UKC

Climbers surely have enough to think about without adding posture to the mix! With the ever-present concerns of reading sequences, dealing with the pump and avoiding falling off, it's no surprise that posture tends to get thrown to the bottom of the priority list, and this is perhaps why so many are prone to suffering from postural issues. So why does posture matter in climbing? What are the advantages and pitfalls and how do we go about correcting faults?

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In reply to UKC Articles:

Good article, thanks. This is so important, and unfortunately it's a lesson you tend to learn only from painful experience. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

Watching women climb is instructive......

In reply to pasbury:

I find the dislikes to your post both baffling and disturbing.

In reply to John Stainforth:

My ellipsis was an attempt at humour but probably makes me seem like an old lech (perish the thought).

But actually if I'm stuck on a problem at the wall I don't look to the strong guys for hints on how to do it.

In reply to pasbury:

Precisely my thoughts.

Strong guys don't need good technique a lot of the time, as they can get up with plain old-fashioned thuggery.

Females (and for that matter short males) tend far more to have better technique, simply because they have to have it to keep up with the Neanderthals.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Interesting stuff. One thing I've always wondered about is why (physiologically) we end up chicken-winging when pumped?

In reply to Jon Read:

Possibly because when your forearms get tired and pumped you start to rely more on the bigger muscles in your biceps and shoulders to keep yourself pulled into the wall before the forearms fail? 

In reply to Jon Read:

Bending the wrist back increases the tension in the flexor tendons without the flexor muscles having to do all the work 

In reply to John Stainforth:

its sexist

In reply to fred99:

I don't buy this. If I want to watch someone with good technique, I watch anyone climbing something hard (say V6 and up). You just can't get up this stuff without good technique, regardless of sex/body type.

In reply to Jon Greengrass:

I happen to fully agree with Pasbury that "watching women climb is instructive......" I don't think this statement is prejudical or discriminatory against women on the basis of their sex. How could one express this sentiment in such a way as not to be judged as "sexist" by the politically correct?

In reply to John Stainforth:

It's not, it is discriminatory against men.  It implies that men are less capable of climbing with good technique than women and are not worth watching.

(It could also be interpreted to mean that Pasbury is a lech, although from the context of the post I think it is clear that this was not the intention).

In reply to fred99:

Weak Neanderthal here.

At a certain point in bouldering all out strength is what is mostly required, you aint gonna get up a lot  of routes regardless of technique at (say) V8+ if you cant pull on a razor crimp or a mono pocket for instance.

In reply to Jon Greengrass:

It wasn’t intended to be. I knew I should have left the can of worms unopened.

I could have said, people who are not over relying on strength and demonstrating good footwork and body position. At my fairly punterish level (f6a-b) I reckon I see more female climbers with good technique than male.

Probably better stop digging now ho hum.

In reply to kathrync:

Men with good technique certainly are worth watching but I find less I can copy. I am small and not strong though.

I’ll take the Fifth on that, thank you.

In reply to GoneFishing111:

Both replies from and regarding bouldering.

But CLIMBING requires a few more skills, and not only that, on a full route, particularly a multi-pitched climb,  you can't put maximum effort into 2 or 3 metres, be exhausted, and then expect to be able to get up the rest of it. Good technique means you save your energy, not waste it.

In reply to UKC Articles:

This is the article I needed years ago when I started climbing!

In reply to GoneFishing111:

How much pull you have to do depends on your posture surely? One hand and no feet on the wall is going to take a lot more pull than two well placed feet and second hand..