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Is deadhanging the most efficient way to increase finger strength? (Read 22178 times)

cha1n

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I'm having a think about increasing my finger strength as it's a definite weakness of mine. Whenever I've tried it I've never managed past a few weeks because I find it so boring!

Will climbing on a woodie be as efficient (or at least close) as dead hanging?

I did a little bit of weight training before I started climbing and I much preferred compound exercises which worked lots of stuff at one time (again, mainly due to boredom) and I was thinking that perhaps woodie training could be the equivalent. 3-4 moves at a high intensity should still increase finger strength but core, co-ordination and lots of other stuff gets worked too.

Do the ukb experts agree or do we have to be the equivalent of body builders where we isolate everything we train?

Thanks for any advice.

abarro81

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I've often wondered on the effectiveness of fingerboarding vs bouldering, but have never decided on an opinion on the matter. I do think that I get better gains bouldering outside than inside, not sure why, might just be that I'm better at trying hard on rock than plastic.

cha1n

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I guess it depends how you assess your gains.

I suppose that's one advantage of deadhanging, that gains are measurable over a time period with less variables involved.

I also climb much better (in climbing grades) outdoors but I'm certain that it's because I have sweaty skin and I usually only climb outside when conditions are good.

It's the fear that assessing my gains would be difficult on a woody that puts me off. Also, I struggle for friction on plastic let alone wood!

I think like most things though, my training has to be sustainable and I don't think I could generate that much enthusiasm for hanging from a strip of wood without tales of glory!

P.S. Does anyone actually manage to get on with other things whilst fingerboarding? In many articles I've read the authors mentioning watching tv etc whilst training - please tell me that nobody actually manages this? Listening to some music I can understand...

tomtom

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I fingerboard when the footy is on the radio..

tomtom

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Or when mrsTT wants me to empty the dishwasher (etc..) that normally provides motivation :D

abarro81

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I guess it depends how you assess your gains.

I suppose that's one advantage of deadhanging, that gains are measurable over a time period with less variables involved.

It's the fear that assessing my gains would be difficult on a woody that puts me off.

I assess gains by whether I can climb harder boulders and do harder moves on routes than I could before, whether things that used to feel hard now feel easy etc. Maybe the gains from outside are bigger because of subtle movement improvements rather than raw strength, but that doesn't matter. What I want to do is get good at climbing hard boulders and routes, not arbitrary feats of strength. That said, I do like fingerboarding for the ease of modulating and slowly increasing intensity by adding weight or reducing assistance.


I think like most things though, my training has to be sustainable and I don't think I could generate that much enthusiasm for hanging from a strip of wood without tales of glory!

I find it hard to drag myself away from bouldering at the wall to do hangs, but once I've started I quite enjoy it. As I alluded to in my first post, there's a risk that if you're not motivated for it you'll not try as hard, and I'd guess that trying at your max is far more important than whether you're hanging or bouldering, or subtleties like hang times.

iwasmexican

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It's the fear that assessing my gains would be difficult on a woody that puts me off. Also, I struggle for friction on plastic let alone wood!

whats to stop you still assessing your finger strength (if thats what you re focusing on with the board) with a set hold on an fingerboard anyway? even if you arent training with the fingerboard you can still use it to gauge progress...

anecdotally the strongest my fingers have ever gotten was from board climbing

SA Chris

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I fingerboard when the footy is on the radio..

Is that meant to reduce the boredom, or increase it. I have the iPad on a highchair and usually watch something, not bouldering films though.

I think fingerboarding is a good way to target finger strength specifically, and the appeal is that you can always benefit from stronger fingers, and it's something that is easy to train at home with relatively little outlay. I know if I had a woody (will soon, hopefully!) I would enjoy using it more, and therefore use it more. I struggle to use finger board more than once a week, from a motivational POV, and that my fingers are usually pretty sore afterwards for a day or so.

Krank

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the best increase in strength I've ever had is by combining them both. Id warm up, then climb 12 problems at my limit on the board, then a little rest and finish with 4 sets of 4 hangs.

This is the best increase in strength I've ever had, it worked much better than either of them individually. I was adding at least a few seconds to every hang session for the 6 month period that I did it.

Nibile

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Not that I am a particular fan of fingerboarding or feats of useless strength, but I think that it's a lot easier to measure progress with a fingerboard, to measure the volume of training.
Also, on a fingerboard you can perfectly adjust the prehension for each hang, while on boulders sometimes you catch a hold with fingers in akward positions and it can be dangerous.

SA Chris

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Not that I am a particular fan of fingerboarding or feats of useless strength

This made me smile.

Is useless strength like a fun run, ie nonexistent.

Nibile

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« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 01:51:26 pm by Nibile »

Evil

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P.S. Does anyone actually manage to get on with other things whilst fingerboarding? In many articles I've read the authors mentioning watching tv etc whilst training - please tell me that nobody actually manages this? Listening to some music I can understand...

I do fingerboarding while cooking (as it's in the kitchen) although it does mess up the rest timings a bit sometimes, I think it's quite an efficient use of time, and keeps me busy enough that it doesn't seem boring. I can also see the TV from the fingerboard, so might be half watching it.

Sasquatch

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P.S. Does anyone actually manage to get on with other things whilst fingerboarding? In many articles I've read the authors mentioning watching tv etc whilst training - please tell me that nobody actually manages this? Listening to some music I can understand...
Laundry, Clean House, Cook, read, watch tv/movie/etc., Other exercises(my preference), etc. 

Repeaters kill my elbows, so I mainly do max hangs with 5min rest between hangs when I FB. Gives loads of time to do other stuff....

Muenchener

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I sometimes do sets of press-ups between shirts whilst ironing. Personally I find fingerboard requires more mental focus so i can't see it working so well.

Sasquatch

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It's made worse by the fact that there is both concentric, eccentric, and isometric strength profiles as well as the variance between dynamic strength(contact strength or catching the hold), vs static strength(hanging the hold). 

I think it's fairly safe to assume that deadhanging is the best way to gain static isometric strength, and an argument could be made for it being the best way to gain both eccentric and concentric strength as well.  I'm in no way convinced it's the best way to gain contact strength. 

It also is crap at training accuracy, which is really underrated in importance for many people.


In answer to the original question -
I'd say it extremely relative to your personal strengths.  If you already have relatively strong fingers, then you'd be better off on a steep board.  If you've got relatively weak fingers, then you'd likely be better off with some directed FB, then transitioning to a board and alternating cycles.

IS2

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Seems like there are two separate topics here:

1. how do you measure "finger strength"?

But if your answer to 1. is "... can hang the x hold on my fingerboard for y seconds", which seems to be the case for lots of people, then it is pretty likely that training on the fingerboard itself is going to be the best way to improve against that benchmark!

I measure finger strength by, warming up fingers thoroughly, standing on bathroom scales, holding small edge and attempting to do a one arm pull up.... recording lowest reading. Obviously this will not work for very strong people who can do a one armer on a small edge as the scale will go to zero... however for weaker mortals this gives a measure.

I do this twice a week, doing five maximum pulls on each hand. Slowly but surely improving.





« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 10:52:17 pm by habrich, Reason: corrected quotes »

Ti_pin_man

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standing on bathroom scales

New secret weapon in the training toolbox?   ;D

I serviced bike pedals last night in between sets... with loud noisey guitar on (in the garage)... the only issue was bike grease on the slopper holds making it tougher for the last few seconds.  haha.  I regularly do little jobs on the bike on the rest intervals.  Next is changing disk brake pads.  Its good to get both training done and a bike job, keeps the brownie point quota efficient  :beer2:

My man cave needs a Bourbon shelf. 

DAVETHOMAS90

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Seems like there are two separate topics here:

1. how do you measure "finger strength"?

But if your answer to 1. is "... can hang the x hold on my fingerboard for y seconds", which seems to be the case for lots of people, then it is pretty likely that training on the fingerboard itself is going to be the best way to improve against that benchmark!

I measure finger strength by, warming up fingers thoroughly, standing on bathroom scales, holding small edge and attempting to do a one arm pull up.... recording lowest reading. Obviously this will not work for very strong people who can do a one armer on a small edge as the scale will go to zero... however for weaker mortals this gives a measure.

I do this twice a week, doing five maximum pulls on each hand. Slowly but surely improving.

I've been using this test/gauge for some time now, but furthermore, to get past the zero problem you just put on a weight belt - 5/10 kg. Which interestingly brings me to another point, which is, my best gains have always been when I FB using additional weight - again, 5/10 kg.

There seems to be a part of the process where the adaptive stimulus comes from telling my body that gravity is a little stronger than it is on planet earth. With the best will in the world, no matter whether on the FB or Woodie, it's hard not to be influenced by the perceived line between success/failure. The added weight demands an increase in intensity/output irrespective of whether or not you go to failure.

Some other tips/thoughts.

You can provide assistance with 1 or 2 fingers of the other hand, reducing this is you improve. Add weight again when required. Each hang is typically 5+ secs of maximal effort. By the way, this was a process I started with no additional weight. Interestingly, when I'm near the end of a session, and feeling tired, if I ditch the added weight, my deadhangs are always better than what I achieve in a workout without added weight. This is an effect I noticed when I used to train at The Foundry - I'd always pull harder on The Wave after a season on the campus board. Also, I tend to get injured less with the increased overload of additional weight. I think this is because, without the weight, I probably do more work overall and suffer more fatigue, but at a lower intensity. I.e. it's the fatigue that leads to injury, not the intensity of the workout.


Dave T.

Three Nine

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For me the most effective use of a fingerboard over the years has been for for injury-proofing on specific grips and for rehab.

Fingery bouldering is in almost all circs going to be a better use of your time (if you have the time, that is).

SEDur

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1. how do you measure "finger strength"?

Generally by trying problems at my limit indoors (fairly consistent conditions), and getting a feel for how hard I can climb on worse holds. Often I find it harder to translate this to outdoors due to the other extenuating factors, but it seems to translate eventually by ticking more or harder climbs.
I would have thought that it would be more useful to get an intelligible measure of general improvement and strength, but difficult to get any useful numbers or measurement that apply directly to likelihood of climbing something harder.

The empirical, 'well, I can now pull off a move/climb that is much harder than I could previously', combined with how you feel and feedback from your body, seems to have worked best for me.  :worms:

2. what is the best way to increase "finger strength"?

I found that doing sessions on the mother board tended to have a more profound effect on my over all strength, than dead-hangs and similar. I thought that the Gaskinsesque use bad footholds and harder handholds would work fingers, core shoulders etc. fairly well, and I found that it did have a good impact on my overall ability and strength over time.

Hand-in-hand with this I did manage to injure myself, by ignoring my body and not having enough rest time (plus an unfortunate slip of the foot). I have lost a fair amount of power from layoff, but I still feel that the overall improvement from using a woody was more beneficial than any time I have spent dead-hanging. I can still climb harder now, than before I used the woody and i haven't done any training for improvement since, just rehab.

These days as I no longer work in Sheffield and the nearest woody is Loughborough (I think), I am heading back to the fingerboard, but still think a woody would be a better option. I have read a few bits that suggest fingerboards should only be supplementary to climbing, and based on that, I would expect a woody would be the better option if you have time and access.


Fluff

In reality, spend the time and money going to the crag (if you can) and working hard. I found a summer at the Tor did untold wonders for my overall strength, but most of all my finger strength.

tomtom

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Though with the counterweight you actually do the one armer rather than just taking off some strain...

a dense loner

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Bathroom scales? What are people talking about? You stand on a scale and then look down and try and record something while you're straining away? Can someone explain any benefits of this to me?

abarro81

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I'm with dense on this one.

cha1n

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Thanks for the replies everyone, some interesting reading here.

I haven't really been able to gauge progress by re-attempting problems that were too hard for me due to no rock nearby but I'll try it in future. I've only been climbing for just over 4 years (I think), so the improvement curve has been quite good up to now which makes knowing why I've improved tricky (for example, I tried Le Carnage 2 years ago and found it hard but did it the other day and it felt easy - I guess I'm stronger but my movement, co-ordination, etc must have improved too). However now, I don't think there's much improvement to come from technique and other subtleties, it's mainly core and finger strength which hold me back imo.

Interesting regarding the hangs on the scales thing. I need an electronics project for uni, so was thinking of trying to fashion a load-cell sensor under a hold with a display which records max weight and presumably some other useful things (I have to get my lecturer to approve that it's hard enough for a final year project so will need some potentially unnecessary fancy features). Prior to this idea I was thinking that holding a sling via a load-cell which records max/min, to take weight off during hangs would work. I agree that staring down at a set if scales may be awkward and encourage strange positions in the neck during hangs. I'm guessing that having good posture during hangs is important?!

 

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