How to warm-up for rock climbing

Get the blood flowing:

10 minutes of walking makes your blood flow around in your body better. It brings oxygen to the necessary muscles and warms up the often forgotten leg muscles. Mostly, the walk to the crag is long enough to get the blood running but maybe you can add another 5 minutes by walking around and greeting people or checking the routes. If this doesn’t feel good enough do some jumping jacks as well.

Loosen up: 

Nowadays, dynamic stretching is more used than static stretching. That’s because recent studies found out that static stretching decreases muscle output. Dynamic stretching is more useful when rotational movements are used. 

Some exercises:

• Head rolls: this is very useful if you go bouldering or steep climbing because you have to look up a lot. Relax your head to your frontside and make half circle movements from the left to the right. Do the same with your head relaxed to your backside. Do this five times each direction. Make sure you do it really relaxed so you can stretch and awaken the muscles. 
• Windmills: Keep your arms straight and start to swing them in little circles. Make sure the movement comes from the shoulder. Don’t just throw your arms but control the movement. You can go from small circles to bigger ones or the other way around. This exercise makes the blood flow to your forearms and finger tissues. 
• Side twists: For this exercise, you should find a nice place to lie down on the ground. Go lay on your back with your feet on the ground and your knees bend. Slightly lift your upper body up off the ground with your hand on your stomach. Now you rotate your upper body from side to side. This shouldn’t feel like a full-on ab workout but this stretch will get your core engaged. Try to twist at least 5 times each time, take a little rest and try again. 
• Walking lunges: during this exercise, you prepare your lower body and core for the climbing. Keep your body straight and take a step forward with one leg. Now you slowly drop down into a lunge. Come back up slowly and switch legs. Do this at least 10 times each side.

You can add some exercises with some movements of the hand and fingers:

• Wrist mobility: 
  • A: Begin with your elbows bent and your wrist flexed.
  • B: Extend your elbows and wrists down.

• Finger mobility: Following hand positions have to follow each other in a rhythmic sequence. 
  • Straighten your hand
  • Crimp your fingers down but keep your knuckles aligned with your wrist
  • Roll your fingers down
  • Pyramid climbing, rest & start climbing:

Your body is warmed up, now it’s time to go climbing. Your first route should be one far under the climber’s ability. This is to warm-up little muscles that are used during climbing as well it refreshes the mind with the techniques needed. If the first route still feels a bit sturdy you should lower the level. After every route, you should take 5 minutes to rest until you’re back on your level. Once you are about to climb a harder level you better take a 10-15 minutes rest. After all this, you’ll be ready to go climbing.

You’re first should be a high volume but with low intensity. In the end, you can climb a route with low volume but high intensity.