[i_a_coops]

Now I hate watching people crimp down hard on 45 degree boards because I know if I did that half my pulleys would go 'ping' and I'd not be able to tie my shoelaces for the next 6 months.

Normally I just get bitter about this, but I just had a constructive idea for once in my life: what if I stop training on a board and do other things instead.

i.e. for non-crimp/finger related strength:
doing hard moves on big holds, jugs, flatties, good slopers, fat pinches etc.
footless bouldering
core workouts

and then fingerboard and campus board to isolate finger strength.

Question is, how important is it to work finger strength and body strength at the same time? I'd have thought that isolation was a good idea here as it means that you can properly work out each session instead of having to sacking off because a couple of tiny muscles and a pulley are a little bit sore, and deadhanging, foot on campusing etc. is a much more controlled environment than snatching for a crimp with the risk of your feet cutting accidentally.

However, I'd appreciate some feedback on potential problems with this approach.

Ian

[a dense loner]

Kook can't crimp for toffee but has climbed hard font 8b+ in his style. How many crimpy problems on a 45 wall do you want to do? If the answer rhymes with one I wouldn't worry about it. Hard moves are hard moves

[shark]

If you have climbed a long time then your body becomes inured to the stimulation you throw at it from just climbing and to break out of a plateau the intensity of isolation training might be the only way left to provide the required stimulus to get significantly stronger, however, deadhanging is safer than campusing and footless bouldering and forcing yourself  to open hand and half crimp only should be a priority if you injure easily from crimping.   

[krymson]

I've had good luck training body strength separately, exactly as you described, using big holds. The best way to do it in my opinion has been big moves between big holds with feet on ,or physical moves on big holds, the same moves you would do on physical routes but with good holds. try to do a variety of useful, climbing moves and focus on getting tired in the body while preventing any kind of pump in the forearms.

with steep boards ive had great gains in finger strength on grips i'm familiar with, but in terms of working in a new grip i really dont think the steep board is the way to do it.

The board is hard enough that you naturally gravitate towards your strongest grip. If you haven't worked the half crimp you will be weak on it and you will end up full crimping all the time instead, which will fuck your pullies up.

For me the the fingerboard is by far the best way for me to work in a new grip  - it lets me focus on understanding and feeling the grip while having complete control over how much i weight it, and get strong enough on it that i can use it on the wall confidently.

Once you feel comfortable at that grip on the fb, i feel like then you can try moving off it on a campus board, and after that try using it progressively on the steep board(hang->small moves->big moves)

Once you are using the new grip(half crimp generally) on the steep board regularly(2/3 times a week or more), i would recommend you phase out the fingerboarding entirely. The steep board will provide more than enough stimulation at first and if you add fingerboarding to it you run the risk of injury.

My 2c, learned the hard way.

[Nibile]

Fingerboarding is the best environment to train finger strength.
Warm up properly, take it easy, far better than snatching for razor crimps in a roof.
Isolating fingers and body is a good way to train in my opinion, but then you have to put it all together.
I highly recommend bouldering on steep boards with BAD FOOTHOLDS. You don't need to use crimps, you can choose big holds (for big moves) or slopey ones (to train core tension: if you cut loose you fall). Do not get stuck in feet-follow-hands problems: they are fun but you don't work your core.

[Paul B]

I'd ditch any specific strength work and concentrate on slowly adjusting your crimping capability (whilst training other stuff instead to fill the time). I think isolating strength on other holds is a bad idea as the fact is, tendons and more importantly the blood supply to them takes much longer than muscular gains and recruitment.

If you've got an imbalance between crimp-strength and the force you can put through those fingers (from your arms etc.) then something just goes snap, or it does for me.

[Nibile]

That's a good tip.
Getting progressively used to crimping in a safer way than on steep boards seems very good to me!
You can do it on a fingerboard or on a board, for instance holding positions instead of climbing through them.

[i_a_coops]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've just finished screwing in a couple of campus rungs at home and am going to follow most of the advice from this thread, for once. (Apart from the suggestion of stopping body  strength training, which I think would be good advice if my aspirations were to be a well balanced monster on uk lime, but most of the things I really want to climb involve jumping between jugs as high as possible off the ground!)