[Climbing] Back Step

What is a back step?

In definition, you do a back step when one of your hip is closer to the wall than the other, and both of your knees are pointing in the same direction, like this:


In extreme cases, the knee in the back can be even lower than your feet, like this:


That's why this technique is also called drop knee or Egyptian.

Now you must be thinking, "whoa this looks quite comfortable. Why does anybody want to do this". In fact, back step is not as uncomfortable as it seems. It actually makes you feel more "comfortable" in the sense that you can climb more efficiently if you do it often. So how is back step useful?

1. Back step makes your center of gravity closer to the wall than regular positioning.


In the above picture, the center of gravity of the climber is closer and closer to the wall from left to right. As we can see, when our body is facing the wall, our knees inevitably prevent us from pulling our core close to the wall. Using back step makes our knees tangent to the wall, thus our hip/core/center of gravity is closer to the wall. This means less weight on the arms, more weight on the legs, and more efficient climbing.

2. Back step makes it easier for your arms to reach high.


The first advantage contributes to this. Another reason this is true is because, when our body is facing the wall, the knee on the same side of the reaching hand can't contribute to the upward momentum. Sometimes it even pushes us away from the wall. Whereas if we use back step, our hip can help us by pushing upward (see the above picture).
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA

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