Climbing drills
Toe Placement
For every single foot placement on a climb, aim very precisely with your big toe. Even if the foothold is large, pick a specific point to grab with your toe, and slow your placement so you keep accuracy high.
If you use the inside/outside edge of your shoe for a move, you should still be on the side of your big toe! As you dig and grab with your toe, feel the engagement of your toe curling and connecting through your posterior chain.
Pick climbs that have challenging foot sequences (think small feet, smears, drop-knees).
Repeat each climb at least twice, and try to increase the force through the toes.
Open/Closed Hips
Even the most advanced climbers tend to favor one hip shape, sometimes to a detriment. This drill will help you experiment with different hip shapes, learn when to apply each, and build your intuition.
Definitions:
OPEN HIPS: both knees are pointed opposite directions.
CLOSED HIPS: both knees are turned to one side. This is also called a drop-knee.
Take care that your toes point the same direction as your knees!
Repeat each climb twice, with the same foot sequence: once with hips open, once closed. Which option feels best for which moves? Were there moves that felt unintuitive to you, but worked well?
Optionally, repeat the climb a third time with open feet to try more options.
Rooting Legs
The rooting legs drill focuses on maintaining tension and driving through moves with your legs. The goal is to keep your focus on your legs throughout the move, whether you're pushing or pulling.
Practice using your legs to pull AND push through a move, using your legs for force and your arms only to direct your motion.
For many moves this requires some coordination: initiating the move by pulling with a toe, and switching to push the moment your center of mass gets above the toe.
Momentum Contrast (AKA SLoth Monkey)
Climb each problem twice, in two different ways.
Climb slow and slothlike. Try not to pause, but keep continuous, slow movement. Don’t use momentum, instead used your core and your legs to control the movement. Don't allow yourself to swing out from the wall while climbing.
Next, climb the same problem with momentum. Rather than slowly moving into and through the body positions, you'll drive harder with your legs and let the momentum carry you through the movements. If it's better to cut feet and let them swing rather than walking them on holds, do so. Stay in control, and still keep your climbing smooth.
The sequence may change between the two efforts. What's important is that you start to learn which sequences work best for which situation.
Foot Opposition
Opposition in feet. As you do easier climbs, experiment with ways to oppose forces in both feet.
Things like:
smearing with a heel hook
bicycle
drop knee to push apart between the feet, etc.
Feel free to repeat climbs multiple times to experiment more. This sets the tone for your session and trains your brain to see these options when they crop up on your projects.
This drill is purposefully very open ended. Get creative with it.
High Feet - Low Feet
Repeat each warm-up climb twice
First repeat, use as low feet as possible (while still choosing useful feet!). This should be good practice for holding extended positions, keeping body tension at your limit, and getting a better idea of your span on the wall.
Second repeat, use as high feet as possible. This should challenge your mobility and give lots of opportunities to practice skills like perching over the toe and heel hooking. (Note: play with both feet being high, and with just one foot very high, other leg flagging.)
Do this drill on varied styles, terrains, and difficulties as you warm-up. In both iterations, you should be opting for feet that you maybe wouldn’t normally consider.
