Beginner
How to heel hook effectively!
Coach's take: Watch this if your heel keeps popping off holds - it's the classic error, explained properly.
3.8
Heel hook
Climbing / Popular
Load a heel to take weight off the arms and unlock moves.
What coaches agree on
- Place the heel with your toes pointed down and rotated slightly outward, gripping with the side of your heel — this creates the hook shape and lets your glutes and hamstring do the pulling.
- Getting a heel onto a tight or high hold is often about hip mobility, not just technique — rotate your hip and knee outward to gain the reach, and work on that external rotation off the wall if it's limiting you.
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- Heel hooks improve with dedicated practice — rehearse them in isolation, including during your warm-up, and build hamstring and glute strength off the wall with exercises like curls, RDLs, or glute bridges.
Common mistakes
- Treating a heel hook as ‘set it and forget it’ — placing the heel and letting the leg hang passively — makes it pop off or lets the body keep swinging out instead of holding the position.
- Hooking the heel too deep into a big hold or jug can trap the foot in a fall, risking injury to the ankle or foot.
Intermediate
3 Heel Hook Tips: Mechanics, Physics & Technique
Coach's take: If your heel hooks keep popping off, this is why.
3.8
Intermediate
Make Your Heel Hooks Work!
Coach's take: Rotate the toes out, keep the heel active. Testable in thirty seconds, and it works.
3.8
Intermediate
You’re Using Heel Hooks Wrong (Do THIS Instead)
Coach's take: The gear and training-methodology angle most heel hook videos miss.
3.7
Beginner
TOP 4 TIPs for Beginner heel hooks - Louis Parkinson
Coach's take: Treat it like an arm, turn the sole out, point the toes down. That's the whole game.
3.7
Beginner
Heel Hook Training; the key to climbing harder - Fundamentals Series
Coach's take: Covers the mechanics AND how to actually train it - rare combo.
3.6
Beginner
Learn how to heel hook when climbing at the bouldering gym with Boulder Lab
Coach's take: Toes down, knee over, thigh in - finally someone spells out what 'engage' means.
3.4
Intermediate
3 SIMPLE ways to HEEL HOOK properly!
Coach's take: Engage first, reach second - and the static-vs-dynamic bit is the part nobody teaches.
3.4
Beginner
Heel Hook-Climbing Technique
Coach's take: Clear menu of when to use which heel hook, plus a real fix for the classic slipping problem.
3.3
Beginner
Heel Hook: FOCUS on this to Improve Your Climbing NOW
Coach's take: Good overview, though less depth than the best heel hook videos here.
3.3
Intermediate
Beginner's Guide to HEEL HOOKS and TOE HOOKS
Coach's take: Widest coverage of heel variations, plus the ankle warning everyone else skips.
3.3
Beginner
ROCK CLIMBING TECHNIQUES - CLIMBING TIPS LESSON 13 - HEEL HOOKS
Coach's take: Good first exposure to the move, but stays pretty surface-level.
3.0
Intermediate
Toe Hooks vs Heel Hooks: When to Use Each in Climbing
Coach's take: Pinky toe down to open the hip, and never a passive heel - good, if you sit through the intro.
2.8
Intermediate
Heel Trainers: Improve Heel Hooks Effectively
Coach's take: Solid deliberate-practice structure with real technique detail, if a bit dry in delivery.
2.5
Intermediate
Mobility Checklist: Tight Heel Hooks
Coach's take: Good self-test, and it flags the stretch people get wrong.
2.5
Intermediate
Struggle with tight or high heel hooks? 🧐
Coach's take: The mobility piece most heel hook tutorials never mention.
2.5
Beginner
How to heel hook and toe hook
Coach's take: Brief but sound, and it warns you about falling with a heel on.
2.3
Advanced
12 Neil Greshams Masterclass - Heel Hook
Coach's take: One good line, not much to actually practice from.
1.6