting way to stay active with friends during the colder months here in Minnesota. There’s a few things to watch out for, however.
First, your legs will get close to no work. Yes, you use your legs when climbing, but since most cyclists have very strong legs relative to their upper bodies, you likely won’t be getting any real muscular work in your legs. I fell into the trap of letting bouldering replace my weight lifting, and I definitely left a lot of gains on the table because of that.
Second, bouldering is an inherently dangerous activity with a high rate of injury, even without falling off a climb. It’s pretty easy to develop overuse injuries in your hands, forearms, & elbows, and the risk of twisting an ankle or getting a nasty knee scrape is pretty high. I experienced all these things, even though bouldering came very naturally to me. One knee scrape was so bad I couldn’t really bend my knee for over a week while the scab healed, which, as you can imagine, definitely impacted my bike work.
This year I’m planning on focusing on weight lifting in the off season. I’ll likely still hit up the bouldering gym a couple times a month for fun, but I’m going to avoid going all-in on it as a part of my training plan this year. Hope this helps.
The aerobic conditioning from cycling certainly helps on mountain routes where for example you might have a 1,000ft rock climb with 5 hour walk ins either side.
