Breathing for Sport Climbing

Breathing in Climbing: how to last longer…

Breathing for Sport Climbing

Every expert climber knows how important breathing is. Most climbers fall off of hard moves simply because they stop breathing without even noticing it. It is enough to stop breathing for couple seconds to cause your body not to be willing to continue climbing. A clear indication that a climber stopped breathing properly is a reddening face and breathlessness just after a fall. It is crucial to develop strong breathing habits in order to climb through hard sections.

Breathing should be independent from what your body is doing on the wall. In fact, you should adjust your hardest moves to coincide with your exhaling breaths. This is why many of strongest climbers yell loud when make hardest moves. When they yell, it is impossible to hold their breath. The same is true not just for climbing, but for all other sports too.

Here is how to learn to control breathing:

1.       Ask your belayer to remind you to breathe while you climb.

2.       Choose a relatively easy climb for this practice, so you can concentrate on breathing more than on climbing;

3.       Start breathing  steady and loud before you get on the wall, so your belayer can hear you and remind you to breathe if you stop;

4.       Maintain steady and loud breathing during your climbing;

5.       Practice this skill on progressively harder routes.

By Aleksey Shuruyev.