How to climb: overhangs

Most new climbers stay Long away from overhanging walls, as they can feel enormously heavy to climb. This article offers a helping hand to success on overhanging climbing walls.

Here are three essentials to help you climb overhanging climbing walls.

1. Body tension / Core strength

When climbing slab or face walls, for example, it typically requires less body strength and much more balance. On overhanging climbing walls, you always have to tense your core/abdominal muscles to keep your feet on the wall or force yourself into the right balance.

You can either practice body tension by climbing a lot on the overhanging climbing walls or you can train your core in our well-equipped training areas.

2. Foot technique and general technique

Every time your feet slip off a grip, you use hand and upper body strength to keep from falling off the wall and to reposition your foot and regain control. You save a lot of energy by not dropping your feet.

Often you can use toe and heel hooks to keep your feet on the wall and actively step down on your foot when standing on your toes.

You can practice your foot technique on easy problems on overhangs, try not to lose your footing and use your legs to hold you to the climbing wall.

3. Finger strength

Technique and core strength can get you Long on overhangs, but strong fingers will also help you gain some strength and stability on the harder problems.

Therefore, it might be a good idea to start a bit of finger training.

Find our blog post on finger training. Note the section on safety, as finger training can easily cause finger injuries or sore elbows.

If you focus on the three points above for a period of time, we can almost promise that you will see results.