[Omar15]

Cheers Nibile, have you found that adding weights to one armers improves your ability to do them? ie is it worth the extra recovery time?

[Nibile]

hey omar!
i used to do one armers with added weight, but more as a test than a training.
i prefer to do more one armers with natural weight and some help when tired, and also to do eccentric excercises with added weight.

[Carnage]

If you're serious about getting strong, I would reduce the size of the hold you can do them on rather than increase the number you can do on a jug.

I'm probably one of the heaviest people on this thread able to do 'em (87kg) but thanks to my little t-rex arms I could do 2 on my right and 1 on my left (pre -surgery) on a jug.  Did nothing for me, and in support of much of the whats been said already, I would frequently get schooled by my less strong peers. Now that I've started hammering my fingers on the beastmaker and reducing the hold sizes for one arming, I'm getting much better gains.

[Paul B]

hahaha mark i thought you might say that when i posted it.

Are you surprised? You can lead a horse to water but you can't make the b*stard drink.

You've pointed out yourself that the problems that force you to use your technique are the ones you can't simply pull through. The more strength you gain the more problems you'll simply yard through ignoring the other ways to imrpove. This is a viscious cycle and leads to you hitting a self imposed glass ceiling which to bust through you're going to have to drop your grade and eat some rather humble pie.

One thing that has amazed me since coming back from my trip is just how much weight your arms DON'T need to take if you use your feet well. I'm nowhere near as strong as I was a few years ago, nowhere near. I climbed with a few of my peers tonight on the board and they'd disagree on appearance. The difference is my feet weren't leaving the board, ever.

[SA Chris]

I thought the bathford boulders were meant to be chossy wank but apparently not

Nah, some of them are chossy wank, but some of them (notably "Mike's Boulder") are really good quality rock.

[abarro81]

This is a viscious cycle and leads to you hitting a self imposed glass ceiling which to bust through you're going to have to drop your grade and eat some rather humble pie.

Indeed, and as you were saying earlier those who go down this route often aren't the sort to want to do that, so end up training more and more because they're 'not strong enough', and never actually go outside and climb anything. I've seen a couple of people fall into this trap. They now either spend all their time indoors (and it's not like they're training for comps or anything) or have given up..

[granticus]

I'm in bristol and there's not much bouldering around here so i just end up going inside

Bathford, Clevedon, Exmoor Coast, Culm Coast, Dartmoor, South Wales, Forest of Dean.........  all have decent bouldering, are within easy reach of Brizzle, and a variety of rock types to hone your skills!

If you're willing to pull on a harness and pull up a rope, you are incredibly well situated to access lots of quality rock climbing trad and sport..   

[Fiend]

If you're willing to pull on a harness and pull up a rope, you are incredibly well situated to access lots of quality rock climbing trad and sport..   

Yeah but he might actually get better at climbing that way which would surely be counter-productive AND cut into valuable errr "one arming" time 

[Three Nine]

Omar informs me he is off to the Forest of Dean today to go rock-climbing!  I hope i'll be eating my words shortly.

[Paul B]

Omar informs me he is off to the Forest of Dean today in search of the perfect branch to one-arm

[Johnny Brown]

My work here appears to be done.

[andy popp]

Omar informs me he is off to the Forest of Dean today to go rock-climbing!

The perfect spot for a man convinced of the merits of an excess of power over technique.

[Three Nine]

How did you get on Omar? has it changed your perspective at all on the importance of one-armers?

[Omar15]

Meh, it was okay. Most of it was a bit shit - not very psyche-inducing. We found a cool roofy problem but that required naff all technique, was fun though.

I hope the other bouldering spots around brizzle aren't as bad!

[i_a_coops]

You've been spoiled by southern sandstone!

[a dense loner]

not really s sandstone appears to be wank, n i know bristol is. if i were u omar i'd go for 6 one-armers

[i_a_coops]

Hey it's not wank! Look, I can do a list of good things about High Rocks:

1) It's half an hour from where I live.
2) ........
3) ...............

In all seriousness there is some bloody good bouldering if you know where to look..... (takes cover)

[benpritch]

not really s sandstone appears to be wank, n i know bristol is.

southern sandstone is not wank, go and wash your mouth out. bristol is though.

[a dense loner]

sorry ben i stand corrected, shuffles off for long sling n top rope
plus the photo's i've seen on web don't inspire me to walk from one prob to the next let alone travelling there. suppose if i did live near it tho, i'd take up weights

[KH]

I'm in Bristol and there's not much bouldering around here so i just end up going inside

Bathford, Clevedon, Exmoor Coast, Culm Coast, Dartmoor, South Wales, Forest of Dean.........  all have decent bouldering, are within easy reach of Brizzle, and a variety of rock types to hone your skills!
If you're willing to pull on a harness and pull up a rope, you are incredibly well situated to access lots of quality rock climbing trad and sport..   

Omar, get yourself over to Dinas Rock (http://www.swbg.co.uk/bouldering/dinas_rocks/kenelgarth_wall.shtml).  About an hours drive from Bristol and is a quality venue.  Let me know when you're there and I'll try to organise people to show you around (if I'm not there myself of course).  It sounds like you're not into sport climbing, but it's worth persevering with as there is loads close to you and in South Wales, on varying rock types that require a variety of climbing styles that will ultimately make you a better boulderer!

Regarding one armers, doing lots on a jug will help your arm endurance but if you want to be a better/stronger climber then carnage is on the money and you should aim to do one on gradually smaller holds.  Be careful though as one armers are amazing at inducing elbow injuries and if you haven't been climbing for too long, then doing a one armer off a small edge will at some point induce a finger pulley injury.

As has said before though, if you've been climbing for 3 years or less, then you're priority should be learning to climb, and I don't mean that to sound patronising, but you learn so many climbing skills in the first few years that out weigh improving arm strength.

One other thing, I usually love to do a few one armer's off a jug early in a session as part of my warm up (or sometimes just as a party trick to show off!) but at the moment I have tricep injuries in both arms which prevent me from even doing a single two arm pull.  However, even without being able to do a one or even two arm pull up, I am still bouldering / climbing at the same level prior to being injured (tonight I repeated 3 overhanging V9's and a few V7 and V6's at Dinas Rock).  Morale of the story, one armers are worth doing as part of an all round climbing and training programme, but they should only be a small part of that programme and ultimitely won't be the deciding factor as to whether you achieve big numbers or not (IMHO).

[Omar15]

KH, thank you! Dina's rocks looks very good, i'll try and get down there ASAP. In terms of one armers on smaller holds, I've been thinking about that. I think ill try one arming gradually smaller campus rungs (if my dodgy finger doesnt whine too much) but i still really want my 5 by the end of the year

Its a shame im not psyched for sport as a fair few of my friends are - there  is a buttload around here. Should have chosen to go to uni in sheffield i guess!

[a dense loner]

would stick to open handed omar, crimping doesn't sound like it would be good for u

[Dexter]

ok I havent been climbing that long but I have found that whilst finger strength has to be built up slowly over time ( if you try and go too fast you screw tendons up) other muscles i.e. biceps core etc can be trained a lot harder/faster without injury (as long as you do antagonistic stuff to stop your elbows being ruined) hence why if I feel like my fingers are being a bit  tweaky then I go train core or 1 armers. However technique and finger strength is obviously priority but hey I get bored on rest days if I do nothing.

[Paul B]

Wait until your arms are stronger than your fingers and you try and pull harder than you should. It never ends well.
Keep tweaking the engine but never sort out the brakes 

[Dexter]

true true I've come close a few times but so far I think I've been pretty lucky to be injury free so far