UKC

I'm looking to increase general finger strength to help my climbing (obviously) but want to go gently and not go too hard too soon and end up with a load of tweaks and injuries that'll slow me down.

I have done a fair bit of searching and have come across various bits and pieces. Squishy balls for training interossei muscles, Squishy balls for gripping and releasing, elastic things for antagonistic balance and so on, but can't seem to find any resources that say " for x buy y" or any useful details, or specific recommendations (buy this one from this company). searching the forums comes up with a lot of fit club but not much concrete to go on. Plenty of generic blogs out there but similarly vague.

So from a very rehab/prehab point of view, so no fingerboard dead hangs etc, what are the exercises you do to strengthen finger muscles /tendons, and what is the kit you use for it? Christmas is coming, my wife needs ideas!

Many thanks 

GTE 

Climbing wall?

Sorry that's not a helpful answer, but isn't that basically the thing? And if you're not using that, you're using a finger board. Squishy balls and whatnot might be good for rehab, but without an injury, what use is a squishy ball, etc? Certainly not going to make you better at climbing!

Hangboard all the way. Provided you have good form it's one of the safest strength training tools as all the movements you do are static and very controlled. Get yourself a pully system to remove weight as required for your first few sessions while you build up the strength to hang your bodyweight (and eventually start adding weight). 

Dave MacLeod has some really helpful videos on hangboarding that are well worth a watch. 

Hangboarding is pre/rehab! Obviously don't jump on without warming up and fully crimp with 30kgs in a backpack, but you can tailor the intensity and frequency to your own level of climbing and your goals. The gradual loading and unloading using a hangboard is a safe method of preparing your fingers for the insecure/dynamic/bouldery/fingery stuff you'll do - potentially at the end of a long day where your form is bad - whilst actually climbing

I don't know if there's consensus on what kind of antagonistic training is a good idea in general, maybe the sport is still too young. Having said that, Hooper's Beta has some good information on this kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAwQ4jzyNY&t=141s

Personally I don't bother with antagonistic/stretching unless something is or has been tweaky. I warm up with jumping jacks, statically climb around on relatively positive things until my fingers feel warm, tape up my wrists... and then have at at. Any climbs that make my body feel dodgy I avoid

Oh and make sure you get your rest days! You can climb as carefully as you want but if it's high intensity and you do it every day you'll get injured

Bucket of rice. Does fingers and forearms as well. 45-second routines (maybe build up from there) - squeeze it, crush it in your hands, rotate a clenched fist, plunge a hand in and open the fingers out, etc. Don't cook it.

I wouldn't waste 80 quid on a finger board. I have home made strips of wood which I've sanded.your fingers will get worked just the same without the cost.

As for tools,I have a spring loaded grip squeezer off amazon.it was 8 pound.you can vary your grip on it from pinches to crimps.the pressure is adjustable also.

Squishy balls etc are unlikely to be specific enough to a climbing grip position to do much for strength. You mention getting stronger fingers several times so whilst I appreciate the desire not to get injured you're still going to need some sort of specific progressive overload to trigger strength gains.

As others have said, a fingerboard can be very controlled way of doing this (climbing is the most relevant, fingerboard probably the most controlled). One thing you could consider if you have weights at home is a pickup edge - attach something like the below to a stack of weights and pick it up. Different shoulder position, very controllable load, perhaps most suitable to low loads versus massive counterweight setups...

https://www.ashclimbing.com/product/offcut-board

I've done both. A fingerboard is about 100000 times nicer to use. You could even put the £8 towards it you wasted on the next to pointless "grip trainer"

I really rate the Metolius Grip Saver, it's really been really helpful for me when I've tweaked a finger...

A hot/cold roll on finger sleeve, that was brilliant when I had an injury, much easier than faffing about with bowls of ice water.

Finger acupuncture rings are nice, seem to help loosen things up after a day of hard climbing.

Prohands Grip master is a nice little toy to play with whilst you're sitting at your desk at work...

Now, I have at some point used all of the above but very on/off and to be honest these are mostly just for when I've overdone things a bit.  Which actually hasn't happened in a while because my fingers are feeling much stronger because I got a Beastmaker (or more to the point, started using the one I already had!). 

You can start from a very low starting point and work your way up gently on a Beastmaker, and it will make your fingers genuinely stronger, and you'll see a difference in your climbing, none of the other bits and bobs I've mentioned will do that.

Thanks all.

So I have a climbing wall (nearby anyway) and a fingerboard in my office which I have been hanging off on a reasonably regular basis.

At the wall the other night my fingers certainly started to feel sore towards the 7a end of the spectrum, so wanted to do something between sessions at the wall to try to keep me safe. Chilling out on the grades is an obvious option, but other options can be considered in parallel.

In the beastmaker book there are exercises suggested but no recommendation on what to get and where to get it

Gte

Ah I get you.

The Grip Saver would be my pick for your needs...

While recovering from abdominal surgery, I discovered sub-max fingerboarding and it has become my go-to for warming up and base finger strength and durability. I do my normal favorite repeaters routine (beastmaker app adjusted to 10sec hang/5 rest) but I stand on a bathroom scale, put my hands on the holds, and pull until the scale is at 50% of my body weight. I do 3 rounds, 50% first, then two at 60% (I weight 50k and when I’m hanging the scale reads 25, 20, 20). It’s been game changing for me for my finger health and strength (max hang weights are up and more consistent). Highly recommend.

If you have access to a barbell then finger rolls appear to work for me. Also build up forearm muscle I believe.

Have you tried beer? Almost all the rock climbing greats drank it. Perfect for the rest days, between sessions. You could probably get a few nice ones if it's a Christmas present.

These, both normal and reverse curls. Making sure you've got stability through the strength of extensors and flexors seems important. 

Also, a longer warm up not only helps stop my fingers getting sore but also helps my technique and I eventually climb stronger. 

I need a pulley for fingerboarding but I also do some feet on floor fingerboarding as my max hang isn't quite bodyweight and this seems a lot safer. 

Seconded. £2 bucket and £3 bag of rice (5kg)

Also remember that the muscle of the fingers start in the forearm so wrist curls are great for getting the whole hand stronger. (https://www.verywellfit.com/how-to-do-wrist-curls-4797928)