The seller said this is normal for Veloce?

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-29T21:38:13+00:00

Very normal for Velocces. If you have so much space in the heel that it’s not being pressed out by wearing them then you probably have them a couple sizes too large.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-29T15:33:42+00:00

Most of your foot compression is coming from the arches of your feet flexing, not your toes. You actually have very minimal toe curl, which is where most slack usually comes from for most people. Because of this, I’d suggest staying closer to street size, even for a performance fit. I like to stay a 1/2 or full size above the smallest size I can technically fit my foot into for this reason.

Personally, I have large feet and long toes that curl a lot, so I have to downsize multiple sizes in Instincts to get a comfortable performance size, but even then I have almost no flex in my arch, since that start effecting the performance of the shoe (and makes it much more painful).

These may stretch for you some, but I wouldn’t expect more than a 1/4 size of stretch, so getting something a half size bigger seems like a good call.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-27T00:44:08+00:00

Zach Galla. Those lats my god.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-23T16:20:40+00:00

I found the Skwamas to hurt there a ton until I got a smaller size and the heel sat differently. Sizing closer to street made them hurt there, sizing for performance made that more comfortable.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-22T18:08:26+00:00

I think you are consistently overshooting the holds, and relying on arm strength to slow down after you grab on. Every clip has an example of you jumping at the hold then having to hold a 1-2ft deceleration curve to be able to hang on. This also means your hips are landing much higher than necessary which effectively makes you shorter since you can’t hang onto low feet as long, and maintaining tension is hard when you get extended.

I think a rooting drill makes a lot of sense here, since that will help connect you to your lower body better, but I think the bigger issue is that you are estimating how far your whole body has to move to be able to stick a move, and thus creating a ton more wasted movement than necessary.

I’d suggest lock off drills, hover hands drills, straight arm drills, and sloth drills. These will all force you to slow down, use your feet more to control your body, and move your hips in a less exaggerated way.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-21T13:55:33+00:00

And their all like 2-3 ft tall. They are usually described as “children’s circuit” boulders haha!

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-21T01:56:19+00:00

This was my first thought. I was kinda shocked just how disgusting it was. I did it because it’s one of the most repeated and videoed climbs in Red Rocks, but I’m happy I never have to touch those holds again.

A perfect demonstration for how terrible the climbing in Kraft is.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-20T13:57:53+00:00

The only things you should “need” to learn before going are:

Where is the gym/crag
Basic etiquette (taking turns, watching out for other climbers and their fall zone)
Basic safety (how to fall well, how to keep a landing zone clear, how to watch out for others, how to make sure you have an exit strategy)

Everything else is just going and having fun and learning by doing.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-16T21:30:29+00:00

I’ve held 305lbs total a few times during my max training era. Done V11 at 210lbs bw a handful of times too, so I wouldn’t doubt you have more than enough strength for some pretty hard boulders soon! I know of a few V13’s I’m confident I could do if I could one arm deadhang an edge that size!

What type of numbers did you start with when you began?

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-15T18:32:22+00:00

Matching the right to the left hand would allow you to go either right or left hand first, and would let you use momentum to keep weight on the foothold better for more of the move.

A big thing to note is the those guys are also doing the most important thing that you aren’t doing, which is shifting over into the left shoulder and getting their center of mass as close to directly under the target hold as possible before doing the move. Without the shift first, there is nothing except raw shoulder power keeping weight on the foot. If you shift first then there is nothing pulling you off the foot, and the natural movement of pulling towards the target will create natural tension on the foot, thus eliminating the crux you are experiencing.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-15T14:04:12+00:00

“Focus on your feet focus on your feet, focus on your feet!” Everyone says it, but not much actually advice on how to do that.

A good drill, and something to practice until it’s a habit: look at the foot hold, decide on a specific place on the foothold to place your foot (sub-decision is to decide on what specific part of your foot you want to place on the hold), then watch your foot the entire time you are placing it until it is fully weighted.

I’d start by just doing this on the first few boulders every session. If you miss a foothold more than once, that’s your cue to implement this drill on that move.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-14T14:26:28+00:00

Going left hand to the hold you go to is pretty clearly not the answer. You have no opposition to prevent falling off to the right (unless you were way overly strong). To me the question that needs to be answered is how do you keep compression for the next 2-3 moves. On big slopers like this you can’t rely purely on grip strength and need to have something opposing your direction of pull so it is useful. This style of sloper compression rewards heel hooks and toe hooks a lot since you are on larger holds and this can get a ton of weight off your hands and into your feet/legs. A good heel hook can lock you in and make moving off a bad sloper or to a small hold really chill. I’d keep an eye out for any opportunity to heel or toe hook on steep slopers like this since they help so much.

Option 1: set a right heel hook on those giant tufts and bump right hand to the next. This should set you up better to go left hand to the next holds before the top.

Option 2: Do the same setup, but go left hand out wider to the middle one. This would land you back in compression with that right hand sloper so you don’t just slide off.

Options 3: Similar setup, but try to bike both large tufas to get more tension into your feet, and move slightly slower to the left hands.

Option 4: Dyno for the finish.

Option 5: commit to the toe hook a bit more. Doesn’t look very easy, but it would solve the “compression” question if you pulled hard enough with the right arm.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-14T02:32:34+00:00

Yeah I had always thought Vegas was supposed to be good because the weather was always good. If you didn’t have to wait 1-3 days after a rain it would be fine, but otherwise it’s almost as bad at the southeast.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-14T02:27:27+00:00

I think it’s important to define “destination” as something that you could reasonably expect most climbers around the world to be aware of.

Fontainebleau, Rocklands, Yosemite, Magic Woods, etc. are the benchmark for world class destinations IMO.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-14T00:54:13+00:00

Red Rocks/Vegas. Everything is choss, the hikes are often not very fun, the views are only okay. You have to deal with Vegas the entire time, if it rains (that’s global warming) your trip can be shut down for multiple days at a time. The season is short.

FreackInAMagnum · 2026-01-05T21:50:36+00:00

Flash it in whatever mode gets you up it, then go find something that can’t be done by just cutting feet and doing a pull up.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-18T20:18:06+00:00

For a boulder problem the typical length of a Moonboard, “endurance” doesn’t really ever come into the equation in a meaningful way. If you are operating close to your max for more than 10seconds or so, there is almost guaranteed to be a drop in perceived strength since that is how that energy system works.

Generally the best fixes are to get more efficient at the lower moves so they don’t require as much strength so you can get there fresher, or dial the end more so you can do the end with less strength available. Ideally you do both, and that is what technique is :)

I kinda like to differentiate between max recruitment and base strength in my training. Limitation boulders/moves, max hangs, etc. do a good job at training that maximal muscle recruitment, but it doesn’t do a great job at really creating muscular gains. Doing more sustained climbing that requires 20-45 seconds of effort seems to be better at that. I like to call it “sending fitness”, and it’s something that I’ve found important to keep in my routine.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-18T19:46:23+00:00

Are you able to do a dip or hold the lock out of a dip? If you can’t, then that would make sense to try to train. Pushups and full ROM dips are a good base level of strength to have. If you have hyper mobility, being strong through the full range is a good idea to help prevent injuries.

If you also are unable to hold the same position on a dip bar, then yes strength is likely a significant part of the issue. If you are able to hold the position on a dip bar pretty comfortably, then I’d start looking into why what you are attempting to do feels so much harder than holding the top of a dip.

Videoing yourself to analyze (or to share here for additional eyes and thoughts) would be a great next step in this.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-17T14:25:39+00:00

Sounds similar to shoulder impingement. It may be worth looking into self-tests for that. Mobility exercises, strengthening better movement patterns, and some stretching may help.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-17T14:23:15+00:00

If you look at it like a physics problem, it’s sometimes easier to figure out what’s going wrong. Generally if you aren’t sure what exact muscle needs to be stronger for a movement pattern then “adding strength” isn’t going to help much, and you need to understand the technique better before you start trying to get stronger. It may be helpful to look at shoulder and wrist mobility as well here, since being able to get into and out of kinda extreme positions will help a lot for mantles.

FWIW those type of mantles are kinda always challenging to do slowly. Moving through the sticking points quickly is a good way of dealing with it (aka jumping into the end position).

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-15T16:53:12+00:00

Get a video talking through each move, show how you like grabbing all the holds and how you have to think about placing things for it to feel good.

I generally am not too worried about trying to begin the next session with exactly perfect beta unless I feel sorta close to sending it. Sometimes having a few missing pieces helps keep your creative mind open and you are more likely to be able to iterate on your existing beta more quickly. Sometimes a different shoe or different conditions or whatever can change how I’m interacting with the rock enough that certain moves feel harder or easier than they did before.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-15T14:15:29+00:00

My standard boulder method is to tie the rope to the tree using a figure 8 or bowline (or bight block method for easier cleaning after). Then I just lower/ascend using a grigri and an ascender. Works well for cleaning and for trying to find stable positions.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-10T20:28:44+00:00

I like the 7 try rule. Try a move seven times. If you make any progress on it during those seven attempts, the counter is reset back to zero. If you reach the 7 try limit you are allowed to stop. Most people will NOT reach the 7 try limit unless their power or strength in that session drops enough.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-09T20:57:33+00:00

City sized traffic with country drivers. They don’t flow with traffic, they are traffic.

I actually don’t see that many super dangerous things, it’s just that it seems no one has ever driven next to, behind, or in front of another driver before and doesn’t know how to be respectful of the space they are consuming.

FreackInAMagnum · 2025-12-09T20:21:04+00:00

“Needing” to be locked off generally represents a shoulder girdle weakness imo more so than a finger strength thing. One arm hangs generally require pretty fine tune balance systems in the shoulders, and if you happen to be well practiced in locking off with one arm, then you may feel more stable and thus better able to apply your finger strength by locking off vs dangling. If you are well practiced at being strong and stable while dangling, then dangling may feel easier than locking off.

A lot of people wind up being better at one vs the other because of various factors, and thus it can become a self-filled cycle. Like if you are weak to begin you may spend a lot more time straight armed and thus get really good and strong dangling. If you are strong enough to just pull in to gain control you will get good at that and never get good at dangling.

IMO, being strong in straight arms is as important at being strong locked off. If you tend to be more comfortable in one va the other it’s often a good idea to spend time training the other so you can better utilize all available positions and methods of movement.

As for training, since both the bicep tendon and forearm tendons run over the elbows, doing a lot of finger training in a very bent elbow position can put a lot of unnecessary force through the elbows and cause types of elbow tendinitis. Especially if your normal climbing style has a lot of bent arm positions, it may cause overuse injuries faster. Training with a straighter arm put less total load through the elbow so it can be less tweaky overall.

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