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So short story, my wife and I just moved back to northern Indiana (where we are both from) and our city has a really cool indoor climbing gym. We saw it on the way to the store and decided to stop in. It was around 1pm so not many people in there, but we spoke to the staff and they were absolutely amazing and very helpful! I can tell the community seems really genuine and very welcoming!

We decided we’re going to give it a shot! I’m 35 and in (relatively) okay shape, I’m a firefighter by trade and I’ve done a couple of tough mudders, but I’ve never done anything like this before. My wife is in shape as well but has done nothing close to this, so we know we will have much to learn. Nevertheless, we’re excited to get started!

Does anyone have any tips? Or any advice on where to look for good quality “beginner friendly” videos or anything of the like? We’re brand new at this and we want to make sure we observe the correct etiquette and at least get a small baseline of knowledge first.

Thanks!

Pretty much the title. I’m very scared of falling and would like to practice it over and over again, gradually increasing the height, so I can feel more confident and secure that if I do fall while climbing I at least have the proper technique. Now I don’t want to be annoying at the gym. Is it okay if I am there just falling over and over instead of actually climbing? Just trying to have good etiquette. Thanks!

I’m a 31 year old overweight dad of 3. I’ve been into a lot of different hobbies in my life. I got into climbing/bouldering a year-ish ago (have been into it off and on since) and I have to say, out of all the hobbyist communities I’ve been a part of (mountain biking, backpacking, kayak fishing, Magic: the Gathering, aquariums, etc), I think the climbing community is the most welcoming and helpful. Being overweight, it was intimidating getting started. I kind of expected everyone to give me looks like, “Why is this fat guy trying to climb with an extra 60 pounds on him?” But I never really experienced that. It’s almost always been nothing but positivity and people looking at me like I WASN’T out of place, like it was totally normal for a 260 pound guy to be climbing up a wall. I know there’s got to be some toxicity within climbing as there is in every aspect of life, but I just wanted to say that it’s nice to be a part of a community where that isn’t as evident.

What the safest way of jumping off the top of the wall in your opinion? By "safest" I mean less strain for the waist/lower back. I 'm usually landing on my feet (in something like a deep squat position basically) and then maybe roll back. The last couple of weeks, however, I 've had intense waist/lower back pain and I don't know where to address it to. Could it be that the impact from falling off the wall after each climb affects my waist so much? Besides my 3x per week bouldering sessions I 'm also playing soccer 1x per week, but I doubt it that that's the reason. Besides all that I have a mostly sedentary lifestyle because of attending lessons in my university mostly. The post may not be 100% connected to bouldering but I just wanna hear some thoughts. Any comments are appreciated.

P.S. I 'm 23 for the context

I’ve been using rock climbing as my sole workout routine for a while now and it’s been working wonders. However im realising I should be working the muscles climbing doesn’t do. What kind of supplementary training would you recommend? (Chest especially lol)

I've been climbing for a few months now and tried a few apps but haven't found them great. I'm keen to make my own app as I'm a software dev. I've got some ideas of what I'd like in it but would also like to hear what others want from a bouldering app. If I can make it decent app and solve others problems as well as mine that'd be great.

What would you like?

Hiya folks, so I started bouldering around a year ago, and for 95% of that time I have been a philistine entirely avoiding using chalk. I realised this year though that its really fuckin useful haha, but Im pretty befuddled about what chalk is the 'right' chalk.

Is there any specific kinda chalk that should be used when bouldering, or is it to the point where anything will do? And is it recommended to just have straight up chalk in a bag, or are those chalk balls more preferable? I have tried liquid chalk from a friend, which knocked it out of the equation haha.

Thanks in advance :)

I’m on my 15th week of climbing, and entered a local climbing competition. I entered into the intermediate grouping which I’m hoping will be okay considering I can do half the higher grading for the grouping in my gym (flashing a couple), and have topped 2 in the highest grading for the grouping.

The competition has 5 hours of initial climbing, then finals after. Top 5 boulders on your scorecard, verified by a judge.

Does anyone have any advice for the competition? What can I expect? What’s the best strategy?

If it makes any difference, I’m very tall, extremely long limbs, and very large hands/feet. Great at dynos, terrible at crimps.

EDIT: I accidentally put big bend in the title. I meant the Grand Canton. Whoops!

My partner and I have just started getting into bouldering (4 days of climbing/bouldering experience). We've been lifting weights together for a year so we're moderately strong but veeery inexperienced.

We're taking a road trip from El Paso to the Grand Canyon in a few weeks and looking to do some bouldering or climbing along the way- we don't have our own equipment yet so we're hoping to find an instructor or agency that helps beginners with bouldering or climbing anywhere in the AZ or NM area.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

In bouldering gym and here it seems like nobody can climb without chalk. Personnaly I never use it for diverse reasons :

1- I don't think I really need it, I guess my hand are sweaty average but I don't know as I only got those one's.

2- The more you use chalk, the more your hands are sweating, I don't want to start this vicious circle.

#edit : Someone told me that and it made sense to me, I guess I was wrong.

3- At my level it's just feel overkill to me. I will no climb silence and my problems are more technique et power than sweat. I don't really care if this would help me to succeed some climb there and there, it's just feel more satisfying to progress because I'm better than starting using chalk.

No shame if you use it because your hands are very sweaty or just cause you enjoy climbing more with chalk, but it feels to me than some beginner start using chalk too early.

So I wounder when do you use chalk and why, and when did you start using it and which differences did it make ?

#edit : I'm sure chalk would help me if I would to use it ! I just don't want !

I work mainly at a desk. I’ve just started climbing and wondered what training/exercises I could do while sat on mind-numbing calls that would help my technique.

Some hand and finger exercises? If so, what? Something with a band that I could work my back/shoulders while I’m sat down?

I’m generally really weak - hardly a muscle on my stick-thin frame - so I think if I could use this time more productively that would be great

UPDATE: And yeah, I know, climb more, get a better job, climb more, rest, climb more and climb more. I get it