[Robsons]

Have had my BM 2000 since Oct 2010 and am really seeing some good progression - bar my back two! 
I was training them as the other fingers, but I kept feeling a straining feeling going down my forearms whilst holding. I ignored this at first, thinking it was due to them being underused - never would purely use back two!
Over the last two weeks, I have missed out the back two due to this -
Is this wise? Shall I build up to back two and train back 3 for a while to build strength?

What did/do you guys do?

Cheers,

Robin

[yorkshireman]

am in a similar boat and ive put it down to the use of back two just feeling really strange as much as being weaker.

[apharri]

I started out using back three before moving to back two and did the same thing when i moved onto one armed hangs. Its quite a strange sensation when you first start using back two (or it was to me), felt as though something was going to pull inside my forearm. I noticed ths began to fade as the grip got stronger but I spent a winter getting my back three strong before moving to back two

[Nibile]

back2 are the hardest for me, I think also because I had really bad injuries to my ring fingers, which, I think, bear the biggest effort.
I think it's normal to feel the strain down the forearms. back2 seem to work differently. with a lot of patience I have gone through the pain and from being barely able to hang on, I had really good progresses.
on another hand, I have a couple of friends who could hang them forever on their first session.
?

oh, and yes get back3 strong and be patient and disciplined.

[Lund]

If it's soreness as opposed to a pain (soreness you can stand - pain makes you wanna stop) in the belly of the muscle, it's normal.  It's because you're WEAK.

My advice - do deadhangs.  If you can't do a whole minute, then add do it for as long as you can at once, then do it again and repeat until all the short goes add up to a minute.  Then go and drink beer.  Repeat this once or twice a week - with a decent gap in between.  Eventually, when you get to say 40seconds in one go, then you can start doing repeaters and encores on those holds.  When that's easy, move to the smaller pocket and start over.  By the time your liver is fucked from all the beer, you'll have nails back two.

If you get pain in your forearm, man up.  It's the muscle taking the pain, and it'll grow back stronger.  If on the other hand, it's your elbow or God forbid in the fingers  then go and drink lots of beer and forget about training on the fingerboard for a little while.

Back three... by all means, train that.  But if it's too easy, then you'll need to remove a digit.  Or an arm.  But a digit is easier to remove.  Less chopping.

[lagerstarfish]

back two one side, back three the other

also, back three angled towards the centre - so that more weight is on the pinkie. if this doesn't make sense ,I could post a pic, but I am a lazy cvnt...

[yorkshireman]

Or back 3 adding weight to start with

[Dexter]

pain is just weakness leaving the body
that pain is just you getting stronger 

[Robsons]

Thanks for the replies - good to know...I'll train back 3, then go back in a few weeks!
Cheers, Robin.

[tomtom]

IO2, I've had this forearm 'tweak' a couple of years ago, from pulling my LH ring finger on the pocket in the crucifix low traverse at Almscliff... more like pulling a  muscle deep in the forearm.. it was fine too about a week later.

For the OP, if you can't hang the back two feet off then just hang them with feet on the back of a chair set back from the BM a couple of ft etc.. Thats actually how I normally warm up - do the same hangs I was planning but with feet on - at varying distances from the BM. Works the same fingers/tendons but just to a lesser degree.

[Robsons]

Interesting!
I could hang them when I first got the BM (feet off) and saw steady increases over the periods of training - up to 7.3 seconds...but more latterly felt this so called "tweak". The same experience for me being - it didn't really hurt at all the day after.
A friend of mine who used to use the moon board got the BM after my recommendation recently and had this "tweak" from using the back two and is now suffering a couple of weeks after...his tweak was much further down the forearm - in fact it is more in his wrist?
From the sounds of things, I think it is just a common feeling - but I am more inclined to do a bit of back 3 training (didn't do any before) - to get a better foundation strength in before returning to back two.

Thanks again.

[Fultonius]

Obviously the bathroom scales approach should only be used in the privacy of own home as I am sure it looks ridiculous ...

I'm not sure the scales make any difference - I'm pretty sure all forms of beastmakering look pretty ridiculous!

[chris05]

Obviously the bathroom scales approach should only be used in the privacy of own home as I am sure it looks ridiculous ...

I'm not sure the scales make any difference - I'm pretty sure all forms of beastmakering look pretty ridiculous!

I'm pretty sure I look cool as fuck when beastmaking..... 

[SA Chris]

My fingers pinged out of the holds when I was trying to deadhang on back two a while back. Forearms hurt and felt tweaky for about a week after, but were fine  after that.

[shark]

. Obviously the bathroom scales approach should only be used in the privacy of own home as I am sure it looks ridiculous ...

Screw what people think. There was some knob on UKC who observed that boulderers sanding their fingertips was "taking over from frantic toothbrushing of holds as the best way to advertise your immense talent to the punters without having to climb anything". Tosser.

In for a penny in for a pound I say - tops off power and kiss both biceps and power scream before getting on the scales.

Just remember some misguided people thought that buildering in public places in multi-coloured lycra was ridiculous once upon a time 

[honroid]

Resurrecting this old topic as there are some relevant posts on here and hoping for some more to add to it.

A bit of background: My back 2 progression is steady - slow but steady. As Robsons mentioned above, it all seemed so easy in the beginning; then the tweaks started so I slowed down the progression. I worked some assisted hangs, then worked through some unassisted hangs which is where I am now, looking to move on to repeaters.

My reason for posting: The tweaks I get when hanging the back 2 are in my middle finger. The position of the fingers seems to play a huge role in this. I hang the back 2 and have to keep my middle finger up to the first joint (proximal phalange) in line with the ring finger to avoid tweakage. If I move the middle finger towards the palm (like making a fist) I get ouchies in the middle finger. Just something I noticed and not particularly a problem, just interested to know if anyone else has come across this. Something similar was mentioned above by thesiger.

I assume beasts out there hang the back 2 without a care about the position of the rest of the fingers?

[standard]

Glad this got bumped.
I've 'done' my forearm twice in the same 'feels like a pull' fashion that others have described here.
Mine were both from the ring finger.
it's got better in a few weeks, both times.

so, I just need to knuckle down and back two my BM!

[Nibile]

When isolating fingers the position of the ones that are not inolved in the hang itself is very important, at least to me.
So yes, some positions hurt the non involved fingers. For example, I have to carefully position my thumb when doing index finger monos, otherwise it hurts a lot and I can't complete the hang.
I think it's because the fingers that are not directly involved in the hang are nonetheless involved in keeping everything together...

[honroid]

I see.

I was shocked at how much of a difference the way you set your hand makes to your ability to hold on. On the back 2 my unused fingers naturally want to curl into a fist but as I said it brings the pain. It feels like when hanging the back 2 my middle finger is working hardest of all. So you say this principle transfers directly to monos too, and is probably more noticeable there too.

I think it's because the fingers that are not directly involved in the hang are nonetheless involved in keeping everything together...

Probably a question of trying out slightly different finger positions until you find the one that works. Worth bearing in mind.

[adam_NE5]

I'm busy concentrating on back three at the moment after a spate of injuries over the last few months. I have found that alternating within a set is a pretty good way to progress i.e.
I broke the grip in with some deadhangs with longer periods of rest say 2mins then moved on to alternating with repeaters i.e.

Grab one Front three
Grab two back three
etc etc to seven on repeaters.

just recently I have started rotating full sets i.e. set one back three, set two alternating as before etc etc to seven

seems to work pretty well for me, not sure how well it will work on F2,M2,B2 training but will see when i get there.

[standard]

Steve being Steve.

[Nibile]

Very impressive, especially for such a big man.
Good inspiration.

[rosmat]

Very impressive, especially for such a big man.
Good inspiration.

Although he is small in height, pretty extreme somatype.

[Nibile]

How small?

[rosmat]

Not sure exactly, but approx 5ft 8ish.

According to La Sportiva 173cm.