Chapter 29: Climbing Movement - The Practice of Natural Movement

“Identifying and overcoming natural fear is one of the pleasing struggles intrinsic to climbing.”

 

—Alex Lowe

 

We climb to reach higher grounds or surfaces or lower ones. Humans naturally climb for a variety of reasons, such as to look for food, seek shelter, get to a safe place to rest, scout surroundings from an elevated point, take a shortcut, or reach areas that are only accessible through climbing. I like to say that climbing is (most of the time) a form of vertical crawling.

Young children often start climbing by crawling up stairways. From a Natural Movement perspective, climbing movements involve ascending, descending, or traversing any kind of steep and elevated natural or man-made surfaces such as cliffs, boulders, walls, trees, ropes, bars, poles, platforms, ladders, bridges, and so on. In most cases, Natural Movement climbing practice is done without any specific gear, although you can do it with safety equipment, such as crash pads or harnesses and ropes, when the elevation and danger involved merits it.

Apart from rescue climbing, modern forms of climbing are done mostly for recreational purposes. These climbing types have become specialized activities named after the type of surface or environment where they’re performed, such as bouldering, rock climbing, mountaineering, ice climbing, canyoneering, pole and rope climbing, and buildering (climbing on the outsides of buildings). In most cases, these types of climbing use gear that’s specific to the surface and activity. Such gear makes climbing much safer.

However, even in the presence of equipment, climbing mostly relies on Natural Movement patterns that were developed through evolution and arboreal locomotion. Indeed, science suggests our ancestors at some point of our evolution mostly lived in trees, which means they extensively moved in trees before they became primarily bipedal—including needing to brachiate as is suggested by our relatively elongated upper limbs, flexible shoulder joints, and fingers and hands that are well-suited for grasping. These physical characteristics probably allowed our ancestors to test the reliability of supporting surfaces ahead; to cross gaps; to reach resources such as fruits, nuts, or eggs; to brachiate; and to do pretty much anything in a tree related to survival, such as finding shelter, resting, hiding, or scouting the environment around and below. Arboreal locomotion is still practiced by many hunter-gatherers, and brachiating is a Natural Movement activity that healthy children cannot resist doing whenever “monkey bars” or low-hanging branches are available.

NOTE

 

Brachiating is a form of climbing locomotion in which one hangs, swings, or leaps by hanging with both arms or each arm alternately. The word comes from Latin brachium, which means “arm.” Maybe this explains why many people are “dendrophiles,” which are people who love trees and forests.

 

Climbing doesn’t necessarily start from the ground. You can climb down from elevated ground to reach a lower surface, make a jump landing in a climb position, switch from balancing on a narrow horizontal surface to hanging from it, or start and end in a fully horizontal traversing movement. You can exit a climb in diverse ways; jumping, balancing, or crawling are possible transitions. Climbing can be a short transition between jumping and running or balancing, or you can transition from jump to jump. Climbing can last a long time when you’re ascending high and challenging surfaces. It can be as easy as climbing up a ladder, as scary as climbing up a cliff, as unpredictable as climbing mud walls, or nearly impossible when you attempt to climb surfaces completely covered in thick ice.

While on a climbing route you may be briefly balancing, jumping, or even vaulting, such as when you’re moving through large trees or from tree to tree. Even when you’re climbing surfaces such as boulders and walls, jumping can be briefly part of a climbing action when you generate power to move upward or sideways with the body partly airborne. You also might climb down in a jump-style way, relying on gravity as your feet leave the support to become briefly airborne as you use your hands to keep hanging onto the surface of support. Because of such great diversity in practical goals, surfaces, and routes, many body parts can be involved beyond feet and hands; you might be able to hold positions or generate movement with your forearms, elbow and knee creases, heels, shoulders, armpits, groin, seat, back, and belly.

With the presence of verticality, elevation, steepness, narrowness, or instability of the supporting surface, losing your base of support completely while climbing results in an immediate fall like you might experience with balancing. However, the difference is that, in balancing, all points of support are below your center of gravity, and your body weight rests on or is pushed from the supporting surface, whereas in climbing the points of support are either split between being below the center of gravity (resting on the supporting surface) and being above the center of gravity (hanging and pulling from the supporting surface) or all the points of support are above the center of gravity as you hang from the surface of support. The latter option negates any risk of toppling, which means that, in some cases, hanging is a more effective and safer option than balancing for traversing a surface. When you completely lose balance from a balancing position, a fall is guaranteed, whereas losing balance in a hanging position just makes you swing as long as you can maintain your grip; gravity will naturally restore your balance. In any case, climbing absolutely demands a great sense of balance, and losing balance may precipitate a disastrous fall.

Hanging

 

Most of us immediately think of hanging as having the whole body suspended in the air as we hang by the hands with straight arms. Even mainstream fitness—in which hanging is rarely involved—shrinks its scope to that exclusive position of hanging with straight arms by the hands only, with the unique purpose of developing core and upper-body strength. You’re about to discover how extremely oversimplified this image of hanging is and how Natural Movement and a knowledge of real-life contextual demands vastly expands the range of hanging positions and movements.

A realistic and accurate definition of hanging is that the body is fully or partly suspended, which means that some or all of the points of support we hold a position from are located above both the center of gravity and body weight. Such suspension can be done in a variety of ways, and you can hang by your hands as well as by your elbows, forearms, upper thighs, back of the knees, and feet.

You can have one, two, three, four, or even up to six points of support in a contralateral or ipsilateral fashion, and your body can be in a (potentially inverted) vertical or horizontal position. Even when your body weight is mostly supported by your feet and your center of gravity is above the lower points of supports, such as when you’re climbing up a tree or boulder, hanging is involved usually with the hands preventing the body from falling backward, which implies a certain degree of suspension. On some surfaces and routes, climbing can be achieved in a purely hanging fashion without using any points of support below your center of gravity.

The supporting surface can be thin, thick, vertical, angled, horizontal, even or uneven, smooth or rugged, stable or unstable. Clearly, that many variables create an impressively versatile repertoire of dozens of hanging positions that is incredibly more diverse than hanging only with straight arms. This repertoire also constitutes the necessary lead-up for a vast number of complex climbing movements on diverse surfaces and going in various directions, which takes your climbing scope and competency way beyond linear upward movements such as pull-ups.

Gripping Friction, Real-Life Environments, and Practical Movement Reality

You might suppose that hanging is a relatively relaxed and easy activity, but this is far from the truth. Hanging is work, and there’s no such thing as a “passive hang.” Any amount of muscular tension makes a position “active,” and even the most relaxed hangs involve a certain level of muscular tension.

We wouldn’t call a stationary standing position with both legs fully extended a “passive stand,” and the same standing stance with both knees mildly flexed would be called an “active stand,” right? Of course not. The same way a total absence of tension when standing would make you collapse to the ground, a total absence of tension when hanging signifies losing all frictional force, which precipitates a fall. The only way that a hang can be “passive” is if you’re tied up with a piece of rope by your wrists, ankles, or neck!

However, whenever possible, hanging should certainly be done in the most relaxed manner possible and with the least amount of work. In other words, once the minimal level of “activation” or tension required to generate the level of frictional force necessary to sustain the position has been reached, all body parts or muscles that are not involved in holding the position can be as relaxed as possible.

Depending on the context, the same position may be held with minimal tension, or held with additional tension, with both positions being “active” anyway. For instance, with a “double-hand” hang (commonly known as Dead Hang) you can securely hang from a thin, non-slippery round surface with a Hook Grip with tension in only your forearms while the rest of your body is mostly relaxed. However, to ensure that you can sustain the same hang position from on a thick, round, and somewhat slippery surface, you must use an Open-Hand Grip and have additional tension in the lats, scapular area, and abdominal muscles. This simple change of surface increases environmental complexity, which necessitates adjustments to positional control through additional tension to modify the pull angle and increase frictional force in your hands. Making and keeping the hang effective is the primary reason for additional tension. With a thinner surface, your hang position is a little bit lower, more vertical, and relaxed; with a thicker surface, your hang position is slightly higher, at an angle, and not as relaxed. Both are active positions.

Additional tension may be used as a strategy for protecting your joints—usually the shoulders—when they’re not healthy by reducing the amount of stress that’s placed in these joints. Regardless of the situation, unless you have a practical reason that demands additional tension, you should conserve optimum relaxation. Remember, though, that optimum relaxation does not mean complete relaxation.

Selective tension is an issue with beginners who tend to create too much tension in the muscles that handle the production of frictional force, and superfluous tension in those muscles that don’t even participate in such force, which generates early fatigue and shorter hanging time. Beginners may include individuals who are otherwise seen as fit, including people who can perform several Pull-Ups in a row; if they’re not familiar with positional diversity and demands or don’t have the particular strength required to hold various hangs on varied surfaces, they’re beginners when it comes to climbing.

I’ve witnessed fit individuals who can perform many Pull-Ups in a gym setting but find themselves barely able to hang from a thick, rounded, slippery surface, for the simple reason that their hanging practice—and therefore their ability to hang—is exclusively restricted to regular pull-up bars.

Grip strength is commonly seen as being exclusively related to the hands, but it actually extends to grasping and hanging actions with any body part. For instance, hanging from your forearms demands grip strength as well, except that it isn’t located in the hands. Grip strength has to do with the ability to generate the friction necessary to hold the hanging positions regardless of what the position is. The stronger the gripping, the more friction, and the more reliable the hang positions, which makes them fully reliable for movement involving power and momentum. Indeed, the strength grip required for strong hangs isn’t limited to holding stationary hangs.

While hanging, you can produce dynamic motion, such as pulling upward with power or generating swinging momentum. If holding a stationary hanging position is already challenging to you, then controlled ascents, descents, or traverse movements that involve hanging will be an even greater challenge. For this reason, a beginner approach to climbing should involve a lot of hanging that develops the grip strength and positional control required to hold positions steadily on both vertical and horizontal surfaces.

Hand Grip

Recent studies suggest that millennials have significantly weaker hand grips than young people from three decades ago. The explanation has a lot to do with movement behavior because younger generations have spent much more time indoors—sitting and playing with electronics—than being physically active outdoors, which usually involves a wide range of movements, including climbing and object manipulation or manual work that all contribute to hand grip strength.

The first problem is that weakness in your hands is a symptom that reveals deficiency in overall physical strength and function. Grip strength is literally linked to life expectancy and is a more reliable predictor than blood pressure. Studies have shown that levels of grip strength in elderly populations are predictors of admission rates in hospitals and that elderly patients with greater grip strength generally are released from the hospital significantly faster than people with lower grip strength. This implies that your level of grip strength might indicate more than your levels of strength and function; it might be an indicator of the overall status of your health, vitality, and mortality.

The second problem is that you can’t expect to just practice isolated hand grip drills to remedy the overall issue. Fortunately, Natural Movement skills such as climbing and manipulation efforts (lifting, carrying, throwing, or catching) contribute to strengthening your hands and your whole body because in those movements your hands and the rest of your body are tightly connected as you perform the movement.

In short, in such movements the stress and effort in your hands can’t be disconnected from the stress and efforts in your body or the other way around. Similarly, you can’t expect to develop full hand grip strength by practicing a single position or movement—for example, hanging from the hands or deadlifting. With about thirty muscles in the hands and forearms, hand grip strength is supposed to adapt to many kinds of positions and efforts. The grip strength necessary for hanging from open hands or from a finger hold isn’t the same, and the hand grip necessary to massage someone or use a screwdriver must adapt to a particular forearm, wrist, and finger movement (position, amplitude, intensity, duration, and volume).

NOTE

 

You can find more information about the studies of grip strength at the following web pages:

• Hand grip among millennials: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26869476

• Grip strength and life expectancy: https://fhs.mcmaster.ca/main/news/news_2015/handgrip_study.html

• Grip strength and hospital admission rates: https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/44/6/954/81109

• Grip strength and length of hospital stay: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3723742/

 

Efficient hand grip is not only about strength. There’s no need to routinely “crush” whatever surface you’re holding when you climb or manipulate an object; you need to do that when you feel that it’s the only way to ensure your grip. You can easily fatigue your hands and forearms if you systematically employ as much tension as you can in those areas, and when you get fatigued you must rapidly abandon the position or the task. Whereas you may always let go in training, releasing your grip isn’t always possible in real-life situations. In climbing, how much grip strength you need isn’t just a factor of your body weight in relation to the surface you’re climbing on; it also has to do with your overall position. A slight adjustment in body position angle can cause you to fatigue your forearms and hands more quickly.

Your hands are highly sensitive body parts that have the ability to automatically increase tension when they sense that your hold becomes unreliable with less tension. Such reactive grip response also works when you manipulate handheld objects. Usually, it’s a good idea to start hanging with a little more tension than you need for safety until you sense that you can lower tension while keeping your hold sustainable. Aspects of hand grip specific to manipulation are covered in Chapter 30, “Manipulation Movement 1.”

Regardless of finger position, there are three main hand orientations in hanging:

 

NOTE

 

The prone grip is often called “overhand,” whereas the supine grip is often called “underhand,” which is a misnomer. The reality is that, to provide hang support, both grips must be prone or “overhand” with the palm placed on top of the surface of support and not under it, regardless of whether you place your hand or hands in front of or behind the supporting surface. However, it’s convenient to use the terms “prone” and “supine” to mean the palm facing out and facing toward you, respectively.

 

By default, arm hangs done from horizontal surfaces (such as a horizontal tree branch) use a prone grip. A supine hand position is rarely used for two main reasons:

• A supine grip provides less gripping friction on thick surfaces because it’s difficult to get your palms far enough onto the surface.

• When you pull upward, you’re forced to travel your hand beneath the supporting surface from behind to in front of and over it, which is very inefficient.

It’s good to know that a supine grip is possible, but for practical purposes, it’s inconvenient or plain inefficient when used on horizontal surfaces. On the other hand, the prone grip allows you, if necessary, to “hook” your hand higher and more forward over the supporting surface so your palm can be pressing down, with your wrist bent at an angle (up to 45 degrees, with your hand aligned perpendicularly with your forearm).

Another aspect of the hand grip relates to the position of the fingers on the hand, especially the position of the thumb in relation to the hand and other fingers. The Hook Grip, which is also known as the Power Grip, implies that the fingers (as well as the palm, when the surface is thick) clamp down on the surface with the thumb creating counter pressure. It’s a very strong grip with many purposes: hanging in arm or arm-leg hangs, climbing, or manipulating objects. But in hanging or manipulation, the Hook Grip is only possible when the surface held is thin enough. Beyond a certain thickness, it’s best to hook the thumb together with the other fingers over the surface instead of under it. Such an Open-Hand Grip (known as “False Grip,” although there is nothing “false” about it) is basically the only option you have when the surface you’re holding is thick, which in the real world is most often the case.

NOTE

 

Although with the Open-Hand Grip the thumb can’t exert counterpressure opposite to the other fingers and palm, it still can exert pressure down on the surface and against the index finger, which keeps the grip quite effective. The position of the hand and fingers in the Open-Hand Grip is either at an angle, curled, or rounded.

 

Aside from lianas (woody climbing plants), ropes, cables, and pull-up bars in a gym, you will be hard-pressed to find surfaces that are narrow enough yet strong enough to enable you to use a Hook Grip, especially in arm hangs where all your weight depends on such a surface of support. Most real-life surfaces are too thick for a Hook Grip. Your training mindset and practice should take this limitation into account and progressively accustom you to thicker surfaces, so you can strengthen your prone Open-Hand Grip significantly and feel secure even when swinging momentum is involved.

When the palm and fingers are aligned horizontally, I use the term Flat Grip. This grip is the position your hand is in when you’re hanging from flat surfaces, such as from a board or the edge of a platform.

Last, a hand grip sometimes relies on finger grip or fingerholds only. In these cases, the points of support are limited to one finger or more, and the surface generating friction is even restricted to the tips of the fingers.

Finally, hand grip strength is an issue when your palms are sweaty because of exertion, weather, or fear (and chalk is not always handy). A simple trick (aside from wiping your hands on your clothes) is to grab a handful of sand or dirt and rub it on your hands. Last, the natural thickening of the skin (known as keratoderma) that occurs when you practice a lot of hanging not only protects the skin of your hands (especially when climbing on natural surfaces), it also increases gripping friction.

Benefits of Hanging

I show you many hanging techniques in this chapter, and all hold practical movement value. If you try to bypass any, you’ll miss out on some great assets to your movement competency and preparedness.

I’ve already mentioned some benefits of practicing a wide range of hanging positions, but here’s a brief summary:

• From a practical movement perspective, hanging is a prerequisite foundation to the ability to perform diverse climbing movements and transitions from and to such positions, on diverse surfaces and in varied directions.

• Hanging practice develops gripping strength and endurance not limited to hands and forearms and involving many muscles and body parts.

• Hanging improves joint function and health. Depending on position, the benefits aren’t limited to the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints; the thoracic spine and hip can benefit, too. Like ground positions where gravity and body weight push joints into optimal range of motion, gravity and body weight pull joints into optimal range of motion when you’re hanging. It’s especially the case when hangs rely on only hands and the rest of the body dangles below in a fully relaxed fashion.

SAFETY NOTE

 

Hanging also places a higher demand or stress on joints, and some individuals with unhealthy joints might not be able to practice hangs, especially if they’re not strong enough to create additional tension to protect them while holding the positions. Hangs involving the legs shift part of the body weight toward the leg and away from your wrists, elbows, and shoulders, making hang positions more sustainable.

 

Hang Practice

Unlike the earlier movement skills, I’m not introducing all hanging positions before I describe all climbing movements. You may locate all stationary climbing positions and practice each of them to develop stability before you attempt any climbing movement, or you may start with particular positions relating to particular climbing patterns on particular types of climbing surfaces.

With the Push-Pull Hang, your practice can begin in the easiest way without involving any elevation; simply hang with one or two hands gripping a wall, a fence, or a small tree with your feet resting on the ground.

Pull Hangs involving the hands or arms and the legs hooked over the surface of support are another good starting point, before you transition to more challenging hangs that involve the upper body with no assistance from the lower body.

Progressions

Hanging positions that don’t have any support below the center of gravity are more challenging than those that have support from both above and below the center of gravity. In addition, hanging positions with fewer or more challenging points of support are more difficult to hold than those that involve more points of support and more reliable ones. For instance, hanging from the hands is easier if your feet can rest perpendicularly against a vertical surface than if your feet are strictly in the void, and hooking a leg over the supporting surface when hanging by the hands is easier than a Double-Hand Hang.

I have structured the hangs in this chapter in a way that follows this progression in level of difficulty. However, you don’t necessarily need to postpone practicing Hand Hangs (hanging only by the hands).

Beyond the progression in gripping strength level or difficulty of holding the position due to the position itself, progressions may involve the following:

• Longer holds. You may start holding a position a few seconds and aim at holding it a whole minute or longer.

• Raised hangs (often known as “active hangs”), which involves pulling from your shoulder/scapula area, arms, or legs to elevate your center of gravity and position (without changing your base of support).

• More challenging surfaces, such those that are thicker or smoother.

• Additional external weight (such as a weighed vest).

• Some body-weight shifting or swinging momentum while holding the position.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Apart from the progression involving longer holds, which requires more gripping endurance, all other options demand higher levels of frictional force, which means they require more muscular tension and greater gripping strength, so it’s likely you’ll want to reduce the duration of your holds at first. The good thing is that an increase in gripping strength increases your gripping endurance.

 

SAFETY NOTE

 

Be particularly cautious when practicing on natural surfaces that might not be reliable. When you’re climbing trees and stepping on and pulling from branches, it is important to get a feel for the strength and reliability of the surfaces. (Honestly, this is true for any surface.) Generally speaking, larger branches are stronger than thinner ones and live limbs are stronger than dead and dry ones. Other considerations, such as the type of tree, the presence of moss, humidity, or even rotten bark, will change friction and make a difference in strength and reliability. As a rule of thumb, place your feet and hands as close as possible to the trunk instead of away from it, try to distribute your body weight on more points of support, place less body weight on areas you believe aren’t reliable, and always be prepared for a sudden breakage.

 

Push-Pull Hangs

 

The Push-Pull Hangs are the most common in climbing. They partly rely on points of support above the center of gravity—usually the hands—that handle some of the body weight by pulling from the supporting surface, and partly rely on points of support below the center of gravity—usually the feet—that handle some of the body weight by pushing on it. Whenever possible, most of the body weight should rest on your feet, and climbing upward should rely on a pushing effort from your legs, while you minimize tension and effort from your arms and upper body as much as possible. The loss of all points of support from below your center of gravity might not entail a fall as you can turn the position into an Arm Hang. However, if all points of support above your center of gravity were lost, there’s a greater chance that your center of gravity would be pulled back out of alignment with the base of support to precipitate a fall, unless you’re able to lean the upper body forward enough to avoid it.

Therefore, when you’re climbing in Push-Pull Hang positions, the priority focus is always twofold: shifting as much body weight to your feet and as much of the effort to your legs while ensuring reliable gripping from the points of support above your center of gravity in case your feet slip. You can use these positions on a boulder, a cliff, a tree, or an urban wall to rest, collect yourself, and transition to the next move.

You can easily and safely start practicing Push-Pull Hang positions with most of your body weight shifted on your feet resting on the ground. To increase the challenge, you may modify your position to progressively increase the hanging effort from your upper body, such as moving your center of gravity away from the surface of support and pulling up with your arms or hanging with a single arm; finally step up with your feet resting on the vertical surface rather than flat on the ground. You may also modify the positions of your shoulders, hips, spine, legs, and feet while holding the hang to create different loads on as many joints as you can.

Depending on the type of surface, the direction of movement can be upward, downward, or sideways in a traversing fashion, generally with an alternation of three and four points of support—all fours, two feet and one hand, one foot and two hands—because holding a position with only two points of support can easily destabilize you and create a risk. The position can be compact, vertically extended, or horizontally wide, with the body close to or farther from the supporting surface, and your center of gravity vertically centered, either lower and closer to the feet or higher and closer to the hands or arms.

You can elevate your body either by pushing off your feet or pulling from your hands or arms. If the surface is wide, such as a rocky surface or wall, you can move in a traversing fashion sideways or at an angle. In the presence of a surface that’s flat and wide enough, you might be able to place your forearms on the surface for support, such as when you reach the top edge of a wall. There is too much position and movement specificity to list all options, so I’ll start with the main positions.

 

1 Push-Pull, Single-Hand Foot-Hand Hang: Most of your body weight is supported by your feet. If you lose your footing, you have a chance to maintain a Single-Hand Pull Hang and hopefully a Two-Handed Pull Hang. However, if you release your single handhold, you fall back and down.

 

2 Square Bent Extended Arms Foot-Hand Hang

3 Single-Foot Extended Arms Foot-Hand Hang: A similar position can be held with a single hand in a contralateral fashion (using the foot and hand on opposite sides of the body) because a same-side foot and hand is very unstable.

4 Extended Legs Neutral Foot-Forearm Hang

5 Extended Legs High Foot-Forearm Hang

There are more variations of similar positions (especially hand positions) than I have room to show you in this book. For instance, fingerholds can be in a C-shape curly position, in an L-shape straight-angle position, or in a curled and spread out position. Handholds can be made of a flat hand, round hand, or fist stuck in a crack of a rock. The position of the hand can be overhand (pressing down), underhand (pressing up), or sideways (pressing to the side). As long as pulling from the upper points of support is required to handle some body weight, maintain position, and prevent gravity from pulling your body down to the back is required, you’re in a hanging position.

SAFETY NOTE

 

When the surface is narrow, smooth, or round, such as a pole or tree trunk, only upward or downward movement is possible, although you still can change your body orientation by moving around the surface of support. A surface without handholds or footholds—which is especially challenging when the surface is smooth and slippery—gives frictional force, which is generated by positional control, something that’s enormously important. Climbing in that situation also demands more balance because the base of support is very narrow; in certain positions, your body might be pulled off balance into a sideways swing. Controlling the descent is also more challenging when there’s greater likelihood that you’ll lose balance or slide down uncontrollably.

 

Some of the positions shown in the next set of photos are quite like the same positions on a wide vertical surface, but I’ve adapted them to the specificity of the supporting surface. You should step up from the ground and practice holds close to ground level before you attempt to reach a height. Upward motion is nearly impossible if you struggle with simply holding the positions. Managing gripping friction and positional control efficiently is the name of the game.

     

Push-Pull Movements

 

Foot-hand and foot-forearm hangs can be positions you use to move sideways, upward, or downward; you both push off the feet and pull from the hands or forearms. The simplest and easiest form of push-pull climbing patterns is used to scale a ladder or climb a tree that has “perfect” branches that provide easy and reliable horizontal support for the feet and hands. Another relatively easy form of a push-pull climb is scrambling up or down a not-too-steep slope. However, using this type of climb on a slope often implies a slippery surface such as grass, moss, gravel, sand, or unstable stones. As a surface gets more vertical, the surfaces for you to push or pull from get smaller and more slippery, which means the climbing gets more difficult. Of course, the farther apart vertically the handholds and footholds are, the more difficult it is to ascend. (In most cases, descending is more difficult, too.)

On Wide Vertical Surfaces

You can traverse a surface, such as a wall, rather than going upward or downward, by hanging from its top edge, pushing off your feet to step sideways, and pulling from your hands to move them in the same direction, alternately. You can do this with your arms fully extended or with them bent. You mostly bend your arms to increase frictional force and gripping strength when necessary.

The Push Power-Up technique is usually a final climbing action to exit climbing and enter another movement as you reach the top edge of the climbing surface, but that technique also can allow you to elevate your body enough to grasp higher handholds.

When you do the Push Power-Up explosively, you can do an upward jump with a high arm reach.

You can do the Push Power-Up on either natural or urban walls. Climbing over a tall wall often seems like a daunting, impossible mission for beginners. First you need to reach the top edge and grasp it with your hands; you can do that by either climbing or jumping.

Push Power-Up

 

1 Start in a Split Bent-Legs Foot-Hand position.

2 Strongly push off your legs and, when you reach close to full extension, strongly flex your arms to pull from them to generate enough upward momentum to elevate your center of gravity quickly.

3 As you pull strongly with both arms in full flexion to reach close to maximum pulling elevation, swiftly slide your hands forward to a flat grip as you press down on the top supporting surface. As your body elevates, your lower foot naturally is released from providing support.

4 Without losing momentum, keep pulling up and forward with your modified hang grip until your elbows have raised above your hands, so you’re transitioning from a pulling motion to a pushing motion. Keep pressing away from the vertical edge by pushing off the ball of your foot, which helps your balance.

5 Press up to a Vertical Hand Press position.

On Narrow Vertical Surfaces

The other push-pull climbing movements I want to explain are specifically for narrow vertical surfaces. Such surfaces can be either natural or man-made; they can be angled or completely vertical, thick or narrow, flat or rounded, even or uneven, stable or unstable.

Natural surfaces are thicker at the bottom and become thinner as they get higher, and they’re not attached to anything at the top. As a result, your body weight may make some of these surfaces sway more and more as you climb higher, to the point they can bend under your weight. Man-made surfaces are often more stable because they’re made of materials that don’t bend and are sometimes attached to something at the top.

If the surface is at a slight angle, there’s a greater risk that your feet will slip or you’ll lose balance and go into a spinning swing, similarly to what would happen if you’re moving in a balancing Foot-Hand Crawl on a narrow inclined surface. However, if your position does get inverted, you might be able to transition to an Arm-Leg Hang by curling your feet around the surface to create gripping friction similar to the position of your hands and turning muscular effort in your feet and legs to a pulling motion rather than a pushing one as you keep climbing. (As a matter of fact, when approaching a narrow vertical surface that isn’t at an angle, you have the option to climb from below in an Arm-Leg Hang fashion from the start, as I describe later in this chapter).

Of course, there’s a limit to how thick the surface can be. Greater thicknesses reduce the space between the points of support and the front of your body, which reduces the range of motion of your limbs and demands much greater hand-grip strength for positions to be held. Thin and soft surfaces, such as ropes, must be approached with specific leg and foot positions that allow frictional force to be applied in the feet. Otherwise, climbing would be entirely left to upper-body power. Space in this book doesn’t allow me to cover all techniques, so I’m focusing on the Foot-Hand Climb and the Foot-Pinch Climb. The Foot-Hand Climb is a “child” of the Foot-Hand Crawl pattern I discussed earlier in the book. As with the crawling version, you can do the Foot-Hand Climb in a four-three point of support pattern that alternates ipsilateral and contralateral positions, or in a four-two point of support pattern in either the ipsilateral or contralateral positions. With the Foot-Pinch techniques, your feet are level with each other, and you simultaneously move both legs.

4-3 Foot-Hand Climb

 

1 Stand in front of the vertical surface, reach out to it with both arms extended and vertically split with about one foot between them, and curl both hands around the surface. Center the ball of one foot on the surface where it’s about level with the knee of the supporting leg. Keep the lead leg half flexed.

2 Shift your body weight onto the foot that’s on the surface and push and control your balance as you release your trail foot. Place it just above the foot that’s already on the surface in a contralateral Foot-Hand Hang. Find a position where you feel your body weight is nearly equally distributed among all four points of support.

 

3 Release the lower hand (trail hand or inside hand) and reach up to regrip the surface. You’ll briefly hang with three points of support as you do this. What was the lower hand is now the upper hand, and your position is now ipsilateral. If you instead were to move the trail foot upward first, you would end up in an uncomfortable, overly compact position.

4 Release and move the trail foot opposite to the hand you just moved and place it just above the upper foot. You’ll briefly hang with three points of support as you do this. Your position has returned to a contralateral position on the side opposite from where you started.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

If you place the lead foot higher when you step into hanging, the trail foot would have been positioned below it in an ipsilateral position. Because this is a 4-3 pattern, it doesn’t really matter which of the two positions you start in. What matters the most is how balanced your position is at all times, and you should avoid positions that are too compact or too stretched. A rounded lower back is normal, but a rounded upper back usually indicates a position that’s too compact or that there’s a lack of tension in the scapula and shoulder girdle, which affects friction at the hands. The space between your feet should be nearly the same as the space between your hands and should be consistent as you climb; the space between your feet and hands will slightly narrow and widen as you move your feet and hands alternately, but the range should remain as consistent as possible.

The flexion in both legs should also remain consistent except for momentary modifications to ensure friction and balance. Your supporting arms should remain as extended as possible in a hanging fashion, to let your legs handle most of the upward motion as they extend. Bending your arms in a pulling action mostly creates early fatigue of the upper body. It could force the legs to extend, shifting your center of gravity forward and upward. This applies downward force and reduces friction in your feet, which increases the risk of foot slippage as well as the fatigue in the hands and arms. Unless the surface of support is such that you have to continuously rely on arm pulling and strength, you flex your arms only occasionally to reposition and ensure friction; when you do, make sure to maintain force in your feet perpendicular to the supporting surface.

An alternative foot position is the open foot, where the midfoot is on support at an angle with the surface of support. Depending on the surface, this position might allow greater friction and reduce the risk of foot slipping.

 

Open Foot-Hand Climb

 

The Open-Foot-Hand Climb is a variation of the Foot-Hand Climb. The difference is that the feet are externally rotated on the surface of support. The advantage of this alternative foot positioning is to improve friction at the feet when a forward positioning isn’t as reliable and could cause the feet to slide to the side and off support. The disadvantage of such positioning is that range of motion at the feet and ankle is reduced, which reduces the extension of the legs and forces smaller steps. It’s useful whenever you want to pause and rest in the Foot-Hand Climb or to transition to the Foot-Pinch Climb (or from the Foot-Pinch Climb back to the Foot-Hand Climb). To transition from the Foot-Hand Climb to the Foot-Pinch position, you first transition to the Open-Foot-Hand Climb stance, level your feet, and then bend your legs or lower your knees to the Foot-Pinch Climb position.

Faults

The next two photos show the main inefficiencies with the Foot-Pinch Hang. Neither of these positions is sustainable.

 

1 Your back is compact and rounded, and your arms are bent. The knees are high with only a narrow space between them. If you extend your arms, your hand grip becomes really difficult to maintain, and you might lose your grip. If you bring your hands higher or your feet lower, downward force is applied on your feet without an opposite force; your feet will slide down, and your body will follow and fully extend downward.

2 Opposite force is applied through your feet against the surface, which is an improvement on the first position, but your arms remain flexed unnecessarily, which wastes precious strength.

Foot-Pinch Climb

 

1 Establish the Foot-Pinch Hang on the surface.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

You can enter the Foot-Pinch Hang by grasping the surface with your hands and then stepping or jumping into position. Advanced entries include climbing into position from another elevated surface (tree to tree, for instance) or landing in position after a jump from a distance.

 

2 Move your hands higher while keeping them extended, which causes your torso to be more vertical.

 

3 Push through your legs, driving your hips away from the surface to create space for your leg to move up.

4 In a swift motion, tuck your knees all the way up to bring your feet from below rear level to about sternum level. Make sure that you keep your feet pointing out enough (with your heels close together) to ensure stability and prevent slipping. Your body should be in a compact position, with your knees at shoulder level and your legs close to your body with little space in between your legs and body.

5 Pull from the scapula/shoulder girdle while keeping your arms lengthened to drive your hips up and forward while opening your legs and lowering your knees on each side to create optimum frictional force in a more stable and efficient Foot-Pinch Hang. From here, repeat the same sequence to keep moving up the surface.

NOTE

 

Sometimes while in the Foot-Pinch climb you may find yourself off-balance and pulled to a sideways spin. This type of motion is dictated by the environment, and it naturally brings you back in a balanced position, just with a little different orientation. Once such motion is triggered, it’s nearly impossible to stop and takes an enormous amount of strength if you try to. It is best to go with the flow and not resist it.

 

Climbing Down

Climbing down can be tricky because it’s easy to not pay attention and be pulled into full-body extension so that you slide down with little control. You’re safe from a fall if you can maintain a hang as you’re sliding—for instance, by wrapping both arms and legs around the surface—but this can easily cause you to be badly scratched or burned because of kinetic friction. Following are the key points for a controlled descent:

• Don’t attempt to move down too fast.

• Foot-hand “strides” should not be significantly longer than when you move up. From a stable Foot-Pinch Hang, don’t let your feet move down too far, or you’ll extend your legs and body too much and too vertically, which increases vertical force onto your feet and makes them slide down to a point where gripping friction is lost; then you lose gripping friction force in your hands.

• Move your hands down very rapidly after you move your feet, so you can quickly replicate the Foot-Pinch Hang a little farther down.

NOTE

 

Some people living in exotic areas have maintained tremendous ability to quickly scale coconut trees using mostly the Open-Foot Foot-Hand Climb with their bare hands and feet, which demands great skill, strength, and mental fortitude. They also traditionally use some kind of strap or rope tied around their feet in a loop, which prevents their feet from slipping out of support and facilitates friction at the feet, enabling the climber to move faster with a more extended body and longer strides.

 

Pull Hangs

 

Now it’s time for me to address hanging positions and movements entirely based on points of support located above your center of gravity, regardless of the body parts used for support: hands, feet, or something else. There’s no pushing from points of support located beneath the center of gravity; these positions and movements are strict hangs or “pull hangs.” This is normally the case when the supporting surface is horizontal or at a slight angle, and it’s narrow, such as a tree limb, a rope, a cable, or the edge of a platform with a void beneath it.

Pull hangs can have two different body orientations:

• The side hang in which all points of support are hanging from the same side of the supporting surface

• The front hang in which points of support are hanging from both sides of it

For practice purposes, to enter pull hang positions (either arm hangs or arm-leg hangs), you need to practice on a surface that’s elevated enough for you to hang from your hands without your feet touching the ground, but it shouldn’t be too high for you to reach it relatively easily. The height should be safe and not intimidating. You might have to jump up a bit or step up onto something for your hands to reach the surface. The latter option is the easier and safer one for beginners.

However, in the real world, you might have to start in a Double-Hand Hang without the option of stepping up on a raised surface, maybe after jumping upward to a High Hand Reach to grasp the supporting surface—such as a high-hanging branch—then to be able to hold this position with 100 percent of your body weight hanging only from your hands (and sometimes only one hand before you can place the second hand) before you can elevate your legs to establish a three- or four-limbed hang. Beyond the benefits of developing upper-body joint strength and mobility, the ability to hold strong arm-hangs is extremely important for a practical reason because, in most cases, it’s a necessary transition to establishing arm-leg hangs.

This is the progression I’m taking you through:

• Arm hangs and sideways arm-hang movements.

• Strategies to transition from arm hangs to arm-leg hangs.

• Arm-leg hangs and sideways arm and leg movements

• Upward arm-leg hang movements

I finish this chapter with the most power-demanding upward arm-hang movements.

Arm Hangs

Some climbing positions are “side” hangs, which means the orientation of your body is parallel to the surface; other hangs are “front,” which is when your orientation is perpendicular to the surface.

By default, arm hangs are “low” in the sense that you are using only the minimal level of tension required to maintain the hang and avoid falling off the support surface, letting gravity pull your center of gravity farther down and away below your base of support. However, additional tension may be necessary to elevate your position, which raises your center of gravity closer to the base of support. For this reason I occasionally specify the height of the elevation of a given hang position as low, mid, or high.

The base of support of an arm hang can be narrow, neutral, or wide depending on the space between the points of support.

Here are some practical examples of the pros and cons of particular positions, which show that choice of position is contextual and depends on the physical action you intend to perform and/or on the surface where it is done :

• A wide grip in a side Double-Hand Hang is not efficient for upward movement, but it’s efficient for ample and fast side-swing traversing if gripping friction is reliable.

• Scapular activation isn’t necessary in an arm hang unless it helps with gripping friction, if it’s part of transition to another movement, or if you need to protect your shoulder joints.

• You can’t Side Swing efficiently in a Forearm Hang, but you can move upward (pop up).

• You can’t Front Swing Traverse efficiently in a Double-Arm-Hook Front Hang, but you can Front Swing to establish a Double-Arm-Hook Foot-Pinch Hang.

• A Double-Armpit Hang is great for resting, but it doesn’t enable you to pull upward.

You should develop an understanding of the specific role of each arm-hang position and practice holding them all with sufficient strength and control.

 

1 Single-Hand Hang: The body tends to rotate until it stabilizes itself in a side position. Hanging with one arm usually happens statically after a High Hand-Reach Jump or dynamically with a swing to reach up or out with the other hand.

2 Neutral-Base, Double-Hand Front Hang: Your hands are about shoulder width apart. This hang is mostly used for Front Swing Traversing.

 

3 Narrow-Base, Double-Hand Front Hang: This hang is normally used to secure a strong grip before you elevate the legs to an arm-leg hang. You can interlace your fingers to add friction to the grip.

4 Supine-Grip, Neutral-Base, Double-Hand Side Hang: The base width is typical, but the hang grip is unusual because usually a prone grip is used.

 

5 Wide-Base, Double-Hand Side Hang (Dead Hang): This is inefficient for upward movements, but it’s efficient for Side Swing Traversing.

6 Narrow-Base, Double-Hand Side Hang: You use this hang when it helps secure frictional grip or as a transition in arm-hang traversing.

 

7 Scapular Pull Double-Hand Hang: Use this hang with tension or back lean to strengthen gripping, protect shoulder joints, change your line of vision, or prepare for an upward motion.

8 High Double-Hand Side Hang (called Mid Side Arm Hang when there’s half flexion): You can use this Raised Hang when you must perform a transition from a low Double-Hand Side Hang to a Double-Forearm Hang (or the other way around) slowly or with caution.

 

9 Double-Arm-Hook Front Hang: You can use this hang to transition to an arm-leg hang or to secure an arm hang when hanging from the hands isn’t possible. You also can use it as a rest or recovery hang.

10 Double-Arm-Hook Side Hang: Same as above.

11 Single-Arm-Hook Front Hang: In this hang, your head is on the opposite side of your supporting arm.

12 Single-Arm-Hook Side Hang: In this hang, your head is on the same side as your supporting arm.

 

13 Low Double-Forearm Side Hang: This position precedes the Pop-Up (upward) or after you lower the body from a High Double-Forearm Hang. You also can use it as a transition to or from an arm-leg hang.

14 High Double-Forearm Side Hang: You can use this hang to elevate your hips to facilitate hooking a leg in an arm-leg hang.

15 High Single-Forearm Side Hang: You usually use this hang to securely transition from the Double-Hand Hang to the Double-Forearm Hang or the other way around.

 

16 Double-Armpit Hang: This is a rest or recovery hang.

17 Single-Armpit Hang: Same as above.

SAFETY NOTE

 

Safety in arm hangs is enhanced mostly by an increase in muscular strength—mostly in grip strength and shoulder girdle strength—which naturally develops as you hang more frequently for longer periods of time on thicker support surfaces or as you move more dynamically while hanging.

 

Sideways Arm-Hang Movements

You can use double-hand hangs to move sideways using either power or gravity and momentum. Because they rely only on the hands, the hangs become more challenging as more momentum is used, the surface of the support becomes thicker, or the surface becomes more slippery.

Slide Side Traverse

The Slide Side Traverse is an entry arm-hang traverse that’s straightforward and requires no technique and little strength because it’s done with minimal body swing and no arm flexion. Therefore, it’s conveniently used by people who don’t have enough strength to perform other arm-hang traverse techniques yet. You may also alternate the Side Swing Traverse with a Slide Swing Traverse as long as you intentionally keep increasing the otherwise slight side swing the Slide Swing Traverse naturally generates.

 

1 Begin in a Wide-Base Double-Hand Hang.

2 Release your rear hand to slide it forward and place it next to your other hand, which puts you in a narrow-base hang. As you move your rear hand, your front hand becomes the main point of support for your body weight, which helps your center of gravity shift in the direction you’re heading. Keep your shoulder blades retracted, which is easy because the supporting surface is used as a guide for the hand, arm, and shoulder position.

3 Release your forward hand and slide it forward to reach it as far forward as possible if you have great frictional grip; otherwise, shorter distances are safer.

Side Swing and Side Swing Traverse

The Side Swing is a dynamic, pendulum-like approach to traversing that’s energy-efficient and requires no power. However, it does demand great grip strength—especially if the support surface is thick—because a swing momentum is involved with full body weight briefly supported by a single hand as the other hand slides over the supporting surface to move forward. You also must have the ability to keep your upper body and lower body tightly connected through your core to maintain positional control and balance.

You will maintain the same body orientation parallel to the surface of support at all times. You can reduce or increase both the amplitude of the swing and the width of the base of support, which makes the level of difficulty of the movement easily manageable. When the surface is rounded, the movement becomes ineffective past a certain thickness. When that happens, or if the surface is slippery, it’s best to opt for a Power Side Traverse or even an Arm-Leg Hang Traverse.

The Double-Hand Hang Side Swing is involved in this technique, which means you should first learn it as a separate, stationary drill (see the next section) so you can create more swing momentum and amplitude through the combination of muscular action and the pull of gravity while still maintaining positional control. The Side Swing also is useful to efficiently transition to arm-leg hang positions from the Double-Hand Side Hang.

 

1 Begin in a Neutral-Base Double-Hand Hang. You can make the base a little wider, depending on your grip strength and how ample you want your movement to be. Keep your shoulder blades retracted and your arms extended and raise your hips and legs to one side, contracting your obliques to initiate the movement. You don’t need to force your legs to elevate too high; you can progressively gain greater elevation through several Side Swing motions. You should entirely generate the swing momentum through the lower body without active assistance from your arms.

2 Allow gravity to pull you back down and swing you up on the other side. As your legs start to elevate on the other side, you may assist the momentum by contracting your obliques to keep elevating your hips and legs a little higher. You don’t need to pull on your arms to generate momentum. Your rear arm may passively bend slightly because of the elevation of your center of gravity; otherwise, both arms remain in the lockout position. You may swing forward and backward one more time if you feel that you need more momentum, or you can do it as a practice drill.

3 As your legs reach the top of the back swing and as the momentum makes your rear hand feel light, release your rear hand. The forward swing immediately accelerates as your base of support suddenly shifts forward while your center of gravity is high at the back, so your center of gravity is pulled down and forward very swiftly.

4 Before your legs return to center, put your free hand back on the supporting surface as close as possible to your fixed hand in a narrow-base hang.

5 As you enter the front half of the swing, release the front hand and extend your front arm forward.

6 Place your front hand farther on the supporting surface as you reach the top of the swing. From here, let your body swing back and resume the motion from step 4.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

You may use upper-body strength and pull with the arms at any point during the Side Swing Traverse to tighten your grip if you feel that it’s unsure. Losing your grip means immediately falling. Otherwise, keep your arms relaxed whenever possible.

You may also intentionally drive the Side Swing motion entirely through the arms with two benefits: teaching you the difference between driving the Side Swing motion from the lower body and driving it from the upper body and building upper-body pulling strength.

 

Stationary Double-Hand Hang Side Swing Drill

Combine steps 1 and 2 from the Side Swing Traverse in a repetitive sequence. You can use this drill to learn to control a stable and efficient hanging Side Swing position and motion (see the faults later in this section) or to warm up for the Side Swing Traverse.

(An alternative drill involves generating the Side Swing motion by flexing your arms to build upper-body strength that is useful in the Power Side Traverse).

Faults

• Generating the swing by pulling down the arms.

• Leading the sequence through your arms instead of allowing the Side Swing to determine the timing of your arm sequence, which disrupts the rhythm of the technique.

• Generating too much or not enough swing amplitude in relation to the width or the base of support. The amplitude of the Side Swing should match the width of the base of support. Use less amplitude with a narrower base, and more amplitude with a wider base.

• Lack of positional control with hip rotation that results in altering the direction of the swing and your balance.

Arm Hang to Arm-Leg Hang Transitions

To transition from arm hangs to arm-leg hangs, you must be able to elevate your legs all the way to the surface of support. The types of hangs you use depend first on how reliable a given arm-hang position is on a given surface and your level of strength at a given moment. Other factors include your body orientation in relation to the supporting surface (which relates to the movement you want to do after the transition), your level of strength, and how fast you want to do the transition. Contrary to common belief, relatively little upper-body strength is required for these transitions, but a certain level of abdominal strength is essential. In the absence of the minimum level of strength required, even the easiest methods are out of reach.

The most efficient way to do the transition starts in a Narrow-Base, Double-Hand Front Hang. You use body-weight transfer through a Front Swing to reach a Double-Hand Foot-Pinch Hang. From there, you can establish a more elevated arm-leg hang. The next strategy is to start in a Double-Hand Side Hang and use a Side Swing to reach a Double-Hand Single-Leg-Hook Hang. Both strategies are the prerequisite to being able to do a Swing Up.

Beyond those two methods that use momentum, you can make similar transitions by relying only on strength to elevate the legs toward the surface of support, which is faster but more energy costly. It’s also a good idea to avoid the swing momentum if gripping friction in an arm hang is challenging—for instance, if the surface of support tends to be slippery. However, you should develop the ability to perform these transitions either way with the same level of ease, and training both is mutually beneficial: The swing momentum–assisted approach helps develop greater abdominal strength, and the strength-based, no-momentum approach develops greater abdominal and core strength, which makes the swing-momentum method even easier and more effective. In fact, the abdominal strength gained through those drills is also essential for upward climbing movements from a Double-Hand Side Hang, such as the Pop-Up, Power-Up, or Roll-Up.

Drills

When the supporting surface is horizontal, your feet or legs must move 45 degrees from an arm-hang vertical position to become points of support in an arm-leg hang horizontal body position. The higher you elevate your hips and legs, the more horizontal your body position becomes.

If the supporting surface is at an angle, your hands or arms should be higher than your legs; otherwise, an inverted position becomes less and less sustainable as the angle increase and the legs are at a higher level than the hands or arms. This holds true for techniques such as the Swing-Up and for the traversing arm-leg hang techniques. The greater the angle (closer to a vertical surface), the shorter and easier the transition in terms of abdominal strength (although the greater the demand on hand grip strength), which can be a better approach for beginners who lack the abdominal strength needed for a horizontal surface.

Drills should be done with swing momentum first; then you progress to doing them without momentum as you build strength. The most difficult progressions don’t use momentum and are as explosive as possible to build power.

Following is a list of drills that are components of transitions, in which you elevate your legs progressively higher.

 

1 Knee tucks as high as you can

2 Feet to hand level (touch the surface of support)

3 Single-leg hook from a side arm-hang

 

4 Side knee tucks

5 Single-side foot to hand level (touch the surface of support)

6 Single-leg hook

Arm-Leg Hangs

Arm-leg hangs are stronger, more secure, and more reliable than arm hangs, which is especially important if you’re dealing with an added load (for example, light equipment, clothing, or heavy footwear) or if you’re already fatigued. You can hold an arm-leg hang for a relatively brief time to rest before returning to an arm hang or as a transitional position to achieve more elevated positions above the supporting surface. Most arm-leg hangs are front hangs because they use points of support on each side of the supporting surface, which means you can use only traversing movements. Side hangs, in which all points of support are on one side of the supporting surface, enable upward climbing movements, such as the Swing-Up.

The positions in the next set of photos display progressively more elevated points of support, which is not related to the level of difficulty or importance of such-or-such hang. Only through practice can you discover what positions are more difficult for you and what practical value is attached to each position.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Approach arm-leg hangs with the same attention to variety I’ve mentioned before. Switching from position to position can easily make for a grueling “workout.”

 

SAFETY NOTE

 

Holding a horizontal hang with your back facing down is not as safe as hanging by your hands with your feet close to the ground. Safe practice means starting with low heights and thin surfaces; you need to be ready to let go of your feet or legs before letting go of your arms so that you regain a vertical position prior to releasing the hang entirely. A crash pad or person to spot you is very handy.

   

1 Double-Hand Foot-Pinch Hang

2 Single-Hand Foot-Pinch Hang

3 Double-Arm-Hook Foot-Pinch Hang

4 Single-Arm-Hook Foot-Pinch Hang

 

5 Double-Hand, Double-Leg-Hook Hang

6 Single-Hand, Double-Leg-Hook Hang

7 Double-Hand, Triangle-Leg-Hook Hang

8 Double-Hand, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

 

9 Ipsilateral Single-Hand, Single-Leg-Hook Hang (also possible in a contralateral position)

10 Double-Arm-Hook, Double-Leg-Hook Hang

11 Single-Arm-Hook, Double-Leg-Hook Hang

12 Double-Arm-Hook, Triangle-Leg Hook Hang

 

13 Contralateral Single-Arm-Hook, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

14 Contralateral Single-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

15 Ipsilateral Single-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

 

16 Single-Hand, Single-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

17 Double-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

18 Double-Armpit Single-Leg-Hook Hang

19 Triangle-Leg-Hook Hang (inverted vertical position)

Arm-Leg Hang Traverse Movements

Traversing a horizontal surface (a long tree limb, a metal pole, or a rope) by balancing on top of it maybe impossible, very unsafe, or just too slow, especially when the surface is narrow, rounded, slippery, or unstable. Those problematic factors can be made even worse if strong winds are blowing, if it’s raining and dark, if you’re fatigued and lack mental sharpness, or if you’re carrying a load. The Leg-Hook Traverse can be a more effective and safer way to deal with such environmental variables.

The Leg-Hook Traverse is an effective alternative to all the problems with balancing. If you unintentionally go into an arm-leg hang after losing balance, you may resume movement in a hang instead of going through the effort of re-establishing a top balancing position. The Swing Leg-Hook Traverse is another arm-leg hang technique that’s faster than the Leg-Hook Traverse, but it works only with great gripping friction, such as when you’re hanging from a rope.

The direction of the movement in such inverted hang positions can seem counterintuitive, as going forward means that you’re going in the direction of your head and going backward means you’re moving in the direction of your feet. Going forward in the direction of your head is more intuitive and easier and always preferred to moving backward in the direction of your feet, unless you’re climbing down a declined surface of support. Indeed, when the surface of support is at an angle, the more efficient positioning is with the hands holding on the higher side of the surface with your legs on the lower side, regardless of whether you’re going upward or downward.

Leg-Hook Traverse

With both arm and leg points of support on both sides, the Leg-Hook Traverse enables you to traverse the supporting surface with a pattern like the Foot-Hand Crawl. The Leg-Hook Traverse is a 4-3 points of support sequence, but it’s in an inverted, hanging position. It’s slower than its swinging counterpart, but it’s stronger, safer, and more economical.

 

1 Assume a contralateral Double-Hand, Double-Leg-Hook Hang. On one side of your body, your leg and hand are relatively close to each other, whereas they’re more distant from each other on the other side. Your front leg is more securely hooked at a close angle (it’s more perpendicularly angled with the surface, and your foot is slightly below the knee of the same leg) than the rear one; the front leg is the point of support while you release the rear leg as you move. There must be sufficient space between the front leg and rear hand so that the rear leg can be positioned between the two without creating a stiff, compact position. Keep your arms straight whenever possible.

2 Shift your body weight more to the front leg so you can release the rear leg and slide the rear leg off the rope. A quick release of the leg or an unstable surface might cause your center of gravity to shift and make you slightly swing. In this case, you may use the momentum created to move the free leg forward slightly toward your hands.

3 Hook the moving leg over the supporting surface in front of the supporting leg and behind the rear hand, securing the point of support in your kneepit (the back of the knee). At this point you’re in a hanging ipsilateral position, but you’re also more secure with four points of support.

4 Release the rear hand and reach it forward overhead to return to the starting contralateral position but on the opposite side. From there, repeat the sequence on the other side to continue traversing forward.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Start practicing on a horizontal surface that provides a strong grip for your hands but is gentle on your kneepits (such as a metal bar that’s two or three inches in diameter) and isn’t too high so you can easily get into position and step down. Progressions include surfaces that are thicker, unstable, and more slippery.

Optionally, you can hook your arms around the surface. You can use the arm-hook option when the surface becomes less secure or as a position for a temporary recovery. This option is slower because it shortens your arm reach (how far you can extend your arms to create a further point of support), but it’s easier to prevent the hooked arm from sliding off the surface than it is to prevent your hand from losing its grip.

Another option is the Heel-Hook Traverse, but that movement works only with boots that accentuate the back of the heel and allow enough friction for it to become a point of support.

 

Swing Leg-Hook Traverse

This technique provides a very fast method of traversing a rope, but it requires great frictional grip in the hands, great abdominal strength, and impeccable positional control and coordination to replicate the sequence with flawless timing. In short, even if you possess the strength required for the movement, you can become confused easily if your technique isn’t sharp. Once you’ve mastered it, you might feel like a pirate on his way to board another ship.

 

1 Begin in a Double-Hand, Single-Leg-Hook Hang with your free leg fully relaxed and extended beneath you. Swing your free leg up toward the rope. At the top of the swing, the momentum of the swinging leg causes your weight to lift off the supporting leg, which enables you to simultaneously release that leg. Using a contralateral pattern, bring the hand opposite the swinging leg forward, and grip the rope as far forward as possible.

 

2 As you hook the swinging leg around the rope, pull yourself forward by bringing your arms toward your hips so that your shoulders are directly under your hands. Allow your free leg to hang beneath you in full extension. Repeat the pattern on the other side by swinging your free leg up toward the rope. Again, as your weight shifts off the supporting leg, release it and simultaneously reach the hand on the opposite side as the swinging leg as far forward as possible, pulling yourself forward along the rope with the other arm.

 

3 Hook your swinging leg over the rope and finish in a Double-Hand, Single-Leg Hook Hang. Continue along the rope by repeating steps 1 and 2.

Faults

Faults in the Swing Leg-Hook Traverse are usually like the faults for the Leg-Hook Traverse except that they tend to be magnified by the swinging momentum of the movement. Re-establishing a reliable leg position is the most important part of efficiency in this technique. What also often happens is that when you reposition the leg, it’s easy to pull it too high and shrink your position or to not move the trail hand as you reposition the hooked leg, which ends in entangled legs and hands.

Arm-Leg Hang Upward Movements

Establishing a balanced position on top of a horizontal surface of support starting from a Double-Hand Hang, without jumping momentum or pushing off anything with your feet, is not only a practical skill; it’s an incredibly rewarding—even exhilarating—experience the first time you achieve it. This can be done with no less than six techniques, three of which are arm-leg hang movements. The three others are arm-hang movements.

The arm-leg hang upward movement techniques are called swing-ups. Interestingly, the upward movements from arm-leg hangs are skill-to-skill transitions to balancing in the sense that the top position is basically a balancing position.

I start with the most approachable movement that employs the easiest strategy, which is the Sliding Swing-Up. (Keep in mind that easiest does not mean easy in any way.) Although the method relies a lot on technique, it also relies on a fundamental level of strength that no amount of technique can replace. One of the big challenges that beginners face is being able to establish the arm-leg hang from the Double-Hand Hang without assistance—no jumping into position or pushing with the feet on a vertical surface. Therefore, all the necessary stages and transitions involved can be broken down into simpler, specific drills to help you build the strength, stability, and confidence you need to perform the entire sequence effectively.

The fastest way to transition from the Double-Hand Hang to an arm-leg hang is to simply pull yourself directly into it.

However, such a transition requires strength that you might not have developed yet. So, before I describe the Sliding Swing-Up per se, I show you the transition from a Double-Hand Hang to an arm-leg hang called the Double-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang that’s more accessible to those who lack strength. This transition combined with the Sliding Swing-Up represents the easiest method to mount to the top of a horizontal support surface from a Double-Hand Hang without assistance.

Establishing the Double-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang

 

1 Assume a stationary Narrow-Base, Double-Hand Front Hang. You may interlace your fingers for better hand grip.

2 Initiate a Front Swing. Optionally, if you lack abdominal strength but possess some upper-body strength, during the Front Swing you could flex your arms to help your feet elevate.

3 Allow your legs to swing behind you.

4 Use the momentum of your legs as they swing forward again to lift your feet all the way to the surface, so you can grip it with your arches to establish a Double-Hand Foot-Pinch Hang.

 

5 Keep your arms extended, and pull from your feet to elevate your knees to the surface and grip it in a knee pinch.

6 Slide one leg up and over the top of the surface, and bend your knee to form a leg-hook. From here you may pull up with your arms to arm-hook the arm that’s on the same side as the leg-hook. Otherwise, use a swing momentum from your leg to help transition to the arm-hook.

7 Extend your other leg straight up.

8 Swing your extended leg down to generate momentum and immediately pull up with your arms.

 

9 Keep your free leg and hip relaxed. Release the hand of your free arm, which puts you in an ipsilateral Single-Arm-Hook, Single-Leg-Hook Hang.

10 Place your free hand on the support on the same side as your hooking arm and leg using a prone grip.

11 Lift your free leg straight up in front of you on the side opposite your hooked leg.

12 Swing the free leg down swiftly to generate momentum and enable your lower arm to come on top of the surface at the top of your pull. Establish a Double-Forearm, Single-Leg-Hook Hang.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

After you’ve worked through the steps to establish an arm-leg hang, you’re in a position that enables you to mount to the top. Regardless of the variation of the swing-up you’re using, remember that because you’re hooking only one leg to the side, all variations are unilateral movements. Therefore, you must practice on both sides (alternating the leg you hook) to develop equal ability on both sides.

If the support surface is inclined at an angle, the hooked leg must be on the side lower than your arms and upper body.

 

SAFETY NOTE

 

Unstable horizontal surfaces can easily throw off your balance the moment you swing your leg to create momentum, so they’re the most challenging surfaces on which to practice swing-ups.

 

Sliding Swing-Up

You start the Sliding Swing-Up by hanging with both armpits and a single leg hooked on the side. You do the movement mostly with body-weight transfer that you generate with the legs, and you do almost no pulling from the upper body. The Sliding Swing-Up is a great entry to the swing-up variations; because you can’t pull from the upper body at all, this movement teaches you to use your legs and to maximize body-weight transfer efficiency through the leg swing, which is important with every other variation of the swing-up.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Because your chest remains in close contact with (even rubbing against) the supporting surface, the Sliding Swing-Up can be an uncomfortable movement. For that reason, women could opt for a hybrid version that mixes the Sliding Swing-Up pattern with the Forearm Swing-Up pattern that’s shown next.

   

1 If the supporting surface is not already positioned under your armpits, push down on the supporting surface with your forearms to elevate your chest just enough to slide your position onto your armpits. Both arms should be extended in front of you and relaxed. This is the base position for the Sliding Swing-Up.

2 Bring your free leg up in front of you in preparation for another swift leg-and-hip swing.

3 Swing your free leg down swiftly and with amplitude.

 

4 As your hips rise in the back, pull down on the supporting surface using your hooked leg, and lean toward the side of your swinging leg to get your armpit on the side of the hooked leg clear of the supporting surface and above it. Maintain downward pressure through the supporting arm to keep elevating your center of gravity.

5 As your hips and center of gravity have raised to their highest point, you’re exiting a hanging position to enter a balancing position. The pull motion of your hooked leg turns into a push motion, which pushes your torso to extend to the side along the supporting surface until you reach full extension. Maintain balance over the supporting surface. Elevate your hips and upper body a little more until you’ve shifted your center of gravity vertically above your base of support.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Beginners tend to try to secure their position with their hands and arms by grasping the top of the support surface. This is an inefficient reflex because your balance on top does not rely on tension in your arms; it relies on your center of gravity being well balanced above your base of support. If you feel that gravity keeps pulling you backward, you should pull through your hooked leg and press down with the inside of your upper arms.

 

When you’re in a balancing position on top of the surface, you may place your palms down on the surface to extend your arms and torso to a Tripod Get-Up or slide your supporting arm out to the other side to a Prone Lying or Straddle Sit balancing position. The first time you get to the top without assistance, you will probably feel ecstatic!

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

The leg swing is critical to generating the momentum required to elevate your center of gravity high enough before you pull from the arms. If the leg swing lacks speed or amplitude, momentum is not produced at a sufficient level to do this. Your leg doesn’t necessarily have to be fully extended before or during the swing. What matters most is that the motion at the hip is strong; however, the extension of the leg supports a swifter hip motion and greater levels of segmental momentum through your leg and hip.

 

Faults

Once the base position has been established, the following faults occur frequently:

• The supporting leg isn’t hooked correctly; the leg is supported on the calf rather than behind the knee. Sometimes, there’s too little tension in the hamstring for the position to be secure. When the leg isn’t hooked correctly, the position is too weak to handle and transfer the momentum of the leg swing, and an effort to recover a stable position becomes more important than the elevation of the position.

• The leg swing lacks velocity, amplitude, or both. The body swings back but not high (or not high enough).

• Bringing the swinging leg back to the front will shift the center of gravity forward and down.

• Not pulling from the hooked leg after the leg swing.

• After the leg swing, the body goes upward first, then upward and sideways, and finally sideways. Trying to elevate the body upwardly only instead of sideways ends up with gravity pulling the body back down.

• Not pushing off the hooked leg prevents you from pushing the body sideways to finish elevating the center of gravity to a balancing position above the surface of support.

Forearm Swing-Up

This variation of the swing-up enables a faster upward transition that elevates the body to a higher balancing position. It requires more upper-body strength to pull from the forearms, which can be specifically developed thanks to arm-hang movements such as the Forearm Pull-Up and the Pop-Up and will greatly facilitate the Forearm Swing-Up. (You can find these movements later in this chapter in the section about arm-hang upward movements).

 

Faults

 

1 Improper leg hook

 

2 Low Double-Forearm Hang where your shoulders are below forearm level and you have a rotated hip position. The low hang makes it more difficult to achieve the top position because you start pulling from a lower position and must generate more power and cover more distance. The outward position of the hooked leg and hip deviates the swinging leg and momentum from a front axis that’s more efficiently transferred to upward direction.

3 Improper arm position with the inside of your upper arms on support. This creates several issues: It reduces the range of motion from your arms and reduces the height that can be reached by your body as well as the power that you can generate when pulling. It also brings your chest closer to the supporting surface, which makes your chest bang on the surface and pushes your torso back instead of up. Finally, it creates unstable support that tends to slide forward upon momentum, which worsens the problem.

4 Bringing your swinging leg back to the front shifts your center of gravity forward and the position down.

5 Directing the momentum and pull only upward instead of forward. Your upper body is rapidly pulled to a back lean and back down away from the surface.

Other faults not shown in the photos include the following:

• Raising the Double-Forearm hang too high, which reduces the range of motion and power of the pull.

• A leg swing that lacks velocity, amplitude, or both. Your body swings back, but it doesn’t swing high (or not high enough).

Arm-Hang Upward Movements

You mostly use side arm-hang upward movements to achieve a skill-to-skill transition to balancing on top of the supporting surface (such as establishing a Vertical Hand Press position) or to reach and grasp a higher handhold.

Although a certain level of technique is required for these movements, this kind of physical performance demands significant levels of upper-body power. You must realize that such power is developed only through dedicated, systematic training. If you were able to achieve a successful upward movement from an arm-leg hang—such as a swing-up—you’ll get even greater exhilaration the first time you’re able to achieve a Pop-Up or even a Power-Up by pulling exclusively through your arms. In most cases, there are more economical alternatives available to achieve the same result of establishing a top position on the surface of support, but they’re not as fast, and, in some circumstances, speed is vital. Therefore, the acquisition of these techniques and the development of power is essential for having a broader real-world physical preparedness.

Pull-Up/Pop-Up/Power-Up/Roll-Up

The way you develop the fundamental levels of grip strength, arm strength, and core strength is to start with diverse forms of arm and arm-leg hang positions, transitions, and movements. By doing this, you improve your ability to link your whole body together and prepares your joints and tissues, which is required to develop the ability to perform Pull-Ups. Otherwise, attempting a Pull-Up for the first time without preparation and progression is not only daunting, it’s also healthy. Reverting to hanging position and movements practice is not a “regression”; it’s just common sense and a natural progression that children follow naturally; adults may use the same progression as effectively.

Scapular Pull-Up

Scapular Pull-Ups are about achieving a slightly raised Double-Hand Hang. They’re good for people who have trouble activating their shoulder girdle and lats (which should be the first motion of an efficient Pull-Up). The ability to hang with straight arms and then pull your shoulder blades down your back is an excellent way to learn how to initiate a Pull-Up with your lats and make your back stronger for pulling. Flexing your biceps is the next phase to performing a Pull-Up. You also can use the Scapular Pull-Up to help generate forward momentum from hanging because the movement causes your center of gravity to move forward. When you properly time the movement and add forward motion of your legs as needed, it’s an effective way to drive forward swinging. This movement also helps you learn how to initiate the pull for the Double-Hand Foot Pinch or the Double-Hand Single-Leg Hook hangs.

 

Double-Hand Side Hang Pull-Up

 

1 From the Double-Hand Side Hang, start generating tension in the lats, torso, and shoulder girdle through scapular pulling.

2 After starting to raise your hang from the scapula, immediately start flexing your arms, keeping a straight spine to present your chest toward the bar while keeping a vertical position.

3 Maintain tight tension to preserve a stable spine, shoulder, chest and arm position and movement all the way to the top. Keep flexing your arms and elevating your position as high as you can. Keep pulling your elbows all the way backward, which results in your shoulder blades being brought closer to each other as your chest goes forward; it also supports the linear alignment of your spine (refer to the reverse-view photos).

 

Faults

 

1 Your head is tucked in, with the top of it reaching the support surface. Your upper back rounds, which collapses your chest, shifts your elbows toward the front, and keeps your body away from the bar. Even if you were to keep your head up, the inefficiency of the position, compact upper body, and distance from the support surface make you lose velocity and prevent you from finishing the movement with your chin reaching bar level or higher. On top of preventing you from reaching a higher elevation, you can’t see where to reach with your hands next and could even bang your head. Don’t turn this natural movement into a mindless strength drill; keep a realistic mindset as if you were actually intending to climb.

2 The backward head position is a fault unless it’s an adjustment necessary if the surface above you extends backward or if you want to reach with your hand both above you and toward the back.

3 Pulling up with crossed legs is a very bad habit. You never want to keep your legs in a set position. You can expect to have to extend one foot (or both feet) to be a point of support, or you might have to suddenly land on both feet. You must keep your legs free and ready to adapt to whatever happens.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Keep a realistic mindset as if you are in a climbing situation rather than turning the Pull-Up into a mindless strength drill.

 

Progressions

 

1 Weighted Hand Pull-Up

2 High Hand-Reach Pull-Up: This pull-up helps you develop the explosiveness and stability necessary to reach a higher handhold (as well as performing Power-Ups). You can do it by extending a single arm or both arms (in which case it creates a brief upward airborne phase). When you’re reaching with a single arm, your position becomes a unilateral static hold, which means that your base of support is reduced to a single point of support, and your center of gravity must shift toward vertical alignment so you don’t go off balance. Keep the upper body tight/compact with your elbows in as you pull; the reason is not only to keep a position that generates more power but to anticipate the release of a point of support (the reaching hand) and the change of base of support that induces a shift of center of gravity. By keeping your elbows in, you can maintain balance until you grasp the target or your hand returns to its previous hold level because you’re keeping your center of gravity in closer vertical alignment with the single point of support.

Following are some other progressions:

• Diverse grips (finger holds, rope, and so on), including thicker surfaces that challenge grip strength more

• Unstable surfaces

• Raising your position and holding static holds

• Slow negatives (moving from the high position to slowly come down to the Dead Hang)

Side Hand Pull-Up to Mid-Raised Double-Forearm Hang
(Or the Slower Active Single Forearm Hang to Active Double Forearm Hang)

 

Double-Forearm Hang Position—Close-Up View

Performing a Pop-Up is more than just a matter of muscle power; it’s also requires good technique for specific positional control in a Double-Forearm Hang. The position of your arms on the supporting surface is essential to your stability, balance, and range of motion when applying force. Without it, you won’t be able to develop as much power as you possess.

The details of this specific positional control apply to the Forearm Swing-Up as well. Training the Forearm Swing-Up helps you with the specific positioning of the Double-Forearm Hang Pull-Up and the Pop-Up, and training those movements in turn makes your Forearm Swing-Up base position and pull much stronger and more efficient.

 

1 Stand facing the supporting surface, and place both elbows on the supporting surface at a width a little greater than shoulder width. Lower your forearms onto the surface of support. Your hands should be stacked with your fingertips pointing toward the opposite elbow and aligned at the wrist of the opposite arm. Your thumbs or knuckles are aligned with your midline.

2 Lower your center of gravity in a half flexion of your legs while pressing down on your forearms. You should feel your body weight shifting onto your forearms, and your elbow joint moving off the surface of support to be slightly above it. Start to activate your lats (back muscles) and scapula.

3 Shift all your body weight onto your forearms, releasing your feet and applying much greater tension in your back so you’re in a low Double-Forearm Hang. Your elbows move out and back in a slight external rotation.

 

4 Test the reliability of your base of support as well as your levels of strength by raising your position so your shoulders are aligned with your forearms or the surface of support (or a little below). Your knees are tucked to the front. Maintain abdominal breath control.

5 If you can, elevate your position by raising your shoulders above the surface of support and hold the high hang for a few seconds.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

You can make holding this position at all three levels a stationary, isometric drill that develops the specific strength needed. You also can do slow, short-range-of-motion but stable Pull-Ups or slow negative Pull-Ups (a controlled descent from the high position), until you can do several full Forearm Pull-Ups from the low position to where your shoulder and hand are level.

 

Faults

You might hold the following hang positions briefly in a climbing situation, but they become faults when you apply them to a Pop-Up.

 

1 Base of support is too wide. It reduces your range of motion, how much power you can generate, and your balance at the end of the movement.

2 Grasping the supporting surface tightly with your hands. Unless the supporting surface is slippery, this is superfluous tension that tends to distract you from the task of power generation.

3 Using your armpit or upper inside arm for support. This position means there’s no distance from the supporting surface for your chest to clear it. Also, you don’t have any range of motion and can’t generate power. This is a frequent fault in beginners who don’t possess the strength to hold an actual Double-Forearm Hang. You can hang and rest in this position, but you can’t move unless you either slide your forearms backward onto the support surface or hook one leg to the side.

Pull-Up to Double-Forearm Hang Transition Drill

Once you know how to correctly position your forearms on the surface of support, can hold the position, and even can perform a few forearm Pull-Ups, you must train your ability to transition from the side Double-Hand Hang to the Double-Forearm Hang through a Pull-Up.

There are two variations for this transition. The first, easier variation is to pull up and place one forearm on the support and then place the other arm on the support. The second variation necessitates a Pull-Up that’s explosive enough to place both forearms on the support simultaneously.

Whichever variation you’re able to use, this is a necessary transition you must be able to perform to position yourself for the Pop-Up. Note that training the variation with simultaneous positioning of the forearms helps develop the same pull-up power needed to perform the Power-Up.

High Forearm Pull-Up

Once you have developed enough strength to do a handful of Forearm Pull-Ups in a row, you’re ready to work on developing actual power. Performing explosive Forearm Pull-Ups is the prerequisite to the Pop-Up. Aim at one to three repetitions in a row maximum, and accelerate as fast as possible upward each time with the intention to both go as fast as possible and reach as high as possible. A knee tuck motion assists the generation of power through body-weight transfer. The photos show the highest elevation you can reach before the Forearm Pull-Up turns into an actual Pop-Up.

Pop-Up

The Pop-Up is a Power-Up that starts in a Double-Forearm Hang. When you do a Pop-Up explosively, it can transition directly to the Vertical Hand Press similarly to the Power-Up that’s done starting from a Double-Hand Side Hang. You can do a Pop-Up with a tuck or a swing.

Tuck Pop-Up

 

1 Start in a Double-Forearm Hang with your shoulders at forearm level (although you could start in a lower hang). Your hang must be solid all the way through as when you’re doing Double-Forearm Pull-Ups.

2 Initiate a “tuck” that generates body-weight transfer from the lower body toward the upper body. You do the tuck by kicking your heels toward your rear, which swiftly elevates your knees and legs, which are followed by the hips and the rest of the body.

3 Immediately start pulling from your arms while maintaining a vertical position.

 

4 As you’re finishing the pulling motion, lean your head, shoulders, and chest forward to shift your center of gravity above your base of support. Maintain balance, and externally rotate your arms as you anticipate placing your hands on the support. At this stage of the movement, you’re in a balancing position more than a climbing position. Optionally, you could leave your forearms in the initial position if you want to balance and rest on them rather than extending your arms and elevating your position higher.

5 While briefly resting your abdomen on the support surface in a balanced position, place your hands on the support close to your rib cage.

6 Shift your body weight onto your hands and press up to reach the top position of the Vertical Press-Up.

Faults

If you possess enough upper-body power to achieve the Pop-Up without achieving it yet, the following are the most common issues:

• Starting the pull from a raised forearm hang, which reduces the range of motion you need to optimally accelerate upward

• Pulling too early—before or at the same time of the tuck

• Kicking the knees up and to the front as you tuck, which shifts the center of gravity forward and makes you lean backward, which throws off your balance

• Pulling forward too early before you’ve reached high enough, which means you bang your chest on the bar

• Not leaning forward immediately after your chest has passed bar level