Intermediate Climbing Technique

Step it up and keep on stepping!

Body Position

Stick to the wall

Letting gravity control your hips, pulling it away from the wall, will make your body arc and you will loose reach. By tightening your core muscles and pulling yourself in, this will give extra reach as well as reduce the load on your arms. If you use your arms to achieve the same thing you will of course not offload your arms in the same way and may actually lock your arms so that it prevents your next move rather than giving you extra reach.

Hips and Shoulders

You naturally rotate and raise your shoulders when reaching for a hold, you will of course reach further if you don't keep your shoulders aligned. Raising the one and lowering the other will give quite a few inches of reach. The same applies for your hips and the total alignment of your body. Your absolute maximal reach is from finger to toe, diagonally when you stretch opposite arm / leg, tilting both shoulders and hips, straightening even your ankle. What many climbers fail to realize is that reaching with your hand, only focusing on extending your arm. Your arm may give you a foot of reach, but so may your hip placement. Shift your entire body, bringing your hip horizontally in the direction of the hold and this may give you much better reach. Note that you shift your hip horizontally, not in the direction of the hold, just as when you rock over on a foot.

Locking off and tension

You have been told to keep you center of gravity above your feet to conserve energy and spare your arms. This is however not always possible and there are other options to be considered. Your arms can bear large loads without using much energy... in the extreme positions: fully extended and fully bent. The fully extended arm has been explored a bit, but the bent arm energy conserving position is new territory. By grabbing a hold and repositioning your body so that your shoulder is as close as possible to your hand, you will be able to lock your arm in this position using very little energy. This is called "locking off" and is usually used on a good hold or on a gaston, the opposite of a side pull. This technique is commonly used to bare the main load of your weight in situations where your body needs to be shifted away from any footholds directly below. You may have footholds to the side but none below where you can push off to gain height. By pressing on a foothold to the side in conjunction with locking your arm on the opposite side, you can create tension enough to raise your body to the next hold. If this diagonal tension is not enough to propel you upwards it may be enough to hold you in position. Locking your body like this may feel like you are stuck, but it leaves a leg and an arm free to do other things. You can use your leg, dangling below, to step into the blank wall and push off with it. This could bring your free arm within reach of the next hold.

Feet & Legs

There are more ways to shift your balance and to offload your arms, you can user your legs and feet. When the center of gravity moves past the furthest foot hold, you may no longer be able to shift further. This may be restricted by balance or simple because your arms are stuck on holds in the other direction and you simply can't reach any further. Your legs however, may reach much further.. so stick'em out and use them. Reaching holds on the extreme reach of your feet you can put your toe behind it and pull, this will give extra support and change your balance. This could be exactly what is required to be able to move the hand that was previously loaded and you were unable to move. Depending on the hold you reach with your foot, this may not be suited to hook your toe behind, but it may allow you to pop your heel on it. Using your heel on a hold like this may give you extra pull, but it may also give you the support to press down on it to propel yourself upward. You may even be able to rock fully over on that heel giving you not only inches, but feet of progress.

Flagging

Learning to flag is one thing, using it extensively, almost for every (other) move is another. You can use flagging for most any repositioning and stabilizing, in transitions between moves and for initiating a move. Flagging is versatile, learn to appreciate it.

Transitions

Gain balance before progressing

When you find a move to be hard and slightly uncontrolled, think about how you can bring your body into balance in between the moves. You may think of this as adding a move to the sequence, so that sequence has a specific action of bringing you into balance before progressing. Take a look at this boulder problem where my mid-move balance point is very apparent at about second 44.

Momentum

There will be times where gaining balance is counterproductive. Some moves will work better if you just continue the motion from the previous move. Using your momentum from a move can be easier than trying to stop that momentum. You may have to adjust the direction of the momentum or even feed it some more energy by kicking off, to get the next hold.

Lower yourself

Moving from one hold to the next may not be the hart part, actually establishing on the new hold after the move may be the hard part. Say the next move is a match, grabbing it may be easy, but bringing the last hand over to match may be very tricky. This is most likely because you are out of balance and the hand you have left behind on the previous hold is required to stay to not slip off. To regain balance, one trick is to lower yourself really low, maybe you even have to drop a foot to get low enough. From way down, balance is gained more easily and weight transfer can occur so that you can be controlled and let go of the previous hold.

Hips

Your hips can be a powerful tool in transitions between moves. Shifting it, rotating it or tilting it will give reach, balance or simply set you up for the next move. Having the right starting position for a move is crucial in order to complete and stick it.

Transition into the next move

I find that climbing is by far the most enjoyable when all the moves of a climb melt into each other and the entire motion just flows naturally from start to end. This may or may not translate into pushing the grades, but even at your limit, fluent motion and moves that link well translate into good climbing.

Dynamic moves and momentum

Dynamic motions

Dynos are definitely dynamic moves, but dynamic moves are not necessarily dynos. Basic climbing technique focus on using your legs and using them to progress. This can be taken a step further, into a climbing style where you exaggerate this into almost jumping from hold to hold, but just almost. This leaves you progressing almost entirely by muscles in your legs, so you save your arms quite a bit. Another side effect it however that the climb will consist of setting your body up for a jump and pushing off, like jumping. This will be a jack and jerk style of climbing, not very nice to watch and I can't imagine it feels very good either.

Leaping off

Sometimes though, there are no other options, you have to just go for it. The gentlest form is just going foot-off and extend a move just beyond your reach. The next level is going full on double dyno where you lose all contact points with the wall. The trick here is to match to energy and direction so that you do not overshoot or fall short, landing the target hold in a perfect dead point. The only way to be good at hitting that perfect dead point is to practise, enough to know the strength in your lims, the weight of your body etc.

Swing dyno, running dyno, two step dyno

Combine leaping off with a swing and you have a swinging dyno, just be a ware of how that swing takes on new form after you hit the hold. World Cup style boulder problems often include out of balance volumes and holds that requires a series of dynamic moves to get through. These types of moves requires gaining and tuning momentum so that each move leaves enough momentum, in the right direction to complete the next move. Another extreme type dyno is the full dyno that includes another intermediate step to get to the hold. This is tricky to tune in as the momentum for the second jump have to be initiated, and directed from the first dynamic move.

Controlling momentum

Once you have done a dyno of any kind, the move may be far from over. Often the aftermath of the dyno will be the actual challenge, not the move itself. Getting to the hold may require a very large input of energy and all of that energy may not be lost by the time you hit the hold. There are ways of controlling the residual momentum, like contracting your legs, step directly into the wall as if you are flagging or even brace the wall with your hand like you would with your foot in the above mentioned flagging step.

Planning

Look at all the holds

Study how all the holds are placed, spaced and angled. Study the size and shape og each hold.

Plan how to grab each hold

Consider how you would best grab each hold, in what direction do you want your weight to pull to make that hold good. How does your feet have to be positioned to achieve that, standing on what holds.

Sequence the body position from hold to hold

Given each optimal body position for each hold, how do they fit together. What transitions and weight shifting is required to make these moves fit into a sequence.

Execute as planned

Now, execute that plan and don't be discouraged once you find you misjudged a hold or a body position. You should press through and keep going, sticking to your plan. It is more likely that you will succeed with your original plan than it is that you will be able to come up with a better improvised plan halfway up the wall. Bear in mind the a new plan might alter your position into the next move, resulting not in one improvised move, but forcing you to improvise all the remaining moves as well. If you fail on your original plan, you do at least have new information about that misjudged hold or position.

Moves

The rest of the moves

At this level all moves should be known and used at some level. Study them in detail to get the finer details and variations on how to use them. There is always room for improvements and different perspectives that may take you to the next level.

More moves:

About

  • Thomas Madsen on La Balance sans la prise taillée 8a, Bas Cuvier, Fontainebleau

    climbingtechnique.com - 2015

    Resources, Community, Research

    A network of climbing technique resources. Our mission is to help climbers truly embrace climbing technique and all it's rewards. Join in, consume, contribute and help raise the bar!

    1973 - Thomas Madsen

    Boulderer, Engineer, CTO

    I started climbing late in life, but with a technical background and an analytical eye for perfection, my progress eventually overcame my age. It all came down to climbing technique.