Traditional Climbing: 3. Finger Locks vs. Laybacking Cracks | Climbing Tech Tips

So often when climbers are just getting into crack climbing, there's a tendency to use more muscle and less technique until you kind of get those technique skills up. So here, especially in a corner crack, you're going to be tempted to just lay back it. That's going to take a lot more power to make a move. And you can see I'm on my muscle system, and I want to be on my skeletal system. Your muscles are going to burn out much sooner than if you're just hanging on a straight arm, what we say, on your skeletal system. So when I get a good jam here, I don't have to use my finger muscles. I can rotate my shoulder down, and it takes very little muscle. And you'll notice, however, I can't get as good a jam on the right as I can on the left. I'm aiming to slot this index finger between one of these knuckles vertically, like so. And then I'm going to drop my elbow down, drop my shoulder, and that takes very little finger strength. Sometimes it might hurt your knuckle a little bit, but it feels really solid. The other hand can't do that. So it's just going to have to slot in there, and it's going to take more finger strength pulling out on it. But sometimes you can catch one of those pinky joints in another constriction, like so. And that just gives you a nice straight arm to hang on, and it saves those finger muscles.