Mastering Your Climbing Footwork: 3 Essential Drills

If you’ve ever tried to campus up the climbing wall, you know how hard it is to climb without using your feet for more than a few moves. Save for the few boulder bros or insanely strong climbers in the gym, most of us rely on our feet to help us ascend a climb. But there’s a difference between keeping your feet on the wall while climbing and using them to improve your climbing efficiency and reduce energy expenditure. 

However, knowing the difference between what we’ll call actively and passively using your feet is challenging and requires practice. The good news is that the easiest way to improve your footwork efficiency is to bring awareness to them every time you climb and maintain that awareness through every move. Aside from consciously focusing on what you do with your feet, there are a few basic but essential footwork drills to incorporate into your training that can help you master your climbing footwork: silent feet, pyramid drill, and inside flagging.

Keep reading to dive deeper into each essential drill and how to incorporate it into your training routine. 

3 Essential Flagging Drills to Master Your Climbing Footwork 

1. Silent Feet

It is a classic yet timeless drill for climbers of any skill level to incorporate or revisit. This drill entails climbing without making noise when you place your foot on a hold. If you make noise, i.e., your foot lands loudly on the hold or hits the wall, you must climb down and redo that move until you can complete it silently. 

The drill's goal is not to be extra annoying but to force controlled and intentional foot placement on each hold. The benefits of controlling each foot movement are that you must move efficiently and think about weight distribution through your other foot, hips, and hands. If you are off balance or scrambling for the next move, the chances of sloppily and noisily moving your feet increase. It also forces you to think about how you want to position your foot on the hold you are moving to since you're already extra conscientious about your footwork. 

While sticky feet is a drill to minimize foot adjustments, you can easily incorporate that into silent feet. Combining the two exercises will add another level of difficulty.

2. Downclimbing Drill

This drill is fantastic for focusing on mastering your footwork and building strength. Best when completed on boulders, downclimb the problem to the mats. Use any hands and feet if downclimbing the same boulder is too difficult. 

The drill focuses on finding good foot placements and watching your foot make contact with a hold. Unlike climbing upwards, climbing downwards is difficult because you have the force of gravity pulling you down along with your momentum. This makes the combination of stable foot placements crucial. Otherwise, you’ll likely be over-gripping, and the consequential pump in your arms will prevent you from downclimbing the entire problem. 

To make this drill easier, you can try it on a slab wall, or to make it harder, complete it on an overhung problem and try to avoid cutting feet when downclimbing.  

3. Inside Flag Drill

Generally, climbers will subconsciously utilize a flag or back flag when they need to balance their weight with only one good foothold option. The inside flag extends your reach by using your leg strength and body positioning rather than arm strength. 

To complete this drill, pick an easy climb or set of climbs. On every move, perform (within reason and where possible) a side flag by placing the inside edge of one foot on a hold and then threading the other leg between the foot and the wall. The hip of your flagging leg should be pulled into the wall by the motion, allowing you to reach higher with the hand on the side where your hip is close to the wall. The inside flag position also allows you to stand up from the foot on a hold, recruiting your leg muscles and lessening the need to pull yourself higher. 

The three drills are listed in a progressive format so that as you master one step of your footwork, you can increase the complexity. However, the key to completing any exercises and improving your footwork is to bring awareness to how you use, move, and place your feet. At first, you’ll want to be excessive with your attention to foot placements because it is necessary to build efficient muscle memory and subconscious habitats. With time, you’ll be able to execute these drills and master-level footwork without much conscious thought. If you have questions or comments about anything discussed in this blog or anything footwork-related, drop them below!