Do you struggle to use really high feet? Do you even have to do a pull-up sometimes just to get your feet into position? If you do its most likely due to a lack of flexibility in your hips. To help, here’s an article by Alli Rainey in which she talks about the importance of working on sport-specific flexibility by focusing on hip mobility and the high step.
“This is actually the area over the years where I’ve observed the most obvious and visible flexibility issue that stymies less-flexible climbers – as they go to try to high step, without good flexibility in this area, either their butt starts to fall away from the wall and ultimately pulls them off (not a very scientific explanation, but a good visual of the chain reaction that happens!), or they absolutely cannot even get their foot up to the desired foothold, and so are left with no choice but to do a pull-up if this is possible for them, or as is more often the case, to just be unable to do the move, or to have to come up with a much more convoluted and difficult sequence to get through a move.” – Alli Rainey
For improved hip flexibility, Alli suggests consistent static stretching, working on high steps by standing on the ground and stepping as high as possible onto a climbing wall, and yoga.
All of these exercises will definitely help and can be read about by clicking through bellow. However, they also underscore Alli’s bigger point that since improved sport-specific flexibility can lead to more efficient climbing it should be incorporated into every climber’s training program; especially since this type of stretching and mobility work is extremely low impart and can be done without really increasing the overall training load.
Click Here: Sport-Specific Flexibility and the High Step
(photo courtesy of allirainey.com)
Other Articles You Might Like:
- The Importance of Flexibility for Climbing
- Injury Prevention: Climbing Warm-Up
- Six Yoga Poses for Climbers
- Improve Your Hip Mobility And Core Strength
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