If there is slack in you arm when you catch it, you are quite simply jumping too high! You need to try to grab the hold at the deadpoint, the point at which you are moving neither up nor down, with as little slack in your arm as possible (obviously if there is some, you gotta tense to eliminate it).

As you hit the hold, pull your feet towards the wall and if at all possible, try to slap your feet/foot onto a hold. You should be looking down to try to do this as soon as your hand touches the top hold. Try to plan what footholds you are going to aim for before you jump, though. If there are no footholds, then just pull your feet up towards the wall, keeping your center of balance under/below the hold, instead of swinging out wildly behind it.

If you are going to practice dynos, make sure you practice with both hands. You will likely have a favored lead hand that you can catch with better, but some problems/routes don't really offer you the choice.

If there is slack in you arm when you catch it, you are quite simply jumping too high! You need to try to grab the hold at the deadpoint, the point at which you are moving neither up nor down, with as little slack in your arm as possible (obviously if there is some, you gotta tense to eliminate it).

As you hit the hold, pull your feet towards the wall and if at all possible, try to slap your feet/foot onto a hold. You should be looking down to try to do this as soon as your hand touches the top hold. Try to plan what footholds you are going to aim for before you jump, though. If there are no footholds, then just pull your feet up towards the wall, keeping your center of balance under/below the hold, instead of swinging out wildly behind it.

If you are going to practice dynos, make sure you practice with both hands. You will likely have a favored lead hand that you can catch with better, but some problems/routes don't really offer you the choice.

I'm guessing that when you "tightened the muscles as if you were going to do a pull-up", you also tightened other muscles in the body, and that maybe helped you control the swing and stay on the hold.

Regardless, if you find that something helps you stick a dyno -- then do it.

Learner- I don't know how long you've been at it, but that is an astute observation. Hitting the targeted hold in a strong and focused manner and with slight flex- no matter how far it is- is key to holding on it. Softness in your hit will not let you hold it.

At the moment that you stick a dyno, do you pull up a little with your arms (as in a pull-up), allowing a slight 'cushion' for when your weight comes back down?

In other words, do you contract your 'pull-up muscles' in such a way that your ability to stick the dyno does not depend solely on the ability of your fingers to catch your body weight? Rather, your biceps and lats may reduce strain from your fingers at the moment that you attempt to stick it by contracting slightly, so that when your bodyweight comes back down, it doesn't hit your fingers only and it doesn't hit all at once. Perhaps you do this instinctively and subconsciously.

I ask this because I was having problems sticking dynos recently, and it appears that the problem may have been that when I was catching the hold(s), I was not pulling up with my arms at the moment of the catch. I was getting my hands around the hold(s), but I often wouldn't be able to hang on. Today I tried acting, only for the split moment at which I catch the hold, as if I were going to do a pull-up from that hold and this actually seemed to help my fingers hang on.

With this technique, you could even catch the hold at full extension with your arms, but only for the split moment that you grab the hold, you act as if you're going to do a pull-up from the hold you're catching. This provides a cushion when you catch it, which is your contracted muscles, making it much easier to stick the hold than if you were to have simply grabbed the hold then tried to catch it solely with finger strength. Again, you only do this (the 'pretend pull-up muscle contraction') the moment that you catch the hold. In my experience, this may make it easier to stick.

So, my question is, is this the technique you use to stick dynos? If so, please elaborate if you'd like. If not, please share your own technique for sticking dynos.

At the moment that you stick a dyno, do you pull up a little with your arms (as in a pull-up), allowing a slight 'cushion' for when your weight comes back down?

In other words, do you contract your 'pull-up muscles' in such a way that your ability to stick the dyno does not depend solely on the ability of your fingers to catch your body weight? Rather, your biceps and lats may reduce strain from your fingers at the moment that you attempt to stick it by contracting slightly, so that when your bodyweight comes back down, it doesn't hit your fingers only and it doesn't hit all at once. Perhaps you do this instinctively and subconsciously.

Sungam made this point, but you didn't show any signs of catching it. If you're catching the hold on the way back down, then you overshot the hold. You want to catch the hold at the "deadpoint," the apex of your arc, where you are momentarily weightless.

Jay

Apparently you didn't "catch" my reply to Sungam's fine post:

"There does not have to be slack in your arm to use this technique. You could get your hand(s) around the hold with your arms at full extension (no slack), but the moment your hands touch you pretend, for a split second, that you're going to do a pull-up at the grab. So, you flex your muscles the moment you touch the hold, not necessarily before it. Thanks for the other tips you've provided on what to do with your lower body, etc... I wasn't thinking about some of them. For example, I wasn't thinking about placing my feet on holds, just catching the handhold."

Yes, I did "catch" your reply, which is precisely why I posted what I did.

Then perhaps next time you will quote "precisely" the post you are replying to? Thanks.

If there is slack in you arm when you catch it, you are quite simply jumping too high! You need to try to grab the hold at the deadpoint, the point at which you are moving neither up nor down, with as little slack in your arm as possible (obviously if there is some, you gotta tense to eliminate it).