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General Climbing Discussion

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Climbing = dancing? 15-Jun-2009 At 1:26:38 PM bluey

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So we all know ex-dancers, ex-gymnasts and ex-divers etc generally make good climbers because of their core strength and flexibility. My question relates to a specific aspect of the dancer's skill bag - turn-out from the hips. I have crap hip-flexibility in the left to right sense (as opposed to up and down) and what's more, when I've been climbing for a bit, pushing upwards with my foot turned outwards gets very bloody painful.

I figure the pain is me working against my natural inflexibility, and then I begin to dream wistfully of what it would be like to be doing the same move if I was an ex-ballerina - probably not wearing a tutu, but open to pink tights.... but definitely having hips that happily and smoothly allow my legs to turn outwards. Additionally, I reckon having greater flexibility in that way would allow me to keep my hips closer to the rock face, which I gather is good technique.

Anyone got any theories about connections between dancer-type hip flexibility and good climbing? Any ex-dancers or others got good ideas about how to improve this flexibility?