Many of you will have probably seen those scary looking hangboards in the corner of your local climbing gym. All those strange holes and edges can be very intimidating. Especially if you’re watching someone bust out some one-finger pull-ups, single-finger air planks, or some other outrageous exercise.

Do not fear, hangboards are just as useful for us mortals as they are for the strongest of climbers. And many of the exercises are not as impossible as you may think.

To help you harness the power of this training tool, I’m going to walk you through the essentials of hangboarding and then give you a simple 8-week beginner-friendly hangboard training program.

Why Use a Hangboard?

Many people get by fine without any hangboard training, but there are definitely a few areas in climbing that will benefit from the exercise.

Has finger strength always been your downfall in climbing?

Does overhangs and small holds terrify you?

Have you been stuck at a plateau since before you can remember?

In all of the strength metrics measured by climbing coaches, the only one which has a strong correlation with the ability to boulder 8A (V11) is whether or not the climber can hang an 18mm edge with 1 arm.

There is no question that hangboarding is one of the best ways to increase grip strength and upper body power. If you aren’t a genetic triumph built for climbing, it is very likely necessary to reach your full climbing potential.

The Essentials: 6 Tips for Preventing Hangboarding Injuries

Hangboarding done wrong can be a first-class ticket to injury town — a lonely place where you can never try hard. Here are 6 tips to help you prevent hangboarding injuries.

1. Do Not Full Crimp

There are 3 main types of grip used in climbing:

1. Open hand

2. Half crimp

3. Full crimp

Only the first 2 grips are safe to use on a hangboard. You are welcome to choose between them to tailor to your weaknesses but, if you’re a hangboarding beginner, I recommend using half crimp.

If you are having a couple of hangboarding sessions a week, it could be a good idea to have one session with each grip. There is a massive difference between the 2 and, all the training in the world on one might still leave you as weak as a kitten on the other!

2. Retract Your Shoulders

When doing any form of hanging exercise your shoulders should be locked down, not sagging up by your ears. If this is a limiting factor for you then alternative training for scapular retraction should be your priority before doing any hangboarding.

On the other hand, try to make sure you are not retracting your shoulders so far as to activate your chest and arch your back.

Done correctly, you should end up with a slight bend in your elbow as a result of correct muscle activation. The bend it slight! We aren’t looking for 90° lock offs here. See the correct and incorrect examples below.

If you aren’t sure about this then ask someone (who looks like they know their way around a hangboard) how your form is. The climbing angels weep every time someone hangs on sagged shoulders.

3. Warm Up

Hangboarding takes no prisoners, so you’re risking injury every time you don’t warm up properly.

A good warm-up has 3 components:

1. Pulse raiser (cardio)
2. Limbering up (dynamic stretching)
3. Easy, strength-based movement such as pull-ups/shrugs on jugs or low-grade climbs

Your warm up should be at least 15 minutes long and even after this, I feel like my fingers still need more warming up. I’ll usually do some easy to medium-difficulty climbs for half an hour and then some short hangs on increasingly harder holds.

Check out our climbing warm-up routine for inspiration.

4. Warm Down

You should always be doing some form of warm down after any training session, but having one after a hangboarding session is particularly essential. Your fingers are delicate joints which won’t have a massive amount of blood flow through them on normal, daily activities.

This means that you’ve gotta put that little bit of extra effort in to clear that lactic acid and other gunk out before your arms cool down and it stays there.

If I have a hangboard session without warming down, I can feel it the next time I try to climb. My fingers and forearms will feel extra heavy, stiff and almost sticky. This is a direct effect of not warming down and trying to climb or train in this state can leave you very prone to injury!

After every hangboard session, take a bit of time to do some easy climbing and some low-level cardio for 5-15 minutes, if you’ve got the facilities. I find jump-roping to be one of the best and easiest exercises for getting blood flow around the body.

Massage improves blood flow and eases muscle sorness by pushing out those sticky exercise juices, so I also like to massage my forearms after a particularly finger-intensive hangboarding session. By this I mean I lightly squeeze and rub my forearm with my other hand. No fancy equipment or techniques. The low-level exertion this requires is also beneficial for the hand doing the massaging.

5. Stretch

No warm down is properly complete without some stretches. There are 2 main types of stretches.

1. Dynamic stretches, which you should be doing during your warm up to limber up
2. Static stretches, which you should be doing during your warm down to maintain flexibility

Dynamic stretches involve movement and the idea is to not bend or stress a joint too hard. Instead, you want to smoothly flow through the joint’s range of movement and see if it increases after a few cycles.

Dynamic stretches for the wrists and forearms are pretty straightforward. They involve things like wrist circles, flicking your fingers and making fists. Anything that uses the joint’s movement range without stress can be a good dynamic stretch as it will loosen the joint and increase blood flow.

Jazz hands are an excellent thing you can do to limber up while still being fabulous.

Static stretches are what your idea of a more typical stretch would be. Here the intention is to move the joint into a position that is towards the end of its movement range and hold it here or slowly let it ease in a bit further for an extended period of time.

These stretches should not be done before training and definitely shouldn’t be done before warming up! They are much more effective as part of the session warm down.

Static stretches should be held for 30 seconds each time and you should aim to carry out 3 or 4 sets after a hangboard session.

I recommend stretching all parts of the forearm and fingers (not just the flexors) so you should be doing a few different stretches here. An example of each could be holding your hands in a prayer position for the flexors, and then later pressing the back of your hands into the ground for the extensors.

You can find a much more detailed explanation on static stretches here and I highly advise you use the forearm stretches in that article.

6. Don’t Advance Too Fast!

This is what gets everyone.

It should take at least 2 months before noticing any significant improvements in hangboarding and there is never a point where you are not prone to overdoing it.

The healthiest way to look at hangboarding is as something in the background to facilitate climbing. Especially at the start, your goal with hangboarding should be to climb harder routes, not to hang from the smallest edge possible. If you decide to try a tougher edge every week, it’s possible to be caught off guard!

With many finger injuries, there aren’t any warning signs. One minute you’re feeling psyched about how you’re so much stronger than you thought you would be — and the next you can’t even lift the kettle to make a cup to tea to deal with the traumatic event that was your finger pulley exploding!

If you’ve not thought about training for climbing before then I would just go for one of the easiest edges (that aren’t jugs) on the board and work off of those.

If you have quite a bit of climbing experience but have never hangboarded, then it might be worth testing some of the thinner or less positive edges. Don’t worry about pushing yourself though. Even a relatively easy hangboard routine will still give you big improvements if you’ve never done it before!

Trust me, the people who develop these training plans have experienced enough injuries to know which rates of progression work and which don’t.

The 8-Week Hangboard Training Plan for Beginners

When I first looked into hangboarding, I was overwhelmed by the number of different boards and variations in training plans. Truth is, your first hangboard training plan doesn’t need to be complicated at all. Here is a simple 8-week plan to give you the foundations for more advanced training.

Each week consists of 2 hangboard sessions. Make sure you are rested beforehand (don’t have your hangboard sessions the day after a massive climbing session) and always warm up properly.

Preparation

Choose a pair of holds on your board that you can hang with good form (remember The Essentials) for 10 seconds but struggle or fail by 14-15. Then follow this week-by-week progression.

Week 1

1. 10 second hang
2. 30 second rest
3. Repeat steps 1-2 for 4 reps overall
4. 2 minute rest
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for 3 sets overall

Weeks 2-3

Repeat the steps in Week 1, this time for 4 sets overall

Week 4

Repeat the steps in Week 1, this time for 5 sets overall

Week 5

1. 10 second hang
2. 20 second rest
3. Repeat steps 1-2 for 4 reps overall
4. 2 minute rest
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for 3 sets overall

Weeks 6-7

Repeat the steps in Week 5, this time for 4 sets overall

Week 8

Repeat the steps in Week 5, this time for 5 sets overall

What to Expect Your First Time Hangboarding

For your first session or two, set your expectations low. Don’t expect to hang on tiny edges or see strength gains right away.

Your tendons and ligaments do not respond the same way muscles do — hangboarding won’t feel like a gym workout, and the benefits will take longer to materialize. Hangboarding takes persistence, patience, and above all, prudence.

If you go too hard too soon, you’re likely to injure yourself. Pulley tendon injuries are a high price to pay for overenthusiasm (take it from someone who’s had more than one).

Instead, focus on form. Get used to the feeling of hanging on the board. See how sets of hangs feel, and note how your body and fingers respond. If your fingers tire before you expected, that’s okay! The main purpose of the first few sessions is to introduce your body to the demands of hangboarding. Stick to your training plan and increase load gradually.

Resist the urge to overtrain. Don’t add extra hangs to your workouts or extra sessions to your week. Hangboarding is like liquid chalk: a little goes a long way.

Even if the session feels easy, don’t neglect your warm-up and warm-down. When you first start hangboarding, setting your routines and habits is just as important as completing the workouts.

In short: expect to take it slow, and trust the process. Your body (and fingers) will thank you — and you’ll be climbing stronger before you know it.

For more training articles, check out our guide to bouldering training.

The post Hangboard Training for Beginners: A Simple 8-Week Workout appeared first on 99Boulders.

Setting and reaching goals is one of climbing’s most rewarding aspects. Whether those goals are free climbing El Cap or just moving up a notch on the grade ladder, improvement unlocks new possibilities and new terrain.

Getting there isn’t always easy. Whether you’re just starting your climbing journey or you’ve reached a plateau after years of effort, these steps can help you get better at rock climbing, improve your technique, and reach the next level.

1. Establish a Routine

If you’re serious about improving your climbing, make a habit out of it.

This doesn’t just go for climbing or training. Make a habit of resting and recovering. Get in the habit of eating well. The more consistent you make your climbing life, the more focused you can be on pursuing your goals.

That’s not to say that your routine can never change. Goals change, circumstances change, and perspectives change. Preparing for a big wall is different from preparing for a season of sport climbing.

Whatever you’re preparing for, make sure that you stick to it. The first step is always showing up.

2. Structure Your Routine Carefully

All climbers have to make basic choices about their schedule. How often will you climb? How much time will you leave for rest? How will you spend your time during gym sessions?

There’s no right or wrong answer to these questions. A teenager entering in competitions will have a different schedule from a working adult who gets out on the weekends.

It’s worth putting some thought into how your schedule and your goals can work together. If you have limited time in the gym each week, be deliberate about what you do each day. Make the best use of your time, and plan your training so that your performance peaks at the right time.

3. Find a Buddy (or Two)

Some people prefer the solitary process of training alone, but many climbers find that company helps. A friend can help you get motivated, try hard, and stay accountable.

Climbing is inherently social. If you like to hang out on ropes, you’ll need a belay partner. Boulderers inevitably share pads, problems, and projects. Even on the moon board or campus board, you’re likely to find yourself sharing space.

Connecting with the community is a great way to learn and stay motivated. If you can set up a schedule with a training partner or two, all the better.

When you’re truly limited to training alone (as many were during the pandemic), don’t lose hope. You can find encouragement, advice, and accountability on forums like Mountain Project or r/climbharder.

4. Dial in Your Technique

It’s easy to focus on getting stronger and overlook getting better. Having a strong back or iron fingers doesn’t necessarily translate to climbing well on the wall.

Make sure that you spend time refining your technique. Climbing technique is infinitely complex, and a full overview is beyond the scope of this article. We’ve got you covered with a beginner’s guide, and you can find a variety of useful resources on the internet.

In general, better technique means wasting less energy. Learn to eliminate extra movement, keep your feet quiet, and reduce overgripping. Learn to trust those tiny foot chips. Whenever you find yourself getting stuck on a project, see if there’s an opportunity to improve your technique. In many cases, small adjustments can unlock new levels of difficulty.

5. Add Specific Training Elements (optional)

Climbing requires highly specific forms of strength. To maximize results, training should be equally specific.

Tools like a hangboard or campus board allow you to work on aspects like power, crimp strength, and contact strength in relative isolation. If you’re not already comfortable with these forms of training, ease into it. We’ve put together handy intros to hangboarding and campus boarding.

Although these methods are effective, they can also be counterproductive. Without proper care, training on the hangboard or campus board can easily lead to injury. Make sure that you structure your routines carefully and leave adequate time for recovery.

If you find that your climbing is improving without use of these tools, there’s no need to add them. Many climbers (even at very advanced levels) can continue growing without spending significant time on a board.

6. Train Your Brain

Sometimes stumbling blocks are physical, but other times they’re mental. Climbing is cerebral as much as physical, and working on your headspace can pay dividends.

If you find yourself holding back due to fear of falling, see if you can become more comfortable on the wall. Get used to taking falls safely and trusting the systems that protect you. The more you can focus on the moves themselves, the harder you’ll climb.

Some climbers struggle with particular types of moves or terrain. If you get shaky every time you climb a slab, start easy and work up until you find your confidence level building. If you hate heel hooks or drop knees, seek out projects that incorporate those moves. The more you build your mental library of climbing tools, the more options you’ll have when you’re solving problems on the wall.

7. Push Yourself

On a related note, get comfortable pushing your limits. If you only try routes that you know you can climb, you’ll never get the chance to surprise yourself.

Don’t be afraid to try routes and problems above your pay grade. You may not always reach the top of the wall, but you’ll get a sense of what it takes to reach the next level. Once you know what’s holding you back, you can more effectively tailor your training to your weaknesses.

8. Don’t Forget to Rest

This is true both on and off the wall.

I’ve seen climbers who train and pull hard but forget to take rests on the wall. Learning to rest effectively can be a game changer. If you can manage your energy and find time to recover on a route, you’ll have more gas for the crux when it matters. Pay attention to your rhythm, your breathing, and any areas of unnecessary tension.

Off the wall, rest is at least as important as training. Gains don’t happen in the gym — they happen the next day when you’re sitting on the couch eating a good meal. Training taxes your body, and recovery provides the opportunity to build back stronger. Without adequate rest and nutrition, you’ll dig yourself into a training hole that leads to burnout, fatigue, or injury.

9. Injury Prevention

Nothing kills your training momentum faster than an injury. If you have to take significant time away from climbing, you’ll lose the progress you worked so hard to achieve.

It can be a difficult balance to strike, but every climber should stay aware of their body and build a foundation of strength and flexibility. Train those antagonist muscles, and use targeted exercises to support the areas that take the most stress.

Every workout should start with a good warmup. Give your body a chance to get blood flowing and lubricate your joints before you start pulling at max effort. When your day is over, try to find time for a brief cooldown.

10. Watch and Learn

You’ll meet many climbers along your journey in the vertical world. Most will bring a different perspective, and many will be stronger than you.

Pay attention to how others climb, train, and recover. Not every climber is worth imitating, but watching others can improve technique and provide inspiration.

Watch how expert climbers move their feet. If you struggle with dynos, watch someone who’s really good at them. Try to integrate new ideas into your own climbing. Your style may not always match up with another climber’s, but looking at the wall in a new way can lead to productive breakthroughs.

11. Write it Down

One of the cheapest and most useful training aids is frequently overlooked: the humble notebook.

As you establish a schedule, set your goals, and undertake training, write down your progress. Seriously. Do it. Dedicate a notebook to your climbing goals and record your journey in whatever way feels best to you. This doesn’t have to include only grades or reps — write down how you felt, things you noticed, ideas you had, and techniques you tried. Write down your successes and your struggles, your wishes and your fears.

Writing everything down provides a variety of benefits. You’ll have a concrete record of your benchmarks, your progress, and your struggles. Over time, you’ll be able to identify patterns in your climbing and use them to improve your routine. Do you always struggle on the third training day of the week? Are you consistently over- or underachieving on a specific type of problem? Having a written record allows you to learn from your own history and find the training style that works best for you.

12. Be Patient

Climbing performance is a fickle beast. Some days you feel great; other days gravity is extra strong. Some seasons you’ll shatter your previous highs and unlock new levels, while other seasons you may find yourself regressing.

Don’t lose the forest for the trees. Remember to look at the big picture, accept the highs and lows, and stay focused on your goals. If you get discouraged every time you hit a roadblock, your training will not only be less effective, it will be less fun.

If you’re struggling to reach a particular goal, take some time to build your foundation. Don’t expect to send your first V7 right after your first V6. Instead, see if you can send eight V5s in a variety of styles. Climb every V4 in the gym. Think of performance as a pyramid – if you can widen your base, you’ll eventually raise your apex.

13. Change Something (When Necessary)

If you find yourself frustrated and stuck in a plateau, try something totally different.

It might be a different discipline. If you’re a sport climber, try trad climbing. If you’re a trad climber, spend some time bouldering. Climbing across disciplines gives you the opportunity to build new skills, use new parts of your brain, and get some space from the frustration.

Sometimes, all it takes is a change in mindset. Let go of the project that’s stumping you, try something totally different, and come back when you’re fresh.

Even the best climbers in the world have to change things up. This is nothing to be ashamed of — it’s an inevitable part of striving for improvement in a difficult sport.

14. Don’t Get Too Hung Up On It

Becoming a better climber is a worthy goal. The process of improvement is rewarding and enlightening.

But don’t let it come at the cost of your mental or physical well-being. Putting too much focus on grades, strength, and achievement can have a negative affect on your life as well as your climbing. For training to be effective and sustainable, you need to preserve your love of climbing. Otherwise, you’ll inevitably burn out.

This looks different for everyone. Some climbers truly love waking up early to hop on the hangboard. If that’s you, get after it. Other climbers may need to reserve time to climb for fun, hop on easier routes, or just have a break. That’s okay, too.

Wherever your strike zone is, remember the reasons why you got into climbing in the first place. Try to enjoy the challenges as much as the triumphs — if you can manage that, you’ll be a better climber in no time.

The post How to Get Better at Climbing: 14 Tips for Sending Hard appeared first on 99Boulders.

Let’s face it:

Bouldering is a blast, but sometimes it can feel like you just aren’t progressing.

No progress = no fun.

If you’re looking to take your bouldering to the next level (and who isn’t?) then structured bouldering training is a must.

If you’re like most climbers, though, your training plan currently involves just two steps:

1. Show up to the climbing gym
2. Climb

Don’t worry if that’s you (and let’s be honest, that’s definitely you).

This guide contains the information you need to properly train for bouldering. From injury prevention to hangboarding to climbing nutrition, you’ll learn it all.

Chapters

1. Injury Prevention
2. On-The-Wall Workouts
3. Off-The-Wall Workouts
4. Hangboarding
5. Bouldering Gear
6. Climbing Nutrition
7. Training Advice from the Pros

1. How to Prevent Injuries So You Can Always Be Bouldering

Whether you’re new to bouldering or projecting V10s, you could probably learn more about preventing injuries.

We’ve made injury prevention Chapter 1 since it is truly that important. In this chapter you’ll learn simple steps for limiting preventable injuries. That way, you’ll never have to take an extended period of time off from bouldering.

• The Ultimate Climbing Warm-up & Cool Down
• Injury-Free Bouldering: 15 Tips to Keep You Healthy and Strong
• Video: How to Fall and Spot in Bouldering
• Injury Prevention for Climbers: Pulley Sprain
• Antagonist Muscle Training to Prevent Injury
• 14 Shoulder Exercises for Climbers That Will Lower Your Chance of Injury
• Preventing Common Climbing Injuries: A Conversation with the Climbing Doctor

2. On-The-Wall Exercises That Will Make You a Better Boulderer

Get ready for a surprise:

Believe it or not, one of the best ways to train for bouldering is to…boulder.

Rather than climbing whatever your heart desires, though, you can do structured exercises that will help you develop technique, build strength, and more.

Check out this chapter’s resources below to learn what they are.

• 4×4’s – What They Are & How To Do Them
• Video: Training for Climbing: Endurance with Alex Barrows
• Steady Yourself: Three Exercises for Better Balance
• Indoor Climbing Drills to Improve Your Technique
• 5 Climbing Games: Beat Your Friends & Prove Your Stronger
• 10 Drills to Improve Your Bouldering Footwork

3. Off-The-Wall Workouts to Complement Your Bouldering Training

Off-the-wall workouts likely won’t be your main form of training, but they will complement your other training efforts exceptionally well.

This is where you get the chance to work your core and become a pull-up master. The strength, power, and endurance you develop off the wall can help you progress to the next level.

• Training: Perfect Pull-Ups for Climbing Strength
• Whole-Body Strength Training
• Training: 10 Exercises for a Complete Core
• Campus Board Training: The Complete Beginner’s Guide
• Training: Leg Exercises for Climbers

4. How to Use Hangboarding to Build Crazy Amounts of Finger Strength

Need more finger strength? Hangboarding can help you develop it.

It can be tough to know how to incorporate hangboarding into your training routine, though. Despite the name, you don’t want to use it to simply hang. You want your efforts to be more targeted.

Educate yourself with the materials below to avoid common mistakes and get ideas for hangboard routines.

• Hangboard Training for Beginners: A Simple 8-Week Plan
• Mark and Mike Anderson’s Guide to Hangboard Training
• Hangboard FAQ #0: What is a Basic Hangboard Routine?
• Video: Fingerboarding & Hangboarding: A Beginner’s Guide
• Video: Fingerboard Training – 3 Common Mistakes for Climbers

5. How to Pick the Right Bouldering Gear So You Can Crush at Your Full Potential

Don’t let your gear hold you back.

Learn about the best bouldering gear available today so you can get the equipment that will help you climb at your best. Shoes are easily the most important piece of gear in your arsenal, but we’ve also included resources on chalk, hangboards, and crash pads.

• The Best Bouldering Shoes
• The Best Beginner Climbing Shoes
• The Best Climbing Hangboards
• The Best Bouldering Crash Pads
• We Conducted a Blinded Field Test of the 7 Best Climbing Chalks
• The Best Climbing Chalk Bags
• The Best Bouldering Chalk Buckets

6. Lose Weight and Build Muscle More Easily with Proper Climbing Nutrition

Your optimal climbing weight is a delicate balance. You need to be muscular enough to do all the necessary moves but light enough to not weigh yourself down too much.

The key to striking that balance? Nutrition.

The resources in this chapter deal directly with what, how, and when climbers need to eat perform at their best.

• How to Lose Weight for Climbing
• Climbing Nutrition: How Much Protein Does a Climber Need?
• Let’s Talk E Numbers: Climbing Nutrition
• Optimizing Post Exercise Recovery
• Video: How to Use Food to Heal and Climb Better (It’s Easier Than You Think)
• The Real-Life Diet of a Badass Rock Climber… Who’s Vegetarian and Lives in a Van

Training Advice from the Best Climbers in the World

You know who might know a thing or two about bouldering training?

The best climbers in the world, I reckon.

Luckily, top climbers have been asked about and have offered up their training recommendations. If you want a glimpse into how the pros train, the resources in this final chapter are for you.

Take all their advice with a grain of salt, though. They are the best in the world and training exactly as they train is likely too much for us mere mortals.

• Video: Training Day of Adam Ondra
• Video: Climb Like Chris Sharma: His Tips, Part 1
• Alex Puccio on Training, Bodyweight and Crowdfunding
• Alex Megos’ Single Best Training Tip
• Training with Alex Honnold: How the free-climbing rock star gets his grip
• Beat the Burnout: Only Ondra Should Train Like Ondra

The post Bouldering Training 101: The Complete Guide appeared first on 99Boulders.

Climbers are not good at warming up.

I said it, I’m sorry.

I’ve been around the world to many different climbing communities in many different areas and this is something I see consistently, especially outside.

The problem is climbing is just too fun. We’re always so eager to get on the wall that putting in that bit of time beforehand starts to feel very long very quickly.

And we’re always so bloomin’ wrecked by the end of a session that the thought of cooling down afterwards seems like an unfathomable odyssey. I’m especially guilty of this. After some sessions, anything but the fetal position is a bit much.

Unfortunately, most climbers come to a point where they realise their bodies are not the indestructible machines they once thought and this climbing business does start to take its toll.

So, like many climbers before you, have a little sit and a think. “What can I do to stop my finger from exploding next time?” or “My elbows are so sore I can barely prep my morning coffee, maybe I should do something about this?”

Warming up and cooling down are two of the BEST things you can do to help maintain your whole body as you beat and tear it apart attempting this climbing thing.

It’s not just for injury prevention though. Warming up will prepare your body to try much harder and produce more power than if you were to jump onto your project cold.

The idea of a climbing warm-up is to get blood flowing into the muscles. More blood in the muscle will mean more oxygen and nutrients to facilitate contraction. In addition, the blood will warm, loosen and moisten up the muscle tissue making it ready to deal with much more stress. A wet shirt won’t rip.

Cool downs, on the other hand, are more geared towards injury prevention in the long term. During exercise, your muscles will be collecting lactic acid and other by-products of energy production.

These by-products left in the muscle can build up into a gunk that leaves the tissue very susceptible to injury. And, if you’ve already got an injury, the gunk will do an excellent job of hindering its recovery.

The goal of a cool down is to flush all these by-products out so that they can be disposed of by the body. Then some stretching is added to loosen up any knots your muscles might have and keep the fibers at a healthy length.

What Makes a Good Warm-up?

Warm-ups consist of 3 main stages:

1. Raise
2. Activate and Mobilise
3. Potentiate

Simple enough. Let’s go through them one by one and talk about what each involves.

1. Raise

The goal of this stage is simply to raise your heart rate.

Doesn’t need to be fancy, all we are looking for is some form of low-intensity cardiovascular exercise.

This can be anything from running or cycling to rehearsing your favourite dance routine. If you run or cycle to your local gym then boom! You’re in the money.

When climbing outside, if the approach is somewhat arduous then that’s probably good enough too. Approaches aren’t all bad eh!

It really doesn’t matter too much so long as the cardiovascular exercise lasts between 5 and 15 minutes and your heart rate increases.

That said, there are a couple of exercises I prefer over others. Movements that also involve the upper body will help ready those areas for the later stages of warming up. (Though running a few laps around your gym may not be an easy or safe thing to do.)

Rowing

This is a great one to warm up if your wall has a rowing machine. The movement pattern mimics climbing brilliantly (retraction in the arms and extension in the legs).

You can also start off at a low level and build it up to something a bit more intense if it’s one of those really cold days. Unfortunately, not all walls will stock a rowing machine.

What You Need

• Rowing machine

Skipping (AKA Jump-Roping)

This is my personal go to. You don’t need to rely on the wall having any equipment and you can do it anywhere. If you haven’t skipped before it can take a bit of time to learn but I found the learning process itself extremely fun.

I actually like to work with a weighted skipping rope while warming up. So long as the weight isn’t too much then it is still a good warm-up. That extra bit of weight helps strengthen the shoulders while you’re doing your essential warm-up.

Skipping and rowing have also both been shown to help IMPROVE SHOULDER STABILITY which is a massive plus in any climber’s book!

What You Need

• Weighted jump rope

Your Own Personal Circuit

No equipment? No problem! You can always quickly whip up a little circuit of bodyweight exercises to perform.

Say, squats, push-ups, burpees, lunges and running on the spot. Do a minute of each with a minute rest afterwards.

2 sets of that and you’ll be ready to take on the world. And you don’t even have to go crazy hard, it’s a warm-up.

2. Activate & Mobilise

Now once our heart is going, we want to start getting our muscles firing happily throughout their entire range of motion. In this part of the warm-up, we want to limber up.

This involves dynamic stretches. A form of stretching where, rather than hold at the limit of muscle extension (static stretch), we want to carry out a motion that sweeps through the whole range of the muscle.

Why not static stretches?

Static stretches done before exercise have been shown to decrease muscle strength… That’s all the reason I need.

Dynamic stretches will again help bring blood to the muscle but they will also lengthen the muscles slightly and allow a greater range of motion throughout your session.

Here are 9 dynamic stretches to get you started.

Arm Circles

Shoulders are such a delicate joint in climbing it really is worth your while to spend a bit of time getting them working right before a session. Simply start off with small circles, increase slowly until full size and then decrease again slowly before reversing direction and repeating.

Horizontal Swings

More shoulder stuff — and these horizontal arm swings also stretch out your chest.

Swing your arms from held out by your sides to in front of you and then through to the opposing side. Then let them bounce back to the original position. You can do this with both bent and straight arms.

Thorax Twists

This one gets your core and spine going. Hold your arms up at shoulder height with a bend and then twist from side to side as far as your core will let you. Make sure to have your feet firmly planted so you are targeting your thorax.

Another version is to bend over forwards with your legs straight. Swing a hand to touch the opposing foot while swinging your other hand over your head at the same time. This one helps get your lats warm too.

Hip Circles

Do em! And look great while you’re at it!

Lunge Play

This is a great one for the hips and legs. Get yourself into a wide squat position and then simply lean across from leg to leg feeling around for stiffness. If you find a stiff part, bounce around on it for a few seconds before moving on. For an extra challenge, see if you can do hip circles in this position.

Leg Swings

Like the arm circles, you are using inertial force to literally force blood into the muscles on top of the normal things that are happening. Use a bit of wall if you need to balance and then simply swing your leg backwards and forward attempting to get it as high as you can each swing.

After this, you can then do the swings from side to side across your front.

Forearm Stretches

I really put a bit of time into this one and repeat a few times as it makes such a difference. Begin on your knees with your palms on the floor. The goal is then to circle around your hands, stretching your forearms slightly on each lap. You can then twist your hands so that your fingers are facing towards you and repeat.

It’s also a good idea to flip your hands so the backs are on the floor and you’re stretching out the other side of your forearm. After this, you can lift your palms off the ground while keeping your fingers on to give them a bit of a stretch too.

Foam Roll

Some studies have concluded that using a foam roller to warm up your muscles can also be effective since it “is more effective than static and dynamic stretching in acutely increasing flexibility of the quadriceps and hamstrings without hampering muscle strength.”

If you’ve got access to a foam roller then see if you can briefly roll out a few of the key muscle groups before climbing. Remember not to go to big on the rolling though or it will leave your muscles MORE TIRED.

What You Need

• Foam roller

Tennis Ball Massage

An alternative to foam rolling is to take a tennis ball and roll it over your muscles. Putting one between your back and the wall gives you access to rolling down many of the big muscle groups used in climbing.

What You Need

• Tennis ball

3. Potentiate

We’re almost there. The aim of this stage is to mimic the movements we want to be doing in the session at a lower intensity.

If you know a thing or two about yoga then a few salutations in this section would go down perfectly well. I especially love holding the crow position a few times to get those forearms extra ready.

For climbers though there is a very very simple answer. Easy climbing! Finally, we’re on the wall!

However, it’s NOT a matter of 2 or 3 climbs and then you’re ready.

Depending on the intensity I’m planning for that session I could be doing light climbing for up to an hour. The slower you go, the less likely you are to hurt yourself.

I recommend low-level climbing for at least 20-30 minutes, but the main thing to understand here is that you should increase the difficulty slowly. No jumping from V1 to V8 right away. There should be climbs of almost every increment in between and they should be done at a rate that isn’t leaving you tired by the time you get there.

Warm Up Your Brain

One thing we draw attention to in our classes is that the potentiation section should be as much a mental warm up as a physical one.

As you try different movements and increase the difficulty, try to build in different techniques that require thought and precision.

The biggest thing to focus on by far is footwork.

When working through these easy climbs you should be making sure your footwork is pristine at every moment. I mean it!

Aim to place your foot perfectly on the FIRST attempt on every hold and if a foot slips I recommend you step off and start again. Be strict with yourself.

You can also start to build in more advanced techniques such as heel or toe hooks that require you to concentrate on placing your feet correctly.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRu3z5HBzCi/

Another good mental warm-up is to attempt an overhang where you must really focus on activating your core to make your feet stick. If they cut then get off and try again.

If you have a project to try that session then see if you can take more time practising some of the elements your climb involves. Got a toe hook crux? Get on a few easier toe hook problems.

After a warm up like this, you should be feeling strong and ready for a climb. When you’re properly warmed up, your chances of injury are much lower and you can feel it!

Often, if you’re looking to get on something hard outside, many committed climbers will go through this warming up process at their local wall before heading to the crag.

Cooling Down After a Climbing Session

So, what are we supposed to do after a session? Get a beer is the first thing that pops into my mind but actually, there are a few steps you can take to clear those toxins out of your muscles to leave them healthy and ready for the next session.

Light Cardio

You can use the exact same exercise (or dance routine) as you did for the warm-up but the intensity should be lower. We want to be doing this cardio at a very low intensity for 5 to 15 minutes.

This will get your heart to flush the by-products of energy production out of your muscles without stimulating them to produce more.

Static Stretches

After your cardio, this is the best time to carry out a set of static climbing stretches. As I mentioned earlier, static stretches before a session will decrease muscle strength but if you carry them out afterwards they will help flush out the chemicals we don’t want and they will increase the flexibility of your muscles.

Self-massage

Self-massage is an excellent little tool to leave your muscles as happy as possible after a climbing session.

The easiest trick is to roll a tennis ball across tighter muscles where you know there might be a knot or two. Foam rolling is also welcome here.

I also always like to give my forearms a rubdown. I feel it’s one of the best things to help leave my fingers strong and healthy for the next session.

Note: If you’re a hardcore climber, check out the Armaid Forearm Massager. It’s a popular recovery tool for climbers, and it’s designed specifically for sore and tight forearms.

There you have it, an extensive guide on how best to warm up for a climbing session and cool down after you’re done. If you’ve any experience with injury then you’ll know it’s worth the time!

The post The Ultimate Climbing Warm-Up & Cool Down appeared first on 99Boulders.

So you’ve been climbing for a while now and you’ve heard this murmur about stretching.

Maybe you chatted with someone about their shoulder injury and they said: “If only I had been stretching!”

Or maybe you walked past a competitive group of boulders and heard the all too common “I’m not flexible enough for that!”

As a former climbing coach, heed my advice — it’s time you started stretching before that rock over is actually too high. To that end, here is a visual list of 15 simple stretches for climbing.

Before we begin, here are 5 things to keep in mind while reading this article:

1. Stretching too hard only tears muscle. You see improvements with easier stretching, more often.
2. Not all stretches suit everyone. You must learn which ones work for your body and which don’t. I’ll explain later.
3. These are static, post-workout stretches. Don’t do these before climbing. You must be warmed up.
4. All these stretches are to be held for 30 seconds.
5. It’s up to you to figure out how many sets you will do. I recommend starting with 2-3 sets each to get an idea of which areas feel tight and which feel loose, then customizing the number of sets from there.

Shoulder Stretches

In my experience, shoulders are what climbers injure most. Let’s look at some stretches to help prevent this.

1. Pecs

Lie face down on the floor and extend one arm out to your side palm down. You then roll your body over the shoulder of the extended arm. Throughout all of this, you must think about twisting the inside of your elbow into the ground. This will open up the shoulder which keeps it in a much healthier position and really allows those pecs to be targeted.

Tight pecs are one of the main causes of that ‘hunched over’ posture you see so many climbers with. It is also often a contributing factor to many shoulder injuries. The pecs become so tight that the rotator cuff muscles around the back are far too strung out to do their job correctly.

2. Rhomboids

This is one you might not have heard of before, but it’s great for stretching those muscles in between your shoulder blades if you get a very tight back. Hold one arm up in front of you with a 90° bend. Then cross your other hand under the elbow and try to bring it up so your palms are touching (they don’t have to be).

You should begin to feel a strange new stretch at this point. If you push your elbows out and roll your arms around the motion they are capable of, you will start to target the different parts of your trapezius and rhomboids.

Lat Stretches

Your lats are the bits that make your arms move downwards. You use them a lot in climbing. Here we’ve got 2 stretches to target different parts of your lats.

It’s very important to remember to have your shoulders activated. Don’t let your shoulder come up to touch your ear. Keep it down! Also, think about twisting your inside elbow in towards your center when carrying these out.

3. Lat Wall

This is a very simple stretch. Just find yourself a jug on the wall a bit higher than your head, grab it and then begin to lean away until a stretch is felt. You can then rotate around and find a particular plane where your muscle stretches the most and hold it there. Remember, keep the shoulder activated!

4. Lat Chair

Easiest one of the lot. Just begin on your knees, put your palms on a chair in front of you and then lean down into a stretch with straight arms. This stretch will open up your shoulders, which you should get excited about because tight shoulders are the reason everyone is better at yoga than you.

Forearm Stretches

Worried about a finger injury or elbow tendonitis? Me too. These climbing forearm stretches will help.

I did say that not every stretch is appropriate for everyone, but in all my years I’ve never met a climber who didn’t have tight forearms. I’m not saying there aren’t any…but you should probably be doing these stretches after every climbing session. They will help keep elbow tendonitis and many finger injuries at bay!

5. Forearm Flexors #1

Simply placing your palms on the ground with your fingers facing away. Begin to lean forward over your wrists until you feel a stretch.

6. Forearm Flexors #2

Another quick variation to do as well. This time place your palms on the ground with your fingers facing towards you and then begin to lean back and away from your wrists. This stretch will also get your biceps if they are tight too.

7. Forearm Flexors #3

In this variation, you do the exact same as the first but you don’t lean as far forward and instead attempt to lift your palms off the ground. Some people are much more flexible in this plane than others, but everyone should be able to notice a stretch.

8. Forearm Extensors

Kneel and place your hand on the ground, palm up. Now ball your hand into a fist. Place your other hand on top of it, and lean forward while keeping your arm straight until you feel the stretch on the top of your forearm.

The forearm extensor compartment is often neglected. “But,” you say, “you only use your flexors while climbing, don’t you?” This is not the case.

It is a common phenomenon that a flexor will injure or tear because it’s opposing extensor is too tight. Runners deal with this often in the quadriceps: hamstring compartments. If one of your forearm flexors tears then that’s your finger screwed!

Hip Stretches

More flexible hips will allow you to put more weight on your feet in every angle of climbing.

This section may be towards the end but your hips are in no way less important than the other joints. When I’m stretching the joints in my upper body it’s all about maintenance. My goals are to keep the joints healthy to maintain strength and avoid injury.

When stretching my hips, on the other hand, I’m always looking to reach a new level as the more flexible you get here the more your climbing technique will improve.

Most people focus on building grip strength to climb harder, but you’ll be amazed to see the difference in your climbing when you’re able to step further and higher, rock deeper, and weight your heel more.

9. Wide Squat

This is one stretch you can also do before a climbing session to limber up if you just flow through the positions rather than hold them. First get into a wide squat position with your knees around 90°. From here the idea is to just feel around the range of movement you have and see where you’re tight.

Try leaning across towards each leg and then try to circle your hips from the center. If a spot feels tight, hold it.

(Unfortunately, my original video for this stretch included hip circles but was flagged for copyright by the producers of Magic Mike.)

10. Hip Flexors

I can’t emphasize the importance of this stretch. It should be done regularly by the entire population as it helps relieve a growing epidemic known as anterior pelvic tilt — a postural change that is greatly influenced by office chair life. Basically, if the pelvis was a bucket of water, many chair dwellers are always pouring water out the front.

To do this stretch, go down on one knee, put your hands on your hips with thumbs facing forward and then attempt to rotate your hips backward so that imaginary bucket is now pouring water out the back.

When doing this stretch, make sure that you are in a vertical position and the stretch is coming from hip rotation. If you lean forward you will change the stretch to the quadriceps compartment instead which will not catch the deep iliopsoas muscles you want.

Regularly stretching your hip flexors will strengthen your core and help relieve back pain by loosening the lower back and hamstrings.

11. Groin

Climbers can always do with a more flexible groin. The more you can open your hips the more you will be able to hold your center of gravity above your feet and reduce the load on your arms. It’s an integral part of climbing footwork.

Everyone also knows about your basic groin stretches but as it’s so important in climbing we want to take it a bit further. In this variation, you go onto hands and knees and straddle your knees apart. Then fall down onto your forearms and attempt to press your pelvis towards the ground. You should definitely feel a stretch here!

12. Hamstrings

One of your more common stretches here but still very important. Sitting on the ground with legs stretched out either side, you want to begin to lean forward towards the ground.

The trick here is to think about your belly button moving towards the ground rather than your arms or head. That way you will keep your back straight and focus the stretch on the important parts. You can grab your feet to push further into it if need be.

I find I can sink significantly further into this stretch after holding for a minute or so. Take slow, deep breaths and sink down as you exhale. If your hip flexors are very tight it often makes stretching your hamstrings redundant so make sure you’re having a go at both!

Glute Stretches

Tight glutes are going to do their damnedest to stop you from lifting your foot high. You need to stretch your butt out.

However, the basic glute stretch of lying flat and pulling your knee up to your chest isn’t enough for climbers. These variations will help you work towards those higher flexibility levels.

13. Pigeon

This nifty little stretch is bloody great! If you’re ever on a problem and the heel hook is just a bit too high or close to your face then jump off and do this stretch for a bit. I have genuinely made people do this and seen it work instantly.

From your knees, move into a sitting position with one leg bent in front of you and the other extended behind you. Then attempt to lean forward over your bent leg. If this is a bit easy then you can straighten your front leg a bit to deepen the stretch. (The original video of me attempting to demonstrate this advanced variation and failing drastically has been cut due to self-esteem issues.)

14. Glute Wall

Begin by lying on your back with one foot up on a wall so that your knee has a 90° bend. Then you can put the ankle of the other leg against that raised knee and feel a stretch along the outside hip. To deepen this you can push your knee towards the wall slightly or shuffle inwards so the foot on the wall has a bend of over 90 degrees.

Self-Massage Exercises

15. Tennis Ball Massage

This little trick is so useful I’m astounded it isn’t household knowledge. Grab yourself a tennis ball and put it between your back and the wall. You now have a self-massage tool that can target all those muscle knots you didn’t know you had!

It’s not just for your back either. Don’t be afraid to roll it around your shoulders and onto your chest too. Self-massage is an excellent tool to help maintain healthy muscles. I regularly massage my forearms.

Be aware not to get carried away though! It takes a couple of days to recover from a full sports massage so you’ll not be doing too well if you give yourself one of those every day. When massaging your muscles like this, it’s much better to limit your time on a knot to no more than 30 seconds and focus on doing it more often.

Note: I talk a little more about self-massaging in my climbing warm up and cool down routine.

Tips When Stretching for Climbing

Listen closely to your body and learn which parts are tight and which are naturally loose.

There is every possibility that some of your joints are extremely hypermobile and you are only damaging them with stretches. Or, your joints may be so tight that you are tearing muscles just trying to get into the positions.

This is one side of the coin. The other is that the stretches you are doing are genuinely the only thing keeping you from injury. I know that if I stop stretching my forearms I will notice elbow tendonitis within a couple of weeks!

Many of you will find both of these principles apply to different parts of your body to some extent. Figuring out which parts of your body are tight and which are loose is an asset in preventing climbing injuries.

For example, I do 3 sets of each forearm stretch minimum but only 1 set of the pec stretches. A couple of these stretches I won’t do at all because I’ve learned that those joints are naturally hypermobile.

This will take time to figure out, but it is infinitely important. There is no one size fits all in biology.

The post 15 Easy Climbing Stretches (With Videos!) appeared first on 99Boulders.

There’s an awful lot going on in climbing. That’s actually one of the sport’s main attractions. No two climbs are ever the same.

But with so many variables in what makes a climb how are you supposed to make sense of any of it?

Well, there are actually a few different categories we can put aspects of a climb into. These categories can include what the rock is shaped like and how you cling to it — the holds. They can also include how you travel between these holds — the moves.

There is actually a vast array of ways you can move between climbing holds. The important part is that some of these ways are much easier than others.

Good climbing technique is when you perform the easiest possible movement to get to the next hold.

This guide covers everything you need to get started — from choosing the right body position for a move to fine-tuning the exact orientations of your body in that position to harness the best possible centre of gravity.

Firstly, let’s go through the different types of climbing holds.

Crimp

This is your bread and butter climbing hold. It’s what everyone thinks of when trying to imagine what climbers are hanging onto.

The name actually comes from the way your fingers hold it so this hold describes a small but positive edge you can only fit the top pad of your fingers on.

Jug

This is what you’ll find yourself on when trying climbing for the first time or when warming up.

A jug normally describes a large, deep hold that you can wrap your whole hand around.

Interestingly though the word jug is probably the most SUBJECTIVE term in climbing holds and is often used to describe a hold that you can grip okay but your climbing partner struggles with.

Sloper

If you take a crimp and then try to imagine grabbing something as unlike it as possible you’ll probably end up with a sloper.

Slopers are often large, round holds that do not have a positive gradient. This means you can’t close your fingers around them at all and your hand remains quite open.

Sometimes you may come across a small version of a sloper that takes up the space of a small crimp but isn’t positive like a crimp. These can be called slimpers. No one likes slimpers.

Sidepull

A very simple concept here. This can be any of the previous holds but the grabby (positive) part is facing sideways and away from you rather than upwards. You must, therefore, pull sideways on this hold rather than downwards.

Gaston

Okay now imagine the same thing again where the hold is sideways but rather than facing away, the grabby part is facing towards you.

This is a bit more of an advanced climbing hold as it often requires a lot of shoulder power to use. If you’re ever wondering, a dynamic move into a gaston is one of the best ways to blow your rotator cuff!

Undercling

Alright same as before but the grabby bit is now facing downwards. These holds are one of a few occasions in climbing where big biceps can make all the difference. Get those guns going!

Underclings inspire their own specific technique in climbing. As you move your body above an undercling it becomes much easier to hold. So naturally many hard climbing routes and boulder problems require you to pull on an undercling as far above your head as possible.

Pinch

As you might imagine, a pinch is a climbing hold that requires your thumb to get in on the action as well. Often the squeezing action is what is required to grip and use this hold.

These holds are usually oriented vertically because if they were oriented horizontally it’d likely be easier to just use them as a crimp or sloper.

Pocket

This is when, rather than gripping a variation in angle on the wall, you are dealing with an actual hole that has been eroded in. Pockets come in all shapes and sizes. They can be deep like a jug or shallow like not a jug.

Sometimes you can fit your whole hand in them, sometimes you can only fit one finger. A pocket that you can only fit one finger in is called a mono.

Guppy

This is a much less common hold but you are starting to see them more with the rise of competition climbing. A guppy is a hold that you can wrap your whole hand around sideways and the main gripping point is more across the palm of your hand rather than your fingertips.

Guppys are usually the side of a sloper or an angle on a volume (a large, rounded or geometrically shaped hold onto which smaller holds are usually bolted). They might sound like jugs but they aren’t…unless you can use it and your friend can’t.

Okays, now for the feets.

There’s quite a large array of things you can do with your feet. Essentially the whole dogma of climbing technique revolves around how well you can take your weight off your arms and put it onto your feet.

Here, we aren’t going through the best way to put your feet on footholds — that could fill up a whole article in itself. We are just going to describe the 2 main types of climbing footholds you normally stand on: edges and smears.

You can equate these to walking up stairs (edges) and walking up a ramp (smears).

Edge

Edges are the easy one. This is just any bit of the wall that sticks out to create a positive surface that you can put the edge of your foot on.

Smear

Smears, on the other hand, are something you might not have thought about if you haven’t climbed outside much. Honestly, the best description of a smear is ‘when it’s not an edge, but you stand on it anyway’. Often it’s a point where the gradient is not as steep as the rest of the surface so your foot is more likely to stick there.

Smearing indoors can include pressing your feet into the flat of the wall, walking along volumes with no holds on them, or using a foothold that everyone agrees is truly crap.

And now some climbing moves for you.

In climbing, there is a general aim to be more efficient. Good climbing technique allows us to use ‘less’ energy than other methods.

Essentially, your legs and core are much stronger than your arms, so by generating movement from these areas we will save our arms from getting tired and make it to the top.

Take a second to stand up, face a direction and hold both your arms straight and above your head. Now, keeping your arms facing that direction, twist your left hip clockwise towards the direction you’re facing. You should now see that your left hand is noticeably higher than your right.

This is one of the foundations of good technique in climbing. Using your lower body to move your hands without actually bending your arms.

You can actually climb some problems while keeping your arms completely straight. It involves twisting your hips into the wall to send your hands higher.

Flag

So you might have noticed that when I was climbing so majestically there with such perfect form, I kept putting one foot out to press on a blank part of the wall. That’s known as flagging.

Flagging can help with lots of things but the main ones are for balancing and locking your hip into the wall.

Imagine standing on one leg and then trying to reach as far away from you as possible. Your other leg is gonna float up and do a magical gravity thing to stop you toppling over.

You might be surprised to know that you actually do quite a bit of reaching in climbing and that other leg has been your unsung hero all along.

So back to the foundation of technique we just looked at. If you’re standing on two great footholds, it can be pretty hard to twist one hip all the way into the wall.

To overcome this, we usually lift one foot off, twist our hip in and then press that lifted foot into the wall to lock the twisted hip and allow us to move our hand.

Rock Over

This is one of the most basic movements in climbing. It is essentially moving your weight across onto a foothold. It can come in many forms, from a slight lean on a slab to putting your foot in line with your head and using it to pull the rest of your body across.

Often people struggle with this move because they are aiming upwards when performing it. You don’t wanna go up. Actually, the goal is to move all the way across in the direction of the foothold. Once you’re across and all of your weight is above that foot, then you can start thinking about moving upwards — it will be much easier!

Drop Knee

A really funky one here which might not make much sense at first and often takes quite a bit of practice. That said, a drop knee can turn some of the most physically intense positions into casual ones.

To perform a drop knee you must place your foot on a hold and then twist your knee down and in towards your centre. Depending on the move, this may be only a slight twist or you may have to drop it so deep you think your leg might explode.

The dropping of the knee twists your hip into the wall which raises that side’s arm higher than the other, as we have already covered. It also dramatically shifts the weight towards the other arm to free up your (now higher) arm and it sets up a powerful lock between your legs to keep everything extra sturdy.

Pretty nifty eh? Unfortunately, you can’t use a drop knee everywhere…otherwise I definitely would.

Cross Through

Okay, more basics. You might have it in your head that in climbing all the holds you grab with your left hand will be on your left and all the holds for your right hand will be on your right. Not the case.

Say you’ve got a great hold on your left side (in your left hand) but the only next hold was even further to your left. In this case, you might have to reach across yourself and grab that next hold with your right hand — a cross through.

Match

In climbing, a match is when you grab a hold with both hands. Maybe you need to free up a hand to move again, maybe you just want to stop and ponder what you’re doing with your life.

Layback

Laybacks are for when you are using a sidepull of some kind but you don’t have anything else to oppose it. In this instance, you must lean away from the hold and find a position of balance.

It should put your body into the shape of a 7 — with the top bit being your arms and…yeah I’m sure you get it.

Be careful though! If you don’t find the balance point when laybacking you will very slowly swing away from the wall and fall off. This swing is called a barn door. Barn doors are great because they occur so slowly and once they start they are exceptionally hard to stop. The result is that you have plenty of time to contemplate your inevitable doom before actually falling off the wall.

Laybacks are most commonly used on aretes. An arete is when the whole wall stops or has a relatively sharp angle on it and you can grab the edge of the wall as you can see in the video.

Heel Hook

Now we’re getting into the slightly more advanced stuff. A heel hook, as the name suggests, is when you put your heel on a hold and you use it like a third arm to create tension and hold yourself on the wall.

When performing a heel hook, you must often think about angling your toes downwards and twisting them away from the wall. By angling them down, you activate more of your legs in the pull and by twisting them away you get your leg to pull inwards as well as downwards which more than anything keeps your heel on the hold.

This move and the next two tend to be used on much steeper terrain such as overhangs and roofs. But as climbing is so varied, it is possible to encounter these movements on other angles of wall. Aretes are an example of where you might perform heel and toe hooks a bit more often.

Toe Hook

This, in essence, is very similar to a heel hook but you are using the top of your shoe (your toes) to do the hooking. It requires quite accurate placement and for you to be flexing your ankles towards your head the whole time.

Generally, you could say that toe hooks are for when you need to hook on something closer to your midline and heel hooks are for when you need to hook something off to the side. It’s never actually that simple but you might also find that on many occasions you can actually use either to successfully complete a movement.

Bicycle

Bicycles very rarely occur outside of roof climbing, but in roofs they are exceptionally useful. A bicycle is actually a combination of normal standing on a hold and a toe hook. That is, you do one with each foot.

Bicycles can come in a few different forms. Usually, you stand on a hold with one foot and then hook the back of that same hold with the other foot. You can just as often find yourself standing on one hold and hooking a different hold and it’s still a bicycle. All that matters is one foot is pulling while the other is pushing.

Something to remember though is that which foot is toe hooking and which foot is standing actually makes a big difference. So make sure you try both orientations before deciding a bicycle is not the solution to your problems.

Bridge

Ever watch Ninja Warrior and see someone jump on that trampoline and then hold themselves between the two walls? In climbing, this move is called a bridge.

A bridge is often performed in a corner and you have a foot on each side, this can sometimes allow you to take your hands off for a bit and relax. Other times you might actually have both feet on one side and a hand or two on the other. The principle here is the same and it still counts as a bridge.

When working on a strenuous climb in a corner, it can be a great way to rest and get some energy back. Sometimes though, you must bridge to make it through the climb and the bridging itself is extremely strenuous.

Mantle

A great move to know, a mantle is when you move from underneath a hold to above it. If you only climb indoors, you might not know much about mantling. But if you’ve been outside bouldering then that’s probably how you actually got on top of the boulder.

When mantling a ledge (a flat top of a boulder), the best technique is to put a heel out beside you and use that to help lift yourself over the top. You might not always be fortunate enough to have a perfect flat ledge to work with though and sometimes you might just have to be really strong and press it out.

Mantles are not just on the top of boulders though. They can be found on slabs and vertical walls too. In fact, if you go to your slab and play the game of eliminating as many holds you can from a climb, you will almost always end up with a mantle.

Dyno

The best type of move in climbing.

Dyno is short for dynamic move, which means a lot of movement quite fast. There are a few different types of dynos but the general idea is that you sink down and then explode up to leap for a hold that you wouldn’t normally be able to reach.

Sometimes it’s a pop and you just use the explosion to get to your full extension on the wall. Other times you might actually have to leap to the point where you’re not touching the wall at all.

Modern competition climbing is integrating dynamic movement more and more now as it’s so exciting to watch. It’s even gotten to the stage where the techniques are mixing with parkour to get to the top of a problem.

Deadpoint

A deadpoint is another type of dynamic move but the aim is to be very precise. It’s used when you are aiming for a slot or a pocket and you can’t just throw your hand over the top of the hold and assume it will find a bit to grab.

Sadly, this means that deadpoint moves are much closer to pops than to ‘all points off leaps’ and that’s where the name comes from. In the ideal situation, you would throw yourself upwards and at the moment where you’ve stopped going up but haven’t started doing going down (the deadpoint), you snap your fingers into the precise grip.

French Blow

This is a very important movement in climbing. As you lift a hand off of a hold to move it to the next one you must casually bring it towards your mouth and blow any excess chalk off of your fingertips before grabbing the next hold.

This is very important as it lets everyone you are climbing with know that you found this move easy and you are stronger than them.

Related Resources

• Climbing Gear for Beginners: What You Need Now & What Can Wait
• The Ultimate Climbing Warm-Up & Cool Down
• Bouldering Training 101: The Complete Guide
• 19 Rock Climbing Home Workouts for When You Hate the Gym
• How to Start Rock Climbing

The post Climbing Moves, Holds, & Technique: The Beginner’s Guide appeared first on 99Boulders.

If you’ve been hanging around the climbing world for a while I would bet good money that you’ve bumped into someone with a shoulder injury. Heck, you’ve probably had one yourself.

Shoulder injuries are some of the most common injuries climbers deal with — particularly amongst those who boulder. When was the last time you heard someone say, “Gosh, my rotator cuff feels great!”?

What you should take from this lovely piece of information is that you’re likely gonna get one of these trendy shoulder injuries somewhere down the line, and you should be thinking about things to help prevent it from happening.

Protecting against shoulder and rotator cuff injuries is what this article is here to help with.

Here I will go over a collection of exercises designed by a physiotherapist to strength and condition shoulders for the INTENSE forces that climbing will put upon them.

First things first. This is not a regimen you should be looking at if you actually have a shoulder injury!

If one of your shoulders is currently injured then you should be seeking medical help in order to specifically target the problem.

This guide is designed for helping PREVENT a shoulder injury, not to recover from one! You can use these exercises for shoulder rehab, but very late rehab. I do not recommend you try this if you are experiencing pain of any sort.

Another thing to be aware of — you really don’t have to worry about pushing yourself or improving at any sort of rate when carrying out these exercises.

It’s hard to explain, but I’ve always found that my shoulders feel more stable just from doing the workout rather than the strength and power gained from the training. The workout starts to leave your shoulders tonically activated in a healthy position afterwards. One of the exceptionally rare times I might actually say, “Gosh, my rotator cuff feels great!”

Stability is what we’re looking for here; a form of strength that comes from lower level activation. Power gains are just an added bonus.

I’m emphasising this point because with these more focused exercises you often compensate with the WRONG muscles if the weight is too high. It’s better to use a lighter weight and correctly target the muscles we want to work.

Also, pushing yourself too hard on a conditioning programme such as this one is not worth the chance of injury. And the increased stability of your shoulders should allow you to obtain more applicable power gains just from trying harder on the wall.

The Exercises

I normally carry out all of the exercises within a dedicated session. Remembering to warm up and cool down, I will complete the exercises back to back taking any rest I feel is necessary.

1. Abducted External Rotation Drop & Catch

This involves lying on your front on a bench with your arm perpendicular to your body. Then bend your arm 90° so that your fist is now facing forwards.

From here just drop the weight and catch it again before it hits the ground. Bring the weight straight back up to head height and go again.

The key here is to focus on ROTATING your arm to activate the rotator cuff. The best way to check is to make sure that your elbow is at the same height the whole time and is only rotating.

Drop and catches are more focused on the neural development of the shoulder muscles. The goal is to maintain activation as the shoulder tires.

These are done with a 1 kg (2 lb) weight and you repeat them until fatigue. You may only be completing around 20-30 reps at the start. The goal is to get this up to 70-100 and keep it there.

2. Abducted Internal Rotation Drop & Catch

Exact same idea but this time you lie on your back instead. You then lift the weight upwards a bit (by rotating your arm) and then flick it off to catch it on the way down.

Remember, keep your elbow in the same place throughout the movement to make sure the rotator cuff is being used.

3. Abducted External Rotation

These weighted rotations are what you would typically think of as a weights exercise. They involve many of the same rotations but you have a slightly heavier weight and your aim is to smoothly flow through the movement.

Same idea as exercise No.1. Start by lying on your front, arm held perpendicular with a 90° bend. Begin with your fist facing the ground holding the weight. You then want to smoothly lift the weight up to head height over at least 3 seconds. Then slowly bring it back down over the same amount of time.

If you are shaking during this movement then the weight is too HEAVY. The shakes are the rotator cuff failing and other muscles stepping in to compensate.

The key here is to maintain form and isolate the rotator cuff.

Many people will use the edges of the bench as leverage; this is not what we want. Try to make sure you aren’t squeezing your legs or arms against the sides as this will involve your core in the exercise and allow other muscles to compensate for the movement.

These exercises are to be done for 20 reps with a 3kg (6-7 lb) weight or less. Continue at this level for 2 months.

After 2 months you can add 1 or 2 kg (2-4 lbs) and complete 3-4 sets of 8 reps instead. But remember, it’s not supposed to be desperately hard!

4. Abducted Internal Rotation

Now the static equivalent of exercise No.2. On your back, perpendicular arm, 90°. The exercise begins with your fist holding the weight at head height and then slowly raising it up to point towards the roof. Again, the movement should be over 3 seconds and the same for back down.

5. Adducted External Rotation

In this exercise, you are lying on your side. Your arm should have a 90° bend again and your elbow should be resting on your hip.

The essential part of this exercise is to keep that elbow touching your hip throughout the whole movement.

With your fist holding the weight out in front of you, rotate it up so that your fist then points at the roof. Again, the movement should be over 3 seconds and the same for back down.

I find this movement particularly harder than the other 2 and will drop the weight to 1 or 2 kg.

6. Y’s on Gym Ball

Here you must lie with your chest on a gym ball and hold 2 weights out at a 45° angle. Your body should be in the shape of a Y… hence the name. With the weights resting on the ground and backs of hands facing the ceiling, the goal is to slowly lift the weights up to head height and then smoothly lower them back down.

I recommend carrying this out with 1 or 2 kg (2-4 lbs) and the sets/reps are the same as for exercises 3-5.

7. T’s on Gym Ball

Exact same setup as the previous exercise but this time your arms are held out by your sides as they carry out the movement.

8. I’s on Gym Ball

This time, your arms are held straight out in front of you. In this one it’s useful to think about your shoulders still being locked down. Basically, this means, don’t let your shoulders brush your ears. Think about pulling them back as you carry out the movement.

9. Tuck on Gym Ball

Now we’re onto the movements that are more focused on integrating your core into shoulder function.

With your shins on the ball and hands on the floor out in front of you, the aim is to rotate forward into a handstand position with your feet on the gym ball. As you rotate you roll the gym ball down your legs to facilitate this. When it reaches your feet you tuck your knees all the way into your chest. 

Once in this position, roll back down and then even further to the point where the ball is at your waist and your arms are completely stretched out in front of you.

The aim of this exercise it to do it continually for a minute and build this up to 2 minutes. I find it helps to decide upon a number of repetitions that roughly take that amount of time in order to maintain motivation…2 minutes starts to feel very long.

Also, make sure that the movement is smooth and controlled throughout. You shouldn’t be falling or wobbling until the last few reps.

10. Pike on Gym Ball

This exercise is almost exactly the same except that when the ball rolls down to your feet, you keep your legs straight and bring them as close to your hands as you can. (As you can see from my demonstration, the emphasis is on ‘as close as you can’)

When at the peak of either of the last 2 exercises (in the assisted handstand position), try to think about leaning as much of your weight as you can onto your hands. Lean in such a way that your feet will slowly lift off the gym ball if you’re strong enough. This really weights the shoulders and helps develop them.

11. Side Plank

Often associated with targeting the core and obliques, side planks are also great at working your shoulder!

Again the goal for the side plank is to hold it for a minute and then build up to 2.

There are variations however which can increase the difficulty of this exercise.

Level one — the standard side plank — is with the forearm on the ground.

Level two involves rising up onto your hand instead. This increases the pivot angle and forces your shoulder to work more to stabilise.

Level three is mostly the same as level two but you hold your higher foot in the air. This destabilises your body further.

Level four is the same position as level three but your other hand now comes down and threads through the gap between you and the floor. As you come to the lower parts of this movement your torso twists around to face the ground. Repeat this movement smoothly throughout the entire time you’re holding the plank.

Remember to keep your legs locked out and strong. You want a strong chain of muscles right the way down your side.

12. Hanging Tucks

Now we’re really focused on climbing specific movements. With all of these hanging exercises, you need to make sure your shoulders are locked down. It’s something I talk about in almost EVERY article and that’s because it’s super important.

In hanging tucks, you simply hang from a bar and tuck your knees up into your chest.

As climbers though, we’ve really got to be strong in these muscle groups so the preferred movement is to rotate your torso as well so it becomes horizontal.

The goal again would be to repeat this movement for 1 to 2 minutes but I end up just doing this exercise until failure. It’s pretty hard.

13. Hanging Pike

Here the goal is to hang from a bar and simply raise your feet up to touch the bar with as straight as legs as possible. I say ‘as possible’ because not many of us climbers have the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast but your best attempt will still make a difference.

If this is beyond your capability then you can just raise your legs up to a horizontal L-sit position.

14. Windscreen Wipers

Windscreen wipers aren’t easy. They build upon the hanging tuck we did earlier. Here we want to tuck our legs in and rotate the torso until it is horizontal like in the advanced hanging tuck. Then you begin to rotate your torso side to side, drawing a semicircle with your knees.

To build upon this you can straighten your legs.

There You Have It

A shoulder-focused set of climbing exercises for strength and conditioning. It’s something you should be doing constantly to supplement climbing; it’s not a 6-week course you do just once.

Aim to complete this regimen twice a week and if your shoulders are significantly tired after the session, try to avoid any intense, shouldery climbing the next day.

The post 14 Shoulder Exercises for Climbers (w/ Videos!) appeared first on 99Boulders.

This isn’t your typical ’10 things to think about on your first day of bouldering’ list. After all, we’ve already written our beginner’s guide to bouldering and listed our tips for beginner climbers.

Here we’re going to talk about the more advanced bits. The things that I have learnt over the last decade of climbing that give you that little advantage needed to boost your training or send a hard project.

These tips mainly apply to bouldering but the principles can definitely be carried through to other forms of climbing.

Although this article is focused at an intermediate level, it won’t do any harm for a beginner to have these principles in mind from the start.

1. Learn What It Is to Feel Fresh

This is essential for bouldering as the sport is largely built around the idea that you are attempting movements that are only possible with that top 10% of your power. The trick is for you to figure out what it feels like to be fully rested. To feel light, powerful and ready to perform.

There are 2 levels to feeling fresh — within the session and within the day. We’ll talk about what it means to feel fresh within the day later in this article, so for now let’s focus on within the session.

Staying fresh within the session is all about taking adequate rest between attempts. It’s far too easy to get sucked in and throw yourself at a problem repeatedly. This is not what we want.

If you’re trying a project that you have worked before or whose beta you know pretty well, then you should be aiming to have no more than 6 or 7 goes at it in a full session. Many of the top level climbers I know — when working on something at their max — will have 3 goes a day.

Putting this restriction on the number of goes you have will also teach you to make the most of them.

2. Climb Well Every Time

Who’s climbed more? The girl who flashed 3 boulders and sent another 2 on her 2nd go, or the guy who did 1 boulder on his 10th go? The guy has climbed more, gotten up less and is way more tired.

He’s probably pretty grumpy now too.

When having a focused bouldering session, it really pays to do your absolute best on the first few goes. I have learnt that this requires a certain mindset and that learning to do this properly has greatly changed my attitude towards bouldering.

A lot of this is about preparation before the climb. Making sure you’ve got all the beta down and are really focusing on visualising the movements before an attempt. Having all the correct beta and then falling off because you forgot it or screwed up the movement should be a very rare thing in bouldering.

3. Think While on the Wall

Something I was always exceptionally guilty of was throwing myself wildly at predetermined beta. If it didn’t work I would drop off and think again from the ground. Don’t get me wrong, re-evaluating beta from the ground is extremely important but I wasn’t taking that extra second to evaluate the movement while on the wall.

The trick to thinking while on the wall is to stop and have a breath when you get to a new position on a problem. It doesn’t have to be a position of rest. One of the best skills to learn in bouldering is the ability to assess, think and plan while holding an extremely powerful position.

When you have stopped to think, it allows you to consider things like the exact position your hips are in. To analyse the next hold and plan what position your body will be in upon landing the hold. I also take the time to lock down my shoulders and really think about cranking my fingers down when it’s time to do the move.

Being a boulderer through and through, it pains me to say that it was actually endurance training that began to open up this new aspect for me. Having that bit of endurance meant that I was less stressed about finishing the boulder quickly or holding powerful positions.

The loss of this stress meant I was able to think about the actual climbing more while I was doing it. You see world-cup climbers all the time reversing moves and taking some time to reevaluate what to do. Make each attempt count by actively assessing your beta while climbing.

4. Organise Training & Projecting Days

Now let’s circle back to how to stay fresh on a larger time scale than simply during a climbing session. This isn’t always the case but if you had a massive training session yesterday and can barely lift your arms…you’re probably not going to climb your hardest boulder today.

This is pretty obvious but the lesson to take from it is to plan the days you’re going to train and the days you’re going to perform.

On a trip, this involves taking rest days and separating out the days you are going to try your hardest boulder. When not on a trip and trying to balance training with getting out the local crag it isn’t as simple.

Ideally, you have your set training days and this then dictates which days you can climb outside. Unfortunately, the weather often has a different plan and (if you’re anything like me) training days get sacrificed for good conditions.

This tends to lead to the idea of splitting training and performing into different parts of the season. You can focus on training indoors during the hotter months and then allowing outdoor climbing to take priority during the best part of the season.

5. Climb with Stronger People

Being around people above your level is fantastic for learning good technique. But more than that, it does wonders to your attitude towards climbing.

First, it helps remove your fear of failure and embarrassment in climbing. This is an essential thing to overcome if you want to truly enjoy climbing and want your climbing to improve.

Those strong climbers you fear have all been in your position. They’ve all spent their time at mortal levels of strength and know what it’s like. They aren’t plagued or agonised by your presence — and if they are then they aren’t real climbers!

In addition…you might find yourself thinking: Hey, it didn’t look that horrible when she did it. Maybe I’ll give it a go!

6. Try Really Bloody Hard

 

A post shared by Danaan Markey (@d_markey) on Feb 12, 2017 at 3:45am PST

Everyone is certainly trying when they climb. But in my experience there is often a noticeable difference between how much certain people try.

On one end of the scale, you will see someone get to a move they know is difficult and give that half-hearted flail — or even worse: just drop off.

On the other end, someone else may get to the same position and oomf and gurn and girr through the movement before exploding off dramatically.

I firmly believe the second individual will progress much further in climbing.

Personally, I feel that as I’ve increased the grade that I climb, the lower grades don’t feel particularly easier. I’ve just learnt to try harder.

So next time you slap into 2 horrible pinches on a roof climb, scrunch your face, grit your teeth and squeeze like you wouldn’t believe. As your legs swing about madly, crashing off the wall searching for something to stop the momentum, your brain is going to tell you that holding on is pointless, that even if you manage to hold this swing you aren’t going to have enough energy to do anything after.

Don’t listen to your brain. Keep feckin trying.

7. Learn Your Weaknesses & Focus on Them

Having a weakness in one form of climbing will hold back your improvement in the other forms. Actually motivating yourself to train these weaknesses will also improve your all-round ability to train and bring you to new heights.

In addition, weaknesses are often linked to styles of climbing you don’t enjoy as much. Working on these weaknesses might lead you to realise that you do actually enjoy that style.

I used to hate slabs but after moving to The Climbing Works (the home of hard indoor slabs) I decided to put some work into them. Now you can barely get me away from the slab I love it so much.

8. Manage Your Skin Religiously

While not as important inside, skin makes a massive difference on real rock and it becomes ever more critical at the higher levels.

When I ask any of the big shots how climbing is going, they lift their hands up and inspect the skin on their fingers. That’s what they’re thinking about.

It’s useful to plan climbing days around your skin. Not everyone has all the time in the world for their skin to get good enough but this practice is done without question at the higher levels.

If it’s your first day on but you totally trashed your fingers on that huge dyno then it might actually be wise to take a rest day so you can try harder on your next climbing day. Or if you had a planned rest day but noticed the next morning that your skin isn’t back to what it should be maybe it’s worth taking another day off.

It’s also very useful to manage the number of attempts on a problem. I used to throw myself at a boulder repeatedly, get trashed and have no skin left after an hour.

As I said earlier, my climbing made massive improvements when I learnt to limit the number of goes on a problem. I started to have better skin to work with as a result.

For more skin care tips, check out our skin care guide for climbers.

9. Pick Your Problems Carefully When Projecting

If you are looking for that one mega-project that will test the limit of your bouldering ability, take up a large amount of your time and likely define your trip, then it should be a problem that fits your style.

(Going back to #7, this in no way means that you should completely avoid trying boulders that expose your weaknesses, though.)

One of the most glorious parts to climbing is that every problem is different and there is one out there that will suit you perfectly. So you’ve gotta do some research. Don’t decide to work on a problem because it’s the first one you came to in a popular area.

10. Do Everything You Can to Prevent Injury

Injury: every climber’s downfall.

There is no surefire way to avoid injury, but everyone should be doing a few essential things in the background to lower their chances of getting injured.

Things like strength and conditioning, stretching, antagonistic training and basic prophylactic physio for some of your dodgier joints all go a long way towards keeping you in one shape.

11. Get Up Whichever Way You Can

This may not apply to you, but I have come across some people who will drop off if they didn’t do a move quite right or if they grabbed a hold wrong.

Basically, if you think you can get to the top but it’s gonna hurt the eyes of all your fine-footed spotters…Do it! When you’re climbing at your maximum capacity, all that really matters is that you get to the top.

Now remember, as you get to the higher grades, technique tends to become an essential part of completing the climb. And if you’re climbing or training below your grade then you should prioritize proper technique.

12. Add Up the Little Things

All the points on this list are likely to only make minor differences to your climbing in isolation. But when you add them all up over time it could very well be the difference between getting to the top or not.

The post 12 Advanced Bouldering Tips to Get You to the Next Level appeared first on 99Boulders.

Campus board training is a fantastic tool for improving your climbing. The idea is to repeat basic patterns of movement on a campus board to increase your upper body strength.

It’s not as straightforward as up and down though! There are a few different types of training you can use a campus board for and deciding what to do depends on your climbing goals.

Do you want to make bigger, more powerful moves?

Do you want to be able to climb longer boulders?

Do you struggle at climbing dynamically and dead-pointing?

These are all areas that campusing can help with and in this article I’m going to give you the tools you need to build your own routine!

This article is written more as a toolkit rather than an exact plan as it’s more important that you find an exercise that works for your level. A seasoned boulderer isn’t going to gain much by going from bottom to top using every rung, while a beginner won’t get very far if they start off by trying to double campus rungs 1-5.

Why Train on the Campus Board?

Simply put, campusing will increase the power in your upper body.

However, there are 4 different types of upper body strength that you can choose to focus on depending on your climbing goals. Let’s look at each.

1. Power Endurance

This is the simple goal of making the same level of power last a bit longer. It normally involves doing exercises that are within your capacity but repeating them with limited rest.

2. Endurance

Strangely enough, you can actually use a campus board for endurance. If it’s within your capacity to campus 40 moves on the board then go for it, but many people actually put their feet on small footholds placed under the campus board and just move up and down the first 2 rungs for an extended period of time. This will help build shoulder activation and give you that lovely forearm pump.

3. Absolute Power

The good stuff. Absolute power is the hardest thing to build and what bouldering is based on. Training to increase absolute power is often focused on generating larger movements that you can only produce when fully rested. It has been likened to attempting a boulder problem at your limit. You wait until you are fully rested and then give it your best attempt.

4. Contact Strength

Contact strength is probably what campus boards train best and it’s one of the most useful types of strength in climbing. Contact strength describes the ability to activate your muscles powerfully in a short period of time.

In other words, it’s the difference between hanging a small edge or position and attempting to jump or throw into that same position. Can you only stick that hold from a static position, or can you stick it after a dynamic move as well? The second is much harder and something that happens in climbing a lot.

Everything you do on a campus board short of endurance exercises is going to improve contact strength. To really focus on it though try to find holds you really must throw and catch rather than lock off to. Smaller rungs or slopers are generally better to aim for as more contact strength will be required to hold them.

How to Not Break Yourself While Campus Boarding

If not done correctly, you can easily injure yourself from campus board training. Here are a few things to think about before you begin.

1. Can You Easily Go Up & Down Using the Biggest Rungs?

The exercises in this article — and campus boarding in general — is aimed at working high levels of power. There is no point in trying it if you haven’t got the basic strength levels yet.

If the board at it’s easiest level is too much for you, then you are better off focusing on climbing overhangs for a while first.

2. When You’re Using the Campus Board, Are Your Shoulders &  Core Activated?

Some people have the pull in their arms to get to the top, but their shoulders aren’t activating. This is poor form and will cause a lot of damage to your joints.

When campusing (or carrying out almost any hanging activity), you’ve always got to keep your shoulders locked down. A lax shoulder will lead to some horrible things in the joint and do an excellent job of giving you that shoulder injury all the cool climbers have.

Check out these photos showing the difference between an activated and relaxed shoulder.

I find the best way of describing it (without looking at a photo or video of yourself hanging) is to hold your arm above your head and push all the way up so that your shoulder is touching your ear.

This is completely the opposite of what you want. Your shoulders should be down and away from this position while your arms are up.

If you are ever campusing and feel your shoulder brush your ear — DROP OFF!

Another way of explaining this is to be aware of how much you’re swinging. Someone who has their shoulders correctly activated will be able to generate an opposing force from their core and won’t dangle or swing at all.

Obviously, we are aiming to push ourselves in these exercises so it’s okay to swing an amount, but if you are grabbing a rung, bouncing off the board and having to wait a couple of seconds before you can look at going to the next rung, you shouldn’t be on the board.

If you’re unsure about your form at all, get a friend to watch you and compare it to the videos below.

Bad Campusing Form

Good Campusing Form

3. How Are You Holding onto the Rungs?

If you are campusing on slopers then there is no wrong way to hold them. If you are on crimps on the other hand then you must be aware of which grip type you are using. The 3 grip types are:

1. Open hand

2. Half crimp

3. Full crimp

Only the first two are safe to use on a campus board. Full crimp is actually the most powerful of the grip types and that means that you must be aware you are not accidentally changing into it when you are trying hard. If you do notice your thumb clinch over your index finger while on the board then drop off.

How to Train on a Campus Board: The 5 Main Movements

You might have seen climbers at your gym do some confusing things on the campus board. Maybe you just thought people go up and down on every rung.

Like I said though, campus board training isn’t as straightforward as up and down. Here’s a list of the 5 main movements people perform during their training and why they’re useful.

1. Single Move

A really simple way of training absolute power is to attempt the biggest possible movement from a matched position on the bottom rung. It’s all about targeting the explosive power you can generate and there is no locking involved.

Often people either match the hold they go to or drop off. Make sure you are hanging for a second first and not jumping off the ground!

2. Jump Catch

Another simple but great exercise is to begin on the floor holding the bottom rung and then attempt to jump up to the highest rung you can reach. The further the rung, the more you will be stretched out and really have to work to engage all the muscles.

This exercise takes the pulling factor out of the equation and really targets your ability to snap into a position of strength. If you want to add to it, see if you can drop back down to both hands on the first rung without hitting the ground.

If you’re really pushing it, you might be trying this movement without your other hand on the bottom rung — but I’m pretty sure you would already know a lot about campusing if you’re trying that.

3. Double Campus

This involves throwing from one rung to the next with both hands at the same time. It’s great for building strength while adding a bit of coordination into your workout too. The further you throw the more contact strength will be required to grab the hold.

This is another exercise that is great to reverse. Many people will jump up 2 rungs and then drop down 1 repeatedly on their way up. This can also be done in a staggered fashion (one arm higher than the other) or with a swapping motion.

4. 1-5-9

This movement builds off of the Single Move (#1 on this list). The idea is to complete the Single Move and then move again to a third rung without matching the middle one.

Moving between rungs 1-5-9 are the most difficult on a campus board and a coveted achievement in climbing. You don’t have to do this! 1-4-7, 1-3-5 or even 1-2-3 also come under this category.

A 1-5-9 type of movement is much more powerful as you must generate most of the second movement from only one arm. I recommend using your lower hand to push through the movement but if you are reaching the higher levels and wish to be really strict, this can be cut out.

5. Single-Arm Campus

The idea here is to be matched on the lowest rung and move only one hand up a rung at a time with the other hand pressing off of the bottom rung. See how high you can go. Once you go beyond your arm span the stronger climbers among us display the exceptionally difficult single-arm campus.

How to Turn the Above Movements into a Training Regimen

Now that you have all the info, here’s what you need to do with it:

First, decide whether you want to train power endurance or absolute power. I haven’t addressed the other two types of strength here because endurance is relatively basic — just move up and down the rungs for an extended period of time — and almost everything targets contact strength.

Then you’ve got to figure out which of the 5 movements above to include in your training regimen.

Absolute Power Regimen

A campus board session geared towards this is really straightforward. There are two basic steps:

1. Find a movement you are really close to doing or can just about do one in every several goes. This could be something like double campusing rungs 1-4 or just a single move 1-3 on the slopers.
2. Try your absolute hardest to do it with plenty of rest in between.

I would normally not attempt a movement more than 10 times before moving on to try a different one. These power-focused sessions are about 1 or 2 movements max normally. Don’t worry about repeating the movements all the way to the top.

Power Endurance Regimen

Now we’re onto stuff that should get your face a bit redder.

1. Find 4 different movements you can do with moderate difficulty. It could be a jump catch to the 4th rung or a single arm campus 1-2-3, back down, swap arm. Each time you land on a new rung counts as a repetition here.
2. Start yourself a timer and repeat one of your movements for 30 seconds. Aim for 5-10 reps.
3. Drop off and rest until the end of the minute.
4. Repeat steps 2-3 on the minute for 4 minutes.
5. Rest for 4 minutes before moving on to your next movement and repeating steps 2-4

It should take you 32 minutes all together to get through all 4 movements.

There you have it.

You now have the tools to build your own campus board sessions. I recommend no more than one or two of each type of session a week. Also, make sure you’re doing them while you’re feeling strong!

Remember, these exercises are designed to be working the top level of your strength. If your form goes, not only will you no longer be getting the strength gains but you will also dramatically increase your chances of injury.

Happy campusing!

The post Campus Board Training: The Complete Beginner’s Guide appeared first on 99Boulders.

Climbing is a great sport, isn’t it?

If you recently got hooked and want some guidance on what to do now, here are 19 beginner climbing tips just for you.

Want to get stronger?

These tips will help you figure out how to start down the right path.

Want climbing friends?

They’ll help you figure out how to make some.

From gear to warm-ups to calluses, there’s a little nugget of wisdom for every aspect of the sport that you might be clueless about. (Yes, I did just call you clueless.)

Let’s dive right in!

1. Buy the Right Gear So You Don’t Waste Your Money on Rentals…

Renting gear each time you climb will nickle and dime you into poverty.

If you’ve committed to climbing for at least the foreseeable future, purchasing your own gear is the better long-term investment.

But, you don’t need every piece of gear yet. You’re probably not climbing outside enough to warrant dropping hundreds of dollars on certain items.

Here’s what you need right now:

• Beginner climbing shoes
• Chalk bag
• Chalk
• Harness (sport climbing only)
• Belay device (sport climbing only)
• Locking carabiner (sport climbing only)
• Climbing brush (optional)
• Helmet (optional, but recommended if climbing outside)

(If you’d like more info on beginner gear, check out our guide to climbing gear for beginners.)

Yes, that’s quite a long list. But don’t freak out.

Notice that half the items listed are only needed for sport climbing. Lots of people suggest beginner climbers start out with bouldering for this reason — it’s less expensive and more accessible.

I started out with bouldering myself and second this advice. Only needing three things to climb (shoes, chalk, chalk bag) made starting out an easy financial burden to swallow.

Bouldering is also a much simpler form of climbing that allows you to focus on climbing itself rather than the accessories that come with sport climbing (belaying, tying knots, etc.).

2. …But Avoid Buying Gear You Don’t Yet Need

Getting gear happy is a surefire way to blow your money on things you don’t even know if you’ll use yet. Wait until you know you absolutely need something before buying it.

Also, know that most climbers build up their gear stocks over years. For example, I bouldered consistently for a year before I bought a crash pad.

In case you’re unsure, here’s what you probably don’t yet need as a beginner:

• Crash pad
• Rope
• Quickdraws
• Climbing pack
• Hangboard
• Approach shoes
• Trad gear

Everyone’s situation is different, but many new climbers won’t need the majority of these things until later on.

3. Find a Partner in Climb

Everything is more fun with friends, right?

Climbing is no different. If you’re just starting out, try to find a friend who’d be interested in getting into the sport with you. Or exchange phone numbers with a fellow beginner at your climbing gym.

Sport climbers will obviously need a partner (or partners) in climb since you’ll need a belay partner. It usually isn’t too hard to find someone to belay for you once you’re at the gym, but you’ll make going to the gym much easier on yourself if you have someone to go with.

Personally, I was quite intimidated my first time going to the climbing gym. So, I recruited a friend and we went together. Had I not gone with her I might have never gone by myself for fear of looking lost or clueless.

We ended up having a blast and talking with a couple of gym regulars who explained the basics of grades and bouldering to us. I signed up for a membership that day and was hooked ever since.

4. Make Climbing a Routine by Joining a Class or Training Group at Your Gym

One way to make yourself stick with and be serious about climbing more is to take a class or training team at your gym.

I had no clue how to climb or improve at climbing when I first started. Luckily, my gym offered an adult (non-competitive) climbing “team” that met twice per week. It cost me extra to sign up but it was worth the money.

We met every Tuesday and Thursday for two hours with a coach who instructed us through a warm-up, footwork drills, climbing drills, off-the-wall workouts, and more.

Also, since I was paying extra for the team, I was motivated to never miss a practice. I always made time for climbing, and having it the same time every week made it easy to make it a part of my routine. What’s more, after getting to know the other people in the group, they took me climbing outside.

This can all happen to you if you join a team, which is why I can’t recommend it highly enough. The other members of your team can become your friends. The coach can help you get stronger. The structure and accountability can make it easy to make going to the gym a habit.

5. Have a Basic Understanding of Grades…

If you don’t understand bouldering grades or route grades, just take a few minutes to educate yourself.

Doing so will make it easier to navigate the gym as well as the crag. It will also help you get a basic understanding of your skills.

However, there is a “but” here.

Read the next section to find out.

6. …But Try Not to Pay Too Close Attention to Them

Grades serve a useful purpose. They make it easy to compare the difficulties of different routes and problems.

That is about where their usefulness ends.

However, many climbers focus so much on grades to their own detriment. They treat grades as the only evidence of progress. They think if they aren’t constantly moving up the grades then they aren’t improving or getting stronger. They can get insanely frustrated and down on themselves as a result.

You might already know someone like this at your gym. They beat themselves up and call themselves weak when they can’t climb something that has a grade they think they should be able to climb.

Clearly, they aren’t enjoying themselves too much. Mostly because of their obsession with grades.

Don’t sweat the grades. Acknowledge them but don’t focus on them too much. Try to focus more on having fun.

7. Ease Into Climbing So You Don’t Get Injured

When I first started climbing, my body could barely handle two climbing sessions per week.

I’d be sore to the bone. And, on top of that, my bones themselves would be sore. It’d be hard to grip things or do a single sit-up.

And I was hardly unique. That’s how virtually everyone starts out. Climbing is tough on the body and your body needs time to adapt to the stresses of the sport.

However, it is easy to think that you should be able to climb more often as a beginner. After all, you hear about professionals training five or six times a week. And aren’t the routesetters and gym rats at your gym climbing nearly every day?

What you might not realize is how long it took the pros and any strong climber to develop the endurance to be able to climb so often.

How long did it likely take them?

Years.

Hardly anyone who starts out climbing that often makes it through injury-free.

It is also easy to be so excited to climb that you don’t listen to your body telling you to take a break. So, listen to your body! Pay attention to persistent aches and pains. They’ll telling you something if you’ll listen.

Let me illustrate the consequences of not listening to your body with a personal story:

One time my right wrist developed a slight, nagging pain. I ignored it for a couple months (yes, I’m that hardheaded) until the pain was so bad that I couldn’t pinch anything. Not listening to my body led to an overuse injury which sidelined me for eight months. And I had been climbing for over a year by that point!

Think about that for a second. My unwillingness to rest when my body was telling me to caused me to stop climbing for eight months. Eight freaking months! In hindsight, I would have gladly rested a week, two weeks, or — hell — even eight weeks to have been able to continue climbing.

Learn from my mistake. Ease into climbing. Give your body time to adapt. Rest adequately and listen to your body.

8. Learn a Basic Warm-Up and Do It Before Each Climbing Session

A good way to limit injuries is to warm-up before you climb. We all know this, yet many climbers don’t do it.

What I’m advocating here is that you adopt a basic, no-frills warm-up that you can do in less than 10 minutes. Make it easy on yourself to warm-up. Then incorporate it into your climbing session and make it a habit.

A basic warm-up can just be a mix of some simple exercises. You can put together your own warm-up by picking and choosing from this list:

• Jumping jacks
• Leg swings (front-to-back, side-to-side)
• Arm circles
• Wrist circles
• Lunges
• Squats
• Push-ups
• Light, easy climbing (do last)

For an even more in-depth warm-up and cool down, check out this article.

9. Improve Your Footwork by Practicing “Silent Feet”

Every beginner climber starts out with horrible footwork. It’s inevitable.

You can make quick improvements, though, by practicing the drill “Silent Feet” while climbing.

Silent Feet is exactly what it sounds like. Pick a route or problem and, while climbing it, try to make as little noise as possible when you place your feet on the footholds. You should not be able to hear your foot touch the hold.

It is a straightforward drill, but incredibly effective at improving footwork. You’ll find you’ll have to engage your core to control your feet better. You’ll also have to pay more attention to your footwork which is always a good thing.

10. Learn How to Move on the Wall by Watching Strong Climbers Climb

While waiting to climb or taking a break, closely watch the strong climbers as they climb. Pay attention to their footwork, their body placement, how they grip the holds, etc.

You will slowly internalize some lessons from watching them.

11. Take Care of Your Calluses and They’ll Take Care of You

As you get further along, you’ll notice that you’ve developed some gnarly calluses. Obviously, these bad boys help protect your skin from the beating it takes. They’ll help you climb longer.

If they get too big, though, they can catch on holds and wrip off. Say hello to your first flapper.

Learn how to take care of your calluses so they serve you. You can also check out our climbing skin care guide.

12. Put Together a Basic Training Plan if You’re Serious About Progressing

Most climbers go to they gym for one of two main reasons:

1. Get better at climbing
2. Something else (have fun, see my friends, get some exercise, clear my head, etc.)

Any reason is perfectly valid. If you generally go for the first reason, though, then you’ll progress more quickly if you inject some structure into your training.

Now, you don’t have to get crazy with it. Some structure could be as simple as knowing which days you’ll come to the gym and what you’ll allocate your time to while at the gym (e.g. footwork drills, 4x4s, projecting, volume climbing).

Giving you a specific training plan is beyond the scope of this article. Plenty exist online, though. Consult our bouldering training guide for more info.

13. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Beta

Lack of strength is sometimes not the reason you can’t climb a problem. You might just have bad beta.

Beta is the strategy you use to climb a route or problem. There are multiple ways to climb each route or problem, so, accordingly, different climbers will use different beta.

If you’re stuck on a particular climb, ask someone else for their input. Ask them how they climb it. They will likely be more than happy to show you.

Beta sharing is as common as chalking up. Don’t think you have to solve every problem by yourself. You’ll learn a lot by giving and sharing beta that you wouldn’t otherwise. You’ll also be able to climb more stuff.

14. Get Outside ASAP So You Can Catch the Climbing Bug

If you’re really into climbing then there’s nothing like getting your hands on some real rock. It’ll make you fall in love with the sport even more.

My personal recommendation is to go with a group of more experienced climbers for your first handful of times outside. That way you’ll get outside quicker and be safer. They’ll (literally) show you the ropes and likely have the gear which you don’t have yet.

15. Become a Part of the Community by Saying “Hi!” to Other Climbers at the Gym (and Crag)

I played five other sports before climbing (swimming, tennis, basketball, soccer, and baseball). Of all of them, the climbing community is by far the most welcoming and friendly sports community I have ever been apart of.

My personal pet theory is that — since we are hardly ever competing against each other — everyone is on the same team, breeding a greater sense of camaraderie than competition.

Whatever the reason, most climbers are laid-back, easy-going, and incredibly friendly. You’ll find that it’s easy to make friends at the climbing gym or crag.

Just start by saying “hi”.

16. Keep Climbing Fun with Games and Competitions

One day, you might find yourself focusing on grades too much or bemoaning what feels like a lack of progress. When this happens, spice up a gym session with some climbing games. Or challenge a friend to a climbing competition.

Play a climbing game, or see who can dyno the furthest or climb a route the fastest.

I know I just said that the lack of interpersonal competition makes climbers very friendly and supportive. But, once you’re friends with someone, there’s nothing as fun as trying to kick their ass at a game.

17. Practice Falling — Future You Will Thank You Some Day

Falling is an inevitable part of climbing. So you might as well get good at it.

Boulderers especially should learn how to fall correctly so that they limit the chances of injuring themselves. You will tally thousands of falls over the course of your climbing career, so learning how to fall now can save your ankles, knees, and hips from years of repeated impact.

Here’s a good video on the topic:

18. Learn How to Pace Yourself

If you’re like me, you did more cardio-intensive sports before starting to climb.

If you’re like me even more, you’ll try to bring the fast pace of a cardio-intensive sport to the climbing gym. You’ll climb a problem or a route, come down, and immediately hop onto the next one. With no rest in between.

This is a surefire way to get pumped and exhausted.

Take a break after each climb. Drink some water. Catch your breath. Chat with the person next to you. Learn to embrace a slower pace in the beginning.

Since you aren’t sweating profusely you might feel like you aren’t getting a good workout. But trust me, you are.

19. And for the Last Time: Keep Your Arms STRAIGHT!

You’re tiring yourself out by keeping them bent, dammit!

The post 19 Beginner Climbing Tips to Help You Improve Quickly appeared first on 99Boulders.

We all have those days — those days where you just can’t go to the climbing gym.

Maybe you’re busy.

Or exhausted.

Or your climbing gym is closed because…well, you know.

Yet, you’d still like to get a little workout in so you can keep getting stronger. Luckily, there are simple workouts you can do from the comfort of your own home that will help you build strength for rock climbing.

This article cover 19 of these rock climbing home workouts. The workouts target some of the most important muscle groups for rock climbing and most can be done without any equipment.

Ready? Let’s dive right in!

Which Muscles Would You Like to Work Out?

1. Upper Body
2. Core
3. Fingers & Forearms
4. Legs

Upper Body

You worked hard to develop all that upper body strength.

Now use these workouts to make sure you don’t lose it when you can’t make it to the climbing gym.

1. Dumbbell Shoulder Presses

While standing or sitting, take a dumbbell in each hand. Raise the dumbbells to shoulder height one at a time, with wrists oriented so the palms of your hands are facing forward.

Press the dumbbells upward until they touch at the top. Slowly lower the dumbbells back to shoulder height.

Full description: Dumbbell Shoulder Press

2. Tricep Dips

Place your hands shoulder-width apart on a chair or bench with your legs extended out straight in front of you. Bend your elbows to lower your body to the floor until your elbows are at a 90-degree angle. Then press down to straighten your elbows and return to the starting position.

Full description: Tricep Dips

3. Pull-Ups

Do I even need to explain this one?

If you can’t do regular pull-ups, you can make them easier by placing a chair underneath the pull-up bar and putting one foot on the chair while pulling up.

4. Push-Ups

Normal push-ups are great for working your antagonistic muscles. They can help your body balance out a little bit and lose some of that climber’s hunch.

If you want to mix up your push-up game, consider these variations:

• Elevated push-ups
• Spiderman push-ups

5. Bicep Curls

Hold a pair of dumbbells at your side while standing or sitting upright in a chair. Curl the weights by bending your elbow. Curl them until the dumbbells are at shoulder level. Then slowly lower the dumbbells back down to your sides.

Full description: Dumbbell Bicep Curls

Core

If you’re stuck at home for the night you can still work your core. All you need is a floor and your body weight.

Try these exercises while watching Netflix, why don’t ya?

6. Plank

Get into push-up position. Bend your elbows 90 degrees and rest your weight on your forearms. Hold this position for as long as desired.

7. Side Plank

Lie on either side with your legs extended and stacked one on top of the other. Prop your body up using your forearm, forming a straight line from shoulders to ankles.

Hold this position for as long as desired. Switch sides and repeat.

8. Crunches

Lie on your back with your feet flat on the ground. Place your hands behind your head. Roll your shoulders off the floor, pushing your head towards your knees, until your shoulders are about four inches off the ground. Lower your head back down to the floor.

9. Bicycle Kicks

Lie on your back with your hands flat on the floor. Lift your feet off the ground. Bring your left knee towards your chest while extending your right leg. Then bring your right knee towards your chest while extending your left leg.

Full description: Bicycle Kicks

10. Six Inches

Lie on your back with your legs extended and hands by your sides. Lift your legs six inches off the ground. Hold for as long as you can.

11. Flutter Kicks

Lie on your back with your legs extended. Place your hands under your butt to lift your legs a few inches off the ground. Flutter each leg up and down a few inches without having them touch the ground.

Full description: Flutter Kicks

Fingers & Forearms

You know how important finger strength is, so make sure to target your digits when you’re working out from home.

These basic workouts can help you retain and build finger strength on your non-gym days.

12. Basic Hangboarding Routine

Have a hangboard at your house? It’s time to finally use it.

Try out a basic hangboard routine to build finger strength at home.

13. Pulley Sprain Prevention

Place a rubber band around the tips of your fingers on one hand. Spread your fingers as far apart as you can without bending your wrist.

Full description: Pulley Sprain Prevention

14. Wrist Curls

Sitting in a chair, take a dumbbell in each hand. Place your forearms against your legs with your wrists hanging off the front and palms facing up. Curl your wrists upward towards your body. Then slowly lower them back down.

Full description: Wrist Curls

15. Reverse Wrist Curls

Sitting in a chair, take a dumbbell in each hand. Place your forearms against your legs with your wrists hanging off the front and palms facing down. Curl your wrists upward towards your body. Then slowly lower them back down.

Full description: Reverse Wrist Curls

Legs

Though often overlooked when climbing, you can take some time at home to work out your lower body.

These home-friendly climbing exercises can all be done without any equipment. So no excuses!

16. Bodyweight Squats

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Squat down by bending your knees and hips. Go as far down as you can. Then press up, reversing the motion and returning to the standing position.

Full description: Bodyweight Squats

17. Lunges

Stand comfortably. Step ahead with one foot and then lean forward until your front leg is at a 90-degree angle and your back leg is parallel to the ground. Return to the standing position and repeat with your other leg.

Full description: Lunges

18. Wall Sits

Lean against a wall with your legs straight out in front of you. Slide your back down the wall until your knees are at right angles and you are in a sitting position. Hold this position for as long as you can.

19. Calf Raises

Standing comfortably, place the balls of your feet on a raised surface such as a stair. Raise your heels. Lower them back down to complete a full rep.

You can hold dumbbells in each hand to make this exercise more difficult.

Full description: Calf Raises

The post 19 Rock Climbing Home Workouts for When You Hate the Gym appeared first on 99Boulders.

Here are 10 bouldering footwork drills you can use to improve your climbing technique.

Many of these can be done indoors or outdoors.

1. Coin Holds

For this drill, rummage through your change jar and grab 15 coins. Then, head to your bouldering gym (with the coins!) at a time when there are likely to be few people there (I’ve found that on the weekends right when the gym opens are the lowest-traffic times).

Find an empty part of the wall and put the coins on as many footholds as possible. Place them on any part of the footholds where they won’t fall off.

Once the coins are in place, hop on the wall and begin bouldering using any handhold BUT only footholds with coins on them.

Here’s the catch:

When you place your foot on a foothold, try to avoid knocking the coin off. If you do knock the coin off, jump down and do five push-ups. Then, put the coin back where it was and start over.

Do this for 10 minutes (or until you can’t do any more push-ups :), whichever comes first).

2. Silent Feet (AKA Quiet Feet)

Find an empty wall where you can climb around uninterrupted. Hop on it and start bouldering using any holds.

However, when you move a foot and place it on a new foothold, place it so softly that it makes no noise. You should not be able to hear your feet touch the wall — they should be silent.

If your foot does make an audible noise, then move it back to the previous foothold and try again. If your foot doesn’t make any noise, then continue with the drill.

Do this for 20 different footholds.

Mentally take note of how much you have to focus on your feet and foot placement in order to successfully execute this drill. Many boulderers uphold this as one of the best footwork drills since it forces you to focus so hard on your footwork.

3. Sticky Feet (AKA Glue Feet)

When bouldering, you want to be able to move your foot to the perfect spot on the very first try without unnecessarily consuming energy through stalling or adjusting your feet.

In other words, you want to be able to place your foot on a hold and have it “stick” to the hold. That’s the competency this drill targets.

Identify four routes which are two to three grades below your max (so if you climb V4s find some V1s and V2s). Rather than climb “rainbow” (using any holds), this time start climbing the routes as you normally would.

However, when you move a foot to a new hold, the instant it touches the foothold you are not allowed to move it. You shouldn’t readjust it or pick it up and place it down again (you are allowed to pivot on it, though). If you do, then move your foot back to the previous hold and try again.

Do this for four different routes.

4. Foothold Stare

It’s difficult to know where to place your foot if you aren’t looking at the foothold. However, many boulderers often do just that — take their eyes off the foothold before their foot is even on it!

It sounds crazy, but if you pay attention to where you’re looking when climbing you’ll realize it’s true. Our eyes tend to look away from the foothold when our foot is close to it, leading to shoddy foot placement.

You can combat this bad habit and improve your footwork vision with this drill. Start by identifying four routes which are two to three grades below your max. Start bouldering the routes, and each time you go to move a foot, stare at the foothold you are moving it to. Then, once you place your foot on the foothold, keep staring at it for an additional three seconds.

Once you’ve counted to three, you can then look away from the hold and continue bouldering.

Do this for four different routes.

This drill will seem incredibly slow and mundane, but it helps you form the habit of directing your focus to the footholds and your feet when you are moving them.

5. Traversing

Traverse (i.e. climb sideways along) the bouldering wall (usually done on the slab or vert portions of the wall) while focusing on reducing the amount of upper body energy you exert. Use your feet to maneuver your body so your legs generate the majority of the force.

If you traverse well, you should not be pumped (i.e. have tired forearms that are hard to the touch rather than easy to squeeze) at the end of the traverse.

Oftentimes a bouldering gym will have a designated traverse route. However, if they don’t, find a section of the wall that is 30-40 feet long and climb horizontally along it using any holds.

Traverse the wall three times. Try to use less upper body with each traverse.

6. Downclimbing

Identify four routes that are two to three grades below your max.

Climb each route two times and, instead of jumping off once you reach the top, downclimb the route.

Letting your feet lead the way forces you to focus much more on your footwork. Do not use any extra handholds or footholds when downclimbing, and try to downclimb to the point where you can touch the mat with your feet without jumping off.

To make this a little more challenging, try to downclimb all the way back to your starting position.

7. Edward Tennis Ball Hands

Take two tennis balls with you to the bouldering gym. Find a slab (<90 degrees) section of the wall. Hold one tennis ball in each hand and hop on the wall. Boulder while holding the tennis balls in your hands.

Use any foothold, and — as for your hands — only touch the tennis balls to the wall itself; DO NOT touch them to handholds. In order to do this successfully, you will have to instep with both feet to open up your hips. Then, you will need to be precise with your footwork to ensure you don’t slip off or lose your balance.

Edward Tennis Ball Hands is a great way to build core muscles and develop balance. It’s also surprisingly fun and it has a hilarious name.

Do this drill for 10 minutes.

8. No-hands Slab

When you have mastered Edward Tennis Ball Hands you can move on to this drill.

Find a slab section of the wall. Start climbing it without using your hands and see how high you can get using only footholds. Use any footholds you want, and do not grab onto handholds or press your hands against the wall itself — your hands should not touch anything during this drill.

Do this for 10 minutes.

For an extra challenge, try to climb the designated slab routes only using your feet. Even V0s are tough when you can’t use your hands!

9. Toe Stab

After all these on-the-wall drills and exercises, I thought I’d throw in a drill that can be done off the wall.

Begin by standing in front of the bouldering wall while wearing your climbing shoes. Stand about two feet back from the wall (you can increase or decrease this distance based on your leg length — find a distance which works for you).

Balance on one leg and “stab” at footholds with your raised leg by placing your big toe on them quietly and precisely. It should feel like you’re poking your toes at the holds.

Do this 20 times with each foot, and try to stay balanced for the entire duration of the drill.

To make this more challenging, trying stabbing your raised foot at difficult-to-reach footholds, such as ones that require you to execute a highstep or balance precariously on your one planted foot.

10. Boulder Outside

Bouldering outside is one of the greatest ways to improve your footwork.

Outside footholds are oftentimes thin, smooth, wet, or nonexistent compared to their indoor counterparts. It’s easy to develop sloppy footwork when you always climb indoors because the footholds are more forgiving.

For a real footwork challenge, go outdoors to a favorite or new bouldering spot and just boulder. The rock will naturally force you to focus on your footwork since the price for not doing so is lots of slippage and — maybe — some pain.

Do this “drill” for as long as you want :).

Routines to Improve Your Footwork

These drills can be done individually, but I thought I’d include some routines that will target specific competencies.

Recall that bouldering footwork is all about VESTS: Vision, Exactness, Stickiness, Trust, and Silence. Each of the components is crucial to expert footwork, and the drills mentioned above all target different competencies. You need to practice all the aspects of proper footwork in order to become a well-rounded boulderer.

Here are some routines you can do at your bouldering gym to develop each of these competencies:

1. VISION Routine (~30 min)
   1. Sticky feet — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   2. Foothold Stare — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   3. Traversing — 3 traverses
   4. Downclimbing — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
2. EXACTNESS/PRECISION Routine (~30 min)
   1. Coin Holds — 30 foot placements
   2. Silent Feet — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   3. Sticky Feet — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   4. Toe Stab — 20 stabs with each foot
3. STICKINESS Routine (~25 min)
   1. Sticky Feet — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   2. Edward Tennis Ball Hands — drill for 10 minutes
   3. Toe Stab — 20 stabs with each foot
4. TRUST Routine (25-35 min)
   1. Coin Holds — 30 foot placements
   2. Downclimbing — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   3. Edward Tennis Ball Hands — drill for 10 minutes
   4. (Optional) No-hands Slab — drill for 10 minutes
5. SILENCE Routine (~20 min)
   1. Silent Feet — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   2. Foothold Stare — 4 different routes that are 2-3 grades below your max
   3. Toe Stab — 20 stabs with each foot

Some Final Reminders

Developing footwork takes time and dedication. You won’t see instantaneous results, but building the habit now will yield innumerable benefits later in your bouldering career.

Whenever you’re at your gym, watch the top boulderers and pay special attention to their footwork. Simple observation will help you understand what good footwork looks like. you’ll also notice how critical precise and strategic footwork is for more advanced boulder problems.

Get up and out! I mentioned it already, but I’ll repeat it here: one of the best (and most fun) ways to improve your bouldering footwork is by bouldering outdoors. Real rock is not as forgiving with its footholds as a bouldering gym, so the technicality of the problems forces you to be spot-on with your feet.

Lastly, these routines might not be the most exciting things in the world for you, but — then again — working on the fundamentals is never very fun. However, footwork is crucial to performing well as a boulderer, so neglect it at your own risk. If you dedicate just an hour per week to improving your footwork — for example, 30 minutes of each bouldering session after you are too tired to continue projecting — you will slowly but surely develop the skills needed to reach the next level.

Now you possess the knowledge about what makes good bouldering footwork and understand the drills and exercises you can do to develop it. You have no more excuses NOT to be improving your bouldering footwork! I have a challenge to encourage you to get started: build up the habit of good footwork by choosing ONE of these drills (I recommend Silent Feet) and trying it out next time you go to the gym. Notice how much attention you give to your footwork while doing the exercise, and you’ll quickly realize the benefits these drills can have. For now, though, I’ve done all I can do; it’s up to you to take the initiative and put these drills to the test!

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