This pro tip from professional climber Jenya Kazbekova changed the slab climbing game for me. If you struggle to trust your feet on sketchy slab, this might help.
@@smockytubers1188 yep, maximizing surface area is not universally applicable, since the normal force can be increased by changing the foot position in a way that decreases surface area.
@@tjkim1999but that can also effect the coefficient of friction. Even if the normal force is the same, changing the surface area of the foot exposed to the wall will change the coefficient of friction of your foot
I definitely soaked in most from this conversation from the whole video. Some of it I've learned through experience but it's nice to know I'm thinking right and to get the why and how so nicely laid out. 👍
As much as a risk as pushing you up from the ground when standing on it, this sounds sarcastic but im not. Just making the comparison, essentially youre just standing on it. I would add the tip that your ankle can control the angle that you drive down with and you can apply force by driving down with the hip and hamsting rather than the idea of your foot straightening if that makes sense?
Yep. The volume will push horizontally outwards with as much force as you push horizontally inwards, those vector components are always equal and opposite. If the volume or hold you are standing on is steep enough that friction won't hold you alone, you'd need another foot or hand somewhere to hold you to the wall. That's one reason why you can't "stand" sideways on a vertical wall... or steep slopes, more realistically.
Well yeah. Of course. You gotta not push yourself away from the wall though. That's the problem on slabs, and that's why we can't make this work usually
For the second and third volume - I'm a beginner - is your foot toes away from the wall or heel? I am taking her hand as the orientation of a foot because I just don't know
Honestly if you have a weird position where you have to be turned around from the wall and grabbing something it's just the same but the heel to the wall. It really just matters that you have the 90 degree angle
Not really, if you just lower your heel you'll increase the friction but the angle won't change. Changing the angle depends more on the positioning of your center of mass and the counter force angles from your other limbs
It's impossible to stand on volume without using hands. True 👍 While using hands, too many people make acute angle with feet on volume instead of 90° and wonder why they fall off
Exactly....and you can only lean away from the volume if you're able to hold onto something in that direction. The V6 routes at my climbing centre are never that easy😂
If you apply force perpendicular to the surface you push yourself way from the wall. Slab climbing requires an acute angle of contact in order to maintain balance
But.. isnt it gravity that applies the force? I cant change the direction of gravity. Sure i can press in different directions by pushing off handholds, but i wann pull on them, not push mysrlf down with them. So i feel like its mostly gravity in the end, no?
Not just gravity, gravity can only act down, you choose the direction your body pushes in,. Think of holding a pencil against a wall, point on the wall, 1 finger on the flat end. you push the pencil at 90 degrees to the wall creating friction. All gravity is doing is trying to pull the pencil to the floor, it does not help the pencil stay on the wall, it acts against the pencil staying on the wall. In this case the friction force you create will be acting up the wall . Now keep this in mind and think about trying to smear up a vertical wall, you don't push your feet down the wall (becasue) then they just slide, you push your feet into the wall really hard to make them stick. Hope that helps
there was this one world cup where she was the only one (and janja) to flash the first problem. Nobody else could do it. Been a fan ever since. She also has a youtube channel as far as I know
The full video goes more in depth about slab climbing technique, and Jenya demonstrates the boulder where you get to see what she means about the force angle!
This is why high school physics is useful. I am forever saddened how rarely people seem to want to see physics in their everyday lives. If you learn a few principles, you will implicitly learn a thousand of these "game changing" tips.
I always feel like this is missed, I hear a lot of instructors explaining direction of hand holds and then never covering direction of foot placements.a basic skill weirdly missed on on.
Only push inwards enough to maintain friction on the volume whilst remaining secure to the wall, with balance or another hold. I remember a boulder I sent a few weeks ago at my local gym. It was a slab problem and I had one foot on a very small hold,, it was barely enough. I needed a slight smear on the other foot. But I couldn't smear too hard otherwise I was pushing myself off with my leg.
I guess that makes sense? Didn’t understand your explanation very well. What’s up with the 90 degree thing? Can you please explain? I struggle with routes that intentionally cause slipping. There is one at my local gym now that requires the climber step up onto a downward sloping dual tex that you have to power up from to another hold. As far as I can tell the route setter just wanted to hurt people because that’s all I see happening on this particular route. Lots of shin banging and getting hit in the chest with other holds.
You have to push into the volume, not just stand on top of it. Same with smearing. When you push your put into the wall without a hold or a volume, you increase the friction. Honestly I think this is more of an intuitive concept and most climbers will find this out themselves through time and experience.
I feel like getting outside more teaches you the basics of how climbing works so you don't have to over explain easy concepts. The angles in natural rock are more intuitive and starting with that allows you to apply common sense to anything
I’m not sure that rock is more intuitive! Surely indoor climbing is more likely to teach you basic skills because the setters have designed the problems to force certain techniques and movements. They might be easy concepts, but climbing really is built around the basics and new climbers might not already have that inbuilt intuition for placement and approach.
@@hannahmorrisbouldering you don't think rock climbing up a cliff face is inherently more intuitive and instinctual rather than searching for hot pink plastic protruding off a wall? Ok
@@pecanpie45 well, no. I don’t think movements on natural rock are any more intuitive just because they’re on natural rock. What I was articulating more so was that you can learn climbing movement from set boulders really well because that’s what they’re designed for. But I also don’t think it’s a big enough of a deal to be picking fights over.
@@hannahmorrisbouldering I think focusing on rock while rock climbing is a big deal but I'm not picking fights I'm just sharing my opinion. If you can't take hearing someone plainly disagree sorry
That's too much work. My technique is just to throw myself at the wall until I'm exhausted and all banged up and go home with no success but a good workout.
