Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Climbing Shoes - pt 1
Trying to break into 5.11s? 5.12s?
You might need new shoes.
Part 1 of 2: Moving up
If you’re like most climbers, when you first got into the sport, the price of a pair of climbing shoes was more important that performance. You were just learning how to tie a knot, so you didn’t have a concept of performance. So you bought a solid pair of entry level shoes. Then you pawed, scraped, and dragged them up routes until as you got more and more hooked on climbing.
So now you’re doing 5.10s in the gym with some regularity. Maybe you are even managing to do the occasional 5.11. It’s time to revisit the shoe issue. It’s time to start thinking more carefully about the ways your feet can make the difference between doing hard routes and not. When your rise through the grades starts to slow down, one of the things that is happening is that you’re managing to exploit the upper body strength you’ve got for all it’s worth. And your fingers have gotten stronger and more used to the stresses. But muscle power just won’t get you very far in climbing, contrary to what it seems.
What becomes important if you want to keep getting better is learning how to efficiently use every bit of your muscle power and stamina with strategy and technique to get you throw routes with more hard moves, more challenging sequences, and fewer rests.
One of the pieces in that puzzle is being sure that you have the right shoes, they are well suited to your foot and the type of climbing you are doing, and you are squeezing every bit of potential out of them.
There’s nothing wrong with those clunky old shoes you started with—I know you love them. And I know that you and the shoes have lots of fond memories. But now you need some precision surgical instruments, and if you learn to use them right, it will buy you a couple of letter grades at least, and maybe a whole number grade. We’ll save a discussion of foot and toe technique for a future column. ¶ Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Trying to break into 5.11s? 5.12s? You might need new shoes.
Part 1 of 2: Moving up
If you’re like most climbers, when you first got into the sport, the price of a pair of climbing shoes was more important that performance. You were just learning how to tie a knot, so you didn’t have a concept of performance. So you bought a solid pair of entry level shoes. Then you pawed, scraped, and dragged them up routes until as you got more and more hooked on climbing.
So now you’re doing 5.10s in the gym with some regularity. Maybe you are even managing to do the occasional 5.11. It’s time to revisit the shoe issue. It’s time to start thinking more carefully about the ways your feet can make the difference between doing hard routes and not. When your rise through the grades starts to slow down, one of the things that is happening is that you’re managing to exploit the upper body strength you’ve got for all it’s worth. And your fingers have gotten stronger and more used to the stresses. But muscle power just won’t get you very far in climbing, contrary to what it seems.
What becomes important if you want to keep getting better is learning how to efficiently use every bit of your muscle power and stamina with strategy and technique to get you throw routes with more hard moves, more challenging sequences, and fewer rests.
One of the pieces in that puzzle is being sure that you have the right shoes, they are well suited to your foot and the type of climbing you are doing, and you are squeezing every bit of potential out of them.
There’s nothing wrong with those clunky old shoes you started with—I know you love them. And I know that you and the shoes have lots of fond memories. But now you need some precision surgical instruments, and if you learn to use them right, it will buy you a couple of letter grades at least, and maybe a whole number grade. We’ll save a discussion of foot and toe technique for a future column. ¶ Tuesday, September 18, 2007
