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An action of pulling your body out of a swimming pool by planting your arms down on the poolside and then pushing down to lift your body up and out of the water. Then you would place one of your feet out and step up and away.

Another example would be when someone climbs a dumpster that is tall and comes up to their shoulder level and they climb it up in the same manner.

Is there a specific word to describe this method of climbing up something? If not, how would you write the description of this action?

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  • It’s commonly just called climbing.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 9:40
  • climbed out of the pool, dumpster, hole, wreckage, etc.
    – KarlG
    Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 10:05
  • Lift, heave, hoist yourself out of the pool, if you want to emphasize a specific struggle or action beyond just climbing—although climbing is a quite normal expression. You will have to provide more detail to explain why climb is insufficient and why one of those others would be more in line with what you're looking for. Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 10:12

1 Answer 1

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Like Lawrence and others mentioned in their comments, it's commonly just called climbing.

to go up or ascend, especially by using the hands and feet or feet only

However, in rock climbing, there are various techniques. The type of climb you describe is known as the mantle or mantel

Mantle (n): A transfer of motion from pulling to pushing while rock climbing.

A helpful way to visualize a mantle is to picture yourself exiting the side of a pool. Before you leap out of the water, you have your hands on the poolside edge in a downward-pulling position. Then you jump up, engaging your arms and planting a foot on the ground. You then use your shoulders to push yourself the rest of the way up to a standing position.

Another method for flatter (not rounded) ledges is to think about it like exiting the deep end of the pool: Use your feet to spring your hips up over the lip, leading with your chest to get your weight over your hands. Straighten the arms, gently bring a toe up to the lip, and stand up slowly.

Depending on the context of where you want to use the word, it is unlikely that the ordinary layman or man in the street will have heard about the rock climbing technique.

Perhaps you could use scale as an alternative?

to climb up something steep, such as a cliff or wall:

He scaled a steep cliff beside the river.

to climb to or over the top of a high steep object such as a mountain or a wall

Student protesters scaled an 8-foot fence to enter the Embassy grounds.

or clamber

to climb something with difficulty, using your hands and feet

clamber up/over/into etc: I clambered up the ladder into the hay loft.

After I had posted my answer Kris pointed out in a comment that there is a Wiktionary definition for mantel as follows:

mantel (third-person singular simple present mantels, present participle mantelling or (US) manteling, simple past and past participle mantelled or (US) manteled)

(climbing) To surmount a ledge by pushing down on the ledge to bring up the body.

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    Verb mantel (third-person singular simple present mantels, present participle mantelling or (US) manteling, simple past and past participle mantelled or (US) manteled) 1. (climbing) To surmount a ledge by pushing down on the ledge to bring up the body. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mantel#English
    – Kris
    Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 10:44
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    +1 for mantel. Never heard of it (I'm a layman, not a climber). Therefore also happy with "there's no term a layman would recognise other than the general climb". Not happy with the inclusion of scale or clamber - they're synonyms for climb and do not specifically cover the mantel movement, in fact I'd say clamber is opposed to it. I associate clamber with awkwardness or clumsiness, as per (most of) the Collins page.
    – AndyT
    Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 11:28
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    Specific to swimming pools, swimmers practice "deep wells", usually in sets of 100. And yes, climbers and free runners mantle. Obviously. It's a bit harder hanging from a cliff than coming out of a pool. Vaulting might be better than either for most uses, though.
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 19:30

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