Knee-pads and Heel-hooks: Down grading time?

Some ten years ago, we seldom saw climbers using knee-pads. Meanwhile today almost all top climbers have a pair of "down graders", making it possible to find new easier sequences as well as better resting positions. Potentially, a poor rest in the middle of a 9a is turned into a no-hands rest just because of wearing a knee-pad. In other words, if the knee-pads have made the route easier to do, the consequence of this could be to down grade them accordingly. It should be mentioned that it takes a lot of of both technical and muscular training to get the full advantage of using knee pads, meaning we are just in the beginning of this "knee pad down grading" era. Within ten years, probably at least 10 % of all steeper knee pad routes have been down graded in order to fit how hard climbs without knee pads possibilities.

In the same way as knee pads have made many steep routes easier, also developed heel-hooks on climbing shoes have made it easier to take better advantage of climbing with the heels above the head. This is a technique we especially see by smaller and lighter girls have started to use, which have created better beta bouldering almost straight up over lips and edges. Within a couple of years, this technique will be much more popular and efficient meaning some climbs, mainly boulders, need to also get down graded.

As the climbing grading scale is based on comparing the difficulty on climbs, the consequence of better knee-pads and heel-hooks are that the climbs have been made easier, i.e. they have to be down graded. As Action Direct is still 9a a steep 9a route should be equally hard to do, meaning potentially a 9a+ before the knee-pad era is now as hard as Action Direct to send. One dilemma is of course that a downgrade is not fair to the FA who, without the knee-pad, had to fight a much harder climb.

It should also be mentioned that as we are probably just in the beginning of the knee-pad and heel-hook era, most possibly the climbers technical skill to use them will be improved. In other words, knee-pad and heel-hook routes and boulders should be even less difficult to do in the near future.