Crimp-a-holic

Hello everyone, my name is Colin. I have been climbing for 2 years strong. I worked at the climbing gym that I climb at and I'm trying to break a huge habit which I don't even know how how it started and how to break it.

My habit is crimping. I crimp everything, come by to the gym and I'll crimp on slopers, pinches, the flat wall, footchips, etc... I need to save my fingers and go back to where I was a year ago and re-learn how to open hand moves.

So what can I do to help myself in this area ?
I have taped my thumbs back in the past to try and not crimp. I don't even remember how it started. I just feel comfortable crimping everything, even though if I opened handed moves it would make my hands/fingers stronger.

What can I do ??

We crimp from weakness, not strength. Until you develop good openhand strength you will always default to your stronger grip. Try grabbing holds with only your first 2 fingers and working on pockets. Also whenever you are resting on a hold, switch to an open handed grip. Crimping comes natural when you first start climbing because you are using leverage to gain a mechanical advantage. One technique I used to break this habit was doing 30 minutes of easy traversing and forcing yourself to openhand all the holds, even the crimps. Some guys I know use hangboards to work their open hand strength, a bit too boring for me... but to each his own. Keep at it and in another 2 years you will probably get the hang of it...;) Always harder to break bad habits than gain new ones.

Having the mentality that you MUST send the climb will derail your effort. If you approach routes more like bouldering where falling off is expected, it will be easier to commit to your current suboptimal grip types.  (Drag, open hand/slopers, etc.).

Colin Erskinewrote: Hello everyone, my name is Colin. I have been climbing for 2 years strong. I worked at the climbing gym that I climb at and I'm trying to break a huge habit which I don't even know how how it started and how to break it. My habit is crimping. I crimp everything, come by to the gym and I'll crimp on slopers, pinches, the flat wall, footchips, etc... I need to save my fingers and go back to where I was a year ago and re-learn how to open hand moves. So what can I do to help myself in this area ? I have taped my thumbs back in the past to try and not crimp. I don't even remember how it started. I just feel comfortable crimping everything, even though if I opened handed moves it would make my hands/fingers stronger. What can I do ??

Is this satire?

Seems like a pretty simple solution. I had a bad habit of grabbing everything open hand 3 finger (not using my pinky). Made me great at open grip, but it was dangerous for full crimping. I just started practicing grabbing every hold with my pinky in circuits, and now I no longer have that problem. 

i would other reasons we crimp are security and body position.  security because we feel more locked onto the hold, especially when you are onsighting and have to grope around for the next hold.  body position because the higher we are relative to the handhold the harder it is to hold an open grip.  with an open grip your wrist is going to want to drop lower, which can create an uncomfortably sharp angle between your wrist and forearm.

i typically find when i am onsighting i will tend to crimp more, and if i am redpointing i will open hand more.

(edit - another reason some people crimp more is if they have a large difference between the lengths of their fingers.  this makes it tough to fit all 3 or 4 of your pads on and edge in an open grip).

CF Burnsteinwrote:

Is this satire?

No, Colin was obsessed with crimping, probably doesn’t climb anymore though, this post is from 2006!

Tradibanwrote:

No, Colin was obsessed with crimping, probably doesn’t climb anymore though, this post is from 2006!

Fair