[Bubba]

Ok, I've recently joined a gym again in an attempt to get some general fitness back to my tired old bod.

Now I know it's hardly the best environment for doing specific climbing training, but is there anything you can do for finger strength with a typical gym setup??

[dobbin]

The oldest trick in all the training books for forearm strength is to either get a bar and hang a weight off it, prop your forearm along your knees, palms facing upwards, roll the bar down to your finger tips and then curl it back up again, only your wrists should move..

Thats a really bad description, hopefully you get the idea? thats good for forearm stuff...

[Bubba]

Cheers - I know what you mean - they're called wrist curls. I reckon they'd be good for general finger strength, but I wonder if they're any good for the sort of static strenght needed for cranking dinkies.....

[Bubba]

Ho hum, actually they're not really wrist curls, coz no wrist curls you don't roll the bar down your fingers. Might give them a try anyway...

[dave]

I think you're better off training general body strength in the gym and then training finger strength on your woody.

[Bubba]

Yes, I suspect as much - the only problem is I hate having a big gym sesh and then going out to the cold garage to train fingers, or the other way round. I might build a hang board at home as well. Best thing would be for the gym to build a finger board....not likely but I might as well ask.

[dave]

When I was in me last year at uni I lived 30 seconds from the college gym, so i used to spend most of my time in there doing big wieghts on the leg-press machine, theory being then i would be brute strong on rockovers. Seemed to work anall.

I know its not fingerstrength but its useful all the same.

[dobbin]

Another good way to train your forearm strength could be to avoid the weights altogether and knock one out in the toilets.

Shall I get my coat now?