Training for The Normal Force

How can you train to gain The Normal Force?

There are a lot of ways to increase The Normal Force, like compression and stemming etc. But these are special moves for special circumstances. On a "blank" face you cannot simply use compression to stick to the wall, this requires an orientation of holds to enable to to find a direction to create compression. There are however some general considerations that will increase the normal force and there are things you can do to exploit this in your training.

In general you know to "stick close to the wall" and on a slab you might not want to... rather stick your butt out to center the weight above the feet. In all circumstances, this is about creating a force into the rock and you have muscles that you can use to create even more of this pressure than what gravity alone gives you. Use your core muscles to tighten and press your feet into the rock with your abdomen. The limit of how great a force you can create is down to your core strength... and a few other factors.

Think of how you can stand an a blank vertical wall if you grab a jug and place your feet directly on the blank wall. You can stay there, but only if you apply some pressure on your feet. The required push into the wall on your feet results in an equal pull on your hands on the jug. The same thing applies at any angle and with any size hold and with any type of grip. Standing on the same blank wall, fully extended, hanging on small crimps... is equally possible. This does however require a lot more core tension to create the required normal force to not slip.

The core is the core, is the core...

Core strength is of course essential, but core strength is not core strength. Your core is made up of a gazillion muscles or so and not everyone of these are involved in creating this specific tension. Doing a lot of traditional crunches will enable you to do... a lot of crunches. A crunch targets your ability to curl you upper body inwards, fighting gravity. Thinking about how you use your abdominal muscles during a smear (as described above), do you recognise the motion or tension from a crunch here?

The required core tension is initialized low in the thigh, then hip muscles, on to the abdomen and upward. It would then be reasonable to train these specific muscles, mimicking this load as closely as possible in your training. Crunches are the exact opposite and does not follow trough down to your legs at all. To gain more control ver The Normal Force you should include or even focus on exercises that include the legs and puts load in the correct area and direction.

Some exercises that are worth considering are: leg raises (hanging or lying), leg lowering (single or double), reverse crunch, suspension crunches, the plank, the spiderman plank crunch, etc. To get a more complete range of engagement you could even combine exercises like double leg lowering with reverse crunch.

The core is the core, but is there more...

So what if you do have the best set of core muscles ever... are you all set? Taking a step back to the "illustration" of The Normal Force by hanging on a jug with both feet placed on the blank wall... you still need to be able to hang on the jug. Pressing harder and harder with your legs... the thing that popps is likely to be your hands, not your feet. This becomes more and more likely as your body gets more extended and the holds get smaller. The point is that you will always need grip strengt or contact strength to keep from popping the hands off the holds.

Finger strength and contact strength is already a well known and prioritized area of climbing training and should remain so, even in the context of climbing technique. You can use it to "hang on", but it helps to know how and why... and the finer details about what "hanging on" actually means.

May The Normal Force Be With You!

The Science Of Friction... Skin vs Rubber

Friction between fingers and rock

Having dug into the science of friction that applies to rubber (on rock) there is still the question of how friction works for the skin on our fingers. The rubber on the shoes are only half of the equation, we slip just as much in our gripping of the rock as we do in our step.

There is not much industrial use for this information and the funding of research and studies into the subject is equally absent. I will however offer an abstraction based on the science of rubber friction.

Comparing skin to rubber

The qualities of rubber that are relevant for the different components of the friction between rubber and rock is the rubber surface:

• the atoms on the contact surface that come into contact with the rock
• the plasticity of rubber making the surface bend into shape by the shape of the rock surface
• the ability of the rubber to compress
• the fact that the surface is rough
• the fact that it gets worn by the contact with the rock.

Now... as far as I can tell... skin, or more precisely skin on the finger with all its underlying layers of tissue, display very similar characteristics:

• It has a rough surface
• It adapts in shape, filling gaps and small divots etc in the rock when loaded
• On a microscopic level it also compresses when loaded
• It definitely gets worn when we climb.

Back to the science

Looking back at how this friction breaks down for rubber on rock:

FT = FA + FHS + FHb + FC

where:

FT = The total frictional slip resistance
FA = Friction from adhesion
FHS = Friction from surface deformation (microhysteresis)
FHb = Friction from surface bulk deformation (macrohysteresis)
FC = Friction from rubber wear

F_A - Adhesion

Adhesion is the force between two surfaces that exists on the molecular level, between molecules and atoms of the two surfaces. This is undeniably a factor for skin on rock, the atoms are bound to come into contact and thus to be bonds between atoms of the different materials.

F_HS - Microhysteresis

Microscopic asperities in the surface of the finger interlocks with microscopic asperities in the rock surface (or climbing hold surface). This is also likely to be a factor for skin as the skin surface is not a smooth surface.

F_Hb - Macrohysteresis

The tissue/skin on the finger will flex somewhat around the protuberances of the rock, causing a larger contact area between the two surfaces. The added adhesion this creates has to be a significant part of this friction contribution just as it is for rubber on rock.

F_C - Wear

The skin on your fingers gets worn, tearing off microscopic pieces of skin from your fingers takes force. This force contributes to the total friction force experienced.

Conclusions

The similarities between rubber and the skin on your fingers are undeniable. This makes for a plausible comparison of the mechanics of friction for rubber on rock to the mechanics of friction for skin on rock.

We also instinctively know that there is a lot of differences, shoes stick a lot better than fingers. This however does not mean that the mechanics are not similar, but it points to the fact that rubber at least have a much stronger adhesion (to rock) than skin does.

There are also factors that apply to skin that don't apply to rubber, our skin breathes and perspires. This causes a film of moisture between the surfaces that influences the mechanics. The effect of moisture on rubber friction is well documented and studied and it is likely that this applies similarly to skin on rock.

However well this comparison gets or how detailed the different factors are broken down, the overall conclusion is that as a climber you have to address friction in the same way for your fingers as you do for your feet (shoes). You may not want to prolong contact time as perspiration may become a problem, but otherwise it all applies and you have to be vigilant when it comes to observing and addressing The Normal Force.

How well do you find this reasoning to match your experience with skin friction?

May The Normal Force Be With You!

The popularity of climbing technique

Technique vs Power

I wanted to find out how much focus there is on climbing technique, compared to power. The focus on power in climbing is enormous, but most climbers talk about technique every now and then. I figured the use of search terms on Google would be a relatively good way to measure the focus on the two aspects.

The choice of words to research will of course influence this picture enormously, but here is one perspective that is representative. It is interesting to see that a general term as "climbing technique" performs so badly compared to a very specific climbing strength term like "campus training". You could throw in a lot of different other power centric terms, like "hangboard", "crimp strength" etc, the picture is the same. They all point in the same direction: Power is far more on everyone's mind than technique, and it is getting worse by the minute. A decade ago the gap was very small, now the focus is turned all the way over on power. Combining the focus of all power terms and comparing it to the same for technique, it may be as bad as technique getting only 10% of the focus that power gets.

My ultimate goal is to raise climbing technique back to equilibrium, both in terms of attention and the resulting impact on the level of performance in climbing.

Branding and marketing

The brand I chose for this effort is not entirely random. There is a huge need to market climbing technique, make climbers more aware, create attention, engage and provide some results in the community with regards to technique. I have yet to meet a climber that don't care about climbing technique, but there are very few that make this a focus area and really explore this for gains.

I chose to brand this marketing, wrap it up and sell the concept as plainly as possible. I still think it will be a hard sell.

May The Normal Force Be With You!

The Science Of Friction... Breaking down the Normal Force

What is the Normal Force

If you apply force to a surface, provided you are not able to make the object (rock) move, it will push back with an equal force. Forces can be broken down into smaller components that make up the total force. In order to identify the Normal Force, you have to do this in a way that focuses on the angle of the force in relation to the surface. The Normal Force will always be perpendicular to the surface that you apply the force to. So you have to break the force down with regards to this particular force component.

The applied force breaks down into two components, one that is parallel to the surface and one perpendicular to the surface. The parallel component is the one that may cause you to slip and the perpendicular is ultimately the one that prevents you from slipping. You should make every effort to ensure that you apply pressure that feeds the perpendicular component and that contribute as little as possible in the parallel direction. In non theoretical terms, putting your hand on a table top it is less likely to slip when pressing down on the table than when you press along the surface of the table top.

Perpendicular and angles, this spells trigonometry

If it has been a while, remember to think straight angles, squares. It's only if you need actual values for the forces and angles that you need to bring in sin and cosine to do calculations. When we climb, we really don't care how many newtons this and that force is, we only care for the direction we optimally should apply the pressure and in what scenario should we expect to start slipping.

Uneven surfaces

What then, when the surface is not even. It may be curved, it may have any shape or form. How can you break down the Normal Force for a surface like that? You have to think of the entire surface like many small sections of flat surfaces, and for each of these break down the forces in play and find the direction of its Normal Force. The combined Normal Force for the surface will be the sum of the Normal Force for each section.

This again gives you good information about how to handle the surface. Of all the sections, which gives the best use of the Normal Force in terms of creating friction, and which gives lousy contribution to the friction? Bearing in mind the direction that you might slip and what direction you care most about not slipping. You should try to use all the surface fractions that contribute well and avoid using those that don't. This way you can manipulate the combined Normal Force and thus the friction.

Applying more than one force

Just as with an uneven surface, there are other complexities to consider. Gravity is not the only force in play, you generate a series of forces with your muscles and these are not always aligned. The result is that more often than not, there are forces pulling in different directions and friction countering them in equally many opposite directions. Will friction win, and thus you... or will any of the forces overcome its respective opposing friction force? The resulting analysis is the same, break down each one separately and find the answer, but... keep in mind that one force may break down into a force component that contributes to another of the forces you consider and thus be the very thing that tips the scale and makes you slip.

To sum it up...

Analysis and consideration of how, when and why you slip and fail may not be a 5 second break between attempts. It may require careful consideration and many sleepless nights. My point is though, that this time is well spent, what else are you going to with that brain capacity? I'm not suggesting that you stop pushing the boundaries of your physical strength, I'm only suggesting that you also use your mind for analysis, rather than just counting pull-ups.

May The Normal Force Be With You!

The Science Of Friction... Factors for rubber

How to make every possible effort to push the limits!

The factor that influences the friction of your climbing shoes on rock the most, is by far the Normal Force. You should spend time analyzing it and always having this in mind as you place and load your feet. In my next post I will focus on breaking down the Normal Force into something comprehendible, but now I will dig deep into the minute details of the other factors.

If you are climbing at the very limits of what is physically possible, every sliver of contribution will actually be important. Knowing what these factor are will be essential, and knowing what can be done about them is what separates you from the rest.

The factors that influence friction

Besides the main contribution from the Normal Force, there are the factors that influence the coefficient of static friction.

Humidity

It should come as no surprise that humidity is a factor. This is a factor that all climbers have battled. Rain just shatters all your (outdoor) climbing plans, it does not even have to be raining on the day of your climb to ruin it. Moisture takes time to dry. Even rain elsewhere, or no rain at all... just humidity in the air or lack of air circulation to transport away moisture could be enough to prevent the friction from being optimal. The actual (negative) contribution of humidity on friction is dependant on several factors, like the surface of the rock in question. Some rock seems to be just as good to climb regardless of air humidity, while others are useless with even slightly humid air.

The Bleausards of Fontainebleau have fine tuned this aspect to a level where they routinely whack the holds with a cloth to remove as much moisture as possible before getting on the rock. I am not talking about wet holds, they whack the seemingly dry rock when humidity in the air causes issues with friction.

How significant is this factor?
I have found no scientific studies on rubber friction on rock with regards to the effect of humidity, nor any similar studies that I could extrapolate from. I might pursue this later, please advise me (comment) if you stumble across any relevant studies.

I will however suggest that the impact of humidity on the friction of your shoes on the rock is far less than the impact it has on the friction between your fingers and the rock.

Temperature

Just as with humidity, heat is a known enemy of friction. Professional climbers migrate the globe in structured patterns, chasing the winter for cold, crisp conditions. The effect of temperature on friction is significant, but can be ignored if you are only looking for an enjoyable climb. If you aim to tick your list or break new ground, you need to keep an eye on the thermometer and the forecasts.

How significant is this factor?
Studies have proven a link between temperature and rubber friction and it effects adhesion, microhysteresis and macrohysteresis (see my previous post on these contributors to the total friction). The only data I found were from aircraft tire testing and extrapolated from that data the effect is about 0.24% per degree Celsius. This is not good enough to be used for anything scientific, but it is good enough to give an indication of temperatures effect on friction for your rubber shoes on the rock.

I will again, however suggest that the impact of temperature on the friction of your shoes on the rock is far less than the impact it has on the friction between your fingers and the rock.

Pressure / Area

Pressure and area are two sides of the same thing. The pressure per square inch on the rubber sole is dependant of the actual force applied and the surface area of the contact surface. Applying more force will not result in an equally increase in friction. As you apply more and more force, the friction gain will decrease.

Note that applying more pressure is always good for the friction as long as the majority of the extra force is a contribution to the Normal Force.

The practical value of this is that smearing is better for friction than edging and that distributing your weight on both feet gives better friction than standing on one foot.

How significant is this factor?

There are studies that expose this factor, but they are performed with "hard rubber" and "soft rubber" etc. These indicate that this factor can be as large as 10 to 30%, or even higher. These however may not apply that well as they do not cover the entire range of force that a human body will produce by its weight and it is not targeted at the custom designed, sticky climbing shoe rubber. To get a better indication further studies has to be carried out. I might venture into this in later posts.

We should also assume that climbing shoe brands put a lot of effort into tuning the rubber blend to achieve characteristics that perform well within the range of force produced by the human body.

Oxidation

As described in the previous post about rubber friction, the adhesion part of the friction is highly dependant on the availability of atoms and molecules to bind with atoms and molecules on the contact surface. Oxygen in the air will bind with any surface and reduce this availability to a minimum. 

Does this imply that friction is better at high altitude where the air is thinner? Not likely, as oxygen is plentiful, it might effect the time it takes for a surface to be "saturated", fully oxidized, but I would suggest that this is insignificant.

How significant is this factor?

You would definitely experience a totally different friction if you were climbing in an oxygen free environment, but that is not really an option. Within the practical aspect of climbing, rubbing your shoes down to get fresh rubber exposed before stepping on the rock will give you some effect of this, but only slightly.

I have found no studies on rubber for this to give an indication on the significance, but it is enough to have climbers identify this by themselves without scientific studies. So if the very limit is your playground, you should definitely start to rub your shoes with your palm before attempts when you chase your projects.

Contact Time

As with oxidation this factor is about adhesion, the bonding of atoms and molecules between the contact surfaces. This bonding is dependant on the availability of atoms and molecules to bond with, but this bonding actually improves with time. As time passes, the atoms and molecules adapts to the intermolecular forces and more and more bonds are formed. If you push the limits of what will not slip, climbing slower, allowing those feet to settle in and the rubber to stay in place a little longer will actually help.

How significant is this factor?

Scientific studies have detected and quantified this effect in the testing of tribometers. I have not found any actual data from these studies, but it is of significant size when it comes to determining the coefficient of friction with these instruments. I guess most climbers will not need to adopt a conscious habit of considering this factor, but again, if you are pushing the boundaries you should consider every possible aspect.

The Normal Force

The Normal Force is not the focus of this post, but it is the single most important factor of friction. You should pay attention to all factors, but if you miss out on the Normal Force all the other efforts are in vain. My next post will take friction back to the basics and focus entirely on the Normal Force.

May The Normal Force Be With You!

References

Robert Horigan Smith, Analyzing Friction in the Design of Rubber Products and Their Paired Surfaces, CRC Press 2008, ISBN: 0-8493-8136-3

The Science Of Friction... Rubber is not metal

The false frame of reference

As mentioned in my previous post, the physics classical mechanics approach to friction is based on scientific studies carried out on smooth metal surfaces, further more of hard metals of similar hardness (no deformation occurs). This approach has many prerequisites that does not work all that well when it comes to the soft, sticky rubber on our climbing shoes.

Please note that this is not a scientific paper, it is only my personal interpretation of scientific analysis on rubber friction and how I think this applies to rock climbing.

The actual science of friction... of rubber on rock!

The formula for Static Friction Force of rubber on rock (FT), known as the unified theory of rubber friction is:

FT = FA + FHS + FHb + FC

where:

FT = The total frictional slip resistance
FA = Friction from adhesion
FHS = Friction from surface deformation (microhysteresis)
FHb = Friction from surface bulk deformation (macrohysteresis)
FC = Friction from rubber wear

I will not dig into each of these in detail, but I will try to explain what they are about and what the factors that influence them are.

F_A - Adhesion

Adhesion is the force between two surfaces that exists on the molecular level, between molecules and atoms of the two surfaces. Atoms on the surface are not bound to other atoms, like the atoms deep in the material. This leaves the ability to form bindings with the surrounding atoms. This force originates from temporary bonding between the surfaces. This force is proportional to the Normal Force up to a threshold level. One issue with this part of the friction is that the atoms on the surface are free to form any type of bond, with most any available atom. Oxidation starts immediately with any surface exposed to air and this substantially affects the ability to bond with further atoms. Rubbing your climbing boots with your hands to get a fresh layer of rubber before getting on the rock will actually give better friction as you wear off a bit of the oxidized rubber, leaving fresher rubber exposed. This gain is however very short lived as oxygen in the air will start bonding immediately with the fresh rubber.

F_HS - Microhysteresis

Microscopic asperities in the surface of the rubber sole interlocks with microscopic asperities in the rock surface (or climbing hold surface). This interlocking takes force to break apart, thus contributes to not slipping, that is contributes to the total friction force (F_T) between the shoe and the rock.

This force though, is independent of the Normal Force.

F_Hb - Macrohysteresis

Think of this as stepping on a surface with a crystal, small ledge or similar. The rubber will flex somewhat around the protuberance causing a larger contact area between the two surfaces. The added adhesion this creates is a significant part of this friction contribution. In fact the nature of the macrohysteresis friction component pretty much mirrors the nature of the adhesion friction component. They are both proportional to the Normal Force up to a threshold level. Above the threshold the force decreases with a small exponential factor. Climbing shoe rubber designers will probably aim to have this threshold beyond what gravity and human weight and muscle force are able to produce.

F_C - Wear

The rubber of your shoes gets worn, tearing off microscopic pieces of rubber from the sole of your shoe takes force. This force contributes to the total friction force experienced. This is of course a factor when you slip off and leave a skid mark of black rubber on the wall, not so much when you do not slip. If you never slip, your shoes will still wear down... but it may take a lifetime and this type of wear is negligible in static friction (not slipping).

Conclusions

The loading of the climbing shoe on the wall may actually have an effect on the friction experienced, decreasing the friction gain as the load gets higher. I would think that shoe designers will do anything to minimise this effect, or move this threshold outside of the range of the forces in play in rock climbing. I will have to do actual scientific testing to find out how well they actually achieve this. This might merit a post on this topic in the future.

The load increase will result in a decreased friction gain. This translates into pressure per square inch. This in turn means that just as increased force plays a role in the friction, so does the size of the surface area. So, we are back to the fact that smearing a large area of your shoe's rubber on the wall actually has a positive effect over loading only an edge of the rubber on your shoe. Most likely though, this is an insignificant effect compared to the factor of the Normal Force. As with the previous conclusion, actual testing will have to be done to discover how significant this is.

Regardless of how all the components of the friction force act, the overall major component of the friction comes from the Normal Force and this is most definitely the factor you can control the most.

Stay tuned for a full summary of all factors for rubber friction on rock and a detailed break down of the Normal Force...

May The Normal Force Be With You!

References

Robert Horigan Smith, Analyzing Friction in the Design of Rubber Products and Their Paired Surfaces, CRC Press 2008, ISBN: 0-8493-8136-3

The Science of Friction

The known fact about friction

The common understanding is that getting as much rubber as possible on the rock is good and will work against you slipping. This is pure intuition, everybody knows this! I have seen this fact argued by professional climbers and I too have argued this point.

Now... what are the actual facts of friction?

The actual science of friction

Static friction, the friction before starting to slip, is what we care the most about in climbing. The friction force works against the force that pushes towards making you slip... until it no longer can equal that force, and you do slip.

The formula for Static Friction Force (Fs) is:

Fs = μs * N

Where μs is the coefficient of static friction and N is the Normal Force.

To dig a bit further

• the coefficient of static friction is all about how one material responds to the other. Generally, rough and sticky surfaces yields a high coefficient and polished smooth surfaces yields a low coefficient. Note that a material does not have a coefficient, the coefficient is between two surfaces.
• the Normal Force is the force acting perpendicular to the surface plane (between the two surfaces).

Do you see the drawing on the wall?

Before we dig further down the rabbit hole... did you see the area of the surfaces anywhere in the formula? Are you sure?

Yes, it's a fact... the surface area has nothing to do with the friction force!
It truly does NOT matter if you smear that rock with all your toes straight in a big shoe or if you touch the rock with a sliver of an edge of a tight shoe (given that the rubber and the rock is the same).*

It might be worth having a look at this lecture on friction by Dr. Walter Lewin at MIT, you should really stick with it for the first 12 minutes to have your reality adjusted.

The mechanics of you slipping is either down to the surfaces or the force you apply, there are no two ways about it! So... you need to be particular about cleaning your shoes and the rock before getting on. Dirt, sand, chalk, moisture... most anything will lessen the coefficient of static friction, including temperature. Other than that, you can pick your shoes with care and switch shoes according to rock and conditions to get the optimal rubber blend / rock type combo. The big picture is that this factor is pretty much out of your control.

Now all that's left is the Normal Force, and that is the subject of most of my analysis and conclusions on advanced climbing technique. How do you control the Normal Force?

Please stay tuned for more posts on rubber friction analysis.

May The Normal Force Be With You!

*This is taught at most universities etc with little respect for the finer details of friction and how this formula came about. If you have Phd in rubber friction analysis you will know that this formula is not entirely accurate and is deducted from friction between smooth metals, but for practical application in climbing I will stipulate that for now... it is close enough :-) Please stay tuned for more scientific posts on rubber friction analysis.

After rock... there was plastic!

Documenting Moves - Take Three!

Setting out to produce the first video to document climbing moves, I searched the woods in Fontainebleau looking for problems that would give nice footage for demonstrating matching. I found a few holds and shot some footage. Shot some more, changing angles, making the move obvious... demonstrating transitions etc.

I soon found that even this simple move required quite a few different types of holds. Finding all these holds in relevant angles to be able to demonstrate and document the move well proved difficult. Being in a gym with a good choice of holds in various colors and with the ability to rearrange them to fit the demonstration is far more simple and will provide far better documentation.

The quality of the footage could also be better. The problem was not the lighting or angles, the problem was that the holds themselves did not visually stand out very well from the wall on natural rock. The hold and the rock are the same color and the usage of a hold looks insignificant, especially when it comes to foot placement. In Fontainebleau, smearing is essential on mostly everything and this makes for lousy demonstration of foot on hold positioning and movement.

Demonstrating foot placement on holds that are almost invisible on video and at the same time using a technique that makes the hold seem insignificant and tiny does not lend well to this demonstration.

Going indoors

So the next attempt will be going indoors, setting up holds to demonstrate specifically and exactly what I want to document.


May The Normal Force Be With You!

What is good climbing technique?

Difference of opinion

What makes for good climbing technique varies from location to location, from culture to culture and from person to person. Yet there is some common ground... I think that, in general, the integrity of climbers is very good and few will tick a problem if they dabbed, nor a route if they loaded a quickdraw on their way up.

Equal ethics exist for climbing technique. Whaling your way up a sloped top out like a walrus or crawling on your knees may earn you that tick, but it makes very few climbers proud. Climbing in a way that you feel can't be significantly improved gives a much better feeling and climbing at our peak level this way gives tremendous satisfaction.

What will do?

Some feels that "up is up" and it really does not matter how you got there. Some may even ask why you didn't go up the backside, it would have been so much easier. Most of us though, feel there is more to it.

If your only goal is to tick something off your list, or onto it, you may find yourself lowering your standards and not really caring how it happened. In the long run though, this is not very rewarding. Throwing yourself at a problem until it randomly sticks is not really an achievement, it is more or less luck. Like winning the lottery, it can make you happy for a while, but is it really a testimony of your achievements?

Make it smooth, make it good!

I would suggest to climb in a way that feels good and that reflects how the sensation of climbing is at its most satisfying. Make it flow, achieve happiness rather than bragging rights. Posting a video of a perfectly flowing climb below your limit will not reflect badly on your skills.

Projecting vs style

I would also suggest to be relaxed about your climbing grades, at least in periods. You can progress just by increased climbing volume at lower grades, focusing on enjoyment and tuning your style and technique. Actually... just climbing and not getting injured is a pretty good recipe for progress.

Conclusion

I guess this post didn't offer much in terms of conclusions or strong opinions. I feel the climbing community encourages a high level of integrity and continues to raise the bar in all aspects. I would suggest that it is still up to you. Climbing is very much about competing against yourself and it is only fair that in this context you should have a say in what the rules are. It is like doing push-ups, you may have started with your knees in the ground, but at some point you raised the bar.

Do you feel that good climbing technique has fixed boundaries and should not be an individual consideration?

May The Normal Force Be With You!

What's a climbing move vs a climbing technique?

Does it really matter?

How should we separate between climbing moves and climbing techniques? Is it pure semantics or does it really matter? I stumbled across this problem producing content for my websites and didn't really have a good answer. Wikipedia defines a Move like this: "Application of a specific climbing technique to progress on a climb". Also from Wikipedia on Technique: "Specialized moves given names to help communicate what to do to another person." They both make sense, but also use each other in a circular reference. So where does this leave us?

Test it...

Pick a random video of a boulder problem or climb and count all the moves. I guess most of us would come up with similar number of moves. So if you count each specific move, what kind of move were they? (name them, then name all the techniques used in the climb... do they overlap or supplement each other?)

Black and white does not exist, there are only shades of gray

There will always be disputes and variations. Placing a foot on a hold is a move, but then rocking over on it..  does that count as a separate move? How about if the climber flags the other foot while rocking over? Or if she pushes off with the other foot? Is any kind of repositioning of the body a move? How then about a climber with a super smooth style where the entire climb seems like one, long, fluent motion. Are moves defined by the climbing style as well?

The authority on terms

Who really decides: you, me, or the most experienced climbers? I guess it really does not matter what any one authority decides, it is the climbing community as a whole and our usage and common understanding that dictates what is currently correct. Please weigh in and help define climbing technique :-)

May The Normal Force Be With You!

In The Beginning There Was... Rock!

Starting out

I started out this venture with an idea of having a perspective on climbing technique that could benefit others. I was consumed with the principles of analysis and the enormous gains to be had by spending just a little bit of time thinking about things. I started documenting these thoughts and shaping it into a message that could be consumed more easily.

A new world appears

In my documentation I started arguing for my points and finding facts to back them up. Much to my surprise, the facts did not match all that well with my understanding and I started to rethink what I knew about climbing technique. This process was very interesting and I learned a lot... things I want to share with you...

Missing the mark

My focus was on the cutting edge of advanced climbing technique and exploring topics and issues others were not even contemplating. Digging into this and gathering facts for my message, I found myself digging a hole in the ground. How many climbers would I reach, and how would that message be received? I gradually came to realise that I was missing the mark. The vast majority of climbers would not be ready for my message.

One step back

I regrouped and refocused my efforts into a broader approach to climbing technique. I started looking at the full spectre of the topic and trying to satisfy more needs. I also found the existing material was lacking. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of brilliant material out there, but there is no complete set of resources, there is no one stop shop for climbing technique. I also found that the otherwise brilliant material was not very focused, there was seldom a clear focus or purpose for each article/video.

Take Two

My first idea (that is... the second idea), was to include more basic climbing technique and then intermediate, before attacking the advanced. The content for basic technique soon lead to the need for some base factual knowledge and the terminology used in climbing. Wikipedia has a good listing of terms, but the more in depth documentation of these is more of a job to find. I decided to build a full library of all the moves with video content that breaks down each one with that sole purpose. No extra tips, no general or other climbing aspects involved, just simply explain each move with its variations.

This lead to the need to do exactly the same for all the techniques (i. e locking off etc). What are they and how do you use them, what do you gain by using them and so on. Here also, separately from any aspects of the move itself, keep the focus on the actual technique.

And what separates a move from a technique? Is crimping a move or a technique? How about rocking over?

Moving on..

Now, moving on... let's see how far along I get before the next reality check :-) Please join in and comment.

May The Normal Force Be With You!