Antagonist training is working the opposing muscles that you primarily use when climbing. I’m sure you’ve heard that climbing is a full-body workout. Believe me, I’ve written numerous articles on it and stand by the idea. However, climbing doesn’t treat each muscle evenly.
When we climb, we mostly use our pulling muscles. These include the fingers, forearms, biceps, lats, hamstrings, and the trapezius and rhomboids (upper back and shoulder blades). While climbing is a full-body workout, the muscles mentioned above see most of the action.
So what about all the other muscles in our body? More importantly, what about the muscles that do the opposite work of these?
Understanding Antagonist Training
Agonist refers to the muscle that is being used in a movement. The antagonist is the opposing muscle that works to allow the agonist to perform.
Every muscle in your body can be an agonist or antagonist; it depends on what you’re doing. In climbing, you can overdevelop specific muscles by never engaging the antagonist muscle under load.
Each muscle also performs three types of contractions: concentric, isometric, and eccentric. We’ll use the bicep as the example below:
Concentric: Imagine doing a bicep curl with a dumbbell. Lifting the weight is a concentric movement. Your bicep is shortening to create that movement.
Isometric: Say you’ve lowered the weight to about halfway and are holding it still. An isometric movement is sustaining a muscle in a fixed position like here.
Eccentric: Release the curl and let the weight return to the start position. When the muscle lengthens like this, an eccentric contraction occurs.
Because climbing focuses on many pulling movements, we don’t engage our pushing muscles as intensely. Try to think of the last time you performed a mantle. Have you ever?
Mantling includes using the triceps as the agonist muscle while the bicep performs the antagonist movement. (See, depending on the move, each muscle can act as an agonist or antagonist).
But because we don’t overtly use our triceps when climbing, many people have a much harder time mantling than pulling on an undercling.
What causes muscle imbalances?
Besides overworking the same muscles, as I mentioned above, there are other ways to develop muscle imbalances. It’s not enough to do some antagonist training; you must climb with good movement patterns.
Several factors can cause climbers to incorporate poor patterns. Not understanding what proper climbing movement looks like can backfire down the line, so avoid these when you can.
- Too much wrist flexion — Essentially, when your wrist sticks out from the wall as you grab a hold. This can result in the flexor muscles working too hard, leading to elbow pain.
Elbow pain can be remedied by wrist extensor antagonistic training. You can strengthen the muscles surrounding your elbow and climb injury-free with some work. - Chicken winging — Flaring out your elbows when climbing puts excessive stress on the shoulder joint. This happens when you’re pumped and trying everything to stay on the wall.
It’s better to build more strength than climb with poor technique. Focus on strengthening the external rotator cuff muscles. - Bent elbows — Bending your elbows while climbing is a sure way to add unneeded stress to your biceps. Climb with straight arms and only bend when you’re making movements.
Incorporate a triceps antagonist exercise to help the strain put on your biceps. It’s incredible how much stronger your bicep will feel by strengthening a different muscle.
What are the common climbing muscles and their antagonists?
You should prioritise the muscles you primarily use for climbing by strengthening their surrounding and antagonist muscles. The following muscles are what we primarily use when climbing. I’ve included the antagonist muscles with each to give you an idea of what you should strengthen.
- Agonist | Fingers flexors – Any sort of gripping a hold involves using your finger flexors. They’re what we contact the wall with, and it takes a long time to develop strength.
- Antagonist | Finger extensors – Not many climbers focus on the opposite action their fingers do when climbing. Extension training in your fingers will help keep them healthy.
- Agonist | Biceps – Arguably the most used muscle group (excluding the fingers, which aren’t technically muscles) when climbing.
- Antagonist | Triceps – Used for pushing, these muscles rarely get the attention they deserve. Strengthen them to round out any muscle imbalance in your arms.
- Agonist | Internal shoulder rotators – The internal rotators of the shoulders see a lot of action on the wall. From dynamic movements, large spans, or overhung climbing, thank your shoulders.
- Antagonist | External shoulder rotators – Underdeveloped external rotators result in that “climber’s hunch” that you see with many strong boulderers. This rounded upper back and shoulders can be fixed by strengthening the upper back!
Antagonist exercises for climbers
To start antagonist training, you can perform these exercises on the same day as a climbing session. Now that you understand agonist and antagonist exercises, how do you do them and stay healthy?
Southampton Physio has some great videos that I will incorporate for demonstrations. When starting out, aim to perform one to two of these sessions a week.
Pike push-up
The pike push-up is a great antagonist training exercise because it engages the shoulders and the chest. The overhead pressing movement is exactly what climbers need, and you don’t need any equipment to perform it!
The pike push-up can also be a progressive exercise. If you can’t perform this, start with a regular push-up or whatever works for you. As you develop more strength, increase your push-up technique to work toward the pike push-up.
Reps: 8-12
Here is a video to demonstrate:
Shoulder external rotation
Also called scapula angels, this exercise targets the smaller back muscles to help straighten out that hunch. Not only will you feel better, but your posture will improve, too!
All you need is an elastic band and something to attach it to. Start with your arms out front and draw your elbows back to 90°. Then, lift your arms in line with your body and press up before returning to the start position.
Reps: 8-12
For a great demonstration of this exercise, whatch here:
As a bonus, Southampton Physio also has a video demonstrating banded wall slides. This exercise will help strengthen your rotator cuffs, too!
You can find resistance bands in our shop at: Flexibility and warmup.
Wrist rotations
Elbow pain can be caused by poor climbing movement, overusing your biceps, or even weak shoulders. As important as they are, they often get ignored. But no longer, take care of your elbows, and they’ll take care of you.
You’ll need a dumbbell with weight on only one side. Really, you can use anything like a tube with weight on only one side. I use a pipe wrench to perform these.
Grab the non-weighted side and lean against your knee or a bench to perform this exercise. Slowly drop the weight to one side, bring it back back up, and over to the next.
Reps: Start with 10 on each arm and increase as needed.
Here is a great example of how to perform this exercise:
Finger extensors
Our fingers are involved in every climbing move. Strengthening the extensors will keep them healthy and strong.
Use a rubber band or finger extensor band like these at our shop: Finger Strength Extensor Bands. I recommend grabbing a pack of these to progressively increase your exercise load.
To perform, expand your fingers and return them to normal. For an added bonus, try to go as slow as possible!
Reps: 15-20
Avoid those muscle imbalances!
If you start antagonist training, you’ll never look back. Not only will having well-rounded muscles allow you to climb longer, but it will also make you feel better. Staying healthy and injury-free is essential if you want to climb long-term.
I know the last thing you want is more training homework, but don’t take it from me; take it from the climbing doctor. “The body needs to have a balance,” says Dr. Jared Vagy, AKA The Climbing Doctor.
Do you do any antagonist training? Let us know in the comments what exercises you do and how they’re helping!
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