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Switched from a $60 monthly gym membership to a $20 climbing gym pass in Portland
I was spending way more than I needed just to use a treadmill, and now I get a full workout plus something fun to do after work, but my grip strength is sore in ways I never expected has anyone else made the swap and found you miss certain machines?
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keith2643mo ago
Read an article that said climbing works different muscle groups than typical gym stuff, something about how it targets stabilizer muscles you don't even realize you have. That explains why my forearms feel like noodles after a session, I never got that from any chest press machine. You might miss leg press or something at first but the trade off is worth it for not staring at a wall while running.
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andrewh433mo ago
Yeah, @keith264 is mostly right but I'd push back a little on the stabilizer thing. Climbing definitely hits those small muscles in your forearms and fingers way more than any gym machine would, but it's not like machines are useless for stability work. In my experience, a lat pulldown machine actually trains some of the same pulling muscles that climbing does, just in a more controlled way. I swapped to climbing a few years back and the only machine I really missed was the rowing erg, honestly. Leg press I can live without, but rowing gives you that steady cardio burn that's hard to replace with climbing alone unless you're doing laps on easy routes.
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