Handjams Are Your Friends: Crack Technique

Hi Steph,

You wrote a crack climbing article a long time ago, and I can’t find a copy of it. What magazine was it in?

I love your website and blog, thanks for all the great stories and pictures.

Sincerely,

Sarah Bowes

Dear Sarah,

That article was called “Thin To Win,” and it was in Climbing Magazine, June 15, 1998.

I still meet people who tell me that they learned a lot about crack technique from it, or wanted a copy and couldn’t find it anymore. Maybe it’s time for a little online review course :), especially since I’m all about desert climbing at the moment….



The key to pure crack climbing, as with every type of climbing, is the feet. I like to start from the basics, which with cracks, is the hand crack. Hand cracks are the nicest, easiest thing you can climb, so you can focus on body position and movement technique, rather than the more precise jamming. If you have never done a handjam, it will feel alien and bizarre at first, but just slide your hand straight into the crack, and flex it, especially the meaty area under your thumb. It will stick, and that’s a handjam. I always say, if I fall out of a handjam, I deserve it :), so I tend to run it out if I’m in solid handjams.



Once you get the hang of handjams, they are the most solid, least strenuous hand hold imaginable, and they come along with giant, solid footjams, what could be better! I feel that I am just hanging on my bones even when I am in a steep handcrack, and it requires very little muscle strength.

For your feet, slide your foot in sideways (wear a big pair of Moccasyms, in your street shoe size, or one size smaller, to make crack climbing a full number grade easier!) as far as the shoe will slide in, and then pull your knee up to center, to cam your foot in there. If you have bad ankles, like me, you might need to tape your ankle. This puts a lot of torque on the ankle in that bad sprain position (which may be why I have bad ankles). But if you tape them, they will be fine.

So in a basic handcrack, the rule is to concentrate on the movement of your feet and legs. Your hands are just keeping you balanced, organized and stable, while you step your feet up like stairs. I like to stand on one foot, and step the other one up at calf to knee level, then do it over and over and over……

Once you understand the movement and body position of straight-in hand cracks, you can apply the same thing to thinner or wider sizes. The jams will vary on different sizes, but the basic idea is exactly the same.

For thin hands, pretend you are getting real hand jams, and shove in as much of your hand as possible, and flex it as hard as you can. Feet should jam just the same, though you will get a little less shoe in. Thin hands are a lot more pumpy than good hands, but you climb them the same way. Don’t get all frazzled and forget about your feet–if the crack is vertical, you should be essentially standing on your feet the whole way.

For the next size down from thin hands, I ratchet my hands. I stick my fingers in as far as they will go, thumbs down, and twist hard, with my thumb inside the crack, pulling elbows straight down towards the side of my body. The feet are even harder to use, as less shoe is going in, but I get in as much as I can, starting from the pinky side of the shoe, and twist hard. This is where the ankles really don’t like it. More tape!

The next size down from that is rattly fingers. This is the hardest size for me to climb, usually orange Metolius or red Alien gear size. The crack is much thinner for the feet, and my knuckles don’t catch inside the crack. But it’s the same drill–stick the fingers in as far as they will go, twist them while pulling the thumb up inside the crack to meet them, and work the feet as much as possible. In this size crack, I try hard to find any little pods or flared edges of the crack for my feet, because even that extra bit will help for the feet. This size is just plain hard (for you big-fingered people, it’s probably more like the red Metolius or orange Alien size), and is really fun when you start to figure out the technique…… No matter what, it’s always strenuous, and never easy, but pretty satisfying when it works.



After all this technical jamming, real finger locks feel great. The feet are very small, but just wedge your fingers in, pull down to your waist, and do the best you can with high feet, trying to wedge the pinky toe edge of your shoe against the thin crack.

On the bigger side, the next size up from handjams is cupped handjams. These can feel hard, because you don’t get a solid handjam, and it’s a little too small for a fist jam. But just remember, you couldn’t ask for better footjams. Concentrate on the feet, trust the cupped hands, and you can cruise right up.

The next size up from cupped hands is a fist crack. Fists are great, super solid, and come along with perfect foot jams. Stick your fist in, either palm up or palm in, depending on what will feel better, and squeeze it really hard. If it gets a little too big, focus on your good feet, and stick your thumb out slightly. Even better, stick your forearm in, and pull it back towards your shoulder as if you’re doing a dumbbell curl. This makes your forearm flex, and sticks as well as a fistjam, sometimes even better. If you are wearing long sleeves, don’t forget to pull your sleeve up first, otherwise the sleeve will slide around and cause trouble.

Slightly bigger than fists, up to offwidth and squeeze chimney size, is where things get a little more interesting, so we’ll save all that for another talk. Even so, it’s all about the feet……

