Types of Climbing Holds: A Beginner's Guide to What You're Grabbing
Walk up to a bouldering wall for the first time and you'll notice something right away: not all holds are created equal. Some feel like handles. Some feel like nothing at all. Some make you question your life choices about thirty seconds into the climb.
Our own Delaney breaks down the main hold types in the video below, with a fun twist: if each hold had a personality, what would it be? Keep scrolling for that same idea in writing, so you've got it to reference before your fingers find out the hard way.
Jug
Jugs are the friendliest hold on the wall. Big and rounded, they let you fit your whole hand around them, no finesse required. If jugs had emotions, they'd be happy. If a climb is mostly jugs, it's a great one for beginners or for shaking out your arms mid-route.
Crimp
Crimps are small edges where you can only fit the tips of your fingers. They demand more precision than a jug and tend to make climbers a little tense, which tracks, since crimps themselves would probably be the tense one in the friend group. Don't over-grip. Trust the position more than your grip strength.
Pinch
A pinch hold gets squeezed between your thumb and the rest of your fingers spread out, rather than wrapped or hooked like a jug. If pinches had emotions, they'd be downright angry. When these show up on steeper walls, be prepared to pull yourself in toward the wall instead of just hanging on.
Pockets only give you room for a couple of fingers. They catch a lot of new climbers off guard, hence the surprised energy, since there's a lot less surface area than you'd expect walking up to one. Go slow and find the exact angle that lets your fingers set in cleanly.
Sloper
Slopers are the trickster of the hold family. Rounded, sloped, no real edge to grab onto. You're using your wrists and relying on friction instead of a solid grip, which can feel pretty defeating the first few times you try one (fittingly, the saddest hold on the wall). Sloper technique clicks fast once your body catches up to what your brain already knows.
Macro
Macros are the big ones. Think whale-sized compared to everything else nearby. They give you a lot of surface area to work with and are often a welcome breather on a demanding climb.
Volume
Volumes aren't quite a hold shape so much as a structural piece. At Coeur, they're normally gray, and our setters bolt regular holds of any color directly onto them for whatever climb they're building. Volumes work for both hands and feet, and they're a big part of what gives our routesetting its shape and flow.
Curious how all these holds and colors add up to a route grade? → Decoding the Grading System breaks down how we rate difficulty at Coeur.
Put it into practice
Reading about hold types is one thing. Feeling the difference between a jug and a sloper with your own hands is another thing entirely. If this is your first time hearing any of these terms, our beginner-friendly tips post is a good next stop before your visit.
Come climb with us and start building that muscle memory.
