Resting, Route Reading, and Setting Your Own Problems: What Actually Helps

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The previous post, Bouldering Problem Solving, was about short problems: climb it in one go, fall, start again. On a long roped route the problem changes. The first half goes fine, then halfway up your forearms swell and your hands won't open, and you're hanging off a big hold wondering whether to stop and shake out or race for the top.

This post answers two questions: does reading the route from the ground help, and does resting on the wall help, and how? The last section covers setting your own problems in the gym so route reading becomes a habit. If you're not yet comfortable with roped belaying, read Gym Top-Rope Belaying first; to start leading, read Gym Lead Climbing.

Reading the route: smoother climbing, not a guaranteed send

The common line is "read it well and you'll send it." The research is more modest.

In Sanchez and colleagues' 2012 study, climbers looked at a route for 3 minutes before climbing and were compared with attempts without a preview. Those who previewed were no more likely to finish, but they climbed differently: they stopped less often and for shorter periods. Compare the demonstration study from the previous post: what raised send rates was watching someone else climb.

So route reading reduces hesitation on the wall. Two eye-tracking studies suggest why:

• Seifert and colleagues (2017) found that climbers who scanned the whole route more times during the preview spent less time exploring and switching holds on the wall.
• A 2024 study found that holds climbers fixated on during planning were used twice as often as holds they hadn't looked at.

What to look for

The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) route-reading checklist works as is. Start at the start holds, follow the line upward and look for:

1. Hold types: jugs, crimps, slopers? Where are the feet?
2. Hold direction: holds facing right are usually for the right hand, holds facing left for the left.
3. Body position: take sidepulls with your body turned sideways (see Turning and Twisting).
4. Rests: where can you take one or both hands off to shake, or at least stand and catch your breath?
5. The crux: where is the hardest part? A long move, a balance move, tiny holds?

On long routes, items 4 and 5 matter most. You want to know whether there's a rest before the crux, and how long you'll have to hang on after it before the next one.

Something you can do tonight: before you climb, take a photo of the whole route and mark the rests with R and the crux with C. After climbing, look at the photo again and check what you got right and wrong.

Mime it: rehearsing with your hands

The BMC notes that competition climbers often mime moves in front of the wall before setting off. Miming forces you to go from "left hand on that hold" to "how the left hand grips it, and which way the body turns next." In the 2023 Medernach study mentioned in the previous post, better boulderers remembered more holds and moves, which the authors linked to the ability to visualize movement.

How to do it:

• Standing under the wall, mime each hand's grip and direction, moving your feet too.
• Pause at each rest and decide how long you'll stay there.
• Where you can't mime the next move, that's the crux or something you haven't worked out. Decide how you'll try it before you leave the ground.

Climbing.com's resting article also suggests that once you've caught your breath at a rest, visualize the next sequence before setting off.

Something you can do tonight: on a route you haven't climbed, mime it top to bottom from the ground and time yourself. On the wall, at each rest, close your eyes and mime the next section again.

Finding rests on the wall

A rest isn't always a jug. That Climbing.com article lists several, and you can find most of them in a gym:

• Stemming: obvious in corners, but also possible between two features on a flat wall. Your legs are much stronger than your arms.
• Standing on your heel: stand on a big foothold with your heel rather than your toe to rest your calf.
• Forearm on a shelf: rest your forearm on a big flat edge instead of hanging from your hand.
• Drop knee: turn sideways, drop the inside knee and press both feet in opposition; you may be able to lower a hand.
• Knee bar: wedge the lower leg between two surfaces, foot and knee in opposition. On overhangs it takes strong abs to hold for long.
• Heel hook: the most common rest on overhanging terrain.

Core-heavy rests like knee bars and heel hooks have a catch: after a short while your abs and legs tire faster than your forearms recover. Climbing.com's advice is to shake out, chalk up and move on.

Some rests are hidden. Another Climbing.com resting article says you sometimes have to leave the natural sequence, using holds in a different order or side-stepping, to find a more comfortable position.

How long to stay

The same article gives rough times by rest quality:

Gyms are different. The same article points out that gym routes are usually short and evenly sustained with few rests, so sprinting for the anchor is often more efficient than stopping to shake. Resting skills pay off on long outdoor routes where the difficulty rises and falls.

Something you can do tonight: climb a route two grades below your limit and make yourself stop at every rest you spot, for three slow breaths. Afterwards, ask yourself which rest turned out better or worse than it looked from the ground.

How to rest once you're there

Climbing.com's resting article lays it out:

1. Hang straight-armed. Let your skeleton hold the weight.
2. Open hand, not a crimp. See how little strength you can use to hang on. On a small edge, let your fingers take turns relaxing, like playing the piano.
3. Keep your weight on your feet. Adjust feet and body as you switch hands so the weight stays over them.
4. Shake each hand in turn. Shake gently and wiggle your fingers to get the blood moving. The other resting article adds: always shake from a straight arm, and don't shake vigorously, because your body sways and you waste energy. On steep walls you may need to change feet each time you change hands; keep your center of gravity directly below the hanging arm, like a weight on a string.
5. Breathe slowly. Gaze into the middle distance and let your breathing slow.

A straight arm rests your arm, not your fingers. A 2025 EMG study compared straight-arm and bent-arm static positions and found finger-flexor activity was actually higher with the arm straight. Hanging straight-armed lets the elbow-bending muscles relax and makes shaking easier, but your fingers are still working. A rest is only as good as the weight your feet take. For the underlying principle, see Balance.

Match to free a hand. Put both hands on the same big hold, one after the other, and you can drop one to shake. The Taiwanese blog Climbing Ninjette (in Chinese) calls matching a basic skill.

G-Tox: worth trying, thin evidence

In a 2006 blog post, Eric Hörst promoted a shake-out he calls G-Tox: alternate the resting arm between hanging at your side and raised overhead every 5–10 seconds. His reasoning is that gravity helps blood drain from the raised arm back toward the heart. Why not keep it raised the whole time? Your shoulder and upper arm would tire.

The support is a single UK study whose results appear only in that blog post. The G-Tox group recovered better than the plain dangle-and-shake group. Hörst himself notes that blood lactate in that study was not high, so how well it works under a heavier pump is uncertain.

So try G-Tox as one option, but don't treat it as settled.

Something you can do tonight: on a big hold mid-route, hang straight-armed and alternate your left hand down for 10 seconds and up for 10 seconds, then the right. Next time, on the same hold, only dangle and shake, and compare how your forearms feel when you set off.

Setting your own problems: spray walls and rules

The fastest way to practise reading and solving is to set problems yourself. Gripped's spray wall article says routesetting gives you a better understanding of movement, and that using as many different holds as possible gives you more varied movement.

With a spray wall

A spray wall is a wall packed with all sorts of holds and no set problems. Gripped says it's denser and more varied than fixed-layout LED boards like the Moon, Tension and Kilter, so it offers more variety in move distances and shapes.

Kris Hampton of Power Company Climbing breaks each move into four variables you can adjust:

He says most setters only adjust severity and distance, but orientation is the most important variable and the one most often overlooked. Change one at a time, note how the move changes, and you'll learn to set the difficulty you want to train.

Without a spray wall

You can set your own problems on an ordinary wall without touching any holds:

• Rules: the BMC suggests setting challenges with a partner, such as eliminating holds or using only certain kinds of features.
• Different starts: use Tom Randall's four start drills to start problems in ways the setter didn't intend; see Bouldering Problem Solving.

Etiquette

When you set your own problem, it isn't marked on the wall and nobody else knows where you're going, so take extra care:

• Take turns. Gripped's bouldering etiquette says don't hog a problem or cut in line, and that applies to lighting up LED boards too.
• Watch for crossings. Gripped notes that problems can cross others high on the wall, and made-up problems are even more likely to run into someone. Check the whole path before you go, and whether anyone is above you.
• Don't draw on the wall. Movement's etiquette guide says chalk circles and arrows indoors just mean extra cleaning for the setters. Tell staff about loose holds instead.
• Check the house rules. Spray wall and board rules vary by gym; ask the desk.

Something you can do tonight: on a problem you've already sent, change one variable: for one move, you may only use a different hold next to the usual one. Climb it and say whether the move got harder because of distance, orientation or direction.

Practice: four scenarios

Answers are under each question. Think first, then look.

1. A friend says: "You stand there staring for three minutes every time, and it doesn't make you send more."

2. You're on a 15-meter gym route. There's a jug halfway up, but the feet are poor. You're getting pumped.

3. You've found a decent knee bar on an overhang and plan to rest there for five minutes.

4. You've set a spray wall problem that's too easy. You want it harder without making the holds smaller.

Next steps

Reading routes, you'll notice the same hold is used completely differently on different wall angles. Read Wall Angles next to see which techniques come first on slab, vertical, overhang and roof. If you're heading from the gym to longer outdoor routes, read Your First Outdoor Sport Lead.

References

• Sanchez et al. (2012). Efficacy of pre-ascent climbing route visual inspection in indoor sport climbing. Scand J Med Sci Sports
• Seifert et al. (2017). Role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and exploratory movements. PLoS One
• Embodied planning in climbing: how pre-planning informs motor execution (Front Psychol, 2024)
• Influence of On-Sight and Flash Climbing Styles on Advanced Climbers' Route Completion for Bouldering (IJERPH, 2021)
• Medernach, Henz & Memmert (2023). Mechanisms underlying superior memory of skilled climbers in indoor bouldering. J Sports Sci
• Climber's muscle excitation and force distribution at different wall angles and body positions (Eur J Appl Physiol, 2025)
• Get to grips with route reading (BMC)
• The basics: climbing indoors (BMC)
• Expert Advice for Advanced Resting Tactics (Dougald MacDonald, Climbing.com)
• Attack! Defend! Here's How to Rest Your Way up Routes (Climbing.com)
• Study Shows "G-Tox" Accelerates Recovery (Eric Hörst, 2006, Wayback Machine archive)
• How to Set Limit Boulder Projects on a Spray Wall (Kris Hampton, Power Company Climbing)
• How to Use a Spray Wall (Gripped)
• 10 rules for indoor bouldering etiquette (Gripped)
• How Not to Be That Climber: A Beginner's Guide to Gym Etiquette (Movement Climbing + Fitness)
• 4 Bouldering Technique Drills to Perform on the Very First Move (Tom Randall, Climbing.com)
• A complete guide to bouldering technique: 8 key points (Climbing Ninjette, Kirara; in Chinese)