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One Arm'ers (Read 10042 times)

ianw

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One Arm'ers
October 29, 2016, 03:52:48 pm
I was wondering about the different stages of deadhangs. My current training plan has me hanging off my front 3 and then back 3 fingers on the smallest holds on the 1000 till I fail. I have been told that I should be aiming for 5 to 15 seconds. Anything under 5" then it probably too hard and anything over 15" then i need to make it harder.

To make it harder i can either add weight, use less fingers or use a smaller edge right?

Im at the stage where im looking into adding weight either weightvest or weights attached to my harness. How much weight shoukd i add till i start thinking about trying to do 1 arm deadhangs?

Is a 1 arm on a jug better than a 2 x 1 finger mono.

Soo many questions.... Basically what should my steps be to getting stronger? Is the dream 1 arm'ers or is that more prone to injury.

Thanks in advance.

kelvin

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#1 Re: One Arm'ers
October 29, 2016, 04:19:37 pm
Being unable to hang one armed, even from a jug but being able to do mono pullups when using both arms - I'd have to say monos obviously!

On the other hand. what I didn't realise until I was injured earlier this year was that this just highlighted the ridiculously bad stability in my shoulders. So the last few months have been hours of physio a week trying to address this. I can't say being able to do a couple of mono pullups ever helped my climbing but having stronger and stable shoulders hopefully will do. We'll see. I'd take the shoulder strength to do one armers over a mono pullup any day of the week.

It's a good OP and I'm keen to hear what others say.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2016, 04:30:22 pm by kelvin »

thekettle

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#2 Re: One Arm'ers
October 29, 2016, 09:29:28 pm
As another climber with unstable shoulders as an issue, I'd echo Kelvins wisdom.
I built up to 2-handed hangs with 30% BW added (smallest holds on BM2000 in a 3 finger drag) before switching to one handed with 5kg assistance on the deepest 3 finger pocket. These really tested my shoulder stability more than finger strength, in retrospect I could have benenfited from starting them sooner. This is all following a 5-8s max hang protocol. I've never aspired to do 1 arm pull-ups though.

Murph

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#3 Re: One Arm'ers
October 29, 2016, 10:51:31 pm
Kettle - thanks for sharing - was the two handed three finger drag your main training hang? Any reason you didn't use four? And then straight to three finger one handed.

I do most of my training four fingers 1/2 crimp. These days with what feels like a lot of added weight. Am I missing a trick in your opinion? Should I just forget about including that pinkie?

kelvin

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#4 Re: One Arm'ers
October 29, 2016, 11:29:14 pm

 This is all following a 5-8s max hang protocol.

Is this on the minute? or every three?

I've always done repeaters on 4 finger half crimp before. Just started max hangs on front 3 finger open now the shoulders are stable enough- seems to work my fingers much more. It's gonna be a long and slow process to adding weight however.

nai

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#5 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 08:15:06 am
Any reason you didn't use four?


If you want to hang open-hand it's your only option really, as soon as you involve the pinky the grip changes to a chisel.  I'd suggest that even using a small hold changes the grip so you should use a first joint edge or F2/M2 combos to hang properly open.

re OP

As thekettle suggests, starting some assisted one arm hangs on a bigger edge (or even a bar) will be of benefit long-term, possibly even do foot-on one-arm repeaters to start with.  Stay open same as when you're using both arms and engage the shoulder to target the right muscles. 

Mix the one arm work up with two arm hangs to start with and switch to one arm hangs on a single joint edge once the assistance you need is fairly low (not entirely sure at what point this is but I find anything over 10kg quite awkward, that would be about 15% assistance.  As ever with fingerbaording, just experiment and see what works.

nai

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#6 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 08:21:46 am
I do most of my training four fingers 1/2 crimp. These days with what feels like a lot of added weight. Am I missing a trick in your opinion? Should I just forget about including that pinkie?

Just noticed this as well. I'm always amazed how much difference the pinky makes to me in a 1/2 crimp.  Rather than add a lot of weight try hangs without it and see how much harder they feel. Or try just using one-arm with assistance. 

Murph

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#7 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 09:33:48 am
I'm always amazed how much difference the pinky makes to me in a 1/2 crimp.   

I'm not so sure it makes that much difference for me on a per-finger-basis. I would estimate, by proxy, that my 10 second 4 finger 2 hand max hang off the 18mm BM edge is 115kgs and my 3 finger is 95ks (at 65kgs BW).

115/8=14.4
95/6=15.8

Of course, this counts a pinkie as a digit just like the others, and is an estimate, but the point is the numbers are comparable.

Background - when I first tried 3 fingers at the end of a 4 finger session back in Feb I found it very hard indeed even with no added weight I could not do it for 10s off that hold. Since then I did maybe 15-18 sessions on 4 fingers, mainly on the smaller 14mm edge, in fits and spurts, getting the numbers up progressively, but only in a couple of sessions did I actually train 3 fingers....so, for my n=1, training 4 fingers half crimp (not sure what the difference is between this and chisel) carried over quite nicely to 3 fingers open.

Rather than add a lot of weight try hangs without it and see how much harder they feel. Or try just using one-arm with assistance. 

Supporting this, The Beastmakermakers themselves advise 321 finger progressions once +15kgs is reached. I should probably take on this advice - yesterday's session had me dangling with an ungodly assortment of three kettlebells and six weight plates and pulling the fingerboard from the plasterboard...

...but the thing that's kept me on the 4 finger 2 hand thing is it's so simple and takes just 30 minutes. Still, I've probably pushed the weight as far as sensible on this and would see stronger gains from diversifying.

tomtom

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#8 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 09:39:01 am
Rather than add a lot of weight try hangs without it and see how much harder they feel. Or try just using one-arm with assistance. 

...but the thing that's kept me on the 4 finger 2 hand thing is it's so simple and takes just 30 minutes. Still, I've probably pushed the weight as far as sensible on this and would see stronger gains from diversifying.

^^ this. I dislike training in general, but weighted DH as above seems to make gains and not chew up too much time..

As a complete aside and partial thread hijack, wheres the best place to get cheap weights - and what to use etc.. At the moment I've an old backpack with all my dumbell weights and a 2l bottle of coke in it. I could keep adding liquids, but its getting a bit bulky! Trip to Decathlog and find the cheapest weights going?

nai

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#9 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 09:44:58 am
New then Decathlon or Argos, but eBay, etc for second hand. Bet there's tonnes of dusty weights lurking beneath beds and behind sofas.

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Murph

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#10 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 09:48:10 am
As a complete aside and partial thread hijack, wheres the best place to get cheap weights - and what to use etc...

I just bought a 20 litre water container for £6 for doing assistance weight progressions. Hang that from a harness. Simple.

(Fill it first obvs)



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TobyD

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#11 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 10:10:01 am
As a complete aside and partial thread hijack, wheres the best place to get cheap weights - and what to use etc.. At the moment I've an old backpack with all my dumbell weights and a 2l bottle of coke in it. I could keep adding liquids, but its getting a bit bulky! Trip to Decathlog and find the cheapest weights going?

Recycle centres quite often have a sales yard, where you can get stuff like weights / benches / CV equipment that people have chucked out for a few quid.

nai

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#12 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 10:18:16 am

 my 10 second 4 finger 2 hand max hang off the 18mm BM edge is 115kgs

...but the thing that's kept me on the 4 finger 2 hand thing is it's so simple and takes just 30 minutes. Still, I've probably pushed the weight as far as sensible on this and would see stronger gains from diversifying.

If you're hanging 80% bodyweight off yourself to do your hangs then it's time to change what you do, but you know that.  I'm sure there's other sessions you can figure out that will only take 30 minutes, pretty sure no fingerboard workout should be much more than 45 anyway.

Murph

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#13 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 12:13:16 pm

If you're hanging 80% bodyweight off yourself to do your hangs then it's time to change what you do, but you know that.

Agreed.

The comparisons above were just estimates though - I never train 4f on the 18mm big edge so when I did a max on it yesterday it was like a rest jug haha. Training weight isn't quite that much.

Anyway yeah I should do something harder with less weight rather than getting silly. And it must be time to train one arm and get some of those shoulder stability gains I've read about. Cheers!



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shark

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#14 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 02:18:23 pm
pretty sure no fingerboard workout should be much more than 45 anyway.

Mine can take 2 hours+. I find the rest times I need between hangs to properly warm up ccan take nearly an houtr then do full-on weighted hangs with 5 mins rest again soak up loads of time too 

nai

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#15 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 02:46:45 pm
pretty sure no fingerboard workout should be much more than 45 anyway.

Mine can take 2 hours+. I find the rest times I need between hangs to properly warm up ccan take nearly an houtr then do full-on weighted hangs with 5 mins rest again soak up loads of time too
Shark in not conforming to protocol and not using his time efficiently shocker ;)

haydn jones

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#16 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 02:57:59 pm
When i was fingerboarding briefly last winter it would take me about 2 1/2 hours. warming up took ages and i would need massive rests onbetween reps to feel like im back to full energy

tomtom

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#17 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 04:56:35 pm
I can warm up to my present added weight hangs in 15-20 min or so.. TBH, I rarely warm up for more than 10 min at the crag/wall...

Murph

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#18 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 05:02:41 pm
When i was fingerboarding briefly last winter it would take me about 2 1/2 hours. warming up took ages and i would need massive rests onbetween reps to feel like im back to full energy

Would love to know what sort of numbers you were performing Haydn given what you've been doing on the lime of late?

I find I can get my session done in half and hour, excluding warmup but the very heavy hangs do require and benefit from a bit of a longer rest. You can't train strength when your fingers are still throbbing from that last hang...


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nai

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#19 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 06:19:12 pm
When i was fingerboarding briefly last winter  warming up took ages

Find that amazing seeing it only takes you about 12 seconds to get warm at the crag

thekettle

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#20 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 09:39:06 pm
Kettle - thanks for sharing - was the two handed three finger drag your main training hang? Any reason you didn't use four? And then straight to three finger one handed.

I do most of my training four fingers 1/2 crimp. These days with what feels like a lot of added weight. Am I missing a trick in your opinion? Should I just forget about including that pinkie?

Apologies for the 24hr delay in replying: I was doing a mix of hangs, the priorities being 3f drag and 4 finger chisel as these are my most commonly used grip types. Built up to doing both as one handed max hangs with -5kg, 4-7 sets of 5-8s hangs on the minute, with about 3 minutes between sets (basically Dave MacLeod protocol).
 During strength phases I also trained two-handed on mid 2 drags, front 3 half crimp and back 3 half crimp with up to 15kg added. You may be able to add a fair bit more if you're big (or use big holds), I'm 56kg.
Unless you have specific goals (or have years of fingerboarding under your belt) I'd go with the Steve Maisch approach of nailing your most common open and closed grip types, so add some front 3 or middle 2 dragging into your routine.

Murph

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#21 Re: One Arm'ers
October 30, 2016, 10:05:16 pm
Apologies for the 24hr delay in replying: I was doing a mix of hangs....

The way I read this it sounded like you'd spent the past day dangling off a piece of wood!

Thanks for the reply - I'll look into those protocols. Quite excited by the idea of trying something new and doing badly at first but making progress.

Cheers.

skelf

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#22 Re: One Arm'ers
November 07, 2016, 08:29:20 pm
New then Decathlon or Argos
v

Beware those domyos decathalon one have funny nonstandard holes if you do ever want to put them on a bar.
Cheapest I have found online are http://www.sweatband.com/dkn-cast-iron-standard-weight-plates.html?product=i[7867]

Murph

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#23 Re: One Arm'ers
November 10, 2016, 03:44:53 pm
Alright everyone it's sharing time.

I absolutely love hanging on my fingerboard. It feels great. I probably prefer it to actually climbing. Seeing & feeling the JABP hold at Minus 10 the other day has got me super keen to get stronger than ever. It is so much smaller than even the smallest BM hold though. Only thing for it - one armers, starting tonight.

So I've been looking up how to do one armers. I know, I know, it sounds so simple. There's a simple training video I will link below (that might encourage others) but can anyone point to a slightly more detailed form guide about good ways to hang. I know it's got something to do with shoulder stability or retracting the scapula but I'm not really sure what this means. Google finds lots on this but not sure where to look exactly. Anyone?

Thanks!






nai

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#24 Re: One Arm'ers
November 10, 2016, 08:08:23 pm
I typed out a reply on my phone while I was at swimming with the kids earlier then thought I'd better watch the video first in case I just ended up repeating or contradicting it  :lol: oh well here we go again....

I was told that when I climb and/or do pullups I was hunched up/shrugging and the two bit of advice I was told to do to cure it were "make your neck long" and "try to put your shoulder blades in your back pockets".  These do help engage the shoulders.  Hang off a bar in front of a mirror and try these, you'll see if you have a problem and whether you can feel the shoulder engage.  You could always film yourself if you don't have a bar and a mirror to hand.

When moving onto one-armers, try them foot-on somehow first, start on a jug to practise and get a feel for engaging and progress to the handhold you aim to use for your hangs. 

A useful exercise to get the shoulders prepped could be one arm repeaters, foot on of course. On a fingerboard with feet on a chair or a campus bord with feet on a rung, whatever works to get the intensity right. Perform 5-6 x 6-7s each arm (so sets of 10-12 reps).

Murph

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#25 Re: One Arm'ers
November 10, 2016, 09:57:01 pm
I was told to do to cure it were "make your neck long" and "try to put your shoulder blades in your back pockets".  These do help engage the shoulders.  Hang off a bar in front of a mirror and try these, you'll see if you have a problem and whether you can feel the shoulder engage.  You could always film yourself if you don't have a bar and a mirror to hand.

Many thanks for this nai. I looked up some shoulder blade activation exercises off the back of this and did the shoulder blades in back pockets thing. There are some horizontal shrug type efforts that really make you feel it. I think it was worthwhile - made me think I should probably have a half decent warm up before.

Sorry you ended up typing it twice. That lore video was sposed to be inspiring rather than instructional! Nice one.



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Nibile

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#26 Re: One Arm'ers
November 11, 2016, 08:44:40 am
 ;D ;D

Nibile

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#27 Re: One Arm'ers
November 11, 2016, 10:21:53 am
As others have said, shoulder stability is a prerequisite for one arm hangs.
A good test is to check whether you're able to hang one armed from a bar, controlling the shoulders and engaging them as if you were to do a one armer. It's tricky to "feel" that move.
A good practice is to hang two armed from a bar and try to pull up just by retracting the scapulae (that, by the way, should be always done when doing a pull up, instead of flexing at the elbows). The upwards movement will be quite short but you'll feel it in your upper back, especially lower traps and rhomboids, but lats also.
I hope this helps a bit more than the video.  ;)

Murph

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#28 Re: One Arm'ers
November 11, 2016, 01:36:40 pm
Nice oneNibs, all good stuff this. I've found some useful links by searching for one arm pull ups rather than one arm deadhangs. Although the videos of the bodyweight/callisthenics/gymnast guys demonstrating make me feel vastly inadequate. If those guys could be bothered to hang off a fingerboard every once in a while imagine what they could do on rock. And likewise I guess.

I hope this helps a bit more than the video.  ;)

The video is genuinely really helpful no bull. It cuts straight to the point. The biggest obstacle to getting started is getting started. I really enjoyed getting my arse handed to me in my one arm session yesterday. Thanks!!

 

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