Climbing Chalk For Home Gyms

With COVID-19 we’ve seen a massive surge of people building home gyms as part of a broader boom in home fitness. It’s good to see people use climbing to stay fit in these troubling times. And we believe a lot can be achieved at home even with a small wall or some simple training tools like a fingerboard or campus board.

There’s a whole new generation of home climbers being bred. Pretty exciting! And we’re happy to educate people about the best ways to train at home. One of the issues lots of fresh home climbers struggle with is chalk. Should I use chalk at my home gym? Why? Why not? Which kind of chalk? And the inevitable: who’s going to vacuum the gym?

You see, most climbers bring the same chalking habits they picked up at commercial gyms back home. And we think that’s a pretty bad idea for most home gym owners. Unlike commercial places your home gym probably does not have a dedicated cleaning staff. So it makes sense to think twice about how you use chalk at home.

Which chalk creates the least dust? Chalk blocks? Chalk powder? Chalk balls? Wrong!

No chalk. Most of the training we do at home requires little or no chalk. If you’re hangboarding there is plenty of time between hangs to dry your hands on a towel & most home climbers don’t have the space for long sustained climbs where chalking up becomes an issue.

If skipping chalk is not an option, for example because you plan to stay on the wall for a long time for endurance training, traditional chalk powder is a good option. Leave the really finely ground chalk alone though, that kind of chalk tends to generate the most dust & is a pain to clean. Chalk balls are a good option for endurance training: no chance of accidental spills!

A great alternative for hang board workouts, system board workouts & power training is liquid chalk. These types of training allow for ample time to apply it & let it dry. Liquid chalk has become more popular at climbing gyms because of its disinfecting properties & climbers are discovering that liquid chalk is especially effective when there is plenty of time between burns, e.g. in bouldering.

We’re actually working on a new liquid chalk formula specifically made with home training in mind: completely dust-free and transparent.

Photo By Enric Cruz López