UKC

Ok so I've got myself a hangboard as I think grip/contact/ finger strength is a weakness.

Everyone says take it easy to start with, which I'm sure is sound advice. But surely I have to try a bit, right? Otherwise I'm not really going to be training anything!

So how hard is too hard?! Or is it not so much how hard I'm going each session, rather how many sessions a week I'm doing?

For arguments sake, I onsight 7a and redpoint 7b/7c down the wall, and Boulder 6c ish. I tried the 6c workout on the beastmaker ap, and can barely scrape through to the 7th set.

In reply to mountain_jay:


I boulder 6B/+ ish, redpoint 7a, and am close to completing the Beastmaker 5A Challenge.

In reply to mountain_jay:

Proper hard blud

In reply to mountain_jay: We are in the UK. We call it a fingerboard. Just like the bit at the back of a car where you put stuff is the boot and the concrete bit at the side of roads you walk on is the pavement.

Please kindly refrain from Americanisms.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:


The terms are interchangable, fingerboard is hardly a hundred+ year old word like the others you mention. Please get off your high horse. I believe hangboard is actually the term used by Beastmaker. If you want to be really pedantic, the pavement is generally tarmac (other brands of oil based surface are avaliable) rather than concrete.

OP: Start with the 5A one - yes, it seems like dropping your standard hugely. However, the "grades" on the beastmaker app don't align in any way with climbing grades - they're just relative difficulties within the app.

I'm around a 6b/c onsight, working 7a or onsighting them if I get lucky/one that suits me. I can just about do the 5A set.

In reply to andy farnell:

We are in the UK. Where a genuine request for advice in a like minded community would hopefully be met with a civil and informative response. This hope, it seems, is regrettably misplaced.

In reply to mountain_jay:

I'm no expert and don't climb at the levels you do, but my £0.02 . . . try hard for 6 weeks and drop it for 2. Be mindful that you can finish a session and (since you're probably used to hard training) you probably feel like you haven't done much - I believe this is because you don't really work the major muscle groups that can get the CV system going. . . . but, as far as your fingers / forearms go - you have done a lot and you will need to recover from this. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey!

In reply to mountain_jay:

I would take the advice of taking it easy to start with to mean that you should build up gradually. To elaborate on that, you should increase the intensity of sessions, the volume (number of hangs per session) and the frequency of sessions over a few weeks time. So you might consider starting by doing 1 session a week, of 5 hangs, each of about 75% max effort. After a couple of weeks you could start increasing the volume, frequency and / or intensity until you find the overall training stimulus that seems right for you at the present time, persist with this until you start to feel generally fatigued, then have a rest week or two and repeat.

If you're worried that this means you'll be missing out on time spent training effectively, see this period as preparation for training - preparing your body with the resilience to withstand the main training phase so that you don't get injured.

In reply to ianstevens:


Actually, the "tarmac pavement" for walking on at the side of a road is usually surfaced with bitmac and referred to as a footway or footpath. What most people think of as tarmac is usually bitmac or asphalt, although asphalt would normally be used for surfaces trafficked by vehicles. In engineering terms pavement would refer to the surfacing of any road, car park, footway etc.

In reply to ianstevens:

The terminologies are the same, one is English (therefore correct) and one is American (therefore incorrect).

Would you be happy if everyone at Strange started shouting 'Whoah dude I like totally crushed that route on the send. It was like, a totally rad severe homie'.

Neither would I.

It's been called a fingerboard on this side of pond for years. Lets keep our words, we don't need any unsuitable substitutions thank you very much.

To the O.P: Take it easy at first, don't over stretch yourself. Look at the long term progression over the possible short term gains.

Andy F.

In reply to mountain_jay:

Personally I try very very hard - on each individual hang. I always have a rest day the day before (as I'm scared there's little warning when a finger pulley ruptures, and it seems the safest option).

But conversely I add incremental weight / volume / smaller holds very slowly, like never more than 2 or 3kg every other session for a given hang.

My first workout in a finger boarding phase I'll start with weights that I can get through the BM5A workout (1 set only) without failing a hang. I take off weight for the crimps using a pulley to achieve that (terrible at crimps). I add about 15kg for jugs and 10kg for 4 fingers open (just by way of example, obviously everyone's differnt).

By about the 3rd or 4th session I've tuned up each hang by adding weight/ reducing assistance so the 5th and 6th reps are in doubt: half the time I fail at 5s or so and half the time I can just hang on to 7s. If I get to 7secs for every rep and write "not too bad" in the diary, then I add 2kg next time. Most entries say "really hard" or "absolute limit" Those hangs I keep the weight the same.

In reply to andy farnell:


What's certainly true is that you are being a prize ass. Or arse.

In reply to planetmarshall:


Arse. The other is another example of an annoying Americanism.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:



You, on the other hand, are simply annoying.

In reply to Willi Crater:

How did the humour bypass operation go? Successfully I presume?

Andy F

In reply to mountain_jay:

In short to get started my advice would be to have 3 'drills'..

Strength - 5 on 5's - which is '5 second hang with 5 second rest x 5 times as a set. Take 3+ minutes rest between sets. 5 sets in total. Adjust your weight/hold at the start - so that you start to fail on the last hangs in the last sets. If you make it through all 5 sets without failing you'll need to add more weight. Or if you work out your 1 hang maximum (heaviest weight you can hang on for 1 or 2 secs), these need to be done at about 85% off that. Personally I've had great success with this protocol for improving absolute strength.

Strength/Strength Endurance - Repeaters 7 sec on 3 off x 6 times as a set. Take 3 minutes rest between sets. Anything up to 6 sets. You'll know about it in the latter sets! Talked about everywhere as a good protocol for fingerboarding. Difficult to do when your first starting and you'll probably get 'pumped out'.

Max Hangs - 10 to 12 second hang x 8. Take 3 minutes between hangs, you need to try and be well recovered. Adjust your weight/hold at the start - so that you start to fail on the last hangs in the last sets.

How do you phase and combine this drills... open to huge discussion. But doing blocks (4 to 6 weeks) of Strength & Max Hangs together and moving to a block of Strength Endurance & Max Hangs is a good basic plan.

Hope this helps...

There's a bit of info in here too which might help...

http://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/08/04/crusher-holds-handout-3-5mb/crusher-h...

In reply to Siderunner:

Thanks everyone for the advice. Sorry about the hangboard/fingerboard thing, had no idea one was an Americanism.

Sounds like I need to drop down the grades a bit and do a bit of consolidation at a level where I can almost get through all the sets. To be honest I started on the 6c because it was the easiest one for the 2000 board, which is the board I have. But I'll go try one for the 1000 series.

I really like the idea of adding or taking off weight to make sure I'm always failing when I should be , and also recording what I've done so I'll know next time 👍

In reply to Paul Crusher R:

Some solid guidance.

To the OP - You can start with two-arm hangs before migrating to single arm hangs. In addition, arms can be trained cycling through full lock, 90 degrees and almost straight. Cycling grip position is also recommended - full crimp, half crimp and open.

In reply to andy farnell:

Hi Andy

Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but disparaging American culture on the internet doesn't actually make you funny, as it's something of a dried-up well - more original subject matter includes, for example, airline food and the differences between genders and/or races.

Happy to help!

In reply to andy farnell:



Oh the irony.

In reply to Paul Crusher R:

Paul I'm no expert but most folks seem to agree that the standard protocol for max hangs is adjust added or removed weight so you aim at 5-7secs with failure around the 6th rep to maintain the correct intensity for developing strength? 10-12secs sound more like PE end of the spectrum than maximals but less risky injury wise as you are not so close to absolute maximum??

In reply to andy farnell:

Strange? Where is that exactly? Strangeways?

In reply to mountain_jay:

The beastmaker website (somewhere on it) says that the grades they have given the workouts on the app are basically made up, and are only relative to each other. Either that or Ned F is so strong that he can't remember what 6a means (more likely).

Standard guidance is set your reps up so you fail on the last set, from your finger muscles giving out, not your tendons etc etc.

The rock climbers training manual guys say you should give yourself at least 48 hours after a session before getting back on it, but not so long that you loose any progressive overload.

http://rockclimberstrainingmanual.com/training-for-rock-climbing/strength/

In reply to pebblespanker:

Hi Howard,

No he is right. 10 sec hangs for stimulating a max strength response is recommended by Eva Lopez whose work comes closest to the science of isometric finger training. In my case I usually aim for 10secs but typically being overambitious manage 7/8secs.

PE would be hangs where you do "repeaters" with limited rest between short hangs or maybe 30 sec hangs (probably not good for joints). For the 10 sec max hangs I will have anything between 4 and 10 mins rest until I feel ready to grit my teeth again. Once recruited I do 3-5 max hangs with full crimp and then 3-5 open handed. A compromise is to just do half-crimped hangs if short of time or patience though differences between a favoured and unfavoured grip can be pronounced (12.5kgs in my case)

So in summary a "handful" of balls-out hangs with masses of rest targets tends to stimulate max strength gains. You can then try and work out whether those gains are neural/recruitment (big gains that drop off after a few weeks) or muscular which is the long term stuff of incremental gains and ultimate glory.

Not sure where peb-pulling comes into it though

Simon

In reply to pebblespanker:

Yes what Simon said... I did say on max hangs to aim for failure on the last few hangs, which is my error, obviously its a max hang so called because you should be aiming for failure on every hang at around 10-12 secs.
A little tip I've picked up from a rather handy power lifter come 8b+ boulderer is to do a really quick, less than a second hang, 10 secs or so before you do the max hang, this is only for neural purposes...