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Wrist/flexor strengthening (Read 3178 times)

andy_e

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Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 08:46:29 am
I seem to have very weak wrists and often struggle with pockets and undercuts. As my current project has a pockety roof undercut, it would seem I need to make improvements in this area! Pulling on pockets without my pinky leads to me feeling it in my flexor and therefore feeling very nervous about pulling hard. Other than fingerboarding, are there any other exercises like wrist curls I can do to strengthen my wrists and flexors? Ta!

wMickey

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#1 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 10:06:30 am
I'm trying to learn to juggle sledge hammers for this very reason. Even if it doesn't work I'll look cool as fcuk.

erm, sam

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#2 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 10:32:33 am

SA Chris

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#3 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 10:39:22 am
Powerball

hstmoore

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#4 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 11:40:38 am
 :wank:

duncan

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#5 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 01:00:39 pm
You're aiming for your wrist to stay in neutral (hand in line with forearm - more or less) or a little extension and feel stable during a static (for the wrist muscles), short duration, high-load, low repetition activity.  Ideally you'd train the relevant muscles as specifically as possible.
Powerball and :wank: are low load, high repetition, with the wrist in flexion, so sadly non-ideal.

Better would be biceps curls, low reps (3-5), with the biggest load you can manage, maintaining a neutral or slightly extended wrist. You could also do some heavy, low-reps, wrist curls from extension to neutral if you are thinking of problems where you take a high undercut (wrist in extension) and move into it (wrist moves towards neutral).

High undercut - wrist in extension


Moving into undercut - wrist closer to neutral



Reinforce the strength gains with some specific climbing ie laps on powerful undercutting problems.



andy_e

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#6 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 04:18:10 pm
Basically, what you're saying is "become Ben Moon"? Gotcha.

What sort of load are we talking for bicep curls? 3kg? I found a 3kg weight knocking around the house... Will these help with the general feeling of tweakiness on non-undercut pockets too?

a13c

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#7 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 04:45:26 pm
I got a Powerball to try and strengthen my wrists.... I now really struggle to mantles/do standard press up as the Powerball has done something bad to the back of my wrist. Only one wrist though so they're only 50% utter shite.... I wouldn't recommend using one.

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#8 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 05:15:30 pm
Being of a marshal arts background, I find Kata with a 6 kg 150 cm studio bar (replacing the Katana but more than double the weight) keeps me in tone in this regard. I also do a modified (reduced) Kata with a 9 kg 180cm bar. This is quite hard, though it seriously engages both wrists and shoulders. It's very much like good, old fashioned, club swinging; but much cheaper (a light bar costs about a tenner from Argos).
You don't need to be a Samurai, just YouTube some basic kata/routines and build it up.
To avoid braining yourself or (as I have done) trying to remove your own kneecap, whilst learning a new move; switch to a broom stick...


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duncan

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#9 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 05:23:51 pm
Basically, what you're saying is "become Ben Moon"?

That's usually the right answer!

What sort of load are we talking for bicep curls? 3kg? I found a 3kg weight knocking around the house... Will these help with the general feeling of tweakiness on non-undercut pockets too?

Unless 3kg is close to "the biggest load you can manage" I doubt if it will be enough. I'm guessing you should be able to manage 3-5 reps with a much bigger load. This should help the tweakiness in the wrist/flexors in other positions but it's biased towards helping on undercuts.

Matt's suggestion is basically the same: move your arm, keeping your wrist steady, whilst holding a heavyish weight.

Oldmanmatt

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#10 Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 02, 2016, 06:06:03 pm
I think you should be doing both. I'd throw in some "unsteady" press-ups and dips on rings too, if you have access.
And, what I'm suggesting is a (more advanced?) version of Will's pole brush exercises.

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andy_e

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#11 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 12, 2016, 09:10:10 am
What's an unsteady press up? And are we talking bicep curls such as this? http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/dumbbell-bicep-curl

kelvin

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#12 Re: Wrist/flexor strengthening
September 12, 2016, 09:34:04 am
Pressups when you're drunk I guess  :alky:

 

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