Footwork & Slabs: 12 Intensive Practice Sessions (PDF Download)

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All climbers naturally develop certain preferences in their style of climbing. Some climbers naturally prefer slab climbing, but many others progress quickly on overhanging styles dependent on strength, and as a result tend to ignore the frustrating slab climbs in the gym. Building skill in how a climber places and uses their feet can obviously make an enormous difference in their ability to climb technical boulders on slabs, but also has a huge knock-on effect to their efficiency on steep, powerful climbing!

What? 

This plan has been designed by Louis Parkinson - former member of the GB climbing team and known worldwide for his expertise in teaching climbing movement and mindset - with the aim being to provide an accessible, affordable and effective month of focused practice, helping the students who engage with it to build confidence and understanding in how they place and use their footwork through a series of detailed, on-the-bouldering-wall session plans.

Who?

This plan is designed to be used by a wide variety of ages and ability levels! The only
limitations are as follows:
- The sessions are to be performed at an indoor bouldering wall.
- There is some basic climbing knowledge required, so we recommend a minimum of 3 months climbing experience before engaging with this plan.

We expect that this plan will be most useful for climbers operating in the V1 - V5 area, but climbers of any level can find great improvement in their ability if their footwork was a limiting factor. When Louis was younger, he was happily climbing hard grades in certain styles but repeatedly falling on comparatively easy climbs if they were dependent on footwork - this plan would have been VERY effective for him, and would be similarly effective for lots of climbers!

How?

To start practicing, simply follow session plans shown in the Session Plan pdf. The sessions have been divided into 4 separate weeks, with 3 sessions to follow in each week. Don’t worry if 3 sessions per week is too much for you; simply work through the sessions in chronological order, and expect that your practice will last for longer than the scheduled 4 weeks!

Each session has a column of detailed guidance on which drills / exercises to do, for how long, and at what level of difficulty. Alongside this is an additional column of notes from Louis, with further guidance as to what to focus on whilst going through your planned sessions.

Every drill and exercise contained in the plan has extensive additional details and video demos, which can be found in this Reference Document! We’d recommend reading through each of your upcoming sessions ahead of time so that you can read through/ watch any required video demos ahead of time, and minimise the amount of time spent looking at the reference document during your sessions. At first, you may find yourself referring back to this document repeatedly for details, but after a little while the exercises will become familiar, and you’ll need to refer back to this document less and less.

A thorough warm up is included at the start of each session, in addition to a stretching cool down at the end of each session. If you had previously not been doing any warm up or cool down as part of your climbing sessions, including these is essential! If you already have a warm up and cool down routine which you are comfortable with, please continue using this.

What to expect?

In week 1: We’ll be covering the basics, doing loads of precision practice, building confidence in our ability to commit to our next footholds, and projecting lots of slab boulders!
In week 2: We’ll be exploring some more complex ways of utilising our footwork, with lots of time spent on in-depth technique explorations of toehooks, heelhooks and dropknees.
In week 3: This week is all about building trust and confidence in bad footholds, with lots of drills and challenges which will push you to be brave!
In week 4: In this final week, we’ll be putting all of the past few weeks of learning together with some challenges and time projecting hard slabs around the gym...

Overall: When learning something new, it is common to feel as though you are doing it all wrong - especially if you’re learning something which you know to be outside of your comfort zone. Don’t worry if you’re finding the drills and exercises difficult and awkward at first, or if you’re struggling to complete the goals of the various challenges, because the aim is just that; to be challenged!

The session plans you will go through are designed to challenge you, and through being challenged you will learn LOADS; all you need to do is enthusiastically go through each session, focusing on learning rather than focusing on outright success.

What to do if you have any issues?

If you are uncertain about any aspects of this plan which aren’t answered by the Reference Document, if you are struggling to access any video demos relevant to the training, or if you’re unable to perform one of the drills / exercises and are uncertain why, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via email at enquiries@catalystclimbing.com.