Climbing Technique – Proper Placement of Your Hips

You know, how you’re always told as a beginner climber that you should place your weight over your feet and use as much of your leg strength as possible? Well, yea, you say, logical thing… BUT if you’ve gotten along in improving your climbing skills, then you’ll know that it’s easy to THINK you’re doing it right. Unless there is someone who really looks after you and cares about your climbing, you only realize that you’ve been doing it wrong when you start to do it right – accidentally.

Here are 2 quick pointers to help you if you’re at this stage in climbing. Try these and you’ll see arms getting less tired, moves become easier and you’ll just plain have more fun on the rocks…

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  Her butt and upper body should lean out more - above her feet

  The first tip is trying to place your center of gravity (which is approximately your butt) over your feet. Now, there are obvious exceptions to this rule, such as being on a reibung step, but in the beginning, make sure you don’t lean too far into the wall (see pic) if the wall is not vertical. In this case, it takes some extra energy for the lady to keep her feet on the rock, because the force from her center of gravity actually pushes her feet away from the wall (see the blue arrow?) She should lean a bit further out so that her body is above her feet and she’s in a vertical position.

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  Experiment with pushing your legs apart, like an opening scissor...

  The second pointer is spreading your legs, using them to sorta wedge your body. That is: not just simply standing on your feet, but with an outward force on your legs, you can stand more stabil and take even more body weight with your legs. Initially, on a small wall, try to experiment in every move with pushing your legs apart and seeing whether you’re able to stand more comfortably.

If this stuff looks fun, consider a fun alpine climbing trip with a mountain guide.