23 Tips for Climbing Slabs

Climbing slabs is tough whether you’re bouldering or on a rope. The good news is you can get a lot better at it, and most of the fix is technique and trust, not raw strength. These slab climbing tips cover both what to do on the wall while you’re on a slab and how to train for it off the wall so your next slab feels a whole lot less scary.

Slabs punish rushing and reward patience, balance and clean footwork. Work through the tips below, pick a couple to focus on next session, and come back for more as you improve. If you want the fundamentals that carry over, our roundup of the top climbing techniques and how to do them pairs really well with this list.

Slab Climbing Tips To Trust Your Feet And Stay Balanced

Almost everything about climbing slabs comes back to the same idea: get your weight over your feet, stay calm, and move with control. Keep that in mind as you read through the 23 tips.

1. Relax Your Muscles 

Slab climbing takes a lot of tension, but that doesn’t mean your muscles should be tense. When you’re balancing on a slab, it’s easy to think you need to tighten everything up to hold your position.

Balance-for-climbing trainers like Pablo Scorza recommend that you relax your muscles when you’re trying to balance. That makes it easier to stay balanced and save energy through the whole climb.

If you tighten up, your muscles can’t compensate as well for small shifts in your body. Worse, tight muscles tend to overcompensate when you drift a little left or right, and that overcorrection throws you off just as badly as the original wobble did.

2. Palm Press With The Opposite Hand

A palm press gives you tension and balance in your upper body when there aren’t any edges for your hands to grab.

On slabs you’ll often find yourself with nothing to actually hold onto.

In those spots, take the hand that isn’t moving, point your fingers down, and press into your palm while you move the other hand up. It’s a small thing, but it makes the move easier and keeps you balanced.

3. Keep Your Heels Low

The lower your heels sit, the more rubber you get on the rock, and the more friction you have. That extra friction is a lifesaver when there aren’t any footholds and smearing is your only option.

Think about how athletes stretch their calves with a downward-dog kind of pose. The closer the heel gets to the floor, the better the stretch.

Climbing is the same idea. The closer you get your heel to the wall, the more rubber you have on it and the more friction you get, which keeps you from slipping.

4. Create Balance Before Making The Next Move

A lot of climbers try to get through a slab as fast as they can, firing off moves one after another.

The problem is your body never gets time to settle into balance, so the next move ends up chaotic or takes way more strength to hold steady.

A better way up the slab is to actually find your balance before you make the next move.

That gives you stability and cuts down the energy and muscle you burn on the moves that follow.

5. Move Your Hips Out So You Can See Where To Place Your Feet Next

Unlike on overhangs, moving your hips out can actually help here. If the slab forces you into a forward, plank-ish position, pushing your hips away from the wall lets you see your feet better and get your heels lower for a more solid smear.

Being able to see where your feet are going doesn’t just improve your placement, it builds the confidence to trust that foot and commit your full weight to it.

Plus, like the last tip covered (see Keep Your Heels Low), it helps you drop your heels closer to the wall, which boosts friction and lowers your chance of slipping.

6. Get Your Hips As Close To The Wall 

If the wall is more upright and closer to 90 degrees, the only way to keep your center of gravity over the wall is to keep your hips as close to it as you can.

On steeper slabs, hips off the wall will tend to pull you off, which loads up your hands and kills your balance and stability.

In those spots, get your hips as close to the wall as possible so you can keep as much weight on your feet as possible.

7. Strengthen Your Calves

If slab climbing feels really hard, look at your calves. They’re working the entire time you’re on a slab, so the stronger they are, the better they keep you balanced and the more energy you’ll have for the next move.

Your calves are also the big muscle that takes you from a low heel up onto your toes, so calf strength makes that push feel easier.

There are plenty of calf exercises, but one of the simplest is the calf raise. Using body weight or a dumbbell in each hand, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, then engage your calves to lift your heels up onto your toes in one smooth motion. Lower back down and repeat for your target reps.

8. Put As Much Weight On Your Feet As Possible

On a slab, your hands should mostly be for balance. You shouldn’t be pulling your body up the route with them.

The best part of slab climbing is how easy it is to load your feet, which brings one of your biggest muscles, the thighs, into play. To get the benefit though, you actually have to trust your feet and put your weight on them.

One way to force this is to place your hands flat on the wall with no handhold while you move. The only way you’ll stay balanced and get up is by driving your weight into your feet.

If you’re struggling to balance while you do that, play with your hips. Move them to the side, closer to the wall, further away, whatever it takes until you find the position that keeps your weight stacked over your feet.

9. Smear

A lot of the time there just aren’t footholds where you’d want them. That’s when smearing earns its keep.

Use the sticky rubber on the bottom of your shoes, press your foot into the wall, and let tension be your foothold.

To make smears work, get as much rubber on the wall as you can at the angle that gives you the most tension (see getting your heels low above). If you want to drill this and the rest of your foot game, our 17 footwork drills for climbing are a great place to start.

One thing that wrecks smears is dirty shoes. Keep chalk off your rubber and try not to set your shoes down in the dirt, whether they’re on your feet or off them.

10. Avoid Over Gripping

One of the fastest ways to waste energy is over gripping a handhold. Like the earlier tip said, you want as much weight on your legs as possible and your hands there just to help you balance.

Sure, there are times when that isn’t really possible (see the smearing tip above) and you lean on a hold to reach a better position. When that happens, pay attention to how hard you’re squeezing and back it off as much as you can.

One way I do this is to slide my palm off the hold a little, or hover it slightly higher than usual, so I can feel exactly how much effort is going into my fingers. From there I can dial back the grip and ease the tension.

11. Train Your Balance 

Since balance is one of the biggest pieces of good slab climbing, it’s worth spending extra time training it.

You can do this with specific exercises or a medicine ball, but a lot of climbers love working their balance on a slackline.

One fun way to train balance on a slackline is to bounce up and down on the line. It forces your whole body to engage and lets you practice relaxing your muscles at the same time.

Note: If you practice on a slackline, make sure everything is set up correctly and you’re being safe.

Want tips like these landing in your inbox every week? Level up your climbing with 15 minutes of training is our free newsletter with one short climbing drill a week, about 15 minutes each. It’s a simple way to keep chipping away at your footwork and balance between sessions.

12. Identify The Sequence/Beta Before Getting On The Wall

Just like any other kind of climbing, the sequence and beta are the first things you should work out before you get on the wall.

Climbers often fire off a move before they’ve read the whole sequence and end up stuck, having burned so much time and energy getting into a position that they have to burn just as much getting back out of it. That’s double the effort for no reason.

Reading the beta first also preps your head for the moves. According to Vertical Mind, visualizing each move ahead of time makes it feel easier when you actually do it. If the mental side is where you struggle, our guide to mental training for climbing digs into this.

Part of why the move feels easier is that your brain treats it like a second attempt instead of a first try. That makes it easier to commit and usually gives you a smoother transition.

13. Strengthen Your Core

Balance and body control come mostly from your core. If you really want to climb slabs better, build your core so you’ve got the control to make every move steady from the bottom of the climb to the top.

A lot of climbers use plank variations along with bicycles and hollow-body holds to build core strength. Whatever you pick, think about which part of your core needs the most work and choose exercises that hit it.

14. Move Your Feet First

Since your feet matter so much on slabs, it’s huge to move your feet before your hands whenever you can.

Moving your feet first can feel awkward or make a move harder at first. But most of the time you just need to trust your feet and the balance your legs can give you.

Doing it this way shifts your body weight into the right spot and keeps your hand movements from throwing you off balance.

The one catch with moving your feet a lot is that it can get hard to see your feet or spot where the next foot placement is.

15. Control Your Breathing

This one isn’t only for slabs, but it really matters when you have to be patient with every move, which is exactly what slabs demand.

If you feel nervous or rushed, come back to your breathing and keep it steady the whole way up.

That gets oxygen to your muscles and brain, and it also helps you stay patient with each move and tuned in to what your body is telling you while you do it.

16. Practice Flexibility

Flexibility is one of the hardest things for climbers to build, and it’s one of the reasons a lot of people dread slabs.

If you want to climb slabs better, train your flexibility, and that means your whole body: neck, shoulders and spine down through your hips, hamstrings and calves.

More flexibility lets you make moves that ask you to place a foot high or turn your shoulders sideways.

There are tons of dynamic stretching routines online to help, and our lower body mobility and flexibility challenge is built for exactly this.

17. Climb Slab Routes Often

The best way to get better at climbing slabs is to climb slabs as often as you can. The more slab routes you do, the better you get at reading the moves you need to reach the next hold and the top.

18. Practice Leg and Hip Mobility

Even if you’ve got the flexibility, unless you can lift your foot up near your belly button you’ll keep running into spots that would have been much easier if you could.

Grabbing your foot with your hand to set it on a foothold is a little embarrassing, sure, but it also takes a hand off the wall and raises your odds of falling.

It’s way better if you can just place your foot on the hold using the mobility and strength in your legs and hips.

19. Be Patient

Slab climbing takes a lot of patience. If you rush a move or jump to the next one too fast, you’re more likely to fall. Slow down instead.

Most of the time each move on a slab is slow and deliberate. Let it be. If falling is what makes you rush, our guide on how to deal with the fear of falling can help you stay calm up there.

Be patient with your body, be patient with your mind, and be okay with slow improvements.

20. Adjust Your Body Position For Balance And Stability

A lot of the time in climbing we grip harder instead of taking a second to adjust our position for balance. On slabs it’s important to keep adjusting your body for that balance and stability.

Every time you move, figure out where your other limbs need to be to get balanced before you commit to the next hold.

Sometimes you’ll also want to adjust your body during a move so it stays as controlled as possible.

21. Shift The Weight Completely

If a foot feels heavy or hard to move to the next hold, chances are you haven’t fully shifted your weight onto the other foot.

To keep your feet light, shift your weight all the way over before you move a foot to the next foothold or smear.

22. Practice Slab Climbing With Only One Hand

Talo Martin, a famous slab climber from Spain, is known for repeating his slab routes until he can do them with one hand to up the challenge. It’s also great practice for anyone trying to get better on slabs.

Climbers have come up with a few games and challenges to sharpen footwork for slab climbing, and one-handed climbing is one of them.

With only one hand to use, you’re forced to move your feet before your hands, and you’re forced to practice balance and loading your weight onto your feet.

23. Practice the Yoga Pigeon Pose

Pigeon pose is a yoga stretch, but it’s also a common shape in slab climbing.

You’ll often be forced to set a foot up by your hip or belly, load all your weight onto it, and stand up.

Pigeon pose won’t give you the strength that move takes, but as a stretch it prepares you for it better than almost anything else.

Frequently asked questions

Why is slab climbing so hard?

Slab climbing is hard because it relies on balance, patience and trusting your feet instead of pulling with your arms. There often aren’t any real holds, so you’re smearing and staying calm rather than grabbing edges, and that feels unnatural to a lot of climbers at first.

How do I get better at climbing slabs?

Climb slabs as often as you can, keep your weight over your feet, keep your heels low for friction, and move slowly and deliberately. Off the wall, train your balance, calves, core and flexibility so your body can hold the positions slabs ask for.

Should I use my hands on a slab?

Mostly for balance, not for pulling. On a slab your feet and legs do the work of moving you up the wall, and your hands are there to help you stay steady. Over gripping just wastes energy, so keep your grip as light as the position allows.

What should I train for slab climbing?

Balance, calf strength, core strength and flexibility give you the biggest returns for slabs. Slacklining, calf raises, planks and dynamic stretching all help, and practicing your footwork on easy slab routes ties it all together.

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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