You can hang off the holds. You just cannot keep your feet on them. Two moves onto the steep wall your feet swing off into space, and you are hanging off your arms on a problem you could physically do.

Almost everyone reads that as a core strength problem and goes to do sit-ups. It is not, and they will not help. Body tension is a chain running from your fingers to your toes, held actively while you move, and it is a completely different job from holding a plank on the floor.

Why do my feet cut loose?

Because the chain broke somewhere, and your hips swung away from the wall. Gravity pulls on your centre of mass, which sits at your hips, and on an overhang that pull is trying to rotate you off the wall. Your core and glutes resist it. When they stop, the pressure holding your feet on disappears and the feet follow.

The test is the same one that works for footwork. If you can stand on the hold without moving, the hold is fine. What changed was you.

Start here

• Why Your Feet Cut Loose on OverhangsStart here
  What body tension actually is, the three ways it fails, and why planks do not transfer.
• Why Your Foot Keeps Popping Off Footholds
  The same physics on vertical ground, where gravity is working with you rather than against you.

Why does my body spin off on cross moves?

That is barn-dooring, and it is a rotation problem rather than a strength one. When your hand and foot on one side stack up in a vertical line, they become a hinge. Reach across that line and your body rotates around it.

Resisting rotation is a specific capacity, separate from supporting weight, which is why strong climbers still get spun off. The cheaper fix is not creating the rotation in the first place.

Start here

• Why You Barn-Door, and the Four Ways to Stop ItStart here
  Where the rotation comes from, four counters instead of one, and how to spot the setup from the ground.
• When to Flag in Climbing
  The most common counter, with the variations and when each one applies.
• Hip Turns and Drop Knees
  Turning into the wall, which stabilises and lengthens your reach at the same time.
• Tripod Position
  Three points of contact, and why where you put them decides whether you stay on.

How do I make steep climbing cost less?

Partly by getting better at holding tension. Mostly by needing less of it. Hooks, body position and where you put your feet all change how much tension a move demands, and the climbers who make overhangs look restful are managing the demand rather than out-muscling it.

Start here

• Heel Hooks and Toe HooksStart here
  Using your feet as a third hand, which is a load reducer rather than an advanced trick.
• 22 Climbing Techniques and How to Do Them
  The wider movement vocabulary, most of which exists to make hard positions cheaper.
• Neglected Techniques for V4 to V5
  The skills that separate climbers who stall at V3 from the ones who do not.

Where to go next

Tension and footwork are the same conversation from two directions. Feet stay on because you are pressing them into the wall, and pressing them into the wall is what tension does. Fix either and the other improves.

Start here

• Footwork Precision for Climbers
  Placement, heel angle, and why most foot slips are a hip problem.
• 20 Climbing Drills, Grouped by What They Fix
  Ten minute drills with video, sorted by the movement problem each targets.
• The Climbing Training Hub
  How often to climb, how to tell whether it is working, and when to add something harder.