Crack Training Beginner

I recently made a crack machine with adjustable width and soon-to-be adjustable pitch, right now set at vertical. Since I'm somewhat of a beginner crack climber, I have it at perfect hands for me, which is a slightly undercammed #2 Camalot. I started out just working on hand jam technique and movement, using the threaded rods for feet, and have just recently got the climbing shoes on and tried the foot jams for the full effect. My problem is my feet kill!!! The inside of the crack is bare wood, so once I get a foot in I have to crank so hard to keep it from sliding down. After a couple laps I can barely take it anymore. I've added a few dents in the front corners of the wood to help a bit (I figured most cracks aren't as splitter and smooth as two 2x10s anyway!) but I don't want to make it too easy. Should I be doing something different, or just suck it up and get used to the pain??

Are you wearing aggressive shoes? I can't foot jam with my bouldering shoes, far too painful. But I've got a blown out old pair of evolvs that are probably stretched to above my shoe size, and can't feel any pain in a good hand crack with those.

Where exactly does it hurt?

Are the inside edges of the plywood sharp? try to round them up a little.

Yeah, more info needed. Are you wearing TC Pros with toes flat? In that case, man up. Solutions downsized for foot binding? In that case, you'll want different shoes.

Well it hurts in the places where it's touching the wood! I wear mythos that have stretched to a nice all-day-comfort size, so not much of an excuse there. I did two things that I think have mostly solved the problem: 1. Chiseled/filed some tiny edges and contours so my shoes can have some purchase on something other than straight slick wood, the smallest edge really seems to help. 2. Stop being a baby and just keep going. The pain seems to get not as bad the more laps I do and the more efficiently I learn to do them. I think I was just climbing inefficiently and now I'm climbing a little bit less inefficiently. Thanks for the tips!

to add friction use floor paint. Can u send a picture of the crack?

You don't want it to end up like gym-wall texture. I have a scar on my hand from that nonsense...

It's hard to get away from the pain using wood. Rock is usually so irregular you can place your feet into spaces that form or fit better.

You should go out and find some boulders with cracks and practice while standing on terra firma. Same with placing pro. I get that you want to develop your technique before you commit yourself to an actual crack climb, but its been said many times and in many places, the best training for climbing IS climbing. The major mistake beginners make is they want to progress too fast, and jump up in levels of difficulty before they've mastered the easier climbs.

Feel the bern. Savor it.

Yeah I know it would probably be better to train for cracks on real cracks, but I'm a couple hours away from any and wanted the crack machine to be able to do a few laps a day to build endurance as well as feeling more solid placing gear. Maybe I'm not quite a beginner at it, I can toprope a 5.10 mostly clean but don't feel comfortable stopping to place gear on lead. I figure if I get good at hanging and moving on a perfectly parallel wood crack then I'll be moving with ease on any real crack that has texture and contours. It took a couple times of feeling like I'd never get it, but I've seen a bit of improvement and would highly recommend building one to anyone who's somewhat handy and doesn't live in Squamish or Moab!

Jamming stretches your feet in strange ways, that may be some of the trouble and should get better with time. Ted is right, TC pros are awfully comfy in hand cracks, but Mythos are pretty friendly as well.

Maybe set it to blue camalot for a while and use your approach shoes? Blue is a great size to train too.

Lastly I found after a while that I got better at adjusting the depth of the toe jam so that I was weighting less sensitive spots, you might try going deeper or shallower and see if you can find the sweet spot.

First: As others have noted, size your shoes so your toes are flat.

Second: Comfortize the crack by rounding off the outside corners with a rasp.

Third: Add texture to the inside such as with sanded paint. There are other methods too. Wood is actually rather slippery and you need to twist your feet un-naturally hard to make them stick. It's better to make it easy and less painful so you can concentrate on technique.

I agree with Kent about texture in the crack. It helps you get better stick with your feet, but you'll need to tape up those hands if you're going to climb more than a couple laps. Second is make it a concentrated focus on trying to find jamming positions that hurt less. I've found that when I play around with depth, foot position and actual jamming location on my feet I can usually find a better position. Figuring out good positioning is one of the main reasons to have a crack machine IMHO.

Slick wood is awesome practice for Indian Creek. I would urge you strongly to not add texture. Texture will also wear out your shoes faster and wreck your hands; I also have scars on my hands from a textured gym crack. Polished wood will be difficult, but it will make your a better climber.

Definitely round the outside edges a bit if you haven't already, though. Splinters suck.

psakievich wrote: Second is make it a concentrated focus on trying to find jamming positions that hurt less. I've found that when I play around with depth, foot position and actual jamming location on my feet I can usually find a better position. Figuring out good positioning is one of the main reasons to have a crack machine IMHO.

Well said. We seem to be in agreement all around.

Put texture in the down part of the crack,. if its adjustable it will help. you can consider adding texture in some parts but not in all the line.

Send a picture so we can help you appropriately.

Nick: I have to say, don't underestimate yourself. Outdoor cracks tend to feel easier in many ways compared to machines/gyms (features, better texture, etc) and definitely more comfortable. I recently took the plunge and led my first crack, which also happened to be my first pure outdoor crack, a sandbagged 5.7. The first few moves were super scary, but once I got a few pieces in and got established it started to feel really great. Placing pro is actually not as bad as you'd think, because your feet are usually solid and you can usually find a solid hand jam to rest on. I felt like I learned a lot more leading lower grade cracks than I did following/TRing harder stuff and gym cracks. I totally get your situation (I live in Chicago!), but next time you get outside, don't talk yourself out of leading an easy crack.

Here's a pic of my creation. People seem to be quite divided on the texture.. Obviously there's pros and cons to each and for me, at least with a handsize crack, I can get solid jams without slipping and decent feet with my foot edges I made. And it saves a bunch of money that way! I could see texture being nice to have for finger sizes, but I think I'll cross that bridge when I'm there. The front edges are pretty rounded over, they're 2x10s and I didn't sand them of anything. Definitely more rounded than some cracks I've climbed! As I'm getting a bit better I can calm down a bit and focus on moving more fluidly and getting in good positions.

Looks great. Man, the view from your yard is amazing...where are you located?

I wouldn't use this if not fot texture:

Whoa, that's massive! How tall is it?

Do you guys have an issue with the wood flexing? I ran into that with a "crack hangboard" I made and also an adjustable crack that some folks made in a gym I used to go to...