Shoes for crack!

I recently built a crack machine to suck less at crack climbing, but I have discovered the biggest thing holding me back is my shoes. I have 4 types of La Sportiva shoes. Finales, Muira lace, Otakis, and Katakis. The Katakis are super small and tight, so they are out. I thought the finales would be best for the training as they are flat and I can wear them all day, but jamming hurts like hell. The muiras are nice and stiff, but the narrow toe box holds my outside toes in a bit of a curl, so they also hurt like hell. Oddly enough, my otakis, where my big toe is slightly curled, other toes are flatter, but still snug, is comfortable in the crack. Pain is easily tolerable and I am able to get a workout in

What shoe(s) should I look for with a similar toe box to try?  Lace up, multi pitch comfort is what I’m looking for. Ideally designed to be jammed in a crack more than gym bouldering. 

Pick up some cheap, used, multiply-resoled TC pros, sized such that all your toes are completely flat.  The TC pro has a padded tongue which really helps with comfort on hand-ish sized crack footjams.

TC pros sized for flat toes are the go to for all day crack.

Also, fellow Redmondite, why not just drive down the street and run laps on lower gorge cracks at smith?

Rick Atherton wrote:

Also, fellow Redmondite, why not just drive down the street and run laps on lower gorge cracks at smith?

My backyard is a much shorter drive, and no one is tasked with watching a terrorist toddler

Regardless of the shoes, cracks kinda hurt, you will get used to it, wear socks. Save your skin and wear gloves.

If otakis work out nice for you it could be worth giving skwarma's a go, more rubber, less velcro. Depending on the angle of your crack machine you probably wont need a super stiff shoe made for vert-ish cracks all day like a tc-pro. With this in mind if you don't already have a pair of shoes that you like jamming in idk why ur training jamming.

Tc pro for sure most cracks. 5.10 Mocs are nice on hand crack to off fingers but the new adidas ones aren’t durable. Mythos are good on hands to off fingers as well.

Tc pros work pretty well on most sizes so would keep it simple and just go with them 

Katakis and katanas are maybe a bit better on small cracks but that could be subjective. 

I’ve enjoyed crack climbing in 5.10 NIADs

The old boots were great. You can find them on ebay.

i like tc pros like everyone else, especially the rubber which is really sticky on granite, but for pure comfort i slightly prefer the bd aspect. the leather goes over the top of the laces for the few rows closest to the toe and so protects them, and also the laces they come with are really fatty and not flat like the tc, so it's another layer of padding. i found them very comfortable but the rubber isn't as good. of course you can play around with resoling them with xs edge or putting fatty laces on the tcs but i haven't gone there yet. the 5.10 mocs are very thin and not stiff so i think they are less comfortable, although better in some situations. if comfort for practicing was the only criteria, i would say aspect > tc > mocc. if performance is added to the criteria, i would say tc > aspect > mocc. but i like all three. all sized for flat toes but no extra room. 

It's not the shoes. Crack climbing is uncomfortable when you start. I'm not sure if better technique makes it hurt less, your feet get tougher, or you just get used to it and notice it less. Possibly all three. 

I kept my old finales specifically for working the crack machine. I put a decent pair of socks on and it keeps the bruises away mostly.

It will be a little uncomfortable for a bit, but that’s kind of part of the fun. You’ll be throwing lap after lap soon enough!

It's partly the shoes, and partly technique.  First, "crack climbing" covers a lot of different terrain.  You will or should use entirely different shoes for different sizes.  For something hand and fist size, you'll want something flat soled with a stiff last.  Also for hand and fist size, I can't stress this enough- drop your heel and don't just stick your foot in sideways and rotate your knee up- there's much more nuance to it than that and no two foot or hand jams are the same.  Milk each one for everything it offers.  

For rattly fingers and smaller, I use a somewhat aggressive, pointier and softer rubber shoe than bigger cracks- that's so I can get as much rubber in the crack as possible AND utilize small features on the face.  There's nothing harder to me than a parallel sided .75 ringlock crack- I suck at them and always will so I need all the help I can get.

I would say comfort and fit is the most important thing, and as you specialize more and try different sizes of cracks, you'll need to experiment more with what works for you regarding style, size, softness vs. rigidity and so on.  There's no one true answer or solution.

I’ve been playing around with my available shoes, and it’s weird that I’m comfortable jamming with my toes curled in my otakis, and everything else has been excruciating. Approach shoes and street shoes included.

 I was able to try on a pair of old style TC pros in 45.5. There was more room in front of my big toe than I would have wanted, but I’m not sure I’d want them any narrower. I’ll have to track down a 45 to try, but I’m worried it will be pushing the realm of a too narrow toe box.

I tried on a scarpa vapor lace in 45 as well, and that was just too short. Width was much better. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any a half size bigger, nor the Maestro to try.

If nothing else, I’ll keep running laps in my otakis and continue to play around with foot position, and hand jam technique.

For reference, the crack is currently 2” in width, 5 degrees less than vertical. Width and angle are all adjustable

That's a size that should be very comfortable in anything that keeps your toes fairly flat. Make sure you jam with the toes up, not down, and that you do an active jam that relies on a twist of the ankle rather than on pushing your foot deep enough to be completely wedged. With an active jam, you can adjust the force of the twist to give you enough holding power without putting so much pressure that it hurts. The details of the technique is well described in many of the crack climbing manuals out there.

The crack is bare wood, so friction is minimal. I would guess that is adding to how hard I have to twist, but I figure if I can deal with minimal friction, more friction will just make life easier once on rock.

I figured that my finales would be comfortable enough  in the crack, but they are the most painful pair I’ve tried. Flip flops might hurt more, but I haven’t tried.

Its baffling to me honestly, how a shoe holding my feet in the “wrong” position seems to work better than one holding them flat. 

When learning to foot jam (or hand jam for that matter), people will generally "over jam" to feel more secure (analogous to "overgripping" face holds and tiring yourself out prematurely). With time, you'll figure out subtle techniques (how high the heel is in relation to the toes, knee position, etc) and learn how hard you really need to twist to keep your foot (or hands) in the crack.  With time and deliberate practice, you'll develop a lighter touch and won't have to crank your jams so hard, which reduces pain (in addition to your tissues getting tougher through conditioning).

that guy named seb wrote:

Regardless of the shoes, cracks kinda hurt, you will get used to it, wear socks.

This, cracks basically hurt until they don't.  And then sometimes they hurt again if you spend enough time in them.  You have to be at least slightly masochistic to crack climb, even more so the bigger/smaller the cracks get from perfect hands.

Ryan Bowen wrote:

Its baffling to me honestly, how a shoe holding my feet in the “wrong” position seems to work better than one holding them flat. 

Probably the size crack you have is making flat shoes put pressure on a joint or some other pressure point whereas the more aggressive ones happen to keep pressure off that joint.  

Less-than-vertical hand cracks hurt a lot more than steeper ones; there is a lot of weight pressing down on your feet.  Have you tried making your crack steeper, say 5 degrees overhanging?  Learn the feet while having more weight on the hands.

Jim Dunn's original crack machine in the EMS attic in North Conway was dead horizontal.  Not very good for the cracks most of us climbed in NH (except The Bridge?) but it sure didn't hurt the feet!

Mack Johnson wrote:

Less-than-vertical hand cracks hurt a lot more than steeper ones; there is a lot of weight pressing down on your feet.  Have you tried making your crack steeper, say 5 degrees overhanging?  Learn the feet while having more weight on the hands.

Jim Dunn's original crack machine in the EMS attic in North Conway was dead horizontal.  Not very good for the cracks most of us climbed in NH (except The Bridge?) but it sure didn't hurt the feet!

I’m planning some trips to areas that have lots of slightly less than vertical cracks to climb, so I’ve got to suck it up eventually.

I will be kicking the angle back as my hands get stronger, cause there will certainly be some steep sections on routes I’m eyeing.

In the one week I’ve had this built, I’ve already gone from flailing a couple feet in pain, to cruising up in less pain. It’s really helped me play around with different combinations of body positions to feel the most comfortable. This false sense of ability is great!

For me, Otakis are fine in hand cracks but any shoe that flexes the big toe into a downturn  creates a pressure point on top of the toe in thinner cracks.  Katanas are great for crack climbing, especially finger cracks and are a better all around shoe than TC's IMO.