8 Common Mistakes Beginner Climbers Make and How to Avoid Them

The Challenges of Starting Out

Making mistakes when learning something new is natural. Beginner climbers are not devoid of this. With patience and persistence, you can avoid making these mistakes. When you first started climbing, I’m sure you realized how sore you can be in muscles you didn’t even know you had!

Climbing is a full body workout, so expect to be tired after a session at the gym. The forearm soreness is what I noticed right away after beginning climbing. I found turning doorknobs a struggle. Don’t get me wrong, when I have a tough session, I still experience this. (I’ve just learned to use both hands to open doors.)

Mistake #1. – Neglecting Proper Warm-Up and Stretching

One common mistake beginner climbers make when starting out is neglecting to properly warm up. Remember, climbing is a workout, even though it’s fun, you can still injure yourself quite fiercely if you avoid warming up.

Just recently, I was out trying to develop a new line on a boulder and tweaked my calf muscle when trying to heel-hook over and over again. Not drinking enough water, coupled with not warming up properly, sent tightness to my calf that made me quit trying the problem for the day. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been climbing, properly warming up is the difference between climbing again next session or needing to rest until your body can function without pain.

Something I found early into my climbing career is that dynamic stretching is an important warm up technique, while static stretching is a great cool down.

• Dynamic stretching– Making active movements that stretch the muscle to their full range of motion. Think of flowing through movements and imitating how our body will move on the wall.
• Static stretching – Holding a movement for an extended time. Great for after a climbing session. We build up lactic acid in our muscles when performing a workout. Stretching is a good tool to reduce this accumulation throughout our body, relaxing the tense muscles.

Mistake #2. – Over Gripping Holds

Another mistake beginner climbers make is over gripping climbing holds. We feel like we’re holding on for dear life when we start climbing, and giving anything less than 100% is going to end with us on the ground or dangling by the rope.

I’m guilty of doing this even after almost ten years of climbing. Learning how to grab a hold just hard enough to stay on is an advanced rock climbing skill. Working on this as a beginner will only benefit your climbing.

• Practice – Simply get on the wall and reduce the amount of strength you use to hang on until you fall off. You’ll find you can hold on with much less strength than you previously thought.

The reason over gripping is a mistake beginner climbers make is because it uses maximum energy when you could save some to continue the rest of a climb. It’s a bummer when you make it through the crux (hardest moves of a climb) only to fall because you ran out of energy.

Mistake #3. – Relying Too Much on Upper Body Strength

If you have legs, use them! A piece of advice I learned when I was a beginner climber is that our hands are used for staying on the wall while our legs are used to push up the wall.

Think about it, our legs are the biggest muscles in our bodies. By pushing ourselves through our feet we save energy needed to hold on with our hands.

This is another mistake that could be the difference between sending a route or not!

Mistake #4. – Climbing Too Fast or Too Slow

You must find the right balance for yourself. I have friends that climb super slowly and methodically while I have other friends who fly up routes. There is no set way to climb, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Climbing too fast can mean you missed a foothold and slipped off, while climbing too slow can mean you ran out of energy to reach the top.

My personal mantra when climbing is this “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”.

Learning to climb deliberately and efficiently will ensure you climb effectively and to the best of your ability.

Mistake #5. – Not Planning Climbing Routes

It’s all in the beta. While easier to do indoors due to color coded climbing routes, visualizing your plan of action before you even step onto the wall can be the difference between sending or not. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to onsight (climb a route first try without any prior beta) and failed because I didn’t look at the route closely enough.

By planning your climbing route, you reduce the need to think about each movement on the wall and allow yourself to flow freely through the movements. This aids in moving at a speed that works for you. If you visualize what to do beforehand, you’ll move with confidence at a comfortable pace.

Mistake #6. – Ignoring Footwork Techniques

Have you ever just slapped your feet around while climbing, unable to commit to good foot placements? Beginner climbers aren’t known for their footwork technique. But that’s okay, I’ll tell you some drills to try during your next session. The importance of good footwork is to allow yourself to climb without the need to worry about your feet. After these exercises you’ll be confidently placing your feet in no time.

For these drills, pick a route or problem well below your paygrade. Our goal here is to focus on footwork so there’s no need to tire out your forearms! You can do these by only climbing up. When you’ve felt you’ve accomplished this well, try downclimbing as well.

1. Quiet Feet: Focus each foot placement on being as quiet as possible. You will need to move slowly and deliberately. Make this harder by not finishing the drill until you’ve climbed the entire route without hearing your feet touch the wall.

2. Sticky Feet: By far my favorite foot-technique drill, this has improved my confidence tremendously while climbing. The idea here is no readjusting your foot-placement. Where your foot lands the first time you move it is how you must use it. By doing this, you’ll find you can use worse foot placements than you may have thought.

Mistake #7. – Neglecting Rest Days and Recovery

I know! You just want to climb and climb and climb. When I was a beginner climber, I would climb as often as I could get to the gym. What quickly happened, though, is I would find myself too tired or sore to even properly warm up.

As with any physical activity, we need to allow our body time to rest and recover. We won’t magically get stronger if we’re sore all the time. Muscle growth happens in the recovery stage of working out. If I haven’t hammered it in yet, climbing is a full body work out.

Another major reason to rest as a beginner climber is the stress it puts on your fingers. Tendon injuries are one of the most common in climbing and they can keep you out of the gym for weeks or even months. Besides properly warming up, the other way to ensure you don’t injure yourself is by properly resting.

Mistake #8. – Fear of Falling or Failure

You’re new at something, embrace that! Failing is how we learn, and falling off a wall is exactly that. If every climber in the world who fell suddenly decided to quit climbing, there would be no climbers. Learning how to fall properly will give you the confidence to try those moves that may scare you.

When learning to sport climb, my friends and I told each other, “No takes, only whips”. What this means, trying until you physically can’t keep climbing. What I learned from this is that our bodies are capable of more than we think. When I wanted to take a break and hang on the rope but decided to keep climbing anyway, I found I could make two, three, maybe even four more moves up the wall.

We have mental barriers in our brains that tell us what we can and can’t do. When we ignore those, (responsibly) we may find we are more capable than we previously thought.

Take an Intro Class

If you’re worried about doing something wrong or injuring yourself because you simply don’t know any better, think about taking an intro class. I’ve taught many people how to climb, but also how to fall. When you become confident in your ability to fall safely you begin to climb with more confidence.

Instructors are there to help you climb safely and have fun. If you’re scared all the time, then you’re likely not having any fun.

Remember, climbing is supposed to be fun! When we learn how to avoid these common beginner climbing mistakes, we begin to push ourselves and discover what we’re truly capable of.