They might seem like worlds apart at first glance, but a lot of the skills you develop from Rock Climbing or Bouldering have extremely valuable crossover benefits for Martial Arts. Some of which you can do in the comfort of your own home.
Here are just some of the many benefits:
Smart Decisions – Rock climbing can be a tricky and dangerous business. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a position where you have to make split-second choices in order to not fall. A rock may not have quite the grip you expected and you’ll need to analyze the situation and react quickly.
Coordination and Balance – Climbing requires the total body to work in unison. The legs provide strong support, while hand-eye coordination is required to navigate up a rocky terrain. Naturally, these skills are incredibly important in martial arts and climbing is a way to quickly develop them.
Cardio and Muscle-Building Combined – Very few activities manage to provide cardiovascular fitness and stamina, while also being very effective for muscle building. Climbing involves non-stop effort and at no point do you get to relax the muscles. Martial artists will obviously benefit from the strength gained from this activity, but it is the winning combo of strength and endurance that makes climbing a uniquely advantageous sport to get involved in.
Burns Calories – This is a full body workout that has the capacity to burn between 500-900 calories per hour. Naturally, the lighter you are the agiler you can be and a difficult target to hit.
So clearly there are a lot of Pros to adding climbing to your routine, but the one con is that climbing centers are expensive and few and far between. But what if you could have one in your house? How about literally climbing your stairs?
If this seems slightly unrealistic, it actually isn’t. Lots of people are doing it. We even have one in our office made from Atomik Training Blocks on a plywood wall. It’s actually a lot easier than you think. Now simply going upstairs to the bathroom will benefit your Martial Arts training. Who would have guessed?
If you aren’t sold on the idea of how effective this can be, there are Ninjitsu camps that are incorporating it into their training with impressive results. Have a look for yourself!:
Have you met anyone who has put this cool feature into their home or office?
