Glossary of climbing jargon

Plain definitions of the slang and technical words used in this book. Technique names have full entries in Part II; here they get one line and a link. Words with a dotted underline in the text lead here.

ACL: The anterior cruciate ligament, the main ligament inside the knee that stops the shin sliding forward.
ape index: Your arm span minus your height. A positive ape index means your arms are long for your height.
arête: An outside corner of the wall, like the edge of a building. See Arêtes.
Babyboxer: A tucked landing position taught by the German Alpine Club: knees bent, arms bent in front of you, chin tucked.
bail: To let go on purpose when a move fails, so you choose how you land.
barn door: Swinging off the wall like a door on its hinges, because the hand and foot holding you are on the same side. See Barn door.
base of support: The holds that are carrying you: footholds, handholds, a heel or a knee. Your weight is stable when it sits over them.
beta: The sequence of moves and body positions that gets you up a problem. “Giving beta” means telling someone how to do it.
BMI: Body mass index: your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared.
body tension: Using the muscles of your trunk, hips and legs to keep your feet pressed on the wall, especially on overhangs. See Body tension.
campus: Climbing with your hands only, feet off the wall. See Campus move.
campus board: A training board of wooden rungs that you climb with your hands only.
centre of gravity: The point your weight acts through. Standing upright, it sits in your pelvis, near your navel. It moves when you reach or raise a leg.
circuit: A set of problems marked with one colour, covering one grade or a range of two or three. Many gyms use circuits instead of grading each problem.
collagen: The protein that tendons, ligaments and pulleys are made of. It adapts to training more slowly than muscle.
comp style: Setting inspired by competitions: big volumes, jumps, run-and-jump starts and coordination moves on modern holds. See Competition set pieces.
contact strength: How hard you can grab a hold in the first split second, e.g. as you catch it at the end of a dynamic move.
coordination move: A move that needs several limbs timed together, often with a jump or a run. Also called a coordination dyno. See Run-and-jump, Competition set pieces.
core: The muscles around your trunk (abdominals, back and hips) that connect your hands to your feet. See Body tension.
corner: Two wall panels that meet at an inside angle, like the corner of a room. Also called a dihedral or an open book. See Stemming.
counter-kick: Kicking your free leg across to stop your body swinging open after a one-handed catch. See Cutting loose and swing control.
crimp: A small edge you hold on your fingertips. Also the grip itself: crimping means holding with your finger joints bent sharply. See Half crimp, Full crimp.
crux: The hardest move or section of a problem.
cut loose: When your feet come off the wall and swing, deliberately or not, leaving you hanging on your hands. See Cutting loose and swing control.
DAV: The German Alpine Club (Deutscher Alpenverein), which publishes climbing safety guidance and gym accident statistics.
deadpoint: The top of a movement, when you have stopped rising and feel light. Grabbing the next hold at that instant gives you a moment to latch before your weight pulls on your grip. See Deadpoint.
deliberate practice: Practice aimed at a specific weakness, with feedback, rather than just climbing more.
double clutch: A loose name for a leap that lands your hands on two different holds in quick succession. See Competition set pieces.
downclimb: Climbing back down instead of jumping off. It is the safest way off a problem.
downturned shoe: A climbing shoe with the toe curled down. It helps you pull with your toes on overhangs; flat shoes are better on slabs.
dual texture: Another name for dual-tex.
dual-tex: A hold or volume with a rough zone to grip or stand on and a smooth zone that is meant to be hard to use.
dynamic: A move that uses momentum, so you can’t stop halfway. The opposite of static.
dyno: A jump from one set of holds to another, with both feet leaving the wall. You catch with one or both hands. See Dyno.
edge: A flat-topped hold with a squarish lip, gripped with the fingertips; also, standing on a foothold with the edge of your shoe. See Edging.
external focus: Attending to the effect of a movement (e.g. “push the wall away”) rather than to your body. Studies disagree on how much it helps, so treat it as something to try.
feature: A large shape bolted to the wall to imitate rock, such as a bulge or a fin. Unlike holds, features usually count for every problem.
fingerboard: Another name for a hangboard.
flag: Pressing a free leg against the wall, without a hold, to balance and stop yourself rotating. See Side flag.
flake: A thin blade of rock, or a hold shaped like one, standing off the wall so you can pull sideways on its edge.
flash: Sending a problem on your first attempt, after watching others or getting beta. Doing it with no information at all is an onsight.
Font grade: The Fontainebleau grading scale (3, 4, 5, 6A, 6A+ …), used in many European gyms. The Grade conversion appendix converts it to V-grades.
Font scale: Another name for Font grade.
forerun: The setters’ test climb of a new problem before it opens, to check the moves and set the grade.
four-point start: A start where each hand and each foot has its own marked start hold.
friction: The grip between your skin or shoe rubber and a surface. Slopers, smears and volumes rely on it; cool, dry conditions increase it.
gaston: A hold you pull outward, away from your body, with your elbow out and thumb down, like prising open lift doors. See Gaston.
hamstring: The muscles at the back of the thigh. They bend the knee and pull in a heel hook.
hangboard: A board of edges and pockets for hanging from, used to train finger strength. Also called a fingerboard.
heel hook: Hooking your heel on a hold and pulling with it, as if it were a third hand. See Heel hook.
hinge: The line between the hand and foot that are holding you. If your weight is off to one side of it, your body rotates around it like a door. See Barn door.
hip pop: A deadpoint thrown from a backstep or a drop knee. Turning your hip to the wall adds reach. See Deadpoint.
incut: A hold whose gripping surface slopes back into the wall, so your fingers lock behind its lip.
intermediate: A small hold between two better ones, used briefly to get from one to the other. See Bumping.
jerk: How abruptly your body speeds up or slows down. Smooth movement keeps it low and spares your fingers.
jug: A large hold you can wrap your whole hand around, like a jug handle. See Jug.
lache: A move from parkour: you hang and swing, let go at the end of the swing and catch a far hold. See Competition set pieces.
LCL: The lateral collateral ligament, on the outside of the knee. Hard heel hooks that twist the knee load it.
ligament: A tough band of tissue that holds the bones of a joint together.
link-up: Climbing a section, or the whole problem, in one go after practising its moves separately. “Linking” a problem means climbing it in one attempt.
lip: The top edge of a wall, roof or volume, where you move from steep ground onto easier ground. Also the front edge of a hold.
lock-off: Holding a hold with your arm bent and still, so the other hand can reach. See Lock-off.
lumbrical: One of the small muscles in the palm attached to the finger tendons. It can tear when neighbouring fingers are bent very differently, as in some pockets.
mantle: Pressing down on a ledge or the top of a hold to push your body up above it, like climbing out of a swimming pool. See Mantle.
marker hold: A memorable hold you use to anchor your memory of a sequence (“after the blue pinch, cross through”).
match: Putting both hands (or both feet) on the same hold. See Matching hands.
max hang: The most extra weight you can hang from a given edge for a few seconds. Coaches use it to measure finger strength.
MCL: The medial collateral ligament, on the inside of the knee. A deep drop knee can strain it, especially when you’re tired.
meniscus: A rubbery pad of cartilage inside the knee. Twisting on a bent knee, as in a deep drop knee, can tear it.
micro beta: Small personal adjustments to a sequence: exactly where a finger or toe goes, or which way a hand is turned.
momentum: The speed and direction your body carries. A swing or a jump builds it; you use it to reach a hold you couldn’t reach statically.
negative hold: A hold whose surface slopes away from you, so it pushes your fingers off. The opposite of incut.
off foot: The foot that is not carrying you. You can flag it or press it on the wall to stop rotation.
onsight: Sending a problem on your first attempt without watching anyone or getting any beta.
open hand: Gripping with your fingers only slightly bent, letting the hold sit in the first finger joints. It puts far less load on your finger pulleys than a crimp. See Open hand.
overhang: A wall that leans out over you, steeper than vertical. Also called steep ground. See Overhangs.
paddle dyno: A jump followed by quick taps along a row of poor holds, without stopping until you catch the last one. See Competition set pieces.
palmar plate: A thick ligament on the palm side of each finger joint. It can be strained by crimping or by forcing a finger straight.
parkour: The sport of running, jumping and swinging over obstacles. Comp-style setting borrows many of its moves.
pinch: A hold you squeeze between your thumb and fingers. See Pinch.
plumb line: An imaginary line hanging straight down from your centre of gravity. It shows where your weight goes.
pocket: A hole in a hold that fits one to three fingers. See Pocket.
positive hold: A hold that is easy to pull on in the direction you need: its gripping surface faces up or tilts back into the wall, rather than sloping away.
problem: A boulder route: a set of holds, with a start and a finish, that you climb without ropes.
project: A problem at your limit that you work on over several attempts or sessions. “Projecting” means working on one.
pulley: One of the bands of tissue that hold the finger tendons against the bones. Pulley strains and tears are the most common overuse injury in climbing.
pump: The tight, burning feeling in your forearms when the muscles tire faster than blood can clear the waste.
pumped: Tired and swollen in the forearms, with a fading grip. See pump.
rail: A long horizontal hold or edge that you can move your hands along.
RED-S: Relative energy deficiency in sport: what happens when you eat too little for the training you do.
roof: A section of wall that is close to horizontal, so you climb it facing the floor. See Roofs.
sandbagged: Harder than its grade suggests.
scrunchy: Describes holds set close together, so you have to fold up small. Hard for tall climbers.
send: To climb a problem from start to finish without falling. Also the successful attempt itself.
setter: The person who designs and bolts the problems in a gym. Also called a route setter.
shake out: Resting one arm by letting it hang and shaking it loose while you hold on with the other.
shoulder impingement: Pain when a tendon in the shoulder gets pinched under the bony roof of the shoulder blade, often from overhead pulling.
sidepull: A hold you pull sideways towards your body, leaning away from it. See Sidepull.
sit start: A start from sitting on the mat, with your bottom on the floor and hands on the start holds. See Sit starts.
slab: A wall that leans back, less steep than vertical. You climb it mostly on your feet. See Slab technique.
SLAP tear: A tear in the rim of cartilage around the shoulder socket, where the biceps tendon attaches.
sloper: A rounded hold with no edge, held by friction and by keeping your body below it. See Sloper.
smear: Pressing the sole of your shoe flat against the wall or a volume where there is no foothold, holding on friction. See Smearing.
soft: Easier than its grade suggests. The opposite of sandbagged.
spin-out: Rotating out of a backstep because the foot is behind the line. A drop knee is often the fix.
spot: Another name for spotting.
spotter: The person who is spotting. See spotting.
spotting: Guiding a falling climber’s upper body so they land on their feet on the mat.
start holds: The holds you must start on, usually marked with tape or a tag. “Hands on, feet on” means both hands start on the marked holds and your feet leave the floor.
static: A move done slowly enough that you could stop and hold any position along the way. The opposite of dynamic.
sweet spot: The best part of a hold: the deepest, most incut or best-textured spot. Find it before you weight the hold.
tendon: A cord of tissue that joins a muscle to a bone.
tendon glides: A sequence of finger positions that slides the finger tendons through their full range; a common warm-up.
the line: The vertical line straight down from the hold your holding hand pulls on. Feet placed on it, or just past it away from your reach, keep you from rotating.
tic-tac: A parkour name for stepping a foot onto a wall, an arête or a volume and pushing off it towards a hold. See Competition set pieces.
top out: Finishing a problem by climbing onto the top of the wall or boulder instead of holding a finishing hold. See Top-outs.
training board: A standard steep wall with a fixed grid of holds, such as the MoonBoard, Kilter Board or Tension Board, with problems shared through an app.
undercling: A hold that faces down, so you pull it upward from below. See Undercling.
variable practice: Practising a movement with small changes each time (different holds, angles or beta) so it transfers to new problems.
volume: A big hollow shape bolted to the wall, usually a pyramid or wedge. You can stand on it, press it or grip its edges. See Volumes.
volume mantle: A mantle onto the top of a volume. You usually can’t stop and rest there, so you press and keep moving. See Mantle.
V-scale: The American boulder grading scale, from VB (beginner) and V0 upward. V5 is roughly Font 6C.
wall angle: How steep the wall is: slab (leaning back), vertical, overhang (leaning out) or roof (near horizontal).