Rock Climbing

[Rittefski]

Hi all, I was lucky enough to go indoor rock climbing with my cousin today and had a really good time. He suggested I come along as I need to improve my upper body strength and I found that it really worked the muscles in the forearms and hands. I was wondering how many other guys training for PRMC include climbing as part of their training and whether they found it a major benefit in improving upper body strength and endurance?

Also for anyone in the know; do Royal Marines either for training or recreation do much rock climbing?

cheers

[Mephis]

yes i think you can do rock climbing for leisure but not sure on as training

ye i think its a good idea to do rock climbing. i use to climb a while ago and it does inprove your upper body strength. if i could afford it and had a rock climbing club near then i would use it for training.

at the mo ive been spending 2 hours every day in he gym and going swimming here and there. should be joining kick boxing tomorrow.

any kind of boxing is good for training as they build your mental tuffness as well as your physical and good for endurance.

[hobbsy]

I might start rock climbing soon (been before quite a few times, but have never been very good at it, not got the technqique) to get better at it, and get more used to heights.
I know the marines have a pretty big indoor climbing wall at the back of the gym, and it seemed to be used quite a bit, and i assume the marines do quite a bit of climbing so they can do cliff assualts etc.

[euro_andrew]

Before I came to England I did a summer season in Italy working as a Rock climbing instructor. It is a good work out, but not intense enough to allow you to meet requirments of the PRMC.

Since I got here I have climbed about 3-4 times, and pretty much stopped when I put my application in and started my proper training.

Unless your really experianced and doing some insane overhangs it wont help that much as alot of rockclimbing is using your legs with footing positions etc.

[jezb]

Ive been climbing for years, and climbing on an indoor wall will do loads for your upper body.

Concentrate on steeper/overhanging routes with big holds. Personally would boulder (not so high & no ropes) rather than doing full on routes.

Although climbing outdoors is far more fun, if you looking at doing it for purely physical reasons stick to the indoor stuff.

Feel free to pm with any questions.

[phenom]

I bought some climbing shoes weeks ago and I'm going to my first session next week.

I've known some guys who have come from a rock climbing background and they are incredibly strong.

That is partly the reason why I want to learn to rock climb. It's a total body workout and the gains from it is awesome. I'm looking forward to it !

[jammin87]

I don't think rock climbing is taught to everyone properly. MLs have to do it as part of their training as they're the ones who would be sorting routes and putting ropes out etc. As they put the ropes out it isn't full on rock climbing for everyone else.

[Sully]

Jammin's about right on this. There's a pretty decent wall in the gym at CTC and if you end up in Plymouth there's quite a good outside wall at the Citadel where 29 Cdo RA are based. You'll probably do stuff relevant to the job (cliff assaults) at Foggin Tor on Dartmoor during training but this is job specific - basics of climbing only but rope work such as roller haulage and abseiling being more important - and a few 'bottle testers' thrown in. It used to be a bit of a beasting by the ML's but I'm not sure what it's like now (or even if you do it).

There isn't much call for technical climbing as such - unless you're an ML and will be putting the ropes up in the first place. You should do do mountain training which has more of a moutaineering emphasis - techniques like crevass rescue and ice axe arrests - and hard core yomping. I was lucky enough to climb Parchermo and Ramdung in the Himalayas - trips do come up now and again but the Corps is more 'operationally committed' than it was a few years back.

We had a climbing instructor in our troop in training and he struggled on the bottom field ropes - just goes to show that what you are taught is job specific.

[jammin87]

Rittefski - if you are interested in that sort of thing there's quite a good book by Phil Ashby who joined Arctic Warfare cadre as an officer. Not just about that, about his escape from Sierra Leone I think, but a good book overall, I got it as a present for Christmas the other year. He went to my mates school and went and gave a talk about it all a few years back.

[druadan]

The only climbing you will do in training will be on AT. Foggin Tor focusses on using the kit available to climb quickly as Sully mentioned - you're not gonna climb many cliffs wearing full assault kit unaided. It's all about using wire ladders, knotted ropes and roller haulage.

[GIB]

the wall in the gym at ctc is unavilble to recruits as i curentaly know.. does anyone else know any diffrent??

GIB

[Rittefski]

Thanks for all the info guys, I would really like to do rock climbing on a regular basis, I will have to see if its financially possible on my current meager income though. For anyone who hasn't tried it I would recommend having a go at least once not just for the physical work out but the mental one. You can get your self into some uncomfortable positions trying to get up that wall with your arms and hands hurting just trying to hang on. Its good to have practice trying to think under stressful situations.