UKC

As I have found out on a few long sport climbing trips to Spain and Turkey where I am predominantly climbing long endurance style routes my finger strength takes a significant dive.

Last winter on a four month trip I tried to keep the finger strength topped up by doing some max hangs on the fingerboard after a days climbing if the next day was going to be a rest day.

So my routine would normally be 2 days on, 1 day rest, fingerboard after 2nd day on. I would sometimes skip the FB if feeling too tired. I would also throw in some two or three rest days as well after a few weeks of this.

I managed to maintain this schedule for nearly two months before I stopped the fingerboard sessions and just focussed on the climbing for the remainder of the trip.

I felt overall that I was doing something right as this was my best sport climbing trip performance wise. On previous trips I felt like I plateaued very quickly and made very little progress on projects.

I was wondering what other people do on long trips to keep strength up and still actually climb.

Personally I'd recommend doing the max hangs in the morning before doing any climbing - this is a win win because you'll get really well recruited for the day, reduce injury risk and get the best quality you can. 

Some muscle conditioning after climbing days such as core, pull ups, push ups etc is also a good shout to help you continue to make strength gains or at least maintain. It can be a little hard to get motivated for after a days climbing when you're a bit knackered, but you get into it fast enough and then it works great. 

Another good trick is to do some 'bouldering' i.e. get on a route that is clearly too hard for you right now and boulder the moves out. This is also great for feeding into planning for future projects as you'll know what felt good when bouldering it out and can goal set based on that. 

Personally I have easily tweaked fingers so prefer to avoid fingerboard work after climbing if at all possible. 

I just get weaker and do lots of easy routes.

But I would angree with Mischa, do the max hangs before you climb. Generally speaking, don't do strength training when you're tired already. But I've not tried it on a trip. Just as part of winter training, before an indoor bouldering session.

The reason I don’t do the hangs before climbing is because I don’t want to compromise my efforts on the actual climbing. I still look at the climbing as being the priority and the hangs as something to fit in around the climbing.

Its something I’ve never considered before so maybe I’ll give it a try and see if it works.

Thanks.

Yeah, the funny thing is that done correctly it actually serves as a warm-up and will actually make your session better, as you'll always be fully recruited and ready to pull hard. In the end though you only need to do the hangs 2-3 times a week so you can always save yourself on redpoint days, if necessary. 

Not convinced at all about this max hangs before climbing though it seems to be a thing now. I guess it depends on how intense your max hang session is. Mine is a progressive build of up to an hour to get fully recruited then 5 or 6 balls eyeball popping hangs with long rests between. Find this is the best method to get max strength gains but is time consuming. Busted at the end and can’t  conceive going climbing after that. 

To get round doing enough deadhanging I’ve been doing longer duration hangs after climbing ie 30secs hangs but still pushing myself. Early results are good Thinking of experimenting in making them longer still though appreciate not everyone’s fingers are up to this. Any max hang sessions will be on a separate training day. 

All personal I guess. I find max hangs take it out of me so wouldn't do them before climbing, or even the day before hard (for me) climbing. Probably because I'm weak!

I do hang a bit before climbing, but unweighted, to get recruited.

I only warm up for 15/20 mins. So that's about half hour inc. the hangs. If I rest after the max hangs I feel really good for an indoor bouldering session. Not tried it for routes.

Yes - a fingerboard warm up to get recruited before climbing makes perfect sense. Get the sense that a lot of people aren’t putting max effort into their max hangs session

Nah 'max' hangs tend to be done at 80% of max but with more time under tension at least for people who are using Lattice methods. This is definitely a little lower impact in terms of pure gains but means less risk of injury, better form and you're less knackered afterwards. Still seems to work. 

So sub Max hangs

I'm with Simon on this - max hangs need to be a gut busting effort to have any impact on strength for me - perhaps because we're both well experienced with this style to training and thus need a bigger stimulus to make further gains?

I feel pooped from these work-outs and would never consider this before going out for the day!

The Lattice/Crimpd "max hangs" at even 90% load feel like a piece of pi$$ and i have to go up to 95-98% of true maximum to get close to failure in the last set of 6 specified in the Crimpd app.

I guess I’m just looking to maintain finger strength while away on a longer trip rather than make any real gains.

I think it is probably unrealistic to think I can make gains and try my hardest on projects, something has to give, though open to suggestions and ideas of how others do this.

Try experimenting with deadhangs on a portable fingerboard at the crag (or when you get home) at the end of a climbing day that’s followed by a rest day.

Or we might be talking about different things?

What sort of grip are you using? And how long do you hang?

I do 8 seconds half crimp, with enough added weight so that I struggle to maintain form. If it was eyeball popping I wouldn't be able to maintain a good half crimp position for 8 seconds.

Also reckon for older climbers who’ve been at it longer a bigger effort/load is required to stimulate a response.

Struggle to maintain form - you must be trying SO hard - I’m often shaking like a shitting dog

No need to be patronising Simon. Not really useful to anyone.

Probably more accurate to say, I can't maintain form. If I keep at the hangs after my fingers start to go, it becomes a proper fight. Eyeball popping you might say. But I now make sure I can keep good form for the full 8 seconds.

Some exercises do make me feel like this, and nauseous too. Slow pull ups for example. But not max hangs.

Personally I also go for as close to max as possible but avoid recommending people this as I assume it comes with a higher injury risk. 

Sorry. 

Appreciated.

Pretty much every climbing coach recommends around 80-85% of max weight for max hang efforts, some as low as 60-70% (Bechtel, apparently well backed up by papers on gains in isometric strength). The sort of all out efforts you are talking about are generally detrimental as they do not show any additional gains in strength, and (as you have noted) wipe you out for any other sort of training or climbing. 

I used to attempt to train max hangs in the same way as you and I have been very surprised by how trying less hard has lead to better strength improvements in the last year (c. 10-12 kg improvement in one arm hangs).

I've been climbing for 20+ years and am no spring chicken, so don't buy into older or more experienced climbers having to try harder; the physiology is the same.

Surely anything that you do hard enough to have a training effect will have a short term debilitating impact on that muscle group/energy system and therefore not something you should be doing before a performance session. 

Depends how short term I suppose. Don't do a set and jump straight on the project. I doubt there's ever been a proper study done though.

I think you're definitely right in the sense that if you want to deliver an absolute maximal effort then max hangs are a waste of time because you're going to be doing it anyway, and you'd be way better off saving the power for the session. 

I reckon in this case he'd find it wouldn't do him any harm because he's doing endurance routes where maximal strength efforts are not as important as all the other factors? I've found this where hangs before route climbing work great but I don't bother before bouldering. 

I suppose I'm looking at it from the perspective of a 'general' maintenance that wouldn't necessarily be done before a potential redpoint day where everything needs to come together. Otherwise I can't see where he can fit it in without having knackered fingers whilst doing it. 

I also wonder (having thought about it a bit since posting earlier) whether the better option wouldn't genuinely be to boulder out hard routes or do a bit of bouldering if available in the area. It'd be more specific.  

Also have to say I'm not talking about a training effect. I'm after maintain current recruitment levels which I suspect would be a fair bit less intense, or at least same intensity and lower volume. 

Untrue