Calisthenics and climbing are two disciplines that have a lot in common, as in both you must have the ability to control your bodyweight. Therefore it is a very good idea to combine them and take advantage of the characteristics of each one to improve on the other.

In this article we are going to see which Calisthenics exercises are the ones that can help you the most to improve your climbing performance.

Finger exercises

One of the decisive factors in being a good climber is the strength of your fingers, so exercises that focus on this aspect will help you a lot. Specifically, we have two examples:

Finger push ups

In this exercise you must support the weight of your body with your fingers extended, so it will help you strengthen their connective tissue and make them much more capable. If you find it too difficult, you can start by doing variations for beginners such as kneeling push ups or inclined.

Finger Pull Ups

One of the classic exercises for climbers is to do pull-ups, or simply hang on the bar, with your fingers. You can vary and progress by changing the number of fingers you use. If you find them very complicated, you can do isometric, negative or Australian pull-ups. You have more information about the variants for beginners in this article.

Forearm exercises

Another of the muscle groups that we are going to need the most in climbing is the entire area of the forearms. To work them we can use the following exercises:

Dead hangs

They consist of hanging from the bar for a certain time, you can do it with two hands, one hand or varying between both arms.

Specific exercises

For forearms we have specific exercises on the floor and with an elastic band, I leave you some examples in this routine.

Abdominal and hip flexor exercises

Another of the important sections is to have a good capacity in abdominals and hip flexors, to be able to lift your legs while hanging. For this we can use 3 main progressions:

Bar knee raises

L sit raises on bar

Bar leg raises

Pull ups in different grips

Obviously for climbing you need to have a good strength in pull-ups, it is also convenient for you to master different types of grip to adapt to any situation, for example:

Regular pull ups

Chin ups

Mixed grip pull-ups

Wide grip pull-ups

Close grip pull-ups

Advanced Pull Up Progressions

Once you master pull-ups you can try advanced versions, which will give you extra strength, for example:

Archer pull-ups

Muscle up

1 arm pull ups

Flag and its progressions

The flag is an element that combines pulling and pushing strength, and that can be similar to some situations that you find yourself climbing, so it will be very useful for you to practice it. Here some examples:

Flag grip

Tucked flag

Flag

I hope this article helps you. Soon we will add specific routines with these exercises for different levels in our Calistheniapp app, so stay tuned and subscribe to our Newsletter to receive the latest news.