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the shizzle => diet, training and injuries => Topic started by: 36chambers on April 11, 2016, 10:57:37 pm
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(Couldn't find a relevant enough topic to tag this onto.)
I was playing around on the BM2K this evening (mid bouldering session) and it became apparent that my left hand is considerably weaker than my right.
I could one-hand hang the low central edge for 3-4 sec with my RH, but only about 1.5 sec with my left. Is anyone else as imbalanced as this?
This got me thinking about whether or not one arm is worked more than the other when doing two handed hangs. Will the left be trained more because it's trying to keep up or will it be the right as it may be doing all the work?
I haven't really done any proper fingerboarding before, but I'm wondering whether it would be better to train the hands individually?
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My left arm generally leads my right arm in finger strength by about 2 kg on edges and pockets. It isn't totally clear to me if this has to do with other parts of the arm used in one-arm hangs.
On the other hand, I find my one-arm pinch strength seems to be all over the map (sometimes my right is stronger and sometimes my left).
I have found one-arm work to be beneficial if you 1) are loading up so much additional weight you start to feel like you might get injured (+50 kg range for me) or you have to use such small holds they ruin your skin or become condition dependent (e.g. 6-8 mm stuff).
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(Couldn't find a relevant enough topic to tag this onto.)
I was playing around on the BM2K this evening (mid bouldering session) and it became apparent that my left hand is considerably weaker than my right.
I could one-hand hang the low central edge for 3-4 sec with my RH, but only about 1.5 sec with my left. Is anyone else as imbalanced as this?
This got me thinking about whether or not one arm is worked more than the other when doing two handed hangs. Will the left be trained more because it's trying to keep up or will it be the right as it may be doing all the work?
I haven't really done any proper fingerboarding before, but I'm wondering whether it would be better to train the hands individually?
At first read that doesnt sound like much of an imbalance to me... maybe slightly more comfortable on one side than another... its not as if you can only hang one side with 10kg added and the other with 20 etc...
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I agree with tomtom, I am way more imbalanced than this. When I'm in shape I can hang a medium campus edge for five seconds or so with my left, but not at all with my right. (I'm also stronger in my left leg and my left arm. Funny enough, I'm right-handed).
For auxiliary exercices like finger boarding, I would go for the lowest intensity that still give gains. If you haven't really done fingerboarding before, start with two handed. When the gains stop coming, you can start experimenting with ways to increase the stress. I wouldn't worry about a small imbalance. It's not bodybuilding, you are not judged by how symmetric your forearms appear.
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(I'm also stronger in my left leg and my left arm. Funny enough, I'm right-handed).
Being right-handed and having a stronger and dominant left leg is normal. If you're going for a slam dunk, basketball in your right hand, you'll jump off your left leg.
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True dat, even if I think that holding the ball with the right hand leaves little choice in which foot to jump off. But generally right handed people jump off the left foot in the high jump and the long jump (and use the weaker right foot for the first two jumps in the trippel jump)
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Egg. Sactly.
Back to OP, I think I have a big difference between left and right arm, but in my experience it's less noticeable when using both arms. For max two armed hangs, for instance, I've never noticed any difference. Could be a matter of right arm overcompensating left one, obviously.
The difference comes out more when one arming. I belive that it's also due to a bad fracture of my collarbone as a teenager, that left my collarbone with a wrong shape and in a higer position to the shoulder. My left delts are different from my right ones. I think that this makes a normal differece bigger because I feel my shoulder less stable and that's crucial for one arming. Same for one armers.
Anyway, I can hang the incut rung of the BM with 20 kg RH and with 16 with LH. I think it's around 5% overall difference, so maybe not much.
Something similar when I did the Koyamada test.
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My left was quite a lot stronger than my right in all things but I have no idea how much that has evened out since injuring my left hand so much over the last year and a half. I imagine its probably reversed.
I always wondered about the equality of load when doing 2 handed hangs as well because I would assume that the stronger arm compensates for the weaker one. The question is whether than leads to an even larger imbalance or simple both arms getting stronger in unison but slightly offset.
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Stronger in LH: can one arm the BM2000 bottom middle rung for 8-10 secs with LH / 4-8 secs with RH (after a bit of training).
I wonder if it has something to do with the muscles in the back, shoulder and trunk on the opposite side to the hand.
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Isn't there some theory that left arm/hand is normally strongest in righthanders? Something about generally in life you tend to do heavy lifting with the left side to keep the right free for things requiring dexterity. So if you're carrying your shopping from the car you probably subconsciously carry the heavy bag with your left so you can fuck unlock the front door with your right.
Similarly, given no particular side bias to the holds or placement you might naturally tend to place gear with right hand, hanging from left.
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so you can fuck unlock the front door with your right.
Which are you doing to the front door, fucking it or unlocking it?
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Strictly speaking the origin of the word "fuck" means just to insert something into something else, so in essence you are actually fucking the lock with a key (assuming both the lock and key consents).
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Well, you learn something every day.
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Well, you learn something every day.
indeed - the origin of the word fuck has now been fucked into you head ;)
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Brainfucked by dave. Nice.
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cheers for the replies
At first read that doesnt sound like much of an imbalance to me... maybe slightly more comfortable on one side than another... its not as if you can only hang one side with 10kg added and the other with 20 etc...
It feels pretty significant to me. With my left I'm falling as soon as I start.
I always wondered about the equality of load when doing 2 handed hangs as well because I would assume that the stronger arm compensates for the weaker one. The question is whether than leads to an even larger imbalance or simple both arms getting stronger in unison but slightly offset.
This was pretty much what I was getting at. Furthermore, I was originally wondering that since my LH was weaker it would see improvements quicker :strongbench:. Low hanging fruits and that.
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I'm weaker on LH hangs and strongly suspect that for me it's a difference in shoulder and scapular stability rather than finger strength (having videoed myself from behind to see what happens as I approach failure on one-hand hangs). It's meant I do most of my deadhangs one-handed with counterweight assistance, rather than adding weight to two handed hangs where I wouldn't get the shoulder stability gains.
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Despite being very right handed. Years of locking out on my left arm while trying to place runners with my right have left me considerably unbalanced. I can always hang better on my left and lock off on the left arm for much longer than the right.
When I built a pinch machine to improve wrist flexors and hopefully my ability to hang pinches on tufas, I was amazed at how much stronger my left was at both pinches and crimps. Initially I can pick up to 4kg more with a pinch grip on my left than my right and 2/3 kg more using a crimp grip.
What I find puzzling is,that as I work with this, going up a stack of weights, the difference reduces to less than 1kg by the time I get to maximum lifts.
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Which hand did you use your 5mm edge with?
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Which hand did you use your 5mm edge with?
Remind me not to give you any information in future. The answer is of course,both, however since they are on a not particularly steep warm up board rather than set up for hanging body weight on that is not surprising.
However since they are sharpish they feel better on the left which is my stringed instrument fretting hand.
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Has anyone experienced negative effect from imbalanced finger strength? Intuitively I guess equally strong hands is best. But to address this in practice it means you're neglecting to train the dominant hand as much and missing out on potential strength gains which seems dumb.
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Being slightly facetious ;) If one arm or hand is stronger it's quite possible to select problems that use this to good effect ;)
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When I was a traddie, being right handed I definitely had better endurance on the left. You mostly fiddle with gear with the dominant hand if the situation allows, and therefore spend more time hanging on with the other hand.
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Haha, which problem would you recommend for a L 69 Kg R 73.5 Kg imbalance? :P
As long as no one's got any stories of back/elbows/shoulders getting messed up because of a finger strength imbalance seems fine to carry on as normal.