When you first start climbing, there is a tendency to want to just walk up and start pulling yourself up the face of whatever you are climbing. Go ahead. It is natural. Once you are exhausted, it is time to start considering how it should really be done. Here are some tips that might shed some light on the subject.



1. Easily Exhausted ? Climbing takes an incredible amount of energy. You are going to get tired. That being said, you are doing things wrong if you are exhausted after the first 10 or 20 feet of climbing. The primary reason for this is you are pulling instead of pushing. Many climbers make the mistake of primarily using their arms to pull themselves up. You should be doing the opposite. Your legs should be used as much as possible to push you up. This is why mastering edging and smearing techniques for your feet are so important. Once you learn to push instead of pull, you will be able to climb much further and longer.

2. Relaxing ? Anyone can climb a ten foot wall and be fine. Sooner or later, however, you are going to start climbing something higher. The first couple times you go higher, pay close attention to your body. There is a natural tendency to become stressed. You might not feel it mentally, but the body knows it is up in the air and falling would hurt something fierce. This can automatically cause your muscles to tense up and waste all your energy. Take rests and do some deep breathing to relax.

3. Look Down ? By its very nature, climbing is about going up. If you could straight down, I would be truly impressed. Regardless, the fact you are climbing up and up can lead to aches and pains. Why? Because you tend to keep craning your neck to look up the wall. After a while, your neck is tight and you can get a pounding headache. As a general rule, look down as often as you look up. It will keep your neck loose and let you see how much progress you are making.

Obviously, there are literally hundreds of tips for climbing. The above represent a small, but valuable snippet.