Climb Up

If you don’t transition into a stagger after a cat leap or not paying attention to your legs  this can happen. Wall mountain climbers might help you in both cases. It’s not a ideal foot placement because technique wise you can’t easily have both feet at the same height and still have them fulfill each of their individual tasks (one pushes and the other knee drives) as well as they do when they’re staggered.

This could be an environmental issue like the grip or the angle from the top of the wall or if your hand/eye coordination isn’t that consistent. It’s optional to have your thumbs up in a closed grip but you should at least have most of your fingers on the top of the wall so you don’t overload your fingers/forearms. This could be a grip strength issue, otherwise think about letting your palm be placed firmly at the top of the wall and see if can get your first knuckles (the biggest ones) pointing up at the sky in your grip for your cat hang.

This has a lot to do with your hip and ankle mobility. If you keep your support foot too high you might not be able to use it to climb or even hold the cat hang. Hips and ankles mobility exercises together with wall mountain climbers might help if you need more mobility otherwise spending some time in a staggered cat hang and playing with the wall mountain climbers can help you find a comfortable position.

Again, this has a lot to do with your hip/ankle mobility. In this case, it can come from a lack of awareness of the most effective starting position for this movement as well. With your support foot too low you won’t have it’s help when it comes to pushing into a front support with straight arms. Hips and ankles mobility exercises together with wall mountain climbers might help.

This can be a lack of awareness, pulling too much into the wall (like with a cat hang pull up) or the control of your knee drive. Without a good knee drive you won’t have enough help beside your pulling strength (and pushing foot) to perform your best climb up. Revisit the wall mountain climbers and cat hang pull+knee to understand how to use the knee drive for this movement.

The problem speaks for itself. This could also be happening because you’re leaning your chest too much over the wall or not pulling enough to be able to straighten your arms on the transition. Be sure to get as much as you can out of the pull before you lean forward and transition to the push phase of the climb up.

This won’t make your climb up harder to perform, but it will give you impact on your wrist and shoulder blades, which will also delay your micro transition for a top out or any other coming technique. Pay attention to the rhythm of your momentum so you can catch your weight gently in the support position so you can be ready to move quickly out of it if needed.

In this case, the knee drive is earlier than it should be. It could be the opposite as well. To know the exact right time to perform it together with the pulling and arms transition, read the notes on your left and work on the progressions below. You will know you’re on the right track when the overall effort of the climb up is significantly less than previous attempts.

This is usually related to an asymmetric strength on your upper body but could be also due to trying to shift one arm to soon after the knee drive. To perform this technique like this will only create imbalances/impede smooth technique. Try pulling the lagging arm up first and see if that fixes it, otherwise work on balancing your pulling and pushing strength on the weak side with single and both arms pulling/pushing exercises.

When you try too much with your legs to get your pulling height this can happen. Technically and physically this isn’t what you want as you won’t be able to progress from it unless you work on what’s really missing – torso and pulling arm strength and micro-transitions – besides this overload on your back and shoulder blades when you perform it this way. Try thinking about using your arms more/legs less with this movement or address any arms pulling, hollow torso or hip flexor strength deficits that may exist.

This is when your shoulders and scapula aren’t resisting the impact of your weight after your pulling transition; it’s essentially the arms version of bottoming out in a precision jump. Aim your chest down and bring your hips up by engaging your abs with toes against the wall (pecs should feel engaged in your front support to help keep the shoulders pushed down). Work on the front support position, straight arm cats leaps until you’re comfortable and then work on getting yourself straight to that position after your arms transition.

It is very common to see people finishing their climb ups with arms like this. It can be helpful as your shoulder blades will come out when you rotate your arms internally but it can be an issue if you’re relying on this position too much as it can lead to some shoulder imbalances or posture issues that can be exacerbated if not addressed. Think about finishing in a position that allows you to top out or vault smoothly, with your fingers forward. Sometimes you may need to do an easier progression to fix this habit.