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Deliberately tweaky fingerboarding to reduce injury (Read 5515 times)

abarro81

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I'm a man who has a habit of injuring fingers. Pulleys, collaterals, PIP joints, volar plates... I've screwed various different things and I want this to happen less. I've been thinking for a while about this, and am wondering whether deliberately doing tweaky stuff is actually quite a good idea in order to injury proof yourself.

As an example - if I pull on a mono hard without having used monos for a year then I feel like I'll screw myself instantly. Stuff like that I need to break in gently over the course of a few weeks/months in order to be able to pull hard on them. So my thought is to do a 'tweaky' fingerboard session once per week, on a day after a rest day so that I'm fresh. The session would be all the horrible things that make me cringe - 2 finger crimps, ring finger monos etc. The idea being that I would 'injury proof' my fingers against a variety of strange forces and thus be less susceptible to busting myself. I'd go light on the grips i.e. not really go to failure, just to slight discomfort.

So.. Has anyone tried something like this? Anyone got thoughts/opinions on the topic?

Related to this, I'm wondering about throwing crimps into my Anderson hangs sessions. I've rarely crimped hard on a fingerboard - thoughts? Better done on max hangs??

thekettle

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Sounds good provided you stick to the usual approach of progressively applying the load. I often think diagonal and vertical pockets on a finger board would help mitigate against the collateral tweaks I seem to pick up on 2 finger holds, monos and stacked finger jams, allowing some controlled hangs applying torque to fingers.
I take the same approach to knee strength by employing a lot of deliberately deep and tweaky drop knees into training. And I've had good results from crimped mid-2 max hangs. I'll be interested to hear how you get on. :-\

Sarnian

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I think this sounds like a good idea. I've got a recurring unit flexor strain and I find that pocket pulling in a chin up position feels a bit more torsional and tweaky.

Dexter

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I agree with these. Especially from a mental aspect where you may try to keep hanging onto a problem even if it starts to tweak thereby doing more damage, whereas on a fingerboard you're more likely to just let go.

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It might depend on what structures you're stressing and how. I could imagine progressively loading a long flexor in a middle finger mono would be successful for example but using holds that are stressing a collateral ligament repeatedly even lightly could lead to problems like inflammation and instability / injury. The same would apply to grips which really extend dip joints for example. That said, that kind of progressive joint loading must be used by gymnasts etc but I'd imagine there's only a limited longivety to how much joints and joint surfaces will put up with which must  have big individual variance. Be interesting to hear how it goes.

Nibile

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I've been wanting to reply for a while but didn't find the time until now.
I've always been a great fan of training as many prehensions as possible, not only because the holds are there and therefore I want to train on them, but also in terms of injury prevention.
As we all know, especially the stamina plodders, sometimes being able to simply switch prehension can give that micro rest to the fingers that can prove crucial in a redpoint: classic dragging when forearms are boxed.
So, training every prehension has both a performance and a prevention aim.
It's common to hit a hold in a precarious way, for instance dropping the pinky: well, being confident about mid2 and especially ring monos will help, both physically and mentally.
Over the course of the years, I've trained tweaky prehensions, and it's a fine line to thread.
As of late, for instance, from training tweaky prehensions - specifically front2 full crimp on the small BM rungs - I tweaked my fingers. D'oh.
I wouldn't go on purpose on max hangs, most of these are already quite max per se, so I'd stay well under the max, at least to start with.
With time, max efforts will be required, otherwise we will only strengthen the prehension at a low intensity that could well be not enough on real climbing situations.
Usually, when breaking into a new prehension or after a lay off, I start again by picking the chosen prehension and doing partial hangs, not by removing weight with a pulley, but doing small jumps off the floor, and trying to lock off while in the air, applying just enough pressure to feel the effort.
Another key thing, even inside the specific session, is to use the first hangs to adapt our CNS, so that the pain threshold is raised and we can pull hard.
Hope this helps.







BicepsMou

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An additional thought related to the question of „training tweaky positions via max hangs or via lower load hangs e.g. repeater-style/Anderson hangs“:

On the Gymnastic Bodies site, it is a recurring topic by ‘Coach Sommer’ that connective tissue adaptions are more triggered by lower load but longer TUT protocols as opposed to maximum and shorter loads. This is the path that gymnasts apparently follow when e.g. building up the necessary shoulder joint stability for the iron cross hang with longer, sub-max loads. Shoulder joint stress of this position would probably blow an untrained shoulder apart, even with the required muscle strength being available – thus probably a good proxy for what we’d call a tweaky position. So even if it’s not on the fingers, it is still connective tissue (joint capsules, tendons…) related, which is where most finger injuries happen.

Don’t know of any research to back this up, but I think this anecdotal evidence from a somehow related field of sport could have some value here, clearly advocating a slow introduction of the tweaky load and a preference for lower load, higher TUT protocols as repeaters / Anderson hangs.


abarro81

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Thanks for the input everyone!

TobyD

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I'd broadly agree with Dan, especially on collaterals. I wonder if this type of 'injury proofing' may to some extent end up dulling the response of golgi tendon organs and possibly increasing the chance of injury, though making it feel more comfortable loading the relevant structure before failure. I have no evidence either way, this is only conjecture. I'd say worth try, but very carefully!

Rocksteady

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Apologies for the slight off-topic, but Alex given that you are always injuring your fingers you must have some pretty excellent strategies for managing these injuries and keeping climbing?

As someone who likewise picks up a lot of finger tweaks (mainly joints and ligaments rather than pulleys), I'd be really interested in any training around injury tips you have. Do you just tape up and keep going, avoiding tweaky holds? Or is this the background the energy systems training - unlikely to injure doing aerocap?

Cheers.

Three Nine

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I think moaning a lot is a significant part of the strategy.

BicepsMou

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Just came across this blog post by Eva Lopez:

http://www.archclimbingwall.com/journal/2016/5/17/grip-types-finger-strength-training-the-crimp-grip-ii
 
Eva advocates training more injury prone finger positions like the closed crimp, IF climbers are using this grip type in their projects, so that the necessary adaptions in the passive apparatus (pulleys, tendons etc.) can occur in order to prevent injuries.

However, she does not pronounce herself on the type of training (e.g. loading protocol) that would be best suited to complete this task, other than stating the obvious: “the key for injury-free progression is individualization and an adequate evolution of the load.”

abarro81

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I think my strategy for carrying on through (around?) injuries is largely based on the 'moan a lot' approach that 3-9 pointed out. That and a heavy dose of denial.

More seriously I've usually found there are some grips I can use to train around stuff e.g. pockets when my pulleys are injured, front 3 drag is usually safe for me too. Last year when I bust my DIP joint volar plate I spent 6ish weeks with my middle finger in a splint so I did lots of core, bar work, 1 arm repeaters on the good arm (my weaker arm anyway), weights and then some back 2 and index mono stuff, then back into aerocap on jugs, pocket hangs etc... And booked a trip to pocket land so I was psyched to train that rather than crimping!

Ligaments and joints can be harder to work around than pulleys, although again front 3 drag and half crimp has often worked for me. When I hurt my collateral I had to totally change the way I used mid 2 pockets on my right hand for about a year too - instead of dropping the index and wrapping my thumb round it I would keep it 'up' to avoid the twist motion - like a front 3 position but index bent at the PIP so it isn't on the hold, and stop my wrist torquing.

Oh, and fingerboard is a much better option for mW when tweaked than climbing normally as I can be much more strict with grips and don't get so tempted to push on or have just one more try when I shouldn't
« Last Edit: November 24, 2016, 09:17:48 am by abarro81 »

Rocksteady

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I think my strategy for carrying on through (around?) injuries is largely based on the 'moan a lot' approach that 3-9 pointed out. That and a heavy dose of denial.

More seriously I've usually found there are some grips I can use to train around stuff e.g. pockets when my pulleys are injured, front 3 drag is usually safe for me too. Last year when I bust my DIP joint volar plate I spent 6ish weeks with my middle finger in a splint so I did lots of core, bar work, 1 arm repeaters on the good arm (my weaker arm anyway), weights and then some back 2 and index mono stuff, then back into aerocap on jugs, pocket hangs etc... And booked a trip to pocket land so I was psyched to train that rather than crimping!

Ligaments and joints can be harder to work around than pulleys, although again front 3 drag and half crimp has often worked for me. When I hurt my collateral I had to totally change the way I used mid 2 pockets on my right hand for about a year too - instead of dropping the index and wrapping my thumb round it I would keep it 'up' to avoid the twist motion - like a front 3 position but index bent at the PIP so it isn't on the hold, and stop my wrist torquing.

Oh, and fingerboard is a much better option for mW when tweaked than climbing normally as I can be much more strict with grips and don't get so tempted to push on or have just one more try when I shouldn't

That's good info, thanks. I like to opt for denial and mummifying my fingers in tape. I wonder if collateral and joint injuries are more prevalent when one has a habit of twisting the hand into holds, usually because of uneven length fingers. Sounds like you have given thought to ways of preventing the torqueing which is interesting.

ducko

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Sounds like a good idea, I've been thinking about this lately as I spent 3 months with a bad shoulder and all the time I was doing straight arm hangs with weight to a strict programme using the same edge and adding weight gradually in a half crimp position.
My max hang PB over doubled and my fingers felt unbreakable in half crimp.

Shoulder then recovered I went out and climbed loads but of course you don't always half crimp the good old full crimp comes into play frequently in Wales so in a matter of two months I managed to tweak one of my digits again after thinking them super solid.

I think once or twice a week (undecided yet) I'll be doing full crimp hangs to try strengthen the part of the finger that's taken the stress during this specific hold.

Finger injuries really are the thorn in your side for many people! Damn those who never seem to get them

Doylo

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Don't use weight on the full crimp Ducko la.

 

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