[JamesD]

Using rubber bands and such, be honest how many of you actually do it, or have only started doing it since you developed a finger injury?
I have been doing a lot of research on finger health online the last month or so, and if there is one thing I am paranoid about it's doing everything in my power to avoid fucking up my fingers. A lot of online guru's, coaches, physio's etc, have stated how it should be an essential part of grip/finger strength training.
I've started doing loads of them and in combination with work on a gripmaster and COC grippers, I have seen appreciable gains in my crimp strength, and ability to hang onto slopers/very negative holds.
Your thoughts people?

[i.munro]

If you are a) relatively new to climbing & b) regularly bouldering then I would be very surprised if you weren't seeing substantial gains in strength.
Whether the other finger training COC etc is helping or hindering??

[JamesD]

Correct on both A (i've only been bouldering seriously for around 6 months, although I went occasionally for a few months before that) and B (I only boulder).
The strange thing was, I was seeing good gradual gains before, but my crimp strength and sloper/negative hold ability, seems to have jumped up significantly in the short period I have been doing this kind of training.

E.G. for me the jump from V1 to V2 was tough and took a couple of months, but I managed to almost land my first V3 2-3 weeks after doing this training, and I changed nothing else in my routine, and yesterday I even managed to pull onto a V4 sit start and make the first 2-3 moves, something which seemed far out of my reach only a few weeks before.
I guess i'll asess it on a week by week basis, and let you all know how I get on?

[Paul B]

A while ago I was stood around with various strong people and the ability to close a COC didn't seem to correlate in any particular way. Some good bash out reps with ease others could barely come close.
I'd say at the time I was able to crimp pretty damn hard and the COC's spanked me.
Are you sure your benefits are anything at all to do with strength and not just improvements in general? Slopers especially depend a lot on positioning. A lot of climbing depends on subtle body positions, footwork etc. These will be improving all the time. Frustratingly they're nowhere near as quantifiable as deadhangs Cocs or other things which it may be easier to attribute improvements to.

[a dense loner]

pauls talking sense, nats log out of his account pls

[a dense loner]

ps james don't overdo it with all the finger forearm type stuff as well as training or you'll soon be writing in the injuries section.
as regards doing v2 v3 etc, the one thing i've learnt about walls is don't look at the grade at all

[Paul B]

pauls talking sense, nats log out of his account pls

I've simply seen the light. (She's got her own profile anyway).

[richdraws]

Paul - did you take into account peoples weight or grip preferences when you did this informal test?
I have used them in the past and think they are rubbish for climbing training. The grippers are at their hardest resistance when your hand is nearly closed, mebbe using a really hard gripper that you can only crush partially would be better? But still not worth investing any time or money on.

[JamesD]

I don't think the COC's have any correlation with your ability to crimp hard due to the muscles they work, I do however think they have some merits for aiding open handed strength, and slopers.
The gripmasters are what I believe aided my crimp strength, since they allow you to work the crimp hold through the full range of motion, and work your finger tips individually, I also think it helped with my contact strength a little bit (I think thats what it's called?).
I only spent money on the gripmasters, since I had COC grippers left over from my powerlifting days, I used them to help me max out on my deadlift, they did the trick then, so i'll see how it goes in the mean time, i'm taking it easy with the volume of stuff i'm doing, probably around 3 days rest in between grip training and climbing, hopefully enough.....we'll see how it goes.

[account_inactive]

No, contact strength is something completely different (unless you are Horst).  Climbing on smaller holds would be more beneficial that the Gripmaster.  Use it as a warm up at best. 

As the big man said, go slowly with you tendons.  You will see big jumps in finger strength 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years just by climbing lots.  You will also gain a whole lot of movement schema that you wont get from a hand grip device which is a lot more important

[Paul B]

Plus there are tried and tested ways of imrpoving all of these things e.g. campussing and deadhangs. BUT like everyone has said you might feel like a hero and then, only then, your tendons will make it quite clear they're not up for it.

Rich - it was very informal, a sausage fest and a coc(k?) being passed around a room full of ego's would be a better description. I'd guess I was the lightest there but there were some big guys (how many puns can we fit into one post?).

[tomtom]

Yeah - take it easy James - the best way to train is to climb... As others said above grip strength (or capability) on slopers/crimps is often down to body position and your climbing will benefit much more if you develop technique to counteract the lack of strength. THen when the strength develops.....
If you seriously pull one of your tendons or get wonky elbows thats it for a few months....

[Fultonius]

Just been reading through Dave Macleod's book - I'd say it's worth a read just now!

I know it's easy to focus on getting stronger but the best plan for you just now (and the best way to avoid injury) is to avoid any additional strength exercises and focus mainly on bouldering. Focus on technique. At your level, as long as you're not excessively weak or heavy, you'll be able to progress to V5/6 without any additional strength training.

My flat mate just did his first font 8a/V11 after 3 years of mainly just bouldering. He does very little additional strength training, in fact, he mainly just climbs outside at Dumby.

Get good first, getting strong will follow.

P.S. it's your finger flexors that do the work, the extensors are the antagonists.

[JamesD]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, and I take the point that the best training for bouldering is more bouldering etc.
I think it's just that I am bouldering twice a week at the moment, and my body finds it difficult to recover if I up it to 3 times at the moment, likewise if I have a fingerboard/deadhang session outside of this two times a week, I don't feel recovered enough when at my next bouldering session.
Maybe i'll try cutting the intensive gripmaster work/COC gripping to once a week, and the rest of the time just use my easier gripmaster for warming up/cooling down, and keep up with the extensor stuff for overall finger health/mobility ( I am aware that they are just the antagonistic muscles but I figure it's good to keep it all balanced right?), it's not that I am unhappy with my progress so far, just looking for anything that will help me out that little bit more when I can't get to the wall or my body is not quite recovered enough.
Thinking about maybe getting some rock rings so I can have some fun in the park when not bouldering, better than a pull up bar I reckon as at least it's a little more specific.

[Fultonius]

Ah right, your first post was titled Finger Extensor Training, but you mainly talked about flexor exercises, hence confusion...

So, you're doing theraband extensor exercises this early in the game - good work, keep it up! Not sure exactly how much it'll protect your fingers, but it can't hurt.

If you can't manage 3 sessions a week feeling fully recovered before the start of each session, you need to work out why!

Are you doing any climbing-related exercise on your rest days? (i.e. fingerboard, pull-ups)

How long are your normal bouldering sessions?

How much sleep do you get?

Do you eat a decent meal of carbs and protein straight after a session?

[tomtom]

I found that two sessions a week were fine, but three would wear me down... Its not so bad now (my body is a bit more used to it) but I think I tend to train 3 times a week for 2-3 week bursts then drop down to 1-2 for a couple of weeks etc... Or just taking it a bit more easy. I never climb two days in a row - unless I'm on a climbing hol/trip and even then pace myself...
3 times a week was leaving me perma-aching, headaches/bad sleep etc...

[JamesD]

Ah right, your first post was titled Finger Extensor Training, but you mainly talked about flexor exercises, hence confusion...

So, you're doing theraband extensor exercises this early in the game - good work, keep it up! Not sure exactly how much it'll protect your fingers, but it can't hurt.

If you can't manage 3 sessions a week feeling fully recovered before the start of each session, you need to work out why!

Are you doing any climbing-related exercise on your rest days? (i.e. fingerboard, pull-ups)

How long are your normal bouldering sessions?

How much sleep do you get?

Do you eat a decent meal of carbs and protein straight after a session?

I am doing theraband type exercises yes, in addition to finger extensor exercises (with rubber bands)

I don't know for sure why I can't manage 3 times a week fully recovered, but the following could be factors that can be taken into account:

I work out 1-2 times a week in addition to bouldering
I swim 2-4 times a week in addition to this
I am not a small guy (around 100kg, 6 ft 2, huge legs from years of powerlifting/cycling), and despite being very strong for my size, I think my power to weight ratio could definitely be improved.

No climbing related exercises on rest days at present other than the finger/grip work 1-2 times a week, which I will cut down on under the advisement of the guys on here and limit to once a week.

Usually my bouldering sessions are 2-2.5 hours, do you think this is too long?
Would 3 sessions a week of 1-2 hours be better for instance?
I'm normally breaking it down with one session for traversing pull-up, dead hang, and core stuff, and then one session of just doing loads of problems and trying harder stuff.

Sleep is ok, could be better, something I can improve on for sure.

Diet is very good 70-80% of the time, with the occasional crappy snack (like chocolate), in between healthy meals.

[Fultonius]

Ahaaa, it all becomes clear!

Right, you clearly like bouldering and want to get better at climbing. If you want to seriously progress, you're going to have to massively reduce the weights, and focus mainly on climbing. Swimming 2-4 times a week, weights twice and bouldering twice is enough to knacker anyone!

I guess you were well into powerlifting before climbing? Even if you have Malcolm Smith's or Chris Sharma's forarms and fingers, you're going to be struggling to boulder hard even if most of the 100kg is muscle!

I'm 6ft and 77kg and I'm by no means light! (although, I don't boulder particularly hard either, compared to folk on here - V8ish)

If you're wanting to keep swimming, doing weights and climbing, unfortunately it's going to hamper your progress in climbing. So a comprimise is going to have to be made.

[JamesD]

Hmmmm, I quite like my routine at the moment, but if I need to drop some volume to help out my bouldering then so be it, maybe I cut the weights to once a week and the swimming to 2-3 times at a gentler pace more along the lines of active rest than cardio.
If I also switch to 2 days of shorter sessions just on problems, and one day solely on traversing circuits to help Power Endurance, improve stamina, and increase my overall time spent on the wall.

By the way, I realise this thread has now completely drifted off topic, but the advice so far has been really helpful and constructive, thanks guys 

[erm, sam]

One thing to consider about the number of sessions you can fit in a week is to make them not all the same intensity. You might be able to do an extra session of climbing a week if it is mainly skills and movment practise based, rather than being about beasting yourself.  Dave Mcleod talks a lot about how people focus on strength and endurance training, but do almost no movement or skills training or drills, which is unheard of in other more advanced/mainstream sports.

At the risk of repeating my self endlessly, books like The Self Coached Climber and 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes are very helpful in understanding the range of non strength or non endurance things you can do to improve...
Over time you will certainly adapt to climbing 3 times a week and be able to increase the intensity.

I personally find swimming and climbing overlap a lot and i can't do a lot of one without decreasing the quality of the other..

[abarro81]

One thing I don't get... If you're fresh enough to use COCs on non-climbing days why don't you just go climbing that day.  If you're not fresh enough then why not just rest properly? Messing around with COCs and gripmasters sounds like the makings of a day that wont make you stronger for climbing or more rested to be able to climb more....