How to improve on slopers
Slopers, you either love them or steer well away from these holds as a climber. I write this for the latter category as often there are things you can work on to at least make your expeprience on slopers that little bit more tolerable.
So let’s break it down. To climb on slopers well and feel secure on these huge round holds we need 2 things
Optimal body positioning to get underneath the hold
A strong and stable wrist in the open hand position*
*this can be trickier if you are hypermobile or have had previous wrist injuries (i.e. TFCC, ECU or a finger interossei injury) that haven’t resolved.
Now you might find your struggle is due to one of these things or a combination. The easiest thing to start on is to ensure you are setting yourself up in the best position possible on the sloped hold.
1. Optimal body positioning for the sloped hold
If you are too high up and are aiming to muscle your way through you won’t be creating the best friction with the hold and it will in fact feel quite slippery (see below).
Instead, let’s aim to get underneath the hold and truly open hand it, you can even try to spread your fingers out a little bit.
A simple adjustment, yet definetely worth knowing.
2. Training the open hand grip
Depending on your starting point with strength and control around the wrist will vary where you begin. It’s also important to note that if your wrist is currently injured and is painful and clunky with these it’s important to address this first with your climbing physio prior to beginning these. This is crucial especially when training open hand positions as this puts your wrist into what we call an open packed position.
On the image above is the open packed position i.e. on a sloped hold, this is where there is the least amount of support from the wrist joint itself and we rely on the support from the ligaments as well as the muscles & tendons that cross the wrist to provide what we call active stability to the wrist.
Whereas during a crimp you can see the wrist is extended and often you can lock it in in this position and it will feel very secure. This is the closed packed position of the wrist and where you can rely on the wrist joint itself to provide stabilty to this area, less so on the ligaments and muscles.
You must have a stable base that you are operating from before being able to generate force in that position. A saying that I come back to time and time again is:
“You can’t launch a cannon from a canoe”
The canoe in this instance would be an unstable wrist, so yes technically it can be done but it’s not a very efficient system and you are leaking energy and exerting more effort than is required.
Now provided your wrist is happy, stable and not currently injured my favourite tool to use for the task is a wrist wrench. You can craft one up yourself if you fancy, mine is approximately 30cm long and 50mm in diameter or often you will be able to find one at your local bouldering gym. We will be using it for the various progressions before hanging off the sloped holds on your hangboard.
I build it up this way so it’s more incremental and often in an overhead hanging position there are so many more variables at play such as elbow and shoulder control and much more traction (pulling forces) on the wrist itself so we’ll build up to that later but for now:
Pick ups 2 ways (statics & curls) - video below
Wrist extension bias with curls
Wrist flexion bias static holds (when I’ve spun the wrist wrench around)
You may wonder why I’ve added the wrist extension bias, less helpful with slopers however a very improtant position to train as during all grips your wrist is going to be in extension to provide that strong stable base to grip from.
I usually like to start with some static holds and building this up into curls.
We can then look to move into more overhead options with the wrist wrench at various angles of the shoulder and elbow.
You can even hook it up to a cable machine so you can incoporate this into your push and pull drills you may already be doing for the upper body, 2 in 1!
By this stage you would have begun to build the capacity around the wrist yet that’s only part of the equation. Applying it on the wall in various body positions with decreasing levels of foot support and statically vs dynamically is how you actually translate this into your climbing. I have simply provided you with a starting point for ideas on building the strength around this region now it’s important to actually link all of this up into efficient on the wall movement!
*Medical Disclaimer: all of the information provided here is for educational purposes only and does not replace seeking the expertise and guidance of a health care professional for your injury. The exercises provided are simply ideas on what can work for some and simply to show what can be possible. However the possibilities are endless and it’s important to seek the guidance of your climbing physio and coach as to where there best starting point would be for you.
