Top 5 Drills to Improve Your Movement While Rock Climbing
Walk into a climbing gym, and you can quickly distinguish beginners from advanced climbers. Aside from the obvious rental shoes and harness gumby giveaway, the clearest differentiator is a climber’s movement on the wall. Watching major sporting events, such as the Olympics, as an average Joe, you marvel at how effortlessly and efficiently the athletes perform their sports.
Great rock climbers have too refined their movement on the wall. Listen to interviews with professional rock climbers; many compare climbing to dancing on the wall, often leaving sports like dance and gymnastics behind to pursue climbing. Movement in rock climbing encompasses your ability to maneuver your weight into advantageous positions. Starting from your feet, did you intentionally place your foot on a hold? Are you letting your feet help you by sinking your weight into them? Moving up to your hips, can you shift their position to bring you closer to the next hold without pulling up or locking off (this often relies on strategic foot positioning)?
Awareness is the first step in improving your movement while rock climbing. Ask yourself the above questions and identify what you are doing that may hinder fluid, efficient movements versus what you already incorporate successfully. After you’ve gained awareness in your climbing, you can begin incorporating drills to help dial in refined techniques. If you’re looking for a place to start, below are the top 5 drills to improve your rock climbing movement and bring you one step closer to dancing up the wall.
Top 5 Drills to Improve Movement in Climbing
Sticky Feet
Pretend you have super glue on the bottom of your climbing shoes. When you place your foot on a climbing hold, you cannot adjust the positioning or move it to another hold. You must attempt to make the next move with the foot position you initially picked. This drill will improve your precision and ability to place your foot optimally.
How to do it:
1. Choose a climb (boulder or ropes) 2-3 grades below the level you can climb consistently.
2. Begin climbing, but you cannot adjust its positioning each time you move your foot to a new hold. Your foot becomes "stuck" until you go to move your foot to a new hold.
Tip: Don’t rush! If you adjust your foot, downclimb to the previous foothold, and redo the move.
Repeaters
Practice makes perfect, or, more realistically, ideal practice makes progress. This drill focuses on climbing one boulder until you’ve found a consistent beta you can continue to execute without excessive fatigue. It also helps develop your climbing IQ, or your ability to pinpoint which movements are causing you to fall or pump out.
How to do it:
1. Choose a boulder that requires eady-moderate effort.
2. Repeat 3-5x, working to make each lap more efficient than the last. (This may be adjusting where you place your feet or the sequence in which you grab the handholds.)
Straight Arm Climbing
Climbing with bent arms is very common but requires constant engagement of all the muscles in your forearms, biceps, and back. It’s a guaranteed way to burn excess energy that would otherwise help send the climb. So, what’s the trick to not climbing with bent arms? Easy. Climb with straight arms!
Performing straight arm climbing drills forces you to put more weight into your feet, utilize your whole body while climbing, and become efficient at shifting your weight.
How to do it:
1. Pick 5-10x easy boulders and try to climb each without bending your arms.
2. If you encounter a move where you have to pull up to reach the next hold, focus on bending the arm only as long as is necessary. Once you’ve made the move, try to relax and straighten.
Important Note: Straight arm climbing still requires the engagement of upper body muscles to prevent injury. The easiest way to check if you’re engaging enough is to focus on your scapula (upper back muscles). You’ll know they’re engaged if you actively think about pulling your shoulder blades down and back (towards each other). If your shoulder shrugs towards your ears, you haven’t fully engaged them.
Cross training
Strength isn’t the be-all and end-all of climbing, but the stronger you are, the more control you’ll have over your movements. Rock climbing is a full-body sport requiring maintaining tension across many muscle groups. Working to improve core strength, pushing strength, and unilateral leg strength (e.g., single leg RDLs, pistol squats, Bulgarian split squats) will directly translate into greater control on the wall.
How to do it:
- Aim to incorporate 3 strength sessions a week. They don’t have to be long. Even 30 minutes is enough to see progress.
- The three sessions should entail the following:
Push session. Example exercises include bench presses, push-ups, and dips.
Core session. Example exercises include hanging leg/knee raises, v-ups, and planks.
Leg session. Focusing on unilateral leg movements is helpful, as they are more applicable to climbing. Example exercises include single-leg RDLs, Bulgarian split squats, and pistol squats.
Coordination/Comp Style Boulders
Trying boulders that force you to jump, swing, or propel multiple limbs simultaneously is fantastic for improving your movement. These moves are often found on climbs designated as competition climbs. Coordination moves are also known as learned movements because it takes practice to learn how to generate momentum, control your body, and precisely catch/land on the following holds).
How to do it:
There are no set instructions for this drill. Ask your local climbing gym if they have any ‘comp’ climbs set or know of any nearby gyms that do. Once you find some, spend at least one session a week trying them repeatedly. Don’t be afraid to talk with other climbers and try different methods.
Mastering the art of movement in rock climbing takes patience and practice. Bringing awareness into your climbing sessions and incorporating drills, including sticky feet, repeaters, and straight-arm climbing, will help you improve your climbing efficiency. To round off your training, also add strength training sessions and competition boulder practice, and you’ll be on your way to dancing up the wall in no time.
