UKC

I think my toe hooking strength is weak. I can't even hang from a bar with both feet.

Has anyone else trainied this? If so how and what were the results? I don't even know what muscles are involved.

In reply to stp:

I'm interested in this, I've always wondered how much of it is strength and how much is technique but I can't toe hook to save my life.

In reply to stp:
Conditioning phase... spend a couple of weeks walking about on your heels actively lifting your toes. Make this harder by strapping ankle weights to the top of my toes.
Strength phase... use a bar with ropes hanging down either side to grab and take some weight. Slowly build to full bat hangs with two feet doing sit ups. Eventually working towards one footed bat hangs doing upward 'squats'.

Have fun

In reply to JIMBO:

Interesting answer. The rope idea sounds good - avoiding the mishap of a broken neck when training to failure.

As for the single leg upward squat, sounds amazing. Has anyone pulled it off?

In reply to stp:

Walk downhill with a heavy pack on uneven ground. This forces you to lift your toes on your trailing foot. Try to cycle just by pulling up if you have clip pedals.
CB

In reply to stp:


Yeah, careful now.
I've landed flat on my back after lowering myself down from a pull up bar from a toe hook in a sit up position.
I think I was lucky that I only managed to lower myself halfway so landed on my back rather than my neck.

It wasn't like I was training toe hooks or anything, I was just doing some pull ups when I suddenly though 'I wonder if I can lower down off my toes'.

In reply to stp:

Never tried a bar hang so not sure how I'd do, but I used to really struggle with any toe hooks on roof problems. The revelation for me was not to concentrate on pulling with my toes, but to concentrate on tensing my core.

In reply to 1poundSOCKS:

More seriously... you are right. More can be gained from better body position and core strength. Working on roof problems would be more realistic and helpful endeavour.

In reply to stp:

I've been thinking about this lately because I just can't manage to take any weight on a toe hook at all. In a roof, I can stabilise myself by poking a toe onto a hold, but the minute I go to move and let it take any weight....flop.

I actually think some of my problem is ankle/hamstring flexibility. It's rubbish, and as a result, I can't get the angle on the hold needed to get a good dig in. But that's just my uneducated speculation.

In reply to Ams1101:

Practice, use the roof at your local bouldering wall, warm up first then go on to the roof, before you wear yourself out. A lot of it is core strength and also a pair of shoes that have enough rubber over the toe area to make it a comfortable exercise.

In reply to JIMBO:


Agreed core strength is vital and always worth getting better at. But it was working on a problem, and failing on it, that made me think about toe hook strength. It's an odd strength because its something that is not used very often (unlike say our fingers) so hard to develop just by climbing. I'm assuming lighter/stronger climbers have enough toe hook strength naturally. But for heavier weaker climbers it might be something that needs to be trained to be proficient at.

In reply to JIMBO:


Definitely agree with core and body position.