UKC

For those of you who started with weak fingers or had an injury that weakened your fingers.

Other than just climbing which for my injury was too high impact what training aids or exercises improved your strength the most. I'm talking about going from not being able to dead hang a campus board to being able to

In reply to Lukem6:

Whenever I've hurt my fingers (every few years, more frequently when starting out and mad keen) in addition to whatever other exercises I'm doing at the time I keep a *soft* squishy ball in a pocket then do hundreds of reps whenever my hands are idle.

Doesn't do much for my strength (it's not supposed to) but it keeps the fingers moving and anecdotaly seems to help reduce scarring and pain while they're healing.

If you want to work up to campus-rung deadhangs then probably best to let your fingers heal first then train for that starting with assisted hangs on bigger rungs.

jk

In reply to Lukem6:

Buy a bucket of rice:
http://www.dpmclimbing.com/articles/view/way-iron-fist

In reply to jkarran: oh my fingers are healed now just weaker than they were

In reply to Lukem6:

In which case I'm a little lost. You want stronger fingers, you feel they're currently not very strong but they are healthy? In that situation I'd go climbing but then I probably can't dead-hang a campus rung either, doesn't seem to hold me back too badly

jk

In reply to jkarran:

Well regardless if it is holding me back or not,I'm mainly interested in peoples training techniques what works best for them... for example years ago I found an interesting piece on how to build up to doing 20 push ups form not being able to do one, and similar article with pull ups.

I was just wondering what the UKC population has used to get strong fingers apart from "just climb".

The rice bucket sounds cool I may trial this with a few weak fingered pals and check results

In reply to Lukem6:

Somewhere on the Beastmaker website there's a training plan for building finger strength. You'd start with assisted hangs (toes on a chair/foothold or more controlled, in a bungee or counterbalanced cord.)

I'm not trying to be dismissive of training finger strength by saying just climb but if your goal is to get back to where you were strengthwise and you got there by climbing it does seem to be the obvious (and far more enjoyable) option. It's also the option that will improve your climbing quickest.

Those rice exercises look horrendous but I guess it works. Enjoy and let us know how it goes

jk