[shark]

Yesterday I did a big assisted 1 arm (left only) and encores rock ring session in the day that left me utterly stuffed for my evening AnCap session. I was planning to do this rock ring session twice a week but wonder whether to revert to the little and often greasing the groove stylee approach. The little and often is also Dave Mac's favoured approach. Before Adam jumps in I have indisputably weak fingers and getting stronger fingers will get me up the routes I aspire to do.

Maybe 1 big session a week and then lots of occasional hangs the rest of the week ?

Any views? 

[shark]

Looking at generic descriptions of GTG on the web, no-one seems to mention any kind of warm-up? Got a theory on that?

Yes I have  Its because if yiou are constantly doing stuff you are pretty much always warmed up.

The more you do the less you have to warm up. If you have done a decent days climbing or training the previous day it takes much less warming up the following day.

[douglas]

How big was the big session? You'll get used to them soon I'd have thought? I'm interested because I have done a few morning fingerboard sessions before training after work. Unfortunately they usually left me with tweaky elbows. I was doing about 30 to 40 max hangs on different grips.

Have you read The Naked Warrior by Tsatsouline? There is a chapter on grease the groove in there. I haven't read it but my main reservation would be that the muscles of the forearm are much smaller than the leg but it would be interesting to see how it could translate.

[SteG]

little and often is working for me at the moment

[highrepute]

If you want to do multiple sessions a day or on many consecutive days then you've got to keep them short. is this stating the obvious?. For me this is 60-90min sessions (depending on type of training).

Does this occasional hangs thing work at all? what are we talking? one max hang/repeater set every 30mins? how do you get/stay warmed up, I think for training to be effective you need to be warmed up a bit. I'd have thought one 40min finger board session would be a lot more effective that hangs at random intervals throughout the day.

Sorry I've posted more Q's and A's

[abarro81]

What he said.

[shark]

How big was the big session? You'll get used to them soon I'd have thought? I'm interested because I have done a few morning fingerboard sessions before training after work. Unfortunately they usually left me with tweaky elbows. I was doing about 30 to 40 max hangs on different grips.

It was interesting totting them up. 32 encore hangs and 24 deadhangs = 56. Also some heavy finger rolls, a wrist complex and 25 assisted left arm pull-ups. Although I felt fresh at the end the session was bigger than I realised     

I still think that both approaches are going to be effective but resolving which is best would require a comparative study because I dont think the answer is that obvious.

[Tommy]

I did it with just one thing over a period of a couple of years and it did absolutely bugger all for me. You get quite (but only quite) good at that one thing, but no better than I would if I'd been focused and done less reps and way less reps overall. And yes, the warming up is an issue - careful old man 

I read a Leah Crane thing somewhere about this an I also thought what she said was dubious. If it worked I'm sure we'd see more olympic athletes using the same principal (but to the nth degree...).

[Serpico]

Show me the SCIENCE... I think a lot of this Pavel Tsatthingy stuff is sold on the aura of 'secret Russian training', when actually it's just bollocks.
But if it works for you.

Anyway, marginally related to daily training here's an old quote from Per-Olof Astrand from The IOC Encyclopaedia of Sports Medicine: Endurance Training In Sport

    One of the reasons for the dominance of aerobic training is probably that swimming is very much an 'arm and upper body sport'. All leg-dependant athletes on land have special training for the lower extremities plus the daily stimulation of walking and standing. A swimmer while not actually swimming recieves virtually no training of the upper body, and especially not of the 'proper' arm muscles. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the distance and time the swimmer has to undertake to be successful, regardless of  short  or long distance performance. Compared with a runner, a swimmer could reduce the workout time if he could swim to and from school,work or training session.

[slackline]

    One of the reasons for the dominance of aerobic training is probably that swimming is very much an 'arm and upper body sport'. All leg-dependant athletes on land have special training for the lower extremities plus the daily stimulation of walking and standing. A swimmer while not actually swimming recieves virtually no training of the upper body, and especially not of the 'proper' arm muscles. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the distance and time the swimmer has to undertake to be successful, regardless of  short  or long distance performance. Compared with a runner, a swimmer could reduce the workout time if he could swim to and from school,work or training session.

Anecdote : Whilst living in Perth we went for a cruise up the Swan River and passed Rolf Harris' childhood house.  He was (or was very close to) competing in swimming in the Olympics in his formative years, and the tour guide told us he used to swim from his house to training, train for a few hours, then swim back.  Luckliy for him there are no crocodiles in the Swan River, just dolphins...


Dolphin in Swan River, Perth, Western Australia by slack---line, on Flickr

[Johnny Brown]

My entire life revolves around greasing the groove. Get into it. Seriously. How come I can do West Side Story every go?

[cofe]

I saw you fall off it once. In your face.

[Johnny Brown]

Yeah my groove was a bit dry that day. It happens. Usually due to hot weather drying it out.

[haz]

How big was the big session? You'll get used to them soon I'd have thought? I'm interested because I have done a few morning fingerboard sessions before training after work. Unfortunately they usually left me with tweaky elbows. I was doing about 30 to 40 max hangs on different grips.

It was interesting totting them up. 32 encore hangs and 24 deadhangs = 56. Also some heavy finger rolls, a wrist complex and 25 assisted left arm pull-ups. Although I felt fresh at the end the session was bigger than I realised     

I still think that both approaches are going to be effective but resolving which is best would require a comparative study because I dont think the answer is that obvious.

Just to get up to speed. How long is an effective maximal hang, to faliure? Is this training maximum strength, so adding wweight would be helpful?
And encoures you mean repeaters, so 6reps of 8 sec hangs with 3 secs rest per hold type typically? I guess there are many ways of approaching this...

[chris05]

For reference: http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/pages/training

[slackline]

For reference: http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/pages/training

Also UKB Wiki - Training : The Science (mostly just links to articles, anyone can expand on it though).

[cheque]

I think base strength and fitness might be an issue- I've personally had more success in doing short sessions day after day than I did in doing more intense ones with rest days inbetween. I put it down to the fact that I was starting from a very low level of strength so my body responds better to a gradual, insistent coaxing into action than the shock of having to recover. This would seem to fit with the old-father-in-law story and explain why it doesn’t seem to translate to the beastlier end of the climbing ability spectrum.

No SCIENCE involved in the above paragraph however! I’m also fairly confident that I wouldn’t be able to get up West Side Story. 

[shark]

Just to get up to speed. How long is an effective maximal hang, to faliure? Is this training maximum strength, so adding wweight would be helpful?
And encoures you mean repeaters, so 6reps of 8 sec hangs with 3 secs rest per hold type typically? I guess there are many ways of approaching this...

I detailed the whole session on my blog

[TobyD]

Hi Shark, personally i try and use rockrings as a 'little and often as i can be arsed' supplement to crag / wall sessions, however, this is not very SCIENCE-tific, what exactly do you do on them? I've been experimenting with trying lots of offset hangs / pull ups, either offset rungs, or using back 3 / middle 2 on one hand to alternate finger / arm work on each side. When i say lots i'd guess its usually a 10-15 min session.

[Three Nine]

Yesterday I did a big assisted 1 arm (left only) and encores rock ring session in the day that left me utterly stuffed for my evening AnCap session.

For me I would have said that the bloc/ancap session was the priority session and the hangs session a sort of auxiliary session. I would have done the ancap session first in the day, and then done the other one with any umph I had left or binned it if I didnt have any.

[shark]

For me I would have said that the bloc/ancap session was the priority session and the hangs session a sort of auxiliary session. I would have done the ancap session first in the day, and then done the other one with any umph I had left or binned it if I didnt have any.

They are all important. This was what led to me raising the topic in the first place. The little and often approach is going to be less debilititating and so leave you in a fresher state for other sessions. However, I doubt I would get the quantity and quality of hangs in compared to a dedicated session so going to stick with that approach till xmas. As long as I get my 2 AnCap sessions in a week as well then all is OK so planning to catch up at the wekend. I'm also a bit behind on the AeroCap work this week too. Next week it will be hangs in the day and AeroCap in the evening and do the AnCap for other days. 

[shark]

...what exactly do you do on them?.....When i say lots i'd guess its usually a 10-15 min session.

Your approach is little and hardly at all by the sound of it. 

If you are going to do 10-15min sessions you should be thinking in terms of doing that several times a day for gains as opposed to ticking over. 

I detailed the whole session on my blog
I am only using rock rings because I dont have access to a fingerboard during the day. The offset pull-ups sound like a good idea although I don't do them currently.

[Oldmanmatt]

Right...

I have failed mirserably to impose any regularity to my training sessions. It is at best half baked.

However, I have achieved significant improvements in strength etc over the past year (I've gone from on sight F6b+, 2-3 attempts at F 6c, working F7a for a few visits, failing at F7b to on sight F6c and the rest up one grade; in one year).
I have been doing a weekly core ( first to warm up), hangs, asymetric pulls and weighted symetrics session (Sat or Sun depending) on top of my (if I'm lucky) three sessions a week at the wall. Mostly the wall time is spent working problems, a token systems sesh and campusing the systems board to finnish.
All with the "walk past" hangs/pull ups, when I remember...
I have a bad habit of deadhanging / pulling on architraving in peoples offices etc (which gets some weird looks, though "sorry, I'm a climber." seems to smooth it over...(except the time I pulled said architraving off, in the group chairmans office a couple years back, luckily I was there to report a record profit).

I've had no injurys/tweaks from "at whim" fingerboarding. All my tweaks have occured doing bloody silly problems, when supposedly warm...

[Oldmanmatt]

Bugger,
Actually meant to ask about rock rings and went off on a tangent...
Never used them.
Worth it?
Looks like I will be traveling alot soon, are they worth lugging around?
Have been toying with the idea of rigging a small fingerboard with clips, to hang on hotel bathroom doors etc. Means traveling with hold baggage, but a 10 day trip can screw a training programme..,

[Three Nine]

Obviously Shark, eliminating 'take' from your vocabulary would bear more fruit than any amount of hanging - but God forbid you work your REAL weakness 

[Serpico]

...what exactly do you do on them?.....When i say lots i'd guess its usually a 10-15 min session.

Your approach is little and hardly at all by the sound of it. 

If you are going to do 10-15min sessions you should be thinking in terms of doing that several times a day for gains as opposed to ticking over. 

If you were going to train your biceps with 3 sets of curls it wouldn't take you more than 10mins (including rest periods), and you wouldn't do that 3 times a day.
Just because we spend all day at the crag doesn't mean we should spend all day on the fingerboard.

[shark]

Obviously Shark, eliminating 'take' from your vocabulary would bear more fruit than any amount of hanging - but God forbid you work your REAL weakness 

You've mentioned this and I don't think it inhibits my climbing - I do go for it above bolts if a redpoint or onsight is on the cards.

I can think of another four letter word you should eliminate from your vocabulary...

[shark]

...what exactly do you do on them?.....When i say lots i'd guess its usually a 10-15 min session.

Your approach is little and hardly at all by the sound of it. 

If you are going to do 10-15min sessions you should be thinking in terms of doing that several times a day for gains as opposed to ticking over. 

If you were going to train your biceps with 3 sets of curls it wouldn't take you more than 10mins (including rest periods), and you wouldn't do that 3 times a day.
Just because we spend all day at the crag doesn't mean we should spend all day on the fingerboard.

So how much, how often do you think is optimal ?

[Serpico]

So how much, how often do you think is optimal ?

  and it'd probably be different for you anyway.
Scroll to page 15 for some further reading.

[haz]

Apologies if this is off topic, avoiding making numerous threads about roughly the same ideas.

Does anyone have opinions about repeaters - when struggling to complete a set, would you drop the time of hang off or the number of reps?

[TobyD]

Actually meant to ask about rock rings and went off on a tangent...
Never used them.
Worth it?

I only use them / have them, as they were a freebie ages ago, and i do not currently have any other options which are less of a pain than driving to a crag to hang off some shit holds. They are notably less productive than a (well designed) fingerboard, but better than FA. I am not convinced of the applicability of the 'freehanging holds develop core, and shoulder stability' claims for them; i think they have value, though it is limited.

[webbo]

Apologies if this is off topic, avoiding making numerous threads about roughly the same ideas.

Does anyone have opinions about repeaters - when struggling to complete a set, would you drop the time of hang off or the number of reps?

Use a bigger hold.

[cjsheps]

of course, i'm not expert but here's my two cents...

i find that there's a definite value in longer sessions - you can really get into the exercise, and of course it teaches you to battle on and try hard. however, i used to train until i felt like collapsing (in some case, actually ending up lying in a heap on the floor) but all this did was mean that i could only muster up the energy to train hard like once a week

i'd say that a month prioritising the fingers is enough - when not doing so i'd still have one maintenance session a week if fingers are that much of an issue. 1-2hour sessions mixing it up is good during the intensive stint are about right - twice a week and you'll be able to feel the gains by the end of the phase.

[TobyD]

...what exactly do you do on them?.....When i say lots i'd guess its usually a 10-15 min session.

Your approach is little and hardly at all by the sound of it. 
If you are going to do 10-15min sessions you should be thinking in terms of doing that several times a day for gains as opposed to ticking over. 

I detailed the whole session on my blog
I am only using rock rings because I dont have access to a fingerboard during the day. The offset pull-ups sound like a good idea although I don't do them currently.

ditto, i only use rockrings when they are the only available option, and usually as a supplement to a day on the crag.

I would question (as Serpico has, I think) the specificity / applicability / benefit of hanging off the bloody things for an hour a day though. Apart from anything else I'm not sure I have the will!