How to Identify Your Climbing Weaknesses

Every climber has a weakness—yes, even the pros. Being well-rounded in all aspects of climbing is tough to complete! Likely, every climber will have at least one specific thing they can improve.

While you can go on seeking out climbs that suit your style, to where you know you’ll perform well, what you may not realize is that you’re missing out on so much of climbing this way. Look, not every climb out there is going to suit your style, and that is okay! Instead of putting yourself into a box, round your corners and try to become a more well-rounded climber.

Acknowledging your climbing weakness doesn’t mean you’re not strong; it just means you have room to improve in one aspect of climbing. But, spoiler alert: Remember? Everybody does.

Try to stop caring so much and focus on how you can find joy working on your weaknesses. For all you know, you may find a new climbing style that you fall in love with! Discover how to improve your weaknesses and turn them into strengths!

The Key Components of Climbing

There are many styles of climbing walls: slab, vertical, overhung, and there are many kinds of climbing holds: crimpy, pinchy, slopey, pocket-y. Plus, many different styles of climbing routes require different strengths: powerful, balance-y, endurance-y—see?

It’s tough to be even keel among all the styles of walls, holds, and types of climbing that each requires. You may be great at squeezing big compression moves, but your face-climbing lacks finger strength. Or you can power your way up an overhang, but you can’t footswap very well. That’s okay!

The best thing you can do for your climbing is to work on your weaknesses because it will not only teach you more, but it will open up an entire new side of the sport to explore! Think of all the climbs you had written off because they didn’t suit your style; not any more! It’s time to embrace the suck.

How to Improve Your Climbing Weaknesses

While it may seem like identifying your weakness is enough (it’s not), it’s another thing to try to strengthen them. After you’ve determined where you struggle, it can be more than one area; it’s time to make a plan to address them.

Finger Strength - If finger strength is your kryptonite, guess what? It’s time to do some crimpy routes! You could also start hangboard training, but only if you can fit it into your typical week, and if your fingers are ready for it.

Sloper Strength - The hangboard can also be an excellent tool for improving at slopers. Use the slopey holds and perform max hangs. Of course, you should also seek out slopey routes! There is nothing quite like training for climbing other than actually climbing.

Pinch Strength - If you have pinch blocks, then use these to train your squeeze. Seek out routes with pinches. Remember to engage your thumb!

Endurance - There are plenty of exercises to help with endurance training: ARCing, 4x4s, ladders— it’s hard to go wrong here. Try them all and see which one you enjoy the most!

Overhangs - Overhung climbing requires more body tension and larger muscle groups to stay close to the wall. Weight lifting is helpful here!

Footwork - Perform footwork drills like Silent Feet, Sticky Feet, flag, and footswap practice to encourage the different ways you can dance up the wall.

Flexibility - Stretching and yoga are great for helping improve your flexibility for climbing. Many climbing gyms have yoga classes you can attend! Or, you can find an online routine to perform at home on your own time.

Mental - The mental side of climbing can also be a weakness for some. The fear of falling, to be exact. To combat this, practice, just like with everything else. You must practice falling to get more comfortable putting yourself in different positions and learning to correct your body and land safely, or to trust your belayer to catch you.

Embrace the Work

If you’ve been climbing for a while, you know how dispiriting it can feel to climb well below your limit on your antistyle. Sure, you may be climbing V7 on a crimpy overhung boulder, but you can’t get up a V4 slab; it will feel like you’re learning to climb all over again.

Don’t dwell on your expectations. You may think because you’ve sent X grade in some style that you don’t need to train the basics, but the basics are how you get stronger. If you can learn to let go, you can discover what all of climbing has to teach you.

Besides, you may venture to entirely different crags or areas of the gym you don’t usually climb. Talk about adventurous learning!

Turn Weakness to Strength

Whatever it is you want to improve in climbing, you can do it. You got this far by not focusing on your weakness. Imagine how far you can go once you become just a little more well-rounded.

So before you write off trying to strengthen your anti-style, consider all the ways you can do so, as long as you become the strongest you can be. Whether you want to dance up delicate slabs, be comfortable climbing above your bolt, or endure your way up a massive multipitch, you have the power to learn how.

So, are you going to sit back and focus on your project, or are you going to train that weakness?