Top 3 Climbing Technique Mistakes - FIXED!

if you're a beginner climber the chances are you're making at least one of these mistakes in your climbing however they're simple to fix and will make a massive difference in your progression into the higher grades i'm josh hadley

and today we're here at the depot sheffield and we're fixing the three biggest mistakes made by beginners

[Music] the first big one we see is that tappy foot moving around on a foothold and not

quite finding its mark it's really important to be confident and accurate with your foot placement to make the most out of any foothold you're using the common error here is trying to find the foot position or foothold without

actually looking at it and using your foot to feel around for the position the fix is to have your climber's gaze fixated on your foot throughout the whole foot placement so you're placing it confidently and accurately quite

simply keep your eyes fixed on the target placing your foot once but slowly is better than placing it quickly but having to adjust multiple times so slow down the movement as slow as needed to

place it perfectly first go we go into more detail around foot placement and footwork in our fundamentals of footwork video and i'll add a link to that in the description below the second really big mistake we see beginners making is an

over-reliance on the lock-off and reach method for all of their movement what this looks like is a climber pulling in into as deeper lock off as possible then reaching up to the next hold however if you don't have the strength to hold this

lock off position what you'll see is the climber already moving away from the hold as they go to grab it even if you do have the strength to hold this deep lock off it can be quite an inefficient way to move between holds where a little

bit of momentum is able to carry you much more efficiently between the holes two great methods to fix this mistake or make your movement more efficient is either using momentum to reach towards

the hold as mentioned or using twisting on straight arms momentum should be carried through your lower body through your legs and your hips so that when you release your hand you're already carrying that upward momentum and

reaching that hole towards the apex of that trajectory if you're twisting think about twisting your hips and your shoulders towards the hold and you also might have to be pivoting on your toes as well this isn't to say the lock and

reach method isn't useful there's many cases where it's very good to move to a hold in a static position however it's good to have all of these movement patterns in your repertoire the third big mistake we see beginners making is

having a lazy leg in there climbing what i mean by this is if you only have one foothold available that other leg which doesn't have a foothold doesn't tend to be doing much for the climber we really

need to get used to using both legs on the wall whether there's a foothold or not you know it's harder to stand on one leg than it is too and also if you make your feet a little bit wider apart your

base gets slightly wider and you become more stable this principle applies to on the wall so try to create a stable base and you can often think of it as making a triangle between your feet and your

hips because this principle often applies to only having one foothold at a time you're going to need to get used to the idea of smearing with your other foot so this means angling your heel down and getting a good amount of

friction on the wall this point of contact not only creates a stable base it can also be used for generating movement towards the next handhold there are of course other ways to use your leg

that isn't using a foothold and flagging is a great example of this which can also find balance or again be used to create that stable base however flagging can be a whole video of itself so we'll save that for another time we've just

covered three of the most common mistakes we see however there's of course many more so let us know what your most common mistakes are in the comments below or any breakthroughs you've had in your climbing don't forget

to like and subscribe and we'll see you next time [Music]