Dyno Tips from Champion Shauna Coxsey
And a little bit of history about dynamic movements in the world of rock climbing and training
A new video from champion climber Shauna Coxsey just dropped featuring tips for dynos. “Dynamic climbing is easily one of the most fun parts of climbing but it can be a bit daunting to start jumping around on the wall,” she said.
Dynos weren’t always seen as good style in climbing, of course that was before bouldering and indoor climbing caught on. The U.S. Army had a climbing rule called three-point suspension to train troops during WWII, which read as, “The climber, to stay balanced and in control, maintained three points of contact at all times.”
Gill, in his 1969 American Alpine Journal essay The Art of Bouldering, defined a lunge, which is today’s dyno, as “Considered by many traditional mountaineers to be an execrable mutation of good technique, may be safely employed by the boulderer.” He also defined the “dynamic layback,” which is today’s deadpoint, as occuring when a climber places their hands “on a hold at the high deadpoint of the swing… The ability to return to the start at a speed somewhat less than that of a free fall.” Even the classic book, Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills says that dynos are an “elementary approach to rock climbing.”
Gill didn’t coin the shorthand for dynamic as dyno, instead it came about in the next decade at the Mount Baldy boulders near Upland, California. Over the next few decades, more climbers began using dynos both indoor and out and they are now part of most indoor climbing competitions. In April 2002, the first official Guinness World Records dyno competition took place at the Edge Climbing Centre in England.
Dyno Tips
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