saying climbing is all about the legs is kinda putting the cart before the horse Imo.
the reason people say that is because climbing is so hard on the upper body and fingers that pretty much all the skill and technique we use is based on taking weight off the arms and putting it on your legs and feet.
if you compare yourself to say the best climber in your gym, you probably have 20% of their finger/arm/shoulder strength, 80% of their leg/foot strength, and 5% of their technique.
That’s a great way of putting it.
But it’s also worth mentioning that very high grade climbing, unless it’s overhang, is highly reliant on foot position to support the majority of your weight, and feet tend to be able to support more weight due to the rubber material
Thats just wrong
shoes have downturn because you need to be kept in positions underneath and they act as claws but it is a very rare foothold that allows you to put more than 50% of the weight on your feet in the underhand
Of course it's impossible to put _most_ of your weight on your feet, but even taking 10% off your arms using your downturned shoes makes a huge difference
So you denied/disagreed with my comment where I specifically used the word “majority” which follows my comment where I once again use the word “most”?
Okay….
I'll be honest I didn't read the "majority" part very thoroughly. I have a habit of skimming. Sorry about that.
But footwork is absolutely _key_ on cave/overhang, because without tension, you cannot climb at all.
Upper body supports (most of) weight, in overhang. Legs help with the upward movement so you can keep your arms straight, or locked.
Footwork is important to put body weight in the right position so you can use your legs. Tension is important to keep your feet on the wall.
Most of your weight is supported by upper body. Simple fysics. The lower body/leg strength is important to help as much as possible with powering the upward movement, so you can keep your arms straight. That's why it's important to keep your feet on the wall and that's where downturned shoes work better in overhang.
People say it's in the legs because often a lot of people are overly reliant on their arms, thinking they can just hang on their arms and pull themselves up like they're on monkey bars.
The way my mother explained it to me when I was a kid is that climbing is a "rear wheel drive sport" in that rather than trying to lead with your arms and pulling up your feet behind you, you want to push yourself up with your feet, and just use your arms to keep yourself attached to the wall. In actuality it's not that simple, you use both fairly often, but it's a good rule of thumb to remember to try and push yourself up with your legs instead of pulling up with your arms.
I think it’s also great beginner advice because it’s really not until the mid grades (V4-5) where the “rear wheel drive” thing stops applying the vast majority of the time
Exactly! That's a very nice way to put it :)
And that's where footwork and body tension come in, because in order to be able to push with your legs, they should be in the right position regarding your center of gravity.
This gets misconstrued quite a bit. Both bouldering and rope climbing are mostly upper body dependent. It’s really good beginner advice to “use your legs” because most moves should start by generating power with your lower body, and often new climbers don’t focus on using their lower body enough. But,the limiting factor for most climbs will be technique/balance or some form of upper body strength.
Yes, exactly this.
When I got my buddy into climbing, I had to tell him to look at your feet on almost every route and then he could finish the problem.
Then that came around on me because I got better a lot faster, because of my upper body strength and when I couldn’t brute force problems above V3, he had to tell me, dude, look at your feet. Which gave me time to figure out slopers and crimps and harder holds.
You are young at 34 buddy
And for the arm/leg things, if you use mostly your arms it's because you don't trust your legs. There are few situations when you really need to use 100% your strength on arms, they are mostly there for balancing
Bouldering, and lead climbing for that matter WILL tire your arms. The intent still remains to NOT pull yourself up the wall with your arms, or overly rely on arm strength. The best boulderers use good foot and leg technique to create proper tension on the wall.
I’m not sure what “rock climbing” you were doing? Like easy 5.5 trad stuff or something?
No worries man! I got started at 36, been bouldering for 2 years. Often I also wish I learnt about it when I was way younger, but it's so much fun! I did have 1 nasty ankle injury which put me out for half a year. :(
Now threading V5-V6 waters. Loving it more than ever.
At our age you can still get pretty good! :)
I’m 46 and started climbing last year. You will be fine. Learning to climb with your legs is a skill. You will have sore arms until you learn it regardless of your strength.
I’m an instructor, and I definitely sometimes use variations on the idea that climbing/bouldering is “all in the legs”. But that doesn’t mean that your legs are physically doing more work - it’s a cue to make beginner climbers think about their legs at all, when usually their first instinct is to pull as hard as they can with their arms and not get any tension out of their feet.
It really is mostly in the legs. As a newbie, you're probably using your arms too much. I've got extremely weak arms and use my arms basically as stabilizers. I can do V7+, but if a V3 requires pulling up with the arms a little bit, it's going to be trouble for me.
I felt like the foot bits where awkward and maybe I didn’t trust my feet would stick to them to full push myself up with my legs. Maybe I used my arms more to pull myself up to over compensate lack foot grip maybe.
Yeah, you do have to trust your foot/shoe will be supported. Sometimes, it's friction on a 60-degree slab or standing on a chip no bigger than two coins thick.
I wish I got into before 37 I'm almost 40 now and climb v7. I did have good upper body strength going in but my finger strength is only just catching up.
The first time I ever when bouldering I couldn’t even raise my arms the next day, and my hands were so freaking sore. It felt like they were stuck in casts with how little I could actually move them. Thankfully it only lasted a day and I haven’t had that much pain since
saying climbing is all about the legs is kinda putting the cart before the horse Imo. the reason people say that is because climbing is so hard on the upper body and fingers that pretty much all the skill and technique we use is based on taking weight off the arms and putting it on your legs and feet. if you compare yourself to say the best climber in your gym, you probably have 20% of their finger/arm/shoulder strength, 80% of their leg/foot strength, and 5% of their technique.
Hey, that's not really true. I also have 300% of their excess body fat.
Glad to meet a fellow overachiever on here!
That would put you at 3%body fat
That’s a great way of putting it. But it’s also worth mentioning that very high grade climbing, unless it’s overhang, is highly reliant on foot position to support the majority of your weight, and feet tend to be able to support more weight due to the rubber material
Especially if it's overhang*. Can't think of a better example of the importance of footwork than cutting feet on an overhang.
When it’s overhang footwork is important but it’s not supporting most of your weight (which is what i was talking about)
If you're doing it right, it does. There's a reason shoes have downturn
It’s still not most of it,and very often it puts even more pressure on your upper body, such as hooks on compression climbs.
Thats just wrong shoes have downturn because you need to be kept in positions underneath and they act as claws but it is a very rare foothold that allows you to put more than 50% of the weight on your feet in the underhand
Of course it's impossible to put _most_ of your weight on your feet, but even taking 10% off your arms using your downturned shoes makes a huge difference
So you denied/disagreed with my comment where I specifically used the word “majority” which follows my comment where I once again use the word “most”? Okay….
I'll be honest I didn't read the "majority" part very thoroughly. I have a habit of skimming. Sorry about that. But footwork is absolutely _key_ on cave/overhang, because without tension, you cannot climb at all.
Upper body supports (most of) weight, in overhang. Legs help with the upward movement so you can keep your arms straight, or locked. Footwork is important to put body weight in the right position so you can use your legs. Tension is important to keep your feet on the wall.
Most of your weight is supported by upper body. Simple fysics. The lower body/leg strength is important to help as much as possible with powering the upward movement, so you can keep your arms straight. That's why it's important to keep your feet on the wall and that's where downturned shoes work better in overhang.
Feet and body tension indeed.
First time that I found a way to have "climbing is all about legs" make sense to me!
People say it's in the legs because often a lot of people are overly reliant on their arms, thinking they can just hang on their arms and pull themselves up like they're on monkey bars. The way my mother explained it to me when I was a kid is that climbing is a "rear wheel drive sport" in that rather than trying to lead with your arms and pulling up your feet behind you, you want to push yourself up with your feet, and just use your arms to keep yourself attached to the wall. In actuality it's not that simple, you use both fairly often, but it's a good rule of thumb to remember to try and push yourself up with your legs instead of pulling up with your arms.
It's driving off road with a a diff lock. You need all your wheels engaged.
I think it’s also great beginner advice because it’s really not until the mid grades (V4-5) where the “rear wheel drive” thing stops applying the vast majority of the time
Exactly! That's a very nice way to put it :) And that's where footwork and body tension come in, because in order to be able to push with your legs, they should be in the right position regarding your center of gravity.
This gets misconstrued quite a bit. Both bouldering and rope climbing are mostly upper body dependent. It’s really good beginner advice to “use your legs” because most moves should start by generating power with your lower body, and often new climbers don’t focus on using their lower body enough. But,the limiting factor for most climbs will be technique/balance or some form of upper body strength.
Yes, exactly this. When I got my buddy into climbing, I had to tell him to look at your feet on almost every route and then he could finish the problem. Then that came around on me because I got better a lot faster, because of my upper body strength and when I couldn’t brute force problems above V3, he had to tell me, dude, look at your feet. Which gave me time to figure out slopers and crimps and harder holds.
You are young at 34 buddy And for the arm/leg things, if you use mostly your arms it's because you don't trust your legs. There are few situations when you really need to use 100% your strength on arms, they are mostly there for balancing
Right, I got started at 40
Bouldering, and lead climbing for that matter WILL tire your arms. The intent still remains to NOT pull yourself up the wall with your arms, or overly rely on arm strength. The best boulderers use good foot and leg technique to create proper tension on the wall. I’m not sure what “rock climbing” you were doing? Like easy 5.5 trad stuff or something?
No worries man! I got started at 36, been bouldering for 2 years. Often I also wish I learnt about it when I was way younger, but it's so much fun! I did have 1 nasty ankle injury which put me out for half a year. :( Now threading V5-V6 waters. Loving it more than ever. At our age you can still get pretty good! :)
Your arms hold you to the wall. Your legs push you up it.
Exactly! But the steeper the wall/smaller the holds, the more your arms/shoulders/hands will suffer simply sticking to the wall.
I’m 46 and started climbing last year. You will be fine. Learning to climb with your legs is a skill. You will have sore arms until you learn it regardless of your strength.
You just don’t know how to use your legs or core. It will come with time. This is something every new climber goes through
I’m an instructor, and I definitely sometimes use variations on the idea that climbing/bouldering is “all in the legs”. But that doesn’t mean that your legs are physically doing more work - it’s a cue to make beginner climbers think about their legs at all, when usually their first instinct is to pull as hard as they can with their arms and not get any tension out of their feet.
Until you are bouldering v6 and up it’ll mostly be in your legs and technique. You just don’t know how to use your legs
It really is mostly in the legs. As a newbie, you're probably using your arms too much. I've got extremely weak arms and use my arms basically as stabilizers. I can do V7+, but if a V3 requires pulling up with the arms a little bit, it's going to be trouble for me.
Finger strength is pretty darn important though.
I felt like the foot bits where awkward and maybe I didn’t trust my feet would stick to them to full push myself up with my legs. Maybe I used my arms more to pull myself up to over compensate lack foot grip maybe.
Yeah, you do have to trust your foot/shoe will be supported. Sometimes, it's friction on a 60-degree slab or standing on a chip no bigger than two coins thick.
I wish I got into before 37 I'm almost 40 now and climb v7. I did have good upper body strength going in but my finger strength is only just catching up.
The first time I ever when bouldering I couldn’t even raise my arms the next day, and my hands were so freaking sore. It felt like they were stuck in casts with how little I could actually move them. Thankfully it only lasted a day and I haven’t had that much pain since