Why Every Climber Needs Yoga in Their Training Plan Part One: Proprioception
I was a yogi before I was a climber. I knew the benefits yoga gave me in my day to day life. When I started climbing I was able to utilize good technique quickly and make quick progress in my climbing due to my yoga background. Once I became a yoga instructor I was very passionate about providing yoga for climbers as I knew what yoga could provide. Are you curious why every climber needs yoga in their training plan?
Yoga teaches proprioception. Elite climbers are in tune with proprioception.
What is proprioception? It is body awareness. Proprioception is about knowing where your body parts are in space even without looking at them. Easy examples of this are walking along the street and not having to look at your feet to see where they are going, bringing a slice of pizza to your mouth or grabbing a quick draw off your harness.
Proprioception is: grabbing a quick draw off your harness.
Yoga helps with proprioception by using dynamic movement, challenging poses, transitions and mindfulness. Think of standing in tree pose, focusing on your standing leg, actively pressing your other foot into your standing leg helps create balance. If your eyes are open during tree pose focusing on something that is not moving in front of you like a pebble, a speck of dust, a leaf, etc. It is easier to balance and know where your body parts are in space. Try closing your eyes in tree pose. Now this pose becomes more challenging because we are taking away the focus with our sight and relying on our body’s “sixth sense” to stay upright. With enough practice you do not need to rely on what feels like hope but you can actually sense where your body is in space and how to stay balancing on one leg.
Why does proprioception matter in climbing? Watch Janja Garnbret climb. She has talked about being able to feel the moves in her body before even touching the wall. Know what your body needs to do to get a climb, anticipating how it will feel up the climb, knowing what would happen if you move your center of gravity one way or another is valuable in climbing. The average climber might not realize what is going on with their proprioception until they feel a foot or a hand slip or they are about to fall. Watching elite climbers we can see that they can anticipate what their body needs to do in order to get up the wall.
In my experience proprioception took a lot of practice. I was clunky when I first started practicing yoga. My foot wouldn’t land in the right spot and my balance was all wobbly, but now I do very little adjusting in my yoga practice. For me this helped out my climbing a great deal, especially in the beginning of my climbing career. Now when I walk up to a climb within my capability I can normally imagine what it would take to get up the rock. On harder climbs, I feel my body naturally adapting, it does its best to keep itself on the wall. As I grow as a climber, I see how I can keep evolving. Keeping up my yoga practice is important to me, I believe it’ll help me climb harder grades and keep in tune with my body. Now the question is, how is your proprioception on and off the wall?
Tree Pose
