Top 10 Technique Tips for Indoor Climbing

Here's a great article from Britain's Climber magazine with tips for indoor climbing, written by Neil Gresham.

TOP 10 TECHNIQUE TIPS FOR INDOOR CLIMBING

1) Footwork Drills

One of the best times to work on your footwork is during your first warm-up climbs. On easy ground you can focus on making each placement perfectly and this will set the standard for the rest of the session. It will also help to reduce the boredom of your warm-up by keeping you mentally challenged. Slow each foot placement down and pause over the hold for a split second while you decide on optimum positioning. Place the foot silently, and without scuffing the wall above the foothold. Try not to re-adjust your feet or to test the footholds excessively. Work on doing this more quickly and intuitively as the warm-up progresses.

2) Basic Body Position for Steep Walls

The movement pattern for overhangs is entirely different to the movement pattern for vertical walls. The way we learn to climb on slabs and vertical walls is with our hips parallel, as if climbing a ladder, but this causes all sorts of problems on the steep stuff. With your hips parallel, your arms will be forced to pull extra-hard and you will constantly feel out of balance. The answer is to twist into the wall with your hips and straighten your arms. The way to do this is by stepping over the ‘centre line’ and using footholds on the left with the outside edge of your right foot (or vice versa). You can then brace your spare foot against the wall to form a stable tripod. Each reach can then be assisted by the rotational motion of your body, rather than doing it all with the arms. It is a myth that you need strong arms for overhanging walls – if you get this movement sequence right, you may barely need to bend your arms at all.

3) Flagging

If you are unable to position yourself using your outside edge on an overhanging wall and find yourself off-balance with your hips parallel, then you have two alternatives to correct yourself: first simply to swap feet and get onto the outside edge of your other foot; but swapping feet can feel precarious and you may find that you need to swap them back again as soon as you’ve made the reach. A much slicker option is simply to ‘flag’ your trailing leg into a balance position, to make the reach and then to come out of the flag. You can either do this by bringing the trailing leg behind the active leg (if the foothold is high) or by bringing it inside the active leg (if the foothold is low – see photo). Note that the ‘inside flag’ is a more efficient option as it enables you to twist in to the wall.  

4) Slapping on Steep Walls

Speed and timing are the two most important variables for dynamic moves. The faster you pull-up, the more momentum you will be able to capture at the ‘deadpoint’ (this is the split-second weightless moment at the top end of a dyno). Thrust upwards with your legs and hips rather than just pulling with your arms. You must then co-ordinate the upward reach precisely with the dead-point – if you are too slow then all momentum will be lost. Another common mistake is to lose pressure on the footholds at the moment when you move your hand, especially when the footholds are poor. Keep thinking feet as you slap and keep your body taught to take the strain. On steep walls you must ‘pull’ with your feet rather than pushing. Curved ‘toe-down’ shoes help you to use your foot like a claw. If you are having difficulty sticking the target hold then try ‘cheating’ into position and hanging it, to gain confidence and learn the position. Your hips should finish vertically below the hold to minimize outward swing. If you really are a ‘static’ climber then try double-handed dynos on a gently overhanging wall with your feet on good footholds to teach yourself the timing sequence.

5) Cutting Loose

It’s always best to avoid cutting loose on overhangs but sometimes you have no choice. The secret is to take one leg off before the other to reduce the severity of the swing. Arch your back as you swing, bend one of your legs up behind you and keep the other in front. Tense your back muscles as hard as you can to kill the swing. Try to use the momentum on the reverse side of the swing to help you lift your feet back up. Aim to re-locate them first time, because another attempt will seriously drain your energy. 



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