UKC

Hi

I have been climbing for a few months- and my main limiting factor is finger strength, I have heard that people who do martial arts do press ups on their finger tips (the pads) to make the fingers stronger, and I am thinking it may work for climbing too- does anybody else do these, and do they work?

I'v had a look around on Google etc, but haven't found much.

Thanks

In reply to Evilllamas:

I would guess it won't help. It'll give you bigger finger muscles but they won't be the right one for climbing. What sort of grades are you climbing? Maybe get a fingerboard?

In reply to Evilllamas: Are you sure your main limiting factor is finger strength? I would generally say that becomes a limiting factor in much higher grades. It may be more worthwhile to concentrate on technique.

Have no idea whether finger tip pressups would be the way forward. You might be better off getting a campus board.

Good luck with it all, you have lots of years climbing ahead of you to really progress.

In reply to stewieatb:

I don't think fingers have muscles....but I could be wrong.

In reply to Evilllamas: best way when starting out to improve finger strength is to climb more. Maybe a fingerboard further down the line when you built up some basic finger strength, going to early on one would be asking for finger injury. Dont think that type of press up will do a great deal to help your climbing...on your knuckles may help the martial arts more!

In reply to Evilllamas:


Did 'em 44 years ago. Got severely arthritic fingers now.



Nope.

Right now, just climb more. If you want to concentrate on anything, make it precise footwork - a lifetime's investment.

Mick

Thanks for the reply's- looks like I can stop doing them, my reasoning for them working was that they take quite a bit of effort to keep your hand rigid, and not just flatten out- and this seems to be similar to doing a crimp grip, which is the one I struggle most on.

Is there anything except climbing (which I currently do once a week, though may move up to twice a week in a few months) that will improve them, doing one armed dead hangs seem useful, as I have a pull up bar, and that has helped me immensely with climbing!

In reply to Evilllamas:

I can see your reasoning, but actually in climbing terms how often would you need to lock your hand/fingers in that position? even powerballs etc. aren't terribly transferrable.

one-armed dead hangs will have your shoulders in shreds quick enough too. if you can't get to the wall more than once a week, and ideally to improve you could make that three times, then a routine of hangs, pulls and drops on a fingerboard or bar, would be better, safer and potentially give more progress.

for example, see: http://climbingtribe.team-talk.net/t324-hangboarding-frank-ocasio or http://beastmaker.co.uk/training%20page2.htm

but take it steady and back off if something begins to niggle.

In reply to Fraser: How on earth do you think you could bend your fingers without having muscles in them!!!

In reply to Evilllamas: When I started martial arts it was common practice to do 10 press up on your palms, then jump into 10 on your knuckles, jump into 10 on your finger tips, jump into 10 on the back of your wrists and then back to 10 on your palms. I can still do all these variations even at my advanced age (late 40's) but as Mick says it buggers your fingers and I dont think it ever really helped my climbing.

Also dont do one finger press ups or even two finger press ups as these really do hurt your joints.
RO (confirmed glucosamine phosphate pill popper for life)

In reply to Jack_F:

Tendons

In reply to Evilllamas:

like always: few exercises help in isolation, but combined with others can be significant.
jackie chan movies dont tend to show that.

sure, do finger tip push ups - along with fingerboarding, grip lifting, regular pushups, wrist exercises and lots of stretching.

In reply to Jack_F:


Three exclamation marks? Are you suggesting that Fraser is wrong?
You'll no doubt be surprised that he's right!!!

In reply to Jack_F:

Flexing of the fingers is performed, primarily, by the flexor digitorum superficialis and profundus muscles; the body of these muscles are located in the forearm. Other muscles that act on the fingers are the palmar and dorsal interossei muscles and the lumbricals, located within the hand. Extensor digitorum, the body of which is also located within the forearm, helps to straighten the fingers. The little finger possesses a few other muscles, located within the hand, in addition to those mentioned.

So there are no muscles actually in the fingers themselves.

In reply to Evilllamas: climbing once a week want increase strength much at all.you need to climbing more,technique is what you need.fingers don't come into it until e grades.doing things like finger boards will increase the chance of damage to pulleys and tendons.weights won't help either
Bottom line is best thing a beginner can do is climb as much as possible,then start lookin into trainning specificaly

Thanks for the advice/warnings/info, I am doing other exercises as well as fingertip press ups (though not doing them anymore, mainly pull ups (frenchies, a series of pull ups with lock offs at various points)
and dead hangs, though with some press ups and some hadngrip use.
This is mainly for climbing, though I was very very weak before I started, so it was necessary anyway.
I shall atempt to climb more frequently though, though it wont be possible for a while.

also, I'm doing allot of stretches.
should have included that above...

In reply to Evilllamas:

If you can afford the time/cost, I'd ramp your climbing up to 2-3 times a week instead of worrying too much about supplementary exercises. Make at least one of those sessions bouldering.

Focus on technique during your warm up, practice falling off safely.

These things will help you way more than press ups/pull ups etc. And your finger strength will improve with the bouldering - especially if you get on bouldering projects where you can barely hold on to do the moves.

I mainly do bouldering anyway, though my plan for when I can climb twice a week is this:

About 3 hours of climbing on Wednesday and Saturday, with extra exercise on
Monday Tuesday and possibly Sunday.
I do different exercises depending on the day, so they have chance to repair etc.

In reply to Evilllamas:

I do 'em as part of my training regime (have done for years); helps in making me feel stronger on pockets. But I never go for maximum no.s of reps, just intersperse a few sets of 20-30 within my sets of normal pressups. Reckon the key, though, is to mix it up - do lots of different strengthening exercises and you should feel good.

In reply to Mark Savage: Perhaps sarcasm isnt something thats is easily sent over the net. Apologies if it came across in any other way!

In reply to Evilllamas: mate if your just starting out there aint no substitue for just climbing! also everyone whos is starting out reckons they just need more strength but in reality good technique work is the most important thing you can do, strength will come in time and it does take time, finger strength can take ages to develop and it takes your tendons even longer to develop (im talking years) so if you do too much strength training from the outset you will be very lucky not to get a tendon injury. Get good footwork and good technique and your grade will shoot up, get climbing regularly and the strength will come. Specific training exercises really arent at all neccessary till your above 7a.

I relise that technique is very important for climbing, more so than strength at my ability!
The main reason I am exercising is for overhangs etc and endurance.