Ever heard the saying “The devil is in the details”? Climbing keeps reminding me of that whenever I try to stick a move and nothing works. And contrary to what many beginner climbers may believe when they struggle to send a problem or their project, the issue is often not a lack of strength or endurance. But rather a matter of body positioning.
Do you want to approach higher grades in a smarter way, without getting the usual fast pump? Then keep reading to level up your climbing game.
What is better body positioning in climbing anyway?
Long story short, better body positioning in climbing is efficiently fighting gravity. More exactly it refers to how efficiently a climber moves their body relative to the climbing wall.
Whether we are talking about steep climbing, vertical or slab, improving body positioning is key to leveraging your center of gravity, feet, core, hands, and holds.
Such as knowing how to use your legs for power, engaging your core for stability, and making smooth, controlled movements.
Why improving body positioning in climbing is important?
Climbing is about solving puzzles, and body positioning is a spatial geometry technique that helps you send the problem and climb it more efficiently.
Sometimes simply twisting your hips helps you to reach the better hold, flagging a leg gives you balance, and controlling dynamic movements with your core prevents you from falling.
No matter which one is it, it’s clear as day, that improving your body positioning in climbing comes with time.
But it doesn’t have to take forever: refine this skill actively, and you’ll become a much more efficient and confident climber and you’ll reduce your risk of injury too.
7 ways to improve your body positioning for climbing
Wolfgang Güllich once said, “The brain is the most important muscle for climbing.” While we all agree the brain is, of course, an organ and not a muscle, the rest of this statement rings true.
By training your brain to improve your body positioning, you’ll be able to climb more effectively, use less energy, and attempt climbing more difficult routes with less fatigue.
1. Focus on Footwork
Precise foot placement: Always aim to place your foot precisely on footholds that will allow you to move forward.
For increased balance and flexibility try placing your weight on the toes, on footholds. However, if it’s a slab try to keep your heel low. It gives you more stability and helps with the friction.
Smearing: When footholds are scarce, use the friction of the shoe on the rock (smearing) to push yourself upward.
I know it seems impossible but trust me, the rock in combination with your shoe rubber will make it stick.
High steps: Whenever possible, make high steps: engaging large muscles will help you get to the reachy holds faster and use less energy.
Push pull feet: When I started climbing everyone kept telling me my legs were stronger than my arms.
Therefore I should be focusing on pushing myself upward with my legs instead of pulling my body weight with my arms.
Here’s a video that shows you how to apply this climbing technique.
2. Center of gravity in climbing
Shift weight over your feet: Climbing efficiently means moving your body weight over your feet, minimising strain on your hands and arms.
Core engagement: Your core helps control your movements and positions your body weight correctly as you climb. Therefore, a strong core is crucial for maintaining stability and balance while you engage in climbing moves.
Keep your hips close to the wall: Bringing your hips closer to the wall improves balance, reduces the load on your arms, and allows you to move smoothly on the wall. Like a Ninja
Because I know many people, especially men struggle with hip flexibility, here are some hip opener exercises that can help.
3. Body rotation
Hip rotation drill or flagging: This climbing technique gets your hips close to the wall, helps with balance, and extends your reach to higher holds.
The main purposes of flagging are to improve balance and stability when there are no footholds available, reach for the next hold, and keep your center of gravity close to the wall.
There are 3 types of flagging variations:
- Outside flag – opposite hand and foot on holds
- Back flag – same side hand and foot
- Inside flag – same side hand and foot but it requires you to twist your hip in
Are you a beginner? Here’s a video that shows you how to flag and achieve balance in climbing.
4. The magic of hand placement
Relax your grip and arm: As a beginner, you’ll probably tend to over-grip and your biceps will get pumped pretty fast. A way to avoid this is to pay attention to your hand placement and make sure you always have one arm straight while climbing.
Also, consider matching both hands on a good hold for stability before reaching out for the next one.
Adjusting hands: Even though sometimes there are exceptions to the rule, avoid adjusting hand positioning too often and aim for precision. This way you’ll save energy and momentum.
Watch this to better understand how crimp grip and open grip work.
5. Dynamic movements
Use momentum: In some situations, dynamic movement, or controlled jumps (or dynos), can help reach holds that are out of static reach. Learn how to use momentum effectively to save energy while climbing steep terrain and you engage in tough moves.
Keep tight but not tense: Avoid over-relaxing any part of your body, as this can cause your feet or hips to swing out. However, don’t confuse staying tight with being tense.
Here’s a complete guide to climbing movement and body positioning techniques.
6. What is core to body positioning in climbing?
A strong, engaged core keeps the tension in your body and helps you connect your upper part to your lower part when climbing.
To improve this focus on the basic planks and leg raises to strengthen your core for climbing.
You can also try this 10-minute daily core workout.
7. Climbing flexibility: why it matters and how to improve it
You guessed it, the last but not least is flexibility. The more you have, the higher your feet can go, the more you can rotate your body, and the more flow you are going to have while climbing.
As a very important extra, it makes you feel good before and after climbing.
Check out our guide and find out everything there is to know about climbing flexibility, why it matters, and how to improve it – with videos!
How to conserve energy with better body positioning
Whenever you don’t find a big jug to rest upon, you might save yourself with some body positioning techniques.
Relax and experiment in a safe and controlled environment such as your climbing gym.
Which are the body positions you find to be most efficient to rest in when climbing?
3 tips for better body control in climbing
- Frog pose: This is a rest that should allow you a good rest while keeping your arms straight. Take advantage of this posture to breathe deeply and shake one hand and then the other alternately.
- Alternating heels or heel hook rest: Climbing technical routes for too long can make your toes hurt. A trick that takes the pressure off both hands and legs and conserves energy is alternately shifting weight on your heels.
- Muscle balancing or shifting grip positions: Do your forearms start to feel pumped? Try doing the opposite of the movement that caused it. For example, when I get pumped on big flat holds (I know I’m weird), I’ll intentionally switch to crimping them a bit to engage a different set of muscles. This helps take some of the load off the fatigued muscles.
In all three scenarios, aim to switch between larger and smaller holds to allow your muscles as much rest as possible.
Resting can also be a great way to prepare for the more challenging parts of the route.
Want to learn how to find rests?
5 key reminders for improved body positioning
- Always remember to keep your hips close to the wall.
- Can’t reach a hold? Try shifting your hips more to the left or more to the right to extend your reach and improve your center of gravity.
- Do you feel like your body doesn’t connect? Improve your body tension by working on your core to avoid “sagging”.
- No footholds that you can see? Try smearing, your shoe rubber will grip better than you expect.
- Feeling stuck? Breathe. It improves overall climbing performance, takes off the tension in your muscles, and brings your focus back to climbing.
Check out the video what is smearing and how to do it here.
Conclusion
Improving your climbing with better body positioning is an ongoing process that requires practice, awareness, and adaptability.
And the good thing is there’s no finish line.
Remember that details are key to success and there will always be new ways to improve.
Haven’t nailed it yet? That’s okay, keep on climbing!
As you push through the challenges climbing brings you’ll realise that you can overcome things that once seemed impossible.
Keep climbing, learning, and pushing yourself as much as you feel ready.
Whether it’s on the wall or in life, the journey is all about making progress, one (hold) at a time.
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