Rock Climbing IS for Everyone
“Oh, climbing is too hard for me, I could never do that”, “I bet climbing takes alot of arm strength”, “I’m too overweight to climb.” Working at a climbing gym, I hear these words all the time. My personal favorite is “I’ve got to get in shape BEFORE I rock climb.”
In short, none of these things are true. These common misconceptions are created by a lack of understanding of rock climbing and encouraged by sensational media. Climbing is about using your legs to push you up the wall and using your arms for balance. When you see someone doing pull-ups on a climbing wall, they are either doing it wrong or doing some kind of specialized training that is unlikely to improve their climbing. If you use your legs to walk around, you have the strength it takes to rock climb!
The truth is anyone who can climb a flight of stairs can climb to the top of our wall. Our goal is to make sure everyone experiences success at Edgeworks. Give us an hour of your time and your confidence will be soaring – you’ll be shocked by what you achieve and by how engaged you are – mentally, physically and emotionally – while climbing. Even if you are afraid of heights, we’ve got a wall for you!
We’ve had every age between 3 and 83 climbing in our gym and every weight between 20 pounds and 350 pounds. We’ve had people who haven’t done anything “active” in 30 years get to the top of a route first try. We’ve had kids on our climbing team who had been told their whole life that they were uncoordinated (because they weren’t good at ball sports) compete at national climbing competitions.
By the way, on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have some routes that are hard enough that only a few people in Washington can climb them.
That’s what makes climbing so great. Everyone can seek their own challenge that matches their current ability. Parents can have fun climbing with their kids, instead of being stuck on the sidelines watching. That’s why some of our members have been climbing for over 40 years!
At Edgeworks, we help people of any ability develop skills for a lifetime of fitness and recreation through climbing.
So next time you see that bank commercial with the couple standing on a cliff at dizzying heights or Tom Cruise dangling from an overhang with no ropes by one finger, remember, that’s NOT what we do here. Our goals are focused on fun, education and community building. Then we sneak in some exercise so you don’t notice that it’s a workout until the next day!
