Han Zhu's Study Notes

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 ...

All climbing holds have directions. For the hold below, the arrow's direction is the most ideal hold position. We should always match our hold to the ideal loading direction, in order to climb efficiently. Holds can be categorized according to their directions. We have holds that point towards the body: And also the ones that point away from the body: A hold that points towards us is generally better than its counterpart which points away from us. To improve hold quality, it's always good to keep the body as close to the wall as possible. We talked about this in foot positioning . However, when it comes to foot holds, this rule doesn't always hold true. When the foot holds are big and clear cut, it's always ideal to keep the body close to the wall, in order to transfer more body weight to the feet. But when the foot holds are flat and slippery, or there are no foot holds at all, the quality of foot holds largely depends on friction. And there's a ...

A good gripping technique and understanding when to use what kind of grip can help a climber progress faster and prevent finger injury. What are the common gripping techniques? Three fingers open grip: Four fingers open grip: Half crimp: Full crimp: These grips are listed in the order from weaker to stronger, but also from less aggressive to more aggressive to your fingers. What are the common hold types? Sloper: Pocket: Edge: Pinch: Side pull: Undercling: Jug: The main takeaway today is that there is always the least aggressive way to take a hold, and the most aggressive way to take the same hold.  For example, this sloper can be taken more openly and less aggressively like this, or more aggressively in a crimpy way like this. Similarly, a pinch can be taken in a pinch (less aggressive), or in a full crimp (more aggressive), etc. To prevent finger injury, we need t...

Good body positioning can make your climbing much more efficient. To learn body positioning, we first need to know where is our body's center of gravity. Our center of gravity lies behind our belly buttons. It's pretty much at the middle of our body. This implies that when we're climbing, we should always move our core as close to the wall as possible. In principle, this is the major foundation of a good climbing style.  Why? In footwork , I mentioned it is a good technique to use our legs and feet to share the weight of our body with the arms. Moving our core close to the wall is a great way to achieve this.  In this picture, you can see that by moving his core towards the wall, the climber can let go of his hands completely, thus significantly save the energy of his arms. This picture is only to demonstrate how efficient we can be using good body positioning. When climbing, resting is often done by transferring body weight to the lower body and letting go o...

Why is footwork important? Climbing is not all about the hands. When we are climbing, most of the work are done by muscles that are relatively weak in our body, such as forearms. That's why beginner climbers get tired quickly. Good footwork and stepping technique can transfer some body weight to the stronger parts of the body such as legs and feet, thus saving us a lot of energy while climbing. How to improve footwork? Move on your toe tips! Moving on the toe tips has several advantages compared to moving on the sole: First, moving on toe tips reduces the contact area with the footholds and thus increase the pressure of your shoe on the footholds. This will make it less likely for you to slip off the footholds. Second, stepping on toe tips makes you more flexible on the wall and enables you to switch body positions easily. Many beginners step on their soles. This will actually lock their feet on the wall and make it very hard for the feet to rotate about the foo...