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I am curious, how many of you have your technique dialed in and how many of you suffer with every climb?

I have made a lot of progress with my foot jamming technique in the last week. Now when i jam it generally doesn't hurt. Of course sometimes the size of the crack leads to painful feet. But before foot jams always hurt. I just jammed anyway when necessary or powered through the moves with my arms.
For large cracks I have found the money spot to be right behind the ball of the foot where the arch starts. For small cracks I have noticed that you can jam the tip of the shoe in and twist just the rubber in front of your toes.

Any body have any good technique tips?

It hurt at first, but I think I'm getting better, and it's a very useful technique.

You get used to it after awhile. It can still hurt on routes like Crack Attack though.

"spiffy"
Now THAT'S cool 8) .

Once you get *normal* foot jams down, then you can move to hanging upside down from them. Foot pain is still one of the big reasons I bail out of when doves cry.

Wes

not that i have too much experience but i have noticed that using foot jams on overhanging cracks is less painful becuase less weight is on your feet and more on your arms. unless what you mean is to hang on your feet without your hands. i imagine that could be painful.

Yep, hanging from just your feet, no hands. There is this move were I have to cut my hands, and kinda swing into a hand-hand stack with just heal toes to hold me in. That hurts. But the real problem is the that for the next 15 feet, you are pretty much hanging from you feet, with very little weight on your arms.

Wes

nice you will have to show me that problem when i get to KY. and maybe show me some more offwidth technique. i imagine you refined things quite a bit in vedavoo.

It is cool, and one of the best "normal" problems is up there as well.

I did some OW stuff in vedauwoo, but mostly worked on hand, fist and finger problems. The OW roof problems there are all about power, WDC is more about endurence.

Wes

I am also new to crack climbing. One thing that has reduced the pain are my shoes. When I tried foot jams with Xrays it was pretty painful. I bought some La Sportiva Enduros (ankle support since I sprained it bad a while back) and they are really good for long climbs and cracks. Of course I lose some things like good smearing and sensitivity but it works for me.