Best Yoga Poses for Climbers

Written by: Samantha Feinerman

Yoga can help climbers increase flexibility, stability, and strength. It’s also one of the best ways to restore the body between climbing sessions – keeping your body loose and fresh for the next day of climbing.

This post explores some yoga poses and sequences that target shoulders, upper body, core, hips, and hamstrings. Incorporate them into your wellness routine to improve your climbing and make your body feel better.

Hip Openers

If our hips feel tight or locked up, it’s hard to get our feet where they need to go.  High steps, wide feet, flagging out or under, drop knees, and heel hooks.  We need this area of the body for all of those things and more.  Work on opening your hips with these yoga postures to make those moves a little easier. 

Poses that help with High Steps:

• Forward Lunge shapes
• Lizard Lunge
• Elephant Trunk Pose
• Malasana

Poses that help with Wider / Expansive Movements:

• Warrior poses
• Frog pose
• Half moon
• Hand to Big Toe Variations
• Triangle Pose
• Star Pose
• Goddess Pose
• Tiger Pose

Shoulder and Upper Body

Our shoulders and upper body put in a lot of work when we climb.  Reaching overhead or out in front of us in a hanging position while working our grip and pulling part of our body weight up is not easy.   

Poses for Relieving Tension and Supporting Stability:

• Extended Puppy Pose
• Cobra
• Locust Variations
• Rabbit Pose
• Cat Pose
• Sphynx pose
• Table Pose Thread the Needle
• Gate Pose Thread the Needle (also a hip opener)
• Eagle pose (full pose / arms only)
• Baddha Hastasana
• Gomukhasana (arms only)
• Revolved Wide Legged Forward Fold
• Dolphin Pose
• Downdog
• Bridge Pose (also hip opener)
• Prone Scorpion Twist

Core and Stability Focus 

Regularly training our core ensures that it functions well and can help us develop more strength and full-body tension from our core to our limbs, all the way out to our finger tips and toes. 

Core Strength and Stability Poses:

• Balancing Table or Bird Dog Pose
• Plank
• Side Plank 
• Chair Pose
• Chaturanga
• Dolphin Pose (also a shoulder + upper back posture)
• Boat Pose
• Locust Pose

Hand or Arm Balances, like Crow Pose, Forearm Stand, Handstands and more, can be practiced in classes as we progress in yoga or as we learn about them and get inspired to try new things on our own.  These shapes aren’t necessary for practice but can be fun and adventurous ways to further challenge ourselves.  In these kinds of poses we work the push and press muscles in our upper body, give our hips some serious strength and mobility work, test our stamina in mind-bending ways, and challenge our overall core strength, sense of balance and stability.   

Recovery and Stretching

Taking time to stretch and unwind after our climbing session, whether it be immediately after or later on, can be a really powerful way to decompress and relieve any stress, tension or muscle soreness that we accrued while we climbed.  

Wind Down Poses:

• Extended Puppy Pose
• Rabbit Pose
• Cat Pose
• Table Pose Thread the Needle
• Gate Pose Thread the Needle (also a hip opener)
• Eagle pose (arms only)
• Baddha Hastasana
• Gomukhasana (arms only)
• Revolved Wide Legged Forward Fold
• Supported Bridge Pose
• Figure 4 / reclined pigeon / pigeon prep
• Supta baddha konasana
• Reclined supine twist(s)
• Prone Scorpion Twist
• Seated wide legged forward fold
• Hero’s pose
• Child’s pose

Simple Yoga Routine for Before and After a Climb

Here are a couple simple gym and crag friendly yoga sequences to play with before and after you climb! Reminder: Repetition is key for making your practice an effective part of your routine.

Pre-Climb / Warm-Up Poses:

• Nasal Breathing or Simple Breath Awareness for a 1-5 minutes 
• Table Pose
• Cat- Cow
• Balancing Table
• Forearm Table Pose
• Cat- Cow
• Forearm Plank
• Dolphin Pose
• Down dog
• Plank
• Locust Pose
• Down dog
• Three Legged Down Dog
• Side Plank
• Crescent Lunge
• Half Split
• Crescent Lunge
• Star Pose
• Goddess Pose
• Tiger Pose
• Warrior 2
• Triangle Pose
• Mountain Pose
• One legged Mountain Pose
• Warrior 3
• Half Moon
• Star Pose
• Mountain Pose
• Extended Mountain Pose
• Circle your shoulders
• Circle your Wrists
• Hands to Prayer

Post-Climb Poses:

• Find a comfortable seat
• 1-5 minutes of slow, long, breaths in and out of the nose
• Seated side stretch
• Seated Twist
• Child’s Pose
• Down dog
• Three Legged Down Dog
• Pigeon Pose
• Prone Scorpion Twist
• Seated Bound Angle Pose
• Seated Forward Fold
• Reclined Bridge Pose
• Reclined Easy Twist
• Reclined One legged Hamstring Stretch
• Savasana / Reclined Final Resting Pose or Fetal Position 1- 5+ minutes

Whether it’s between sessions or between sends, yoga can help keep our bodies loose, strong, and ready for any movement that the wall throws at us. 

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