First footwork video I've seen that actually addresses need for considering *where* you stand on a foothold based on its shape rather than just talking about different parts of the foot! More than once for me, 'reading' the angle of a foothold has been what has unlocked the intended beta of a climb
I just wanted to say, I've watched a million footwork videos, but I really liked the way the way you described careful footwork as "melting" into the foothold. Just thinking about it that way helps a ton!
As a climbing coach, Louis' videos are not only entertaining and educational for myself but also make it easy for me to provide videos and examples of his for my athletes to go over between practices to completely understand and appreciate a movement. Keep up the great work Louis, sending love from Canada
Others have said it, but thank you for actually explaining how to use the shoes on the holds. Gumbies like me are just happy to have feet until we cutloose and either make it or fall off, I've never taken the time to really THINK about how to stand on stuff. Rentals are also the worst. I almost feel like climbing gyms should have a sign or a poster with these tips... maybe something for sale from Catalyst in the future?
I love the way Louis teaches things! I feel that he himself is very interested in that and deeply involved in perfecting the tiniest details in his own climbing.
I'm certainly no expert, or even a very good climber, but what has helped me on overhangs is to not even focus on my feet, but instead focus on good core tension.
Core strength is definitely important! I just struggle with body position in general when it comes to overhangs and end up using brute force and campusing or cutting my feet. What’s interesting is that on less steep climbs it comes natural to me to keep hips close to the wall, flag when necessary…
Something that has helped me is staying somewhat scrunched up, easier to keep the pressure between hands and feet. If you’re extended like a vertical wall you will cut feet often due to not being able to keep constant pressure because you’re stretched out
@@MichaelEverheartt But sometimes you NEED to be stretched out while keeping tension on a foothold. If you have access to some kind of systemboard or a campus with footholds, best exercise i can recommed is establishing your foot position and from there try to extend as much as possible without cutting loose and once you do, try to get back fast to the same footholds, then repeat from the start. I don't know if i explained it correctly but it's an effective exercise for overhang technique and a great warmup also.
I've only been climbing for 2 months, so my footwork really needs some work. This video helped a lot! I am definitely going to try and implement your tips tomorrow at my next session! :D
See Louis most Sundays at harrowall. Very nice, friendly and approachable fella. We'll done keep going. Love the videos. Will be joining the over 35 classes soon. 🙌
2:13 The one case I can think of for using middle of the foot is something that doesn't come up much in Louis' climbing, but it's resting on long routes, particularly outdoors. Most of the foot positions here keep your feet engaged, which can be tiring on a long route--especially on slabs, my calves or the arches of my feet get tired. Stepping on the center of my foot lets me disengage my toes and/or calves and get them rested. That said, I do agree with Louis that you probably shouldn't practice this as part of your general movement. It's sort of hard to practice it in a useful way. Most practice is stuff you do on easier-for-you climbs, so you don't get tired--and the time you need the middle of the foot is when you're tired! Practicing middle-of-the-foot when you're not tired is just practicing a bad habit. So I think the way to practice this, if at all, is arguably not practice, so much as just being aware of the possibility of using middle of the foot on rests when you're projecting a sport (or trad!) climb where you actually need rests.
Again amazing video! Thank you for sharing all your amazing practice examples. I also really like all the funny games you use to improve your technique. Please keep going with this high quality and this lot of fun in your videos🙂🙌
It is a pleasure to watch your videos especially given your positive attitude. It would be amazing if you could post a series videos with drills. Also, I noticed that you in this video you have the men version of La Sportiva Theory but in earlier one you had the women model. I made the same choice and I am still moving back to older shoes during this extensive breaking in period. Perhaps an idea for a cool video would be to ask viewers to post the conditions of their feet during this times of suffering lol. One would think that the shoes would deform to fit the feet… wrong! It is the opposite.
Okay, so, following situation: I climb about V6-V7 and I am convinced that my footwork is garbage. What do I do? I know how to heel- and toe-hook pretty well, I also know which parts of the shoe to use, but I think I fail on getting enough out of my feet. If somebody asked me why I can't climb V8, I'd say it's because I simply can't semi-campus V8 and I can't get much out of my feet beyond putting them onto holds. Why do I think it's my footwork? For example, I tend to be a lot better on climbs with bad hands and good feet as opposed to good hands and poor feet. I simply pump out or end up unable to do moves if the feet are bad and I struggle to keep them on or load them as opposed to climbs where the challenge is pulling hard on shitty holds while having pretty forgiving options for feet. The problem is, I don't really know what to do about it. I can practice moves that give me trouble over and over again. But if I'm honest, that just tends to result in me eventually being able to do it despite cutting feet or doing a disgusting lock off.