5 Climbing Exercises to Master the Front Lever!

Front levers in action!

Front Levers are fun! Just kidding. But they are great core exercises and very useful for roof climbing. Here are five exercises that will improve your climbing and will progress you to doing a full front lever. Don’t try to do all the exercises in one day. Once you have mastered one, move on to the next.

Shoulder Engagement:

This is the most important exercise of this group to master and should be used during any hanging workout and while climbing. If you hangboard or do hanging exercises without any engagement, you can tear your rotator cuff. I learned the hard way. Ideally when you jump to the bar, you want to instantly engage. When your shoulders are engaged, you create space between your ears and your arms. Relax your shoulders, and this brings your ears and arms closer together. Do this until you naturally engage, without thinking, when jumping to the bar. Shoulder engagement should become second nature!

Knees to Chest:

From a hanging position with shoulders engaged, bring your knees to your chest and then back down. This is one rep, 3 sets of 10 reps with 2 minutes rest.

Tuck Lever: 

From a hanging position with shoulders engaged, bring your knees to your chest. While staying in the tucked position, bring your feet to the bar. Return to a hanging position. This is one rep. Complete 3 sets of 10 reps with 2 minutes rest.

Single Leg Lever:

From a hanging position with shoulders engaged, do a tuck lever. Once your feet are at the bar, slowly extend one leg. Bring that leg back to the tuck position. Extend your other leg. Each leg is one rep. 3 sets of 10 reps with 2 minutes rest.  When this becomes easy, easy extend one leg and then extend your second leg part way. Slowly to extend your second leg until both legs are straight!

Front lever:

From a hanging position with shoulders engaged and straight arms, rotate to bring your straight body parallel to the ground! Try to hold for 5 seconds! This is one rep. Complete 3 sets of 3 reps with 2 minutes rest.