Moumo, a climbing center located on Södermalm, central Stockholm, opened on August 27th this year 2022. The premises are 1650 square meters of which 60 percent is climbing. The unique thing about Moumo is that they have two large yoga rooms, a restaurant and a complete gym fully equipped by Gymleco. We sat down with Mats Olofsson, one of the founders, to talk about how climbing has developed as a form of exercise, why you should do strength training as a complement to both climbing and yoga, but also about how important good food is when you exercise.
How did it feel to open the climbing center Moumo?
Super exciting of course. Considering that there was a construction site here a day before, it was completely crazy. It was all hands on deck. We were 20 people who ran around the clock to get everything in order. But now it feels great and we have received incredibly good feedback from guests when it comes to both the feeling and the way it looks.
Who are the founders behind the climbing centre?
We are five founders who all have climbing and a life in the mountains behind us. We are two mountain guides and two who have worked with destination marketing, run hotels and restaurants in the mountain world. As well as Matilda Söderlund, who is Sweden's and one of the world's absolute best female climbers.
We are a tight, passionate and committed group. We have also managed to bring in a lot of fine employees in all different job positions in the training centre.
You have an innovative climbing center with a unique combination of climbing, yoga and strength training. What is the vision behind Moumo?
Our bread and butter is climbing and yoga. In Sweden, there is no tradition of putting the two together, but if you look internationally, especially in the USA and California, they have been together for a long time.
For us, there has always been a natural connection between the two forms of movement. The climbing has a very clear movement pattern, there is a lot of pulling, a lot centered around the back, and the yoga is instead very much push. However, they share balance points. In both, you must find stable positions.
Our concept is to find a good balance in training. That's where the gym side comes in. In general, climbing and yoga people are pretty bad at supplementary training. For us, the gym has been a super central part of getting people to stay injury free. We also wanted to put in such a large and complete gym so that even if you are primarily a climbing customer, you can also do your gym sessions with us. You shouldn't need two cards.
Then the food is a huge part for us. Food and exercise go together. We wanted a full restaurant that could serve useful but above all really good food. It is so important that you get good energy when you exercise. With such a location as we have in the middle of town, we reach people who exercise at breakfast or lunch. For them, being able to take a breakfast bag with them or sit here and work for a quarter of an hour while they cook their breakfast has been wonderful.
A large part of our concept is to create a place where you, as a guest, enjoy being. Training time is for many the only time you have control over yourself. At work you relate to colleagues and to customers. When you get home, it's each other and children. For many, training time is as sacred as their own time. For us, it is therefore important to create a place where you want to be. I train here because it's what I want to do, the facilities are lovely and there's plenty to eat. I can work out here with my friends and afterwards sit on the mat or go to the restaurant. That piece is super essential for us. To create the opportunity to build a community around training, climbing and yoga.
Why should you strength train when climbing?
Climbing is a good all-round exercise, but the rehab part is important to remember. There will be quite a lot of injuries in the climbing. Partly wear damage and partly pure tensile damage. A thing that you e.g. don't think about is the hamstring that comes off because you put up so-called "heel hooks", which is that you put up a heel high up and pull with the back of the thigh. Therefore, it is important to get leg machines.
When it comes to progression, actually getting stronger, it's incredibly important to strengthen antagonists so you're not just training the concrete pull-up muscles you work with otherwise. You will become much stronger and more generally mobile if you can supplement with strength exercises.
Why did you choose the gym equipment you chose?
Our gym space is quite limited, so for us it was important to get the right things in. It is also about adding knowledge. We want our guests to exercise consciously. Having said that, it felt natural to work a lot with free weights and with machines where you can vary your exercises. So like the cross pull, which is incredibly multi-functional. You can do many different movements for both arms and legs.
The gym equipment is also focused on you exercising with insight. Free weights activate so many small muscles and that's exactly what climbing and yoga do. This means that you work with stabilizing muscles in each position.
How has climbing as a form of exercise developed in recent years?
Good question, I think very few reflect on that. I think a lot of people who get into climbing don't get into it as a training activity but because they think it's fun. Many see it as exercise which is not really exercise. That has also been the case for me for most of my life. I have continued to exercise not primarily with the awareness that it is exercise, but simply because I find it so much fun.
But there is starting to be a greater awareness for many precisely around climbing as a training phenomenon. Where you also become more interested in the whole. How to supplement training in the gym.
We have high ambitions to contribute with our knowledge. We have climbing courses at different levels, we have PT training and we will have specific core and finger training sessions. Those passes that you hesitate to run but will do so much. The climbing is incredibly core. Holding position is very core intensive. If you work with those types of exercises, you will hold better and become a much better climber.
I think the approach we have will appear in several gyms. There are very few climbing centers in Stockholm today that have a proper gym section. I think that will change. It will be requested by the guests.
Tips for those who want to start a climbing center:
1. Ask yourself why you want to open. The reasons you have don't have to be the same as mine or anyone else's but make sure you have a solid reason why you want to do it more than just the fun of climbing. Starting a climbing hall is very little about climbing itself before you have the hall in place. There is an incredible amount of work to get there.
2. Analyze your specific benefits. What makes you special and what makes you special in that area? We spent a lot of time analyzing location and demographics. Who lives there, who works there, who passes through. We spent a lot of time doing an environmental analysis. Not just on the climbing itself, but on training as such.
3. Just run. It's like starting any company. You have to be extremely committed, you have to think it's super fun on the road and you have to have a lot of energy. It will be hard but it will be fun. If you have done the basic analysis and have a strong belief and actual data on your side, it's just a matter of climbing.
