How to Learn Climbing Technique for Beginners

Climbing technique is one of the best ways to level up, and it’s the quickest way to climb harder without just getting stronger. If you’re sorting out climbing technique for beginners, know that I’ve been through the same messy learning curve, and it was by no means easy or smooth.

Personal coaching and clinics are the best way to learn climbing technique. If you want to save your money, then blogs (like this one) and YouTube are a good way to find free instruction for the techniques.

There are at least 5 to 10 videos on YouTube that can teach you how to do any one of them. The tricky part is deciding which video is worth your time, or which technique to pay attention to when you’re just starting your climbing training. If you want a written rundown of the moves alongside the clips, our guide to the top 22 climbing techniques pairs nicely with the videos below.

Here are 13 amazing videos that can help you up your climbing performance.

Table of Contents:

• Basic Training Videos
• Body Positioning for Climbing Videos
• Climbing Footwork Technique Videos
• Flagging Videos
• Drop-Knee Videos
• Grip Technique for Climbing Videos
• Technique for Improved Endurance

Basic Climbing Technique for Beginners: Training Videos

If you don’t know exactly what you need to improve, or you’re just curious what other climbers have found that helps their climbing performance, then these videos are perfect for you.

How to Train and IMPROVE your Technique: 6 SIMPLE ways

This is one of the many helpful videos by Rock Entry. The whole channel is devoted to teaching climbers how to up their performance, and a big chunk of those videos cover various techniques. I highly recommend his videos to learn from.

Side Note: He uses the same bouldering shoes I use!

In this video, Rock Entry recommends that you practice these 6 things on routes that are 2 to 3 grades easier than what you usually climb, so you can clean up your technique:

1. Visualization: learn and practice reading routes so you get better at it
2. Down climb: helps you focus on your footwork
3. Silent feet: forces you to pay attention to your foot-eye coordination and your footwork confidence
4. Avoid readjusting: skip readjusting feet and hands to minimize wasted energy
5. Flow: practice control and efficiency on every route
   1. Do the route more than once so your body and mind can learn why you do things, and it becomes easier to repeat
6. Focus on one specific move
   1. Find a move you’re working on for a project (in Rock Entry’s case, the dead point) and practice it over and over so you get better at that technical move.

How To Climb More Efficiently | Climbing Daily, Ep. 580

This video is from way back in 2015, before Louise made videos on his own channel like he does today. He’s a well-known climber in the YouTube community and he gives great recommendations in every video.

Here he recommends climbing without strength so you can focus on technique and get better at climbing.

To do that, he suggests the following tips:

1. Keep your feet on the wall at all times. This forces you to control your whole body and helps you leverage your feet.
2. Keep your arms straight as much as possible so they don’t burn energy holding your body up.
3. Practice your technique on easier routes so you can focus on movement instead of just clamping onto every hold as hard as you can.

Rock Climb Better INSTANTLY – 3 Beginner Tips for Climbing Steep Overhangs

Climbing Geek, the maker of this video, is an amazing climber who’s shared his improvements and what he’s learned on his climbing journey on YouTube.

I found it really helpful for any climber who’s just starting to learn how to climb steep overhangs and save energy.

Here’s the basic breakdown:

1. Push hard on your toes so your feet stay secure and take some of the load off your arms
2. Engage your core to help keep your body on the wall and cut the effort your arms have to make
3. Move your feet first and your hands second so your body isn’t in a stretched out position

Five Training Drills Every Climber Should Do – with Louis Parkinson

This was one of the first videos that introduced me to Louis, and years later he’s still one of my favorite climbers to follow and learn from. He knows what he’s doing!

This video gives you 5 quality drills for climbing training:

• Footwork precision
• Rock-over training
• Static lock-off training
• Core strength training
• Pull-up power training

Body Movement Videos

Body movement was one of the first things I noticed when I started thinking about technique training, because I saw so many climbers with this amazing flow that I wanted for myself. These videos were a great tool for me, and hopefully they help you too.

DABRATS Climbing Tips: Placing your hips on the wall

I love the DabRats, but most of their videos are vlogs, so I’m glad they made one on hip movement. I actually watched this video before I went to the gym, and then again while I was at the gym, so I could check whether I was doing what they recommend.

1. Rockover: for slab and vertical climbing, keep your hips pointing toward the wall and shift your weight to keep a stable core while you climb.
2. Twist your hips: to cut down the reach and the arm strength you need, twist your hips to move your body weight. This is especially helpful on overhang walls and routes.

Body Position 101 – Climbing for beginners

Bouldering Bobat is a pretty big climbing group on YouTube. They’ve changed a lot since this video was made, but it’s still a great one for learning how to move your body to get up the wall.

Body position is one of those things you have to keep practicing until it becomes second nature. Until then it might feel strange or foreign, but that’s just part of the learning curve in climbing, so keep at it and try what the Bobats recommend in this video.

• Move from one position of balance to another position of balance
• Make your body position like a tripod to create a stable position
• Rockover: shift your body weight for more efficient movement
• When moving sideways, always move your feet first before your hands
• Twist your hips and drive them toward the next hold on an overhang so you avoid muscling up and keep your arms straight
• Hover over a handhold for a couple of seconds before you grab it, so you can check whether your feet are in the right position

Footwork Technique Videos

One of the first things climbers should focus on when they get into technique is footwork. Good footwork will improve your climbing quickly, and it’s one of the easiest things to work on as a beginner. If you want drills to pair with these clips, we put together a whole list of footwork drills for climbing you can run through at the gym.

These are a few of the best videos on YouTube for teaching you good footwork.

How to INSTANTLY Improve your Footwork Technique

This video focuses on small, slopey footholds that can be tough to use if you haven’t practiced these techniques.

I’ve personally used these techniques (thanks to this video) and found them really helpful, so hopefully they work for you too.

1. Prevent foot slippage by keeping the pressure pushing down on the foothold
2. Trust your foothold and actually put your weight on it
3. Keep your core engaged while you move your body weight on top of the foothold
4. Place your foot on a bit of the wall as well as the hold so you get as much rubber on it as possible
5. Practice placing your feet on small holds and slopey holds

Climbing Footwork Drills! VLOG!

I watched quite a few footwork drill videos, but I really liked the layout, the energy, and the actual substance of this one. To help you remember footwork and apply it out on the wall, drills are a great way to get the hang of it so it becomes subconscious.

• Drill 1, Triangle Base: get a solid base so you don’t swing (create a triangle), then move across and up the wall by moving that triangle
• Drill 2, Switch Feet: try different techniques for switching your feet
• Drill 3, Quiet Feet: climb routes without making any noise with your feet
• Drill 4, Practice Flagging: make sure your body is completely balanced before you move to the next handhold
• Drill 5, Peter Pan: on overhangs, use your hips to reach footholds

Flagging Videos

Flagging is a more advanced movement and it can be hard to understand unless you pair watching it with actually doing it yourself. These videos give you recommendations for how to flag so you know what you’re aiming for while you try it. For a deeper written breakdown, we also cover when to flag in climbing and how to do it.

How to Flag – A Climbing Technique for Achieving Balance

I leaned on Movement for Climbers when I was first learning to flag, and I distinctly remember watching this video. It’s probably the most thorough flagging video on YouTube, so I highly recommend it.

Flagging is a technique you use to get balance with the leg that isn’t on a foothold. You do it when there’s only one available foothold, or when there are several footholds but only one that’s practical for staying balanced.

There are three types of flags:

Outside Flag

• This is the most common flag
• It’s the easiest of the three to execute
• It uses the opposite hand and foot, so you’d use a right foothold with a left handhold

Back flag

• Uncommon flag
• Uses the same side hand and foot, which creates a swing position and the back flag
• The foothold is higher up
• Hips are always square
• Your flagging foot goes on the backside of your foot on the foothold

Inside flag

• Rare
• Footholds are usually lower than the back flag
• Uses the same side hand and foot
• The flagging foot goes in front of your leg
• It usually raises your hips higher, which can help for reaching a high handhold

Flagging

When I was learning to flag, I watched at least 10 videos on it, and there were very few I’d recommend for climbers trying to learn. This one, though, is a great way to learn to flag.

People learn differently and respond to different kinds of videos. Compared to Movement for Climbers, this one has more energy and shows you the movements on and off the wall, which can help some climbers.

Drop-Knee/Back-Step Videos

Next to flagging, the drop knee and back step are vital for reaching different holds. This video helps you learn the back step so you can use it while climbing.

Rock Climbing Technique for Beginners: The Back Step / Drop Knee

A quick but in-depth look at the back step, drop knee, or Egyptian technique in climbing.

• What is a back step: it’s a movement where the hips aren’t parallel to the wall and both knees face the same direction, which lets a climber reach a handhold.
• In static climbing: the back step keeps your center of gravity as close to the wall as possible, so there’s less weight on your hands and more on your feet, without needing a lot of flexibility.
• In dynamic climbing: the back step moves your body in the same direction you’re trying to go, compared to a frontal knee that can force you away from the wall.

Grip Technique Videos

There aren’t a lot of videos just for grip technique, except in ones aimed at specific climbing holds. This video is no exception, but I found it really helpful and unique compared to others like it. If you want to match grip to the hold, our guide to how to use climbing holds covers the different shapes.

Gripping Technique VS Finger Strength (VS Beastmaker Slopers)

I found this video really eye-opening when it comes to gripping slopers. I don’t have a Beastmaker hangboard (mine is homemade), but I’ve been bouldering on sandstone recently. The same problem he mentions while hanging on the 45-degree hold happened to me, so I directly related to how it feels when you try to use more surface for friction, compared to treating it like an edge the way he recommends.

When you’re trying to hang from a 45-degree hold, use the following to make it easier:

1. Treat the hold like an edge so the arch of your fingers sits higher than your finger pads
2. Flex your body so your positioning stays controlled
3. Use the edges around the sloper to get extra surface on the side of your finger

Endurance Videos

Endurance isn’t really a technique, but there are techniques that help improve your endurance, and that’s what this video covers. For more on the topic, we go deeper into climbing endurance training in its own guide.

Rock Climb Better INSTANTLY – 3 Tips to Last Longer

Geek Climber has become a very popular climbing channel on YouTube, and I’ve personally loved watching him become the climber he is today. I hope to see the same kind of improvement in myself in a few years.

Here are the tips Geek Climber recommends for climbing longer:

1. Reach as statically as possible
2. Relax and grip as lightly as possible: pretend the handholds are lightbulbs and try to grip without breaking the bulb
3. Use the back step as much as possible

The best way to actually make this stuff stick is to work on one technique at a time instead of trying to fix everything at once. If you’d like that kind of small, steady nudge, our free newsletter sends you a climbing drill each week that you can knock out in about 15 minutes. It’s a simple way to keep chipping away at technique between gym days.

Frequently asked questions

What climbing technique should beginners learn first?

Start with footwork. It improves your climbing the fastest and it’s one of the easiest things to work on early. Once your feet feel solid, move on to body position, flagging, the back step, and grip.

Can you learn climbing technique from YouTube videos?

Yes. Personal coaching and clinics are still the best way to learn, but YouTube and blogs are a great free option. This post rounds up 13 videos covering basic training, body movement, footwork, flagging, drop knees, grip, and endurance.

What is flagging in climbing?

Flagging is a technique for getting balance with the leg that isn’t on a foothold. You use it when there’s only one useful foothold. There are three types: the outside flag, the back flag, and the inside flag.

What’s the difference between a back step and a drop knee?

They’re the same basic movement, sometimes called the Egyptian. Your hips aren’t parallel to the wall and both knees face the same direction, which keeps your center of gravity close to the wall and lets you reach further with less weight on your hands.

How long does it take to improve climbing technique?

It varies, but technique sticks fastest when you practice on routes 2 to 3 grades easier than your usual, work one move at a time, and keep it consistent. Short, regular sessions beat the occasional big one.

Sara Climbing Coach, Climbing Trainer, Writer

Sara is the founder of Send Edition, author of '77 Drills to Help You Climb Better,' the creator of 'Elevate Your Climbing: Training Planner and Tracker,' and climbing coach.

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