7 Reasons to Wear Socks with Climbing Shoes and 4 Reasons Why Not

If you’re wondering what to wear bouldering, socks with climbing shoes probably crossed your mind. It’s a fair question, and the answer isn’t as clear cut as most people make it sound.

I used to think wearing socks with climbing shoes was strange, but the more climbers I talked to, the more I realized how many of them actually do it. You just can’t always tell. A lot of sock wearers use short athletic socks that stay hidden once their shoes are on and they’re up on the wall.

7 Reasons to Wear Socks with Climbing Shoes

People love to say that climbing shoes are built for bare feet and that socks cause slippage and wreck your performance. With a shoe that actually fits well, that just isn’t true.

I didn’t buy it at first either, but after digging into it and testing it on my own feet, I found there really are some upsides to climbing in socks, and the downsides shrink when your shoes fit right. Here are the top seven reasons you might want to wear socks with your climbing shoes. If you’re brand new to this, it’s worth pairing with our list of common mistakes climbers make early on.

1. Socks Make Climbing Shoes More Comfortable

The most popular reason to wear socks with climbing shoes is comfort. That little bit of padding between your foot and the seams of the shoe can let you stay on the wall longer, simply because your feet aren’t screaming at you.

For a good five years or so, climbers believed comfort and climbing shoes didn’t belong in the same sentence. The thinking went that if you weren’t in pain, your shoes weren’t tight enough and your climbing was suffering for it.

Since then, plenty of research has suggested that painfully tight shoes don’t actually improve performance, and climbers started to rethink the whole idea. 

Comfort still isn’t the first word anyone reaches for with climbing shoes, but when you’re more comfortable you climb longer, and the more you climb, the better you get.

2. Socks Prevent Shoe Odor

A lot of climbers who can’t stand the idea of socks will admit that the one real benefit is odor control. Don’t sleep on that one. 

Aside from worn out rubber or rands peeling off, funk is one of the most common reasons climbers toss their shoes.

Some climbers have said they replace their shoes up to three times a year because the smell gets out of hand. 

There are a lot of ways to fight shoe odor and plenty of them work (here are 11 cheap ways to deodorize your shoes), but the simplest is wearing socks. It’s cheap since socks go in with the rest of your laundry, and it attacks the real culprit behind the smell, which is moisture sitting in your shoes.

Plenty of climbers, me included, sweat through their feet on the wall. Socks soak up that sweat and make it harder for the odor causing bacteria to set up shop.

3. Socks Cause a Tighter Fit

Climbers who skip socks tend to assume socks will make them slide around. It’s actually the opposite. Socks make your shoes fit tighter. 

This matters most when your shoes have stretched out and lost that snug fit they had when they were new. Instead of buying another pair, you can throw on socks to take up the slack.

The thicker the sock, the tighter the shoe feels. Most sock wearers stick to a thin pair. If you want to climb in thick socks, say for alpine days, keep that in mind when you’re trying shoes on to buy.

Remember that your feet swell as you climb, so if you try shoes on barefoot at the shop and then climb in socks, they might end up too tight. It works the other way too. Try them on in thick socks and then climb in thin ones and the fit will feel loose.

4. Socks Prevent Blisters

Blisters can wreck a session and cut your day short before you’re ready to be done. Blisters on your toes usually come from sweat and shoes that sit too loose. Depending on where they show up though, like on top of your toes, a smaller shoe won’t always fix it. 

You can tape the spots where you blister, but tape can limit movement right where you need it, or hurt like crazy when you peel it off.

Socks cut down the friction between your toes and the shoe and pull away the moisture that makes blisters form, and you don’t lose movement or deal with the ouch of ripping tape off.

You don’t need thick socks to get that friction benefit. If a thin pair is still too much for you, try a nylon sock. 

Nylons were the original blister fix for heels, and they work just as well in athletic shoes, climbing shoes included. You can grab them cheap.

5. Socks Keep Your Feet Warm

The most common reason climbers reach for socks is to keep their feet warm, especially climbing outside or when they don’t have great circulation in their toes. It’s also one of the socially acceptable reasons. 

If anyone asks why you climb in socks, just say it keeps your toes warm and they’ll nod along and agree it’s a smart call for you.

If you’ve ever climbed in the snow, you know exactly what cold toes feel like on the wall. Even indoors you can end up with icy toes from poor circulation or a gym that keeps the place cold. This is one of the ways climbing outdoors differs from climbing inside. 

Cold toes hurt to press on anything, and it’s hard to put real weight through them, which you need to do to climb. On top of that, cold toes dull your feel for the rock and make it tough to balance or trust your feet. 

So keeping your toes warm matters if you want to climb your best. Socks exist to do exactly that, and they’re the easiest fix for climbing.

6. Socks Make Taking Shoes On and Off Easier

One of the more annoying parts of climbing is wrestling your shoes on and off. As you climb, your feet swell and sweat, which makes the shoes hard to pull off, and then just as hard to jam back on while your feet are still puffy.

Socks have a reputation for making that easier. It’s probably because the sock is so flexible that it either grips the shoe and lets your foot slide out, or grips your foot and gives it a surface that separates from the shoe more easily.

If you’re like me and hate how the sock rides up your ankle when you push your foot in, try tucking the sock into the shoe first and then sliding your foot into the sock and shoe together so it doesn’t bunch as much.

7. Socks Prevent Foot Slippage from Sweat

Most climbers sweat through their feet, and sometimes that sweat makes your foot slide around inside the shoe. It happens most when the shoe doesn’t hug your heel perfectly. 

Just about every shoe model has a slightly different heel shape, and unless your foot matches their mold, heel hooks get harder once your feet turn sweaty and slick.

Climbers who notice this have a few options. Buy a new pair that fits better, use an antiperspirant that stops the sweat but leaves the same heel gap, or throw on a thin pair of socks.

The socks soak up the sweat so there’s nothing slippery in the shoe, and they tighten the fit around your heel at the same time.

4 Reasons You Should NOT Wear Socks With Rock Climbing Shoes

Over the last 30 to 40 years, as climbing barefoot took over, shoe makers started building shoes for bare feet so you wouldn’t need socks. That shows up in the texture of the fabric inside the shoe, and some shoes even add cushion around the heel so heel hooks feel better without socks. If that still doesn’t talk you out of socks, here are four more reasons.

1. Socks Add Space Between Your Feet and the Wall

One of the biggest arguments against socks is that climbing shoes are built to shrink the gap between your foot and the wall so you can feel the rock and the footholds. Socks add space back in and can dull that sensitivity.

2. Socks Decrease Friction Between Your Foot and Shoe

Socks can also cut the friction between your foot and the shoe, which raises the odds of sliding around inside and makes climbing harder. That said, like I mentioned earlier, I tested shoes that fit me well without socks and the socks just made them tighter. I didn’t feel much of a slipping difference while climbing. That might be because I had solid footholds on the routes I tried, so I’d want more testing on trickier feet before calling it settled.

3. Socks Change The Fit of Your Shoe

When I tested socks, my feet fit tighter, which proves socks change how your shoes fit. Thicker socks and my feet wouldn’t have gone in at all. The catch is that your shoes may fit differently every session if you don’t use the same sock thickness each time. That makes it harder to learn how the rock and different footholds feel underfoot, and over time it could slow your progress.

4. Socks Can Hide a Fit Problem

If you’re only reaching for socks to make a stretched out or poorly fitting shoe feel right, you might be papering over a shoe that no longer works for you. Socks are a great fix for a lot of things, but they’re not a substitute for a shoe that fits your foot, and leaning on them can keep you in a pair you should have retired.

What About Wearing Socks With Rental Climbing Shoes?

Same as renting shoes at a bowling alley, most people would rather wear socks with rental climbing shoes. Gyms do disinfect their shoes between users, but if the sanitation still bugs you, socks are an easy call. If it’s one of your first trips to a bouldering gym, throwing on a pair takes one thing off your mind.

If you’re renting and worried socks will hurt your climbing, that’s usually a sign it’s time for your own pair of shoes. The rubber on a rental sole affects your climbing way more than a thin pair of socks does. Rental shoes tend to run the cheapest rubber, so you can’t grip the wall like you can in a personal pair.

So should you wear socks with climbing shoes? It comes down to preference. Whatever you pick, you can get used to it, and it probably won’t swing your performance much. I’m a climber who doesn’t wear socks with my shoes, and even after a decent first try, I don’t think I’ll be switching any time soon. 

Still, a pair of thin socks didn’t make me slip the way I expected. My shoes were so tight that the socks just made them tighter. Sure, there was a bit more space between me and the wall from the thin socks, but it didn’t hurt my climbing much. Socks might even make it easier to get my feet in and out, so if I’m bouldering at the gym and taking my shoes off between goes, they could help me spend more time climbing and less time fighting with my shoes.

If you like small gear tweaks like this that quietly add up on the wall, the free Send Edition newsletter is built for you. It’s one short climbing drill in your inbox each week, about 15 minutes of work, no fluff. You can sign up for the weekly drills here.

Have you climbed both with socks and without? Drop your take in the comments and pass this along to a friend who could use the guidance.

Frequently asked questions

Do socks make climbing shoes slip?

Not with a shoe that fits well. People assume socks cause slippage, but a thin pair usually makes the shoe fit tighter, not looser. When I tested socks in shoes that already fit me, they just snugged things up and I didn’t feel meaningful slipping on solid footholds.

What kind of socks should you wear with climbing shoes?

Most climbers go with thin, short athletic socks that stay hidden inside the shoe. If a thin sock is still too thick for your fit, a nylon sock works well and costs almost nothing. Save thick socks for cold or alpine days, and account for them when you’re buying shoes.

Should you wear socks with rental climbing shoes?

If sanitation worries you, yes. Gyms disinfect their rentals between users, but socks add a layer of comfort and peace of mind. The rental’s cheap rubber sole affects your climbing far more than a thin pair of socks ever will.

Do socks help with sweaty feet and blisters?

Yes. Socks soak up the sweat that makes your foot slide inside the shoe and feeds odor causing bacteria, and they cut the friction and moisture that lead to blisters, all without the movement loss or pain of taping.

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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