Climbing Holds Part III: Taking it to the Edge

Bill Brown July 31, 2008

We’ve gone over jugs, pinches, slopers, and pockets. Hope you enjoyed the easy stuff, ’cause now it’s time for some hurt.

Today we’re talking about edges-the intimidators. These little guys were brutal for me when I learned, so we’ll spend a bit more time on them. You can recognize an edge hold by your first impression of it-if you see a hold and think “I can’t possibly hang on to that!”, you’re looking at an edge.

Edges are usually small, slightly positive edges that are just deep enough to fit the tips of fingers onto. They’re also called chips because many times they’ll look like little flakes of rock on the wall. There are two ways to approach these holds, one is to “hang” on it, which utilizes an open hand grip, and the other is to “crimp” it. Crimping places a lot more stress on your finger joints for the same reason that it’s an easier way to hold and edge-it relies on the finger bones and tendons as well as the muscles.

Officially, I’d like to recommend the hang method, just to keep my legion of faithful readers safe and sound…but I just love the crimp. When you get it down you’ll love it, too. So master it.

A key thing to keep in mind when crimping is to realize that your hands aren’t going to be supporting your weight-their jobs is to keep you from falling back from the wall. Your legs (again) are what hold you up. Realizing this is your first step to utilizing the crimp.

So when you crimp, you’re going to put your fingertips on the ledge and rest them in a way that you can put a portion of your weight on them, however briefly. I usually prefer to wrap my thumb over my index finger for a bit more reinforcement.

Don’t worry about your fingertips-they’ll hurt at first, but you’ll develop calluses. Once you do, you won’t feel a thing. Except awesome when you dominate that chip section at the gym.

I’m not going to lie to you-it’s going to be rough. You may even want to give up and stick to juggy routes, but keep at it! You’ll improve a little every time you try a chip route, and nothing beats the feeling of mastering a route you used to have trouble with.


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