Our unique location in the mountainous hillsides of Southern California open the clients at Lakehouse Recovery Center to a host of outdoor activities including rock climbing.
It’s A Great Way To Exercise
If you’ve never felt sore after a non-weight lifting exercise, try rock climbing. People commonly misconceive rock climbing as being based on upper body strength. Though it does take a lot of upper body strength to rock climb, the sport actually uses the whole body. As in, the day after rock climbing, you’ll feel it in every single muscle. Technically speaking, rock climbing is both a cardio and strength training sport. Up on the wall, you are in constant movement, constantly using muscles, and pumping blood. Besides, have you ever noticed how rock climbers are totally ripped? Because climbing utilizes every muscle, you’re getting a hard core strength building workout with every single move.
It’s A Great Way To Build Confidence
Rock climbing is one of those perpetual sports you can’t really be “bad” at. No matter how basic you begin, your body quickly gains the muscle memory it needs to improve. Rock climbing is a totally holistic experience. Your body has to have the strength and coordination to move and hold itself. Your mind has to be focused, paying attention to the task at hand and also engaging in critical thinking to get through each and every move. Your spirit has to be centered- take your anger and frustrations to the wall and you’ll be met with a very difficult time. Trust, willingness, and courage get you through each climb. As your progress, which you inevitably will, you can see immediately how you have learned, adapted, and changed because of climbing. This is a tremendous confidence booster and a great reminder for recovery. Sometimes you can’t see the changes, but they are happening. One climb at a time, one day at a time, you’re getting stronger, thinking sharper, and opening your spirit to new challenges.
It’s A Great Way To Become More Flexible
Flexibility in climbing refers to your newly forming monkey-body and your spiritual skillset. For the physical aspect of climbing, flexibility is built by learning to reach for holds and manipulate the body. Stretching and moving the body is part of the spiritual process of climbing. The walls, the routes on the walls, or the natural features in outdoor climbing aren’t going to change for you. You have to become flexible to adapt to what is being presented to you so that you can work with it. Imagine if people in a rock climbing gym brought all their own tools to take down holds and change a route to be exactly what they wanted it to be. Climbing gyms would be a mess and the point of the activity would be lost. Recovery is about learning to live life on life’s terms.
Rock climbing and other integrative activities are part of our mission here at Lakehouse Recovery Center- learning to have fun again through recovery. Our treatment programs bring together the best of holistic and evidence based treatment to provide total healing in our clients. For information on our detox, residential, and aftercare services, call us today at 877.762.3707.