I struggled with offwidths, until I fixed this!

2. Why Did I Struggle?

Well, back when I was 16 I knew there were many techniques to offwidth climbing, but I actually didn’t know what they were or how to apply them.

So, although I wasn’t applying all ‘normal’ climbing techniques—I was trying to apply what I thought were crack climbing techniques—which in effect were still totally useless.

In our recent Global Crack School launch I talked about one of my first offwidth experiences being utterly terrible, essentially getting 1 piece of protection up with my feet still paddling on the ground.

Of course I now thoroughly understand the problem I was having, and it’s the same problem I see so many others climbers having as well.

3. How I fixed it

So I was actually having 2 problems.

The first being ‘the outside foot’

The other being the ‘pulling/pushing and holding body parts’

The outside foot:

Since that first offwidth failure around the age of 16 I have learnt just how important the outside foot is in offwidth climbing. Back then I didn’t even have it placed in the crack, (let alone use it effectively).

Since then I have learnt that this foot creates

Most of the upward movement

A platform to rest on

And to get this to work all you simply need is the correct body position (side-on), and the correct insertion of the foot into the crack (heel first, then toe).

When I learnt to do these two things correctly I entered into the world where every aspiring offwidther wants to be…that’s moving up the crack rather than back down it…😉

Pulling/pushing and holding body parts:

Now then, although I’d mastered the outside foot, I still had a few more hoops to jump through to actually make my offwidth efficient.

When I learnt

• Where and when to push
• Where and when to pull
• Where and when to hold

The offwidthing game significantly changed for me. I went from the world of every aspiring offwidther (moving up the crack rather than down), to every offwidther’s dream land…that's actually enjoying offwidths 😉

So to make this effective, hold yourself into the crack with the ‘inside body parts’ and ‘pull and push’ yourself up the crack with the outside body parts. 

There are a few more nuances to it, to get everything working in harmony, but that’s the bottom line…hold with the inside, push/pull with the outside.