Climbing Fatigue

I'm a beginner, who just started working out in a boulder gym, but after like 20 min my arms are incredibly fatigued. Is there anything I can do to help this? Or will it just go away over time

Beginners rely on their arms too much. Focus on using your larger, stronger leg muscles to push you up, rather than pulling yourself up with your arms. Overgripping is also a beginner's issue and tendency. Have fun!

Edit: Also try to keep your hips/weight over your feet, rather than your butt hanging out. That will also fatigue your arms,

Climb outside. The gym is stupidly steep compared to "real" climbing. You use your legs/feet waaay more on real rocks.

But its a "gym", so eventually you'll get strong. and have no footwork, so you'll be a good gym climber.

Forearms are are a muscle group that can take terrible abuse and thrive when abused . Climb to failure. Rest and climb again. Don't stop just because you pump out. Ignore muscle pain and fatigue A caveat. Respect tendon pain either in the fingers or elbows

djh860 wrote:Forearms are are a muscle group that can take terrible abuse and thrive when abused . Climb to failure. Rest and climb again. Don't stop just because you pump out. Ignore muscle pain and fatigue A caveat. Respect tendon pain either in the fingers or elbows

This is terrible advice.

If you want to climb well eventually, you should absolutely focus on climbing well right from the start.
Watch how some good climbers do moves and try to learn from them.
Read a little- The Self Coached Climber is good on technique fundamentals.

If you get too tired to climb with good form, stop or dial down the difficulty enough so that you can climb well.

Matt and Frank offer good advice.

You will get strong quicker than you think.

If you continue with climbing, you will never consider yourself strong enough.

The downside of climbing in a gym is that there are always climbs ready to go. It's too easy to hop right back on a climb that you just fell off of, or to jump on another climb once you've finished another. Make sure to pace yourself and rest in between burns to stretch out your climbing sessions.

And as others have mentioned, pay attention to using good footwork and body positioning to lighten the load on your arms. You'll develop more endurance as time goes on.

Have fun!

Try to climb less steep problems.
Move to roped climbs.
Take something like "balance and technique" class to learn how to push on your legs and core, not on your forearms.
Move outside and toprope some slabs.

The most important. Do not hurry. Take a longer rests in between attempts. Do more stretching. Hydrate.

The most most important. Try to relax. Climb the same easy problem again and again trying to relax your forearms to "a bit more and I will fall off" point. Try to feel this point (you *SHOULD* take a several dozens falls to feel this point). Try to always climb with a bit just above of this level of tension. Relax.

I started with zero upper body strength and got really punished in the gym at first. I started learning faster and being much more productive when I started to take warm up very seriously.

Back then I would start with 5-10 min on the bike or stairclimber and then do one V0 and rest for 5 min. Then another V0, rest for 5 min for the first 40-60 minutes. Then I could boulder harder (back then that meant up to V2 and easy 3) for the next 1-2 hours.

Having no upper body is a blessing in disguise, because technique becomes everything

Just my experience

Matt N wrote: But its a "gym", so eventually you'll get strong. and have no footwork, so you'll be a good gym climber.

LOL

No it's not terrible advice. The kid is clearly weak , tough workouts are what he needs. For the record I never said don't gain any skills

djh860 wrote:No it's not terrible advice. The kid is clearly weak , tough workouts are what he needs. For the record I never said don't gain any skills

The OP is probably a troll incarnation of the she devil, so I'm kind of sorry I got involved.

For someone you don't know, who could be old or have any number of medical issues, you advocate repeated efforts to failure as the best way to improve at climbing? And your authority for this position is what exactly? The writings of one of the recognized climbing training gurus? If so, I'd love to see the citation.

I suspect this isn't even good advice for weightlifting for a rank beginner.

I agree with you on one point though. He/she will need to get stronger eventually.

There is some good advice up above. I agree with climbing smart and I also agree with climbing hard. For a beginner I recommend working hard at climbing smart first. Brains are less common than brawn :-) now brawn with brains... thats legit.

I just created a free PDF with a lot of basics that will help imensly. (It's already helped a lot of new climbers that I've shared it with).

You can find it at conqueryourclimbing.com (it will be emailed to you...)

Anyone else who wants to download it, feel free to do so and I would appreciate feedback!

snowhazed wrote: Having no upper body is a blessing in disguise, because technique becomes everything Just my experience

^+1.

if there are any auto-belay systems available, you should try climbing up one route and then down a slightly easier one. it really helps with endurance