Essential Footwork Drills - EVERY climber should be doing this! | Fundamentals Series

Ever see a climber move effortlessly across the rock or climbing wall but wonder ‘how do they do that’? Chances are they have flawless footwork technique as this can set the foundation for most other climbing techniques! It takes a lot of practice to have great footwork but even elite climbers need to continuously practice this skill. In this episode we discuss the fundamental principles of good footwork, such as precision, smearing and edging. As well as giving you three training methods to develop your own footwork technique; Precision, Tension and Weighting Feet.

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[Quaquaquaqua]

Drills:
5:54 Session 1: Precision
6:29 Recap of Session 1

6:44 Session 2: Tension
7:30 Recap of Session 2

7:54 Session 3: Weighting Feet
8:39 Recap of Session 3

[RealWorldClimbing]

Such a great video, both with reminders of things I've "learned" in the past as well as new footwork concepts to implement.

[MattNathanLee]

Great video. Gonna add this into my warm up routine.

[tonimartin]

Great video covering such an important topic. Amazing explanation.
Congrats both!!!

[Sinfaroth]

Great video!
This may not be fundamental but I would really like a part two about the footwork letated to dropknees. It just came to mind because I really struggle with properly placing my feet and not sliping of as soon as I drop the knee. Whenever I have big holds to hold on to I get my dropknees and I really like it but since they are kind of essential to overhang climbing I get frustrated a lot. I place the foot normaly and have good grip, I twist the leg and obviouly the pressure relative to the hold changes and I slip. In an overhang I don't have the time to make long adjustments. Also I feel like my hips/body are getting in the way from time to time. All the tension in my body to keep me close to the wall so the hands don't slip or the weight is on the feet but the closer I am to the wall the less space I have to drop the knee.
Maybe more of a rant than a request but I really like your series! I learn a lot.

[spdlee]

This is a great guide.. instead of spending too much time climbing without any purpose.. Thanks!

[RossPotts]

Oh wow! I thought Weighting feet was a game I learned in the 90s from a Dutch climber! It is DEFINITELY helpful in learning footwork!

[jimmyflipper]

Love this series, keep them up. Thanks guys. 🙂👍❤️

[muumarlin]

Awesome guidance and great exercises - thank you!

[frelli]

Great content, thanks a lot for this!

[LogRobin]

You can really see the difference when you go climbing outside. In the gym you can compensate with pulling harder, but you should train your footwork. Outside (Fontainebleau f.e.) you need to place your feet precisely, trust them and put your weight on them.
Being able to do extra pull-ups won’t help you.

[kid]

The content is almost as excellent as those wonderful burgundy jumpers you lot are wearing in the intro. Where would one acquire one of those?

[kurtsmith]

I'm afraid being a bit older, if I did all those warmups I'll be done for the day :) great info, thanks for the videos you guys do..

[augustinechao]

5:54 Session 1: Precision
6:29 Recap of Session 1

6:44 Session 2-1, 2-2: Tension
7:30 Recap of Session 2-1, 2-2

7:54 Session 3: Weighting Feet
8:39 Recap of Session 3

[chaosengine]

In my gym they just set a really nice and intricate 6C problem on a slab with start hold, close to it a very small 1/1.5 finger ... "thingy" and the top hold. In between 2 very small footholds and one larger to go to the top, traversing around 3m (ish). I like it a lot, but my big toes don't. oO

[Wrench]

( Footwork matters more )Says two champions who got massive shoulders 😂 love your content btw very helpful I’m just getting into rock climbing ❤

[sdaiwepm]

What are beginners doing wrong to quickly wear holes in our (I mean "their"!) toes?

[mathieugiroux]

Just a question, when u try different brands, shoes and you always have a buble near your heel (therefore can't hell hook safely) what do you recommend ? Thanks

[thesii]

How's the width on those Uparallels? Hard to find info on them.

[Pietervanloon]

Dear people of Lattice (and other climbing nerds),

Every foot-placement video I've watched mentions that - when standing on volumes - you want as much surface area as possible. It is mentioned in this video, an earlier Lattice video and a TAMY climbing channel video on footwork. However, I think this is incorrect. I don't know why it bothers me, but it does. Can anyone confirm my presumption?

When looking into physics, the formula for friction force is simply f=mu*N
-f: friction force
-mu: fricion coefficient
-N: normal force
Surface area is not mentioned.

mu is simply a constant depending on the two contact materials, the hold and the shoe, not much you can do about it. The normal force, however, is something you can control with the position of your foot. The reason you want to lower your heel on volumes/sloped holds, is that it changes the angle of the force you exert on the wall. Simply said, a lower heel results in a more perpendicular force exerted on the foothold, and thus a larger normal force.
I think it should be pretty easy to test with a camera, a bunch of differently angled volumes, and some different foot positions. Simply stand on the middle of the volume with your heel high and low, and stand on the edge of the volume so that (let's say) only 1cm of your sole touches the volume and do the same. Then test it for a bunch of different volume angles and/or heel positions and see if surface area of the sole has any correlation with being able to stand or not.
The only downside is, when you stand on a different position on the volume, your centre of mass is usually differently positioned with respect to your feet. So you somehow need to keep that consistent as well.

Anyways, anyone who shares my opinion and/or has the possibility to test it?