[Paul B]

Also your equation is kinda unbalanced.  If you're failing to reach a hold because you are too heavy to lift your ass to it, running or another weightloss regime will help you reach that hold.  Growing bigger may also have the same effect, hence, there are many ways to skin a cat, grasshopper. 

I think it was probably just simplified as this would obviously count as energy plowed into climbing (related goals)...

There are lots of ways to get strong/good, I think thats evident but I wholeheartedly agree that training is sometimes overly complex. Just read one of those Mclure/Binney articles   ???

[Mestizo]

I am begining to think Uncle is right in many ways. I have not been training for years on end but have noticed getting better is not complicated its just boring and takes alot of time/effort. Campus boarding,weights,pull ups,levers and hard bouldering twice a day 5 times a week over years is going to make you better eventually (If you can stay uninjured and survive the boredom). I reckon having lots of projects at your limit pushes you through the training boredom. On top of this climbing LOTS helps. Look at Simpson "For the two years of preparation I put in for Hubble and hopefully Action Directe I was doing climbing specific training for over 25 hours per week, 5 days per week, 2 x 2.5 hour sessions per day, not to mention none climbing specific training which added up to another ten hours per week and included a lot of road running and gym work." likewise Tyler "I climb outdoors 4 times a week and indoors 5. I usually go outside, climb, and then go indoors in the eve." Which is either inspiring or depressing depending on you how you look at it!

 

[Dr T]

likewise Tyler "I climb outdoors 4 times a week and indoors 5. I usually go outside, climb, and then go indoors in the eve." Which is either inspiring or depressing depending on you how you look at it!

how the hell does skin survive that????

[Houdini]

It funny as I do exactly none of those things for months and months on end yet remain reasonably handy.

As Steve Albini once said, Unlimited resources couldn't make Smashing Pumpkins sound good.

[carefultorque]

climbing LOTS helps. Look at Simpson "For the two years of preparation I put in for Hubble and hopefully Action Directe I was doing climbing specific training for over 25 hours per week, 5 days per week, 2 x 2.5 hour sessions per day, not to mention none climbing specific training which added up to another ten hours per week and included a lot of road running and gym work." likewise Tyler "I climb outdoors 4 times a week and indoors 5. I usually go outside, climb, and then go indoors in the eve." Which is either inspiring or depressing depending on you how you look at it!

Jeez. If I did that, I would melt, burn, or morph into a cartilaginous, dessicated husk. 

I think it's an age thing.  I wasn't a climber when I was capable of feats of endurance that would now make me cry.  I once walked 120 miles in 3 days with no food, except carob husks that I found on the way, one evening meal and a cake that had been thrown out of a car window.  I did this just for fun, to see what would happen. 

That certain intensity, that need for such extreme self-testing, just isn't there. 
I do have goals and some of them are intense, but I sense, rightly or wrongly, that I'm on the wrong part of the curve to tolerate exercise regimens that are punishing to the level where great things could happen.

[Paul B]

I fail to see how anything more than very diciplined split sessions can be useful. Rest is key and for me one day one day off works a treat, sometimes i still feel worked from the previous session and perform below expectations...

[Johnny Brown]

Achieving great things in any past time is still great

What are you trying to say?!?!?! The power of Grammar ladies and gentleman, far greater than the power of 1-5-9!

So Keith, should this be referred to the spelling police or the grammar police?

[Jim]

It also sounds like you'd be better off going climbing more.

Wise words indeed

[The Sausage]

You need to identify where you weaknesses are.  Can you perform 1-4-7 on larger rungs?  If not then the problem is in your arms/shoulder girdle.  If you can then it's an issue with finger strength.

Dylan alludes to something that is often missed in diagnosing weakness, but doesn't really address it - namely the shoulders. Stability at the shoulders is crucial if you want your arms to function properly. As I'm sure you're all aware, the rotator cuff is a group of muscles that provides stability at the shoulder when the arm is moving/loaded. They act as 'guy ropes' to keep the head of the humerus roughly in the right position in the glenoid 'socket' (it's more of a shallow dish).

However... in an overhead position, these muscles not in a very mechanically advantageous position, and struggle with the large loads placed on them when trying to campus. In this position, the triceps (one of the heads of which acts across the shoulder) act to stabilise the shoulder. Now, if your triceps are working to stabilise the shoulder, they are producing tension that the elbow flexors will have to overcome in order to provide upward movement. (this last bit is my theory, i would be interested to know what other people think about it...)

My feeling is that workng on your shoulder stability (theraband exs, weights, rings) will pay dividends, and prevent injury.

I also agree wholeheartedly with Uncle... repititon is necessary for adaptation to occur... don't forget you need to focus and try hard too.

I also put a couple of 'half' rungs (between 1 and 2 & 6 and 7), to enable easier progression between 1-4-6 and 1-4-7

[GCW]

You make an interesting point about RC function Monsieur Saucisson.  I suspect a big part of it is that people use slack shoulders when hanging or campusing, and are not making sure they have strong shoulders.


With regard to triceps, it isn't the only stabiliser of the shoulder in the fully abducted/elevated position so I'm not sure how much of an issue elbow action will be.
I think you can re-train your shoulders and cuff to function far more efficently rather than just concentrating on pulling hard. 

[Houdini]

^ That's what I need:  a floor-standing pull-up bar.  The problem I have w/ campussing/pull-ups is that they are too repetitive.  I find this leads to injury, especially at the elbow.  I've no doubt they will help you get strong, but I see so very few strong but great climbers; they succeed, tick hard problems, but they do it beating something into submission and lack finesse, grace, poise.  They are not always "better climbers"  I don't enjoy this style of climbing though I know many do.

Watching women climb can be more instructive for me.

[slackline]

Watching women climb can be more instructive for me.

I bet you watch the "hips" closely 

[carefultorque]

 Stability at the shoulders is crucial if you want your arms to function properly. As I'm sure you're all aware, the rotator cuff is a group of muscles that provides stability at the shoulder when the arm is moving/loaded. They act as 'guy ropes' to keep the head of the humerus roughly in the right position in the glenoid 'socket'
....

This is very interesting.  Especially so, because I had a severe rotator cuff injury by my third year of climbing when I was upping the steepness and volume of routes. The acute injury was treated with injections and physio, but the shoulder has never felt quite right.  Years later (10) I still get severe spasms where the lat crosses the bottom of the shoulder blade (infraspinatus, is that?)  as well as a vague feeling of instability and tightness with the arm extended overhead.  (No pain here, however.)

My feeling is that workng on your shoulder stability (theraband exs, weights, rings) will pay dividends, and prevent injury.

  This is good thinking indeed.  I was a bit nonplussed about my progress, given that I can do touches on both sides from a 6 mm rung.  I even got to the stage where I could do just three finger touches on the small rungs (normal small, not 6mm)  without being able to increase my lock on the bigger ones. This kind of suggested that the fingers were okay and that another part of the chain was disproportionately weak.   So thanks for the idea

[athletikspesifik]

I agree that pull ups and campusing are just a tool to help, and that the majority of effort should be spent climbing.  I also generally agree that strength in your shoulder girdle is something that you could improve on, however, I don't think that doing lots of pull ups is the best way to achieve this goal.

Don't know what your starting number of max pull ups is yet, so it's difficult to say that you should do weighted pull ups, but, I suspect after ten years of climbing you might be able to muster 5+.  Whatever the case, you might try doing pull ups with added weight or just bodyweight as long as you are close to failure between 2-5 reps.  Anecdotally, doing large volumes of pull ups and climbing a lot is a prescription for tendon issues.

Kinetically (Strength, Power, Endurance values), the goal is to improve your 1. starting strength (right out of the bottom of the pull) and 2. explosive strength (carrying momentum/speed/acceleration through the middle top of the pull).  I believe that weighted pulls and adding some explosive/reactive/plyometric pulls achieve this goal better than lots of pull ups.

Kinematically (technical aspects of movement), there are several issues that I have seen/gone through:

As someone already pointed out, start with shoulders/elbow engaged (slightly bent).  The initial pull should have a reaction that looks like a small 'bounce' that I call SSC (stretch shortening cycle) akin to the jump for a tip off in basketball.  The lower body quickly precedes the upper body in action....before the SSC, the hips/knees quickly lower then rise before the upper body action.  Knees stay in this bent position until the latch.

Top or reaching hand many times catches with a straight elbow.  It's OK if it is the max pull, but you have to immediately get into a slightly bent position (if you can't, that's a case for increased pull up strength).  Generally, try to always latch the upper rung with a slight bend in the elbow. 

The first latch should have a slight pause following, then lower body action as previously described, followed by a somewhat equal pull with both hands (this is the sticking point for many, as they seem to heavily weight the lower hand and pull disproportionately AND SEQUENTIALLY with the upper only).  The knees and torso should start turning toward the upper hand as this is a mechanical advantage.  As you get close to 90 degrees with the upper elbow, the bottom hand is pushing furiously to maintain speed/momentum to ladder higher.

Pull ups - 5x5 three times a week
Campus - once a week ~6-12 goes on max pulls/laddering (depending on the individual)

Hope the helps

[carefultorque]

I agree that pull ups and campusing are just a tool to help, and that the majority of effort should be spent climbing.  I also generally agree that strength in your shoulder girdle is something that you could improve on, however, I don't think that doing lots of pull ups is the best way to achieve this goal.

Don't know what your starting number of max pull ups is yet, so it's difficult to say that you should do weighted pull ups, but, I suspect after ten years of climbing you might be able to muster 5+.  Whatever the case, you might try doing pull ups with added weight or just bodyweight as long as you are close to failure between 2-5 reps. 

Hello.  I've only ever dabbled with pulls ups for month or so once in a blue moon.  I've not tried that for a while, but last time I did, I could do 14.  I could also do a weighted pull with 35 Kg hanging from my harness.  Interestingly, my conditioning for the pulls ups came entirely from campus training, but it still wasn't enough to make me functionally better at campusing!

[carefultorque]

Hi again: that was quite a post and it's taken a while to do it justice and digest what you're saying here.  I'm very interested in your comments on the 'kinematic' side of the exercise (interesting phrase that I haven't heard before, btw)

Kinematically (technical aspects of movement), there are several issues that I have seen/gone through....

 As you get close to 90 degrees with the upper elbow, the bottom hand is pushing furiously to maintain speed/momentum to ladder higher.

I've realised from reading this that perhaps a bit dumbly, I've been trying to campus without recruiting that lower arm.   ???I've been trying to generate all the thrust from the leading arm and just kind of passively bring the bottom arm up once the latch is complete.  I think I need to film someone who is dab at this and then play it back in slow-motion to properly understand the mechanics of it, but your post has definitely highlighted another reason for having a hard time at getting the bigger distances going.   

[The Sausage]

can you get your hands on a copy of the real thing? moonie will demonstrate perfectly. also, have you read the old thread on campus-ing - nige put a very useful essay on there.

There is a vid of Rich Simpson doing repeated 1-4-7s on the moon website, but it's all a bit casual to be of much use to us punters. I think he has put some good campus routines on there though.

I've always been useless at campus-ing, but did get within a gnat's chuff of 1-4-7 last year. I found doing 'touches' and asymmetric pulls on a campus board (one hand on 1, on hand on 4 - pull and push to get chin above 4th rung) were probably the most helpful campus exercises. i also did a lot of counter-weight (set a pulley up) dead hangs and counter-weight 1-armers.

I developed the correct movement pattern in 2 ways: by using bigger rungs, and being really strict about not locking, but trying to generate speed with the bottom hand, and by pulling on on 1 and 4 (ie, eliminating the 1st move).

I also found that after work I was significantly worse than on a non-work day...

[Paul B]

can you get your hands on a copy of the real thing? moonie will demonstrate perfectly. also, have you read the old thread on campus-ing - nige put a very useful essay on there.

I think this is the right bit:

http://www.highsport.se/news/old/campus.mpeg

[carefultorque]

I think this is the right bit:

http://www.highsport.se/news/old/campus.mpeg

That'll do nicely, thanks.   Even though I can't slow-mo the clip, it's clear enough from the various camera angles what the sequence of events is.  Just need to get my head round it and break it down into manageable chunks on the big fat rungs until I've wired the sequence, before I start putting any power into it on the smaller stuff.

I guess I can do this over a period of 4-8 weeks alongside some of the shoulder girdle and recruitment specifics others have helpfully posted on this thread. 

Moon seems to be crimping, no?

[athletikspesifik]

I like this version of Sonnie campusing as it gives a full view of the lower body mechanics.  If the lower and upper body are not in synch it throws off the timing of the release.

Neither Sonnie or Ben have a fast SSC, but, their ability to do a one-arm changes the equation.  Ben has, I think, the proper open hand on the small rungs - where it appears that Sonnie is full-crimp, thumbs over.  I think the full-crimp is asking for an injury.

I agree with Sausage on some of the progressions he used.

Kinematic is a sport science term for efficiency/technique.  Kinetic or economy, is what the athlete brings to the table...strength, power, endurance, VO2Max, buffering capacity, work capacity and so on.  So, sometimes we say efficiency/economy or kinematic/kinetic.

[unclesomebody]

I agree that pull ups and campusing are just a tool to help, and that the majority of effort should be spent climbing.  I also generally agree that strength in your shoulder girdle is something that you could improve on, however, I don't think that doing lots of pull ups is the best way to achieve this goal.

Don't know what your starting number of max pull ups is yet, so it's difficult to say that you should do weighted pull ups, but, I suspect after ten years of climbing you might be able to muster 5+.  Whatever the case, you might try doing pull ups with added weight or just bodyweight as long as you are close to failure between 2-5 reps.  Anecdotally, doing large volumes of pull ups and climbing a lot is a prescription for tendon issues.

Kinetically (Strength, Power, Endurance values), the goal is to improve your 1. starting strength (right out of the bottom of the pull) and 2. explosive strength (carrying momentum/speed/acceleration through the middle top of the pull).  I believe that weighted pulls and adding some explosive/reactive/plyometric pulls achieve this goal better than lots of pull ups.

Kinematically (technical aspects of movement), there are several issues that I have seen/gone through:

As someone already pointed out, start with shoulders/elbow engaged (slightly bent).  The initial pull should have a reaction that looks like a small 'bounce' that I call SSC (stretch shortening cycle) akin to the jump for a tip off in basketball.  The lower body quickly precedes the upper body in action....before the SSC, the hips/knees quickly lower then rise before the upper body action.  Knees stay in this bent position until the latch.

Top or reaching hand many times catches with a straight elbow.  It's OK if it is the max pull, but you have to immediately get into a slightly bent position (if you can't, that's a case for increased pull up strength).  Generally, try to always latch the upper rung with a slight bend in the elbow. 

The first latch should have a slight pause following, then lower body action as previously described, followed by a somewhat equal pull with both hands (this is the sticking point for many, as they seem to heavily weight the lower hand and pull disproportionately AND SEQUENTIALLY with the upper only).  The knees and torso should start turning toward the upper hand as this is a mechanical advantage.  As you get close to 90 degrees with the upper elbow, the bottom hand is pushing furiously to maintain speed/momentum to ladder higher.

Pull ups - 5x5 three times a week
Campus - once a week ~6-12 goes on max pulls/laddering (depending on the individual)

Hope the helps

Do you want to be my personal trainer? I can't offer you payment or anything remotely like it, but I promise to try really hard. 

[Paul B]

I think the full-crimp is asking for an injury.

Why? Ok so it loads the pulleys but so does crimping, slapping for crimps and pulling hard on crimps. If you're going to say stuff like that then you might as well just write off crimping full stop. I think there's some "Dave Mc Science" that says training one grip type does not train the other, I know rich thought otherwise.

People being scared of crimping is daft.

[Houdini]

Have to agree w/ Paul.  Only ever hurt my fingers open-handed.

[Paul B]

I've hurt mine crimping but never ever whilst training always on stupid awkward overly featured holds.

[Houdini]

Campussing is for people who want to boulderer campus-style problems of 8A and above.  It's not nesessary for easier-ish problems.