Indoor Rock Climbing

All About Indoor Rock Climbing

In the wake of rapidly increasing popularity of rock climbing, the indoor variant of rock climbing – simply called as indoor rock climbing – also became a prominent sport in urban areas. Though it might not cater to the difficulty very established on natural rock climbing routes, indoor rock climbing nevertheless offers the conditioning and muscle exercise of rock climbing. And though labeled as indoor rock climbing, it is already an accepted notion that all those rock climbing routes that are man made are considered indoor rock climbing even though the wall itself may be sitting outdoors.

With that said, we can define that indoor rock climbing are those artificial structures that attempt to imitate the practice of rock climbing, although in an environment that’s not only more controlled but also readily accessible to urban dwellers. Its accessibility also played an important role on the rise of rock climbing popularity.

The exterior of indoor rock climbing can take on many faces. Some are just plain walls interspersed strategically or haphazardly with knobs and pockets for climbing, such as what you will see on a climbing wall at the University of Bath in England. An indoor rock climbing facility in Singapore composes of the longest section of a gym wall, made of wood attached with knobs, called “jugs” for footing and grasping.

In the past, indoor walls used for rock climbing are made of bricks, such that it can be called safely as wall climbing. Bricks allow decent footing, even on climbers not on climbing shoes. Of course this lead to less interest as these walls leave little else in terms of challenge and route variety.

Now, indoor rock climbing walls can be made almost from any material. Some indoor rock climbing walls I’ve seen are near perfect imitations of rock walls like those I’ve seen on UK, with molded features with matching colors. Still, the most common make of an indoor rock climbing wall is of wood, with plastic handhold bolted in place. There are also climbing walls made of slabs of granite.

What are the boons of indoor rock climbing? Aside from the discussion we’ve made about their accessibility, indoor rock climbing, for its controlled environment, pre-placed anchors and limited route finding, is perfect introduction to newcomers of the sport. With the indoor rock climbing setting, newcomers will be swiftly introduced to its fundamentals. The only problem is when newcomers spend too much time honing basics in indoor rock climbing facilities will find out that they don’t have yet the ‘other’ necessary skills, such as explicit route finding, anchoring etriers, or even the basics of rope maneuver.