Rock Climbing Warm Up Techniques

"Hi, I'm Bill with Zoar Outdoor on behalf of expertvillage.com. We're today at Chapel Ledges in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Trustees of the Reservation Property and in this series I'm going to be talking about preparing to climb. Warming up for rock climbing, well one good thing about that is cliffs usually end up at the top of the hill, so you're going to walk in and get warmed up right away, that's a good thing. Next thing you want to think about is stretching. Stretch the muscles you're going to use, your fingers are going to take some of use that they're probably not used to, so move them around and warm them up and then stretch them out so when you put some weight on them, they're not going to get real unhappy with you. Your also going to be using your shoulders quiet a bit, stretch those out and then you're going to be using your legs to move up. Probably stepping up high, moving around in some different ways, you want to get your legs stretched out as well. Your climbing happens from the middle, you want to be sure that you're able to bend and twist to be able to access good climbing technique. So hiking in, warm up, stretch out a bit before you get on the rock."