Hold Types and Grips: Open Hand, Half Crimp, Full Crimp, and Which One Hurts Your Fingers

🌏 中文版

Somewhere around V2 or V3 the big jugs start to thin out and the holds shrink to edges that only take your fingertips. You notice your thumb clamps over your index finger on its own and your knuckles go white. The next morning, the base of your middle finger feels a bit off.

This post covers two things: how to hold each type of hold, and which grip is hardest on your fingers. The earlier posts were about feet and body: footwork, balance and turning and twisting. This is where we move to the hands. If you haven't climbed in a gym yet, start with the beginner's guide to climbing.

Finger training (fingerboards, weighted hangs) is out of scope here; a later training module will cover it.

One set of names for three grips

Coaching sources use different names for crimp grips, and the same English word can mean different positions depending on who wrote it. This series uses one set of names, based on two joints:

• Middle joint: the joint in the middle of the finger (PIP, proximal interphalangeal joint).
• Fingertip joint: the joint closest to the nail (DIP, distal interphalangeal joint).

Avoid counting "first joint, second joint". Lattice's "first finger joint" means the middle joint, and Chinese-language blogs count finger segments inconsistently too, so the same sentence can describe two different grips.

The definitions follow Jared Vagy's physio article on Climbing.com and Lattice's grip guide. The Chinese names in the zh-TW version (張手, 半封閉, 全封閉) come from Kirara's illustrated guide to holds (in Chinese).

How other sources' names map to this set

The one that trips people up is Hooper's Beta. Physical therapist Jason Hooper splits crimping into three positions:

• open crimp: middle joint at 90°, fingertip joint extended. This is our half crimp, not an open hand.
• closed crimp: thumb locked over the index finger, fingertip joint bent backwards. This is what most people call the full crimp.
• full crimp: the closed crimp plus a change in hand angle, so the middle joint bends past 90° and the fingertip joint goes to maximum extension.

So when you see "open", don't assume open hand. When you read an English article or watch a video, check its definitions first and map them onto the three rows above.

Something you can do tonight: At the gym, find a crimp and rest your fingers on it lightly, palm down, without pulling. Make the open hand, half crimp and full crimp shapes in turn. For each one, look at the fingertip joint: is it bending backwards? Is the thumb on top?

Which grip hurts your fingers most

How pulleys get injured

The finger flexor tendons run along the bones, held in place by rings of ligament: the pulleys. When you bend a finger hard, the tendon tries to pull away from the bone, like a bowstring pulling away from the bow, and the pulleys take that load.

That outward pull is largest when the fingertip joint bends backwards. Schweizer (2001) measured that in the crimp position the A2 pulley carries about three times the force applied at the fingertip.

Vigouroux and colleagues' 2006 biomechanical model compared the two grips directly: the force on the A2 pulley was 36 times lower in the open hand than in the crimp.

A 2021 review by Miro, Schöffl and colleagues sums up the clinical side:

• Pulley injuries are the most common overuse injury in climbers.
• The crimp grip is the mechanism.
• The A2, A3 and A4 pulleys are at highest risk, especially under eccentric load: when the finger is pulling but gets forced open.
• A proper warm-up is thought to be protective.

So why does everyone full crimp anyway?

Because it really is stronger. Schweizer and Hudek (2011) tested cadaver fingers: with both flexor tendons loaded, the crimp always produced more flexion force than the open grip.

Vagy names the beginner problem: new climbers lean on the secure feel of the full crimp and overuse it. His advice is to full crimp only when you need to, and to practise the open hand and half crimp so they work on more holds.

Lattice uses the half crimp as its base training grip because, unlike the full crimp, it doesn't put excessive stress on the fingertip joints. Its grip strength test allows only the open hand or half crimp and says plainly: "Do not use full crimp."

"Thumb over is stronger and no more dangerous"?

Half true. Quaine and colleagues (2011) found that putting the thumb on the index fingernail raises the total force on the hold, without changing the injury risk for the middle, ring and little fingers. Hooper's Beta, citing that study, puts the gain at about 17%.

The catch is the name. Hooper points out that this result is about the closed crimp: thumb over, hand angle unchanged. People hear "the full crimp is stronger and no riskier", go off and train the extreme full crimp with the hand angle changed and the joints folded all the way, and get hurt.

Teenagers should be more conservative

Bärtschi and colleagues (2023) used ultrasound on adolescent climbers' fingers. Under load, the crimp shifted the middle joint toward the palm the most, about four times as much as the open grip. The authors recommend avoiding the crimp grip until the growth plates have closed. If your kid climbs, pass that on to their coach.

Something you can do tonight: Pick a problem two grades below your limit that has small holds. Climb it using only the open hand or half crimp; whenever your thumb clamps over your index finger, stop and re-grip. The move you can't do that way is the one you usually get through on a full crimp.

How to hold nine types of hold

A Taiwanese climbing glossary on Vocus (in Chinese) notes that people in Taiwanese gyms mostly use the English words, while written Chinese has several competing sets of names. The zh-TW version of this post lists those synonym groups; here they appear in the table for readers who climb in Taiwan.

Jugs and edges

A jug is the easiest hold there is. In her book (excerpted by Women's Health Taiwan, in Chinese), Yi Szu-ting writes that the word originally meant a hold deep like a small bucket, and later came to mean any hold that feels good enough to hang on for a while. REI notes that on a line of jugs straight up the wall, climbing is intuitive.

Neil Gresham's UKClimbing article on handholds points out a use many climbers miss. On large projecting holds you can wrap the side of your hand around the hold. That takes almost no grip strength and can give you a rest in the middle of hard terrain.

A Vocus post on gym holds (in Chinese) defines an edge as a flat surface all your finger segments fit on, best pulled perpendicular to its face. When an edge narrows to one or two finger segments, it's a crimp, and the previous section applies.

Slopers

Climbing.com's sloper guide opens with the main point: slopers have little to do with finger strength and everything to do with body position. The key points:

• Line up your direction of pull through your hips to one foot.
• On large rounded slopers, spread your fingers as if palming a basketball.
• On vertical to slightly overhanging walls, keep your arms straight and your hips low.

Gresham adds: look, then feel for the best part of the hold; crimp any in-cut dimple; find somewhere below or to the side for the thumb; keep your wrists stiff. Yi Szu-ting's observation is useful too: a sloper works best above you with a straight arm. Once you stand up and it ends up at chest height, it's almost impossible to hold.

Pinches

Gresham says narrow and medium pinches are usually held with the fingers half-crimped, or with the index finger straight in what he calls a "chisel" grip. On large sloping pinches, the fingers open out.

His most important point: choose footholds that let you turn side-on, so body position saves thumb strength. You only need to rely on raw thumb strength when you're square to the wall with your hips parallel. For how to turn side-on, see turning and twisting.

Pockets

Yi Szu-ting's advice is to get as many fingers in as fit; when they don't all fit, start with the strongest: the middle finger for a mono, middle plus ring for a two-finger pocket. Gresham recommends being comfortable with both pairs, middle with index and middle with ring, so you can switch between them on a long route.

Pockets are the holds most likely to injure you. Gresham's four rules:

1. Warm up thoroughly.
2. Let go the moment you feel the start of a tweak.
3. Give pocket problems a few tries and move on; don't lay siege to them.
4. Avoid monos unless you're at a super-elite level. He says virtually every climber who tries to get good at monos ends up injured at some point.

Sidepulls, underclings and gastons: holds you can't pull straight down on

What these three share: pulling straight down doesn't work.

• Sidepull: the hold faces sideways and you pull toward your body. REI says to balance the sideways pull by shifting your weight or adding a counter force, or you'll barn-door off the wall. In Taiwan, 側拉 means this move, not the crack technique called the layback.
• Undercling: the hold faces down and you pull up. REI's key is to find high footholds, push with your feet and pull with your hands, keeping the hold at waist height so your arms can stay straighter.
• Gaston: REI calls it the inverse of a sidepull, a push outward. Huang Kuo-wei's magazine column (in Chinese) describes it as prying open elevator doors. REI warns that it can feel unstable because all the force comes from your shoulder.

Something you can do tonight: On one route, before each move, say out loud which way the hold faces and which way you'll pull. On any move where you can't say it, pause, then try moving a foot or turning your body first.

Practice: four scenarios

The answer is under each question. Think first, then check.

1. A friend says, "I always use an open crimp, so I'm safe." When he grips, his middle joint is at a right angle and his thumb is off. Which grip is that?

2. On an overhang your foot suddenly slips and you're left hanging off a small crimp, full-crimped. Why is that moment especially risky?

3. A big sloper is at chest height and keeps slipping out of your hand. Should you train grip strength?

4. The key hold on a problem is a mono. You've been climbing for four months.

Next

Once you know how to hold each type of hold, the next problem is the hold that's too far to reach statically, or the move where you're too tired to reach slowly. Read on: dynamic moves: deadpoints and dynos.

References

• How to Avoid Climbing Finger Injuries According to a Physio (Jared Vagy, Climbing.com, 2026)
• MXEdge Lift Instructions: grip definitions (Lattice Training, 2024, PDF)
• Why Do We Train Half Crimp? (Lattice Training, 2026)
• Is Full Crimping Really More Dangerous for Climbers? (Hooper's Beta)
• SKILLS: Handholds and Grip Technique – Part 2 (Neil Gresham, UKClimbing)
• How to Climb Slopers? Hint: It's All About Body Position (Climbing.com, 2023)
• Climbing Techniques and Moves (REI Expert Advice)
• Schweizer A. Biomechanical properties of the crimp grip position in rock climbers. J Biomech 2001
• Vigouroux L et al. Estimation of finger muscle tendon tensions and pulley forces during specific sport-climbing grip techniques. J Biomech 2006
• Vigouroux L et al. Middle and ring fingers are more exposed to pulley rupture than index and little during sport-climbing. Clin Biomech 2008
• Schweizer A, Hudek R. Kinetics of crimp and slope grip in rock climbing. J Appl Biomech 2011
• Quaine F et al. The thumb during the crimp grip. Int J Sports Med 2011
• Miro PH et al. Finger Flexor Pulley Injuries in Rock Climbers. Wilderness Environ Med 2021
• Bärtschi N et al. Palmar Shift of the PIP Joint in Different Grip Positions… Adolescent Climbers. Wilderness Environ Med 2023
• 7 common climbing holds, illustrated (Kirara, climbingninjette.com) (in Chinese)
• Excerpt from Yi Szu-ting's book 《一攀就上手！》 (Women's Health Taiwan, 2025) (in Chinese)
• Climbing basics (2): hands (Huang Kuo-wei, 山野釣遊 magazine 2007, iclimb) (in Chinese)
• Gym hold types and how to grip them (HHH, Vocus, 2022) (in Chinese)
• Climbing glossary (HHH, Vocus, 2022) (in Chinese)