Rock Climb, Shower, Sauna, Repeat
Boardworks Breakdown
Hello, and welcome to Boardworks, a boutique, member based 24hr gym in Bend Oregon. We offer memberships, punch passes, and a free first time pass! For your first time, we’ll give you a rundown of the gym and how to use the walls, after which you can sign up for a two week trial that comes with two free coaching sessions to develop a workout routine and climbing technique.
Here’s what we’ll cover in today’s briefing:
Rock climbing and fitness at our gym
Amenities we have (and are planning to add)
Recommended basic training routines
Rock Climbing
Board Climbing
Our gym has 6 full walls, all with angles you can adjust with buttons on a remote! You can choose anywhere from near vertical to incredibly overhung. Learning to climb, or getting back into it? Awesome! You can set the wall to a vertical angle while you’re building your upper body and finger strength. Seasoned climber looking for steeper more advanced angles? Sick. You can set the walls up to 65 degrees overhanging.
We have the most modern, high-tech walls on the market. Not only can you change the angle of our walls, but you can also connect to them through your phone to light up over 100,000 different bouldering routes of all difficulties.
Here are a few benefits of this technology:
Access to thousands of climbing routes that are catered to the level you’re currently climbing at. As opposed to a traditional climbing gym that might only have a handful of climbs you can complete, you have nearly unlimited options to challenge yourself.
Rapidly progress upwards in the difficulty of routes you can successfully complete. You can choose either more challenging routes, or tilt the wall to a steeper angle (or both!) to improve climbing strength and technique.
The most efficient workout you can find. Instead of wandering around a gym looking for another route to attempt, you simply swipe through options on your phone! As you swipe, the lighted routes on the wall change too, kind of like Bumble or Tinder, but for rock climbing workouts!
Logging your successes and tracking your progress. Each wall has a unique phone app, all free, that allow you to log routes as you complete them, as well as create “circuits”, or “come-back-to-this-later” lists. These can also be called “project-routes”. As you increase your climbing abilities, you can return to these “projects” and slowly tick them off. At the same time, you can begin attempting harder and harder routes, giving you an easy, attainable and natural progression through the climbing grades.
These walls can be used to increase your climbing ability for all different types of climbing: rope climbing (aka “sport climbing”), bouldering, trad (or traditional) climbing, and is also a great new accessible workout for strength training and mobility.
Check out our FAQ page for a better breakdown of each individual wall!
Amenities
Weight Lifting, Cardio and Yoga 🏋️
Complete with a squat rack, free weights, trap bar, and cardio equipment, we offer everything you need for a well rounded, comprehensive workout plan - with or without rock climbing. Our newly added yoga and stretching space provides ample room for floor workouts, and the possibility of yoga classes rolled out in the next few months.
Sauna and Shower🚿
Who doesn’t love a sauna? We’re proud to be Bend’s only 24hr gym to offer a sauna - the perfect way to decompress after your workout. Or, during Bend’s colder winter months, an efficient way to loosen up before your session. Of course, you can’t have a sauna without a shower, so we have one of those as well.
24hr Barcode Access ✅
Your fitness plans no longer are constrained by restricting open gym hours, - the flexibility and autonomy makes it easy to swing by over a lunch break, for a quick pre-work workout, or for those late night sessions. You have all the control over when you come!
Recommended Workouts
On the Wall -
you can find more details in the “recommended workouts” binder at Boardworks, along with other recommended on the wall workouts!
Volume: Boardworks is the ideal gym for “volume” based workouts, when you find a climbing grade that feels easy but not a warmup, and try and log at least 15 of them in a session. This is a great workout to do on any of the walls, using the “mirrored” feature of the Decoy board and Grasshopper board makes it even easier to knock out your routes, and get an even workout in on both sides. You can learn more abou the mirrored feature of these walls at the gym.
Projecting: After a thorough warmup, begin tilting the wall back to as steep as you feel comfortable, but at an angle that is still difficult. From here, set your grade brackets to a range that you don’t think you could successfully climb within 3 or 4 tries. You should be working hard on each move, and not have a goal number of routes to complete successfully. Spend around 1 hr “projecting” different climbing routes.
Endurance: Set any of the walls (the Spray wall is best for this) to a more vertical angle, and try and stay on the wall for as long as you can (up to 10 minutes). Then, rest for an equal amount of time. Repeat this until you have spent between 20-30 minutes on the wall. This is an ideal workout for anyone looking to increase endurance for sport climbing.
Off the Wall!
Circuits: Choose one workout from each of the different areas: pulling (think pull ups or rows), core (leg lifts, bicycles, suitcase crunches, pilates roll ups) pushing (pushups, bench press, plank), legs (squats, deadlifts, one leg squats, kettle bell squats), and shoulders (scapular pullups, I’s, Y’s and T’s, band workouts). Do each workout 3-5 times, and then repeat the entire circuit 3-5 times.
Cardio: Use the spin bike at the gym for anywhere between 15-30 minutes, and don’t leave the difficulty at “easy”! It’s a great way to warm up, start your breathing, and increase your cardiovascular health. If weather and your own body permits, running for a mile or so can be a nice switchup from spinning.
Pilates: Ths full body, core focused practice will automatically increase your body tension while your climbing (which helps with locking off, footwork, and overall ability in too many ways to count!), and at the same time increase your mobitility. Here are a few recommended pilates workout videos (both of these youtube channels have dozens of high quality workouts for all levels with varied time lengths):
Off the wall workouts are helpful for your climbing and overall fitness by working out either similar or opposing muscle groups. Try and fit in a few off the wall workouts each week to compliment your climbing!
