[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":5323},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-core-for-climbers-tension-where-it-counts":3,"blog-related-core-for-climbers-tension-where-it-counts":113},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":92,"date":93,"description":94,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":97,"imageAlt":98,"imageCredit":99,"imageCreditUrl":100,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":102,"navigation":103,"path":104,"readTime":105,"seo":106,"stem":107,"tags":108,"__hash__":112},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fcore-for-climbers-tension-where-it-counts.md","Core for climbers: tension where it counts","The Sendit Team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":84},"minimark",[10,15,19,22,26,29,32,35,39,42,71,74,78,81],[11,12,14],"h2",{"id":13},"core-is-not-about-your-abs","Core is not about your abs",[16,17,18],"p",{},"Say \"core training\" and most people picture sit-ups and a six-pack. For climbers that misses the point entirely. The core you need on the wall is not about how your stomach looks, it is about body tension: the ability to hold your whole midsection rigid so that force from your feet actually reaches your hands, and so that your feet stay on the wall when the ground gets steep.",[16,20,21],{},"Here is what that means in practice. On a steep overhang, if your core is soft, pushing with your foot does nothing, because the force just bends you in the middle and your hips sag away from the wall. Engage your core and that same foot push transfers right through your body to keep weight off your fingers. Climbers talk about feet \"cutting loose\" and swinging off on steep ground. That swing is a tension failure as much as a foot failure.",[11,23,25],{"id":24},"what-good-tension-feels-like","What good tension feels like",[16,27,28],{},"Watch a strong climber on a roof and notice how their body stays connected, like a single taut unit, hips pressed up towards the wall, feet pasted onto small holds. Now watch someone struggling on the same terrain and you will often see the feet flying off and the hips dropping. The difference is rarely raw finger strength. It is the ability to keep the body tight enough that the feet stay loaded.",[16,30,31],{},"The other place core shows up is in keeping your feet on through reachy moves. As you extend for a far hold, your core has to fire to stop your lower body swinging out, so your foot stays on its hold and gives you the base to reach from. Lose that and you barn-door off into space.",[16,33,34],{},"So the quality you are after is not endless crunches. It is the ability to create and hold tension across your whole trunk, and to fire it at the right moment.",[11,36,38],{"id":37},"drills-that-carry-over","Drills that carry over",[16,40,41],{},"The best core work for climbing looks a lot like climbing positions, holding tension rather than thrashing through reps.",[43,44,45,53,59,65],"ul",{},[46,47,48,52],"li",{},[49,50,51],"strong",{},"Front plank and side plank."," The humble starting point. Hold a solid plank with hips level, glutes and stomach engaged, for honest time rather than counting reps. This builds the rigid-trunk position you need on the wall.",[46,54,55,58],{},[49,56,57],{},"Hanging leg and knee raises."," Hang from a bar and lift your knees, or your straight legs if you can, slowly and under control. This trains exactly the bring-the-feet-up action you use to keep feet high on steep ground.",[46,60,61,64],{},[49,62,63],{},"The hollow body hold."," Lie on your back, press your lower back into the floor, and lift your shoulders and legs slightly so your body forms a shallow banana shape. Hold it. This teaches the all-over tension that translates directly to staying tight on a roof.",[46,66,67,70],{},[49,68,69],{},"Front lever progressions."," For stronger climbers, tucked or one-leg front lever holds build huge climbing-specific tension. Build up to them slowly, they are demanding.",[16,72,73],{},"Quality beats quantity throughout. A shaky thirty-second plank held properly does more than a hundred sloppy sit-ups.",[11,75,77],{"id":76},"take-it-onto-the-wall","Take it onto the wall",[16,79,80],{},"The most useful core training of all is climbing steep ground with deliberate attention to tension. On an overhang, focus on keeping your hips pressed up towards the wall and your feet weighted, rather than letting them dangle. Pick steep problems on purpose. Notice the moment your feet want to cut loose and try to keep them on by tightening through your middle.",[16,82,83],{},"Strong core work off the wall gives you the raw capacity. Climbing steep, with intent, teaches you to actually use it. Put the two together and the overhangs that used to spit you off start to feel like something you can stay attached to.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":87},"",2,[88,89,90,91],{"id":13,"depth":86,"text":14},{"id":24,"depth":86,"text":25},{"id":37,"depth":86,"text":38},{"id":76,"depth":86,"text":77},"Training & technique","2026-06-16","Why climbing core is about body tension, not six-packs, and drills that carry straight onto the wall.",false,"md","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1502126324834-38f8e02d7160?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber high on an alpine ridge","Brad Barmore","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@bradbarmore",null,{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fcore-for-climbers-tension-where-it-counts",5,{"title":5,"description":94},"blog\u002Fcore-for-climbers-tension-where-it-counts",[109,110,111],"training","core","tension","tshSgJgO4SeDFGRZ6KFX6hLeO0LY6HW31wlb2nS7_6w",[114,259,390,535,659,773,888,993,1110,1222,1339,1455,1546,1646,1729,1839,1895,1976,2069,2154,2240,2319,2389,2476,2578,2672,2753,2840,2922,3005,3088,3185,3262,3347,3454,3532,3609,3703,3843,3923,4099,4280,4439,4664,4795,4917,5105],{"id":115,"title":116,"author":6,"body":117,"category":92,"date":242,"description":243,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":244,"imageAlt":245,"imageCredit":246,"imageCreditUrl":247,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":248,"navigation":103,"path":249,"readTime":250,"seo":251,"stem":252,"tags":253,"__hash__":258},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fclimbing-in-the-heat.md","Climbing in the heat: how to get a good session when it is too hot",{"type":8,"value":118,"toc":233},[119,123,126,129,133,136,139,142,146,149,152,155,159,162,165,169,172,175,207,210,214,217,220,223,227,230],[11,120,122],{"id":121},"the-grade-did-not-change-the-air-did","The grade did not change, the air did",[16,124,125],{},"There is a particular kind of July session where nothing works. Holds you were solid on in April now spit you off. Your fingers slide, your feet feel vague, and you start quietly wondering whether you have got worse. You have not. The rock is the same. The air around it is not.",[16,127,128],{},"Every climber loses something in the heat, and the honest response is not to grit your teeth through it. It is to change what you are doing. A hot week is not a write-off, it just needs a different plan.",[11,130,132],{"id":131},"it-is-the-sweat-not-the-thermometer","It is the sweat, not the thermometer",[16,134,135],{},"The usual story is that warm rock is slippery rock. The more interesting version is that the biggest problem is you.",[16,137,138],{},"Friction Labs, reviewing the research on climbing performance, makes the point plainly: temperature seems to have minimal effects on skin friction and force production, while humidity has a larger indirect effect through increased heart rate, sweat response and general discomfort. In other words, the heat is not softening the rock. It is opening your pores, and wet skin does not stick.",[16,140,141],{},"That is a useful thing to know, because it changes what you actually do about it. Chasing a few degrees is less important than chasing dry air and dry hands. A muggy 22°C day will feel far worse than a dry 26°C one, and if you have ever had a brilliant session in genuinely hot but bone-dry conditions, that is why.",[11,143,145],{"id":144},"chase-the-hours-not-the-day","Chase the hours, not the day",[16,147,148],{},"Give up on the middle of the day. Between roughly eleven and four you are climbing at the worst time, in the worst light, on the warmest rock, with the most sweat.",[16,150,151],{},"Early morning is the quiet win. The rock has cooled overnight, the air is drier, and nobody else is there. Evening works too, though rock holds heat for hours after the sun leaves it, so a west-facing crag at seven in the evening can still feel like an oven. North-facing walls and anything in tree shade are the reliable picks. If a crag gets sun until noon, arrive at six and be finished by ten.",[16,153,154],{},"The same logic works indoors. Most walls are hottest and busiest from six to nine in the evening. An early session, or a weekday afternoon if you can manage it, is a different building entirely.",[11,156,158],{"id":157},"go-where-it-is-cold","Go where it is cold",[16,160,161],{},"Summer is the season some places come into their own. High-altitude granite, deep forest boulders, shaded limestone gorges and anything with a river running through it. Magic Wood in the Averstal sits at 1,300 metres under pine trees with cold water through the middle, which is exactly why it is a July venue and not an April one.",[16,163,164],{},"Height helps more than most people expect. So does aspect, and so does water. If your local crag is a south-facing suntrap, the fix is not better technique, it is a different postcode.",[11,166,168],{"id":167},"change-what-the-session-is-for","Change what the session is for",[16,170,171],{},"This is the part that actually makes a difference over a summer. If conditions will not let you climb at your limit, stop trying to.",[16,173,174],{},"A hot session is a poor day for redpointing a project and a good day for almost everything else:",[43,176,177,183,189,195,201],{},[46,178,179,182],{},[49,180,181],{},"Volume on easy ground."," Mileage, movement, mileage. Nothing here needs perfect friction.",[46,184,185,188],{},[49,186,187],{},"Technique work."," Silent feet, straight arms, precise placements. Bad friction is honest feedback; if your feet are sloppy, you will know immediately.",[46,190,191,194],{},[49,192,193],{},"Weaknesses."," The slab you avoid, the style you are bad at, the arete you have never touched.",[46,196,197,200],{},[49,198,199],{},"Strength and antagonists."," Pull-ups, core, shoulders, the work that never needed the rock to be sticky.",[46,202,203,206],{},[49,204,205],{},"Rest."," Genuinely. A deliberate down week in the worst of the heat is not lost time, it is the down week you were going to need anyway.",[16,208,209],{},"Log the session honestly and the summer stops looking like a gap. Track what you did and by September you will see the volume and the technique work sitting underneath whatever you send in autumn.",[11,211,213],{"id":212},"small-things-that-help","Small things that help",[16,215,216],{},"Skin first. Sweat softens the outer layers, and soft skin wears through fast, so a hot day is when flappers happen. Dry your hands properly before you pull on rather than chalking over damp fingers, because chalk on wet skin is just paste. Liquid chalk under a normal chalk layer gives you a base that lasts. Brush every hold you are about to use, since old chalk and grease from the last twenty attempts are doing you no favours.",[16,218,219],{},"Then the boring things that are not boring at all. Drink more than you think, and take salt with it, not just sugar. Sit in the shade between goes rather than standing in the sun looking at the problem. Give yourself longer rests than usual, because your heart rate is already elevated before you leave the ground. Keep your shoes out of direct sun, as hot rubber goes soft and vague.",[16,221,222],{},"And take fewer, better goes. Six half-hearted attempts on greasy rock cost you skin and teach you nothing. Two properly rested tries with dry hands are worth more.",[11,224,226],{"id":225},"the-season-is-not-the-enemy","The season is not the enemy",[16,228,229],{},"Every climber has a summer where they feel like they are going backwards. Mostly they are not, they are just measuring themselves against conditions that have changed.",[16,231,232],{},"Shift the hours, find the shade, pick sessions that suit greasy skin, and let the project wait for autumn. The rock will be sticky again in October, and the person turning up to it will be fitter, more precise and better rested than the one who spent July losing to a heatwave.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":234},[235,236,237,238,239,240,241],{"id":121,"depth":86,"text":122},{"id":131,"depth":86,"text":132},{"id":144,"depth":86,"text":145},{"id":157,"depth":86,"text":158},{"id":167,"depth":86,"text":168},{"id":212,"depth":86,"text":213},{"id":225,"depth":86,"text":226},"2026-07-17","July turns every hold greasy and every session into a fight. How to time it, where to go, and what to change so a hot week still moves your climbing forward.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1586627161720-ee2849303aee?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber on sunlit rock on a hot summer day","Patrick Hendry","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@worldsbetweenlines",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fclimbing-in-the-heat",6,{"title":116,"description":243},"blog\u002Fclimbing-in-the-heat",[254,255,256,257,109],"conditions","summer","friction","skin","c-5bU0cKtMOGkA2Y8syZMelhZhprGIUjnn-icLHkFVk",{"id":260,"title":261,"author":6,"body":262,"category":92,"date":374,"description":375,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":376,"imageAlt":377,"imageCredit":378,"imageCreditUrl":379,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":380,"navigation":103,"path":381,"readTime":250,"seo":382,"stem":383,"tags":384,"__hash__":389},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-climb-slopers.md","How to climb slopers: how to hold what has no edge",{"type":8,"value":263,"toc":364},[264,268,271,274,278,281,284,288,291,294,298,301,304,308,311,314,318,321,324,328,331,357,361],[11,265,267],{"id":266},"the-hold-you-cannot-grab","The hold you cannot grab",[16,269,270],{},"Most holds give you something to pull on. An edge, a pocket, a lip for your fingers to curl over. A sloper gives you none of that. It is a rounded, featureless bulge, and the first time you meet one it feels like trying to hold onto a bowling ball. Your hand slides, your feet cut, and you come off wondering what you were meant to do with it.",[16,272,273],{},"The answer is that you were never meant to grab it. You press on it. Once that clicks, slopers stop being the holds you dread and start being the holds you quietly enjoy, because they reward good climbing over raw finger strength.",[11,275,277],{"id":276},"it-is-friction-not-grip-strength","It is friction, not grip strength",[16,279,280],{},"A sloper holds you on by friction alone. There is no positive edge doing any of the work, so the only thing keeping your hand there is how much skin you get on the rock and how cleanly you load it.",[16,282,283],{},"That gives you two things to control. The first is surface contact. Get as much of your hand on the hold as you can: full palm, finger pads spread wide, thumb down and pressing. A wide, soft hand grips a sloper far better than tight, bunched fingers. The second is direction, which is the part most people miss.",[11,285,287],{"id":286},"get-your-weight-under-the-hold","Get your weight under the hold",[16,289,290],{},"A sloper only works when you pull straight down through it, in line with the surface. The moment you lean out or drag it sideways, the angle changes and your hand greases off.",[16,292,293],{},"So the biggest fix for slopers is not your hand at all, it is your body. Drop your hips, keep your arms straight, and get your centre of gravity directly below the hold. Straight arms hang your weight cleanly down the line the sloper wants. Bent arms pull you out and away, which is exactly the direction that makes it slip. Low, heavy and long is the shape you are after.",[11,295,297],{"id":296},"stay-still","Stay still",[16,299,300],{},"Slopers punish movement. Every time you readjust your hand you break the friction for a moment, and on a bad sloper that moment is all it takes to come off. Set the hand once, weight it, and try not to fidget with it.",[16,302,303],{},"The same goes for the whole move. Climb through a sloper smoothly rather than in sharp, snatchy pulls. Slow and quiet keeps the skin planted. Fast and scrabbly rips it off. If you watch a strong climber on slopers, the striking thing is how calm their hands look while everything else does the work.",[11,305,307],{"id":306},"feet-win-sloper-moves","Feet win sloper moves",[16,309,310],{},"Because you cannot pull hard on the hold, your feet have to carry more than usual. High, precise feet let you press your weight up into the sloper instead of hanging off it, which keeps that downward line you need.",[16,312,313],{},"Think about pushing up rather than pulling down. Keep your feet on, keep them loaded, and use them to drive your body into a position where the sloper is underneath you. A good foot placement often does more for a sloper than any amount of squeezing with the hand.",[11,315,317],{"id":316},"skin-chalk-and-the-weather","Skin, chalk and the weather",[16,319,320],{},"Friction is physical, so conditions matter more on slopers than on any other hold. Warm, damp hands are the enemy, which is why a July heatwave makes every sloper feel a full grade worse. This is not in your head. The rock is genuinely more slippery when it is hot.",[16,322,323],{},"Chalk up properly, and brush the hold to clear grease and old chalk before you commit. If you can, save your sloper projects for early morning or the evening when it is cooler and the skin stays dry. Cool, dry skin on a clean hold can turn something you slid off all afternoon into something that suddenly sticks.",[11,325,327],{"id":326},"drills-that-build-sloper-trust","Drills that build sloper trust",[16,329,330],{},"The fastest way to get comfortable is to spend time on them on easy ground, where a slip costs nothing.",[43,332,333,339,345,351],{},[46,334,335,338],{},[49,336,337],{},"Sloper laps."," On a board or an easy overhang, pick a problem that uses rounded holds and climb it again and again until your hands stop panicking.",[46,340,341,344],{},[49,342,343],{},"The hover drill."," Match both hands on a sloper, then lift one and hover it in the air for a few seconds. It teaches you how much a single well-set hand can actually hold.",[46,346,347,350],{},[49,348,349],{},"Slow motion."," Climb an easy sloper problem as slowly as you can. Moving slowly forces good body position and stops you snatching.",[46,352,353,356],{},[49,354,355],{},"Log what worked."," When a sloper finally sticks, note the body position that made it happen. Track your sessions and the patterns show up fast, so you start reading slopers from the ground instead of discovering them halfway up.",[11,358,360],{"id":359},"press-do-not-grab","Press, do not grab",[16,362,363],{},"Slopers feel impossible right up until the day they do not. Nothing about them is about crushing the hold. Get your weight underneath it, keep your arm straight and your hand soft, drive through good feet, and hold everything still. Give them a season of honest practice and the holds you used to skip become the ones you trust. Chalk up, stay calm, and press.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":365},[366,367,368,369,370,371,372,373],{"id":266,"depth":86,"text":267},{"id":276,"depth":86,"text":277},{"id":286,"depth":86,"text":287},{"id":296,"depth":86,"text":297},{"id":306,"depth":86,"text":307},{"id":316,"depth":86,"text":317},{"id":326,"depth":86,"text":327},{"id":359,"depth":86,"text":360},"2026-07-16","Slopers feel hopeless until you stop trying to grip them. How friction, a low body position and staying still turn rounded holds into holds you can actually trust.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.pexels.com\u002Fphotos\u002F8728466\u002Fpexels-photo-8728466.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&fit=crop&w=1600&h=900","A climber pressing down on a large rounded sloping hold","Katya Wolf","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.pexels.com\u002F@katya-wolf",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-climb-slopers",{"title":261,"description":375},"blog\u002Fhow-to-climb-slopers",[385,386,387,388,256],"technique","slopers","grip","bouldering","rEbMyw7fj8BE3kWDfC5dYfADyGaiEG3bAv4WN4SVGB8",{"id":391,"title":392,"author":6,"body":393,"category":92,"date":520,"description":521,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":522,"imageAlt":523,"imageCredit":524,"imageCreditUrl":525,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":526,"navigation":103,"path":527,"readTime":250,"seo":528,"stem":529,"tags":530,"__hash__":534},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fheel-hooks-and-toe-hooks.md","Heel hooks and toe hooks: how to climb with your feet",{"type":8,"value":394,"toc":511},[395,399,402,405,409,412,415,426,429,433,436,439,442,445,449,452,455,458,462,465,491,495,498,501,504,508],[11,396,398],{"id":397},"feet-do-more-than-hold-you-up","Feet do more than hold you up",[16,400,401],{},"Most of us learn to climb from the hands down. We reach, we pull, and the feet just keep us on the wall. That works until the wall tips past vertical. On steep ground your feet start to swing off, your hips sag away from the rock, and every hand move costs twice what it should. This is where hooks come in. A heel hook and a toe hook turn your feet from pedestals into holds that grip, so two more limbs join the effort instead of dangling.",[16,403,404],{},"Learning to hook well is one of the biggest jumps most climbers make. It is not about power. It is about knowing when a foot can pull, and trusting it enough to weight it.",[11,406,408],{"id":407},"what-a-heel-hook-actually-does","What a heel hook actually does",[16,410,411],{},"A heel hook is exactly what it sounds like. You place the heel of your shoe on a hold, an edge or a volume, and pull with it, usually toward your own body. The work comes from your hamstring and glute, not your calf, so it feels more like a leg curl than standing on a foothold.",[16,413,414],{},"Use one when:",[43,416,417,420,423],{},[46,418,419],{},"You are on steep or overhanging rock and your feet keep cutting loose.",[46,421,422],{},"A hold is level with or above your waist and you want to bring your hips in.",[46,424,425],{},"You are topping out and need to haul a foot up beside a hand to rock over.",[16,427,428],{},"The value of a good heel hook is that it takes weight off your fingers. Set it right and you can sometimes let a hand go completely.",[11,430,432],{"id":431},"how-to-heel-hook-well","How to heel hook well",[16,434,435],{},"Placement first. Put the point of the heel, not the back of the shoe, on the best part of the hold. Look at it land, the same way you would place a toe.",[16,437,438],{},"Then engage before you move. Pull the heel toward you and feel the hamstring switch on, so the foot is already loaded before you shift your weight across. A heel that is only resting on the hold will pop the moment you pull with your hands.",[16,440,441],{},"Point your toes and turn the knee. Small changes in how your foot and knee are angled change everything about how the heel bites. If it feels loose, rotate the knee in or out and try again rather than just pulling harder.",[16,443,444],{},"Keep the tension all the way through the next move. The common failure is setting a lovely heel, then relaxing it as you reach, so it slides off at the worst moment. The hook is only working while you are actively pulling on it.",[11,446,448],{"id":447},"toe-hooks-the-quiet-partner","Toe hooks, the quiet partner",[16,450,451],{},"A toe hook is the mirror image. You catch the top of your foot, the laces area, under or behind a hold and pull, dragging your body in the opposite direction to a heel hook. Where a heel pulls you up and in, a toe stops you swinging out.",[16,453,454],{},"Toe hooks shine on roofs and steep aretes, anywhere your body wants to barn-door or your legs want to cut loose behind you. On a roof, a toe hook can be the only thing keeping you attached while both hands move. They are less dramatic than a big heel, but on the right move they are the difference between staying on and spinning off.",[16,456,457],{},"To toe hook well, point the toe hard and pull the foot toward your backside to keep the tension. Rubber on the top of the shoe is what grips, so the harder you point and pull, the more you get. Like the heel, a toe hook only holds while you keep it switched on.",[11,459,461],{"id":460},"the-mistakes-that-cost-you","The mistakes that cost you",[16,463,464],{},"A few errors show up again and again:",[43,466,467,473,479,485],{},[46,468,469,472],{},[49,470,471],{},"Placing and forgetting."," A hook is an active hold, not a rest. Keep pulling on it until the move is done.",[46,474,475,478],{},[49,476,477],{},"Hooking with a soft leg."," If the hamstring or the toe is not engaged, the foot is just balanced there and will slip.",[46,480,481,484],{},[49,482,483],{},"Ignoring the knee."," The angle of your knee and hip decides whether a heel bites or greases off. Adjust the position, not just the effort.",[46,486,487,490],{},[49,488,489],{},"Only trusting hands."," Many climbers set a good hook and still try to do the whole move with their arms. Let the leg take real weight. That is the whole point.",[11,492,494],{"id":493},"how-to-get-better-at-hooking","How to get better at hooking",[16,496,497],{},"The fastest way to improve is deliberate practice on easy ground, where a slip costs nothing.",[16,499,500],{},"Pick a steep board or an overhanging section of the gym and give yourself a rule: every foot move must be a hook. Heel where you can, toe where you cannot. It will feel clumsy at first and your problems will feel harder, which is the point. You are teaching your legs to pull.",[16,502,503],{},"On the Kilter or any home board, setting a few problems that force high heels and toe catches builds the specific strength and the trust together. And when you log your sessions, note the problems where a hook made the move click. Patterns show up fast, and you start spotting hook opportunities from the ground rather than discovering them halfway up.",[11,505,507],{"id":506},"pull-with-everything","Pull with everything",[16,509,510],{},"Climbing gets easier the moment you stop thinking of your feet as things that only hold you up. A heel that hauls your hips in, a toe that stops the swing, and suddenly steep rock feels a grade friendlier. Start on easy problems, place each hook like you mean it, keep it switched on through the move, and give it a season. Your fingers will thank you.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":512},[513,514,515,516,517,518,519],{"id":397,"depth":86,"text":398},{"id":407,"depth":86,"text":408},{"id":431,"depth":86,"text":432},{"id":447,"depth":86,"text":448},{"id":460,"depth":86,"text":461},{"id":493,"depth":86,"text":494},{"id":506,"depth":86,"text":507},"2026-07-14","On steep rock your feet can pull, not just stand. How heel hooks and toe hooks work, when to use each, and the drills that teach your legs to take real weight.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1630431155308-bbf2daf27b00?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A boulderer pulling in on steep overhanging rock","Gregory Hayes","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@gregoryallen",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fheel-hooks-and-toe-hooks",{"title":392,"description":521},"blog\u002Fheel-hooks-and-toe-hooks",[385,531,532,533,388],"footwork","heel hook","toe hook","hbgb4scKW1Fy4MGzu2U0FYd7SmLm0xBKESpDqbo0hrg",{"id":536,"title":537,"author":6,"body":538,"category":92,"date":645,"description":646,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":647,"imageAlt":648,"imageCredit":649,"imageCreditUrl":650,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":651,"navigation":103,"path":652,"readTime":250,"seo":653,"stem":654,"tags":655,"__hash__":658},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Flooking-after-your-climbing-skin.md","Looking after your climbing skin",{"type":8,"value":539,"toc":636},[540,544,547,550,554,557,560,563,567,570,596,600,603,606,610,613,616,619,623,626,629,633],[11,541,543],{"id":542},"the-limit-nobody-trains-for","The limit nobody trains for",[16,545,546],{},"Most climbers train fingers, core and technique, and then get stopped by their skin. You are strong enough for the move, but the tips have gone shiny and hot, the edge feels like it is buttered, and every attempt makes it worse. Skin is the one part of the system that cannot be muscled through, and in summer it takes the most punishment of the year.",[16,548,549],{},"Heat is the problem. Warm hands sweat, sweat softens the skin, and soft skin tears or greases off holds instead of sticking. On rock the sun bakes the stone until the friction goes and the edges feel sharper than they did at dawn. Learn to manage your hands and you get more good attempts out of every session, indoors and out. Ignore them and you lose days to a single flapper.",[11,551,553],{"id":552},"know-your-own-hands-first","Know your own hands first",[16,555,556],{},"There is no single skin routine, because there are roughly two kinds of climbing skin and they want opposite things.",[16,558,559],{},"Sweaty, soft skin greases off holds when it is warm and needs drying out. If your tips go damp and slick after a few minutes, you want more chalk, more brushing, and cooler conditions. Antihydral and similar drying agents help the worst cases, used sparingly, because too much swings you the other way into cracked, glassy skin.",[16,561,562],{},"Dry, splitty skin does the opposite. It looks tough but it cracks along the creases and splits under a sharp crimp. This type wants moisture back in overnight and files that keep the calluses flat rather than letting them build into ridges that peel. Work out which camp you are in before you copy anyone else's setup, because the fix for one makes the other worse.",[11,564,566],{"id":565},"in-the-session","In the session",[16,568,569],{},"The best skin care happens while you climb, not after. A few habits pay off every time.",[43,571,572,578,584,590],{},[46,573,574,577],{},[49,575,576],{},"Chalk to dry, not to coat."," Chalk manages moisture, it does not add grip on its own. A light, even layer that dries the tips beats a thick paste that just fills the texture of the hold. Rechalk when your hands warm up, and blow the excess off.",[46,579,580,583],{},[49,581,582],{},"Brush the holds."," A brushed hold is a grippier hold, and it means you press less hard to stay on, which saves skin. Keep a brush on your harness or in your bag and use it on anything polished or chalked up.",[46,585,586,589],{},[49,587,588],{},"Stop before the tear, not after."," Skin gives you warning. When a tip goes hot, shiny and tender, that is the last honest attempt, not the fifth. One more go on glassy skin is how a manageable session becomes a week off. Walk away with something in the tank.",[46,591,592,595],{},[49,593,594],{},"Mind the sun."," Outdoors, chase shade and cooler hours. The same problem at ten in the morning can feel a full grade easier at eight, purely because the rock and your hands are cool.",[11,597,599],{"id":598},"files-not-just-chalk","Files, not just chalk",[16,601,602],{},"Between sessions, the tool that matters most is a skin file or a piece of fine sandpaper. The goal is simple: keep the surface of your tips smooth and the calluses flat and level with the skin around them.",[16,604,605],{},"A proud callus, sitting up higher than the skin beside it, is a flapper waiting to happen. It catches on an edge and peels a chunk away. Run a file gently over any raised, hard spots until they sit flush, then leave the healthy skin alone. You are levelling the ground, not sanding down to raw skin. Do it when your hands are dry, a little each time, rather than a big session once a month.",[11,607,609],{"id":608},"dealing-with-tears-and-flappers","Dealing with tears and flappers",[16,611,612],{},"Everyone gets them. What matters is what you do next.",[16,614,615],{},"If a flap of skin is still attached and mostly clean, do not rip it off in the moment. Trim it back to the edge of the wound with clean nail scissors once you are home, so nothing catches and reopens it. A ragged flap left hanging tears wider on the next hold.",[16,617,618],{},"Clean the raw patch, let it dry, and keep it uncovered when you are not climbing so it can harden over. Some climbers cover a fresh split with a dab of superglue or a proper skin glue to get through the last problems of a session, which is fine as a short-term patch, but it is not healing, it is buying time. The real repair happens overnight and over rest days.",[11,620,622],{"id":621},"the-overnight-repair","The overnight repair",[16,624,625],{},"Skin rebuilds when you are not using it, and you can help it. If you are the dry, splitty type, a climbing salve or a plain unscented moisturiser before bed puts water back into the tips so they flex instead of cracking. If you are the sweaty type, go easy on the cream and let the skin firm up on its own.",[16,627,628],{},"Sleep, water and food do more than any product. Well-hydrated skin is more elastic and tears less, and a body that is recovering well grows callus faster. None of this is exotic. It is the same recovery that helps your fingers and your head, pointed at the one tissue climbers forget to look after.",[11,630,632],{"id":631},"play-the-long-game","Play the long game",[16,634,635],{},"Good skin is not a single fix, it is a running account. You make small deposits every day, a light file here, a moisturise there, a session ended one attempt early, and you draw on them when a project is finally in condition and you want ten clean goes rather than three. The climbers who send in summer are rarely the ones with the toughest hands. They are the ones who read their skin honestly and stopped fighting it. Learn your own tips, keep them level and cared for, and they will hold up when it counts.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":637},[638,639,640,641,642,643,644],{"id":542,"depth":86,"text":543},{"id":552,"depth":86,"text":553},{"id":565,"depth":86,"text":566},{"id":598,"depth":86,"text":599},{"id":608,"depth":86,"text":609},{"id":621,"depth":86,"text":622},{"id":631,"depth":86,"text":632},"2026-07-13","Skin is the quiet limit on most climbers. How to read your own hands, manage chalk and calluses, deal with tears, and keep your tips in shape through a sweaty summer.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1516594905951-96326d2c3de6?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber's chalked hand gripping a rock edge","Brook Anderson","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@brookanderson",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Flooking-after-your-climbing-skin",{"title":537,"description":646},"blog\u002Flooking-after-your-climbing-skin",[257,109,656,255,657],"recovery","beginners","DFuzaY2A7AQ6IEHeZXHhUhSNYVAFza543L_pafyhISI",{"id":660,"title":661,"author":6,"body":662,"category":92,"date":758,"description":759,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":760,"imageAlt":761,"imageCredit":762,"imageCreditUrl":763,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":764,"navigation":103,"path":765,"readTime":250,"seo":766,"stem":767,"tags":768,"__hash__":772},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gaston-how-to-climb-holds-you-push-apart.md","The gaston: how to climb holds you push apart",{"type":8,"value":663,"toc":750},[664,668,671,674,678,681,684,688,691,694,698,701,727,731,734,737,740,744,747],[11,665,667],{"id":666},"the-grip-nobody-reaches-for","The grip nobody reaches for",[16,669,670],{},"Most holds you pull down on. A jug, a crimp, a sloper, the instinct is the same: get your fingers over the top and haul. A gaston asks for the opposite. It is a hold you push away from, thumb pointing down, elbow out to the side, pressing sideways rather than pulling under. Think of prying a set of lift doors apart with one hand. That is the shape.",[16,672,673],{},"It is named after Gaston Rebuffat, the French alpinist who was often photographed in exactly that position, and it is one of the least popular grips in climbing. Most people avoid it because it feels weak and a little awkward, so they twist and campus around it instead. Learn to trust it and a whole set of holds that looked useless suddenly go.",[11,675,677],{"id":676},"why-a-gaston-works","Why a gaston works",[16,679,680],{},"A gaston is opposition, the same physics behind a stem or a lieback. On its own, a hold facing the wrong way gives you nothing to hang from. But push outwards against it while your feet and your other hand pull the other way, and the forces lock. Your body becomes the thing that holds you on, not the grip.",[16,682,683],{},"That is the key idea. You almost never gaston in isolation. It works because something else is pulling against it: a foot pressing out, an opposite side pull, your own hips driving into the wall. Set that opposition well and a thin, sideways edge holds your weight cleanly. Miss it and your hand skates off the second you load it.",[11,685,687],{"id":686},"reading-when-to-use-one","Reading when to use one",[16,689,690],{},"You reach for a gaston when a hold faces into your body rather than up. Picture two holds side by side, both with their best edge pointing inward, towards each other. Pulling down does nothing. But push them apart, one in each hand, and you get a stable, powerful position right in the middle. That double gaston is the classic, and it turns a blank-looking pair of holds into a solid stance.",[16,692,693],{},"More often it is a single gaston paired with a side pull or a good foot. If the only usable edge on a hold points sideways or slightly away, and you have something on the other side to press against, that is the moment. Look at the hold, notice which way its positive edge faces, and let that decide the grip. Fighting a gaston hold with a normal pull is how strong climbers still fall off easy moves.",[11,695,697],{"id":696},"setting-it-up","Setting it up",[16,699,700],{},"The position is specific, and getting it right is most of the battle:",[43,702,703,709,715,721],{},[46,704,705,708],{},[49,706,707],{},"Thumb down, elbow out."," Turn your hand so the thumb points at the floor and your elbow lifts away from your body. Your fingers curl onto the edge and you press outward, away from your midline. If your elbow is tucked in, you are not gastoning, you are just pulling badly.",[46,710,711,714],{},[49,712,713],{},"Load through the feet."," A gaston is only as good as the opposition under it. Get a foot pressing outward or down on the far side so there is something for the hand to work against. The more your legs take, the less the shoulder has to.",[46,716,717,720],{},[49,718,719],{},"Keep the shoulder packed."," This is the grip most likely to nip a shoulder, because the arm is out wide and rotated. Keep the shoulder pulled down and engaged, never hanging loose and passive. A slow, controlled press beats a sudden yank every time.",[46,722,723,726],{},[49,724,725],{},"Stay close to the wall."," Let your hips drift out and the angle turns the gaston into a pure sideways pull with nothing behind it. Hips in, weight stacked over your feet, and the press stays honest.",[11,728,730],{"id":729},"where-it-goes-wrong","Where it goes wrong",[16,732,733],{},"The first mistake is not committing. A half-hearted gaston, where you keep some of your weight ready to bail onto a pull, never sets the opposition properly, so it feels awful and confirms your fear of it. Commit to the press and it holds. Hedge and it will not.",[16,735,736],{},"The second is forgetting the feet. Climbers load the hand, feel it slipping, and pull harder with the arm instead of asking where the counter-pressure is meant to come from. Almost always the answer is a foot doing too little. Find the outward push down low and the hand suddenly has something to work with.",[16,738,739],{},"The third is going too hard on the shoulder. A gaston at full stretch with a cold or tired shoulder is a classic way to tweak something. Warm up the position, keep the joint active, and if a move needs a deep, wrenching gaston you are not ready for, there is no shame in finding another way round.",[11,741,743],{"id":742},"drill-it-in","Drill it in",[16,745,746],{},"Pick an easy problem on a vertical or slightly overhanging wall and climb it hunting for gastons. On the board this is even simpler: set two holds at chest width with their edges facing inward and practise the double gaston, pressing out with both hands while your feet press in. Feel how stable the middle becomes once the opposition is set.",[16,748,749],{},"Then start noticing sideways holds everywhere. Every time you meet an edge that faces into your body, stop and ask whether pushing it beats pulling it. Log the problems where a gaston unlocked a move you had been fighting, and over a few sessions the grip that felt weak and awkward becomes just another tool, the one that quietly gets you through sequences other climbers have to muscle.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":751},[752,753,754,755,756,757],{"id":666,"depth":86,"text":667},{"id":676,"depth":86,"text":677},{"id":686,"depth":86,"text":687},{"id":696,"depth":86,"text":697},{"id":729,"depth":86,"text":730},{"id":742,"depth":86,"text":743},"2026-07-10","A gaston is a hold you push away from instead of pulling down on. How to set the opposition, keep the shoulder safe, and use the one grip most climbers avoid.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1744842091446-ee7a0b8fe2dc?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber gripping a hold on a steep rock face","Creed Ferguson","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@fergilicious_photos",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gaston-how-to-climb-holds-you-push-apart",{"title":661,"description":759},"blog\u002Fthe-gaston-how-to-climb-holds-you-push-apart",[385,769,387,770,771],"gaston","holds","opposition","hZiYbArHmKV33wr-ieA2vMwuAy77VBtpG7rbMui7cdU",{"id":774,"title":775,"author":6,"body":776,"category":92,"date":873,"description":874,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":875,"imageAlt":876,"imageCredit":877,"imageCreditUrl":878,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":879,"navigation":103,"path":880,"readTime":250,"seo":881,"stem":882,"tags":883,"__hash__":887},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fstemming-how-to-climb-corners-and-dihedrals.md","Stemming: how to climb corners and dihedrals",{"type":8,"value":777,"toc":864},[778,782,785,788,792,795,798,802,805,825,829,832,835,839,842,845,847,850,853,856,858,861],[11,779,781],{"id":780},"a-hold-you-make-yourself","A hold you make yourself",[16,783,784],{},"Walk up to a corner where two walls meet and the holds look thin, and it is easy to feel cheated. There is nothing obvious to pull on. Stemming, sometimes called bridging, is the answer to exactly that. Instead of hanging off holds, you press outwards against the two facing walls and let the opposition hold you in place. Your feet push apart, the friction takes your weight, and suddenly a feature with barely a hold on it becomes somewhere you can stand all day.",[16,786,787],{},"It is one of the few techniques where the wall does the work for you. Learn to read a corner and you will start walking up ground that stops stronger climbers who only know how to pull.",[11,789,791],{"id":790},"why-opposition-works","Why opposition works",[16,793,794],{},"A stem is a simple bit of physics. Push your left foot into the left wall and your right foot into the right wall, and each push holds the other in place. Neither foot would grip on its own, but together they lock. The steeper and smoother the corner, the more you rely on this, and the more precise your foot pressure has to be.",[16,796,797],{},"The prize is that your weight goes down through your legs, which are strong and do not tire quickly, instead of hanging off your fingers, which are neither. A good stem feels almost like standing in a doorway with a foot on each frame. You are braced, not gripping, and that changes how long you can stay there.",[11,799,801],{"id":800},"setting-the-stem","Setting the stem",[16,803,804],{},"The shape matters more than the effort. A few things to get right:",[43,806,807,813,819],{},[46,808,809,812],{},[49,810,811],{},"Feet wide and level."," Spread your feet onto the best bit of each wall you can find, a small edge, a ripple, or just clean rock for a smear. Push them apart, not down. The wider the stance, the more of your push turns into useful sideways pressure.",[46,814,815,818],{},[49,816,817],{},"Hips into the corner."," Keeping your hips close to the back of the corner stacks your weight over your feet and keeps the pressure honest. Let your backside drift out and away from the rock and the stem starts to slip.",[46,820,821,824],{},[49,822,823],{},"Hands palming, not crimping."," In a real corner there is often nothing to hold, so your hands press flat against the walls the same way your feet do. Palm down and out on the sidewalls for balance and a little extra opposition. Look for the odd side pull to steady yourself, but expect to be pressing more than pulling.",[11,826,828],{"id":827},"moving-up-a-corner","Moving up a corner",[16,830,831],{},"You do not stride up a stem, you shuffle. Keep three points of contact pressing while you move the fourth, then swap. Raise one foot to a slightly higher smear, reset the pressure, then walk your palms up the sidewalls to match. Small steps keep the opposition alive. Big reaches break it, and the moment you lose the outward push you are off.",[16,833,834],{},"Watch your feet as they get higher. On a lot of corners the walls narrow as you climb, which actually helps, because a tighter corner needs less pressure to hold. On others the corner opens out and the stem gets desperate right where you want it to be easy. Read that ahead of time so the widening does not catch you by surprise.",[11,836,838],{"id":837},"the-rest-nobody-else-finds","The rest nobody else finds",[16,840,841],{},"The best thing about a stem is the rest hiding inside it. Once you are braced with a foot on each wall and your weight settled over your legs, you can often take a hand off entirely, hang it by your side, and shake the pump out. On a long pitch that no-hands stem can be the difference between clipping the chains and taking the whip.",[16,843,844],{},"Learn to spot these. Any groove, corner or wide feature on a route is a candidate. When you are pumped and looking for somewhere to recover, stop hunting for a jug and ask whether you can bridge across and stand instead.",[11,846,730],{"id":729},[16,848,849],{},"The usual failure is feet too low and too close together. A narrow, low stem gives you almost no sideways push, so your feet skate and you end up fighting it with your arms. Get the feet wider and think about pressing out, not standing on.",[16,851,852],{},"The second mistake is rushing. Stemming rewards a slow, deliberate pace, and punishes the climber who lunges for the next hold and forgets to keep pushing. If a corner feels frantic, you have probably stopped bracing. Reset your feet, get your hips back in, and slow the whole thing down.",[16,854,855],{},"The last one is forgetting your hands can press too. New climbers reach up a corner looking for something to grip and find nothing, then panic. The palms are holds you make, exactly like the feet. Trust them.",[11,857,743],{"id":742},[16,859,860],{},"Find an easy corner or a gym feature where two walls meet, something well within your grade, and climb it using only stems and palms. Ban yourself from proper holds even if they are there. It will feel strange at first, then it clicks, and you start to feel where the opposition lives. Play with hip position and foot width and notice how much the stance changes with each.",[16,862,863],{},"Then try to find the rest on every corner you climb. Bridge out, drop a hand, and see how long you can stand there breathing. Log the routes where a stem saved you a fall or bought you a shake-out, and over a season you will start seeing corners the way good climbers do, not as blank rock, but as a hold you build with your own two feet.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":865},[866,867,868,869,870,871,872],{"id":780,"depth":86,"text":781},{"id":790,"depth":86,"text":791},{"id":800,"depth":86,"text":801},{"id":827,"depth":86,"text":828},{"id":837,"depth":86,"text":838},{"id":729,"depth":86,"text":730},{"id":742,"depth":86,"text":743},"2026-07-07","Stemming turns two opposing walls into a hold you make yourself. How to set the opposition, keep your weight on your feet, and find a rest where there is no rest.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1659666287295-7da26c3f80d4?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber pressing through their feet on a steep wall","Se. Tsuchiya","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@s_tsuchiya",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fstemming-how-to-climb-corners-and-dihedrals",{"title":775,"description":874},"blog\u002Fstemming-how-to-climb-corners-and-dihedrals",[385,884,885,531,886],"stemming","corners","balance","sY7gW2h3_BH2uTnzWtICgR_vQg1s8bpkeLpxTg6eLno",{"id":889,"title":890,"author":6,"body":891,"category":92,"date":980,"description":981,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":982,"imageAlt":983,"imageCredit":984,"imageCreditUrl":985,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":986,"navigation":103,"path":987,"readTime":250,"seo":988,"stem":989,"tags":990,"__hash__":992},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fflagging-how-to-use-your-free-leg-for-balance.md","Flagging: how to use your free leg for balance",{"type":8,"value":892,"toc":972},[893,897,900,903,907,910,913,917,920,940,943,947,950,953,955,958,961,963,966,969],[11,894,896],{"id":895},"the-leg-you-are-not-standing-on","The leg you are not standing on",[16,898,899],{},"Most of the time we think about the foot that is doing the work: the one pressing on a hold, taking weight, driving the next move. Flagging is about the other one. It is the technique of holding your free leg out somewhere useful, so it acts as a counterweight and steadies the whole body instead of dangling underneath you doing nothing.",[16,901,902],{},"If you have ever reached for a far hold and felt your hips swing away like a door on a hinge, you have met the problem flagging solves. That swing is the barn door, and it comes from your weight sitting off to one side of your points of contact with nothing on the other side to balance it. A flagged leg puts weight back on the empty side and the door stays shut.",[11,904,906],{"id":905},"why-a-spare-leg-is-worth-so-much","Why a spare leg is worth so much",[16,908,909],{},"Climbing is a balancing act more than a pulling one. On a lot of moves you only have three useful points of contact: two hands and one foot. That leaves your body free to rotate around them, and gravity will happily spin you into the least helpful position it can find.",[16,911,912],{},"Your free leg is the cheapest fix available. Swinging it out to the side or behind you shifts your centre of gravity across, back over your feet, and the rotation stops. No extra strength required, no better hold needed. You are just using a limb you were about to waste. Watch a strong climber on a slab or a delicate wall and their free foot is almost never hanging straight down. It is always pointed somewhere, doing a job.",[11,914,916],{"id":915},"the-three-flags","The three flags",[16,918,919],{},"There are three positions worth knowing. They are the same idea aimed in different directions, and which one you use depends on where your weight needs to go.",[43,921,922,928,934],{},[46,923,924,927],{},[49,925,926],{},"The side flag."," Your free leg goes out to the side, foot pressed or smeared flat against the wall for a little friction and a lot of balance. This is the one you reach for when you are stepping through on one foot and need to stop your hips turning out. It is the most common flag and the first to learn.",[46,929,930,933],{},[49,931,932],{},"The rear flag, or back flag."," Your free leg swings behind your standing leg and presses on the wall on the far side. It looks awkward the first few times and feels brilliant once it clicks. Use it when the hold you want is up and across, and a side flag would put your leg in the way. The rear flag lets you turn a hip into the wall and reach long.",[46,935,936,939],{},[49,937,938],{},"The inside flag."," Your free leg crosses in front of the standing leg. It is the least used of the three and can feel cramped, but on some sequences it is the only way to keep your weight centred without moving your feet. Keep it in the toolbox even if you rarely take it out.",[16,941,942],{},"None of these need a foothold. The flagging foot is pressing on blank wall or just hanging in a shape. Its whole purpose is balance, not weight bearing.",[11,944,946],{"id":945},"when-to-reach-for-it","When to reach for it",[16,948,949],{},"Flagging earns its keep any time you are down to one foot. That happens more than you would think: a high step where the other foot has nothing to go to, a long reach off a single good foothold, a move on a slab where the holds are spread out and you are stepping through from one to the next.",[16,951,952],{},"The tell is that swing. If you set off on a move and feel your hips start to rotate, or you find yourself gripping harder with your hands to fight a spin, that is a flag waiting to happen. The hands are rarely the answer. Move the free leg to the opposite side of the swing and let it do the fighting for you.",[11,954,730],{"id":729},[16,956,957],{},"The usual mistake is a lazy flag: the leg goes out but stays limp, so it adds no real counterweight. A flag works because you actively press the foot into the wall and hold tension through the leg. Point the toe, put a bit of pressure on, mean it.",[16,959,960],{},"The other mistake is flagging on the wrong side. The free leg has to go to the side opposite your swing, the empty side, or it does nothing. If you are barn-dooring to the right, the leg needs to go left. Get the side wrong and you have simply moved the problem across. When in doubt, feel which way your body wants to spin and send the leg the other way.",[11,962,743],{"id":742},[16,964,965],{},"Pick an easy vertical problem or a stretch of slab, something well below your limit, and climb it trying to keep one foot flagged on every move where you are on a single foot. Slow right down. Notice how much quieter your body goes once the free leg is placed, and how the hands stop having to work so hard.",[16,967,968],{},"Then find a move that keeps spitting you off sideways and treat it as a flagging puzzle rather than a strength one. Try a side flag, then a rear flag, and feel which one settles you. Nine times out of ten the move was never too hard, your balance was just leaking out through a leg you were not using.",[16,970,971],{},"Log the sessions where flagging turned a scrappy move into a calm one, and the problems where you kept swinging off. Over a few weeks you will see the pattern, and reaching a leg out to stay balanced will stop being a thing you remember to do and start being a thing you just do.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":973},[974,975,976,977,978,979],{"id":895,"depth":86,"text":896},{"id":905,"depth":86,"text":906},{"id":915,"depth":86,"text":916},{"id":945,"depth":86,"text":946},{"id":729,"depth":86,"text":730},{"id":742,"depth":86,"text":743},"2026-07-06","Flagging turns a spare leg into a counterweight that kills the swing before it starts. Here is how the rear, side and inside flags work, and when to reach for each.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1659125017950-c0d2cd51c0ac?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A boulderer with one leg swung out to the side as a counterweight on a steep wall","Dennis Yu","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@far_out",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fflagging-how-to-use-your-free-leg-for-balance",{"title":890,"description":981},"blog\u002Fflagging-how-to-use-your-free-leg-for-balance",[385,991,531,886,388],"flagging","dVtPMWsETUiokTgw00EO8vltXzCp3UKY7UOsBTptO8g",{"id":994,"title":995,"author":6,"body":996,"category":92,"date":1100,"description":1101,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":647,"imageAlt":1102,"imageCredit":649,"imageCreditUrl":650,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1103,"navigation":103,"path":1104,"readTime":250,"seo":1105,"stem":1106,"tags":1107,"__hash__":1109},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-climb-an-arete.md","How to climb an arete: balance, palming and trusting the edge",{"type":8,"value":997,"toc":1091},[998,1002,1005,1008,1012,1015,1018,1022,1025,1028,1032,1035,1061,1065,1068,1071,1075,1078,1081,1085,1088],[11,999,1001],{"id":1000},"what-an-arete-actually-is","What an arete actually is",[16,1003,1004],{},"An arete is the outside corner of the rock, the edge where two faces meet and point out at you rather than folding away. Gritstone is full of them, from the classic prows on the moors to the boulder edges you walk past in the gym. They look striking and they climb like nothing else, because most of the time there is nothing obvious to hold. The line is the feature.",[16,1006,1007],{},"That is the whole puzzle. On a normal wall you pull in towards the rock. On an arete the holds often face opposite directions on either side of the edge, so pulling in does not work. You have to squeeze the corner instead, and let your feet and body position do most of the job.",[11,1009,1011],{"id":1010},"squeeze-do-not-pull","Squeeze, do not pull",[16,1013,1014],{},"The core idea on an arete is compression. Instead of pulling down on holds, you press in on both sides of the edge at once, so your two hands and two feet work against each other and pinch the rock between them. A flat side pull for the left hand, a sloping edge for the right, and the tension between them is what keeps you on.",[16,1016,1017],{},"It feels strange the first few times. You are not hanging off a positive hold, you are holding a shape. The rock stays put because you are gripping it from opposite sides, the way you would carry a heavy box with no handles. Trust that squeeze and a lot of blank-looking edges suddenly go.",[11,1019,1021],{"id":1020},"palm-the-blank-sides","Palm the blank sides",[16,1023,1024],{},"Half the holds on an arete are not holds at all. They are flat panels of rock that you press a palm against for balance and a little friction. A hand pushing flat on the side of the edge gives you something to stack against without needing anything positive to grip.",[16,1026,1027],{},"Use palms to steer and to hold the compression. Often one hand is on a real edge and the other is just pressed flat on the face, and the two together keep you square to the rock. If you catch yourself hunting for a crimp where there plainly is not one, drop the hand flat instead and push.",[11,1029,1031],{"id":1030},"feet-win-it","Feet win it",[16,1033,1034],{},"Aretes are footwork problems wearing a scary costume. Because there is little to pull on, your feet carry more of your weight than usual, and where you put them decides everything.",[43,1036,1037,1043,1049,1055],{},[46,1038,1039,1042],{},[49,1040,1041],{},"Smear the sides."," Just like your hands, your feet often press flat on the blank faces either side of the edge rather than standing on holds. Drop the heel, get rubber on rock and trust the friction.",[46,1044,1045,1048],{},[49,1046,1047],{},"One foot each side."," Bridging your feet onto opposite faces lets you push out against the corner and take the swing out of your body. It is the footwork version of the same squeeze your hands are doing.",[46,1050,1051,1054],{},[49,1052,1053],{},"High feet, hips in."," Getting a foot high and pressing your hips close to the edge keeps your weight over the rock instead of hanging off your arms. The higher you can step, the less your hands have to hold.",[46,1056,1057,1060],{},[49,1058,1059],{},"Outside edge."," Standing on the outside edge of the shoe, little-toe side, lets you turn a hip into the rock and reach past the corner without spinning off.",[11,1062,1064],{"id":1063},"stop-the-barn-door","Stop the barn door",[16,1066,1067],{},"The classic way to fall off an arete is the barn door. Your body swings out sideways like a door on a hinge, because your weight is off to one side of the edge with nothing to counter it, and once it starts you cannot pull it back.",[16,1069,1070],{},"The fix is counter-pressure and body position. A flag, one leg swung out to the side as a counterweight, kills the swing before it starts. So does dropping a heel or a knee to hook the corner, or twisting so your hips face the rock rather than sitting square. If you feel the door beginning to open, the answer is almost never to grip harder with your hands. It is to move a foot or a hip to rebalance.",[11,1072,1074],{"id":1073},"commit-to-the-edge","Commit to the edge",[16,1076,1077],{},"Aretes ask for commitment more than most climbing. Because the holds are indirect and the position feels precarious, it is tempting to climb them tentatively, half in and half out. That usually makes the barn door worse. Once you have the compression set and your feet placed, move with intent to the next position rather than fluttering between them.",[16,1079,1080],{},"Watch someone good on an arete and it looks calm and continuous. They are constantly resetting the squeeze, one side then the other, feet following hands, never letting the tension drop long enough to swing.",[11,1082,1084],{"id":1083},"build-it-in","Build it in",[16,1086,1087],{},"Most walls have an arete somewhere, even if it is just the corner of a bouldering panel. Seek them out and treat them as their own skill. Climb an easy one focusing only on pressing the two sides together. Try one with your feet smeared rather than on holds. Practise flagging the moment you feel a swing.",[16,1089,1090],{},"Log the sessions where the compression clicked and the problems where you kept barn-dooring, and you will see fast whether the fix is your feet, your hips or your nerve. Aretes stop feeling like a trick the day you accept the rock is not going to give you a handle, and start climbing the shape instead.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1092},[1093,1094,1095,1096,1097,1098,1099],{"id":1000,"depth":86,"text":1001},{"id":1010,"depth":86,"text":1011},{"id":1020,"depth":86,"text":1021},{"id":1030,"depth":86,"text":1031},{"id":1063,"depth":86,"text":1064},{"id":1073,"depth":86,"text":1074},{"id":1083,"depth":86,"text":1084},"2026-07-03","Aretes reward balance and body position over raw pulling power. Here is how to use compression, palm the blank sides, keep your hips in and stop barn-dooring off the edge.","A climber balanced on the outside edge of a gritstone arete with feet smeared on the blank sides",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-climb-an-arete",{"title":995,"description":1101},"blog\u002Fhow-to-climb-an-arete",[385,1108,531,388],"arete","jBcLre0CvxYDIvcLQFzZ0Hn4a7kSQ-DpdHuGi7dS448",{"id":1111,"title":1112,"author":6,"body":1113,"category":92,"date":1212,"description":1213,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":244,"imageAlt":1214,"imageCredit":246,"imageCreditUrl":247,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1215,"navigation":103,"path":1216,"readTime":250,"seo":1217,"stem":1218,"tags":1219,"__hash__":1221},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-climb-slabs.md","How to climb slabs: trusting your feet on low-angle rock",{"type":8,"value":1114,"toc":1204},[1115,1119,1122,1125,1129,1132,1135,1138,1142,1145,1148,1174,1178,1181,1184,1188,1191,1194,1198,1201],[11,1116,1118],{"id":1117},"why-slabs-feel-so-wrong","Why slabs feel so wrong",[16,1120,1121],{},"Slabs are the walls that lean back below vertical, where the rock is under your hands rather than over your head. They look like the easy option and they humble people daily. The reason is simple. On a steep wall your hands do a lot of the work, so strength covers for sloppy feet. On a slab there is nothing to pull on, so the feet do everything, and any gap in your footwork shows up at once.",[16,1123,1124],{},"That is what makes slabs worth practising. They are the honest test of whether you can actually stand on rock, or whether you have been getting up things by hauling.",[11,1126,1128],{"id":1127},"weight-over-your-feet-not-into-the-wall","Weight over your feet, not into the wall",[16,1130,1131],{},"The instinct on a slab is to hug the rock. You feel exposed, so you lean in, press your chest to the wall and try to get as close as you can. It feels safer. It is the fastest way to slip.",[16,1133,1134],{},"Leaning in tips your weight away from your feet and out towards your heels, and the moment the pressure comes off the front of the shoe, it skates. What you want is the opposite. Stand up tall, get your hips back over your feet, and keep your weight stacked straight down through the soles. Trust the friction. A shoe pressed straight down onto rock holds far more than most people believe, and far more than a shoe you are trying to smear while hanging off it sideways.",[16,1136,1137],{},"Think of it as standing on the rock rather than clinging to it. The closer your body gets to a normal, upright standing posture, the more the rubber does its job.",[11,1139,1141],{"id":1140},"use-the-whole-foot","Use the whole foot",[16,1143,1144],{},"On steep ground you climb on the front point of the shoe, the bit right by your big toe. On a slab that often changes. When there is no real edge to stand on, you are relying on friction across as much rubber as you can get down, so you roll onto the ball of the foot and drop the heel a little to press more of the sole flat against the rock. That is smearing, and a slab is where it earns its keep.",[16,1146,1147],{},"When there is an edge or a dish, use it, but keep the same principle. Set the foot deliberately, look at it, and then commit your weight through it in one move rather than dabbing and hoping. Slabs reward patience with the feet more than any other angle.",[43,1149,1150,1156,1162,1168],{},[46,1151,1152,1155],{},[49,1153,1154],{},"Quiet feet."," Place, do not slap. A foot that lands softly lands where you aimed it.",[46,1157,1158,1161],{},[49,1159,1160],{},"Look at the foot until it is weighted."," Do not glance away mid-move. Watch it bite, then trust it.",[46,1163,1164,1167],{},[49,1165,1166],{},"Small steps."," High, greedy steps drag your weight off your lower foot. Move up in shorter reaches and stay balanced.",[46,1169,1170,1173],{},[49,1171,1172],{},"Heels down when you smear."," Dropping the heel presses more rubber onto the rock and stops the calf pumping.",[11,1175,1177],{"id":1176},"hands-are-for-balance-not-power","Hands are for balance, not power",[16,1179,1180],{},"On a slab your hands are steering, not lifting. Often the best handholds are nothing more than a flat palm pressed on the rock, or a couple of fingers laid over a ripple to stop you tipping. Use them to keep your balance while your feet do the climbing, and resist the urge to grab and pull. If you find yourself yarding on your arms on a slab, it usually means your feet are in the wrong place or your weight has drifted back.",[16,1182,1183],{},"Palming works because it adds a second point of downward pressure. A flat hand pushing down and slightly out gives you something to balance against without needing a positive hold at all.",[11,1185,1187],{"id":1186},"the-head-is-half-the-battle","The head is half the battle",[16,1189,1190],{},"Slabs frighten people because a slip means a slide, and a slide feels worse than a clean fall even when it is harmless. That fear makes you lean in, which makes you slip, which confirms the fear. It is a loop worth breaking.",[16,1192,1193],{},"The way out is to commit to your feet on easy ground until trusting them stops feeling like a gamble. Spend a session on slabs well within your grade. Stand up on smears you are sure will hold. Feel how much they take before they go. Once your body has proof that the friction is real, the panic that pulls you into the wall starts to fade, and you can climb the harder ones with your weight where it belongs.",[11,1195,1197],{"id":1196},"build-it-into-your-sessions","Build it into your sessions",[16,1199,1200],{},"You do not need a special wall for this. Most gyms have low-angle terrain that everyone walks past on the way to the steep stuff. Warm up on it. Downclimb it. Pick a slab problem a couple of grades below your limit and climb it as slowly and quietly as you can, watching every foot.",[16,1202,1203],{},"Log the sessions where slabs clicked and the moves where you skidded, and the pattern will show you fast whether the problem is your weight, your feet or your nerve. Footwork is a skill you build by repetition, not one you are born with, and the slab is the most patient teacher there is.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1205},[1206,1207,1208,1209,1210,1211],{"id":1117,"depth":86,"text":1118},{"id":1127,"depth":86,"text":1128},{"id":1140,"depth":86,"text":1141},{"id":1176,"depth":86,"text":1177},{"id":1186,"depth":86,"text":1187},{"id":1196,"depth":86,"text":1197},"2026-07-02","Slabs punish bad footwork and reward balance over strength. Here is how to stand on nothing, keep your weight in the right place, and stop skidding off the easy-looking wall.","A climber balanced on a low-angle slab with their weight stacked over their feet",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-climb-slabs",{"title":1112,"description":1213},"blog\u002Fhow-to-climb-slabs",[385,531,1220,657],"slab","udlMQRkEEIpZf6DZfM_q7TdUn8LvT3WpiIwVco2rmIc",{"id":1223,"title":1224,"author":6,"body":1225,"category":92,"date":1328,"description":1329,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":244,"imageAlt":1330,"imageCredit":246,"imageCreditUrl":247,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1331,"navigation":103,"path":1332,"readTime":250,"seo":1333,"stem":1334,"tags":1335,"__hash__":1338},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fcompression-climbing-how-to-squeeze-your-way-up.md","Compression climbing: how to squeeze your way up",{"type":8,"value":1226,"toc":1321},[1227,1231,1234,1237,1240,1244,1247,1250,1253,1257,1260,1292,1295,1299,1302,1305,1308,1311,1315,1318],[11,1228,1230],{"id":1229},"what-compression-climbing-is","What compression climbing is",[16,1232,1233],{},"Most of the time you climb by pulling down. You grab a hold above you, you pull, you move up. Compression is the opposite idea. It is what you do when the holds face each other, or face outwards, and the only way to stay on is to squeeze them together. Instead of hanging off the holds, you press in from both sides and use the tension between your hands and feet to hold yourself to the wall.",[16,1235,1236],{},"Think of carrying a heavy box with no handles. You do not hook your fingers under it, you clamp it between your palms and lift. Compression on the wall works the same way. Two slopers either side of a bulge, a pair of opposing pinches on an arête, a wide feature you have to hug. The grip is in the squeeze, not the grab.",[16,1238,1239],{},"It shows up most on steep ground and on rounded features, which is why it feels so common on modern competition boulders and on outdoor problems with big arêtes and prows. Once you can read it, you start seeing it everywhere.",[11,1241,1243],{"id":1242},"why-it-feels-so-different","Why it feels so different",[16,1245,1246],{},"Pulling down is intuitive. You have done it since you were a child on monkey bars. Compression is not, because it asks your body to generate force sideways and inwards rather than straight down, and it loads muscles you might not lean on much otherwise.",[16,1248,1249],{},"The squeeze comes from your chest, shoulders and back working together, not just your fingers. Your core has to stay tight so the force you make with your hands actually reaches your feet. And your feet matter more than they do almost anywhere else, because a compression position falls apart the moment a foot cuts. Lose the foot tension and the whole structure swings open like a door.",[16,1251,1252],{},"That is the other thing people miss. Compression is a full-body shape, not a hand skill. You are building a rigid frame between four points of contact and squeezing it shut. Soften any corner of that frame and you are off.",[11,1254,1256],{"id":1255},"how-to-climb-a-compression-sequence","How to climb a compression sequence",[16,1258,1259],{},"Break it down and it stops feeling random.",[43,1261,1262,1268,1274,1280,1286],{},[46,1263,1264,1267],{},[49,1265,1266],{},"Read the direction of the holds."," Before you pull on, look at which way the holds face. If they face each other or point outwards, you are squeezing, not pulling. That one observation changes how you set up.",[46,1269,1270,1273],{},[49,1271,1272],{},"Set your feet wide and high."," Compression lives or dies on feet. Get them on, get them weighted, and keep them pressing outwards into the wall to hold the tension. High feet keep your hips in and stop you barn-dooring off the shape.",[46,1275,1276,1279],{},[49,1277,1278],{},"Squeeze before you move."," Build the tension first. Press both hands in, lock your core, feel the wall stop trying to spit you off. Only then move a limb. If you move before you have the squeeze, you come away.",[46,1281,1282,1285],{},[49,1283,1284],{},"Move one point at a time."," Keep three points pressing while the fourth travels. Make small moves, stay compact, and re-establish the squeeze every time you land a hand or a foot. Big lunges are rarely the answer on compression.",[46,1287,1288,1291],{},[49,1289,1290],{},"Stay close."," The further your hips drift from the wall, the harder you have to squeeze to stay on. Keep your body in, keep it tight, and let the structure do the holding rather than your forearms alone.",[16,1293,1294],{},"The feeling you are chasing is a kind of quiet rigidity. When it works, a move that looked desperate becomes a slow, controlled press, because the tension is holding you rather than your fingers clinging on.",[11,1296,1298],{"id":1297},"how-to-train-it","How to train it",[16,1300,1301],{},"Compression rewards a particular mix of strength and body tension, and both respond quickly to focused work.",[16,1303,1304],{},"On a board or a steep wall, set or pick problems that use slopers and pinches rather than positive edges, and force yourself onto features you would normally avoid. Wide pinches, dual-tex slopers and arête-style holds all teach the squeeze. Climbing on them, badly at first, is most of the learning.",[16,1306,1307],{},"Off the wall, the gym staples carry over well. Press movements build the inward force, so dips, push-ups and bench work all help. For raw squeeze, nothing beats actually gripping something hard: pinch blocks, wide grippers, even hanging plates pinched between two fingers and a thumb. Keep the loads sensible and the volume low, because pinch and shoulder work can be taxing on the joints.",[16,1309,1310],{},"The piece people skip is core and foot tension, which is what actually transmits the squeeze to the wall. Front planks, hanging leg raises and any drill that teaches you to keep your feet on steep ground will do more for your compression than another set of curls. The strongest hands in the world are useless on a sloper arête if your feet keep cutting.",[11,1312,1314],{"id":1313},"building-the-habit","Building the habit",[16,1316,1317],{},"The climbers who look calm on steep, rounded ground are not always the strongest. They have learned to read when a move wants a squeeze instead of a pull, to set their feet before their hands, and to build tension before they travel. It is a skill of recognition as much as power.",[16,1319,1320],{},"Log the problems that keep throwing you off, and look for the pattern. If the holds were facing each other and you kept trying to crank down on them, the answer was probably compression all along. Spot it earlier next time, set your feet wide, squeeze before you move, and the wall starts to feel a lot more solid under your hands.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1322},[1323,1324,1325,1326,1327],{"id":1229,"depth":86,"text":1230},{"id":1242,"depth":86,"text":1243},{"id":1255,"depth":86,"text":1256},{"id":1297,"depth":86,"text":1298},{"id":1313,"depth":86,"text":1314},"2026-06-30","Compression is the technique for holds that face each other, where you make progress by squeezing rather than pulling down. Here is how it works and how to train it.","A climber pulling in on a steep overhanging wall",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcompression-climbing-how-to-squeeze-your-way-up",{"title":1224,"description":1329},"blog\u002Fcompression-climbing-how-to-squeeze-your-way-up",[385,1336,388,1337],"movement","strength","LyEMm7vI0yqJhAYi6FgZl4qfgfa4RLswQkBEFdteYBQ",{"id":1340,"title":1341,"author":6,"body":1342,"category":92,"date":1328,"description":1444,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1445,"imageAlt":1446,"imageCredit":1447,"imageCreditUrl":1448,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1449,"navigation":103,"path":1450,"readTime":250,"seo":1451,"stem":1452,"tags":1453,"__hash__":1454},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Flock-offs-building-the-strength-to-stay-still.md","Lock-offs: how to build the strength to stay still",{"type":8,"value":1343,"toc":1437},[1344,1348,1351,1354,1357,1361,1364,1367,1370,1374,1377,1409,1412,1414,1417,1420,1423,1426,1429,1431,1434],[11,1345,1347],{"id":1346},"what-a-lock-off-actually-is","What a lock-off actually is",[16,1349,1350],{},"A lock-off is the moment you hold yourself still on a bent arm so the other hand is free to move. You pull a hold in towards your shoulder, lock it there, and reach. While that reaching hand travels, the locked arm is doing all the work, holding your body in one fixed position against gravity.",[16,1352,1353],{},"It sounds simple, and the idea is. The hard part is the staying still. Most climbers can pull up. Far fewer can stop halfway through a pull and hover there long enough to place the next hand with any control. That pause, held under load, is the lock-off.",[16,1355,1356],{},"You see it everywhere once you look. The slow, deliberate reach on a vertical wall. The climber who matches a small crimp without a scramble. The steady move out of a roof where everyone else throws and hopes. None of it is dynamic. It is strength held quiet.",[11,1358,1360],{"id":1359},"why-it-is-worth-the-effort","Why it is worth the effort",[16,1362,1363],{},"The obvious payoff is reach. If you can lock off at chest height rather than chin height, the next hold sits closer and you arrive at it calm instead of snatching. A controlled reach lets you adjust your grip, find the best part of the hold, and commit only when you are ready.",[16,1365,1366],{},"The less obvious payoff is reading the climb. When you can hold a position, you buy time. Time to spot the foot you missed, to feel whether the hold is any good, to back off a move that is not on rather than falling off it. A climber who can lock off is rarely rushed.",[16,1368,1369],{},"There is a cost side too. Throwing for holds is cheap on the day and expensive over a season, because dynamic moves are harder to control and harder on the fingers when you land them badly. Learning to lock off is part of learning to climb in a way your body can keep doing for years.",[11,1371,1373],{"id":1372},"how-to-do-it-well","How to do it well",[16,1375,1376],{},"The instinct is to treat a lock-off as an arm thing. It is not. It is a whole-body shape, and the arm is just the part you notice.",[43,1378,1379,1385,1391,1397,1403],{},[46,1380,1381,1384],{},[49,1382,1383],{},"Get the hip in first."," A square-on lock-off, chest to the wall, is the weakest version there is. Turn the hip on your pulling side in towards the wall and drop the opposite knee, and the lock suddenly costs far less. The arm holds, but the hips carry.",[46,1386,1387,1390],{},[49,1388,1389],{},"Pull to where you need to be, not as high as you can."," You do not need to lock at full contraction. Lock at the height the next reach needs and no further. Holding a deep lock you do not need just burns the arm.",[46,1392,1393,1396],{},[49,1394,1395],{},"Keep the shoulder engaged."," Let the shoulder pull up into your ear and you hang off the joint rather than holding it. Set the shoulder down and back, keep a little tension through it, and the position feels solid instead of fragile.",[46,1398,1399,1402],{},[49,1400,1401],{},"Weight your feet."," A lock-off with light feet is a pull-up waiting to fail. Push down through the foot on your locked side, keep the other foot pressing, and let your legs share the load. The arm holds the line, the feet hold the weight.",[46,1404,1405,1408],{},[49,1406,1407],{},"Move the free hand smoothly."," Once you are locked, reach in one quiet motion. Hesitate and re-grab and you spend the lock you worked for. Trust the position, place the hand, then move your weight onto it.",[16,1410,1411],{},"The feeling you are after is stillness. Not a strain you are winning by a hair, but a held shape you could sit in for a breath if you had to.",[11,1413,1298],{"id":1297},[16,1415,1416],{},"Lock-off strength responds quickly to focused work, because most climbers have simply never asked for it.",[16,1418,1419],{},"On the wall, the cleanest drill is the slow up-and-down. Pick easy, big holds on a vertical or slightly steep wall. Pull to a lock at chest height, hold for a slow three count, then lower under control rather than dropping. Reach to a hold, touch it, come back without weighting it. You are teaching your body to hold and to lower, which is exactly what a real lock-off asks.",[16,1421,1422],{},"Pick a height to own. Climbers tend to be strong at the top of a pull and weak in the middle. Practise locking at ninety degrees, the halfway point, where it is hardest, and the easier angles look after themselves.",[16,1424,1425],{},"Off the wall, the same idea carries over. On a pull-up bar, hold at the top, then hold at ninety degrees, then lower as slowly as you can manage. If full lock-offs are out of reach, a band under one foot or a partner taking some weight lets you train the position before you can hold all of it. Build slowly, keep the volume sensible, and give your elbows and shoulders time to catch up with your ambition.",[16,1427,1428],{},"The piece people skip is the lower. Coming down slowly builds the same strength as holding still and is far kinder to learn on. If you only ever pull up fast and drop off, you are training half the skill.",[11,1430,1314],{"id":1313},[16,1432,1433],{},"The climbers who look unhurried on hard ground are not always pulling harder than you. They have learned to find a position and stay in it, to set the hip and the shoulder and the feet so the arm has less to do, and to reach only once they are settled.",[16,1435,1436],{},"Watch for the moves where you snatch. If you keep throwing for a hold you could in theory reach, the answer is usually a lock-off you have not built yet. Log those moves, train the held position, and the next time you arrive there you can take the hold slowly. Quiet strength reads as control, and control is most of what looks like climbing well.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1438},[1439,1440,1441,1442,1443],{"id":1346,"depth":86,"text":1347},{"id":1359,"depth":86,"text":1360},{"id":1372,"depth":86,"text":1373},{"id":1297,"depth":86,"text":1298},{"id":1313,"depth":86,"text":1314},"A lock-off is holding a bent arm steady while your other hand moves. Here is why it matters, how to do it well, and how to train the strength to stay still.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1649603202795-2c0a1b3a49e1?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber holding a locked-off position on a steep wall, reaching for the next hold","Iori Ikeda","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@iorin",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Flock-offs-building-the-strength-to-stay-still",{"title":1341,"description":1444},"blog\u002Flock-offs-building-the-strength-to-stay-still",[385,1336,1337,388],"8E6Foc-csoVS9tDlbITOgw1OTr83SFfYTmj22bfHZ58",{"id":1456,"title":1457,"author":6,"body":1458,"category":92,"date":1534,"description":1535,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1536,"imageAlt":1537,"imageCredit":1538,"imageCreditUrl":1539,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1540,"navigation":103,"path":1541,"readTime":250,"seo":1542,"stem":1543,"tags":1544,"__hash__":1545},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fside-pulls-and-underclings.md","Side pulls and underclings: holds that don't pull down",{"type":8,"value":1459,"toc":1526},[1460,1464,1467,1470,1474,1477,1480,1483,1487,1490,1493,1496,1500,1503,1506,1510,1513,1516,1520,1523],[11,1461,1463],{"id":1462},"the-hold-that-does-not-pull-down","The hold that does not pull down",[16,1465,1466],{},"Early on, climbing makes sense in one direction. You find a hold, you pull down on it, you go up. Jugs reward that, and for a while it is enough. Then you meet a hold that faces sideways, or one that is upside down, and pulling down on it does nothing. Your hand greases off, your feet cut, and you come off a move that looked easy from the ground.",[16,1468,1469],{},"Those are side pulls and underclings, and they are not awkward versions of a normal hold. They are holds that want to be used in a particular direction, and once you learn to give them that direction they turn solid. The trick is never in the hand. It is in where you put the rest of your body.",[11,1471,1473],{"id":1472},"how-a-side-pull-works","How a side pull works",[16,1475,1476],{},"A side pull is a hold you pull sideways on rather than down. Picture a hold with its best edge facing to your right. If you stand square underneath it and pull down, your fingers skate off the rounded part. The hold has nothing for you in that direction.",[16,1478,1479],{},"Now move your body to the left of it and pull across, towards your centre. Suddenly the edge bites. You are loading the hold the way it faces, and the wall pushes back through your arm in a straight line. The hold has not changed. Your position has.",[16,1481,1482],{},"The whole skill is opposition. A side pull only feels secure when something is pulling the other way, and that something is usually a foot. Get a foot out wide on the opposite side, press into it, and your body hangs between the hand and the foot like a taut line. Climbers call it a layback when it is exaggerated, but the same idea runs through almost every side pull on the wall. Pull in with the hand, push out with the foot, and let the tension hold you on.",[11,1484,1486],{"id":1485},"how-an-undercling-works","How an undercling works",[16,1488,1489],{},"An undercling is a hold you grab from below, palm up, and pull up into. They look hopeless until you use them, because the higher your hand sits the weaker an undercling feels, and the lower it sits relative to you the more powerful it becomes.",[16,1491,1492],{},"That is the key to the whole thing. An undercling pays you back when you get your feet high. Find the hold, take it palm up, then walk your feet up the wall until the undercling is around waist height. Now your arm can pull up and in against it, your body presses away, and you get a stable platform to reach from. Try to use the same hold with your feet low and your arm stretched above your head and it gives you almost nothing.",[16,1494,1495],{},"So the move is always feet first. See the undercling, get your feet up, stand into it, then reach through with the other hand while the undercling holds your body to the wall. Done well it is one of the most stable positions in climbing. Done with low feet it is one of the most desperate.",[11,1497,1499],{"id":1498},"reading-which-way-a-hold-faces","Reading which way a hold faces",[16,1501,1502],{},"Before you pull on anything, ask which direction it wants to be loaded. Most holds tell you if you look. The thickest, most positive part of the edge is the bit you want pointing towards your pulling direction. A hold with its good edge on the left is a right hand side pull. A hold scooped out underneath is an undercling waiting for high feet.",[16,1504,1505],{},"On the ground this is easy to practise. Look at a problem and name each hold out loud: down pull, side pull, undercling, pinch. Then plan where your body has to be to load each one properly. Most blown sequences are not a strength problem. They are a climber pulling down on a hold that was never going to reward it.",[11,1507,1509],{"id":1508},"drilling-it","Drilling it",[16,1511,1512],{},"Pick something a couple of grades below your limit and climb it twice. The first time, use every hold as a straight down pull and feel how many moves fight back. The second time, look for the side pulls and underclings and set your body up for them. Wide foot and pull across for the side pulls. High feet and stand in for the underclings. The same route will feel like a different climb.",[16,1514,1515],{},"A good standalone drill is to find a single side pull at a comfortable height and move your feet around underneath it. Notice how the hold feels solid when your weight hangs opposite it and useless when you stand square below. That contrast is the lesson, and once your body knows it you stop wrestling holds and start reading them.",[11,1517,1519],{"id":1518},"the-habit-worth-building","The habit worth building",[16,1521,1522],{},"Strong fingers help, but reading direction helps more, and it improves far faster. The climbers who flow through steep, holds-everywhere sequences are not gripping harder than you. They are giving every hold the angle it asks for, then letting opposition between hand and foot do the holding.",[16,1524,1525],{},"Log the moves that keep spitting you off and look at the hold you were on. More often than not it was a side pull you tried to pull down on, or an undercling you used with low feet. Fix the direction, fix your feet, and the move quietly solves itself.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1527},[1528,1529,1530,1531,1532,1533],{"id":1462,"depth":86,"text":1463},{"id":1472,"depth":86,"text":1473},{"id":1485,"depth":86,"text":1486},{"id":1498,"depth":86,"text":1499},{"id":1508,"depth":86,"text":1509},{"id":1518,"depth":86,"text":1519},"2026-06-26","Most beginners only trust a hold they can pull straight down on. Side pulls and underclings reward the opposite. Here is how to read them and use your body to make them feel solid.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1696105539018-a73a53770934?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber pulling sideways on a hold on an indoor wall","Nathan Cima","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@nathan_cima",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fside-pulls-and-underclings",{"title":1457,"description":1535},"blog\u002Fside-pulls-and-underclings",[385,1336,770,657],"1yMjsRU2bgsr6bV-mKXjzn__YWJ3Y2VTQn4oClYl1IY",{"id":1547,"title":1548,"author":6,"body":1549,"category":92,"date":1534,"description":1635,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1636,"imageAlt":1637,"imageCredit":1638,"imageCreditUrl":1639,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1640,"navigation":103,"path":1641,"readTime":105,"seo":1642,"stem":1643,"tags":1644,"__hash__":1645},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-rockover-standing-up-on-a-high-foot.md","The rockover: how to stand up on a high foot",{"type":8,"value":1550,"toc":1628},[1551,1555,1558,1561,1565,1568,1571,1575,1578,1604,1607,1611,1614,1617,1620,1622,1625],[11,1552,1554],{"id":1553},"what-a-rockover-actually-is","What a rockover actually is",[16,1556,1557],{},"A rockover is the move you make when you bring a foot up high, then stand on it to reach the next hold. Instead of hauling yourself up with your arms, you shift your weight sideways over the high foot until your leg can press you up. The hands go quiet, the leg does the work, and you rise into the next position rather than yanking towards it.",[16,1559,1560],{},"It is one of the most common moves in climbing and one of the first that separates people who climb with their feet from people who climb with their arms. Slabs are built on it. Vertical walls are full of it. Even on steep ground, the ability to commit your hips over a foot is what lets you reach in control instead of throwing for the hold and hoping.",[11,1562,1564],{"id":1563},"why-it-feels-so-hard-at-first","Why it feels so hard at first",[16,1566,1567],{},"The reason a rockover feels awkward early on is that it asks you to do the opposite of what fear tells you. To stand up on a high foot you have to move your weight away from the wall and out over your knee, and every instinct says hug the rock. So new climbers keep their hips back, leave their weight on their arms, and try to muscle up off a bent leg. The foot skids, the arms tire, and the move feels impossible.",[16,1569,1570],{},"The other half of it is flexibility and trust. A high step puts your knee up near your chest, which feels cramped, and standing up out of that position takes both hip mobility and the belief that the foot will hold. It almost always will. Rubber on a decent foothold has far more friction than it feels like it should, and most failed rockovers come from not committing, not from the foot actually slipping.",[11,1572,1574],{"id":1573},"how-to-do-one","How to do one",[16,1576,1577],{},"Break it into four parts and it stops being mysterious.",[43,1579,1580,1586,1592,1598],{},[46,1581,1582,1585],{},[49,1583,1584],{},"Pick the foot, then look at it."," Choose the highest foothold you can use without your hips collapsing, and watch your toe onto it. Place it precisely, big toe down, so you can pivot on it later. A sloppy placement you cannot trust is the root of most blown rockovers.",[46,1587,1588,1591],{},[49,1589,1590],{},"Turn the hip in."," Drop the same-side hip towards the wall and let your knee fall out to the side. This is the quiet trick. Turning the hip brings your centre of gravity over the foot and stops you fighting the move square-on.",[46,1593,1594,1597],{},[49,1595,1596],{},"Shift, do not pull."," Move your weight sideways and up until it sits over the high foot, then press through that leg to stand. Keep your arms straight and light. They are there for balance, not to lift you.",[46,1599,1600,1603],{},[49,1601,1602],{},"Rise and reach."," As the leg straightens, your hand floats up to the next hold. If you have committed your weight properly the reach feels calm, almost slow, because the hold comes to you.",[16,1605,1606],{},"The whole thing lives or dies on that weight shift. Stay over your old foot and the leg has nothing to push against. Get your hips over the new one and a move that felt desperate turns into standing up off a chair.",[11,1608,1610],{"id":1609},"where-to-practise-it","Where to practise it",[16,1612,1613],{},"Find an easy slab or a low-angle section a couple of grades below your limit and make a drill of it. Climb it using the highest feet you can, and on every move force yourself to stand up fully on the lower foot before you reach. No pulling with the arms. If you can take a hand off at the top of each rockover and tap the wall, you have done it properly.",[16,1615,1616],{},"A useful exercise is to climb something with your hands on jugs and your eyes only on your feet, choosing high steps you would normally avoid. Without the option to pull hard, you are forced to learn the weight shift. It feels slow and deliberate at first. That is the point.",[16,1618,1619],{},"Strength helps a little, but a rockover is mostly balance and commitment, which means it improves fast once you stop fighting it. Drill it for a few sessions and you will start spotting high feet you used to walk past, and standing up on them like they were always there.",[11,1621,1314],{"id":1313},[16,1623,1624],{},"The climbers who flow up vertical ground are rarely the strongest in the room. They have simply learned to trust their feet and put their weight where it belongs. The rockover is the clearest version of that habit: commit over the foot, let the leg do the work, keep the hands honest.",[16,1626,1627],{},"Log the moves that catch you out. When a sequence keeps spitting you off, ask whether you are trying to pull through a section that wants a rockover instead. More often than not the answer is in your feet, and the fix is to stand up rather than hang on.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1629},[1630,1631,1632,1633,1634],{"id":1553,"depth":86,"text":1554},{"id":1563,"depth":86,"text":1564},{"id":1573,"depth":86,"text":1574},{"id":1609,"depth":86,"text":1610},{"id":1313,"depth":86,"text":1314},"The rockover is the move that turns a high step into a stand. Here is what it is, why it feels so hard at first, and how to drill it.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.pexels.com\u002Fphotos\u002F5384172\u002Fpexels-photo-5384172.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&fit=crop&w=1600&h=900","A climber stepping up onto a high foothold on an indoor wall","Allan Mas","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.pexels.com\u002F@allan-mas",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-rockover-standing-up-on-a-high-foot",{"title":1548,"description":1635},"blog\u002Fthe-rockover-standing-up-on-a-high-foot",[385,1336,531,886],"2WqMU2G-2ZgnlFYr2CwKHOHww8taIQkvW_kSmMkuwo0",{"id":1647,"title":1648,"author":6,"body":1649,"category":92,"date":1715,"description":1716,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1717,"imageAlt":1718,"imageCredit":1719,"imageCreditUrl":1720,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1721,"navigation":103,"path":1722,"readTime":105,"seo":1723,"stem":1724,"tags":1725,"__hash__":1728},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fknee-bars-how-to-find-a-no-hands-rest.md","Knee bars: how to find a no-hands rest",{"type":8,"value":1650,"toc":1709},[1651,1655,1658,1661,1665,1668,1671,1674,1678,1681,1684,1698,1701,1703,1706],[11,1652,1654],{"id":1653},"what-a-knee-bar-actually-does","What a knee bar actually does",[16,1656,1657],{},"A knee bar is a rest hiding in plain sight. You wedge the soft part of your lower thigh, just above the knee, against a hold or a feature, push your toe into an opposing foothold, and flex your calf so the two press hard against each other. Done well it locks your body into the wall with no hands at all. On steep limestone and on overhanging plastic it is one of the most useful things you can learn, because the thing that pumps you out is your arms taking all the weight, and a knee bar hands that job to your legs.",[16,1659,1660],{},"The best of them let you drop both hands, shake out one arm at a time, chalk up, breathe, and read the next section while you recover. A move that felt like a sprint becomes a place to stand. Strong steep climbers are not always stronger than you. Often they have simply found the rest you walked straight past.",[11,1662,1664],{"id":1663},"how-to-set-one-up","How to set one up",[16,1666,1667],{},"Three points of contact is the goal: the knee bar itself, the toe driving into it, and your free foot pressing somewhere on the wall for balance. Find a foothold, then look for anything above and opposite it that your thigh can push up into. A flat edge, the underside of a bulge, a jug you are not using for your hands. Slot the leg in, point your toe at the opposing hold, and flex the calf to jam the two together. When it bites you will feel the pressure run through your shin, and your hips will settle in towards the rock.",[16,1669,1670],{},"The distance between your toe and the top of your knee is fixed, so a knee bar either fits a gap or it does not. Climbers call that span your shindex. Once you have a sense of it you start seeing slots at the right width everywhere, and you stop trying to force your leg into gaps that were never going to hold.",[16,1672,1673],{},"Use your other leg to take the swing. Flag the free foot against the wall so that when you release the bar your weight has somewhere to go instead of barn-dooring you off sideways.",[11,1675,1677],{"id":1676},"spotting-them-before-you-pump-out","Spotting them before you pump out",[16,1679,1680],{},"The reason most climbers miss knee bars is that they are looking for handholds, not leg slots. Retrain the eye. When you read a steep problem from the ground, hunt for the obvious things first: a roof lip, a big incut foothold under a bulge, two features the right distance apart. Those are where the rests live.",[16,1682,1683],{},"A few reliable signs a knee bar is on:",[43,1685,1686,1689,1692,1695],{},[46,1687,1688],{},"A roof or a steep bulge with a positive foothold tucked underneath it.",[46,1690,1691],{},"A jug you have already used for your hands that sits at thigh height once your feet come up.",[46,1693,1694],{},"Two opposing features roughly a shin apart, one to push the toe into and one to take the knee.",[46,1696,1697],{},"That moment on an overhang where your hips have drifted away from the wall and you need to pull them back in.",[16,1699,1700],{},"If a position feels almost solid but slips, do not give up on it. Small changes fix most failed knee bars. Try a higher or lower foothold, a different toe angle, a touch more hip height, or swapping to the other leg entirely. A bar that felt impossible can turn rock solid with an inch of adjustment.",[11,1702,1314],{"id":1313},[16,1704,1705],{},"Knee bars reward time on steep ground more than raw strength. Pick an overhanging route or a board problem a few grades below your limit and make a game of finding a knee bar on it, even where you do not strictly need the rest. You will learn what your shindex fits, how hard to flex to make a bar hold, and how much weight really comes off your hands when you commit to one.",[16,1707,1708],{},"Keep a note of the ones that worked. The crux you keep falling off is often not a strength problem at all. It is a rest you have not found yet, and once you log where the good knee bars are on a project, the redpoint starts to feel a lot more like standing and a lot less like hanging on.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1710},[1711,1712,1713,1714],{"id":1653,"depth":86,"text":1654},{"id":1663,"depth":86,"text":1664},{"id":1676,"depth":86,"text":1677},{"id":1313,"depth":86,"text":1314},"2026-06-24","What a knee bar does, how to set one up, and how to spot the rests that let you drop a hand on steep ground.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1501450753566-4977b58843ef?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber working a steep indoor wall","roya ann miller","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@royaannmiller",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fknee-bars-how-to-find-a-no-hands-rest",{"title":1648,"description":1716},"blog\u002Fknee-bars-how-to-find-a-no-hands-rest",[385,1336,1726,1727],"steep","resting","LgVwMg-tJnv0Cx0ef5q6EOf97MRdAzI9yBwpHW9VzsI",{"id":1730,"title":1731,"author":6,"body":1732,"category":92,"date":1826,"description":1827,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1828,"imageAlt":1829,"imageCredit":1830,"imageCreditUrl":1831,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1832,"navigation":103,"path":1833,"readTime":250,"seo":1834,"stem":1835,"tags":1836,"__hash__":1838},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fantagonist-training-for-climbers.md","Antagonist training for climbers",{"type":8,"value":1733,"toc":1820},[1734,1738,1741,1744,1748,1751,1771,1774,1778,1781,1807,1810,1814,1817],[11,1735,1737],{"id":1736},"climbing-is-all-pull","Climbing is all pull",[16,1739,1740],{},"Think about what your body does on the wall. You pull down, you pull in, you close your fingers, you round your shoulders forwards to hug the rock. Hour after hour, session after session, it is almost entirely pulling and closing. Over time that one-sided diet shapes you. Shoulders drift forwards, chests tighten, and the muscles and tendons that should balance all that pull get steadily outmuscled.",[16,1742,1743],{},"Antagonist training is the unglamorous fix. The antagonists are the muscles that do the opposite of the climbing movement: the ones that push, that open the hand, that pull the shoulders back. Training them does not make you a better climber in any direct, send-it-tomorrow way. What it does is keep your shoulders and elbows healthy enough to keep climbing, which over a few years matters far more than any single grade.",[11,1745,1747],{"id":1746},"what-gets-out-of-balance","What gets out of balance",[16,1749,1750],{},"A few specific imbalances crop up again and again in climbers.",[43,1752,1753,1759,1765],{},[46,1754,1755,1758],{},[49,1756,1757],{},"Shoulders and chest."," All that pulling and hugging the wall pulls the shoulders forward and tightens the front of the chest. The muscles that retract the shoulder blades and rotate the shoulder outwards get weak and lazy by comparison.",[46,1760,1761,1764],{},[49,1762,1763],{},"Elbows."," Heavy gripping loads the muscles on the inside of the forearm and elbow constantly. The opposing muscles on the outside rarely get worked, and that mismatch is part of why climbers so often grumble about sore elbows.",[46,1766,1767,1770],{},[49,1768,1769],{},"Fingers and hands."," Climbing only ever asks your fingers to close. The muscles that open the hand do almost nothing, and that lopsided loading contributes to cranky finger and forearm tendons.",[16,1772,1773],{},"None of this is dramatic on any given day. It accumulates quietly, and then one session your shoulder or elbow starts complaining and does not stop.",[11,1775,1777],{"id":1776},"the-exercises-that-fix-it","The exercises that fix it",[16,1779,1780],{},"The whole point is that these are simple, cheap, and do not need much time. You are not building a bodybuilder's chest, you are restoring balance.",[43,1782,1783,1789,1795,1801],{},[46,1784,1785,1788],{},[49,1786,1787],{},"Pushing."," Press-ups are the obvious one and they cost nothing. Dips, shoulder presses, or any overhead push also work. A couple of sets a few times a week is plenty.",[46,1790,1791,1794],{},[49,1792,1793],{},"Shoulder external rotation and pull-aparts."," With a light resistance band, rotate your forearm outwards against the band, and pull a band apart in front of you to draw the shoulder blades together. These wake up the small muscles that hold the shoulder in good position.",[46,1796,1797,1800],{},[49,1798,1799],{},"Reverse wrist work."," Light reverse wrist curls, or simply extending your fingers against a rubber band looped around the fingertips, train the wrist and finger extensors that climbing ignores. This is one of the most common pieces of elbow-pain prevention advice for climbers.",[46,1802,1803,1806],{},[49,1804,1805],{},"Reverse flies and rows variations."," Anything that pulls the shoulder blades back and down counteracts the forward-rounded climbing posture.",[16,1808,1809],{},"Keep the loads light and the reps controlled. This is maintenance work, not a strength contest. Done with bad form and too much weight, antagonist training can become its own source of strain.",[11,1811,1813],{"id":1812},"fitting-it-in-without-it-becoming-a-chore","Fitting it in without it becoming a chore",[16,1815,1816],{},"The honest truth about antagonist work is that nobody enjoys it, so the trick is to make it frictionless. Tack a couple of band exercises onto the end of a climbing session while you are still at the wall. Do press-ups and band pull-aparts at home on a rest day. Keep a band in your bag so there is no excuse. Two or three short doses a week, every week, beat one heroic session you never repeat.",[16,1818,1819],{},"You will not feel a difference in a fortnight. You feel it over years, in the shoulders and elbows that do not blow up, and in the simple fact of still climbing while training partners are sidelined nursing tendons. Logging these little maintenance sessions alongside your climbing can help, if only because seeing the gaps is what nudges you to keep them up.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1821},[1822,1823,1824,1825],{"id":1736,"depth":86,"text":1737},{"id":1746,"depth":86,"text":1747},{"id":1776,"depth":86,"text":1777},{"id":1812,"depth":86,"text":1813},"2026-06-17","Push to balance all that pull — the unglamorous exercises that keep shoulders and elbows healthy.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1682685796186-1bb4a5655653?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber on an outdoor rock face","NEOM","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@neom",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fantagonist-training-for-climbers",{"title":1731,"description":1827},"blog\u002Fantagonist-training-for-climbers",[109,1837,1337],"injury prevention","Px5DJLS6g78W3Qe6ixWssAeWHUF3WRKowGevBdv0bwQ",{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":1840,"category":92,"date":93,"description":94,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":97,"imageAlt":98,"imageCredit":99,"imageCreditUrl":100,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1892,"navigation":103,"path":104,"readTime":105,"seo":1893,"stem":107,"tags":1894,"__hash__":112},{"type":8,"value":1841,"toc":1886},[1842,1844,1846,1848,1850,1852,1854,1856,1858,1860,1878,1880,1882,1884],[11,1843,14],{"id":13},[16,1845,18],{},[16,1847,21],{},[11,1849,25],{"id":24},[16,1851,28],{},[16,1853,31],{},[16,1855,34],{},[11,1857,38],{"id":37},[16,1859,41],{},[43,1861,1862,1866,1870,1874],{},[46,1863,1864,52],{},[49,1865,51],{},[46,1867,1868,58],{},[49,1869,57],{},[46,1871,1872,64],{},[49,1873,63],{},[46,1875,1876,70],{},[49,1877,69],{},[16,1879,73],{},[11,1881,77],{"id":76},[16,1883,80],{},[16,1885,83],{},{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1887},[1888,1889,1890,1891],{"id":13,"depth":86,"text":14},{"id":24,"depth":86,"text":25},{"id":37,"depth":86,"text":38},{"id":76,"depth":86,"text":77},{},{"title":5,"description":94},[109,110,111],{"id":1896,"title":1897,"author":6,"body":1898,"category":92,"date":1964,"description":1965,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1966,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":1968,"imageCreditUrl":1969,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":1970,"navigation":103,"path":1971,"readTime":105,"seo":1972,"stem":1973,"tags":1974,"__hash__":1975},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-drop-knee-explained.md","The drop knee, explained",{"type":8,"value":1899,"toc":1958},[1900,1904,1907,1910,1914,1917,1920,1934,1937,1941,1944,1947,1950,1952,1955],[11,1901,1903],{"id":1902},"what-a-drop-knee-actually-does","What a drop knee actually does",[16,1905,1906],{},"A drop knee, sometimes called an Egyptian, is a way of turning your hip into the wall so hard that your bent knee points down and inward. You take two feet that are roughly level, point one set of toes outward, and rotate the knee down so the hip pulls in tight to the wall. The effect is twofold. It pulls your centre of gravity in towards the rock, which takes weight off your arms, and it lengthens your reach on the opposite side because the turned hip pushes that shoulder upward and outward.",[16,1908,1909],{},"On steep ground that second point matters enormously. The thing that makes overhangs feel desperate is that your body hangs away from the wall and your arms hold all the weight. A drop knee fights both problems at once, which is why strong steep climbers reach for it constantly.",[11,1911,1913],{"id":1912},"when-to-reach-for-one","When to reach for one",[16,1915,1916],{},"The classic situation is two footholds at a similar height with a long reach above. If you simply face the wall and pull, the far hold is miles away and your hips sag off the rock. Drop the knee on the side away from the reach, and your body rotates so the reaching arm gets longer and your hips press in. The move that felt like a dyno becomes a static stretch.",[16,1918,1919],{},"A few signs that a drop knee is the answer:",[43,1921,1922,1925,1928,1931],{},[46,1923,1924],{},"The reach is long and to one side, and squaring up leaves you short.",[46,1926,1927],{},"You have a foothold out wide that you could turn off, not just stand on.",[46,1929,1930],{},"You are getting barn-doored away from the wall and need to lock your hips in.",[46,1932,1933],{},"You want a rest on steep ground and need to take weight off your arms.",[16,1935,1936],{},"It is less useful on slabs and gentle vertical ground, where you are not fighting to stay on the wall and a simple high step does the job with less faff.",[11,1938,1940],{"id":1939},"how-to-find-the-position","How to find the position",[16,1942,1943],{},"Set the foot you want to drop with your toes pointing outward, roughly in the direction your knee will end up. Then rotate that knee down and in while you push your hip towards the rock. You should feel the inside of your hip and your standing leg take real tension, and you should feel your weight settle onto the feet rather than the hands.",[16,1945,1946],{},"The most common mistake is not committing to the turn. A timid half-drop does almost nothing. The hip has to rotate properly into the wall for the position to bite. The second mistake is dropping the knee too far below the foothold, which can put an uncomfortable load through the knee joint. Keep the rotation in the hip and do not crank the knee into a position that hurts.",[16,1948,1949],{},"Watch your shoes too. A drop knee asks a lot of the toe you are turning off, so place that foot precisely and trust it. If the foot pops, the whole position collapses and you swing out.",[11,1951,1314],{"id":1313},[16,1953,1954],{},"Drop knees feel awkward until they suddenly feel obvious. The fastest way there is to over-use them on easy steep terrain. Pick an overhanging route a few grades below your limit and look for a drop knee on every move, even where you do not strictly need one. You will learn how the hip turn changes your reach and how much weight comes off your arms.",[16,1956,1957],{},"Once it clicks, you will start spotting drop knees in the route read before you even pull on, and steep climbing stops feeling like an arm contest. That is the whole point: the same move, far less pump.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":1959},[1960,1961,1962,1963],{"id":1902,"depth":86,"text":1903},{"id":1912,"depth":86,"text":1913},{"id":1939,"depth":86,"text":1940},{"id":1313,"depth":86,"text":1314},"2026-06-15","What a drop knee does, when to reach for one, and how to find the position on steep ground.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1650819521156-d69c6a5a4564?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber working a bouldering problem","Ruben Vermeulen","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@ruben7511",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-drop-knee-explained",{"title":1897,"description":1965},"blog\u002Fthe-drop-knee-explained",[385,1336,1726],"n5VsHnedfPqN9py-HqWuYCxy38FeNKODMVbBFkvfpvI",{"id":1977,"title":1978,"author":6,"body":1979,"category":92,"date":2056,"description":2057,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2058,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2059,"imageCreditUrl":2060,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2061,"navigation":103,"path":2062,"readTime":105,"seo":2063,"stem":2064,"tags":2065,"__hash__":2068},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fmantling-how-to-top-out-with-confidence.md","Mantling: how to top out with confidence",{"type":8,"value":1980,"toc":2050},[1981,1985,1988,1991,1995,1998,2024,2027,2031,2034,2037,2040,2044,2047],[11,1982,1984],{"id":1983},"the-move-that-finishes-the-climb","The move that finishes the climb",[16,1986,1987],{},"Plenty of boulders are won at the bottom and lost at the top. You fight through the crux, pull onto the finishing jug, and then have to get your body up and over a rounded lip with nothing good to pull on. That last bit is the mantle, and it undoes more climbers than the hard moves below it. It is essentially a press-up done over the edge of the wall, and if you have never practised it on purpose, it tends to feel far more frightening than it should.",[16,1989,1990],{},"The reason it spooks people is that a mantle asks you to commit your weight onto your hands, push your body up, and rock over the top while you are high above the pads and looking down. Strength helps, but mostly it is a sequence problem. Break it into stages and it stops being a panic and starts being a procedure.",[11,1992,1994],{"id":1993},"the-sequence-step-by-step","The sequence, step by step",[16,1996,1997],{},"Think of the mantle in four phases. Set the hands, get the feet, press, and rock over.",[43,1999,2000,2006,2012,2018],{},[46,2001,2002,2005],{},[49,2003,2004],{},"Set the hands."," Get both hands onto the top, flat on the surface if it is rounded, or pulling down on whatever edge exists. On a real top-out the surface is often a slopey shelf, so you are pressing down rather than gripping.",[46,2007,2008,2011],{},[49,2009,2010],{},"Get a foot high."," This is the part people skip. Bring a foot up onto a hold or smear near the lip so you can drive with your leg instead of trying to muscle the whole thing with your arms. A high heel hook on the lip is gold when it is available.",[46,2013,2014,2017],{},[49,2015,2016],{},"Press."," Straighten your arms to push your shoulders above your hands. Your wrists bend back and your palms take the weight, which feels alien at first and is exactly why you practise it low down.",[46,2019,2020,2023],{},[49,2021,2022],{},"Rock over."," Shift your weight forwards over your hands and bring a knee or foot up onto the surface. Once your centre of gravity is over the top, the fight is basically over.",[16,2025,2026],{},"The order matters. Most failed mantles come from trying to press before the feet are set, so all the load lands on the arms and the climber stalls halfway up with their hips pinned below the lip.",[11,2028,2030],{"id":2029},"drills-to-build-it","Drills to build it",[16,2032,2033],{},"You do not need a top-out to practise mantling. The basic press is easy to rehearse safely close to the ground.",[16,2035,2036],{},"Find any waist-height ledge, boulder, or sturdy box. Place both palms flat, press down until your arms are straight and your hips rise, then bring a foot up and rock over onto it. Do it slowly and feel where your weight goes. The two things to drill are pressing into a flat palm with the wrist bent back, and the forward shift of weight over the hands. Both feel uncomfortable until they are familiar.",[16,2038,2039],{},"It is also worth strengthening the press itself. Triceps dips, planche-style presses, and simple press-ups all carry directly onto the wall. The wrist position is its own thing, though, so spend time loading a flat-palm press rather than only training pulls.",[11,2041,2043],{"id":2042},"commit-and-look-up","Commit, and look up",[16,2045,2046],{},"The last piece is mental. A mantle done tentatively, with your weight hanging back and your eyes locked on the drop, almost always fails. Once your hands and feet are set, the safest thing you can do is commit decisively to the rock-over. Look up and forward, not down. Hesitating mid-press is what leaves you stuck.",[16,2048,2049],{},"If top-outs make you nervous, that is normal and worth respecting outdoors, where the consequences are real and a spotter and good pads matter. But the move itself is learnable, and a few sessions of deliberate low-down practice will turn the scariest part of a boulder into the part you trust.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2051},[2052,2053,2054,2055],{"id":1983,"depth":86,"text":1984},{"id":1993,"depth":86,"text":1994},{"id":2029,"depth":86,"text":2030},{"id":2042,"depth":86,"text":2043},"2026-05-01","The press-up move that finishes so many boulders, broken down step by step.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1597698063932-9450882bb1be?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Yente Van Eynde","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@yente95",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fmantling-how-to-top-out-with-confidence",{"title":1978,"description":2057},"blog\u002Fmantling-how-to-top-out-with-confidence",[385,2066,2067],"topout","mantle","kfmwksNTLaKfB5FAvUYYGRflII1qHXMX5XxksoI9aLU",{"id":2070,"title":2071,"author":6,"body":2072,"category":92,"date":2142,"description":2143,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2144,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2145,"imageCreditUrl":2146,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2147,"navigation":103,"path":2148,"readTime":105,"seo":2149,"stem":2150,"tags":2151,"__hash__":2153},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-fall-safely-when-bouldering.md","How to fall safely when bouldering",{"type":8,"value":2073,"toc":2135},[2074,2078,2081,2085,2088,2091,2105,2108,2112,2115,2118,2122,2125,2128,2132],[11,2075,2077],{"id":2076},"falling-is-part-of-the-sport","Falling is part of the sport",[16,2079,2080],{},"Bouldering means falling. You will come off, often, and from height, and that is normal rather than a failure. The catch is that a lot of bouldering injuries happen not on the wall but on the way down: a twisted ankle from a bad landing, a wrist hurt from throwing out an arm, a knee turned on an uneven mat edge. The good news is that falling well is a skill like any other, and once you learn it most falls become boring, which is exactly what you want them to be.",[11,2082,2084],{"id":2083},"land-soft-and-roll","Land soft and roll",[16,2086,2087],{},"The single most useful habit is to absorb the landing rather than fight it. Aim to land on both feet with your knees soft and ready to bend, then let the momentum carry you into a backward roll or a sit-down onto your backside. Stiff legs send the shock straight up through your ankles and knees. Bent legs that give way and a roll spread the force out over your whole body.",[16,2089,2090],{},"A few principles that keep landings safe:",[43,2092,2093,2096,2099,2102],{},[46,2094,2095],{},"Try to land on your feet first, with knees bent, then carry on down into a roll or a sit.",[46,2097,2098],{},"Keep your arms in. Throwing a hand out behind you to break a fall is how wrists and elbows get hurt. Tuck your chin and let your back take the roll.",[46,2100,2101],{},"Look where you are going to land if you can, so you do not put a foot on the edge of a mat or onto someone else's gear.",[46,2103,2104],{},"Do not try to fight gravity halfway down. Once you are off, commit to the fall rather than grabbing wildly.",[16,2106,2107],{},"You can practise this. Jump off from low down on purpose and rehearse the soft landing and roll until it is automatic, so it is there when a real fall surprises you.",[11,2109,2111],{"id":2110},"falling-from-height","Falling from height",[16,2113,2114],{},"The higher you are, the more it matters to push away gently from the wall as you come off, so you do not scrape down the holds or land awkwardly close to the base. Push out just enough to clear the wall, then turn your attention to the landing. Do not over-push, or you sail out beyond the mats.",[16,2116,2117],{},"On a real topout boulder outdoors, the higher you get the more the consequences grow, which is why spotting and pads matter more the further up you are. Know your descent before you commit to the top. Downclimbing is often safer than jumping from height, so use it when it is there.",[11,2119,2121],{"id":2120},"spotting-and-pads","Spotting and pads",[16,2123,2124],{},"If you climb with others, learn to spot. A spotter does not catch a falling climber, that is a good way for both people to get hurt. The job is to protect the head and steer the falling body onto the mat, with hands up and ready, watching the climber's hips, and guiding rather than grabbing. Communicate before the climb about where the hard moves are and where a fall is likely.",[16,2126,2127],{},"Indoors the matting does a lot of the work, but still check there are no gaps, no bags, and no one sitting underneath the problem. Outdoors, place pads to cover the likely landing zone, watch for the seams between pads, and have a spotter steer falls away from rocks and uneven ground.",[11,2129,2131],{"id":2130},"keep-falls-boring","Keep falls boring",[16,2133,2134],{},"The aim of all of this is to make falling unremarkable. Soft knees, arms in, a roll, eyes on the landing, and a bit of practice from low height turn a fall from something to fear into a non-event. That matters for more than safety. Climbers who fear the fall climb tense, grip too hard, and back off moves they could do. Learn to fall well and you free yourself to actually try hard, which is where the climbing gets good.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2136},[2137,2138,2139,2140,2141],{"id":2076,"depth":86,"text":2077},{"id":2083,"depth":86,"text":2084},{"id":2110,"depth":86,"text":2111},{"id":2120,"depth":86,"text":2121},{"id":2130,"depth":86,"text":2131},"2026-03-27","Spotting, landing and the habits that keep falls boring — because most bouldering injuries happen on the way down.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1689775884353-b01c7a8ad1b2?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Tofan Teodor","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@tofanteo",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-fall-safely-when-bouldering",{"title":2071,"description":2143},"blog\u002Fhow-to-fall-safely-when-bouldering",[2152,388,657],"safety","vEu5aXigMR7gHcswe_AMAIoUCxk3OX_IDulmvSjBNZk",{"id":2155,"title":2156,"author":6,"body":2157,"category":92,"date":2228,"description":2229,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2230,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2231,"imageCreditUrl":2232,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2233,"navigation":103,"path":2234,"readTime":250,"seo":2235,"stem":2236,"tags":2237,"__hash__":2239},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fstatic-or-dynamic-choosing-how-to-move.md","Static or dynamic? Choosing how to move",{"type":8,"value":2158,"toc":2222},[2159,2163,2166,2169,2173,2176,2179,2182,2185,2189,2192,2195,2209,2212,2216,2219],[11,2160,2162],{"id":2161},"two-ways-to-reach-the-next-hold","Two ways to reach the next hold",[16,2164,2165],{},"Every move you make on the wall sits somewhere on a line between fully static and fully dynamic. A static move is slow and controlled: you pull yourself to the next hold under tension, and at any point you could stop, reverse, and come back down. A dynamic move uses momentum: you generate movement with your legs and core, then catch the hold while you are travelling. The dyno, where both hands and sometimes both feet leave the wall, is the extreme end of dynamic, but most dynamic moves are far less dramatic than that.",[16,2167,2168],{},"A lot of climbers pick a default and stick with it. People who started indoors on slabby walls often climb everything static, locking off and reaching slowly even when it costs them. People who came up on steep boards often throw for everything, even holds they could have reached calmly. Both habits leave climbs on the table. The skill worth building is choosing.",[11,2170,2172],{"id":2171},"when-static-earns-its-keep","When static earns its keep",[16,2174,2175],{},"Static climbing shines when the target hold is bad, when balance is delicate, or when the consequences of missing are high.",[16,2177,2178],{},"If the next hold is a small crimp or a poor sloper, you want to arrive slowly and settle your fingers onto it before you commit weight. Catch a sloper dynamically and your hand skids off the moment it lands. Move into it static and you can feel for the best part of the hold and let your grip set.",[16,2180,2181],{},"Static is also the move of choice on slabs and balance-heavy terrain, where momentum just throws you off your feet. And it is the safer option when you are climbing above a bad landing, near a ledge, or working out a sequence you do not know yet. Moving slowly lets you bail.",[16,2183,2184],{},"The cost is energy. Locking off and reaching slowly is enormously demanding on your fingers and pulling muscles, especially on steep ground. Climb a 40-degree overhang entirely static and you will pump out long before a climber who lets momentum do some of the work.",[11,2186,2188],{"id":2187},"when-dynamic-is-the-answer","When dynamic is the answer",[16,2190,2191],{},"Dynamic moves are about borrowing momentum so your fingers do not have to do all the holding. On steep walls this is not flashy, it is efficient. If you generate movement from your feet and hips, the next hold arrives at the top of that motion with very little weight on your hands for an instant, and you grab it there.",[16,2193,2194],{},"Reach for dynamic when:",[43,2196,2197,2200,2203,2206],{},[46,2198,2199],{},"The move is long and a static lock-off would be desperate or impossible.",[46,2201,2202],{},"The holds you are pulling from are decent enough to push off, but you would burn out holding a slow reach.",[46,2204,2205],{},"The target hold is positive — a jug or a deep pocket — so a slightly imprecise catch is forgiving.",[46,2207,2208],{},"The intermediate position is a no-hands-worth-staying spot anyway, so there is nothing to gain by going slowly.",[16,2210,2211],{},"The honest catch is that dynamic moves are less precise and harder to reverse. Commit to a dyno and miss, and you are coming off. So you trade control for reach and energy.",[11,2213,2215],{"id":2214},"reading-the-move","Reading the move",[16,2217,2218],{},"The real answer is almost always a blend. Most good climbing is mostly static with dynamic moments dropped in where they pay off, or mostly dynamic with a static catch onto a tricky hold. Before you pull on, ask two questions. How good is the hold I am going to, and how good are the holds I am leaving. Good destination, commit and move fast. Bad destination, slow down and arrive under control. Bad holds to pull from, you may have no choice but to generate momentum because you cannot afford to hang there.",[16,2220,2221],{},"The best way to feel the difference is to repeat a problem you already have wired and deliberately climb it the wrong way. Force everything static, then force everything dynamic. You will quickly feel where each one fits, and that sense is what eventually lets you pick the right tool without thinking. If you log your attempts as you work a problem, you can note which version of a move actually stuck — small detail, but it saves relearning the beta next session.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2223},[2224,2225,2226,2227],{"id":2161,"depth":86,"text":2162},{"id":2171,"depth":86,"text":2172},{"id":2187,"depth":86,"text":2188},{"id":2214,"depth":86,"text":2215},"2026-01-09","When to move slow and controlled and when to commit to a dynamic move — and why both belong in your toolkit.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1651607842258-5709a7e294a2?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Ashlyn Ciara","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@ashlynciara",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fstatic-or-dynamic-choosing-how-to-move",{"title":2156,"description":2229},"blog\u002Fstatic-or-dynamic-choosing-how-to-move",[385,1336,2238],"power","Sl-OZhAVa_ixqwTjrYW9yXTsxcwLFEYbITAjAnMu_W4",{"id":2241,"title":2242,"author":6,"body":2243,"category":92,"date":2308,"description":2309,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":982,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":984,"imageCreditUrl":985,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2310,"navigation":103,"path":2311,"readTime":2312,"seo":2313,"stem":2314,"tags":2315,"__hash__":2318},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-silent-feet-drill.md","The silent feet drill",{"type":8,"value":2244,"toc":2302},[2245,2249,2252,2255,2259,2262,2265,2268,2272,2275,2289,2292,2296,2299],[11,2246,2248],{"id":2247},"one-rule-a-whole-session","One rule, a whole session",[16,2250,2251],{},"The silent feet drill is the rare piece of training that costs nothing, needs no kit, and works on everyone. The rule is a single sentence: climb without letting your feet make a sound. That is the entire drill. No slapping, no scraping, no readjusting a shoe once it lands. Every foot goes onto its hold quietly and stays there.",[16,2253,2254],{},"It sounds trivial. Try it on a route you find easy and you will be startled by how much noise you normally make, and how much your footwork has been getting away with on holds that are forgiving.",[11,2256,2258],{"id":2257},"why-it-works","Why it works",[16,2260,2261],{},"Noisy feet are a symptom. The slap happens because you placed the foot by feel after it arrived, rather than by eye before it landed. The scrape happens because you put it in roughly the right area and then dragged it into place. The readjustment happens because you were not precise the first time. Silence forces you to fix all three at once, without you having to think about each one.",[16,2263,2264],{},"To be silent you have to look at the foothold, keep watching it as your foot travels, and set the shoe down softly and exactly on the spot you chose. That is precise footwork, full stop. The noise is just an honest signal that tells you the moment you get sloppy. You do not have to analyse your technique, the wall does it for you.",[16,2266,2267],{},"It also slows you down in the best way. Rushed feet are sloppy feet, and the silence rule makes rushing impossible. You learn to move at a pace where your feet can be deliberate, which carries over to harder climbing where precision matters most.",[11,2269,2271],{"id":2270},"how-to-run-it","How to run it",[16,2273,2274],{},"Keep it simple and keep it honest.",[43,2276,2277,2280,2283,2286],{},[46,2278,2279],{},"Pick terrain well within your limit, a couple of grades below where you fall, so pump and fear are not in the way.",[46,2281,2282],{},"Climb at whatever pace it takes to place every foot in silence. Slow is fine.",[46,2284,2285],{},"If a foot makes a sound, that is the feedback. Notice it, reset your attention, and carry on. No need to punish yourself, just stay aware.",[46,2287,2288],{},"Run it as a warm-up game for the first part of a session, then carry the awareness into your harder climbing.",[16,2290,2291],{},"A nice variation once silence comes easily is the no-readjust rule: wherever the foot first lands is where it stays for the whole move. That tightens your precision even further, because you cannot fudge a sloppy placement after the fact.",[11,2293,2295],{"id":2294},"why-it-beats-hangboarding-for-this","Why it beats hangboarding for this",[16,2297,2298],{},"Finger strength is worth training, but it will not fix footwork, and most climbers below the higher grades are held back far more by sloppy feet than by weak fingers. Stronger fingers let you get away with bad feet for longer, which is not the same as climbing well. The silent feet drill attacks the actual limiter, builds the habit of watching your feet, and does it on easy ground where there is no cost to slowing down.",[16,2300,2301],{},"Make it a standing part of your warm-up. A few weeks of quiet feet and you will notice your shoes landing where you look without you trying, on hard routes as well as easy ones. That is the habit doing its job. If you log your sessions, jotting a quick note on the warm-ups where you ran the drill makes it easy to look back and see when your footwork turned a corner.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2303},[2304,2305,2306,2307],{"id":2247,"depth":86,"text":2248},{"id":2257,"depth":86,"text":2258},{"id":2270,"depth":86,"text":2271},{"id":2294,"depth":86,"text":2295},"2025-11-14","A simple session-long game that fixes sloppy footwork faster than any amount of finger training.",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-silent-feet-drill",4,{"title":2242,"description":2309},"blog\u002Fthe-silent-feet-drill",[2316,531,2317],"drill","practice","ZUUe7cjNpKklXVfcRWFz_W57WlVrMhb8QpvCGKCgjtA",{"id":2320,"title":2321,"author":6,"body":2322,"category":92,"date":2381,"description":2382,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":875,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":877,"imageCreditUrl":878,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2383,"navigation":103,"path":2384,"readTime":250,"seo":2385,"stem":2386,"tags":2387,"__hash__":2388},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fuse-your-feet-the-habit-that-unlocks-harder-climbs.md","Use your feet: the habit that unlocks harder climbs",{"type":8,"value":2323,"toc":2375},[2324,2328,2331,2334,2338,2341,2344,2355,2359,2362,2365,2369,2372],[11,2325,2327],{"id":2326},"the-problem-is-almost-never-your-fingers","The problem is almost never your fingers",[16,2329,2330],{},"Watch any new climber stall on a route and the story is usually the same. The hands grip harder, the forearms flood, and the feet drift around vaguely below, doing nothing useful. We feel the pump in our arms, so we assume the answer is stronger arms. It rarely is. Your legs are the biggest muscles you have, and on most ground below very steep angles they should be carrying the bulk of your weight. The fingers are there to keep you on the wall, not to haul you up it.",[16,2332,2333],{},"The habit worth building is simple to describe and slow to ingrain: trust your feet, and let them take the load. Once it clicks, problems that felt desperate start to feel reasonable, and you climb for longer before the forearms give out.",[11,2335,2337],{"id":2336},"weight-the-toe-not-the-whole-foot","Weight the toe, not the whole foot",[16,2339,2340],{},"A climbing shoe is built around the toe box for a reason. The point of the shoe is the precise, sensitive bit, and that is what you want on the hold. Standing on the arch or the side of the foot robs you of edging power and pivot range. Aim to place the inside edge, near the big toe, or the very tip on small holds and pockets.",[16,2342,2343],{},"When you step on, actually push down through that point. A surprising number of people place a foot and then forget about it, climbing as though the hold were not there. Drive through the leg, stand up tall, and you take real weight off your arms. A few things that help:",[43,2345,2346,2349,2352],{},[46,2347,2348],{},"Keep your heel level with or slightly above your toes when edging, so the small foot muscles do the work rather than your calf cramping.",[46,2350,2351],{},"Press the toe in before you move a hand, then move with the leg already loaded.",[46,2353,2354],{},"On steep ground, think about pulling in with the toe as much as standing on it.",[11,2356,2358],{"id":2357},"place-quietly","Place quietly",[16,2360,2361],{},"Noisy feet are sloppy feet. If your shoe slaps or scrapes onto a hold, it means you placed it by feel after it landed rather than by eye before. The fix is to look at the foothold, keep watching it as your foot travels, and set the shoe down softly and exactly. The wall will go quiet, and quiet feet are precise feet.",[16,2363,2364],{},"It feels painfully slow at first. That is fine. Precision is a skill you can drill on easy terrain, where there is no pump or fear getting in the way. Pick routes a couple of grades below your limit and climb them with the single rule that no foot is allowed to make a sound. You will catch yourself rushing constantly, which is exactly the habit you are trying to expose.",[11,2366,2368],{"id":2367},"let-the-legs-do-the-work","Let the legs do the work",[16,2370,2371],{},"Good footwork is really good leg use. Once a foot is solid, the move comes from straightening that leg and rotating a hip towards the wall, not from cranking the arm. Think of your arms as ropes that keep you connected while the legs press you upward. On vertical and slabby ground this can mean almost no arm effort at all on the easy sections, which is energy banked for the crux.",[16,2373,2374],{},"You do not need stronger fingers to climb harder this season. You need to look at your feet, place them like they matter, and stand up through your legs. Pick one session this week, climb well within yourself, and make every foot placement deliberate and silent. Logging that session and how your forearms felt afterwards in Sendit makes it easy to notice the change over a few weeks, and the change tends to come quickly once you start paying attention.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2376},[2377,2378,2379,2380],{"id":2326,"depth":86,"text":2327},{"id":2336,"depth":86,"text":2337},{"id":2357,"depth":86,"text":2358},{"id":2367,"depth":86,"text":2368},"2025-10-31","Most climbers overgrip and forget their feet. How to weight your toes, place quietly, and let your legs do the work.",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fuse-your-feet-the-habit-that-unlocks-harder-climbs",{"title":2321,"description":2382},"blog\u002Fuse-your-feet-the-habit-that-unlocks-harder-climbs",[531,385,657],"9PvljyMqn2wZcVPCd1GJET_f0yBXoEgKE9rD4IvpaBU",{"id":2390,"title":2391,"author":6,"body":2392,"category":92,"date":2464,"description":2465,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2466,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2467,"imageCreditUrl":2468,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2469,"navigation":103,"path":2470,"readTime":105,"seo":2471,"stem":2472,"tags":2473,"__hash__":2475},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-dead-point-the-most-useful-dynamic-move.md","The dead point: the most useful dynamic move",{"type":8,"value":2393,"toc":2458},[2394,2398,2401,2404,2406,2409,2412,2416,2419,2445,2448,2452,2455],[11,2395,2397],{"id":2396},"the-pause-at-the-top-of-a-throw","The pause at the top of a throw",[16,2399,2400],{},"Throw a ball straight up and there is a moment at the top where it is neither rising nor falling. It just hangs, weightless, before gravity takes over. Your body does the same thing at the top of an upward move. That brief weightless instant is the dead point, and learning to catch a hold right there is probably the most useful piece of dynamic technique you will ever pick up.",[16,2402,2403],{},"A full dyno launches everything off the wall and trusts the catch. A static lock-off keeps you slow and in control but hammers your fingers. The dead point sits between them. You generate enough momentum to reach a hold you could not lock off to, but you catch it at the exact moment your body is momentarily weightless, so your fingers meet the hold with almost nothing to hold onto. Then, as gravity reloads you, your grip is already set.",[11,2405,2258],{"id":2257},[16,2407,2408],{},"The reason the dead point feels so much easier than a static reach is that you are not fighting gravity at the moment of the catch. On a slow lock-off, your fingers have to hold your full bodyweight throughout the reach, and the target hold has to take that load the instant you touch it. At the dead point, you are briefly weightless, so a crimp or a sloper that would spit you off on a static catch becomes usable. You set your fingers while there is no weight on them, and only then does the load come on.",[16,2410,2411],{},"That is also why it is gentler on your skin and your fingers than a hard dyno. There is no slamming into the hold and ripping off. Done well it is almost quiet.",[11,2413,2415],{"id":2414},"how-to-learn-it","How to learn it",[16,2417,2418],{},"Pick an easy problem with a clear reach between two decent holds, and practise turning a static move into a dead point.",[43,2420,2421,2427,2433,2439],{},[46,2422,2423,2426],{},[49,2424,2425],{},"Drive from your legs and hips, not your arms."," The power comes from a push through your feet and a snap of the hips towards the wall. Your pulling arm guides the reach, it does not haul you up.",[46,2428,2429,2432],{},[49,2430,2431],{},"Aim to arrive, not to throw."," The target is reaching the hold exactly as you slow to a stop, not blasting past it. If you are still moving fast when you touch the hold, you went too hard.",[46,2434,2435,2438],{},[49,2436,2437],{},"Keep your hips close to the wall."," Drifting away from the wall sends your momentum outwards and pulls you off. Tension through your core keeps the motion vertical.",[46,2440,2441,2444],{},[49,2442,2443],{},"Catch and freeze."," The instant your hand lands, lock the grip and let your weight settle back onto it.",[16,2446,2447],{},"A good drill is to climb the same move three ways on something well within your grade: full static lock-off, full committing throw, and then the dead point in between. Feeling the difference back to back teaches your body where that weightless window is far faster than reading about it does.",[11,2449,2451],{"id":2450},"knowing-when-to-use-it","Knowing when to use it",[16,2453,2454],{},"The dead point is the right call when a static reach would be desperate but a full dyno is overkill or too risky. It works beautifully into crimps and slopers that a hard catch would skate off, and on steeper walls where holding a slow lock-off would just pump you out. It is less useful when the move is genuinely huge and you simply have to fly, or when the climbing is so balancey that any momentum throws you off your feet.",[16,2456,2457],{},"Most climbers already do this move by accident on their better days, when everything flows and a reach they expected to be hard just clicks. Naming it, and practising it on purpose, is how you make those days happen more often.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2459},[2460,2461,2462,2463],{"id":2396,"depth":86,"text":2397},{"id":2257,"depth":86,"text":2258},{"id":2414,"depth":86,"text":2415},{"id":2450,"depth":86,"text":2451},"2025-10-17","How to catch a hold at the weightless top of a controlled lunge, the move between static and a full dyno.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1728000442481-20bf8df1d584?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Stacie Ong","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@sohl_",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-dead-point-the-most-useful-dynamic-move",{"title":2391,"description":2465},"blog\u002Fthe-dead-point-the-most-useful-dynamic-move",[385,2474,2238],"dynamic","lDv5Fl8-1tyYB6lxC9oe_okleG-a6Wobn5iaNKPgMDY",{"id":2477,"title":2478,"author":6,"body":2479,"category":92,"date":2567,"description":2568,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2569,"imageAlt":1829,"imageCredit":2570,"imageCreditUrl":2571,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2572,"navigation":103,"path":2573,"readTime":105,"seo":2574,"stem":2575,"tags":2576,"__hash__":2577},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fpinch-strength-and-how-to-build-it.md","Pinch strength, and how to build it",{"type":8,"value":2480,"toc":2561},[2481,2485,2488,2491,2494,2498,2501,2504,2524,2527,2531,2534,2545,2548,2551,2555,2558],[11,2482,2484],{"id":2483},"why-pinches-feel-impossible","Why pinches feel impossible",[16,2486,2487],{},"Most climbers spend their first year or two pulling down on edges and jugs, where the fingers wrap over a lip and the thumb does very little. Then they meet a proper pinch, a hold you have to squeeze between thumb and fingers, and suddenly all that hard-won crimp strength is useless. The hand just opens up and the hold slides out.",[16,2489,2490],{},"The reason is simple. Pinching uses your thumb and the muscles that pull thumb and fingers towards each other, and those are barely trained by ordinary pulling. A pinch only works if you actively squeeze, generating friction against the sides of the hold rather than pulling down on a lip. If you never train that squeeze, it stays weak no matter how strong your fingers get on edges.",[16,2492,2493],{},"The good news is that pinch strength responds quickly once you start working it, because most climbers are starting from such a low base.",[11,2495,2497],{"id":2496},"climb-pinches-on-purpose","Climb pinches on purpose",[16,2499,2500],{},"Before any dedicated training, the most useful thing you can do is simply seek out pinches when you climb. Most of us steer around them, picking problems that play to our strengths. Do the opposite for a while. On your warm-up boulders and easy routes, hunt out the pinch holds and use them deliberately, even when an edge nearby would be easier.",[16,2502,2503],{},"A few pointers that make pinches work:",[43,2505,2506,2512,2518],{},[46,2507,2508,2511],{},[49,2509,2510],{},"Squeeze, do not hang."," Drive your thumb hard against the opposite side of the hold. The grip comes from compression, not from your fingers curling.",[46,2513,2514,2517],{},[49,2515,2516],{},"Position your body to compress."," Pinches usually come good when your weight is set up so you can squeeze inwards, often on steeper ground with your feet pushing you into the hold.",[46,2519,2520,2523],{},[49,2521,2522],{},"Engage your thumb early."," Set the thumb as you take the hold, not as an afterthought once you are already slipping.",[16,2525,2526],{},"Climbing pinches teaches your body to recruit the squeeze under real load, which is something no gym exercise quite replicates.",[11,2528,2530],{"id":2529},"simple-ways-to-train-it","Simple ways to train it",[16,2532,2533],{},"If you want to build pinch strength directly, you do not need much.",[16,2535,2536,2537,2540,2541,2544],{},"The most accessible tool is a ",[49,2538,2539],{},"block pinch"," or a ",[49,2542,2543],{},"pinch block",", a flat-sided block you grip and lift with a weight hanging from it. Pinch the block with your thumb on one side and fingers on the other, and either deadlift it off the floor or hang weight from it for short holds of around ten seconds. Start light, add weight slowly over weeks, and stop the set the moment your grip starts to open. This is the cleanest way to load the squeeze in a controlled way.",[16,2546,2547],{},"If you climb on a board or a hangboard with pinch features, you can train pinch hangs the same way you train any other grip, with short hangs and full rest between. Wide pinches stress the thumb more, narrow pinches less, so start narrower and work wider as you get stronger.",[16,2549,2550],{},"Even a thick book or two weight plates held together work in a pinch, literally. Hold them out at your side and walk, or just stand and resist them slipping. It is humble training but it builds exactly the squeeze you are missing.",[11,2552,2554],{"id":2553},"go-slow-and-watch-the-thumb","Go slow and watch the thumb",[16,2556,2557],{},"Pinch training loads the thumb and its tendons in a way climbing rarely does, so the usual finger-training rules apply doubly. Warm up properly, start far lighter than you think you need to, and add load gradually across weeks rather than chasing big numbers in a single session. The base of the thumb in particular can get sore if you rush it.",[16,2559,2560],{},"Build it patiently and pinches stop being the holds you dread. Within a season of regular work, the squeeze that felt impossible becomes just another tool, and a whole category of climbs that you used to avoid opens up.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2562},[2563,2564,2565,2566],{"id":2483,"depth":86,"text":2484},{"id":2496,"depth":86,"text":2497},{"id":2529,"depth":86,"text":2530},{"id":2553,"depth":86,"text":2554},"2025-09-12","Why pinches feel impossible at first and the simple ways to train thumb and hand strength safely.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1522163182402-834f871fd851?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Hu Chen","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@huchenme",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fpinch-strength-and-how-to-build-it",{"title":2478,"description":2568},"blog\u002Fpinch-strength-and-how-to-build-it",[109,387,1337],"hnDrbO3FteaOLR0Njd7sVAEzh65uKHOgBsUcz7gaL5c",{"id":2579,"title":2580,"author":6,"body":2581,"category":92,"date":2661,"description":2662,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2663,"imageAlt":2664,"imageCredit":2145,"imageCreditUrl":2146,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2665,"navigation":103,"path":2666,"readTime":250,"seo":2667,"stem":2668,"tags":2669,"__hash__":2671},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fchasing-conditions-how-weather-affects-your-climbing.md","Chasing conditions: how weather affects your climbing",{"type":8,"value":2582,"toc":2655},[2583,2586,2590,2593,2596,2600,2603,2629,2632,2636,2639,2642,2645,2649,2652],[16,2584,2585],{},"Spend a season climbing outdoors and you will start doing something that looks faintly unhinged to non-climbers: checking the temperature and humidity for a crag you might visit in a fortnight, and feeling genuine emotions about the result. There is method in it. The same problem can feel a full grade harder on a warm, damp afternoon than it does on a crisp, dry morning, and learning to read that is a real skill.",[11,2587,2589],{"id":2588},"why-cold-and-dry-wins","Why cold and dry wins",[16,2591,2592],{},"It comes down to friction and skin. When rock is cool and the air is dry, your skin grips better and small holds feel more positive. Warm rock gets greasy under the fingers, and a sweaty hand on a sloper might as well be buttered. This is why climbers talk reverently about \"sending temps\", usually meaning cold but not freezing, with low humidity and ideally a bit of breeze to keep the holds dry.",[16,2594,2595],{},"The effect is most dramatic on hard, friction-dependent climbing. Crimps, slopers and smeary footholds reward good conditions enormously. On big juggy routes where you are mostly hanging on by the bones of your fingers, conditions matter far less. So the harder and more marginal the climbing, the more the weather decides the day.",[11,2597,2599],{"id":2598},"reading-a-forecast-like-a-climber","Reading a forecast like a climber",[16,2601,2602],{},"A standard weather app tells you whether to take a coat. You want more than that.",[43,2604,2605,2611,2617,2623],{},[46,2606,2607,2610],{},[49,2608,2609],{},"Temperature",": cooler is generally better for friction, though painfully cold fingers go numb and clumsy, so there is a sweet spot rather than a colder-is-always-better rule.",[46,2612,2613,2616],{},[49,2614,2615],{},"Humidity",": arguably the bigger factor. High humidity leaves a film on the rock and on your skin. A cold but muggy day can climb worse than a slightly warmer dry one.",[46,2618,2619,2622],{},[49,2620,2621],{},"Wind",": a light breeze dries holds and chalk and keeps your skin from sweating. Too much and belaying becomes miserable.",[46,2624,2625,2628],{},[49,2626,2627],{},"Recent rain",": porous rock like sandstone holds water for days and is fragile when wet, so it needs proper drying time. Limestone often sheds water faster. Knowing your rock type tells you how long to wait.",[16,2630,2631],{},"Aspect matters too. A south-facing crag bakes in afternoon sun and might be unclimbable in summer but perfect on a cold winter morning. A shaded north face is your friend in a heatwave. Good guidebooks and local knowledge will tell you when each venue comes into condition.",[11,2633,2635],{"id":2634},"using-a-good-day-well","Using a good day well",[16,2637,2638],{},"When the forecast lines up, the temptation is to thrash yourself on everything. Better to have a plan. If you have a project that has been shutting you down, a rare day of perfect conditions is when you go all in on it, warmed up properly and rested, with your best attempts saved for when your skin and energy are freshest.",[16,2640,2641],{},"Conditions decay through the day in two ways. The weather warms up, and your skin wears down. Both push your best window towards the start of the session. Plenty of climbers do their hardest attempts early and save the volume mileage for later, once the holds have greased up and their fingertips are past their best.",[16,2643,2644],{},"Manage your skin like the limited resource it is. File down sharp flappers before they tear, keep your hands clean and dry between goes, and accept that some days the rock simply will not be in nick no matter how badly you want it.",[11,2646,2648],{"id":2647},"when-the-weather-is-rubbish","When the weather is rubbish",[16,2650,2651],{},"Not every trip gets the dream window, and chasing perfect conditions endlessly is a good way to never climb. Warm, humid days are fine for mileage, for working the moves on a project rather than expecting the send, or for steep terrain on big holds where friction barely registers. Save the marginal, skin-and-friction routes for when the air turns cold and dry.",[16,2653,2654],{},"Over a few seasons you stop checking the forecast out of habit and start reading it as a tactic. You learn which crags suit which weather, which way the wind needs to come from, and roughly how your own skin behaves at different temperatures. Keeping notes on what the conditions were like when a climb went well, or badly, turns all that scattered experience into something you can actually plan around.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2656},[2657,2658,2659,2660],{"id":2588,"depth":86,"text":2589},{"id":2598,"depth":86,"text":2599},{"id":2634,"depth":86,"text":2635},{"id":2647,"depth":86,"text":2648},"2025-08-01","Why climbers obsess over temperature, humidity and 'sending temps', and how to use a good day.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1689775884478-9ed19b79d659?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber outdoors",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fchasing-conditions-how-weather-affects-your-climbing",{"title":2580,"description":2662},"blog\u002Fchasing-conditions-how-weather-affects-your-climbing",[254,2670,385],"outdoor","w_xJTzSTbAs7XpcrZwE-77T1ItkQOjNwOyFvdSe9X8M",{"id":2673,"title":2674,"author":6,"body":2675,"category":92,"date":2740,"description":2741,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2742,"imageAlt":1829,"imageCredit":2743,"imageCreditUrl":2744,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2745,"navigation":103,"path":2746,"readTime":250,"seo":2747,"stem":2748,"tags":2749,"__hash__":2752},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-project-a-climb-above-your-level.md","How to project a climb above your level",{"type":8,"value":2676,"toc":2734},[2677,2680,2684,2687,2690,2694,2697,2700,2711,2714,2718,2721,2724,2728,2731],[16,2678,2679],{},"A project is a climb you can not do yet. That is the whole point. If you could flash it, it would be a warm-up, not a project. The skill of projecting is learning to make steady progress on something that feels impossible on day one, without grinding yourself into the ground before you ever reach the top.",[11,2681,2683],{"id":2682},"read-it-before-you-touch-it","Read it before you touch it",[16,2685,2686],{},"Before you pull on, spend a few minutes just looking. Stand back and trace the line. Where are the obvious holds, where does it go quiet, where does it steepen. Most hard climbs have one or two cruxes and a lot of connecting tissue. If you can guess where the hard bit lives, you can plan your energy around it.",[16,2688,2689],{},"When you do start touching holds, treat the first session as reconnaissance rather than a redpoint attempt. You are gathering information: which crimp takes a thumb, whether that sloper wants an open hand, where the feet actually are once you are weighted on the wall rather than guessing from the ground. Brushing the holds you will use is not optional on a project. Chalked-up, greasy holds will quietly cost you the send.",[11,2691,2693],{"id":2692},"work-the-moves-then-the-links","Work the moves, then the links",[16,2695,2696],{},"A project is built backwards from individual moves. Get each one to feel repeatable on its own before you worry about doing them in sequence. A move you can only hit one time in five is not solved, it is a coin flip, and coin flips do not stack.",[16,2698,2699],{},"Once the moves go reliably, start linking them. A useful order:",[43,2701,2702,2705,2708],{},[46,2703,2704],{},"Solve every move in isolation, including the foot sequence and body position, not just the hands.",[46,2706,2707],{},"Link the crux into the move before it and the move after it, so you arrive in the right shape and leave in control.",[46,2709,2710],{},"Build longer chains from the top down, so each redpoint burn ends on ground you already trust.",[16,2712,2713],{},"Working the top section first sounds odd, but it means your most tired attempts always finish on familiar territory. You rarely fail a redpoint because you forgot the moves. You fail because you arrive at a hold a few degrees off, on a pump you did not plan for.",[11,2715,2717],{"id":2716},"manage-the-body-not-just-the-beta","Manage the body, not just the beta",[16,2719,2720],{},"The fastest way to ruin a project is to throw yourself at the crux twenty times in a session with ninety seconds of rest. You will get worse as the session goes on, reinforce the wrong movement, and load your fingers when they are already cooked. Hard tries need real rest between them, often five minutes or more, so each go is a fair test rather than a tired one.",[16,2722,2723],{},"Keep sessions short and frequent rather than long and desperate. Two focused board or wall sessions a week, with the project in the first half while you are fresh, beats one marathon where the last hour is all flailing. Projecting steep ground is finger-intensive, so if your skin or your tendons are talking to you, listen. A tweaked pulley costs weeks; a missed session costs nothing.",[11,2725,2727],{"id":2726},"keep-notes-and-stay-patient","Keep notes and stay patient",[16,2729,2730],{},"The annoying truth about a real project is that progress is not linear. You will have a session where it all clicks, then three where it feels harder than ever. That is normal, not a sign you have lost it. Conditions, skin, sleep and nerves all move the needle.",[16,2732,2733],{},"Write down what you change between sessions: the new foot, the heel hook that turned a deadpoint into a static reach, the breathing on the rest. When you come back a week later you will have forgotten half of it, and the notes save you from re-solving moves you already cracked. Logging your attempts and the beta that worked is exactly the kind of memory a tool like Sendit can hold for you, so the climb is the only thing you have to carry.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2735},[2736,2737,2738,2739],{"id":2682,"depth":86,"text":2683},{"id":2692,"depth":86,"text":2693},{"id":2716,"depth":86,"text":2717},{"id":2726,"depth":86,"text":2727},"2025-07-11","Breaking a hard route into moves, working sections, and stringing it together without burning out.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1577434150790-3bfe143fe4f2?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Rahadiansyah","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@rahadiansyah",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-project-a-climb-above-your-level",{"title":2674,"description":2741},"blog\u002Fhow-to-project-a-climb-above-your-level",[2750,2751,385],"projecting","mindset","weU3N9rpMURPot-yEfWiJy03dTzhG2sTUfSrjCgv6u0",{"id":2754,"title":2755,"author":6,"body":2756,"category":92,"date":2827,"description":2828,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2829,"imageAlt":2830,"imageCredit":2831,"imageCreditUrl":2832,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2833,"navigation":103,"path":2834,"readTime":105,"seo":2835,"stem":2836,"tags":2837,"__hash__":2839},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fa-warm-up-that-actually-prepares-you-to-climb.md","A warm-up that actually prepares you to climb",{"type":8,"value":2757,"toc":2821},[2758,2762,2765,2768,2772,2775,2795,2798,2802,2805,2808,2811,2815,2818],[11,2759,2761],{"id":2760},"the-warm-up-most-people-skip","The warm-up most people skip",[16,2763,2764],{},"Walk into any gym and you will see the same thing. Climbers arrive, change shoes, and within five minutes are pulling hard on a project. Maybe they shake their arms out a bit first. That is not a warm-up, it is a gamble, and the fingers are usually the part that pays for it. Cold tendons under sudden high load is exactly the recipe that produces the tweaks and pulley strains that keep climbers off the wall for weeks.",[16,2766,2767],{},"A proper warm-up does not need to be long or complicated. The goal is simple: raise your body temperature, get blood moving through the muscles you are about to load, and gradually wake up the fingers and shoulders before you ask anything hard of them. Ten to fifteen minutes does it. The point is to do it every time, not just on the days you remember.",[11,2769,2771],{"id":2770},"build-it-up-in-layers","Build it up in layers",[16,2773,2774],{},"Think of the warm-up as moving from general to specific. Start broad, get the whole body going, then narrow down to climbing-specific movement.",[43,2776,2777,2783,2789],{},[46,2778,2779,2782],{},[49,2780,2781],{},"Raise the heart rate first."," A few minutes of anything that gets you breathing and warm: a brisk walk, light skipping, easy cardio, even just jogging on the spot. You want to actually feel slightly warm before you touch the wall.",[46,2784,2785,2788],{},[49,2786,2787],{},"Move the joints."," Arm circles, shoulder rolls, gentle leg swings, hip circles, and some easy wrist rotations. The aim is to take the major joints through their range, not to stretch hard.",[46,2790,2791,2794],{},[49,2792,2793],{},"Wake up the shoulders."," A couple of light band pull-aparts or some scapular pull-ups on a bar prime the muscles that stabilise your shoulders, which take a beating the moment you start climbing steep ground.",[16,2796,2797],{},"By the end of this you should feel loose and warm but not tired. None of it should be strenuous.",[11,2799,2801],{"id":2800},"easing-the-fingers-in","Easing the fingers in",[16,2803,2804],{},"The fingers deserve their own attention because they are the most injury-prone part of you and the slowest to warm. Do not jump straight onto small crimps.",[16,2806,2807],{},"On the wall, start with easy traversing or big juggy problems several grades below your limit. Spend real time here. Climb on big open-handed holds first, then gradually start using smaller edges as your forearms warm and start to feel pumped and then recover. The pump-and-recover cycle on easy climbing is itself part of the warm-up, telling your forearms that work is coming.",[16,2809,2810],{},"If you have a hangboard or a board to hand, a few light, brief hangs on generous holds round things off nicely, but only after the easy climbing, never as the first thing you do. The principle throughout is the same: load the fingers progressively, never suddenly.",[11,2812,2814],{"id":2813},"dont-overcook-it","Don't overcook it",[16,2816,2817],{},"It is possible to warm up too much. If you spend forty minutes traversing and doing endless easy laps, you will arrive at your project already tired. Warm up enough to feel ready and switched on, then stop and let your hardest attempts be genuinely fresh. A good signal that you are ready is that the moves on a problem two or three grades below your max feel easy and your forearms have been pumped and recovered at least once.",[16,2819,2820],{},"The whole routine becomes second nature once you do it a handful of times, and a consistent warm-up is one of the cheapest pieces of injury prevention available. Keep it short, keep it ordered, and do it on the days you cannot be bothered most of all. Those are the days the injuries happen.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2822},[2823,2824,2825,2826],{"id":2760,"depth":86,"text":2761},{"id":2770,"depth":86,"text":2771},{"id":2800,"depth":86,"text":2801},{"id":2813,"depth":86,"text":2814},"2025-07-04","A short, repeatable routine that gets blood, fingers and shoulders ready before the first hard pull.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1564769662533-4f00a87b4056?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Inside a climbing gym","Yns Plt","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@ynsplt",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-warm-up-that-actually-prepares-you-to-climb",{"title":2755,"description":2828},"blog\u002Fa-warm-up-that-actually-prepares-you-to-climb",[2838,1837,109],"warm-up","HK83TxHj5YM9Zenx_CWASTj3tmepGDoOMf1ONZF0kT4",{"id":2841,"title":2842,"author":6,"body":2843,"category":92,"date":2911,"description":2912,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2913,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2914,"imageCreditUrl":2915,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2916,"navigation":103,"path":2917,"readTime":250,"seo":2918,"stem":2919,"tags":2920,"__hash__":2921},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fheel-hooks-when-to-use-them-and-how.md","Heel hooks: when to use them and how",{"type":8,"value":2844,"toc":2905},[2845,2849,2852,2855,2859,2862,2865,2879,2883,2886,2889,2892,2896,2899,2902],[11,2846,2848],{"id":2847},"a-third-hand-on-steep-ground","A third hand on steep ground",[16,2850,2851],{},"A heel hook turns your leg into something close to an extra arm. Instead of standing on a foot, you hook the heel over or onto a hold and pull with it, using your hamstring and the back of your leg to keep tension and stop your body swinging away from the wall. On overhangs and lips it is one of the most useful tools you have, because it lets you take weight off your hands at exactly the angles where your hands are struggling most.",[16,2853,2854],{},"The classic place you meet it is the topout of a boulder, where you throw a heel over the lip and rock up onto it to stand. But heel hooks earn their keep all over steep terrain: keeping your hips in on a roof, stopping a swing after a big move, or simply giving you a point to pull against so a reach goes static.",[11,2856,2858],{"id":2857},"when-a-heel-hook-is-the-answer","When a heel hook is the answer",[16,2860,2861],{},"Reach for a heel hook when staying on the wall is the hard part, not when standing up is. That means steep ground, lips, and anywhere your body wants to peel away from the rock. The signs are familiar: your feet keep cutting loose, your hips sag, or you have a hold up at waist height or higher that you could hook rather than step on.",[16,2863,2864],{},"A few specific cases:",[43,2866,2867,2870,2873,2876],{},[46,2868,2869],{},"Topouts and lips, where a heel over the edge lets you rock up instead of mantling blind.",[46,2871,2872],{},"After a big move, where a pre-placed heel stops you barn-dooring off.",[46,2874,2875],{},"On a roof, where a heel keeps your hips pressed up and your core engaged.",[46,2877,2878],{},"Reaches off undercuts, where pulling with the heel frees a hand.",[11,2880,2882],{"id":2881},"how-to-place-and-weight-it","How to place and weight it",[16,2884,2885],{},"Placement matters more than strength. Put the back or the inside of your heel onto the hold, not the bony point, and aim for as much rubber in contact as you can get. Then think about the direction of pull. A heel hook only works if you pull against it, so set it so that you can drag your hips towards it and load the hamstring.",[16,2887,2888],{},"Once it is on, engage it actively. Pull your heel in towards your body and squeeze, drawing your hips up and in. A passive heel that just rests on the hold does nothing. You want to feel the hamstring switch on and your weight transfer off your hands and onto that leg. Keep your toes pointed and your ankle firm so the heel does not roll off the hold.",[16,2890,2891],{},"The single most common error is placing the heel and then forgetting to pull with it. The second is placing it too far away, so you cannot actually load it without overextending. Get it close enough that you can drive your hips towards it.",[11,2893,2895],{"id":2894},"trust-it-and-look-after-the-hamstring","Trust it, and look after the hamstring",[16,2897,2898],{},"Heel hooks fail when you do not commit. Half-trusting the heel and keeping your weight on your arms gives you the worst of both, so once it is set, properly transfer your weight onto it and let your hands relax. The first time you do this on a roof and feel the pump drain out of your forearms, it sells itself.",[16,2900,2901],{},"One word of caution. A hard heel hook loads the hamstring at a stretched position, and yanking into a maximal heel cold is a good way to tweak it. Warm up, ease into the big ones, and back off if you feel a sharp pull behind the knee or in the hamstring.",[16,2903,2904],{},"Like most technique, this gets automatic with reps on easy terrain. Spend a few sessions hunting for heels on steep problems below your limit, and you will start seeing them in the read before you pull on. Logging which problems finally went once you found the heel is a satisfying way to watch the skill come good over a season.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2906},[2907,2908,2909,2910],{"id":2847,"depth":86,"text":2848},{"id":2857,"depth":86,"text":2858},{"id":2881,"depth":86,"text":2882},{"id":2894,"depth":86,"text":2895},"2025-04-25","A practical guide to placing, weighting and trusting a heel hook on overhangs and topouts.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1517599652-86163851f0de?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","David Pisnoy","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@davidpisnoy",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fheel-hooks-when-to-use-them-and-how",{"title":2842,"description":2912},"blog\u002Fheel-hooks-when-to-use-them-and-how",[385,532,1726],"3-GitPr-obZXUur8Fc3M8iynEEHeZY-qowQg_EQAFMQ",{"id":2923,"title":2924,"author":6,"body":2925,"category":92,"date":2993,"description":2994,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":2995,"imageAlt":98,"imageCredit":2996,"imageCreditUrl":2997,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":2998,"navigation":103,"path":2999,"readTime":105,"seo":3000,"stem":3001,"tags":3002,"__hash__":3004},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-rest-on-the-wall.md","How to rest on the wall",{"type":8,"value":2926,"toc":2987},[2927,2930,2934,2937,2940,2944,2947,2950,2961,2964,2968,2971,2974,2977,2981,2984],[16,2928,2929],{},"Most climbers think the way to get up a long route is to be fitter. Often the real answer is to rest better. A good shake-out can give you back most of what a hard section took out of you, and the difference between fluffing the last few moves and clipping the chains is usually recovery, not raw power.",[11,2931,2933],{"id":2932},"find-the-rest-before-you-need-it","Find the rest before you need it",[16,2935,2936],{},"When you read a route from the ground, do not just look for the cruxes. Look for the rests. A jug at a corner, a stance where your hips can sit over your feet, a slab section between two steep walls. These are where the route is handing you free recovery, and the climbers who top out fresh are the ones who spot them early and commit to using them.",[16,2938,2939],{},"The best rests are the ones that take weight off your arms entirely. A no-hands stance on a slab is gold. So is a deep kneebar in a roof, where you cam a thigh against a hold and hang off your skeleton instead of your forearms. Even on steep ground, a good heel hook can pull you into the wall enough to let an arm go.",[11,2941,2943],{"id":2942},"get-the-position-right-first","Get the position right first",[16,2945,2946],{},"A shake-out only works if you are actually resting, not just hanging there pumping out more slowly. The aim is to get as much load as possible onto your bones and your feet, and as little as possible onto your gripping muscles.",[16,2948,2949],{},"Some things to sort out before you start shaking:",[43,2951,2952,2955,2958],{},[46,2953,2954],{},"Straight arms, hanging off the skeleton, not bent and holding tension.",[46,2956,2957],{},"Hips in close to the wall and over your feet, so your legs carry the weight.",[46,2959,2960],{},"A relaxed grip on the resting hand, open and loose rather than crimped tight.",[16,2962,2963],{},"If you find a heel or a toe hook that takes real load, use it. Dropping a heel onto a hold beside your hands can turn a marginal stance into a proper rest by pinning your body to the wall and freeing an arm to shake.",[11,2965,2967],{"id":2966},"shake-breathe-swap","Shake, breathe, swap",[16,2969,2970],{},"Once you are settled, shake one arm out low, down by your hip where the blood can drain back in. Some climbers like the slow dangle and gentle wrist circles, others a quicker flick. Both work; the point is to relax the forearm completely between holds. Then swap, and shake the other.",[16,2972,2973],{},"Breathe while you do it. Under stress most people hold their breath, which does you no favours when you are trying to recover. Slow, even breaths through the rest help your heart rate settle and your head calm down at the same time.",[16,2975,2976],{},"How long to stay is a judgement call. Early in a route you can take a generous rest because you have time to spend. Near the top, hanging around can cost more than it gives, especially on a stance that is only half a rest. The honest test is simple: if your forearm feels softer and your grip feels surer than when you arrived, the rest is working. If you are just slowly leaking, move on before it gets worse.",[11,2978,2980],{"id":2979},"practise-it-like-a-skill","Practise it like a skill",[16,2982,2983],{},"Resting is a skill, and like any skill it gets better with deliberate practice. Next time you are on an easy route or doing laps, stop at a jug and actually run a full shake-out even though you do not need it. Learn what a real recovery feels like in your arms so you recognise a good stance the moment you reach one.",[16,2985,2986],{},"Get this dialled and you will climb routes a full grade or more above what your fitness alone would allow. The strongest forearms in the gym still lose to someone who knows how to switch off mid-pitch and switch back on for the crux.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":2988},[2989,2990,2991,2992],{"id":2932,"depth":86,"text":2933},{"id":2942,"depth":86,"text":2943},{"id":2966,"depth":86,"text":2967},{"id":2979,"depth":86,"text":2980},"2025-03-07","Finding the shake-out, dropping a heel, and recovering mid-route so you reach the top with something left.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1516372048654-2e06f99e1382?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Jef Willemyns","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@jefwillemyns",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-rest-on-the-wall",{"title":2924,"description":2994},"blog\u002Fhow-to-rest-on-the-wall",[385,3003,1727],"endurance","lt1ovR3G27YEHq8z0NuxpKqT1VsXbM3a8fORoLwiC_4",{"id":3006,"title":3007,"author":6,"body":3008,"category":92,"date":3079,"description":3080,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3081,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2467,"imageCreditUrl":2468,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3082,"navigation":103,"path":3083,"readTime":2312,"seo":3084,"stem":3085,"tags":3086,"__hash__":3087},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fbreathing-on-the-wall.md","Breathing on the wall",{"type":8,"value":3009,"toc":3073},[3010,3014,3017,3020,3024,3027,3030,3050,3053,3057,3060,3063,3067,3070],[11,3011,3013],{"id":3012},"the-breath-you-forget-youre-holding","The breath you forget you're holding",[16,3015,3016],{},"Watch yourself on a hard sequence and you will probably notice the same thing most climbers do: somewhere around the crux, your breathing just stops. You set up for the move, you pull, and you hold everything in until you either stick the hold or come off. It feels like focus. What it actually does is tighten your chest, raise your shoulders, and burn through your reserves faster than the climbing alone would.",[16,3018,3019],{},"Holding your breath braces the whole torso for a fraction of a second, which can help on a single explosive pull. The problem is that on the wall we rarely do just one pull. We do a move, then a reach, then a foot adjustment, then another move, and the held breath drags on across all of it. By the top you are out of gas not because your fingers failed but because you forgot to breathe.",[11,3021,3023],{"id":3022},"what-to-do-at-the-crux","What to do at the crux",[16,3025,3026],{},"The fix is small and slightly counterintuitive: breathe out on the effort. When you commit to the hard move, let a controlled exhale go with it. Some climbers use a sharp audible breath, almost a hiss, on the pull. It keeps the core engaged without locking the whole system rigid, and it stops the panic of a fully held breath.",[16,3028,3029],{},"A few things that genuinely help:",[43,3031,3032,3038,3044],{},[46,3033,3034,3037],{},[49,3035,3036],{},"Exhale through the move, inhale during the reset."," Tie the rhythm to the climbing rather than fighting it.",[46,3039,3040,3043],{},[49,3041,3042],{},"Keep the breath low."," Let your belly move, not just your upper chest. Shallow chest breathing under stress makes everything feel more frantic than it is.",[46,3045,3046,3049],{},[49,3047,3048],{},"Make noise if you need to."," A grunt or a hiss is just a guaranteed exhale. Nobody at the wall cares.",[16,3051,3052],{},"If you catch yourself going silent and rigid mid-sequence, that is the held breath. One deliberate exhale usually loosens the whole thing back up.",[11,3054,3056],{"id":3055},"breathing-on-the-rest","Breathing on the rest",[16,3058,3059],{},"The rest is where breathing earns its keep, and it is the part most people rush. When you reach a decent stance, a knee bar, or a jug you can actually hang off, your instinct is often to shake out and move on quickly. Slow down. Take three or four full breaths before you even start shaking. A long exhale is what tells your nervous system the emergency is over, and that is when your forearms start to recover and your grip eases off the death-clamp it has been holding.",[16,3061,3062],{},"Try to make the exhale longer than the inhale. Something like a four-count in and a six-count out. You are not meditating, you are just nudging your body out of fight-or-flight so the rest does what a rest is supposed to do. On a route, a proper breathing rest between cruxes can be the difference between clipping the chains and pumping out two moves short.",[11,3064,3066],{"id":3065},"make-it-a-habit-not-a-thought","Make it a habit, not a thought",[16,3068,3069],{},"The whole point is that you should not have to think about this once it sticks. On a warm-up boulder or an easy route, deliberately practise breathing out on every move and breathing slow on every rest. It will feel forced for a session or two. Then it disappears into the background and shows up on its own when the climbing gets hard, which is exactly when you need it.",[16,3071,3072],{},"Next time a problem shuts you down, ask whether it was really the holds, or whether you climbed the whole thing on a single held breath. More often than not, the air was the thing that ran out first.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3074},[3075,3076,3077,3078],{"id":3012,"depth":86,"text":3013},{"id":3022,"depth":86,"text":3023},{"id":3055,"depth":86,"text":3056},{"id":3065,"depth":86,"text":3066},"2025-02-28","Holding your breath on hard moves quietly drains you. Simple breathing habits for the crux and the rest.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1728000073158-b9b887b894e2?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fbreathing-on-the-wall",{"title":3007,"description":3080},"blog\u002Fbreathing-on-the-wall",[385,2751,3003],"lQcnRJNODZb6qxdZzS53dIuBgD9NgH2yn_q7ZGe7bOg",{"id":3089,"title":3090,"author":6,"body":3091,"category":92,"date":3174,"description":3175,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":244,"imageAlt":1829,"imageCredit":246,"imageCreditUrl":247,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3176,"navigation":103,"path":3177,"readTime":3178,"seo":3179,"stem":3180,"tags":3181,"__hash__":3184},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fbuilding-finger-strength-without-getting-hurt.md","Building finger strength without getting hurt",{"type":8,"value":3092,"toc":3168},[3093,3097,3100,3103,3107,3110,3113,3117,3120,3152,3155,3159,3162,3165],[11,3094,3096],{"id":3095},"strong-fingers-slow-tendons","Strong fingers, slow tendons",[16,3098,3099],{},"Finger strength is the thing most climbers want more of, and for good reason. On hard, holdsy climbing it is often the limiting factor. The trouble is that fingers are also the part of you most likely to get injured, and the gap between training them and hurting them can be alarmingly small. The reason is biology. Your muscles get stronger fairly quickly, but the tendons and the small pulleys that hold them to the bone adapt far more slowly. Train as if your tendons keep pace with your muscles and you are writing a recipe for a strain.",[16,3101,3102],{},"So the whole game of finger training is patience. The climber who adds a little, consistently, for a year ends up stronger and uninjured than the one who hammers their fingers hard for a month and then spends two months recovering from a tweaked pulley.",[11,3104,3106],{"id":3105},"are-you-ready-to-hangboard","Are you ready to hangboard?",[16,3108,3109],{},"The first honest question is whether you should be hangboarding at all yet. If you have been climbing for less than roughly a year, you almost certainly do not need a hangboard, because simply climbing a lot still builds your fingers plenty and is far more enjoyable. Dedicated finger training earns its place once general climbing has stopped delivering finger gains and your fingers are clearly your limiting factor on the routes you want.",[16,3111,3112],{},"If you are newer than that, the better path is more climbing on varied holds, plenty of it, with proper warm-ups. Save the hangboard for when you have the base and the body awareness to use it sensibly.",[11,3114,3116],{"id":3115},"how-to-start-sensibly","How to start, sensibly",[16,3118,3119],{},"When you do begin, the principles matter more than any specific protocol.",[43,3121,3122,3128,3134,3140,3146],{},[46,3123,3124,3127],{},[49,3125,3126],{},"Warm up thoroughly first."," Never hang cold. Climb easy, get the fingers progressively loaded, and only then get on the board.",[46,3129,3130,3133],{},[49,3131,3132],{},"Use the half-crimp or open hand, not the full crimp."," The full crimp loads the pulleys hardest. Train on an open hand and a half crimp, which are safer and carry over well.",[46,3135,3136,3139],{},[49,3137,3138],{},"Start with big holds and short hangs."," Begin on an edge you can hold comfortably, with hangs of around seven to ten seconds and long rests between, two minutes or more. You want each hang to be hard but well within control, never a desperate fight to the last second.",[46,3141,3142,3145],{},[49,3143,3144],{},"Add load slowly."," Progress by tiny increments, week to week, not session to session. If you can choose, prefer adding a little weight on a comfortable edge over moving to a much smaller, sharper one.",[46,3147,3148,3151],{},[49,3149,3150],{},"Train fingers fresh, not fried."," Hangboard near the start of a session after warming up, not at the end when your fingers are already wrecked from climbing. Tired fingers under load is how people get hurt.",[16,3153,3154],{},"Two short sessions a week is plenty for most people. Fingers need recovery days between hard loading, so resist the urge to do it every time you train.",[11,3156,3158],{"id":3157},"the-warning-signs-to-never-ignore","The warning signs to never ignore",[16,3160,3161],{},"This is the part to take seriously. Finger tendons and pulleys do not give you much warning, and the signals they do give are easy to talk yourself out of.",[16,3163,3164],{},"Stop immediately if you feel a sharp pain in a finger, anything that pinches or stabs rather than the dull ache of effort. A pop or a snapping sensation in a finger is an emergency, get off the wall at once. Swelling, tenderness over a specific spot on the finger, or pain that lingers into the next day are all signs you have done too much. None of these are things to climb or train through.",[16,3166,3167],{},"The hardest discipline in finger training is doing less than you are capable of on the day, so that you can keep doing it week after week. Strong fingers are built over years, not weeks, and every session you finish feeling like you had more in the tank is a session that adds up rather than setting you back. Keeping a simple log of your hangs, the loads and how they felt, makes it much easier to progress gradually and to spot the warning signs before they become injuries.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3169},[3170,3171,3172,3173],{"id":3095,"depth":86,"text":3096},{"id":3105,"depth":86,"text":3106},{"id":3115,"depth":86,"text":3116},{"id":3157,"depth":86,"text":3158},"2024-12-20","How to start hangboarding sensibly, why patience wins, and the warning signs to never ignore.",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fbuilding-finger-strength-without-getting-hurt",7,{"title":3090,"description":3175},"blog\u002Fbuilding-finger-strength-without-getting-hurt",[109,3182,3183],"fingers","hangboard","qQF7GaqFq5nLH_s0drD-Q_I1SiAscHhBK_qK1UisH-U",{"id":3186,"title":3187,"author":6,"body":3188,"category":92,"date":3250,"description":3251,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3252,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":3253,"imageCreditUrl":3254,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3255,"navigation":103,"path":3256,"readTime":105,"seo":3257,"stem":3258,"tags":3259,"__hash__":3261},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fstraight-arms-bent-legs-climbing-with-less-pump.md","Straight arms, bent legs: climbing with less pump",{"type":8,"value":3189,"toc":3244},[3190,3194,3197,3200,3204,3207,3210,3213,3217,3220,3223,3227,3230,3241],[11,3191,3193],{"id":3192},"bent-arms-burn-straight-arms-rest","Bent arms burn, straight arms rest",[16,3195,3196],{},"There is a single habit that separates climbers who get pumped on the warm-up from those who cruise the same wall: where they hold the bend. When your arm is bent, the muscle is working to hold the angle, and the forearm fills with blood whether you are moving or not. When your arm is straight, you are hanging off the skeleton, and the muscle gets a chance to recover even while you are still on the wall.",[16,3198,3199],{},"So the principle is to stay on straight arms whenever you are not actively pulling, and to do the pulling with your legs. It sounds obvious written down. The hard part is that the instinct under pressure is to do the exact opposite: lock the arms in tight and forget the legs entirely.",[11,3201,3203],{"id":3202},"hang-off-the-bones","Hang off the bones",[16,3205,3206],{},"Picture yourself reaching for the next hold from a straight lower arm. Your hand is on a hold, your arm is long, your shoulder is engaged but not cramped, and your weight drops down through the bone into your feet. From there you set a foot, bend the leg, and stand up. As you rise, the next hold comes to you and your arm stays long until the moment your hand closes on it.",[16,3208,3209],{},"Now picture the common mistake. The arm is bent at ninety degrees, the climber stares at a hold just out of reach, and they try to muscle up with the bicep while the legs hang slack. The forearm is screaming, the move feels desperate, and the same hold would have been easy from a long arm and a high foot.",[16,3211,3212],{},"The fix is to keep asking, on every move, whether you can do this with your legs instead. Usually you can.",[11,3214,3216],{"id":3215},"drive-from-the-legs","Drive from the legs",[16,3218,3219],{},"Bent legs are the engine. A bent leg can straighten and lift your whole body, which is exactly what you want it to do. So before a hand move, get a foot high, load it, and press up through it so the move becomes a leg extension rather than an arm pull. The hand just goes along for the ride and catches the hold at the top.",[16,3221,3222],{},"This is why footwork and arm efficiency are really the same conversation. You cannot drive with your legs if your feet are not set, and you cannot relax your arms if your legs are not taking the weight.",[11,3224,3226],{"id":3225},"drills-to-make-it-stick","Drills to make it stick",[16,3228,3229],{},"You will not change this by thinking about it once. You change it by drilling it on easy terrain until it is the default.",[43,3231,3232,3235,3238],{},[46,3233,3234],{},"Straight-arm traverse: pick an easy traverse and climb it with a rule that your arms must stay straight at all times. You will be forced to use your legs and reposition your hips constantly.",[46,3236,3237],{},"The pause game: on a route well below your limit, pause for a breath on every straight arm and shake out the other hand. It teaches you to find and trust the rests.",[46,3239,3240],{},"Quiet reach: reach for each hold slowly from a long arm and only bend at the last moment. It exposes how often you bend early out of nerves.",[16,3242,3243],{},"Spend a few warm-ups doing nothing but this and you will feel the difference in how long you last before the pump arrives. The takeaway is small enough to remember at the wall: stay long in the arms, bend the legs, and let the big muscles do the climbing.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3245},[3246,3247,3248,3249],{"id":3192,"depth":86,"text":3193},{"id":3202,"depth":86,"text":3203},{"id":3215,"depth":86,"text":3216},{"id":3225,"depth":86,"text":3226},"2024-10-18","Why hanging off straight arms and driving with your legs keeps you fresh, and drills to make it automatic.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1593132517397-ceb31d77194a?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Mark McGregor","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@mmcgregor",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fstraight-arms-bent-legs-climbing-with-less-pump",{"title":3187,"description":3251},"blog\u002Fstraight-arms-bent-legs-climbing-with-less-pump",[3260,385,3003],"efficiency","V-3-uCcVNiOO11ng_uH9juSQpb7lhSZe4JcajWFbn_0",{"id":3263,"title":3264,"author":6,"body":3265,"category":92,"date":3338,"description":3339,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":522,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":524,"imageCreditUrl":525,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3340,"navigation":103,"path":3341,"readTime":105,"seo":3342,"stem":3343,"tags":3344,"__hash__":3346},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Ftoe-hooks-for-steep-climbing.md","Toe hooks for steep climbing",{"type":8,"value":3266,"toc":3332},[3267,3271,3274,3277,3281,3284,3287,3291,3294,3297,3300,3311,3315,3318,3329],[11,3268,3270],{"id":3269},"the-opposite-of-a-heel-hook","The opposite of a heel hook",[16,3272,3273],{},"Where a heel hook pulls a hold towards you, a toe hook pulls you towards the wall. You catch a hold with the top of your foot, over the laces, and pull with the front of your shin and the top of the foot to stop your lower body swinging out. On steep ground that is exactly the fight you are in. Once the wall tips past vertical your feet want to cut loose and your body wants to swing away, and a toe hook is one of the cleanest ways to shut that down.",[16,3275,3276],{},"It is a quieter tool than the heel hook and easier to overlook, but on roofs and steep ground a well-placed toe is often the difference between staying composed and getting spat off.",[11,3278,3280],{"id":3279},"what-it-does-for-you","What it does for you",[16,3282,3283],{},"A toe hook does three jobs. It keeps your feet on the wall so you do not cut loose. It lets you generate body tension by opposing a hand or another foot, so you can pull yourself into a position and hold it. And it gives you something to pull against during a reach, which turns a swinging slap into a controlled, static move.",[16,3285,3286],{},"The most obvious place is the roof, where there is nothing to stand on and the only way to keep your hips up is to hook a toe over a hold and pull. But you will also use them on the way out of overhangs, to stop a swing after a long move, or to lock your body in while you reach through with a hand.",[11,3288,3290],{"id":3289},"how-to-place-one","How to place one",[16,3292,3293],{},"Catch the hold with the top of your foot, getting as much rubber and shoelace area onto it as you can. Point your toes and pull your foot back towards your body so the top of the foot grips. The pull comes from your shin and the muscles on the front of the lower leg, plus your core holding everything together.",[16,3295,3296],{},"The key idea is opposition. A toe hook only works against something. You pull in with the toe while pushing or pulling somewhere else, and the tension between the two keeps you locked to the wall. A toe hook on its own, with nothing to oppose, just dangles.",[16,3298,3299],{},"Watch for these:",[43,3301,3302,3305,3308],{},[46,3303,3304],{},"Get the foot back behind the hold so the top of the foot can bite, not the toe tip.",[46,3306,3307],{},"Keep your ankle firm and toes pointed so the hook does not roll off.",[46,3309,3310],{},"Engage your core. A toe hook with a slack midsection leaks all its tension.",[11,3312,3314],{"id":3313},"training-the-tension-it-needs","Training the tension it needs",[16,3316,3317],{},"Toe hooks demand a particular kind of strength: the front of the shin, the foot, and a core that can hold opposing tension. The best way to build it is by doing them, but a few things help.",[43,3319,3320,3323,3326],{},[46,3321,3322],{},"Spend warm-ups on a steep board or overhanging wall deliberately hooking toes, even on moves that do not need it.",[46,3324,3325],{},"Practise holding a position with one toe hooked and one hand off, feeling the opposition that keeps you on.",[46,3327,3328],{},"On a roof problem below your limit, climb it focusing only on keeping your feet engaged the whole way, never letting them cut.",[16,3330,3331],{},"Toe hooks reward commitment in the same way heels do. A timid toe that you do not really pull with does nothing, so once it is on, drive it back and trust the tension. Build it up gradually rather than yanking maximally on a cold ankle. Spend a few steep sessions hunting for toes and they will quickly become part of how you read overhanging ground, and the wall will stop throwing you off when it tips back.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3333},[3334,3335,3336,3337],{"id":3269,"depth":86,"text":3270},{"id":3279,"depth":86,"text":3280},{"id":3289,"depth":86,"text":3290},{"id":3313,"depth":86,"text":3314},"2024-10-11","How toe hooks keep you on the wall when it tips past vertical, and how to train the tension they need.",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftoe-hooks-for-steep-climbing",{"title":3264,"description":3339},"blog\u002Ftoe-hooks-for-steep-climbing",[385,533,3345],"overhang","Tuok7s3vSlyL8KOq8ED2ovXbFqKNyFaipn-kQZseN54",{"id":3348,"title":3349,"author":6,"body":3350,"category":92,"date":3442,"description":3443,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3444,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":3445,"imageCreditUrl":3446,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3447,"navigation":103,"path":3448,"readTime":250,"seo":3449,"stem":3450,"tags":3451,"__hash__":3453},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fcrimp-or-open-hand-reading-the-hold.md","Crimp or open hand? Reading the hold",{"type":8,"value":3351,"toc":3436},[3352,3356,3359,3374,3378,3381,3384,3387,3391,3394,3420,3423,3427,3430,3433],[11,3353,3355],{"id":3354},"same-hold-different-grip","Same hold, different grip",[16,3357,3358],{},"Grab a small edge and you have a choice to make, even if you have never thought about it consciously. You can crimp it, bending your fingers sharply at the middle knuckle so the fingertips bite down, or you can hang it open-handed, keeping the fingers more extended and draping over the edge. The same piece of rock can be held either way, and the grip you pick changes how hard the move feels and how much strain goes through your fingers.",[16,3360,3361,3362,3365,3366,3369,3370,3373],{},"There are roughly three grips worth knowing. The ",[49,3363,3364],{},"full crimp",", where the fingers bend hard and the thumb wraps over the index finger for extra force. The ",[49,3367,3368],{},"half crimp",", the same bent-finger position without the thumb lock, which is the workhorse grip for edges. And the ",[49,3371,3372],{},"open hand"," or drag, where the fingers stay extended and you hang off the pads. Slopers are basically always held open, with as much skin contact as you can manage.",[11,3375,3377],{"id":3376},"what-each-grip-is-good-for","What each grip is good for",[16,3379,3380],{},"Crimping is powerful. On a small, positive edge, a crimp lets you generate force you simply cannot get with an open hand, because the bent fingers pull more directly down on the lip. When the hold is tiny and incut, crimping is often the only thing that works.",[16,3382,3383],{},"The cost is load. A full crimp puts very high force through the finger tendons and the small pulleys that hold those tendons against the bone, and the thumb lock cranks that up further. It is the grip most associated with finger injuries, the pulley strain that climbers dread. That does not mean you should never crimp. It means you should crimp when you need to, not as a lazy default on holds that did not require it.",[16,3385,3386],{},"Open hand is the gentler position. The pull is spread differently across the finger, and the load on the pulleys is generally lower than a full crimp on the same hold. It is the natural grip for rounded edges, slopers, and anything you can drape rather than bite. Many climbers find their open-hand strength lags behind their crimp strength simply because they avoid using it, which is a habit worth breaking.",[11,3388,3390],{"id":3389},"reading-which-to-use","Reading which to use",[16,3392,3393],{},"A few simple cues help you choose:",[43,3395,3396,3402,3408,3414],{},[46,3397,3398,3401],{},[49,3399,3400],{},"Tiny, sharp, incut edge:"," crimp it. Often a half crimp first, and a full crimp only if you genuinely need the extra force.",[46,3403,3404,3407],{},[49,3405,3406],{},"Rounded, sloping, or generous edge:"," go open-handed and use as much finger and skin contact as the hold allows.",[46,3409,3410,3413],{},[49,3411,3412],{},"Long lock-off or a hold you have to hang for a while:"," prefer open hand where you can, to spare the pulleys.",[46,3415,3416,3419],{},[49,3417,3418],{},"Explosive single pull off a small hold:"," the crimp may be unavoidable, so brace your core and move decisively rather than hanging there.",[16,3421,3422],{},"Outdoors, the rock itself often decides for you. A sharp limestone edge wants a crimp, a rounded sandstone hold wants an open hand. Indoors, the hold shape and how it is set point you the same way.",[11,3424,3426],{"id":3425},"train-both-protect-your-fingers","Train both, protect your fingers",[16,3428,3429],{},"The real reason to think about this is longevity. Fingers are the thing that keeps climbers off the wall more than anything else, and the small pulleys do not recover quickly when they are angry. Defaulting to a full crimp on every hold, especially before you are properly warmed up, is a reliable way to find that out the hard way.",[16,3431,3432],{},"Two habits protect you. First, warm your fingers up gradually before loading any hard crimp, starting open-handed on big holds and working towards smaller edges. Second, deliberately practise open-hand strength so it is genuinely available to you, rather than always reaching for the crimp because it is the only grip you trust. A climber who can hold a hold open-handed has a choice. A climber who can only crimp does not.",[16,3434,3435],{},"If your fingers feel sharp, sore, or tweaky on a particular grip, listen to that. The grip choice that protects your fingers today is the one that keeps you climbing for years.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3437},[3438,3439,3440,3441],{"id":3354,"depth":86,"text":3355},{"id":3376,"depth":86,"text":3377},{"id":3389,"depth":86,"text":3390},{"id":3425,"depth":86,"text":3426},"2024-09-20","When to crimp, when to drape open-handed, and why your grip choice protects your fingers as much as it sends.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1658479422976-adcc505fe42d?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Sasha Matveeva","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@sashamatveeva",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcrimp-or-open-hand-reading-the-hold",{"title":3349,"description":3443},"blog\u002Fcrimp-or-open-hand-reading-the-hold",[385,387,3452],"finger health","nSl9eWxmtH_EpxcgXPwLwf73CegpnZxJV8IGWrhjgZ0",{"id":3455,"title":3456,"author":6,"body":3457,"category":92,"date":3522,"description":3523,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":1445,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":1447,"imageCreditUrl":1448,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3524,"navigation":103,"path":3525,"readTime":250,"seo":3526,"stem":3527,"tags":3528,"__hash__":3531},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-read-a-route-before-you-leave-the-ground.md","How to read a route before you leave the ground",{"type":8,"value":3458,"toc":3516},[3459,3463,3466,3469,3473,3476,3479,3483,3486,3489,3492,3503,3507,3510,3513],[11,3460,3462],{"id":3461},"why-the-time-on-the-ground-is-never-wasted","Why the time on the ground is never wasted",[16,3464,3465],{},"Strength gets the headlines, but the cheapest way to climb harder is to stop wasting energy. Every hold you grab twice, every foot you have to readjust, every dead-end you reverse out of, costs you forearm. Reading a route before you tie in is how you spend that energy on the wall instead of in confusion. Stronger climbers do not just pull harder, they hesitate less, because they have already solved the route standing on the mat.",[16,3467,3468],{},"The good news is route reading is a learnable skill, not a talent. It improves fast once you treat the ground time as part of the climb rather than a delay before the real thing starts.",[11,3470,3472],{"id":3471},"trace-the-line-then-find-the-rests","Trace the line, then find the rests",[16,3474,3475],{},"Start by following the holds from the start to the finish with your eyes, working out which colour or which holds are in. Get the whole shape of the line first: where it goes left, where it kicks back right, where the angle steepens. Climbers often fixate on the first few moves and never look at the top, then arrive at a crux they did not know was coming with nothing left in the tank.",[16,3477,3478],{},"Once you have the line, hunt for the rests. Where can you get a hand shake, drop onto a heel, or stand in balance and breathe. These are the anchors of your plan. You climb from rest to rest, and knowing where they are tells you how hard you can afford to push between them.",[11,3480,3482],{"id":3481},"name-the-crux-and-plan-the-sequence","Name the crux and plan the sequence",[16,3484,3485],{},"Most routes have one section that is clearly the hardest, the crux. Find it and look at it properly. Ask which hand goes where, where your feet will be, and which body position the move demands. A long reach off a crimp usually wants a high foot and a turned hip. A move on slopers wants you square and low with weight pressing down through the feet.",[16,3487,3488],{},"Plan your hand sequence by counting through it, deciding which hand grabs each hold and where the matches happen. A simple way to check your plan is to ask whether your hands end up in the right place for the next move after the crux, not just for the crux itself. It is easy to solve one move and strand yourself crossed up for the one after.",[16,3490,3491],{},"Things worth deciding before you leave the ground:",[43,3493,3494,3497,3500],{},[46,3495,3496],{},"Which hand leads off the start, so you do not have to swap early.",[46,3498,3499],{},"Where the clips or topout fall, and which hand you will hold on with for each.",[46,3501,3502],{},"Which foot to bring up high for the crux, since the wrong one forces a swap mid-move.",[11,3504,3506],{"id":3505},"rehearse-then-trust-it","Rehearse, then trust it",[16,3508,3509],{},"Standing under the route, walk through the sequence with your hands in the air, mimicking the reaches and the body turns. This is not just for show. Mentally rehearsing the movement primes it, and you will climb more decisively for having done it. Picture yourself pulling the crux and pressing into the next rest, not just surviving the hard bit.",[16,3511,3512],{},"Your plan will be wrong sometimes, and that is fine. When you fall, the useful question is not why you are not strong enough but where your read was off. Maybe the rest was not where you thought, or a foot was higher than it looked. Adjust the plan, not just the effort.",[16,3514,3515],{},"Over a season, reading carefully becomes automatic and you stop needing to consciously do it on easier ground. If you log your projects and jot a note on what changed in your beta between attempts, you build a record of how your reading is sharpening, which is one of the quietest and most satisfying kinds of progress.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3517},[3518,3519,3520,3521],{"id":3461,"depth":86,"text":3462},{"id":3471,"depth":86,"text":3472},{"id":3481,"depth":86,"text":3482},{"id":3505,"depth":86,"text":3506},"2024-08-23","Reading the line, naming the crux and planning a sequence before you pull on — the skill that saves the most energy.",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-read-a-route-before-you-leave-the-ground",{"title":3456,"description":3523},"blog\u002Fhow-to-read-a-route-before-you-leave-the-ground",[3529,385,3530],"route reading","beta","vQjjHiIvbsQSYEgBczhymO4huhiLMqy-1DlD7v_4uOs",{"id":3533,"title":3534,"author":6,"body":3535,"category":92,"date":3597,"description":3598,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3599,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":3600,"imageCreditUrl":3601,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3602,"navigation":103,"path":3603,"readTime":250,"seo":3604,"stem":3605,"tags":3606,"__hash__":3608},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhip-positioning-turning-to-reach-further.md","Hip positioning: turning to reach further",{"type":8,"value":3536,"toc":3591},[3537,3541,3544,3547,3551,3554,3557,3561,3564,3567,3570,3581,3585,3588],[11,3538,3540],{"id":3539},"reach-lives-in-the-hips","Reach lives in the hips",[16,3542,3543],{},"Most climbers who feel short are not short, they are square. Facing the wall full-frontal, chest and hips parallel to the rock, is the natural beginner stance, and it is the one that wastes the most reach. When you are square, your shoulder is as far from the wall as it can be and your reaching arm has to span the full distance from a flat chest. Turn a hip in, and your shoulder rotates closer to the wall and upward, and the same arm suddenly reaches several inches further. No extra strength, just geometry.",[16,3545,3546],{},"This is why two climbers of the same height can find the same move easy or impossible. One stays square and comes up short. The other turns a hip to the wall and the hold drops into reach.",[11,3548,3550],{"id":3549},"how-the-turn-works","How the turn works",[16,3552,3553],{},"The move is to rotate the hip on your reaching side in towards the wall, so that the side of your body, rather than the front, faces the rock. If you are reaching with your right hand, you turn your right hip and shoulder in. Your body goes from facing the wall to facing along it, and your right arm gets to extend straight up the line of your body towards the hold.",[16,3555,3556],{},"To make that turn happen, your feet do the work. Standing on the inside edge of one foot and turning the opposite foot in lets the hips rotate. Often a high foot on the same side as the turn lets you press up and rotate at once, so the reach becomes a stand-up rather than a pull. The arm stays relatively relaxed because the leg and the hip are generating the movement.",[11,3558,3560],{"id":3559},"square-versus-turned","Square versus turned",[16,3562,3563],{},"It helps to feel the difference directly. Stand under a route, pick a high hold, and reach for it facing the wall square. Note where your hand lands. Now turn the matching hip in, drop the opposite shoulder back, and reach again from the same feet. The hand will reach noticeably higher. That gap is reach you have been leaving on the table every time you climb square.",[16,3565,3566],{},"Squaring up is not always wrong. Slopers and pinches often want you facing the wall with weight pressing straight down through your feet, and some balancey slab moves want you flat. But on reaches, especially long ones to crimps and edges, turning in is almost always the answer.",[16,3568,3569],{},"Signs you should turn a hip:",[43,3571,3572,3575,3578],{},[46,3573,3574],{},"A long reach that comes up short when you face the wall.",[46,3576,3577],{},"A move where you can get a high foot on the same side as the reaching hand.",[46,3579,3580],{},"Steep ground where turning in also pulls your hips into the wall and saves your arms.",[11,3582,3584],{"id":3583},"making-it-automatic","Making it automatic",[16,3586,3587],{},"Like every piece of technique, this becomes invisible with practice and stays clunky if you only think about it occasionally. Pick an easy route and climb it making an exaggerated hip turn on every single reach, even where you do not need the extra inches. Feel how the shoulder rotates in and how the leg drives the move.",[16,3589,3590],{},"Then watch for the shortfalls in your real climbing. Next time a hold feels just out of reach, the question is rarely whether you need to grow. It is whether you turned in or stayed square. Turn the hip, drive with the leg, and the reach is usually there. Over time you will set up for it in the route read without thinking, and a lot of moves you wrote off as too far will quietly come into range.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3592},[3593,3594,3595,3596],{"id":3539,"depth":86,"text":3540},{"id":3549,"depth":86,"text":3550},{"id":3559,"depth":86,"text":3560},{"id":3583,"depth":86,"text":3584},"2024-08-09","Why facing the wall square wastes reach, and how turning a hip in adds inches without more strength.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1549048267-b6765b7cbfe2?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Daniela Araya","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@danielaraya",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhip-positioning-turning-to-reach-further",{"title":3534,"description":3598},"blog\u002Fhip-positioning-turning-to-reach-further",[385,3607,1336],"hips","pNmyb2nyPiTDLkyn8kt38DiBR9JoUrIsRaIX0vSLnXU",{"id":3610,"title":3611,"author":6,"body":3612,"category":92,"date":3691,"description":3692,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3693,"imageAlt":2664,"imageCredit":3694,"imageCreditUrl":3695,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3696,"navigation":103,"path":3697,"readTime":250,"seo":3698,"stem":3699,"tags":3700,"__hash__":3702},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Ftraining-when-you-cant-get-to-the-gym.md","Training when you can't get to the gym",{"type":8,"value":3613,"toc":3684},[3614,3617,3621,3624,3627,3631,3634,3637,3648,3651,3655,3658,3661,3665,3668,3671,3674,3678,3681],[16,3615,3616],{},"Sooner or later a stretch comes along where you cannot get to the wall. An injury, a work trip, a new baby, a gym that shut for refurbishment. The instinct is to write the weeks off and accept the backslide. You do not have to. A lot of genuinely useful climbing work happens nowhere near a hold, and some of it is exactly the stuff most of us skip when the gym is open.",[11,3618,3620],{"id":3619},"train-the-things-climbing-neglects","Train the things climbing neglects",[16,3622,3623],{},"Climbing pulls. It pulls and pulls and pulls, and almost never pushes. Over years that imbalance shows up as rounded shoulders, cranky elbows and a chest that has forgotten what it is for. Time away from the wall is the ideal window to even things out.",[16,3625,3626],{},"Antagonist work is the priority. Press-ups, dips off a sturdy chair, and any overhead pressing you can rig up will start to balance the front of the shoulder against all that pulling from the back. Wrist and forearm work in the opposite direction to gripping, things like reverse wrist curls with a light weight or a tin of beans, can do a lot to keep the elbows quiet. None of this needs to be heavy. Consistency beats intensity here.",[11,3628,3630],{"id":3629},"core-but-the-useful-kind","Core, but the useful kind",[16,3632,3633],{},"Forget endless crunches. The core that matters for climbing is the one that keeps tension between your hands and feet when the wall steepens, so you want to train it to resist movement rather than just produce it.",[16,3635,3636],{},"A short, sharp circuit two or three times a week covers most of it:",[43,3638,3639,3642,3645],{},[46,3640,3641],{},"Front and side planks, held until your form starts to wobble rather than for a fixed time.",[46,3643,3644],{},"Slow leg raises, hanging if you have a bar, lying on the floor if you do not.",[46,3646,3647],{},"Dead bugs and bird dogs for the anti-rotation work that keeps your hips quiet on steep ground.",[16,3649,3650],{},"Done properly these are harder than they look. If a plank feels easy you are probably letting your hips sag, so reset and try again.",[11,3652,3654],{"id":3653},"mobility-is-free-progress","Mobility is free progress",[16,3656,3657],{},"This is the part everyone knows they should do and almost nobody does. A spell at home with no climbing to chase is the moment to finally build a hip and shoulder routine. High steps, deep squats, hip openers and shoulder dislocates with a band or a broomstick. Five or ten minutes a day, most days, will quietly hand you reach and high steps that you have been muscling around for years.",[16,3659,3660],{},"Mobility work also tends to settle the small aches that build up over a season. Coming back from a break feeling looser than when you left is an underrated win.",[11,3662,3664],{"id":3663},"a-careful-word-on-fingerboarding","A careful word on fingerboarding",[16,3666,3667],{},"If you have a board at home, hangboarding can keep your fingers honest while you are away from the wall, but it comes with a warning. Fingerboarding is dense, specific load with none of the distraction that stops you overdoing it at the gym. It is the easiest way to walk straight into a finger injury.",[16,3669,3670],{},"Keep it conservative. Warm up thoroughly, ideally with some pulling and light hangs before you load anything hard. Stick to open-hand or half-crimp on a comfortable edge, repeaters of seven seconds on and three off, a handful of sets, two sessions a week with rest days between. If anything in a finger feels sharp or hot, stop. There is no hang worth a pulley.",[16,3672,3673],{},"If you are nursing a finger injury rather than just stuck at home, leave the board alone entirely and let the antagonist and core work carry you through.",[11,3675,3677],{"id":3676},"come-back-gently","Come back gently",[16,3679,3680],{},"The mistake is treating your first session back as a chance to prove nothing was lost. Your fingers and connective tissue detrain slower than your enthusiasm rebuilds, so the strength feels like it is there before the tendons agree. Drop a grade or two for a week, climb more volume than intensity, and let things catch up.",[16,3682,3683],{},"Weeks off the wall are not wasted weeks. Used well, they fix the imbalances a normal training cycle never gets round to, and plenty of climbers come back from a forced break moving better than before. Jot down what you did at home so that when you are back on the wall you can see what actually carried over.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3685},[3686,3687,3688,3689,3690],{"id":3619,"depth":86,"text":3620},{"id":3629,"depth":86,"text":3630},{"id":3653,"depth":86,"text":3654},{"id":3663,"depth":86,"text":3664},{"id":3676,"depth":86,"text":3677},"2024-07-05","Antagonists, core, mobility and a little fingerboarding — useful work for the weeks you are stuck at home.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1536639070539-43ec572aca6d?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","Jonathan J. Castellon","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@jon_cast2",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftraining-when-you-cant-get-to-the-gym",{"title":3611,"description":3692},"blog\u002Ftraining-when-you-cant-get-to-the-gym",[109,3701,3182],"home","RU7q286LBsds4uHQcDL2KgoGKDLqsii7B03eTFT_5hw",{"id":3704,"title":3705,"author":6,"body":3706,"category":92,"date":3830,"description":3831,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3832,"imageAlt":3833,"imageCredit":378,"imageCreditUrl":379,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3834,"navigation":103,"path":3835,"readTime":105,"seo":3836,"stem":3837,"tags":3838,"__hash__":3842},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-logging-every-session-makes-you-a-better-climber.md","Why logging every session makes you a better climber",{"type":8,"value":3707,"toc":3822},[3708,3711,3719,3723,3726,3746,3752,3756,3759,3786,3789,3794,3797,3801,3804,3815],[16,3709,3710],{},"Most climbers can tell you their hardest send. Far fewer can tell you how many times\nthey climbed last month, what angle they spend most of their time on, or which grade\nthey have been stuck at and for how long. That gap is exactly where progress hides.",[16,3712,3713,3714,3718],{},"A log turns a vague feeling — ",[3715,3716,3717],"em",{},"\"I think I'm getting stronger\""," — into something you can\nactually see. And once you can see it, you can change it.",[11,3720,3722],{"id":3721},"what-a-log-gives-you-that-memory-cant","What a log gives you that memory can't",[16,3724,3725],{},"Memory is generous and unreliable. It remembers the good sessions and quietly forgets\nthe flat ones. A log does three things memory won't:",[43,3727,3728,3734,3740],{},[46,3729,3730,3733],{},[49,3731,3732],{},"It shows volume."," Sends are exciting, but consistent time on the wall is what\nbuilds climbers. A log makes your real frequency visible.",[46,3735,3736,3739],{},[49,3737,3738],{},"It shows plateaus."," Eight weeks at the same grade is hard to feel and easy to see.",[46,3741,3742,3745],{},[49,3743,3744],{},"It shows patterns."," Maybe you always climb steep and never train slab. Maybe you\nsend well two days after a rest, not one. The data tells you.",[3747,3748,3749],"blockquote",{},[16,3750,3751],{},"You can't manage what you don't measure — and you can't measure what you don't write down.",[11,3753,3755],{"id":3754},"whats-actually-worth-tracking","What's actually worth tracking",[16,3757,3758],{},"You do not need to record everything. A handful of fields, logged honestly, beats a\nspreadsheet you abandon in March:",[3760,3761,3762,3768,3774,3780],"ol",{},[46,3763,3764,3767],{},[49,3765,3766],{},"Grade and angle"," — the two numbers that define the climb.",[46,3769,3770,3773],{},[49,3771,3772],{},"Attempts vs. flash"," — first-go sends and projects tell different stories.",[46,3775,3776,3779],{},[49,3777,3778],{},"How it felt"," — a one-line note. \"Pumped early\", \"feet felt great\", \"shoulder twingy\".",[46,3781,3782,3785],{},[49,3783,3784],{},"Rest"," — days since your last session. Recovery is training too.",[16,3787,3788],{},"That is enough to spot a trend within a month.",[3790,3791,3793],"h3",{"id":3792},"make-it-frictionless","Make it frictionless",[16,3795,3796],{},"The best log is the one you actually keep. If logging a climb takes thirty seconds and\nlives in your pocket, you will do it. If it takes a notebook and good intentions, you\nwon't. Sendit logs a climb in a couple of taps — grade, angle, attempts, a note — and\nquietly builds the history in the background so the streaks, totals and trends are\nthere when you want them.",[11,3798,3800],{"id":3799},"review-on-a-schedule","Review on a schedule",[16,3802,3803],{},"Logging is only half of it. Once a month, look back. Three questions are enough:",[43,3805,3806,3809,3812],{},[46,3807,3808],{},"Am I climbing as often as I think I am?",[46,3810,3811],{},"What grade and angle do I avoid?",[46,3813,3814],{},"What was different about my best sessions?",[16,3816,3817,3818,3821],{},"Answer those honestly and your next month almost plans itself. Climb, log, review,\nadjust — that is the whole loop, and it is how ten years of climbing turns into ten\nyears of ",[3715,3819,3820],{},"getting better",".",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3823},[3824,3825,3829],{"id":3721,"depth":86,"text":3722},{"id":3754,"depth":86,"text":3755,"children":3826},[3827],{"id":3792,"depth":3828,"text":3793},3,{"id":3799,"depth":86,"text":3800},"2024-06-07","A training log is not admin — it is the difference between climbing for ten years and climbing the same year ten times. Here is what to track, and why it works.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.pexels.com\u002Fphotos\u002F8728635\u002Fpexels-photo-8728635.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&fit=crop&w=1600&h=900","A climber mid-session on an indoor bouldering wall",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-logging-every-session-makes-you-a-better-climber",{"title":3705,"description":3831},"blog\u002Fwhy-logging-every-session-makes-you-a-better-climber",[109,3839,3840,3841],"logbook","progression","habits","T6xE9CGtlEeBZ_BR821dI9C3epD7YSbc7zlwWATal8k",{"id":3844,"title":3845,"author":6,"body":3846,"category":92,"date":3914,"description":3915,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":3916,"imageAlt":1967,"imageCredit":2467,"imageCreditUrl":2468,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":3917,"navigation":103,"path":3918,"readTime":105,"seo":3919,"stem":3920,"tags":3921,"__hash__":3922},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fflagging-stop-the-barn-door-before-it-starts.md","Flagging: stop the barn door before it starts",{"type":8,"value":3847,"toc":3907},[3848,3852,3855,3858,3862,3865,3868,3872,3875,3878,3882,3885,3896,3899,3901,3904],[11,3849,3851],{"id":3850},"why-you-swing-off","Why you swing off",[16,3853,3854],{},"You reach for a hold, your hand lands, and then your whole body pivots away from the wall like a door swinging open on a hinge. That is the barn door, and it is one of the most common ways climbers come off, especially on vertical and slabby ground. It happens when your points of contact are stacked on one side of your body. With a hand and foot both on the left, say, there is nothing on the right to balance against, so the moment you move, your right side swings out and pulls you off.",[16,3856,3857],{},"The fix is not to grip harder. It is to put something on the other side. That something is usually a leg, held out into space or pressed against the wall, and using it that way is called flagging.",[11,3859,3861],{"id":3860},"the-outside-flag","The outside flag",[16,3863,3864],{},"An outside flag is the workhorse. Imagine you are reaching up with your right hand off a right foot, and there is no foothold for your left foot. Instead of leaving the left leg dangling, you extend it out to the right, crossing behind, and press the inside edge of that shoe against the wall or just hold it out as a counterweight. That extended leg balances the swing and keeps your hips square to the rock.",[16,3866,3867],{},"You will feel it work immediately. The reach that was throwing you sideways suddenly goes calm and static, because your body is balanced over the foot you are standing on rather than rotating around it.",[11,3869,3871],{"id":3870},"the-inside-flag","The inside flag",[16,3873,3874],{},"The inside flag is the same idea from the other direction. Here you tuck the free leg across in front of your standing leg and press it against the wall to stop the rotation. It is useful when the wall or the holds do not give you room to swing the leg out wide, or when the natural body position has your free leg already crossing in front.",[16,3876,3877],{},"In practice you do not need to memorise which is which. The principle is what matters: when you feel a swing coming, stick a leg out to oppose it, on whichever side stops the rotation. With a bit of practice you will reach for the right one without naming it.",[11,3879,3881],{"id":3880},"reading-when-to-flag","Reading when to flag",[16,3883,3884],{},"The cue to flag is mismatched contact. Look at your stance before a move and notice when your hand and foot are on the same side with nothing on the other. That is a barn door waiting to happen, and a flag is usually the answer. A few common triggers:",[43,3886,3887,3890,3893],{},[46,3888,3889],{},"A long reach off a single foot with no foothold for the other leg.",[46,3891,3892],{},"Moving up on holds that are all stacked towards one side of your body.",[46,3894,3895],{},"Any move where you feel your hips wanting to rotate as you reach.",[16,3897,3898],{},"Get into the habit of asking, before you commit, whether your body is balanced or stacked. If it is stacked, find a flag.",[11,3900,1509],{"id":1508},[16,3902,3903],{},"Flagging feels deliberate and slow at first, then becomes invisible. The way there is reps on easy ground. Pick a slab or a vertical wall a couple of grades below your limit and climb it with one rule: your free leg is never allowed to just hang. Every time it is not on a hold, it flags somewhere, out wide or across the front, to keep you square.",[16,3905,3906],{},"You will be surprised how often that is, and how much steadier you feel. Before long you will stop swinging on your projects without ever consciously deciding to flag, which is the sign it has become part of how you move.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":3908},[3909,3910,3911,3912,3913],{"id":3850,"depth":86,"text":3851},{"id":3860,"depth":86,"text":3861},{"id":3870,"depth":86,"text":3871},{"id":3880,"depth":86,"text":3881},{"id":1508,"depth":86,"text":1509},"2024-03-15","What causes the dreaded swing, and how an outside or inside flag keeps you square and in control.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1727999988371-d9e014d884ad?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fflagging-stop-the-barn-door-before-it-starts",{"title":3845,"description":3915},"blog\u002Fflagging-stop-the-barn-door-before-it-starts",[385,886,991],"TyvMVB63LHTBh80xFc9tirWvmP10UnD315-Q_CvfeAU",{"id":3924,"title":3925,"author":6,"body":3926,"category":92,"date":4089,"description":4090,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":4091,"imageAlt":4092,"imageCredit":1538,"imageCreditUrl":1539,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":4093,"navigation":103,"path":4094,"readTime":250,"seo":4095,"stem":4096,"tags":4097,"__hash__":4098},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-actually-rest-between-attempts.md","How to actually rest between attempts",{"type":8,"value":3927,"toc":4080},[3928,3931,3934,3938,3941,3949,3954,3958,3961,4013,4016,4019,4023,4026,4029,4046,4053,4057,4060,4063,4067,4070,4074,4077],[16,3929,3930],{},"You sit down after a hard burn on your project, swap a bit of chat with whoever is around, brush the holds, and pull straight back on. Two minutes later, maybe three. It feels productive. You are trying hard and trying often. And yet you keep peeling off the same crux move, your forearms feeling that little bit more wooden each go. The problem usually is not your fingers or your beta. It is that you never actually rested.",[16,3932,3933],{},"Resting between attempts is one of those things nobody really teaches you. You learn how to warm up, you learn how to fall, but the gap between burns gets treated as dead time. Done well, it is the difference between four quality attempts and eight scrappy ones.",[11,3935,3937],{"id":3936},"why-short-rests-cost-you-sends","Why short rests cost you sends",[16,3939,3940],{},"When you climb something near your limit, you are leaning hard on your anaerobic systems and burning through the energy your muscles can access quickly. That comes with a by-product climbers feel as pump, the tight, swollen forearm that stops your hand closing properly. Clearing it and topping your tank back up takes time, and that time is longer than most people give it.",[16,3942,3943,3944,3821],{},"If you go again too soon, you start the next attempt already fatigued. Your grip is weaker, your footwork gets sloppy because tired legs stop being precise, and you reinforce a slightly worse version of the movement every time. You end up grooving failure. Worse, those repeated maximal pulls on already-tired tendons are exactly the conditions where finger injuries creep in, which we get into properly in ",[3945,3946,3948],"a",{"href":3947},"\u002Fblog\u002Ffinger-strength-without-the-injuries","finger strength without the injuries",[3747,3950,3951],{},[16,3952,3953],{},"A good rest is not laziness. It is the part of the session where your last attempt turns into your next one being better.",[11,3955,3957],{"id":3956},"how-long-is-long-enough","How long is long enough",[16,3959,3960],{},"There is no single magic number, and anyone who gives you one to the second is overselling it. But there are sensible ranges, and they depend on what you are working on.",[3962,3963,3964,3977],"table",{},[3965,3966,3967],"thead",{},[3968,3969,3970,3974],"tr",{},[3971,3972,3973],"th",{},"What you are doing",[3971,3975,3976],{},"Rough rest between attempts",[3978,3979,3980,3989,3997,4005],"tbody",{},[3968,3981,3982,3986],{},[3983,3984,3985],"td",{},"Limit bouldering, full power burns",[3983,3987,3988],{},"3 to 5 minutes, sometimes more",[3968,3990,3991,3994],{},[3983,3992,3993],{},"Hard moves on a board",[3983,3995,3996],{},"2 to 4 minutes",[3968,3998,3999,4002],{},[3983,4000,4001],{},"Endurance laps and circuits",[3983,4003,4004],{},"1 to 2 minutes, by design",[3968,4006,4007,4010],{},[3983,4008,4009],{},"Volume and easy mileage",[3983,4011,4012],{},"as much as you need to stay tidy",[16,4014,4015],{},"The honest test is how you feel. If your forearms are still tight, your skin is still hot, and your heart is still going, you are not ready. For genuine limit attempts, do not be shy about resting five minutes or longer. It feels like ages when you are stood at the bottom watching others climb, but it is what lets you bring your best to the move that actually matters.",[16,4017,4018],{},"A useful rule of thumb: the closer a problem is to your absolute limit, the longer you rest. Easy stuff you can churn through. Your one hard project deserves patience.",[11,4020,4022],{"id":4021},"active-or-passive-and-what-to-do-with-the-time","Active or passive, and what to do with the time",[16,4024,4025],{},"You will hear people argue about active versus passive rest. Passive is sitting down doing nothing. Active is gentle movement, like a slow wander around the bouldering area or some loose arm swings. For climbing, light movement tends to help shift the pump a bit faster than sitting stone still, because gentle blood flow helps clear the by-products. But do not turn your rest into more training. Pacing the room is fine, doing pull-ups on the campus board is not.",[16,4027,4028],{},"Here is a simple way to spend the gap so it does the job:",[43,4030,4031,4034,4037,4040,4043],{},[46,4032,4033],{},"Shake your arms out low, below your heart, and let your hands dangle open",[46,4035,4036],{},"Breathe slowly and deliberately for the first minute, longer out-breaths than in",[46,4038,4039],{},"Have a sip of water and a bite of something if it is a long session",[46,4041,4042],{},"Brush the holds on your project and quietly run the beta in your head",[46,4044,4045],{},"Resist the urge to keep gripping things and showing people the crux move with your hands",[16,4047,4048,4049,3821],{},"That mental rehearsal matters more than people think. While your body recovers, your head can do useful work. Picture the exact foot you placed, the moment you committed to the throw, where it went wrong last time. You can read more on planning a sequence in ",[3945,4050,4052],{"href":4051},"\u002Fblog\u002Freading-a-boulder-before-you-pull-on","reading a boulder before you pull on",[11,4054,4056],{"id":4055},"reading-your-own-tank","Reading your own tank",[16,4058,4059],{},"The skill underneath all of this is honesty with yourself. Most of us are biased towards going again, because resting feels passive and we came here to climb. Learn the signals that say you have not recovered.",[16,4061,4062],{},"Your forearms are the obvious one. If you make a tight fist and it feels swollen or slow to open, you are still pumped. Beyond that, watch for sloppiness creeping into the easy parts of a problem. If you are fluffing moves that were fine on your first go, fatigue is talking. Skin is another honest signal, especially on small holds and crimps. When your fingertips are hot and tender, your contact with the rock or plastic gets worse and you start pulling harder to compensate, which is a quick route to a tweak.",[3790,4064,4066],{"id":4065},"when-to-call-it","When to call it",[16,4068,4069],{},"There is also a bigger rest worth respecting, which is the one between sessions. Quality limit attempts are taxing, and you only get a handful of truly good ones in a day before the returns drop off. If you have given a project six honest burns with proper rests and you are getting further from it rather than closer, that is your body telling you the session is done. Coming back fresh in two days will very often get you the send that another ten tired goes today never would.",[11,4071,4073],{"id":4072},"a-simple-structure-to-try","A simple structure to try",[16,4075,4076],{},"Next session, pick one problem at or near your limit and give it this treatment. Warm up properly first, then commit to resting at least three to four minutes between every serious attempt. Use the gap to shake out, breathe, and rehearse. Cap it at five or six real burns. Notice how much sharper attempt four feels compared to a normal session where you machine-gun your goes.",[16,4078,4079],{},"It will feel slow and a little frustrating at first, because you are used to filling every minute. But the climbers who send hard are very rarely the ones throwing themselves at the wall non-stop. They are the patient ones, the ones who look almost lazy between goes and then pull on looking fresh. Give yourself permission to rest, and your good attempts will start to add up. You came to send, and a rested attempt is your best chance of doing exactly that.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":4081},[4082,4083,4084,4085,4088],{"id":3936,"depth":86,"text":3937},{"id":3956,"depth":86,"text":3957},{"id":4021,"depth":86,"text":4022},{"id":4055,"depth":86,"text":4056,"children":4086},[4087],{"id":4065,"depth":3828,"text":4066},{"id":4072,"depth":86,"text":4073},"2024-03-01","Most of us rush back onto the wall before we have recovered. Here is how to rest properly between burns so each attempt actually counts.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1730659071139-ca79bf16d835?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","People watching a climber on the wall",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-actually-rest-between-attempts",{"title":3925,"description":4090},"blog\u002Fhow-to-actually-rest-between-attempts",[109,385,1337,656],"NvRgsd5GWXSy71gF9furGNwipUcW_BbHFzb7G2xLnGw",{"id":4100,"title":4101,"author":6,"body":4102,"category":92,"date":4269,"description":4270,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":4271,"imageAlt":4272,"imageCredit":4273,"imageCreditUrl":4274,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":4275,"navigation":103,"path":3947,"readTime":250,"seo":4276,"stem":4277,"tags":4278,"__hash__":4279},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Ffinger-strength-without-the-injuries.md","Finger strength without the injuries",{"type":8,"value":4103,"toc":4261},[4104,4107,4111,4114,4117,4122,4126,4129,4140,4144,4147,4150,4167,4173,4177,4180,4183,4203,4209,4213,4216,4219,4236,4248,4252,4255,4258],[16,4105,4106],{},"Ask any climber a few years in about their worst climbing memories and a fair number will involve a finger. The pop on a crimp, the dull ache that would not go away, the months off while a tendon or a pulley sulked its way back to health. Finger strength is one of the biggest single factors in climbing harder, and the fingers are also where most of us pick up our most frustrating injuries. The good news is that the two are not in conflict. You can build genuinely strong fingers without wrecking them, as long as you respect how slowly that tissue actually adapts.",[11,4108,4110],{"id":4109},"why-fingers-get-hurt-in-the-first-place","Why fingers get hurt in the first place",[16,4112,4113],{},"The key fact to hold onto is this: your muscles get stronger far faster than your tendons and pulleys do. Pull hard for a few months and your forearms will respond quickly. The connective tissue in your fingers, the tendons and the little pulleys that hold them against the bone, adapts on a much slower timescale, often measured in many months.",[16,4115,4116],{},"That mismatch is where injuries come from. Your muscles develop the strength to pull harder on smaller holds before your fingers have developed the resilience to take that load. You feel strong, you crimp something tiny with full power, and the weakest link, a pulley, gives. So the whole game of building finger strength safely is really about not letting your enthusiasm and your muscle strength outrun your connective tissue.",[3747,4118,4119],{},[16,4120,4121],{},"Your fingers can get strong, but only on their own schedule. Most finger injuries are not bad luck, they are someone asking the tissue to do next year's loading this month.",[11,4123,4125],{"id":4124},"climbing-is-finger-training","Climbing is finger training",[16,4127,4128],{},"Before you reach for a hangboard or any fancy tool, understand that the single best and safest builder of finger strength for most climbers is simply climbing, regularly, on a sensible variety of holds. Every time you pull on, your fingers are being loaded and are slowly adapting. For a beginner and well into the intermediate stage, just climbing consistently does most of the work, and it does it in the context of real movement so the strength is useful.",[16,4130,4131,4132,4135,4136,3821],{},"So the first piece of advice for finger strength without injuries is almost anticlimactic: climb regularly, do not skip rest days, and let your fingers toughen up over months of normal sessions before you go looking for dedicated finger training. There is sound guidance in ",[3945,4133,4134],{"href":3177},"building finger strength without getting hurt"," and ",[3945,4137,4139],{"href":4138},"\u002Fblog\u002Flooking-after-your-fingers","looking after your fingers",[11,4141,4143],{"id":4142},"warming-up-is-not-optional","Warming up is not optional",[16,4145,4146],{},"If you do nothing else from this article, warm your fingers up properly before you load them hard. Cold tendons are stiff and far more likely to complain, and the difference a proper warm-up makes is enormous.",[16,4148,4149],{},"A sensible finger warm-up builds gradually:",[43,4151,4152,4155,4158,4161,4164],{},[46,4153,4154],{},"Start with some general movement to get blood flowing, arms and shoulders too",[46,4156,4157],{},"Climb easy problems on big holds, well below your limit, for a good while",[46,4159,4160],{},"Move onto slightly smaller holds and steeper ground gradually",[46,4162,4163],{},"Do a few easy hangs or pulls on a hangboard before any maximal hang",[46,4165,4166],{},"Only go to your hardest crimps once everything feels warm and ready",[16,4168,4169,4170,3821],{},"The temptation, especially on a board or a hangboard at home, is to skip straight to the hard stuff because it is right there. That is exactly when fingers get hurt. There is good detail in ",[3945,4171,4172],{"href":2834},"a warm-up that actually prepares you to climb",[11,4174,4176],{"id":4175},"vary-your-grips","Vary your grips",[16,4178,4179],{},"A subtle cause of finger trouble is doing everything in the same grip, usually a hard, full crimp with the thumb wrapped, because it feels powerful. The full crimp puts the most stress on your pulleys of any grip. Relying on it constantly loads the same vulnerable tissue over and over.",[16,4181,4182],{},"The fix is to deliberately use a range of grips and to favour the gentler ones:",[43,4184,4185,4191,4197],{},[46,4186,4187,4190],{},[49,4188,4189],{},"Open hand or half crimp"," for most of your climbing and training, kinder on pulleys",[46,4192,4193,4196],{},[49,4194,4195],{},"Full crimp"," sparingly, when a hold genuinely demands it",[46,4198,4199,4202],{},[49,4200,4201],{},"Pinches and slopers"," to load the fingers in different ways and build all-round strength",[16,4204,4205,4206,3821],{},"Building this variety not only spreads the load and reduces injury risk, it makes you a more adaptable climber. The differences between grips are laid out in ",[3945,4207,4208],{"href":3448},"crimp or open hand, reading the hold",[11,4210,4212],{"id":4211},"if-and-when-you-hangboard","If and when you hangboard",[16,4214,4215],{},"A hangboard is an effective, controllable way to build finger strength, and it is also a very efficient way to hurt yourself if you rush in. The controllability cuts both ways: there is no movement to distract you, just your fingers on an edge taking load.",[16,4217,4218],{},"A few rules for hangboarding without injury:",[43,4220,4221,4224,4227,4230,4233],{},[46,4222,4223],{},"Do not start hangboarding until you have a year or more of regular climbing behind you",[46,4225,4226],{},"Always warm up thoroughly first, never hang cold",[46,4228,4229],{},"Use bigger edges and lower intensity to begin with, and progress glacially",[46,4231,4232],{},"Stop the moment you feel any sharp or unusual finger pain, not after",[46,4234,4235],{},"Build it in once or twice a week with full rest, not daily",[16,4237,4238,4239,4135,4243,4247],{},"The crucial mindset is patience. Hangboard progress that feels frustratingly slow is hangboard progress that does not injure you. Rushing the loading is the single most common way climbers tweak fingers on the board. ",[3945,4240,4242],{"href":4241},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-best-hangboards-for-training-at-home","The best hangboards for training at home",[3945,4244,4246],{"href":4245},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-hangboard-routine-for-busy-weeks","a hangboard routine for busy weeks"," cover the practical side.",[11,4249,4251],{"id":4250},"listen-to-the-early-warnings","Listen to the early warnings",[16,4253,4254],{},"Most finger injuries give you warning signs before the dramatic pop, and learning to heed them is what separates climbers who train for decades from those who keep getting sidelined. A bit of stiffness in the morning, a niggle in a specific finger after sessions, a hold that suddenly feels tender to pull on, these are your body asking you to back off. The macho instinct to climb through finger pain is exactly the wrong one. A few days of rest now is a far better deal than a few months off later.",[16,4256,4257],{},"Build deload weeks in, where you climb easier and less, especially when life is stressful or sleep is poor, because tissue recovers when you let it. And accept that finger strength is the most patient project in climbing. There is no shortcut to resilient fingers, only consistent loading over a long time with enough rest to adapt.",[16,4259,4260],{},"Strong fingers are worth the wait, and they do not have to come at the price of injury. Climb regularly, warm up like you mean it, vary your grips, leave dedicated finger training until you have a base, progress any loading painfully slowly, and respect the early warning niggles. Do that and your fingers will quietly get stronger year on year, ready for the next grade rather than nursing the last tweak. The strongest climbers are very often just the ones who never had to stop.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":4262},[4263,4264,4265,4266,4267,4268],{"id":4109,"depth":86,"text":4110},{"id":4124,"depth":86,"text":4125},{"id":4142,"depth":86,"text":4143},{"id":4175,"depth":86,"text":4176},{"id":4211,"depth":86,"text":4212},{"id":4250,"depth":86,"text":4251},"2023-12-29","Strong fingers win at climbing, but they are also where most of us get hurt. Here is how to build grip strength steadily without tweaking a tendon.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1767708148502-6794daf98a23?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A rocky slope under a clear sky","Valentin Lacoste","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@valentinlacoste",{},{"title":4101,"description":4270},"blog\u002Ffinger-strength-without-the-injuries",[109,385,1337,3182],"Wgp1Ul819JPLDqYzG8Cwza_qKmnBUxqIYOsBjHqhLo8",{"id":4281,"title":4282,"author":6,"body":4283,"category":92,"date":4430,"description":4431,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":4432,"imageAlt":4433,"imageCredit":4273,"imageCreditUrl":4274,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":4434,"navigation":103,"path":4051,"readTime":250,"seo":4435,"stem":4436,"tags":4437,"__hash__":4438},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Freading-a-boulder-before-you-pull-on.md","Reading a boulder before you pull on",{"type":8,"value":4284,"toc":4423},[4285,4288,4291,4295,4298,4301,4338,4341,4345,4348,4383,4388,4392,4395,4403,4407,4410,4413,4416,4420],[16,4286,4287],{},"Watch a strong climber walk up to a problem they have never tried. They do not just grab the start and heave. They stand back, look, point at things, mime a move or two with their hands in the air, shuffle their feet, look again, and only then pull on. That pause is not hesitation. It is route-reading, and it is one of the cheapest, most effective skills in climbing, because the attempts you save by reading well are attempts you get to spend with fresh fingers on the actual moves.",[16,4289,4290],{},"Most newer climbers skip this entirely. They see the start holds, jump on, and try to solve the problem on the fly while pumped and gripped. Sometimes it works. More often they burn three or four goes flailing before they even understand the sequence, and by then their skin and strength are half gone. Learning to read from the ground changes that.",[11,4292,4294],{"id":4293},"what-you-are-actually-looking-for","What you are actually looking for",[16,4296,4297],{},"Reading a boulder is about building a plan before you commit. You are trying to answer a handful of questions while you still have the luxury of standing on the floor with a clear head.",[16,4299,4300],{},"The main things to work out:",[43,4302,4303,4309,4315,4321,4332],{},[46,4304,4305,4308],{},[49,4306,4307],{},"The hand sequence."," Which hand goes to which hold, and in what order. The key question on most problems is which hand starts on a given hold, because that determines everything downstream.",[46,4310,4311,4314],{},[49,4312,4313],{},"The feet."," Where your feet go is usually more important than where your hands go, and it is the thing beginners look at least. Spot the footholds, including the small or hidden ones, and work out which foot goes where for each move.",[46,4316,4317,4320],{},[49,4318,4319],{},"Body position."," Where your hips need to be. Whether a move wants you square to the wall, turned sideways, dropped into a knee, or flagging a leg out for balance.",[46,4322,4323,4326,4327,4331],{},[49,4324,4325],{},"The crux."," The hardest move or section. Identify it early so you can plan to arrive there as fresh and well-positioned as possible. Knowing ",[3945,4328,4330],{"href":4329},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-is-the-crux","what the crux is"," and where it sits shapes how you climb everything before it.",[46,4333,4334,4337],{},[49,4335,4336],{},"The rests."," Any place you can shake out or recover, especially on longer problems.",[16,4339,4340],{},"You will not get all of this right from the ground, and that is fine. A plan you adjust beats no plan at all.",[11,4342,4344],{"id":4343},"how-to-read-step-by-step","How to read, step by step",[16,4346,4347],{},"A simple process you can run every time:",[3760,4349,4350,4356,4362,4371,4377],{},[46,4351,4352,4355],{},[49,4353,4354],{},"Stand back far enough to see the whole thing."," Walk back several steps. From under the boulder you cannot see the holds higher up or how the line flows.",[46,4357,4358,4361],{},[49,4359,4360],{},"Find the start and the finish first."," Knowing where you are going shapes everything in between.",[46,4363,4364,4367,4368,4370],{},[49,4365,4366],{},"Work out the holds."," Identify each handhold and guess how good it is and how you would grip it. Reading whether something is a crimp, a sloper or a pinch from the ground takes practice, and ",[3945,4369,4208],{"href":3448}," helps you guess better.",[46,4372,4373,4376],{},[49,4374,4375],{},"Trace the feet."," For each hand move, ask where your feet will be. This is where most plans fall apart, because beginners forget the feet.",[46,4378,4379,4382],{},[49,4380,4381],{},"Mime it."," Stand at the base and physically rehearse the moves with your hands and a bit of body movement. It looks slightly daft and it works, because it commits the sequence to memory and surfaces problems before you are hanging off the wall.",[3747,4384,4385],{},[16,4386,4387],{},"The mime on the ground is not showing off. It is loading the sequence into your body so that when you pull on, your hands already know roughly where they are going.",[11,4389,4391],{"id":4390},"why-the-feet-are-the-secret","Why the feet are the secret",[16,4393,4394],{},"If you take one thing from reading a boulder, make it the feet. New climbers default to looking at handholds because hands feel like where the action is. But your feet are what hold you in position, take weight off your arms, and let you reach the next hold without barn-dooring off. A move that feels impossible with your feet in the wrong place often feels easy once they are right.",[16,4396,4397,4398,4402],{},"When you read, deliberately spend more time on the feet than feels natural. Find the small chips and dimples, not just the obvious jugs. Work out which foot goes where so you are not crossing your legs into a tangle. This habit alone will quietly raise your grade, and it pairs naturally with the kind of ",[3945,4399,4401],{"href":4400},"\u002Fblog\u002Ffootwork-drills-that-pay-off-fast","footwork drills that pay off fast"," that build the precision to actually use what you read.",[11,4404,4406],{"id":4405},"when-the-plan-goes-wrong","When the plan goes wrong",[16,4408,4409],{},"Here is the honest part: your reading will often be wrong, especially at first. The hold you thought was a jug is a sloper. The foot you planned does not work for your height. The sequence needs to be the other hand on the start. That is completely normal, and good climbers expect it. The value of reading is not that you get it perfect. It is that you arrive with a hypothesis you can test and adjust, instead of pure improvisation.",[16,4411,4412],{},"So when a move does not go, do not just try harder with the same beta. Drop off, look again from the ground, and ask what was wrong. Was your hip in the wrong place? Wrong foot? Wrong hand on the previous hold? Re-reading between attempts, rather than just battering away, is what turns flailing into figuring out.",[16,4414,4415],{},"Tall and short climbers will also read the same problem differently, and that is fine. Reach changes which holds you can skip and which feet you need, so your beta will not always match the person next to you. Learning to read for your own body, rather than copying someone built differently, is part of getting good at this.",[11,4417,4419],{"id":4418},"make-it-a-habit","Make it a habit",[16,4421,4422],{},"The fix is simple: before every attempt on something new, make yourself pause and read it. Stand back, find the start and finish, trace the hands, obsess over the feet, spot the crux, and mime it once. It adds thirty seconds and saves you several wasted burns. Over a session that is the difference between sending fresh and flailing tired. Over a year it is one of the biggest things separating climbers who improve steadily from those who plateau. Read first, pull on second, and watch how many more of your first goes turn into sends.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":4424},[4425,4426,4427,4428,4429],{"id":4293,"depth":86,"text":4294},{"id":4343,"depth":86,"text":4344},{"id":4390,"depth":86,"text":4391},{"id":4405,"depth":86,"text":4406},{"id":4418,"depth":86,"text":4419},"2023-10-27","Most wasted attempts happen before you even touch the wall. Here is how to read a boulder problem from the ground so your first go is your best go.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1764943094589-72ffed3fbea2?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A weathered rock face with vegetation",{},{"title":4282,"description":4431},"blog\u002Freading-a-boulder-before-you-pull-on",[109,385,1337,3529,3530],"aKyhcMsPCabp5OSn7NWlp7VTo4ld6verXc9Gjat306o",{"id":4440,"title":4441,"author":6,"body":4442,"category":92,"date":4654,"description":4655,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":4656,"imageAlt":4657,"imageCredit":246,"imageCreditUrl":247,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":4658,"navigation":103,"path":4400,"readTime":105,"seo":4659,"stem":4660,"tags":4661,"__hash__":4663},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Ffootwork-drills-that-pay-off-fast.md","Footwork drills that pay off fast",{"type":8,"value":4443,"toc":4646},[4444,4447,4450,4454,4457,4460,4465,4468,4471,4474,4494,4501,4505,4508,4511,4514,4525,4529,4532,4604,4607,4611,4614,4617,4625,4629,4632,4643],[16,4445,4446],{},"Most climbers, when they get stuck on a move, assume they need to get stronger. They go away and hang off a board, build their fingers, come back, and find the move just as hard. Nine times out of ten the problem was never their fingers. It was their feet. Sloppy footwork quietly sabotages people for years, and the maddening thing is that it is the fastest thing in climbing to improve. You can feel a difference within a single session of deliberate practice, long before any strength training pays back.",[16,4448,4449],{},"These are drills you can do at any wall, on easy ground, with no special kit. They are not glamorous. They are the boring stuff that separates people who plateau from people who keep getting better. Give them a few sessions and watch what happens.",[11,4451,4453],{"id":4452},"why-feet-matter-more-than-you-think","Why feet matter more than you think",[16,4455,4456],{},"Your legs are far stronger than your arms and they do not pump out. Every kilo of bodyweight you can drive through your feet is a kilo your fingers do not have to hold. Climbers with good footwork make hard moves look easy precisely because they are letting their legs do the heavy lifting while their hands just direct.",[16,4458,4459],{},"Bad footwork shows up as scrabbling, readjusting, and feet popping off mid-move. Good footwork is quiet, precise, and committed. The drills below all train the same handful of things: looking at your feet, placing them accurately, and trusting them once they are down.",[3747,4461,4462],{},[16,4463,4464],{},"The single best diagnostic for footwork is noise. Listen to yourself climb. If your feet land with a slap and a scrape, they are sloppy. If they touch down silently and stay put, you are getting it right.",[11,4466,2242],{"id":4467},"the-silent-feet-drill",[16,4469,4470],{},"This is the classic, and it is the one to start with. The idea is simple: climb an easy route or traverse and do not let your feet make a sound. Not a tap, not a scrape, nothing.",[16,4472,4473],{},"To do it you are forced to:",[3760,4475,4476,4482,4488],{},[46,4477,4478,4481],{},[49,4479,4480],{},"Look at the foothold"," before you move your foot.",[46,4483,4484,4487],{},[49,4485,4486],{},"Place the foot precisely"," on the best part of the hold, usually the inside edge of your big toe.",[46,4489,4490,4493],{},[49,4491,4492],{},"Set it gently and weight it smoothly"," rather than stabbing at it.",[16,4495,4496,4497,4500],{},"It sounds trivial and it is brutally revealing. Most people cannot get up an easy problem silently the first time. Do a few laps with this as your only focus and you will start placing your feet with care automatically. There is a whole piece on it in ",[3945,4498,4499],{"href":2311},"the silent feet drill"," if you want to go deeper.",[11,4502,4504],{"id":4503},"precision-and-the-one-touch-rule","Precision and the one-touch rule",[16,4506,4507],{},"The second drill targets the habit of repositioning your foot once it is down. Watch a struggling climber and you will see feet land, shuffle, readjust, hop to a better spot. Every one of those readjustments wastes energy and breaks your flow.",[16,4509,4510],{},"The one-touch rule fixes it. Climb an easy route with this single constraint: wherever your foot first touches a hold, that is where it stays. No adjusting. To make it work you have to look at the hold, decide exactly where you want your foot, and put it there first time.",[16,4512,4513],{},"A few things that help your accuracy:",[43,4515,4516,4519,4522],{},[46,4517,4518],{},"Use the inside edge of your toe, not the middle of your foot, so you can pivot and reach.",[46,4520,4521],{},"Keep your heel a touch lower than you think, it locks the foot in place.",[46,4523,4524],{},"Move your eyes to the foothold and keep watching until the foot is set.",[11,4526,4528],{"id":4527},"drills-you-can-rotate-through-a-session","Drills you can rotate through a session",[16,4530,4531],{},"To keep footwork practice from getting stale, rotate through a few drills. Each targets a slightly different fault.",[3962,4533,4534,4547],{},[3965,4535,4536],{},[3968,4537,4538,4541,4544],{},[3971,4539,4540],{},"Drill",[3971,4542,4543],{},"What it fixes",[3971,4545,4546],{},"How to do it",[3978,4548,4549,4560,4571,4582,4593],{},[3968,4550,4551,4554,4557],{},[3983,4552,4553],{},"Silent feet",[3983,4555,4556],{},"Slapping, imprecise placement",[3983,4558,4559],{},"Climb easy ground making no foot noise",[3968,4561,4562,4565,4568],{},[3983,4563,4564],{},"One touch",[3983,4566,4567],{},"Constant readjusting",[3983,4569,4570],{},"Foot stays where it first lands",[3968,4572,4573,4576,4579],{},[3983,4574,4575],{},"Glue feet",[3983,4577,4578],{},"Feet popping off under load",[3983,4580,4581],{},"Imagine glue, never let a foot leave early",[3968,4583,4584,4587,4590],{},[3983,4585,4586],{},"Hover",[3983,4588,4589],{},"Rushing the placement",[3983,4591,4592],{},"Pause foot 2cm off the hold, then set it",[3968,4594,4595,4598,4601],{},[3983,4596,4597],{},"Outside edge",[3983,4599,4600],{},"Over-reliance on inside edge",[3983,4602,4603],{},"Force outside-edge placements on a traverse",[16,4605,4606],{},"Pick two of these per session and spend ten minutes on each as part of your warm-up. You do not need a whole session dedicated to footwork, you need a consistent ten minutes of it every time you climb.",[11,4608,4610],{"id":4609},"trusting-your-feet","Trusting your feet",[16,4612,4613],{},"Precision is half the battle. The other half is trust. Plenty of climbers place their feet beautifully and then refuse to actually commit their weight, hovering over a smear because they do not believe it will hold. The result is they hang off their arms and pump out.",[16,4615,4616],{},"Trust comes from experience, and you build it deliberately by spending time on poor footholds on easy ground, especially on slabs and gentle angles where you are forced to stand on your feet. Smearing, where you press the sole of your shoe onto a featureless bit of wall and trust the friction, feels alarming until you have done it enough to believe it. The more you weight dubious feet on easy terrain, the more you will commit when it counts on something hard.",[16,4618,4619,4620,4624],{},"This is exactly why time on grit and on low-angle ",[3945,4621,4623],{"href":4622},"\u002Fblog\u002Fboard-angles-and-what-they-train","board angles"," does so much for footwork. There is nowhere to hide, so you learn fast.",[11,4626,4628],{"id":4627},"making-it-stick","Making it stick",[16,4630,4631],{},"The drills are easy. The hard part is keeping them up once the novelty wears off. A few ways to embed them:",[43,4633,4634,4637,4640],{},[46,4635,4636],{},"Make footwork your warm-up ritual every session, not an occasional special.",[46,4638,4639],{},"Pick one fault to obsess over for a couple of weeks rather than scattering your attention.",[46,4641,4642],{},"Climb easy problems with intent sometimes, instead of always reaching for the hardest thing you can.",[16,4644,4645],{},"The payoff is genuinely quick. Unlike finger strength, which takes months and patience, footwork repays you in days. Within a session or two of deliberate practice you will feel your feet sticking better, your arms pumping less, and moves that felt desperate suddenly going. It is the cheapest, fastest upgrade available to almost every climber, and most people skip it because it is not flashy. Be the one who does the boring drills, and you will quietly leave the stronger, sloppier climbers behind.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":4647},[4648,4649,4650,4651,4652,4653],{"id":4452,"depth":86,"text":4453},{"id":4467,"depth":86,"text":2242},{"id":4503,"depth":86,"text":4504},{"id":4527,"depth":86,"text":4528},{"id":4609,"depth":86,"text":4610},{"id":4627,"depth":86,"text":4628},"2023-08-25","A handful of simple footwork drills you can do on any wall that genuinely move the needle in a session or two, plus how to make the habits stick.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1588869222183-9269c9a5d330?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber with a pack on a mountain",{},{"title":4441,"description":4655},"blog\u002Ffootwork-drills-that-pay-off-fast",[109,385,1337,531,4662],"drills","33einkqGoomM1mWtvU71gDiVxHLf5Lt7D_u_1seX4Xs",{"id":4665,"title":4666,"author":6,"body":4667,"category":92,"date":4783,"description":4784,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":4785,"imageAlt":4786,"imageCredit":4787,"imageCreditUrl":4788,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":4789,"navigation":103,"path":4790,"readTime":105,"seo":4791,"stem":4792,"tags":4793,"__hash__":4794},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-you-keep-falling-off-the-same-move.md","Why you keep falling off the same move",{"type":8,"value":4668,"toc":4774},[4669,4672,4676,4679,4682,4687,4691,4694,4730,4733,4737,4740,4747,4751,4754,4758,4761,4767,4771],[16,4670,4671],{},"You have done the bottom a dozen times. You have done the top in isolation. But there is that one move in the middle, the same move every single go, that throws you off like it has a personal grudge. You try harder, you get more gripped, you fall off in exactly the same way, and you start to believe you are simply not strong enough. Nine times out of ten, you are wrong about why. The move that keeps beating you is usually a puzzle, not a strength test, and once you see what is actually going wrong, it often unlocks fast.",[11,4673,4675],{"id":4674},"it-is-almost-never-just-strength","It is almost never just strength",[16,4677,4678],{},"The instinct when a move shuts you down is to assume you need to be stronger. Sometimes that is true. Far more often, the climber next to you who floats the move is not stronger than you, they are doing it differently. They have found a body position, a foot, or a moment of timing that turns a desperate lunge into a controlled reach.",[16,4680,4681],{},"Strength is the last thing to blame, not the first. Before you write the move off as too hard, work through the things that are far more likely to be the real culprit. The difference between failing and sticking a move is usually millimetres of position or a fraction of a second of timing.",[3747,4683,4684],{},[16,4685,4686],{},"The move that feels impossible is usually possible with better feet, a different hip, or a calmer head. Strength is real, but it is rarely the bit you are missing.",[11,4688,4690],{"id":4689},"run-through-the-usual-suspects","Run through the usual suspects",[16,4692,4693],{},"When you keep falling off the same move, stop throwing yourself at it and start investigating. Go through this list before your next attempt.",[43,4695,4696,4702,4712,4718,4724],{},[46,4697,4698,4701],{},[49,4699,4700],{},"Your feet."," Are you using the best footholds, or the obvious ones? A higher or more outside foot can change everything about the reach. Bad feet are the single most common cause of a move that will not go.",[46,4703,4704,4707,4708,4711],{},[49,4705,4706],{},"Your hips."," Are your hips turned to the wall or hanging out in space? Turning a hip in, or dropping a knee, can shorten a reach dramatically. Our piece on ",[3945,4709,4710],{"href":3603},"hip positioning, turning to reach further"," is worth a read here.",[46,4713,4714,4717],{},[49,4715,4716],{},"The hold itself."," Are you using the best part of the hold, in the best grip? Sometimes the same edge is desperate as a crimp and fine as an open hand, or there is a better thumb on it you have not found.",[46,4719,4720,4723],{},[49,4721,4722],{},"Timing."," Are you moving statically when the move wants a little pop, or lunging when it wants control? The dead point, that brief weightless moment at the top of a move, is often the secret.",[46,4725,4726,4729],{},[49,4727,4728],{},"Tension."," On steep ground, are your feet cutting because your core has switched off? A toe hook or a switched-on core keeps you on.",[16,4731,4732],{},"Most stuck moves come down to one or two of these. The skill is testing them one at a time rather than randomly flailing.",[11,4734,4736],{"id":4735},"break-it-down-properly","Break it down properly",[16,4738,4739],{},"Throwing yourself at the whole move from the start, over and over, is the slowest way to crack it. You arrive at the hard bit tired and rushed, fail, and learn nothing. Instead, work the move in isolation.",[16,4741,4742,4743,4746],{},"Start from the holds just before the crux and try only the hard move, fresh, again and again. Strip out everything else so you can focus all your attention on what your body is doing. Try one change at a time. Move the foot. Turn the hip. Grab the hold differently. Pause and feel where your weight is. When you find the version that feels easier, drill it until it is automatic, then link it back into the climb. This is the heart of projecting, and ",[3945,4744,4745],{"href":2746},"how to project a climb above your level"," walks through the whole approach.",[3790,4748,4750],{"id":4749},"watch-someone-who-can-do-it","Watch someone who can do it",[16,4752,4753],{},"If a climber at the wall can do the move you cannot, watch them closely. Do not just note that they did it, study how. Where do their feet go? When do their hips turn? Do they pause or do they go in one motion? Then ask. Most climbers are delighted to share beta. You will often spot in five seconds of watching what you could not feel in fifty attempts of your own.",[11,4755,4757],{"id":4756},"know-when-it-really-is-strength","Know when it really is strength",[16,4759,4760],{},"Sometimes, after you have genuinely exhausted the technical fixes, the honest answer is that the move asks for more than you currently have. A big span between two tiny crimps on a steep wall might just need fingers and pulling power you have not built yet. That is fine, and it is useful information.",[16,4762,4763,4764,4766],{},"The key is to reach that conclusion last, not first, and to be honest about whether you have really tried everything else. If it is a strength gap, it is a training project rather than a session project, and something like ",[3945,4765,4134],{"href":3177}," becomes the long game. But check, properly, that you have explored every foot, hip and grip before you decide the wall is asking for muscle you do not have.",[11,4768,4770],{"id":4769},"the-move-usually-gives-in","The move usually gives in",[16,4772,4773],{},"The frustrating move that has beaten you ten sessions running is often one good idea away from going. Better feet, a turned hip, a touch of timing, a calmer head. Stop trying harder and start trying smarter. Break it down, test one thing at a time, steal beta from anyone who can do it, and trust that the puzzle has an answer. When it finally clicks, and it usually does, you will wonder how it ever felt impossible. That moment, the one where the unstickable suddenly sticks, is one of the best feelings in climbing.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":4775},[4776,4777,4778,4781,4782],{"id":4674,"depth":86,"text":4675},{"id":4689,"depth":86,"text":4690},{"id":4735,"depth":86,"text":4736,"children":4779},[4780],{"id":4749,"depth":3828,"text":4750},{"id":4756,"depth":86,"text":4757},{"id":4769,"depth":86,"text":4770},"2023-06-23","That one move that spits you off every time is rarely a strength problem. Here is how to diagnose it and finally stick it.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1599243199233-c678d728569b?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber on brown rock","omid armin","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@itsomidarmin",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-you-keep-falling-off-the-same-move",{"title":4666,"description":4784},"blog\u002Fwhy-you-keep-falling-off-the-same-move",[109,385,1337,2750],"qkh0bHKzJfH-2QT1nluGGKBsLGQEbWa2V32rOzysv_U",{"id":4796,"title":4797,"author":6,"body":4798,"category":92,"date":4905,"description":4906,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":4907,"imageAlt":4908,"imageCredit":4909,"imageCreditUrl":4910,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":4911,"navigation":103,"path":4912,"readTime":250,"seo":4913,"stem":4914,"tags":4915,"__hash__":4916},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Ftraining-power-versus-endurance.md","Training power versus endurance",{"type":8,"value":4799,"toc":4898},[4800,4803,4806,4810,4813,4816,4819,4823,4826,4837,4842,4849,4853,4856,4863,4869,4873,4876,4879,4882,4886,4889,4892,4895],[16,4801,4802],{},"There are two ways climbers fall off. The first is sudden and obvious: you pull onto a move, your fingers cannot hold the position, and you are off before you have really started. The second is slow and grim: you are ten moves up, your forearms have turned to concrete, the holds are still there but your hands simply will not close. The first is mostly a power problem. The second is mostly an endurance problem. Knowing which one is dropping you off the wall changes everything about how you should train.",[16,4804,4805],{},"Most climbers train whichever one they are already good at, because it feels nice. The strong, powerful boulderer keeps doing limit boulder problems and wonders why they get pumped on routes. The enduring route climber keeps doing laps and wonders why hard single moves shut them down. Progress usually comes from training the thing you are worse at, which is annoying, because it is the less fun thing.",[11,4807,4809],{"id":4808},"what-the-words-actually-mean","What the words actually mean",[16,4811,4812],{},"Power, in climbing terms, is your ability to produce a lot of force quickly. It is what gets you through a single very hard move, a powerful pull, a big throw, a desperate latch on a small hold. Strength and power are close cousins here. When a problem has one savage move that you simply cannot do, that is a power or strength limitation.",[16,4814,4815],{},"Endurance is your ability to keep going. It comes in two flavours that are worth separating. Strength-endurance, sometimes called power-endurance, is your capacity to do a series of hard moves in a row before you blow up, think a bouldery sport route with no rests. Aerobic endurance is your ability to keep climbing for a long time on easier terrain, recovering as you go.",[16,4817,4818],{},"Most climbing sits somewhere on this spectrum. A short, brutal boulder problem is nearly all power. A long, steep, pumpy sport route is mostly strength-endurance. A big alpine day on easy ground leans on aerobic endurance. Knowing where your target climbs sit tells you what to train.",[11,4820,4822],{"id":4821},"working-out-which-is-holding-you-back","Working out which is holding you back",[16,4824,4825],{},"The good news is that diagnosing this is straightforward if you pay attention to how you fail. Ask yourself what actually happens when you come off.",[43,4827,4828,4831,4834],{},[46,4829,4830],{},"You fall trying a single hard move that you cannot do even fresh. That points to power.",[46,4832,4833],{},"You can do every move on a route in isolation, but link them and you blow up. That points to strength-endurance.",[46,4835,4836],{},"You feel fine on the hard bits but slowly fade over a long, sustained climb. That points to aerobic endurance.",[3747,4838,4839],{},[16,4840,4841],{},"The move you fall on tells you the truth. If you can do every move separately but never link them, you do not have a strength problem, you have an endurance problem dressed up as one.",[16,4843,4844,4845,4848],{},"It is worth being honest here, because climbers love to blame the wrong thing. Plenty of people convince themselves they need more finger strength when what they actually need is to stop getting so pumped. If you keep coming off the same point on a route, our piece on ",[3945,4846,4847],{"href":4790},"why you keep falling off the same move"," digs into separating a strength issue from a technique or endurance one.",[11,4850,4852],{"id":4851},"training-power","Training power",[16,4854,4855],{},"If power is your limiter, the principle is high intensity and full recovery. You want to be doing hard moves while fresh, then resting properly so the next attempt is also done fresh.",[16,4857,4858,4859,3821],{},"In practice that means limit bouldering: problems at or near your absolute max, just a few moves long, with long rests of several minutes between proper goes. The aim is quality, not quantity. A handful of genuinely maximal attempts beats twenty mediocre ones. Boards are excellent for this because you can dial the difficulty precisely, and we cover the specifics in ",[3945,4860,4862],{"href":4861},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftraining-power-on-the-board","training power on the board",[16,4864,4865,4866,4868],{},"Finger strength is the foundation under all of it, and it is also the thing most likely to get you hurt if you rush. Build it patiently and respect the warning signs, as we lay out in ",[3945,4867,4134],{"href":3177},". Power training rewards the impatient with injuries.",[11,4870,4872],{"id":4871},"training-endurance","Training endurance",[16,4874,4875],{},"If endurance is your limiter, the principle flips: more volume, less rest, lower intensity per move. You are training your forearms to keep working as the pump builds and to recover while still climbing.",[16,4877,4878],{},"For strength-endurance, the classic tools are circuits and intervals. Pick a set of moves that are hard but doable, and climb them for a sustained stretch, somewhere around the length of effort your target routes demand, then rest and repeat. The feeling you are chasing is a deep, building pump that you push through rather than a single max effort. Boards work well for this kind of session too, with the right problems chosen.",[16,4880,4881],{},"For aerobic endurance, the work is gentler and longer. Lots of easy mileage, climbing well within yourself, traversing or doing easy laps, keeping moving and keeping the pump low. It is the least glamorous training there is and the most neglected, but it builds the recovery base that lets everything else work.",[11,4883,4885],{"id":4884},"dont-train-them-at-the-same-time","Don't train them at the same time",[16,4887,4888],{},"Here is the mistake that wastes a lot of effort. Power and endurance pull your body in different directions, and trying to maximise both in the same session, or even the same few weeks, tends to give you a mediocre version of each. The standard answer is to focus, spending a block of weeks leaning into one before switching emphasis to the other.",[16,4890,4891],{},"A rough structure many climbers use is to build a base of endurance and general fitness first, then sharpen power and strength in a focused block closer to when they want to perform. The details depend hugely on your goals and your time, but the principle holds: pick a focus for a while rather than chasing everything at once.",[16,4893,4894],{},"And do not forget that technique quietly trumps both. A pumped climber with good footwork and efficient movement outlasts a stronger one who over-grips every hold. A lot of what looks like an endurance problem is really wasted energy, gripping too hard, hanging off bent arms, fighting bad body positions. Sometimes the cheapest endurance gains come from learning to climb with straighter arms, bent legs and weight on your feet rather than your fingers.",[16,4896,4897],{},"So watch how you fall, train the weakness rather than the strength, focus on one quality at a time, and keep your technique sharp underneath it all. The fastest way to climb harder is usually to stop training the thing you are already good at.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":4899},[4900,4901,4902,4903,4904],{"id":4808,"depth":86,"text":4809},{"id":4821,"depth":86,"text":4822},{"id":4851,"depth":86,"text":4852},{"id":4871,"depth":86,"text":4872},{"id":4884,"depth":86,"text":4885},"2023-04-21","What power and endurance actually mean for climbers, how to tell which one is holding you back, and how to train each without neglecting the other.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1708553479135-c3272e5aea2a?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber on the side of a mountain","Chaewool Kim","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@koreandirtbag",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftraining-power-versus-endurance",{"title":4797,"description":4906},"blog\u002Ftraining-power-versus-endurance",[109,385,1337,3003],"qNbO7FUA0nNgmhUmWgpIlmigl2uQ0k_cogT_Im9GMM4",{"id":4918,"title":4919,"author":6,"body":4920,"category":92,"date":5094,"description":5095,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":5096,"imageAlt":5097,"imageCredit":5098,"imageCreditUrl":5099,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":5100,"navigation":103,"path":4245,"readTime":105,"seo":5101,"stem":5102,"tags":5103,"__hash__":5104},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fa-hangboard-routine-for-busy-weeks.md","A hangboard routine for busy weeks",{"type":8,"value":4921,"toc":5085},[4922,4925,4928,4932,4935,4946,4952,4957,4961,4964,4967,4978,4981,4984,4988,4991,5037,5040,5044,5047,5058,5061,5065,5068,5075,5079,5082],[16,4923,4924],{},"Some weeks you simply cannot get to the wall. Work goes mad, life happens, and the climbing slips down the list. The good news is that finger strength, the thing most of us most want to protect, is also one of the few things you can maintain in fifteen minutes at home a couple of times a week. A hangboard bolted above a doorway is about the most time-efficient bit of training a climber can own.",[16,4926,4927],{},"This is not a programme for getting dramatically stronger. It is a holding pattern: a minimal, sensible routine to keep your fingers ticking over when you are too busy for proper sessions. Done right it stops you sliding backwards. Done badly it gets you injured, so a few rules matter.",[11,4929,4931],{"id":4930},"before-you-hang-warm-up","Before you hang, warm up",[16,4933,4934],{},"This is the bit everyone wants to skip and the bit that keeps you healthy. Cold fingers on a hangboard is how tendons get hurt. You do not need much, but you need something.",[43,4936,4937,4940,4943],{},[46,4938,4939],{},"A few minutes of gentle cardio, even just star jumps or jogging on the spot, to get blood moving",[46,4941,4942],{},"Wrist and finger circles, openers and gentle stretches",[46,4944,4945],{},"Two or three very light, easy hangs on big jugs before you touch anything small",[16,4947,4948,4949,4951],{},"If you have a resistance band, a minute of finger extensions is a lovely warm-up and helps balance all the pulling. For the wider picture on getting your hands ready to load, ",[3945,4950,4172],{"href":2834}," is worth a read.",[3747,4953,4954],{},[16,4955,4956],{},"If your fingers are not warm and you are short on time, do less, not more. A skipped warm-up to save five minutes can cost you two months on the sidelines.",[11,4958,4960],{"id":4959},"the-routine","The routine",[16,4962,4963],{},"The simplest effective hangboard method is repeaters or short max hangs on a single, friendly grip. For maintenance in a busy week, keep it dead simple. Use a half crimp or an open-hand grip on a medium edge, something you can hold comfortably for ten seconds without straining.",[16,4965,4966],{},"A basic session looks like this:",[43,4968,4969,4972,4975],{},[46,4970,4971],{},"Hang for around 7 to 10 seconds",[46,4973,4974],{},"Rest for around 2 to 3 minutes",[46,4976,4977],{},"Repeat for 4 to 6 sets",[16,4979,4980],{},"That is it. Ten minutes of actual work, wrapped in a proper warm-up. Twice a week is plenty to hold your strength. Three times if you are recovering well and have nothing else loading your fingers.",[16,4982,4983],{},"The load should feel hard but controlled. You should finish each hang feeling like you had two or three more seconds in the tank, not shaking and slipping off. If you cannot hold the edge for the full time with good form, make it easier: bigger edge, feet on a chair, or a foot on the ground for support. Maintenance work is no place for ego.",[11,4985,4987],{"id":4986},"how-hard-exactly","How hard, exactly",[16,4989,4990],{},"Pitching the intensity is the whole game. Here is a rough guide to keep you in the safe, useful zone:",[3962,4992,4993,5003],{},[3965,4994,4995],{},[3968,4996,4997,5000],{},[3971,4998,4999],{},"If a hang feels...",[3971,5001,5002],{},"What to do",[3978,5004,5005,5013,5021,5029],{},[3968,5006,5007,5010],{},[3983,5008,5009],{},"Easy, you could hold 20+ seconds",[3983,5011,5012],{},"Add a little load or use a smaller edge",[3968,5014,5015,5018],{},[3983,5016,5017],{},"Hard but controlled at 10 seconds",[3983,5019,5020],{},"Spot on, stay here",[3968,5022,5023,5026],{},[3983,5024,5025],{},"Shaky, slipping near the end",[3983,5027,5028],{},"Too hard, make it easier",[3968,5030,5031,5034],{},[3983,5032,5033],{},"Sharp or pinching in the fingers",[3983,5035,5036],{},"Stop. Something is wrong",[16,5038,5039],{},"That last row matters. Hangboarding should feel like effort in the muscles and a strong load in the fingers, never a sharp, localised pain in a joint or tendon. Sharp pain is a stop sign, not a thing to push through.",[11,5041,5043],{"id":5042},"what-to-leave-out-when-you-are-busy","What to leave out when you are busy",[16,5045,5046],{},"The temptation when time is short is to cram. Resist it. A busy-week routine works precisely because it is minimal. Skip:",[43,5048,5049,5052,5055],{},[46,5050,5051],{},"One-arm hangs and other advanced work, which need fresh fingers and full attention",[46,5053,5054],{},"The tiniest edges and most aggressive crimps, which carry the most injury risk for the least maintenance benefit",[46,5056,5057],{},"Long, draining sessions that leave your fingers wrecked for the climbing you do manage to fit in",[16,5059,5060],{},"The goal is to arrive at your next real session with strong, healthy fingers, not to set personal bests on the board in your hallway.",[3790,5062,5064],{"id":5063},"fitting-it-into-a-real-week","Fitting it into a real week",[16,5066,5067],{},"The beauty of this is how little it disrupts anything. Two slots of fifteen minutes, on non-consecutive days, while the kettle boils or before a shower. You do not need kit beyond the board, you do not need to travel, and you do not need to be fresh in the way a hard climbing session demands.",[16,5069,5070,5071,5074],{},"If your week is so packed that even this feels like a stretch, our wider piece on ",[3945,5072,5073],{"href":3697},"training when you cannot get to the gym"," has more options that ask even less of your time.",[11,5076,5078],{"id":5077},"keep-it-honest","Keep it honest",[16,5080,5081],{},"A maintenance routine only works if you are realistic about what it is. It will not turn busy weeks into progress, and trying to force gains out of it is how people get hurt. Its job is humbler and genuinely useful: to make sure that when life calms down and you get back to proper climbing, your fingers are roughly where you left them rather than starting again.",[16,5083,5084],{},"So next busy stretch, do not write the week off. Warm up properly, do your four or five honest hangs a couple of times, and protect what you have built. When you walk back into the centre, you will be glad you kept the engine ticking over.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":5086},[5087,5088,5089,5090,5093],{"id":4930,"depth":86,"text":4931},{"id":4959,"depth":86,"text":4960},{"id":4986,"depth":86,"text":4987},{"id":5042,"depth":86,"text":5043,"children":5091},[5092],{"id":5063,"depth":3828,"text":5064},{"id":5077,"depth":86,"text":5078},"2023-02-17","Short on time but want to keep your fingers strong? A minimal, safe hangboard plan you can fit into a packed week.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1629509912321-7eb11e486747?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber stretching at the base of a wall","Emma Ou","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@emmaou",{},{"title":4919,"description":5095},"blog\u002Fa-hangboard-routine-for-busy-weeks",[109,385,1337,3182],"WYW2Hyz-dZ0feACtMmSwojUuSWh8v7f5PWYwV6OXxqM",{"id":5106,"title":5107,"author":6,"body":5108,"category":92,"date":5310,"description":5311,"draft":95,"extension":96,"image":5312,"imageAlt":5313,"imageCredit":5314,"imageCreditUrl":5315,"imageType":101,"mapArea":101,"mapLabel":101,"mapLat":101,"mapLng":101,"mapPath":101,"mapZoom":101,"meta":5316,"navigation":103,"path":5317,"readTime":105,"seo":5318,"stem":5319,"tags":5320,"__hash__":5322},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fclimbing-through-a-plateau.md","Climbing through a plateau",{"type":8,"value":5109,"toc":5300},[5110,5113,5116,5120,5123,5126,5152,5157,5161,5164,5167,5188,5191,5195,5198,5252,5255,5259,5265,5269,5272,5275,5279,5282,5290,5294,5297],[16,5111,5112],{},"For your first year or so, climbing feels like a cheat code. Every few weeks you tick a new grade, and progress is so steady you start to believe it will go on forever. Then one day it stops. The grade you have been chipping away at refuses to budge, month after month, and the easy gains dry up. Welcome to the plateau, which every climber hits and which is far more about how you train than how talented you are.",[16,5114,5115],{},"The frustrating thing about a plateau is that doing more of the same is usually what got you stuck in the first place. Breaking out means changing something, and the trick is working out what. Here is how to think about it.",[11,5117,5119],{"id":5118},"why-plateaus-happen","Why plateaus happen",[16,5121,5122],{},"Early progress comes from your body and brain rapidly adapting to a brand new activity. Your fingers toughen, your technique sharpens, your head settles, all at once. Eventually those quick adaptations are largely banked, and further gains have to be earned more deliberately. That natural slowing is not failure; it is just the end of the beginner free ride.",[16,5124,5125],{},"But most plateaus are not really physical limits. They are habits. The usual culprits:",[43,5127,5128,5134,5140,5146],{},[46,5129,5130,5133],{},[49,5131,5132],{},"You only climb the same things."," Same wall, same grades, same style. You have got good at exactly what you do and nothing else.",[46,5135,5136,5139],{},[49,5137,5138],{},"You avoid your weaknesses."," We all gravitate to the climbing we are good at. The slab-avoider stays bad at slabs, the steep-avoider stays bad at steep.",[46,5141,5142,5145],{},[49,5143,5144],{},"You never properly try hard."," Cruising comfortable grades feels nice but does not push the system. Progress lives just past the edge of what you can currently do.",[46,5147,5148,5151],{},[49,5149,5150],{},"You climb too much and rest too little",", so you are always a bit tired and never adapting well.",[3747,5153,5154],{},[16,5155,5156],{},"A plateau is rarely a wall you have hit. It is usually a groove you have worn. The fix is to climb your way out of the groove, not to dig it deeper.",[11,5158,5160],{"id":5159},"find-your-actual-weakness","Find your actual weakness",[16,5162,5163],{},"You cannot fix what you will not name. Spend a session or two paying honest attention to what beats you. Be specific. \"I'm rubbish at crimps\" is a start; \"I fall off small crimps on steep walls when I have to pull in hard\" is something you can train.",[16,5165,5166],{},"Common weak spots and where to take them:",[43,5168,5169,5174,5179,5185],{},[46,5170,5171,5172,3821],{},"Poor footwork and over-gripping, the most common limiter by far. Start with ",[3945,5173,4401],{"href":4400},[46,5175,5176,5177,3821],{},"Weak fingers on small holds, where careful hangboarding helps. See ",[3945,5178,3948],{"href":3947},[46,5180,5181,5182,5184],{},"Falling off the same move every time, which is often a reading or technique gap. ",[3945,5183,4666],{"href":4790}," digs into that.",[46,5186,5187],{},"A nervous head that stops you committing, where the issue is fear, not strength.",[16,5189,5190],{},"If you genuinely cannot tell what is holding you back, climb with someone better and ask them to watch you. They will spot it in two problems.",[11,5192,5194],{"id":5193},"change-something-on-purpose","Change something on purpose",[16,5196,5197],{},"Once you know your weakness, deliberately steer towards it. This is uncomfortable, which is rather the point. A few ways to shake the routine:",[3962,5199,5200,5210],{},[3965,5201,5202],{},[3968,5203,5204,5207],{},[3971,5205,5206],{},"If you...",[3971,5208,5209],{},"Try...",[3978,5211,5212,5220,5228,5236,5244],{},[3968,5213,5214,5217],{},[3983,5215,5216],{},"Only boulder",[3983,5218,5219],{},"Add some routes, or vice versa",[3968,5221,5222,5225],{},[3983,5223,5224],{},"Avoid steep ground",[3983,5226,5227],{},"Spend a block of sessions on the steep wall",[3968,5229,5230,5233],{},[3983,5231,5232],{},"Climb the same grades",[3983,5234,5235],{},"Project something well above your limit",[3968,5237,5238,5241],{},[3983,5239,5240],{},"Always flash or fail",[3983,5242,5243],{},"Pick problems you have to work over several goes",[3968,5245,5246,5249],{},[3983,5247,5248],{},"Never train",[3983,5250,5251],{},"Add focused finger or technique work",[16,5253,5254],{},"The principle is the same throughout: stop reinforcing what you are already good at and start loading what you are bad at.",[3790,5256,5258],{"id":5257},"projecting-as-a-tool","Projecting as a tool",[16,5260,5261,5262,5264],{},"One of the most reliable plateau-breakers is committing to a project a clear notch above your best. Working hard moves, falling off repeatedly, and slowly unlocking them forces adaptations that cruising never will. It also teaches you to try genuinely hard, which a lot of plateaued climbers have quietly forgotten how to do. Our guide to ",[3945,5263,4745],{"href":2746}," walks through doing it well.",[11,5266,5268],{"id":5267},"look-at-recovery-not-just-effort","Look at recovery, not just effort",[16,5270,5271],{},"Sometimes the problem is the opposite of not trying hard enough. If you climb four or five days a week, never take easy weeks, and feel permanently a bit flat, you might be plateaued through fatigue rather than lack of stimulus. Adaptation happens during rest, not during the session. A week of doing less, or a couple of proper rest days, can unlock progress more than another hard session would.",[16,5273,5274],{},"Sleep and food sit underneath all of this. You cannot adapt out of a plateau on poor sleep and not enough fuel, however cleverly you train.",[11,5276,5278],{"id":5277},"be-patient-and-keep-records","Be patient and keep records",[16,5280,5281],{},"Breaking a plateau is rarely a single dramatic session. It is usually a few weeks of deliberately working a weakness, feeling clumsy, and then one day noticing that the grade that felt impossible now feels merely hard. Because it is gradual, it helps to keep some kind of log, even a simple note of what you climbed and how it felt, so you can actually see the trend rather than judging it by your mood on any given night.",[16,5283,5284,5285,5289],{},"For a fuller treatment of the topic, ",[3945,5286,5288],{"href":5287},"\u002Fblog\u002Fbreaking-through-a-climbing-plateau","breaking through a climbing plateau"," covers more ground and is a good companion to this.",[11,5291,5293],{"id":5292},"take-the-long-view","Take the long view",[16,5295,5296],{},"A plateau is not a sign you have peaked. It is a sign that the easy gains are spent and the interesting work begins. Almost every climber who pushes through one does it the same way: they get honest about a weakness, they make themselves do the uncomfortable thing, and they give it time.",[16,5298,5299],{},"So pick the one weakness that costs you the most, point your next few weeks of climbing straight at it, and accept that you will feel worse before you feel better. The grade will move. It always does for the people willing to climb the stuff they are bad at.",{"title":85,"searchDepth":86,"depth":86,"links":5301},[5302,5303,5304,5307,5308,5309],{"id":5118,"depth":86,"text":5119},{"id":5159,"depth":86,"text":5160},{"id":5193,"depth":86,"text":5194,"children":5305},[5306],{"id":5257,"depth":3828,"text":5258},{"id":5267,"depth":86,"text":5268},{"id":5277,"depth":86,"text":5278},{"id":5292,"depth":86,"text":5293},"2023-01-13","Stuck at the same grade for months? Why plateaus happen and the practical ways to break out of one.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1775654792524-739718a3b001?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop&crop=entropy&q=80&auto=format","A climber in colourful shorts on a wall","Beta Boulders","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@betaboulders",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fclimbing-through-a-plateau",{"title":5107,"description":5311},"blog\u002Fclimbing-through-a-plateau",[109,385,1337,5321],"progress","etCOmaribZjucs86UI3F9XjP4o-HxQTX0jsK9XWwBng",1784277605166]