Have you just discovered indoor bouldering? You want to get outdoors – touch real rock, but you are not sure what to look out for and if you will be strong enough. Would you like to learn more about how you can improve and explore this fascinating area of rock climbing? And why does it all look like so bloody easy when watching experienced boulderers?
Tip 1: Choose the right gear
Beginners do not need much, as Bouldering is defined by minimalism. This mantra is even more applicable when indoors is concerned!
This is what you really need:
What you really need:
- Bouldering/Climbing shoes!
The most important thing you need as a beginner for bouldering in the gym is a pair of climbing shoes. Find a shoe that suits you. In general, there is not THE perfect shoe for bouldering. The high-end bouldering shoes of professionals should not lead you to believe that an “extreme” shoe will let you boulder better straight from the get-go.
By the way: There is no difference between climbing shoes and bouldering shoes. However, most people choose climbing shoes with special features for bouldering. - Chalk and Chalk Bag
In addition to the shoes, you only need a chalk bag in which you can store your magnesia powder. By the way: The extra large chalk bags are also called boulder bags and offer even more space for chalk. But if needs be you can also just rent a chalk bag for your initial exploits.
- Brush
A brush made of natural or plastic bristles can serve very well if you want to give dusty/grimy a makeover. Friction is key!
The proper footwear allows controlled edging and smearing on the most delicate foothoulds.
Many boulderers (even some bouldering gumbys) use finger tape. This, unless you are jamming, serves no purpose at all. Taping without actually having injured your fingers rather harms the tips, because callus will not form. The growth of this skin is of vital importance for bouldering. So, please keep in mind: No prophylactic tape, and only use it if you are actually going to split a tip.
Tip 2: Familiarise yourself with the style of bouldering
Bouldering is an art and requires more cognition than pure strength. Of course, strength is undoubtedly a very important success factor in bouldering. However, this must be trained specifically with regard to bouldering. Bouldering is by no means an extended version of the gym. Those who build up too much muscle mass, not useful for actually translatable into bouldering, will only be weighing themselves down unnecessarily.
Bouldering means “reading” complex sequences of movement and re-creating them as effortlessly as possible with superior technique. Beginners who first learn how to move and then build their strength accordingly have far more chances of success in becoming experts. First style, then power! Those who muscle through every problem will stagnate for sure and have a very hard time improving after a certain level.
Bouldering, implyis understanding and moving through complex sequences of movement
In addition, trying to crank out boulder problems way above your physical level comes with severe health risks. The most serious consequence of such overconfidence can be chronic injuries in the fingers, shoulders or even back. Thus warm up and take your time to progress throughout the grades.
Tip 3: Just stay safe!
The DAV (The German Alpine Club) has summarized the most important measures you should keep in mind when starting up in the world of gym bouldering/climbing:
- Keep the fall area clear: Do not enter the mat area below the bouldering walls when someone is hanging in the wall. Many boulderers unfortunately sit too close to the wall and do not look up when they go underneath. Serious collisions between climbers and the “ground crew” are unfortunately not uncommon.
- “Spotting.” On higher difficult climbs, it is recommended to stand below the boulderer with hands extended upward (at a safe distance) and “spot” the boulderer in the event of a fall, i.e., put the boulderer in a stable fall position. This will help prevent injuries during the fall (breaking an arm while attempting to catch your fall, etc.).
- Jumping off or downclimbing? For high balling (boulder above 2.5 metres), it is recommended to first climb down some holds and then jump back down onto the mat.
- First look down, then jump off: Before jumping off, make sure to check if there are people in the fall zone!
- Supervise children / watch out for children
Tip 4: Stay patient and don’t stress!
Patience is the mother of all top-outs. Many boulder problems can only be conquered through patient trial and error. Hail Mary attacks usually lead to nothing but severe bouts of frustration. Rather, the right “solution” ( sequence of movement) of a boulder should first be tinkered with extensively before making serious attempts to climb all the moves in one consecutive push.
Self-generated pressure to perform is also anything but conducive to success. If frustration arises while bouldering, always keeps the golden principle of patience in mind.
Live to fight another day – as they say!
Tip 5: Get the sequence right!
Bouldering is a mental sport: even if as a beginner in bouldering you can’t yet move as beautifully smoothly and elegantly as experienced climbers, you can still start to develop an eye for the right “solution” of a boulder.
There are boulders that are very easy and understandable at first sight: Left and right hands pull upwards alternately, and the feet move along on the footholds analogously. Just like climbing a Ladder. Other problems, on the other hand, look like an unsolvable riddle when viewed from the ground.
Not all bouldering follows for laddering. Often trial and error marks the path to success.
You may have to cross-step or cross-grip. Or you may have to shift your center of gravity several times before you can beat gravity.
Once you have found such a boulder, you are exactly where you should be as a beginner if you want your progression to begin. Begin your process of “trial and error”: Try every possible solution! You can also watch an experienced boulderer solve your problem (probably with frustrating ease).
One thing you should also keep in mind: Bouldering is a hard sport where you have to or can go to the limits. Every now and then you have to consider a very strenuous and initially seemingly impossible solution! Only by giving your all will you progress. Some boulders require hours of mental work until finally, the long-awaited “breakthrough” takes place. The shortest route does not always have to be the easiest. For example, many bouldering routes require you to take detours between holds, such as changing foot positions on a single hold several times and twisting your body to get to the next hold.
The shortest route is not always the easiest – sometimes you have to take detours between holds when bouldering.
My secret tip: Learning tricks while bouldering is the be-all and end-all! What I mean by that is: You have to learn not only to bear down and overcome the distances between holds by janking at them, but you have to develop your very own style. This style, in turn, allows you as a boulderer to turn any movementthe , no matter how difficult, into flow – through technique, brains and patience.
Tip 6: Climbing technique and effective movement
A common mistake when getting into the sport: The correct body position can be achieved not only by pulling with the arms but especially by using probably the most important part of the body in bouldering – and climbing – in general: your hips!
Not by pulling with the arm, but by the positioning of your hips (= body center of gravity) you will find success.
In fact, by turning your hips or taking momentum from them, you can control many movements in a certain direction and manage upwards progress.
There are two simple ways to use the hips: first, when climbing in a frontal position (face facing the wall, legs stretched apart), and second, when climbing in a rotated position.
Tip 7: Don’t get frustrated by comparing yourself with the experts!
The typical frustration scenario in the gym reads something like the following: You have been trying your new bouldering project for some time (too long) without making any breakthroughs. An experienced boulderer comes around the corner (quite often he/she is between 15 and 20 years old …) and does your boulder as a warm-up, or as a throw-away between burns on their project. Oh – the joy!
Don’t let such things frustrate you – take them as a chance to learn something from other climbers! Often the smallest change in your proposed solution will be the ticket to success. Learn as much as possible from experienced boulderers. They often have automated movement patterns, moving instinctively, without having to think. Determine the differences between your solution and that of an experienced boulderer and implement them yourself on the wall!
By the way: It doesn’t cost anything to ask. Even if the others are much better – they certainly don’t mind if you ask them for their expertise!
Tip 8: Get strong bouldering!
One thing first: before you even think about cranking out the dumb bells or hitting the campus board, you should dedicate yourself to a technique first and foremost. In other words, you should develop an efficient climbing technique from your first visit to the gym. Now to “strength training”: As a bouldering beginner, it makes absolute sense not to do any additional strength training! If you think you don’t have enough strength to do a boulder, here’s some advice from years of experience: If you try one or more boulders for a longer period of time, whether successful or not, you automatically get an enormous increase in power, which can soon be converted into the desired success if you climb regularly.
This means: If you want to get better and need more power, then just go bouldering! And leave all other additional training methods outside the bouldering gym for now!
Bouldering beginners do not need any additional strength training. The muscle strength comes from bouldering.
Thus: You get bouldering strength from bouldering, power is of little help without good technique.
The stupidest thing you can do if you are not satisfied with your power is to go to the gym. There you will destroy all the specific bouldering power that you have painstakingly built up bouldering! Pure strength training on machines may help World Cup boulderers build strength in specific areas, but not a beginner.
They have already perfected the basic technique and basic power to such an extent that it is only a matter of fine-tuning their own strength-specific deficits. Thick muscles that are not adapted to bouldering are nothing more than an unnecessary extra weight that you have to hoist up the problem!
Please keep in mind, that any additional training involves a risk of injury since you often do not know or cannot estimate your personal max load.
Tip 9: Don’t overdo it and try not to get injured
More important here than the “how often” is the “how”: The typical injuries in bouldering affect the fingers, the shoulders and the back. There are two different reasons for this: Insufficient warm-up or wanton overloading of the body.
Physical damage from bouldering occurs when you push your body so far that at some point it can no longer muster enough strength and stability and is injured by so-called overload. So you should never overdo a session. Accentuate with heavy sessions (e.g. every third time you go bouldering) and consolidate your technique and strength in between with moderate bouldering sessions where you don’t push your body max – please just take it easy!
In general, you should warm up with easy bouldering and always do the hard bouldering at the beginning right after warming up! In a state of fatigue, the risk of injury increases significantly. At the end of your session trying again on a boulder with small crimps, for example, is definitely a bad idea.
Pulleys, tendons or capsules on the fingers can tear, rip or be overstretched. Depending on the intensity of the injury, healing can take up to a year and usually involves permanent chronic damage. Pulleys, ligaments and capsules are injured mainly by excessive tears at small groins, and by slipping off small holds. Tendons can easily be overstretched or even torn if you pull too hard on finger pockets
Overall, you must always use small grips appropriately for your current strength level. There is a fine line between training effectively just at the limit and overtraining beyond your body’s tolerance.
Everything you need for bouldering is available at Bergzeit
Explore now!Tip 10: Bouldering outdoors is a different ball game altogether
You have already collected some basic knowledge, technique and strength for bouldering and would now like to test it all in the purest form of this sport, namely bouldering outside – on real rock? Then there are a few words of advice, which may save you one or the other bad experience:
Indoor and outdoor bouldering is completely different. At the gym, the operator pays close attention to keeping the risk factors of this sport to a minimum. Outside, however, there are no soft bouldering mats, only crash pads (portable mats that you place under the boulder). Similarly, bouldering on rock most often does not offer a flat fall zone; instead, one often has to contend with large stones or roots that must be expertly covered with the help of crash pads.
On the rock, there are no soft sports mats to cushion your fall – good spotting is then name of the game.
But bouldering on the rock offers its very own charm. Grab an experienced boulderer and get cranking outside!
It is best to take your first steps in the outdoor version of bouldering together with an experienced boulderer. The “spotting” (tip 3) already mentioned in the safety measures is almost always indispensable on the rock! However, it requires some practice to be able to reliably perform spotting in different and sometimes more serious scenarios. More alpine bouldering areas often have tricky fall zones that must be laid out with multiple crash pads and that require a bomb-proof spotter. Areas like Fontainebleau in France offer sandy fall zones and are therefore more suitable for beginners.
Last note when hitting the great outdoors:
- Not leaving garbage, not lighting fires and avoiding restricting bouldering areas out of respect for the landowners should be self-evident.
- Habitually, when bouldering indoors, it is part of the experience to cheer loudly for each other, to have music playing in the background, and to have many people gathered in one place. Outside, however, noise such as loud shouting and loud music simply distrurbe natures fauna – but that is only my personal subjective attitude to this issue.