What Does it Mean to Be Dynamic in Climbing?
Dynamic movement takes advantage of the momentum generated during a move to propel your body (most notably, your hips) up to the next hold.
As such, dynamic climbing reduces the amount of work your muscles need to use (especially your arms) to reach the next hold, and increases the speed of each move.
Pros and Cons of Dynamic Climbing
When done properly, this not only reduces your overall effort–by decreasing the amount of time you are on the wall–but also allows for brief periods of recovery for your muscles during a move.
The price for these benefits is that if you mess up a dynamic move (for instance, if you miss grabbing your next hold), it is difficult or impossible to reverse the move and retreat to the starting position, without extreme effort–or a fall.
Ok. Got it. What About Static Movement in Climbing?
Static movement, on the other hand, is a particular style of climbing where your muscles (as opposed to your momentum) do nearly all of the work to get you to your next hold. While difficult to define precisely, static climbing is characterized by the ability to stop at any point during a move and, in a slow and controlled manner, reverse that move to return to your starting position. An example of this is the technique of locking off.
Remember, It All Starts with Your Hips
The primary step up in slab and vertical climbing difficulty comes from a reduction in hold size, and an increased spacing between holds.
This change requires that climbers pay very close attention to where their hips are whenever doing a move. As we discussed in a previous article, the first part of any move is to get your hips over your heel.
As footholds and handholds get smaller and further apart, this requires an understanding of how to “swing” your hips to the foot that will be your motion point. This is the foot you are intending to push up with. As a result, if you watch a climber’s hips during a move, you will notice that they actually drop slightly (moving downward and onto their heel, while that leg is bent), before they move up to reach the next hold.
The result if you traced it with a line, is a kind of lopsided smile, dropping from the flagging or oppositional side of the body onto the pushing side, then upward in an arc to the peak of the move. This is even easier to understand when compared to the diagonal motion that many new climbers assume is standard.
As You Get Better, Climbing Get Harder
One characteristic of moving up in grades on slab and vertical walls is that, as problems become more difficult, moves become significantly harder to do if your hips are not precisely over your heel. The key refinement then is to develop a good feel and precise attention to getting weight directly over the motion point. Let’s discuss it in the next section.
How to Use Dynamic Weight Shifting When You Climb
The increase in distance between footholds leads to another area of focus: dynamic weight shifting. This idea will be central to dynos and other moves, but on technical climbs, a basic understanding of this approach is necessary to master.
Essentially, dynamic weight shifting is using your oppositional foot to push your hips quickly onto the other foot. In other words, you push off of (typically) your lower foot, like a little hop, to lift and move your hips onto the (typically) higher foot.
When footholds are further apart, horizontally or vertically, this approach is necessary to overcome your inertia, unlike the more static and controlled movement on easier climbs, where just bending your knee and leaning toward your motion point are typically sufficient to place your hips properly.
But Why Should You Focus on Dynamic Climbing?
Example of using this technique is when you get to more advanced moves and need to do high-stepping, mantles, dynos, double-dynos, speed climbing, and deadpoints. Don’t know any of these terms or moves? Don’t worry. We’ll cover all of this in our next articles. Start incorporating dynamic weight shifting into your climbing and you’ll understand advanced topics much better.
All material is reprinted with the permission of the author. Copyright 2022 David H. Rowland. All rights reserved.
