Bouldering Tips for Beginners

6 min readSep 19, 2024

As someone who started bouldering last month, I took to the internet to find what the experts have to say to beginners of the sport and documented the results below.

Before you read further, just keep in mind the biggest advice they all shared: go to the gym, boulder, have fun, and do it in a safe manner : )

P.S. the numbers in brackets [] next to the headings map to the references at the bottom of the post.

Minimum Effective Dose [1]

Find the least amount of training you can do to get the biggest gains.

Ramp up slowly [1]

Gradually increase the difficulty of challenges you take on and be mindful that healthy progression will be gradual.

Autoregulation [1]

Listen to signs from your body to understand when you might be putting too much stress on a particular area.

Recovery [1]

Never disregard recovery. This includes sleep, nutrition, hydration, stretching, and of course rest periods of not training.

Stress reduces your performance and energy [1]

This includes not just emotional stress (moving houses, work, etc.) but also the physical stress of training. Be mindful this is a variable you have to contend with and adjust your training intensity accordingly to avoid injury.

Get strong [1]

A strong body is a must for bouldering.

You want your body to be more robust and be better prepared for climbing up various types of walls and hangs. Ideally you want to cover pulling, pushing, and hinging exercises in your resistance or weight lifting training.

Bonus points for decreasing the risk of injury.

Beware the breakthrough [1]

When you breakthrough in terms of lifting higher weights or being able to scale a new route, be careful to not get overconfident and overwork yourself. That is an easy way to get injured and punch above your weight due to false bravado.

Keep training plans flexible [1]

Don’t worry about changing up the exercises when you get into the gym if you’re not really feeling the exercises you had planned. All good if you go into the gym to do a strength-based set but switch things up go for a flexibility set.

Pressing strength exercises to consider [2]

(Bench) Tricep dips
Tricep kickback
Reverse fly

Leg clamping exercises to consider [2]

Copenhagen plank
Sumo deadlift

Leg flexibility exercises to consider [5]

Cossack squat
Malasana squat

Core strength exercises to consider [2]

Front lever
Deadlift
Toe to bar
Lat pulldown
Board pauses

Climb a lot with deliberate practise [3]

Focused, systematic, and purposeful practice. These are what generate quality over quantity for your training hours.

Have a plan to approach a climbing route
Be mindful as you climb
Reflect on your performance
Repeat to refine and replicate your success
Maintain a beginner’s mindset to be open to new ideas and techniques

Endurance [4]

Our endurance depends on two key bodily adaptations:

Central adaptations: heart and lungs, i.e., cardiovascular endurance
Peripheral adaptations: the individual muscles involved with moving, particularly forearms for climbing

ARCcing [4]

Aerobic Respiration and Capillarity. Think of it is a low-level endurance training commonly used by climbers.

Strength on your forearm by itself doesn’t care if you’re holding to a boulder, a ledge, the side of a table, or a grip trainer. As long as blood goes through the muscle, the forearm kicks into play (and the finger flexors particularly).

Leg flexibility training [5]

Flexibility is incredibly important be it because you’re pressing against two holds and need to move your legs up, or simply because you want to rest your arms and so choose to stretch your legs onto the holds.

At any rate, a few ideas to keep in mind for flexibility training:

When possible raise your leg (or knee specifically) over the front of your body, rather than raise it sideways as it will cause a more uncomfortable stretch
Use cossack squats to train your lateral leg flexibility: good for hip flexion and adductors
Use malasana yoga squats to train for situations where you perform a squat-like position on the wall
Use static lunge positions holding to objects of differing heights to increase your hip strength
Use strudel up exercise variations for increasing hamstring flexibility
Do ballet leg lifts to increase your hamstring range of motion further

Common climbing techniques [6]

Foot swaps

Techniques to swap the foot standing on a hold

Role on, role off
Table cloth
Hop
Smear around

Flagging

Techniques where you leverage your loose foot to control your balance to make the next move. This can be, for example, using that hanging foot to push against the wall.

Basic flag
Outside flag
Inside flag

Drop knees and twisting

Drive your hip into the wall and twist your torso to allow your loose arm to reach a higher height.

Rock overs

Raise a leg and put it on top of a hold. This will really engage your hamstrings and generate momentum to pull yourself upward.

Gaston

Grab onto a hold opposing or facing you, with a grip that has your thumb pointing down and the rest of the hand holding tight. Your elbow will also point away from your body. This will allow you to create additional tension for movement.

Dyno

Grip onto a hold with bonds and slingshot yourself upward for a jump.

Heel hook

Leverage your heels to hold onto holds almost as if you were holding with your hands.

Toe hook

Similar to the heel hook but uses your toes rather than your heel, working a different set of muscles as well.

Bicycle

Similar to the toe hook, but here you add a toe on top of the same hold to create additional tension. In other words, you clamp onto the hold with both toes, one on top of the hold, the other below the hold.

Pogo

Swing one leg in the direction you want to move. Let your hips travel with the momentum generated to move onto the next hold.

Rely on your toes, not your whole foot [7]

Use your toes to stand on holds, not the foot. This will facilitate pivot movements and allow you to reach further.

Rely on your legs [7]

We have pretty big muscles on our legs. We might as well make good use of them when climbing to take strain from the upper body.

Movements like pushing the body upward or swings with the hip to generate momentum are good examples of using the legs.

Climb with straight arms [7]

Helps with reducing fatigue, or at least creating better positions to recover some energy. Bent arms will make you fatigue quicker overall.

Plan your route before starting the climb [7]

Plan on the ground each movement you will do. If you figure it out on the fly you will waste lots of energy and time repeating mistakes.

Don’t be afraid to fail a route [7]

Failing a route means additional experience and learnings. Maybe you realise you need to increase your grip strength. Maybe you need to replan the route. Whatever the case may be, keep trying and learning to improve the craft.

Climb with different people [7]

As with everything, you can learn more from working with different people. That holds true for bouldering as well: you learn new techniques, new ways to approach routes and more.

Get good bouldering shoes [7]

Make sure you get good shoes to support your climbing and that they are the right size. Too small will hurt, too big will not allow you to stand on your toes properly.

Just climb [7]

With everything said and done, when you’re starting out, just go to the gym and climb. Get used to holds, how your body handles different positions, and enjoy the experience.