While I do workout every day, I like to find new and exciting ways to increase my fitness besides the typical lifting weights and such. Living in Florida means there is always swimming, beach volleyball, and many other outdoor sports but for some reason Florida decided to get cold this winter so the beach was out of the picture. BUT a friend of mine recently invited me to go rock climbing with her and I was really excited to try it out! 

Now, I like to act like I’m 110% more confident than I actually am. However, when I climbed up my first wall I totally cheated because I was so scared of how high it was. But I quickly warmed up to it and ended up trying some of the really hard walls (which I definitely failed at first but that’s besides the point).

What you may not realize, if you’ve never been rock climbing, is that your fingers and forearms will be SO SORE the next day if you don’t use them a lot. The day after I went rock-climbing I was trying to deadlift and almost fell on my face trying to grab the bar as it was slipping from my weak grip. So 0/10 would recommend deadlifting after rock climbing.

The second time I went I decided to try bouldering and it quickly became my new favorite. For those who don’t know, bouldering is on a much shorter wall with no harness and it takes MUCH more skill than the regular walls. It primarily uses upper body strength and agility. I liked this the best because I could truly work my body until failure. In the gym it’s hard to find something as challenging that sculpts your body while also improving your endurance and agility. I definitely felt a sense of pride after I finished some of those courses because I knew I tried my absolute hardest! Even though all my muscles ached the morning after, you can bet that I’ll be back there trying to conquer those bouldering walls very soon!

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