Rope Lessons

General sense of the climb: understand where the climb goes. What your clips are? hidden holds(jibs, holds on volumes etc)? cruxes? rest positions?

Once you have gained a high-level overview of the climb you may want to get more specific with crux sections or any particularly confusing section. You may want to refer to the WHHF acronym for more in-depth sequencing of a particular section.

When athletes return to ISO they should be able to tell their coaches the following information:

1. wall angle

2. hold types (large fiberglass, jibs, volumes, crimps etc)

3. style characteristics of the climb (long and resistance-based, punchy and committing, crosses and tension etc)

4. crux (if they identified one)

5. rest/ clipping positions

Why is this skill so important in comp climbing?

How can athletes practice this skill in everyday sessions?

Athletes should always have a plan when they get on the wall. Even if it is an easy climb or something that seems simple athletes should practice telling coaches “the crux of this climb is____,” or “on this climb I am going to focus on_____”

Athletes should always practice route preview before any rope onsights. You should also discuss sequences before projecting or send burns of a climb.

Rest Positions:

• Wide foot stances can allow the climber to lean into the wall and take some weight off their hands. These can be especially helpful if the climber can stem.

• heel hooks, good heel hooks can allow the climber to take weight off hands, shake out etc. These are especially helpful if you can rock the hips onto the heel

• jugs/ incut holds, holds that are more secure provide opportunities for climbs to rest without fear of slipping etc. Positions that seem more risky where a hand or foot seems like it could slip. These positions might be physically restful but they don’t allow the climber to mentally relax/ reset.

• straight arm positions, if the climber can lean off their holds to achieve a straight arm position without having to be locked off or engaged this will allow them to rest more efficiently without using a ton of energy while chalking up etc.

Recovering on the wall:

Recovering on the wall is a two-fold process, a climber must be able to both physically and mentally recover to complete a hard onsight. Physically recovering comes from resting, chalking up, shaking out, and having good endurance. A climber should sequence the climb looking for places to chalk up, shake out etc. THe positions listed above are ideal but often a climber may not have optimal positions and will have to chalk up one hand at a time or do micro shakes throughout the route to keep the pump at bay.

Mentally recovering is much harder and requires that the climber be able to reset, calm nerves, and breathe effectively between difficult sections of a climb. See the mental recovery section for more details.

Climbers should ideally clip when the draw is between waist to shoulder height. A more inexperienced/ scared climber may often clip as soon as the draw is within reach. This tactic can be very tiring since the climber must pull up the rope overhead to clip. Once the clip is near the climbers waist the climber needs to pull very little slack out to clip since the draw is so close to their harness.

There are times when you have few clipping options, in these cases clip however you can. Otherwise, choose to clip when the draw is between waist to shoulder height.

Measuring the distance: when there are few clipping positions climbers will sometimes attempt to clip high above their head but ultimately fail to reach the draw. Imagine a climber pulls out tons of slack, in a very hard locked-off position only to have to drop it all when they realize they can’t reach the draw (sadness). This situation can be avoided by quickly tapping to reach the draw before pulling out slack. This ensure the draw is within reach before spending all the energy to pull up the rope. If the draw is at the very edge of your reach it may be a good idea to first set the draw swinging before pulling out the slack.

holds are often directional meaning that they are in some orientation other than just downpulling. In other words, the usable surface of the hold is not facing straight up.

Directional holds, especially those that are bad require the climber to quickly and efficiently move their weight into the optional orientation to hold the hold.

Sidpull. When the usable surface of the hold is pointing away from the climber the climber wants to lean away from the hold. The more the climber can have a straight arm with hips opposite of the usable surface of the hold the better with will feel.

Gaston. When the usable surface of the hold is facing the climber you want to shift your hips in line or beneath the hold.

Undercling: When the usable surafce of the hold is facing downwards the climber should aim to get their hips high and stand into the undercling. The higher above the climber the undercling is the hard it will be to hold.

Learning to weight different types of feet is very important and something that younger athletes often struggle with.

Smear feet. A foothold that is very bad and smeary means that you generally want to drop your heel to get as much surface area of your shoe on the hold as possible.

Incut feet. A foothold that has a groove or something with an edge allows the climber to pull on the hold instead of only pressing. Small but incut foot holds can be toed in on, meaning that athletes can raise their heel and engage their hamstring as they pull their hips into the wall using the foot.

Volume feet. These are often another form of smear feet. It is important to drop heels down to get good contact with the volume. Also since volumes are more 3 dimensional standing further from the wall towards the tip of. a volume can sometimes make balancing on a volume much easier.

Why is this so important for comp climbing? Comp climbing is often about risk. In other words, setters don’t only want to test athletes on how strong they are, but also how they deal with various types of risk. Traditional commercial climbs often have ample foot options in ideal places. Comp climbs do not. Athletes are asked to trust bad feet often. This could mean a duel texture (shiny) foot, or a bad volume, or a very tiny foot jib. It is essential that athletes practice engaging various types of feet and that they know how to stand on them.

Foot matches are essential to all climbing but they can be especially risky during rope where precision is extra important. Many climbers tend to do a more dynamic foot switch that involves hovering both feet for a split second to pop one foot on and the other off a small hold. This method is suboptimal because it requires a lot of strength and exertion of the upper body and it also creates a dynamic swing of the lower body which can be hard to hold. In a high tension-difficult position this can result in an inaccurate foot switch/ slip. Best case this is just a tiring way of foot switching. We recommend trying one of the 3 methods listed below:

1. 3-step smear: this method involves smearing beside the desired foothold first with the foot you are trying to move onto the hold, then with the foot currently on the hold and then ultimately moving the foot from a smear onto the now free hold. This tactic works best on more slabby terrain or on a volume etc.

2. step on top: for this method, you essentially step directly onto your foot as you pull your foot from the hold. This method should be very controlled if done well. You may also choose to wiggle the lower foot out from beneath the top foot or do this in a more dynamic fashion. If the foot is a bit larger you may be able to successfully do this dynamically. Ideally, you are making contact with the foothold with at least one foot throughout the entire movement.

3. piano: as with a piano match of the hands, this technique involves lifting up part of your foot to allow room for the other foot to stand on the hold. This can be seen as a give-and-take where you ease from one foot to the other slowly.

heel hooks are a key climbing strategy for all climbers and they can be extra helpful for comp sport climbers. Tracking or following your feet along your handholds is a common strategy in comp climbing and often requires many heel and toe hooks.

Steps to heel hooking:

Step 1: Heel of shoe is placed on a hold and the toe is pointed down (away from the shin).

Step 2: Climbers should turn the toe out from the wall, while also opening up their knee away from the wall. This allows more weight to be driven through the leg into the hold.

Step 3(if moving toward or over the heel): Similar to a rock over climbers pull the leg towards them until they are sitting on the hold.

Step 3(if moving away from the heel): The heel at this point is acting as a hand so climbers must consciously continue engaging the heel as in step

Tips for heel hooking:

1. turn your toes out. Pointing your toes away from the wall engaged your glutes and hamstring more effectively and allows you to pull your heel towards your butt using very strong muscles. This makes the heel much more secure.

2. open your hips and try to bring them onto the heel. Opening your hips helps you to transfer weight onto your heel and away from your hands. If you notice it is hard to open your hips/ turn your toes out, you may need to work on flexibility to allow for this more effective transfer of weight.

3. Heel hooks need to be weighted to be solid, this means the weight cannot be on the lower foot

4. rolling onto a heel: as you engage a heel your foot tends to shift downwards onto the hold as you roll weight on top. Be careful to ensure that your heel stays on a usable surface as you transition weight onto the heel.

When to use heel hooks:

1. roofs and steep terrain: heel hooks can be very helpful to avoid cutting feet in the steep. A heel will allow you to keep your hips very close to the wall and pull them upwards the next hold.

2. clipping: Heel hooks can act as a 3rd hand allowing you to keep your body stable while using one hand to clip.

3. tracking: climbs that don’t have many specific footholds may require lots of heels. Especially if there is a lot of volume or fiberglass.

"Improves balance in otherwise off-balance position (shifts center of gravity).

Requires good wall contact with flagging foot (wall smear).

Hip Turn Flag

Require them to step across the center line of their body for each move, thereby requiring the other foot to flag out even farther (i.e. every move is a backstep)

Square Flag

Flagging foot is used as a balance tool. To maintain an balanced position the flagging foot is opposite of the hand that is moving (unless back flagging) When moving away from your center of gravity the flag needs to also move away from below your center of gravity into the opposite direction. When moving over or crossing over the center of the body the flagging foot needs to remain below the center of gravity.

Back Flagging is when the flagging foot crosses onto the same side as the other foot, this causes the hips to shift into that direction. In general, the foot that is back flagging is on the side of the hand that is moving.

Useful when bringing the hands inline or barely crossing the hands.

Also easy to move out of a back flag as you only need to move the back flag foot back to the other side which in turn pulls your hips over the placed foot.

Why flag? Flagging allows climbers to stay relaxed when using only one-foot hold thus helping them to find positions that free up a hand to move, clip, chalk up, etc... The arm that is on the wall is straight(should be).

Why

This sequence should be used for understanding confusing parts of climbs/ cruxes

Wall: Look at the angle of the wall, and natural features such as aretes and dihedrals. Athletes should consider how the wall angle will impact the style of the climb. For example, a slab climb may be fast or slow and not necessarily as obvious. A slab may tend towards more delicate footwork while a steeper climb may have better holds that allow for a climber to cut feet.

Hands: come up with a sequence for your hands, figure out what your handholds are and which order you are going to grab them in. Ensure you know all of your handholds are.

Hips: Our hips are arguably the most important and frequently overlooked part of one’s sequence. Where our hips are placed in relation to our hands has a huge effect on how holds feel and how doable the moves are. For example, if we have a left hand undercling standing our hips up into the hold might make an otherwise unusable hold very good.

Feet: Our feet are very important because they drive the rest of the movements of the body. Once we know where we want our hips to be able to grab a certain hold our feet are used to drive our hips into a certain position. We want to choose which holds we will use for our feet and then also how we are going to stand on the given feet.