[blamo]

I definitely appreciate all of the training threads on ukbouldering, but I have recently been finding I gain way more from identifying why I suck at a certain style of problem as compared to my goto approach "If you can't do such and such a problem go home and hangboard until you can crush the problem with no thought on technique."

Anyway, a few of these new found technique issues are as follows:

Reeling in and out: Sometime there is huge value in staying up high on the problem before you release tension.

Making a foothold: By simply identifying a position where you are going to push hard with a foot can do good even if there isn't a hold.

Using your feet to actively remove weight.  My previous approach was to half-ass heel hook, but I am finding by actively pulling and pushing with my feet I can do more than just take the weight of my fat thighs off of my fingers.

Got any more ideas?  I am all ears.  Or if you have a fast track to mono pinky pull-ups so I can drop all this weak guy beta I am also game...

[jwi]

I understand what you mean by “making a foothold” (i.e. smearing), but I have no idea what you mean with “reeling in and out”.

For understanding climbing movements Douglas Hunter's “The self coached climber” is probably the best book in english atm. (The second half of the book, about the physical aspects of climbing is not good at all)

There is a wonderful little book by Dai Koyamada* where he explains the most used movement patterns in climbing, where they can be used in general, and for each position/move list a few boulderproblems where they are commonly used (apparently there is a DVD attached as well, but I only looked through it in the gym so I haven't seen the DVD). I don't know if I've seen such a systematic approach anywhere else.

----
* Link may not work if your browser can't use kanji.

[mctrials23]

Another vote here for the self coached climbers movement part. Its pretty obvious stuff but the way its presented makes it much easier to digest and really makes you want to move in an efficient way. I'm still struggling to feel the benefits as much on overhanging terrain as the vertical but I think its helped already.

I paid about £2.50 delivered for it from eBay as well so it can be found cheaply.

The biggest thing I find that dictates the quality of my movement and session in general is recruiting the core. I sit at a desk all day so warming up the core and getting it firing is a priority if I want to climb hard.

[blamo]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Reeling in and out (not sure if there is another used name for it) is when you pull in to latch a hold (reel in) and then relax when you are on a hold (reel out).  Similar to when you cut your feet on bad hand holds and you reel your body in to minimize the swing and relax out to hit the next foot hold.

Definitely agree with the self coached climber being a good resource, but I found most of the drills in the book to be of limited value much past V6 or so.

[mctrials23]

That is an issue I have noticed as well, a lot of the advice is fine until you hit a certain grade where you don't have the footholds/ handholds you want to execute the technique demonstrated. The principles are still relevant though and it's a case of having to figure out how to apply them to the infinite number of subtle differences in routes you come across.

[mrjonathanr]

The best technical insight I ever got was watching Andy Pollitt repeatedly peel off the crux of Oyster at Pen Trwyn.

He looked totally smooth and comfortable- then would just fall off.

After the 3rd or 4th time it dawned on me: he was totally in bulk, but so totally focussed on executing the move well it wasn't apparent to the observer. 100% concentration on technique. Brilliant.

[thekettle]

Blamo have you read Dave Macleods '9 out of 10..'?
It's not all about technique but the stuff in it on dynamic movement is a good complement to Self-Coached Climber technique content. Seems to work for me above V6 
Visualising the path of your CoG during a move is one of my favourite ways to problem-solve hard moves.

[blamo]

Blamo have you read Dave Macleods '9 out of 10..'?

Yes, that is probably my favorite book on improving climbing.  

I guess the difficult thing is it feels like there is a huge deficit in information on climbing technique compared to physical training in climbing.  I often find myself finishing off projects by finding a new technique or approach to certain moves.  As the grades get harder I find these tricks/techniques to be more subtle while I am sure they are old hat to some crushers.   

[Sasquatch]

The difficulty comes in combining the language with the body awareness.  Something simple like a backstep makes alot of sense to people.  Something more complex like understanding the weight distribution across all four limbs on a compression problem becomes far more difficult to explain. 

If I had to simplify it down for advanced options, I'd say:

1 - Learn to move dynamically: deadpointing, one foot cutting, and two foot cutting.  All of these are very different.  Learn to deadpoint via hipthrust, shoulder thrust, body whip, etc. 

2 - Learn to see yourself in three dimensions.  This helps to understand your hip position, center of gravity, and movement on the wall, as well of hold usage.

3 - Learn to assess where your body should start and end moves.  If you fall was it because you couldn't get to where you needed to go, or you couldn't stay there once you got there. 

[mrjonathanr]

...
4. Watch a girl do it.

[rodma]

...
4. Watch a girl do it.

As a feminist I take great offence at that

Why can't they just watch a weak man instead? :p

[mrjonathanr]

Footwork isn't as good, as a rule. And who'd want to watch me??

[TheTwig]

Can't remember where I got them but I do a few drills when I'm doing ARC sessions, and sometimes on the boulder wall. Climbing hard slabs indoors seems to have really paid off in regards to footwork too

1) silent feet drills (climb routes/problems with completely silent feet)
2) 3 foot movements per hand movement (more on routes than others) sometimes you have to be inventive to find somewhere to put your foot before you can 'move' again
3) Deliberately clipping lead routes across your body, even if it makes it harder (love this one)
4) practising ridiculously high steps, rockovers etc.

[rodma]

Footwork isn't as good, as a rule.

That's the second most sexist comment since dfbwgc got pulled

[jwi]

3 - Learn to assess where your body should start and end moves.  If you fall was it because you couldn't get to where you needed to go, or you couldn't stay there once you got there.

On this point,

* If I cannot stay when I get there, I find it sometimes help on hard moves to hold the end-position of the move and then move around a bit, move the hips and shoulders, try various forms of pressure on the feet etc. To better understand how to hold on. If I cannot keep my feet on I check if this is truly the case by trying to hang the final position with the feet still on the starting footholds. If it is truly not possible to keep the feet on I swing around a bit to figure out where I'm going to kick the wall/swing my foot on to stop the swing.

* If I cannot get to the end position, it still helps sometimes to hang the hold I'm going for and move around to see how low the body can be while I can still grab the hold. If it is on a hold-studded indoor wall, I then try the move with a higher trailing hand than the original move and practice that a few times.

[Muenchener]

OK, one can't really learn technique from fingerboarding ... directly. But.

Last night with only a few kilos assist I found I was fairly comfortable doing repeaters on a hold I that can barely hang at bodyweight. Helped me realise how much difference it can make to get just a little bit more weight onto the feet. A mate I climb with regularly, who climbs 7c to my barely 7a, says I don't work hard enough at milking marginal footholds on steep ground, so I definitely have scope there.

[abarro81]

1) silent feet drills (climb routes/problems with completely silent feet)
2) 3 foot movements per hand movement (more on routes than others) sometimes you have to be inventive to find somewhere to put your foot before you can 'move' again
3) Deliberately clipping lead routes across your body, even if it makes it harder (love this one)
4) practising ridiculously high steps, rockovers etc.

I'm highly sceptical of things like (2) and (3), since they're technique drills that are teaching you to use poor technique/tactics. Same with (1) to some extent. If I'm trying to ingrain good technique, I don't see using bad technique as being a good way to do it. E.g. with silent feet - this is only good if it teaches you to place your foot quickly and accurately, if you end up placing your feet silently after using the exercise, by placing your feet really slowly, then all you've done is to learn to climb slow and shit 

* If I cannot stay when I get there, I find it sometimes help on hard moves to hold the end-position of the move and then move around a bit, move the hips and shoulders, try various forms of pressure on the feet etc. To better understand how to hold on.

+1.

[slackline]

1) silent feet drills (climb routes/problems with completely silent feet)
2) 3 foot movements per hand movement (more on routes than others) sometimes you have to be inventive to find somewhere to put your foot before you can 'move' again
3) Deliberately clipping lead routes across your body, even if it makes it harder (love this one)
4) practising ridiculously high steps, rockovers etc.

I'm highly sceptical of things like (2) and (3), since they're technique drills that are teaching you to use poor technique/tactics. Same with (1) to some extent. If I'm trying to ingrain good technique, I don't see using bad technique as being a good way to do it. E.g. with silent feet - this is only good if it teaches you to place your foot quickly and accurately, if you end up placing your feet silently after using the exercise, by placing your feet really slowly, then all you've done is to learn to climb slow and shit 

I'd suggest that that is the opinion of someone who has already learnt what the drills are meant to be teaching you.

1) Silent feet drill - the aim is to teach precision, placing your foot silently encourages this, but as you highlight requires one to slow down and place it slowly....initially.  You make the mistake that this is the end point of this drill but its not, because as with anything you practice you increase your proficiency and over time you get better at it, meaning it takes you less time to select and place your foot whilst maintaining precision.

2) Three foot movements - To my mind this teaches two things a) being able to use poor foot holds (by forcing you to make the movements when you might step high to better ones), but more importantly b) the importance of having the right foothold.  For many who learn solely indoors where foot holds are marked out they don't have the knowledge / kinaestehtic awareness about the benefits of having the most appropriate foot placement for the upcoming move confers.  For those who are starting/learning by forcing them to do this they start to feel the difference it has on their center of gravity, since moving the feet around will shift this and they start to learn to not just look for the obvious coloured hold/screw-on but look at small features and whether given their individual body size moving the foot a few inches out to the side will make the move slightly easier because they are then in a more stable position.

3) Awkward clips - Its not meant to teach you that you should always make clipping as awkward as possible, but there will inevitably be some clips that are awkward to make, by practicing such clips the learner will benefit by not being stumped/phased when they then encounter them (as they might not be able to get a kneebar).

Overall its about increasing awareness not just of what is good, but what is bad, since you can not fully appreciate one without having experienced the other.

[jwi]

1) silent feet drills (climb routes/problems with completely silent feet)
2) 3 foot movements per hand movement (more on routes than others) sometimes you have to be inventive to find somewhere to put your foot before you can 'move' again
3) Deliberately clipping lead routes across your body, even if it makes it harder (love this one)
4) practising ridiculously high steps, rockovers etc.

I'm highly sceptical of things like (2) and (3), since they're technique drills that are teaching you to use poor technique/tactics. Same with (1) to some extent. If I'm trying to ingrain good technique, I don't see using bad technique as being a good way to do it. E.g. with silent feet - this is only good if it teaches you to place your foot quickly and accurately, if you end up placing your feet silently after using the exercise, by placing your feet really slowly, then all you've done is to learn to climb slow and shit 

Agree, sort of.

I think things like point 1 and 2 are worth doing a few times for beginners to increase awareness of what the lower part of the body is doing. Also add maybe 1b) pushing really hard with the feet even after having grabbed the next hold.

But I agree that if doing it as a matter of course just ingrains bad technique.

When doing high volume (for aerobic capability/power or basic preparation) it is wort remembering that “practice make permanent”. Too many climbers are moving really bad on warm-ups & high volume training, thus ingraining bad movement-patterns.

(while I was writing this Slackline also replied, but whatever)

[blamo]

If I had to simplify it down for advanced options, I'd say:

1 - Learn to move dynamically: deadpointing, one foot cutting, and two foot cutting.  All of these are very different.  Learn to deadpoint via hipthrust, shoulder thrust, body whip, etc. 

This is definitely helpful.   

Moving dynamically through more than one move sequences I find very difficult.  For example, two and three move sequences where you can't fully setup and need to use momentum in a subtle way seems to be where there is huge room for improvement.

Can't remember where I got them but I do a few drills when I'm doing ARC sessions, and sometimes on the boulder wall. Climbing hard slabs indoors seems to have really paid off in regards to footwork too

1) silent feet drills (climb routes/problems with completely silent feet)
2) 3 foot movements per hand movement (more on routes than others) sometimes you have to be inventive to find somewhere to put your foot before you can 'move' again
3) Deliberately clipping lead routes across your body, even if it makes it harder (love this one)
4) practising ridiculously high steps, rockovers etc.

Thanks, these types of drills have always felt valuable for improving your climbing efficiency (e.g. getting better at doing moves you can already do), but I find them hard to translate to improving my technique on the high end "hard for me moves."  However, watching Drew Ruana on Just Do It made me realize there is room for improvement on my high-step rockovers and hip turnout.

[Johnny Brown]

Can somebody explain how to 'body whip' please?

[ghisino]

a complementary approach to drills that help you build a specific technique would be to do drills that help you becoming a better learner.

these in my opinion fall in two general categories:
-anything that forces you to do use "extreme" solutions, to be playful and inventive, to recognize the boundary between injury-prone and simply "odd feeling".
-anything that increases your awareness of things you're not overly used to notice, such as subtle shifts in muscular tensions, balance, timing of your moves, etc...

two examples:
-one handed climbing, especially if done on a wall that is steep enough that you can't just stay balanced on your feet, and the moves are not purely straight up. You need to be forced to dyno and to react quickly to off-balance situations.

-blindfolded climbing, done properly. The aim should be to move as precisely as possible, without slowing down too much or hesitating, as if you could see the holds, relying only on your "3d awareness" and visualization skills. The number and character of moves and ascent style (redpointed to death, tried once or twice, flash, o/s) should therefore be adapted to your abilities so that this feat is challenging, but possible.



my hope as climbing instructor is that this kind of stuff will make my climbers better at adapting themselves spontaneously and quickly to a move/problem/route and at copying others (as in: looking a few beta-videos of the boulder problem they'd like to try and being able to "feel" and understand even those moves that are odd/new to them)

this is not my own invention: for instance, a lot of the "german boulder team training" stuff seen in udo neumann's videos looks (to me) to have a similar philosophy.

[ghisino]

another unconventional drill idea.

pick two or three challenging boulder problems or routes. (they should have different charachters: powerful vs delicate, positive holds vs slopers, etc)

pick two or three breathing patterns, for instance :
1)short, forced exhaling, sync with your moves (power screaming, grunting)
2)Deep but relatively fast, diaphragm driven, continuous, off-sync with your moves
3) Deep, slow and square (a small apnea phase at full and empty lungs)

pick different climbing rhythms/attitudes:
-ondra fast, with an element of agressiveness
-sloth like, slow and relaxed
-etc

pick a few mental imagery options:
-something that makes you feel angry and willing to have a physical fight with someone.
-memories of happy, relaxed places
-sense of urgency, "i must send now"
-distractions (thinking and or talking about something else)


different core and shoulder tension levels.


then experiment with as many combinations as possible and notice if successful patterns emerge, if and how different moves require you to be in a different "zone", etc

also: on an easy and continuous route, play a game of shifting mode very quickly and dramatically every two draws (eg going from sloth-like and relaxed to quick, springy and agry to death, and reverse)

[tomtom]

Can somebody explain how to 'body whip' please?

50 shades of grey is coming out soon - that may have some pointers...

[Sasquatch]

Can somebody explain how to 'body whip' please?

I'll try to remember to find a video of this and post it.

Basically the idea is to use your body to generate a deadpoint moment where you can move your hand.  When you're at your limit, you'll often find you can't release a hand or foot, and you can't generate any momentum from them as they are fully engaged staying on the wall.  Or in cases where the goal is not to generate upwards momentum.  In this case how do you generate momentum to create a deadpoint moment where you can release a hand?  I find that by starting with my belly forward, and shoulders/chest back, I can roll my chest/shoulders forward and create that moment of inertia where I can move my hand.