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Max hangs on pockets (Read 4187 times)

Danny

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Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 02:40:34 pm
I've always avoided pockets in training. Turns out I'm weak beyond belief on them, relative to my half crimp and sloper strength. I need an assist to do 10s max hangs on 1-pad two-finger pockets. Some of this is form and recruitment: I've gone from a 20 kg assist to about 10 kg in a few weeks. But it always feels like I'm on the verge of tweak. In fact, I have an 'apparent'  max when I feel warm at the start of a session, yet I can keep taking weight off through the session. This is an odd situation, as compared to my other max hang routines. Any experience or pointers here from the training illuminati?   

bendavison

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#1 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 03:01:51 pm
I'm not sure what your question is? Like you, I also take much longer to warm up to max on pockets, particularly back 2, than 4 finger holds and it's always longer than I think.

jshaw

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#2 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 03:14:30 pm
Also not sure what your question is.

But, if you are able take more weight off, then you probably weren't fully warmed up or recruited for the first few hangs.

I rarely ever feel "on the verge of a tweak" for open hand / pocket hangs. If they're a particular area of weakness perhaps backing off on the weight and focusing on increasing the volume of hangs may be a less risky approach until you're more comfortable with open hand / pockets. I find Steve Bechtel's 3-6-9-12 ladder protocol useful for this.

Danny

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#3 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 04:53:17 pm
Somewhat unclear on my questions. Sorry. Here are two:

1. Is it normal to take a longer time to warm into pockets? Sounds like yes is the answer.

2. Is the tweaky feeling standard? Perhaps. To be clear: I'm backing off in the sense that I have a 10kg assist. Are you saying add more weight to my assist and do, eg, repeaters instead?

teestub

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#4 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 06:17:38 pm
I too find middle 2 tweaky and horrible. I did a bit of testing on pockets recently after doing a block of fingerboarding involving front 3 drag and back 3, and found that I had made decent gains on middle 2 through this training.

jshaw

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#5 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 06:46:38 pm
Yes, when I find a finger position that I'm weak on, or am coming back to something I've not done for a while. I'll start out with up-ing the volume rather than focusing on max hangs.

Repeaters would be fine, but I prefer 3-6-9-12 ladders as I can focus on building a base level of finger strength rather and correct form rather than battling pump. Maybe try both and see what works for you.

Danny

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#6 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 08:26:34 pm
I too find middle 2 tweaky and horrible. I did a bit of testing on pockets recently after doing a block of fingerboarding involving front 3 drag and back 3, and found that I had made decent gains on middle 2 through this training.
Interesting. Might try something like this.

Danny

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#7 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 08:31:06 pm
habrich, it sounds like I'm in a similar place on that trajectory then, with gains only explicable in terms of recruitment. I think I'll back off and do volume on account of the tweaky feeling though, then get back to the maxing in a month or so.

Danny

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#8 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 16, 2018, 08:32:31 pm
Worth noting that whenever I do pull on pockets I've always defaulted to either front two or back three. Something about the middle feels wrong to me.

Nibile

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#9 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 17, 2018, 09:25:34 am
When training on 2 finger pockets and monos I've found that the position of the other fingers (the ones that aren't involved in the hang itself, thumb included) is really important to make the prehension more comfortable. Experiment!

jwi

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#10 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 17, 2018, 12:34:34 pm
with gains only explicable in terms of recruitment

Don't underestimate tendon stretch.

Murph

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#11 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 17, 2018, 03:03:33 pm
I always thought middle two are supposed to be the strongest. They are the most useful two even if not.

The first few weeks of trying anything I reckon most of the gains are mental or muscle memory rather than actual gains. Like, you’re telling your body you can do the thing it’s ok.

BicepsMou

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#12 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 19, 2018, 01:18:46 pm
I always thought middle two are supposed to be the strongest. They are the most useful two even if not.


Was intrigued by this also a while back, because personally my front2 is much stronger and feels less tweaky than my mid2 (which by pure coincidence was also be rumored to be the case for WolfgangG).

Doing a bit of observing and asking around other climbers about their favourite pocket position, I came to the conclusion that relative digit lengths play a certain role in this:

E.g. the shorter the ring relative to the middle finger is, the more load the ring gets in a mid2 position and the more tweaky this may feel, if not adapted specifically. Which seems to be my case.
Whereas the index seems to cope better with the length difference, which is why front2 seems to be favoured by those with bigger digit length differenes, despite being anatomically less favourable in terms of strength than mid2 (shared muscle belly etc.).

Caveat: this is by far no “study”, just observations and talks involving some 10+ climbers and personal interpretation based on this… So take it as such ;-)

Rocksteady

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#13 Re: Max hangs on pockets
March 19, 2018, 03:00:17 pm
Doing a bit of observing and asking around other climbers about their favourite pocket position, I came to the conclusion that relative digit lengths play a certain role in this:

E.g. the shorter the ring relative to the middle finger is, the more load the ring gets in a mid2 position and the more tweaky this may feel, if not adapted specifically. Which seems to be my case.
Whereas the index seems to cope better with the length difference, which is why front2 seems to be favoured by those with bigger digit length differenes, despite being anatomically less favourable in terms of strength than mid2 (shared muscle belly etc.).

I think this is spot on. I have relatively short ring fingers and find mid-2 an extremely tweaky hang. Injured both left and right hands training this grip last year.
The front 3 back 3 solution described further up the thread helped me in the past and I never had any tweaks from it.

 

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