UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => diet, training and injuries => Topic started by: shark on February 09, 2021, 09:38:53 pm
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https://youtu.be/sBTI9qiH4UE
Seems too good to be true. Be great if others can replicate this.
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I wonder what other training/climbing he was doing in that time period. Seems like a protocol one could manage during the summer season, where ordinarily I drop all fingerboarding, to keep finely tuned.
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If you didn't want to just scrap all your training because of a guy on the internet, you could pretty easily combine this with other stuff right? For example if you had a session planned in the evening then just do this in the morning. And on rest days you could do it twice, as it's not going to fatigue you in any serious way. I'm tempted to give something like that a go. I mean, who isn't drawn in by 2600% gains.
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Hi Shark, interesting little experiment.
You should read this by Tom Herbert about collagen synthesis, drawing on the same research.
https://useful.coach/articles/nutrition-for-soft-tissue-training-recovery-and-injury-prevention/
And for balance regarding collagen supplementation, Herbert’s co-podcaster on https://climbsci.buzzsprout.com/, Brian Rigby’s sceptical blogpost (which predates the paper, it should be said)
https://www.climbingnutrition.com/diet/dietary-collagen-worthless/
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I mean, who isn't drawn in by 2600% gains.
What's the bid/offer? - or have I got lost? ;)
Seriously, the timing is uncanny.
It's something I've always suspected, however every commitment to a training strategy is a significant investment. As with finance, it's easy to be drawn in to strategies that give you a greater sense that you have more influence on the result, than more uncertain and slower, incremental approaches. Somehow "pulling harder" gives me a psychological - and probably completely mistaken - sense of reassurance that the gain is "what I deserve". Which of of course complete rubbish!
I'd caution against believing that you can do "both" however. In my experience, finger injuries tend to occur at lower loads - when you're fatigued. Having to recruit more for higher loads, in my experience, brings with it the protection of having to be recovered sufficiently for the load.
There's a circuit I do regularly on the Heeley boulder in Sheffield, and one move requires a (back)two finger drag on a pocket, with my left hand. It's a relatively low load, high frequency hold, and I've noticed how much stronger I am on the L than R, on those two fingers.
I was on the fingerboard at 3.30 this morning, mulling this over, before seeing this thread! (Covid diaries moment there ;) )
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Can we rename the thread SnakeOil for training?
:D
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You should read this by Tom Herbert about collagen synthesis, drawing on the same research.
https://useful.coach/articles/nutrition-for-soft-tissue-training-recovery-and-injury-prevention/
I had a quick scan of this, the outcome seems to be that I should eat wine gums an hour before training? Sounds good to me.
The findings of the first study also didn’t seem to go against the second link, there didn’t seem to be any control in that experiment where people were just getting a complete protein as opposed to the gelatine.
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If the research says every 6 hours then why only twice a day? I'm setting my alarm through the night for 5200% gains
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HaHa :D
Gravy Granules. Lots of Gelatine in there :) Add a bit of texture to the protein shake....
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I find this all a bit unlikely. The effort levels he's putting into hangboarding (80% of his bodyweight) are barely moving the needle. I'm sure I've seen this guy one arming campus rungs etc. He's able to hang massive weight off his body in other videos of his. He's campused Never Ending Story stand etc. He's not weak. Hanging with his feet on the ground seems like nothing more than rehab for injury.
My uneducated assumption is that; if you pay any attention to this guy he's a route setter, he climbs all the time, every day, most days, hard and trains a lot etc. Now he's switched to light hangs, which apparently have to be 6 hours apart from any other training and twice a day. Now, unless he's given up sleeping that means he's had to cut his training/climbing down significantly which makes this appear more like some sort of massive deload, to a seemingly tired athlete. Meaning he gets a significant peak after his dip.
If this were to be true, we could get Aidan hanging off 20mm edges with a load of weight taken off and within 30 days he'd be able to levitate.
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It worked for his brother too though :-\
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His brother had been struggling with a finger injury for ages and is basically back to climbing at the same level injury free. He's not mentioning benchmarks, just says his fingers don't hurt anymore.
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6.15
“I increased my max hangs by 10kilos..”
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I thought this was pretty interesting.
Some thoughts:
1) The proposed mechanism is increased tendon stiffness. It is well known to be one of the trainable determinants of strength. The program is focusing on this single aspect of strength.
2) Emil had pretty horrible scores on the FB for someone who regularly does 8B before his month of training.
3) N=1.5, no control (a good control group would be doing a regular fingerboard program for the same time, controlling for volume).
General thought for 99% of all tests of climbers:
To evaluate training programs for climbing, test the outcome on climbing, not on the apparatus used for training. The bottom line should always be: can I do harder moves (for strength), more moves or recover faster between attempts (for local strength endurance).
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6.15
“I increased my max hangs by 10kilos..”
Woops, sorry I missed that bit. That's why I'm just a random tosser on a forum!
I notice it a lot with Lattice when they re-post Instagram stories. Lots of people who didn't fingerboard very quickly start adding lots of weight to their hangs. Like the specificity / recruitment catches up to their level, but it's not exponential increase.
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To evaluate training programs for climbing, test the outcome on climbing, not on the apparatus used for training. The bottom line should always be: can I do harder moves (for strength), more moves or recover faster between attempts (for local strength endurance).
100% this
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As a man with niggly fingers for the past 30 years I will gladly be the UKB sacrificial training lamb.
Benchmarks - cant hang middle slot 1 handed
Fingers always feel tweaky so never do weighed hangs anymore- just steer clear of the fingerboard because I have injured myself on it before.
My approach is not going to be based on metrics or testing protocols, just whether my fingers feel better. Standard fingerboard routines always feel like russian roulette and seem to require a lot of recovery for me, so this system looks appealing as a way to build resilience into the finger structures.
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The critical bit of info that's missing from the vid is what other training/climbing he's doing, and if that changed at all from before he tried this.
Seems feasible to me that frequent loading at a level that doesn't require more than a few hours recovery may be a successful strategy.
Fuck it, for a few minutes a day I'll give it a go every morning, and twice a day if I'm not climbing.
For ref, I need between 5-10kg assistance to hang the middle bm slot one armed (depending on the day and arm) and just managed the 14mm crimps with 20kg added for 5s.
Though obviously what jwi said.
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Of course you should test on the apparatus as it is most directly measurable way of quantifying the training response. Whether that training response is useful can be extrapolated but in this case hanging a hold that was too small before and one handed hanging is obviously beneficial. But I take your general point that sometimes the end goal of being a better climber can get lost.
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2) Emil had pretty horrible scores on the FB for someone who regularly does 8B before his month of training.
On this point, he went from scores that were below where you'd expect for someone of his grade to about where you'd expect for someone of his grade. To me, this suggests there was something artificially lowering his scores before (too much training, not enough rest etc.)
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Emil has added some more info in a comment. Copied below. Interestingly he didn't change his other training by sounds of it, so his new protocol was supplementary rather than an outright programme.
Q: What did the rest of your training and climbing schedule look like during this period? Did you add or remove anything from your usual weekly training with the addition of this new protocol?
A: I kept my training almost identical from December to January. No form of periodization and similar session-lengths. However, about 1 week after I started doing this my fingers started feeling a lot more durable, which consequently made me have climbing sessions where I pulled harder on small holds without my fingers opening up. I think a big part of the strength increase could’ve come from that. However, since there’s no good way to prove that that is why I got stronger, I left it out.
Q: did you warm up before each session?
A: Most of the sessions I did some very light finger warm ups, sometimes nothing at all. Warming up never hurts though.
Since the intensity was so low it felt harmless, felt like the same risk as when carrying a heavy grocery bag honestly.
Q: Two questions: How strongly did this increased finger strength affect your climbing ( do you think you can climb harder grades on crimps now )? and will you continue with this training after these 30 days (or at least do another 30 day block in a month or so)?
A: This increase in my finger strength was incredibly noticeable in my climbing. My fingers have never felt this solid on small holds before. I’ll continue doing the program until I have a good argument against it (since it takes very little time and I sacrifice nothing for it) :-)
Q: So in your benchmarking video 4 months ago you were able to hand the BM 20mm edge 1 handed for 7s. I was wondering what happened between then and the start of January and if your improvements could be more attributed to re-recuitment rather than actual improvements in strength?
A: I would’ve included this, but my strength there is quite incomparable to my current state. I’d been bulking and trying to get really strong, I weighed like 4kg more than I do now. It had both upsides and downsides to it! (it was also shot ~ 6 months ago)
The result I got in January better reflect how I most often perform on a hangboard. Re-recruitment could most definitely play a big part in it, but since I broke every record I’ve had before I’ll at least give some credit to the new program.
Q: Did you do any other hangboard training during this period?
A: I didn’t lift off the ground from a hangboard for a single second during this period (I did the 9c test before new years)
Q: Did you take any collagen or gelatin supplements?
A: The study states that this has a big impact on sinew health, but I was just curious about how the hangboard protocol would affect me so I made no dietary changes from december - february.
Q:Do I understand it correctly that you did 10 sets in total, where each set was 1 minute in total, but consisted of only 10 seconds actual work and 50 seconds rest?
That would be 1:40 minutes (100 seconds) of actual work and 8:20 minutes of rest.
Which is much less than the 10 minute maximum advised in the paper.
A: Good point! Potentially my gains would’ve been much greater if I did, for instance, 10sec on 10 sec off for 10 minutes. I was scared it could potentially be harmful and that it would be hard to find a good level of intensity, and therefore opted for a more careful method. I
As mentioned, there’s a sample size of 1 in this video, so it would be arrogant of me to claim that this protocol is THE protocol people should try. Hopefully this can spark some interesting new experiments, and maybe in 5 years time we’ll have a perfect formula.
To clarify, I hung for a total of 100 seconds in 10 minutes yes (with the exception of stretching my pinkies).
Also, when it comes to the % of weight I take off when doing the weighted hangs:
If you try the program, find your own limit and what works well for you. Ideally you should have a pulley system to see how much weight you take off, I just went with my gut feeling since I don’t have one. As somebody suggested I tried using a scale to see, and put in some approximations of how much weight I took off in the description.
Why do I think this program is good?
Basically it’s all about tendon health. If your tendons are good you can climb more which will get you stronger and better. This program is what I’m trying out in order to get my sinews, tendons and ligaments as solid as possible.
Lastly, I did this two times per day including days when I climbed (except one or two maybe). You can consider a climbing session to be the same as a hangboard session, if you view it from a “molecular response”-perspective. The only big rule to try and follow is to give your fingers 6 hours rest between each session where you engage your fingers (hangboard, no-hangs or climbing sessions for instance), and then try and do as many as your schedule will allow. If it’s once per day, that’s all right. Three times? That’s probably great too!
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1) The proposed mechanism is increased tendon stiffness. It is well known to be one of the trainable determinants of strength. The program is focusing on this single aspect of strength.
Thanks for highlighting this - the routine was intended for finger rehab after all. Extrapolating if this happens to be a weak link then you are going to get a one off massive gain like our man.
The Tyler Nelson 30 sec hangs also targeted tendon stiffness. I gave up on these up when Duncan pointed out that it was for those newer to climbing and I’d been climbing so long and didn’t have finger issues so was probably a fully developed component.
Just musing. Nothing prevents having a go like Duma says on rest days etc
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All anybody ever wants, is some “quick fix” minimum effort (at least mentally) magical system, preferably celebrity endorsed.
But, it doesn’t work like that.
Please remember that training only works if it is very boring.
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This video is curious because it presents a protocol which research evidences strengthens collagen production in tissues as a strength training protocol.
The only evidence for that is a group size of 2...
but logically, if tendon strength is the limiting factor, the overall performance will be improved as a result.
I don't know if there is a strong argument for doing this to get stronger, but I do think the evidence exists for doing this (with or without wine gums/type 1 collagen supplements/high quality protein) to prevent injury.
key points being: collagen production signal switches off after 10 mins loading
only switches back on agaoin after 6 hours rest
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Well I have just done my second set of this (one last night, one this morning). Incidentally I have also put my life savings into a small speculative mining company. I fully expect my power club entry next month to read something along the lines of "enjoying my unassisted one arm hangs on my diamond encrusted lattice edge". Down with the naysayers!
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Tom Herbert just linked to this post of his from a while back:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BM6Q85DBlZl/?igshid=2cfevrjc815v
Some interesting comments too.
As I read it the 10 min from the paper is total time under load? Whereas the yt vid is doing a 10 min session that is actually <2 min under load.
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As I read it the 10 min from the paper is total time under load? Whereas the yt vid is doing a 10 min session that is actually <2 min under load.
Yeah, he admits as much in his follow up comment. I guess the advantage of what he did is it requires virtually no time and limits the amount of fatigue for other sessions. I imagine there is loads of playing around you could do with the protocol.
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There was something similar advocated by Training Beta a while ago: https://www.trainingbeta.com/evening-sends-5-minute-fingers/
There are a couple of bits of this that make sense, for example I always feel my fingers are less tweaky when I'm consistently fingerboarding, and especially for beginners I think there's a lot to be said for doing higher volumes of work at low intensities.
But the actual programme isn't far off what I normally do in the early part of my warm up for a FB or board session at home... and I've not had 3000% gains sadly.
Also, as has been pointed out, the mention of the adaptation switching off after 10 minutes is contradicted by the session only containing 100 seconds or so of time under tension, leaving 500 still to play with.
And hang on (no pun intended), 4 months earlier he could hang the BM 2k low rung for 7 seconds, but in the video he claims to barely be able to hang it at all? Then at the end results he can hang it for 7 seconds again...so he's made no gains whatsoever from 4/6 months ago.
Bullshit.
Short summary I think is; low intensity training is a good thing to include in your overall approach to training, for general health of the structures involved. But it's not some magic bullet, and it's misleading to paint it as such.
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Be interesting to find out if it matters to its effectiveness, as the thing that really make it appealing to me is that it's realistic to do before work (intensity is low enough to require v little warm up, and total time required is so little). To be frank, there's zero chance of me getting up 30-40min earlier to do a more conventional fb session first thing, so this sort of protocol is not really sacrificing any other training options.
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And hang on (no pun intended), 4 months earlier he could hang the BM 2k low rung for 7 seconds, but in the video he claims to barely be able to hang it at all? Then at the end results he can hang it for 7 seconds again...so he's made no gains whatsoever from 4/6 months ago.
He sort of answers this in his follow up comment too...
Q: So in your benchmarking video 4 months ago you were able to hand the BM 20mm edge 1 handed for 7s. I was wondering what happened between then and the start of January and if your improvements could be more attributed to re-recuitment rather than actual improvements in strength?
A: I would’ve included this, but my strength there is quite incomparable to my current state. I’d been bulking and trying to get really strong, I weighed like 4kg more than I do now. It had both upsides and downsides to it! (it was also shot ~ 6 months ago)
The result I got in January better reflect how I most often perform on a hangboard. Re-recruitment could most definitely play a big part in it, but since I broke every record I’ve had before I’ll at least give some credit to the new program.
But in doing so makes it even more confusing. So he could hang for 7 seconds AND he weighed 4kg more?
Who knows. To me it seems like a relatively low risk strategy that is easy to experiment with so I'm going to give it a go once or twice a day.
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I find this all a bit unlikely. The effort levels he's putting into hangboarding (80% of his bodyweight) are barely moving the needle. I'm sure I've seen this guy one arming campus rungs etc. He's able to hang massive weight off his body in other videos of his. He's campused Never Ending Story stand etc. He's not weak. Hanging with his feet on the ground seems like nothing more than rehab for injury.
This is not entirely accurate. If you watch his and Erik's videos (which I have enjoyed for years now), you will see that although he is extremely strong on compression, pinches, and generally burly climbing, his hangboarding results one arming an edge have always lagged behind significantly. For the grade he climbs, he has relatively weak fingers, which is something he readily admits.
Personally I can see how this could help, since I have seen myself benefit a lot from what I suspect is effectively the same process. I am a great believer of this for core too.
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I find this all a bit unlikely. The effort levels he's putting into hangboarding (80% of his bodyweight) are barely moving the needle. I'm sure I've seen this guy one arming campus rungs etc. He's able to hang massive weight off his body in other videos of his. He's campused Never Ending Story stand etc. He's not weak. Hanging with his feet on the ground seems like nothing more than rehab for injury.
This is not entirely accurate. If you watch his and Erik's videos (which I have enjoyed for years now), you will see that although he is extremely strong on compression, pinches, and generally burly climbing, his hangboarding results one arming an edge have always lagged behind significantly. For the grade he climbs, he has relatively weak fingers, which is something he readily admits.
Personally I can see how this could help, since I have seen myself benefit a lot from what I suspect is effectively the same process. I am a great believer of this for core too.
200% BW on a 20mm edge, one arming the BM2k middle slot for 7s pre this video. Depending on how you interpret it he's either 82KG or 86KG. I'd say those are pretty strong fingers, especially considering it's his weakness.
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I don't believe there is any evidence base to suggest that a) 30 days is a long enough window for anything more than minimal strength gains in tendon/ligament structures and b) that loading to such a small percentage of max would stimulate any supercompensation.
In the time frame where he made the gains he also did a bunch of hard bouldering and apparently dropped some weight. This is more than enough on its own to get the kind of recruitment gains he shows IMO. I've gone through long periods (months) of never touching a fingerboard and just bouldering, then come back and do a one-arm PB. There's a reason that one-arm strength is a reasonable predictor of boulder grade!
My experience is that consistent time put into a solid, periodised combination of max hangs, repeaters and grip specialisation depending on goals is the most effective method of improving finger strength.
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I am a great believer of this for core too.
Could you expand?
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I don't believe there is any evidence base to suggest that a) 30 days is a long enough window for anything more than minimal strength gains in tendon/ligament structures and b) that loading to such a small percentage of max would stimulate any supercompensation.
In the time frame where he made the gains he also did a bunch of hard bouldering and apparently dropped some weight. This is more than enough on its own to get the kind of recruitment gains he shows IMO. I've gone through long periods (months) of never touching a fingerboard and just bouldering, then come back and do a one-arm PB. There's a reason that one-arm strength is a reasonable predictor of boulder grade!
My experience is that consistent time put into a solid, periodised combination of max hangs, repeaters and grip specialisation depending on goals is the most effective method of improving finger strength.
So, this?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHdNZSjrPs/?igshid=uq6q48vkh9qy (https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHdNZSjrPs/?igshid=uq6q48vkh9qy)
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I have just done my second set. I have just booked a gite in font. Off to do the Island.
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I have just done my second set. I have just booked a gite in font. Off to do the Island.
Don't forget your reading material
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This protocol is basically the same me nipping down to the Broomgrove Road wall for 15 min. between lectures c.1980. It helped a bit on peak lime E3/4s. Otherwise, what Misha said: TINSTAAFL.
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Ha. You’ve forgotten how hard you have to bone those Broomgrove edges Duncan. This protocol is a lot easier.
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I find this all a bit unlikely. The effort levels he's putting into hangboarding (80% of his bodyweight) are barely moving the needle. I'm sure I've seen this guy one arming campus rungs etc. He's able to hang massive weight off his body in other videos of his. He's campused Never Ending Story stand etc. He's not weak. Hanging with his feet on the ground seems like nothing more than rehab for injury.
This is not entirely accurate. If you watch his and Erik's videos (which I have enjoyed for years now), you will see that although he is extremely strong on compression, pinches, and generally burly climbing, his hangboarding results one arming an edge have always lagged behind significantly. For the grade he climbs, he has relatively weak fingers, which is something he readily admits.
Personally I can see how this could help, since I have seen myself benefit a lot from what I suspect is effectively the same process. I am a great believer of this for core too.
200% BW on a 20mm edge, one arming the BM2k middle slot for 7s pre this video. Depending on how you interpret it he's either 82KG or 86KG. I'd say those are pretty strong fingers, especially considering it's his weakness.
Given his level, 7s one arm on the BM slot is not particularly impressive. I would expect a climber that consistently climbs 8B, has flashed 8A+, and trains a lot, to throw down numbers higher than that.
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Given his level, 7s one arm on the BM slot is not particularly impressive. I would expect a climber that consistently climbs 8B, has flashed 8A+, and trains a lot, to throw down numbers higher than that.
I’d agree with you for lighter climbers but at 86kg I’d say that’s pretty impressive.
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I am a great believer of this for core too.
Could you expand?
Sure. Keep in mind this is just what I have found works for me, and a couple of people I have suggested it to. Core seems to be a battle of attrition, so I have found doing very consistent but fairly low intensity exercises (e.g. a few sets of rollouts every night) has lead to far better improvement than drilling myself on a couple of hard core sessions a week. I mix it up a lot, but generally if I am focussing on core for a block I will throw in 5 sets of 10 rollouts every night rather than a couple of lever sessions a week.
It's worth noting that, for me, my abdominals are usually the groups that need work in high intensity tensiony positions (e.g. a front lever), rather than my lats. This is my hypothesis on why this approach works for me.
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Given his level, 7s one arm on the BM slot is not particularly impressive. I would expect a climber that consistently climbs 8B, has flashed 8A+, and trains a lot, to throw down numbers higher than that.
I’d agree with you for lighter climbers but at 86kg I’d say that’s pretty impressive.
According to his 9c test video, he is 76kg, not 86kg.
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Ah cool, was just quoting from upthread
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It's worth noting that, for me, my abdominals are usually the groups that need work in high intensity tensiony positions (e.g. a front lever), rather than my lats. This is my hypothesis on why this approach works for me.
I find this to be almost impossible as the abdominal demands on a front lever are miniscule in comparison to that of the lats. For example, if you can hold a good hollowbody position laying on the floor this is comparable to the abdominal demands in a front lever. Do you mean that your hips are sagging in the movement? That is commonly mistaken as the core being weak but is 99% due to the lats and other back muscles not being able to pull you level, and sagging reduces the leverage. Apologies if i'm wrong and you really are failing levers due to ab weakness but this would be extraordinarily rare.
Edit: a good test is use a strong resistance band to support under your lower back (not at the feet), and see if you can hold a good lever. This reduces the demands on the back muscles, but not on the abs.
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Ah my bad with the weight. He said in a benchmark video he was 82kg. His weight moves a lot, he said he was 4kg heavier at the start of this one too.
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It's worth noting that, for me, my abdominals are usually the groups that need work in high intensity tensiony positions (e.g. a front lever), rather than my lats. This is my hypothesis on why this approach works for me.
I find this to be almost impossible as the abdominal demands on a front lever are miniscule in comparison to that of the lats. For example, if you can hold a good hollowbody position laying on the floor this is comparable to the abdominal demands in a front lever. Do you mean that your hips are sagging in the movement? That is commonly mistaken as the core being weak but is 99% due to the lats and other back muscles not being able to pull you level, and sagging reduces the leverage. Apologies if i'm wrong and you really are failing levers due to ab weakness but this would be extraordinarily rare.
Edit: a good test is use a strong resistance band to support under your lower back (not at the feet), and see if you can hold a good lever. This reduces the demands on the back muscles, but not on the abs.
Yeah indeed, I am aware of the role the lats play in generating the movement. I have found that my lats are not the limiting factor though, and whether I can hold the position generally correlates well with how 'sturdy' I feel on the ab roller. It is probably more than just the abs that I am working there. This is why I made it clear that n=1, and what works for me may not work for everyone else.
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but.... the ab roller is mostly lats also 🤷🏼♂️🤔
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but.... the ab roller is mostly lats also 🤷🏼♂️🤔
I have not found that at all. If you rotate your shoulders at the bottom of the movement to bring yourself back to the top I can see how that would be lats, but I consider that 'cheating'. If you pull your abs in and generate the movement by squeezing that is almost entirely abs.
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I thought with ab roller you kept everything else locked and rotated around your shoulder (like a rings prone I)? Does squeezing your abs to generate the movement involve arching your back?
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHYhfZg3-3/ (https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHYhfZg3-3/)
Another set of thoughts
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I thought with ab roller you kept everything else locked and rotated around your shoulder (like a rings prone I)? Does squeezing your abs to generate the movement involve arching your back?
not arching it so much, more sucking the abs up into the ribs and removing some anterior pelvic tilt. If you keep this tight throughout the movement then it will target the abs far more than the lats. There is a certain amount of rotation around the shoulder, of course, but if you limit the movement to this then I feel like it misses the point of the exercise. It will target lats (as suggested above), and limit the work require by the abs. This kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise in my opinion. If I wanted to target lats then ab rolling badly seems a weird way of doing it.
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He has done a few podcasts with Neely Quinn on Training Beta. Worth listening,
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHYhfZg3-3/ (https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHYhfZg3-3/)
Another set of thoughts
"Abraham-what-not" :lol:
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I had a brief play with the snake oil protocol this lunchtime (hey, I'm a sucker for easy gainz!), tweaked it a bit with less rest and more reps (10 secs hang, 20 secs rest x6) to get closer to the magic useful 10 minutes of hang time. Quick question for those with more experience on the beastmaker than I have - the last two hangs he calls 'crimps' on the lower two finger pockets, it looked like he used a half crimp / chisel grip, this felt weird and possibly tweaky for me on 2 fingers.... Will that get easier with more practice, or is there a safe technique for 2 finger crimping that I should know about?
On a side note, this is an easy session to slot in when you only get a half hour lunch break and you also want to fit in actually eating something. Better than doing nothing surely?
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Everybody wanna be a strong climber, but don't nobody wanna do those long ass hangs...
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Everyone wants something for nothing... :)
I thought the point of training was to endure long tedious hours of repetition - providing an empty space to expand the mind and nurture the soul? Not to actually get better!! 😱
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I don't believe there is any evidence base to suggest that a) 30 days is a long enough window for anything more than minimal strength gains in tendon/ligament structures and b) that loading to such a small percentage of max would stimulate any supercompensation.
In the time frame where he made the gains he also did a bunch of hard bouldering and apparently dropped some weight. This is more than enough on its own to get the kind of recruitment gains he shows IMO. I've gone through long periods (months) of never touching a fingerboard and just bouldering, then come back and do a one-arm PB. There's a reason that one-arm strength is a reasonable predictor of boulder grade!
My experience is that consistent time put into a solid, periodised combination of max hangs, repeaters and grip specialisation depending on goals is the most effective method of improving finger strength.
So, this?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHdNZSjrPs/?igshid=uq6q48vkh9qy (https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHdNZSjrPs/?igshid=uq6q48vkh9qy)
I guess so!
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it looked like he used a half crimp / chisel grip, this felt weird and possibly tweaky for me on 2 fingers.... Will that get easier with more practice, or is there a safe technique for 2 finger crimping that I should know about?
When I tried it I felt the same. Maybe not tweaky but perhaps a little uncomfortable. I could be wrong but in my mind I felt like that was maybe part of the point. On those grips I was doing it at such low forces that I would never (famous last words) do myself harm but perhaps target and isolate tendons that would usually be supported by others. This could also be complete and utter rubbish. I was also thinking about doing something like you did with 10 on 20 off to increase the time under load but ideally don't want to increase the session time beyond 10 minutes as that is what makes it so easy to fit in.
On a side note, I have done two sessions of this and last night did a 'proper' repeaters session. Managed a PB with the weight I was hanging and it felt pretty steady. What more proof do you need?! Most noticeable was that when I started to warm up I felt like I usually do a few minutes into my warm up, which I guess is not surprising that I still had a bit of recruitment from the morning. Maybe that is where some of the gains are to be had, in that it allows you to actually pull harder during your other sessions? Incidentally I am fully expecting this to have little to no effect but still very intrigued to see how it pans out over the next month.
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I don't see why follow the different holds/finger combo's he does in the video. EG.
IF - the point is to give your fingers/tendons a bit of an exercise (lets say at 60-70% body weight) for ten min... then why work some fingers harder than others?
I just don't get this. EG if to get the same 'feel' in my fingers I use 70%bw for all four fingers, but only comfortable with 40% on the back two - then why not just carry on doing 70% on all? My back two will be getting near enough the same work out? I guess it works the familiarity with the hang position and the other muscles/tendons around the fingers for holding two digits/mono's etc... but - for the overall aim it makes no sense...
BTW - I liked the video - and hope it works for people...
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On a side note, I have done two sessions of this and last night did a 'proper' repeaters session. Managed a PB with the weight I was hanging and it felt pretty steady. What more proof do you need?! Most noticeable was that when I started to warm up I felt like I usually do a few minutes into my warm up, which I guess is not surprising that I still had a bit of recruitment from the morning. Maybe that is where some of the gains are to be had, in that it allows you to actually pull harder during your other sessions? Incidentally I am fully expecting this to have little to no effect but still very intrigued to see how it pans out over the next month.
I've noted I often perform better on board sessions in the evening if I've done a fingerboard workout (usually max hangs) in the morning. I also tend to perform better my second day on. All probably a related recruitment phenomenon going on. Overall really interesting though and I'm excited people are trying this and hoping to see some longer term results.
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Quick question for those with more experience on the beastmaker than I have - the last two hangs he calls 'crimps' on the lower two finger pockets, it looked like he used a half crimp / chisel grip, this felt weird and possibly tweaky for me on 2 fingers.... Will that get easier with more practice, or is there a safe technique for 2 finger crimping that I should know about?
This routine is pretty similar to what I do when I want to get stronger on tweaky holds, or when I'm rehabbing a finger injury - i.e frequent FB sessions at low intensity. I've always felt that it's good to use the tweaky positions, but at a level of intensity I'd characterise as "mild discomfort".
This is based on no science at all - purely gut instinct, but I've done this kind of routine on and off for years. I've never noticed a quantum leap in standards, but it does help with finger niggles.
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Thanks for the replies guys. Based on what you have said, I will keep trying this with the awkward position but not pull as hard on those grips as on the more comfortable ones. Hopefully over time it will give some kind of adaptation and / or resilience to injury.
At this rate, we will be the UKB test pool and give some decent scientific data for the efficacy of this regime in a few weeks! Public service....
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Quick question for those with more experience on the beastmaker than I have - the last two hangs he calls 'crimps' on the lower two finger pockets, it looked like he used a half crimp / chisel grip, this felt weird and possibly tweaky for me on 2 fingers.... Will that get easier with more practice, or is there a safe technique for 2 finger crimping that I should know about?
This routine is pretty similar to what I do when I want to get stronger on tweaky holds, or when I'm rehabbing a finger injury - i.e frequent FB sessions at low intensity. I've always felt that it's good to use the tweaky positions, but at a level of intensity I'd characterise as "mild discomfort".
This is based on no science at all - purely gut instinct, but I've done this kind of routine on and off for years. I've never noticed a quantum leap in standards, but it does help with finger niggles.
No, it’s just standard strength training.
If it’s tweaky, it’s near your limit, at that point in time (what you could do “before” is irrelevant, coz atrophy).
Want to get stronger? Low rep, near 1rm, long rests.
So, strength training and conditioning is rarely long and tedious, in a given session, and often feels low intensity (because pushing too hard is courting injury), but is a (relatively) long process.
If the fella in the vid is loading to something in excess of 70% of his 1rm, then he’s going to see strength improvement. If you’re not, you won’t.
The closer to 1rm you pull, the faster the “gains” but the higher the risk.
One reason people plateau, though, is failing to realise that their 1rm increases over time. Reassessing every ~4 weeks is the trick.
(Humans have hormonal cycles, male and female. They’re all different, but 28 days, ish, isn’t going to be far off. This is why most exercise programs are based on “8 weeks” or “See results in just 12 weeks”, so assessment is done at similar points on those cycles). It’s been five years since I finished my training and 18 months since I stopped my practice and two years since my last serious weight loss and rehab client, but charting rate of weight loss over a few months, illustrates the cycles. It is more pronounced (in terms of weight loss) in females, but you can see it in both sexes. My point being, your physiological response to training stimulus will vary from day to day.
Don’t assess too frequently).
I’ll either have to dig textbooks out the attic or spend time on Google scholar, that I don’t have right now, to cite for that and I may misremember the specifics.
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There's a PT who posted on reddit - seems to have some interesting things to say: https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/lhacnu/clearing_up_confusion_on_emils_new_twice_a_day/
Effectively citing that this programme puts you at a higher risk of injury due to tendon stiffening
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:???:
That made my head hurt. Doesn't seem very intuitive to me- short duration hangs at small loads are an increased injury risk but if the hangs were longer it would be good for healing?
:-\
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I think it was 10 second hangs at 80% where as the guy asking the physio suggests 30seconds at 20% which I think he says is ok.
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Everybody wanna be a strong climber, but don't nobody wanna do those long ass hangs...
Do you even no-hang at 70% of the effort level it would take to lift off the floor, bro?
Doesn't have quite the same ring to it :-\
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There's a PT who posted on reddit - seems to have some interesting things to say: https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/lhacnu/clearing_up_confusion_on_emils_new_twice_a_day/
Effectively citing that this programme puts you at a higher risk of injury due to tendon stiffening
They need to be a continuum from stiff as they blend into bone and highly elastic as they blend into muscle, surely? So it reads like he is saying this protocol stiffens tendons at the muscular end ( I won't say junction, as it is a continuum with tendon fibres present along the muscle fascicles, if I understand correctly).
thought this was interesting though, would like to understand mechanism behind his thinking here:
Regarding finger health - short duration loads aren't great at remodelling tendon due to stress shielding mechanisms in the tendon. This would be a great finger health program if the load durations were longer but still submaximal.
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We need Huffy's opinion here I reckon
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Is there any chance of finding out whether the is 10 or 30 seconds as I’m at 6 hours from my first set. Or do I just split the difference and go 15 seconds.
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https://youtu.be/sBTI9qiH4UE
Seems too good to be true. Be great if others can replicate this.
My wife started laughing at me before I got 2 mins into this video, so I don't know if this version on 8a.nu is the same or not https://www.8a.nu/news/train-all-three-gripping-positions-24csy But it got me thinking that years ago I tried something that I read Andy Earl spoke about...hanging an edge and turning an open hand grip into a full crimp, quite brutal and very climbing specific.
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Did this with 30 second hangs with a minutes rest between. I got a slight pump on, does this mean I’m using too much weight or just incredibly lacking in stamina. :lol:
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So everyone on social media is losing their shit over this video. I'm baffled though. 4 months ago Emil posted a video of his benchmarks, at what he claims was the heaviest he's been (82kg) where he hangs middle slot one armed for 7s. (https://youtu.be/7CaoSl1MeJI @12min 20s) A month ago he hangs 200% of his BW on a 20mm edge at 76kg.
In his Q&A to this video he says he weighed 4kg more at 82kg than he did doing this program, meaning for a 7s one arm hang he now effectively requires 4kg of assistance?
Unless I'm misunderstanding something here, after a month of twice a day finger training he's basically not as strong as he was 4 months ago...
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Yeah that came up a few posts back.
He even says in that video that he's hung the BM hold for 10s before as well. Something funny going on one way or the other.
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My fingerboard routine about how to get to be 4 kgs weaker than you were 6 months ago will be coming out shortly. I think it should be quite popular - it involves wine, goats cheese and lindor.
I'm interested in using routines like this to rehab injuries, or as active rest, or etc... but this guy strikes me as either disingenuous-in-the-name-of-views or a bit dumb.
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Not entirely related to this protocol, but for the purpose of general fingerboard nerding-out, i'm wondering if anyone else has noticed similar to myself regarding increasing performance on the fingerboard. The best way to explain is through an example:
Consider an X% bodyweight hang on a 20mm edge. Assume you can currently do 5 sets of 8 second hangs. I can repeatedly try this load session after session and struggle to increase the hang durations above 8s; however, if I increase the load, I might drop down to 5s hangs but quickly get these back up to 8s over a few sessions, ready to increase the load again. This means I can increase the hang duration for a given load up to around 8s, but rarely beyond that.
If I drop down to a load I can hang for 10-12 seconds, I can steadily increase the load over time within this range, e.g. add 0.5-1kg each session and remain at 10-12s, but if I add too much and drop down to 7-8 seconds, this duration will never go up!
My bro-science theory is something to do with energy systems and ATP (something to do with creatine I think), which apparently depletes in 5-8 seconds, so training below 8s might be training one energy system and training above 8s is training another? Clearly this theory is not journal ready yet.
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So everyone on social media is losing their shit over this video. I'm baffled though. 4 months ago Emil posted a video of his benchmarks, at what he claims was the heaviest he's been (82kg) where he hangs middle slot one armed for 7s. (https://youtu.be/7CaoSl1MeJI @12min 20s) A month ago he hangs 200% of his BW on a 20mm edge at 76kg.
In his Q&A to this video he says he weighed 4kg more at 82kg than he did doing this program, meaning for a 7s one arm hang he now effectively requires 4kg of assistance?
Unless I'm misunderstanding something here, after a month of twice a day finger training he's basically not as strong as he was 4 months ago...
yeah agreed, the full story is not in that video by the looks of it. But then again, given the claimed 2600% improvement it was unlikely to be! Would expect some improvement in him, but not quite that much.
However, I don't fully follow your logic here, these are what I understand are our data:
1) 4 months ago he hung the middle slot for 7s @82kg.
2) ~3 months later he is ~4kg lighter and is not really able to hang the slot any more (it might be assumed this is from lack of training on this kind of hang).
3) after 1 month of doing the light fingerboarding routine he hangs it for 14s at presumably the same weight (~78kg).
I don't think we can conclude that he is weaker, given the only observation we have here is him doubling his time on the same hold at -4kg weight. We may say that he is stronger than when he started the routine. Why this is is up for debate, however. Looking at these data, I would suggest that he was probably not at all conditioned for one arm hangs on the slot when datum 2 was collected, and roughly equally recruited/conditioned* when data 1 and 3 were collected (though he claims he has not trained this in a "very long time", so it is not clear how).
Finally, I don't think we can use his 2 arm hang results to conclude anything here really, since bilateral deficit appears to be so variable from person to person.
Looking at the data, I suspect he has just reconditioned himself to hangs.
* this is a fairly arbitrary claim, based on a notion that 7s at 82kg and 14s at 78kg are roughly equivalent. This would fit with my personal observations.
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I think my frustration is that the portrayal in this video is that he goes from not very strong to very strong in a month of doing not very much strength work. Now there are vast swathes of people who've donned robes and joined some sort of cult infiltrating everywhere I read!
If you plotted his benchmarks across a year it would basically look like any completely predictable undulating line, with peaks and troughs as training and resting cycles go. Judging by how he naturally seems to ebb and flow in and out of strength, I'd strawman that this might have happened whether he did any hangboarding or not.
As said though, if, like his brother, you're dealing with recovering from a tendon issue then this is a great protocol. It's not gonna make punters like me with healthy fingers able to one arm the 25mm edge though.
Edit: Just thought I'd add that I really like Emil and his vids, think he comes across as a good guy with strong sends and I enjoy his personality. I'd imagine this is just poor analytical thinking, caught up in a bit of his high five bubble from his friends without really placing it in the bigger picture.
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I think my frustration is that the portrayal in this video is that he goes from not very strong to very strong in a month of doing not very much strength work. Now there are vast swathes of people who've donned robes and joined some sort of cult infiltrating everywhere I read!
If you plotted his benchmarks across a year it would basically look like any completely predictable undulating line, with peaks and troughs as training and resting cycles go. Judging by how he naturally seems to ebb and flow in and out of strength, I'd strawman that this might have happened whether he did any hangboarding or not.
As said though, if, like his brother, you're dealing with recovering from a tendon issue then this is a great protocol. It's not gonna make punters like me with healthy fingers able to one arm the 25mm edge though.
Edit: Just thought I'd add that I really like Emil and his vids, think he comes across as a good guy with strong sends and I enjoy his personality. I'd imagine this is just poor analytical thinking, caught up in a bit of his high five bubble from his friends without really placing it in the bigger picture.
Yeah I totally get that, it is not telling the whole story. Though it seems as though it was made as more of an n=1 than a well rounded and reliable test of the claims set out in the paper. If he feels like it has done something to his fingers above and beyond the predicted level of performance variation you allude to, then I see no reason not to believe him really. I may, however, question his ideas on why he has seen such an improvement, but as far as I can see he has not stated his reasoning on this.
My criticism of it is that he says at the end not to try this at home (perplexingly) but structures the entire video as an instructional on how to carry it out, as well as reporting personal results which would be extremely tantalising for the viewer to try and replicate. He also states in the info "Please note that you don't need a specific board for the program, a simple doorframe sufficed for Felix for a while!", and posts the entire protocol, which indicates that he does intend it to be, in part, instructional. These things seem to be at odds with each other.
Agree with this probably being partially motivated by mutual back slapping from his peers. It has sparked a discussion though, which is great, and more than most other climbing youtubers are capable of beyond "clickbait shit, avoid".
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Well if this isn't clickbait I don't know what is! Classic PR strategy really; no such thing as bad publicity.
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Well if this isn't clickbait I don't know what is! Classic PR strategy really; no such thing as bad publicity.
Oh I'm not sure about that, a video called "Hangboard Training 2 Times Per Day For 30 Days" with a thumbnail of him hangboarding hardly comes across as clickbait to me. It seems a fairly appropriate title considering the content. Perhaps I am just used to Midtbo style clickbait like "HARDEST MOVE IN CLIMBING" when it is "just" 1-5-9 :wank:
Though I do find him a bit annoying at times, I quite like his videos. He is a lot less obnoxious than 90% of the "content creators" out there.
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This may have been posted before - but found this redit thread about this...
https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/lhacnu/clearing_up_confusion_on_emils_new_twice_a_day/
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That’s the same as Sasquatch posted on page 3.
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That’s the same as Sasquatch posted on page 3.
Taa. Wasn’t sure. Thanks and sorry.
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Copying a reply from the reddit thread as I feel like it's similar to my thoughts:
Hey! Hope this gets seen--
I feel like this is missing the mark, in terms of why this video is so appealing.
Why this video was so prolific, and something thats been glossed over:
--There are so many wasted windows of opportunity to effect the tendons. Would it make sense to do very light loading, say 20%, for 10 min, every window you're not climbing or training (even / especially rest days), JUST for added recovery and tendon health / strength? (adjusting rep loading duration for intended stiffness)--
A session that's short enough (including warm up etc) to get added in before work/during lunch/before bed without compromising other sessions or increasing risk of injury (as Emils session may do) would be a boon to lots of us surely, even though the long term benefits aren't realistically likely to be comparable to the vid.
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If low intensity frequent work makes your fingers strong and stable how come I did all those active rest days aero caping and still got weak and injured? :lol:
(Flippant/rhetorical question in case that didn't come across)
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If low intensity frequent work makes your fingers strong and stable how come I did all those active rest days aero caping and still got weak and injured? :lol:
(Flippant/rhetorical question in case that didn't come across)
Maybe because you spend an hour aerocapping, not 10 mins? Maybe all that aerocapping stiffened your tendons, causing them to tear next time you applied a decent load? Just sayin'....
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https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-017-0719-x
I’ve got round to (skim) reading the original study that sparked this all off and it’s been educational - ie differentiating between tendon and ligament(sinew) and why stiffness in one is potentially desirable but not the other. The conclusions provide a practical steer for prehab or rehab and are:
Recommendations for Training to Improve Tendon Health and Performance
From the background provided above, a series of recommendations can be developed to maximize performance, decrease the risk of tendon/ligament injury, and/or accelerate return to play.
Consider incorporating a connective tissue health session into training. This type of session would involve <10 min of activity targeted to a tendon/ligament that is prone to injury. For example, runners would do a session to target the hamstrings and patellar and Achilles tendons, whereas baseball players would target the throwing arm. These exercises could be performed with a light weight and using a limited range of motion if necessary. The connective tissue health session should be performed either 6 h before or after any other training.
Following injury, athletes should begin training as soon as possible. Training can consist of simple range-of-motion and limited weight supported exercises because the amplitude of the load is not important for stimulating collagen production [25]. The training should again consist of <10 min of activity followed by 6 h of rest. Reasonably, this means that the athlete will train for three short periods each day.
Consume leucine-rich protein as part of training. Beyond the direct effects this will have on muscle [47], tendons will also benefit from the added muscle mass and strength and possibly a greater mTORC1 activation [15].
Glucose uptake into tendons increases during exercise [48]. However, because blood flow to inactive tendons is limited, nutrient delivery to tendons following exercise is believed to be relatively low. This suggests that any nutritional intervention that is designed to directly target a specific tendon/ligament needs to be in place prior to exercise.
Thirty to sixty minutes before training, athletes should be encouraged to consume 15 g of gelatin in either a liquid or gel form [46]. The exact amount of gelatin and whether this will vary with body weight is currently being determined.
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You may have already listened to it Shark but Eric Horst did a series of podcasts on "sinew" training, rehab, etc around the time he was starting his physivantage company. From memory main gist of topics covered seemed to be around tendon stiffness/ health and tendon nutrition including the need for the nutrition to be before the exercise. Haven`t looked back but that could have been one of the papers he goes over as themes sound similar.
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It is. It is all covered by Tom Herbert in the link I posted, 4th post in the thread ^
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It is. It is all covered by Tom Herbert in the link I posted, 4th post in the thread ^
I’ll check those too. I’m hoping it will vindicate my chain eating of jelly babies at the crag!
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It is. It is all covered by Tom Herbert in the link I posted, 4th post in the thread ^
I’ll check those too. I’m hoping it will vindicate my chain eating of jelly babies at the crag!
You are Tom Baker/Dr Who and claim my £5...
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It is. It is all covered by Tom Herbert in the link I posted, 4th post in the thread ^
I’ll check those too. I’m hoping it will vindicate my chain eating of jelly babies at the crag!
If you listen to his podcasts Shark, you’d find he would thoroughly approve (for the glucose, at least).
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Gravy granules 👍 plenty of gelatine in those. And salt for those cramps :D
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Interesting strategy TT. Standard 170g container of Bisto contains ~2.9g of protein, principally collagen proteins I should think.
So to get your 15g collagen protein you’ll need to make up and consume the contents of 5 containers of Bisto about 45mins before training.
Looking forward to hearing your review! :)
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Haha! You checked :)
My tongue was very firmly n my over salted cheek :D
CBD infused gummie bears then?
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:thumbsup:
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Haha! You checked :)
My tongue was very firmly n my over salted cheek :D
CBD infused gummie bears then?
Honestly, I’m down with Shark’s Jelly Babies and a couple kilos of Haribo.
Might get a bit of a pump on in the jaw muscles, but I’m willing to risk it.
Plus it saves talking to people, which is always a bit of a chore; allowing a socially acceptable (if slightly dribbly) grunt instead.
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Not entirely related to this protocol, but for the purpose of general fingerboard nerding-out, i'm wondering if anyone else has noticed similar to myself regarding increasing performance on the fingerboard. The best way to explain is through an example:
Consider an X% bodyweight hang on a 20mm edge. Assume you can currently do 5 sets of 8 second hangs. I can repeatedly try this load session after session and struggle to increase the hang durations above 8s; however, if I increase the load, I might drop down to 5s hangs but quickly get these back up to 8s over a few sessions, ready to increase the load again. This means I can increase the hang duration for a given load up to around 8s, but rarely beyond that.
If I drop down to a load I can hang for 10-12 seconds, I can steadily increase the load over time within this range, e.g. add 0.5-1kg each session and remain at 10-12s, but if I add too much and drop down to 7-8 seconds, this duration will never go up!
My bro-science theory is something to do with energy systems and ATP (something to do with creatine I think), which apparently depletes in 5-8 seconds, so training below 8s might be training one energy system and training above 8s is training another? Clearly this theory is not journal ready yet.
This is great stuff.
I'm afraid I have no useful info to add
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Not the final answer on Emil’s results but an instructive dive into the research paper behind it
https://youtu.be/EfSSXW9Eq2Y
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Another youtuber tries out the routine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqJqYtyr5eY
Result: could not reproduce Emil's results.
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Curious to know if anyone completed this routine and what were their impressions of it? Perceived or recorded? I agree with all the comments regarding how its a fairly minimal load to provide such strength gains. But since my current hangboarding is 0, I've decided to give it a go. Only 4 days in so far but my fingers do feel more supple - not surprising given previous efforts of nil. I've only been doing 1 session per day, only because of travelling, but I already feel that combined with other training it may be overdoing it.
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My thoughts are that a protocol like this can be applied as a way to lead into more serious fingerboarding in the sense that it helps get everything ready - but I would agree that based on what we know from established sport science this kind of loading doesn't correlate with significant strength gains.
Moreover, I think that if you're the kind of person that can be structured and disciplined enough to fingerboard every single day, you'll certainly manage to do two or three quality sessions of max hangs or repeaters each week which combined with appropriate loading would have a significant effect on your strength levels.
Personally I'd lean towards a few sessions of long bodyweight hangs in the grip types you want to train for a couple of weeks and then start moving the dial towards more weight and less hang time as this is established as an exceedingly effective method of gaining finger strength.
A place where the multiple sessions per day kind of loading does definitely work is for injury rehab but that's another story and best left to the people who know what they are talking about.
Hope that's somewhat helpful.
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Thanks! I think that mirrors my own thinking mostly, that the routine could be used to as a lead-in to more intense fingerboarding.
Personally I'd lean towards a few sessions of long bodyweight hangs in the grip types you want to train for a couple of weeks and then start moving the dial towards more weight and less hang time as this is established as an exceedingly effective method of gaining finger strength.
This part in particular very useful thanks. I didn't know more weight and less hang time was more effective than the opposite. Quick google shows a blog post from Lattice with a similar position (#3 (https://latticetraining.com/2019/02/04/training-series-finger-strength/))
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Thanks! I think that mirrors my own thinking mostly, that the routine could be used to as a lead-in to more intense fingerboarding.
Personally I'd lean towards a few sessions of long bodyweight hangs in the grip types you want to train for a couple of weeks and then start moving the dial towards more weight and less hang time as this is established as an exceedingly effective method of gaining finger strength.
This part in particular very useful thanks. I didn't know more weight and less hang time was more effective than the opposite. Quick google shows a blog post from Lattice with a similar position (#3 (https://latticetraining.com/2019/02/04/training-series-finger-strength/))
It makes sense when considered from the perspective that what we're trying to achieve in fingerboarding is to strengthen the grip position enough that it won't fail under the highest load we want to apply to it whilst climbing.
With this goal in mind high intensity hangs make the most sense as they will train the neuromuscular capacity to exert maximum force through a specific grip.
However it's worth pointing out that longer hangs or repeaters will likely have a better effect on forearm hypertrophy and short power endurance so the max hangs aren't the be-all-end-all, just a very useful tool in the box :)
Personally assuming I have access to a bouldering wall I prefer to use fingerboards primarily for the max-strength element and do my power endurance on the wall as I feel this has more general transfer to rock, but the exception would be for when I know I need to improve specific power endurance in a certain grip type i.e. 2 finger pocket in which case repeaters or long hangs can make for faster gains in that niche area.
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However it's worth pointing out that longer hangs or repeaters will likely have a better effect on forearm hypertrophy and short power endurance so the max hangs aren't the be-all-end-all, just a very useful tool in the box :)
How much importance do you tend to place on forearm hypertrophy for finger strength? There is plenty of research backing up the cross sectional area of a muscle having an impact on the force that muscle can produce, but finger strength seems different somehow (possibly because the tendon/neuro adaptions are more important?). Many finger strength wads have pretty unimpressive forearm musculature. On the flip side, I have pretty big forearms and strong wrists but unimpressive finger strength.
I don't doubt that repeaters work for strength gains but I wonder if it's more to do with volume than hypertrophy? I think of max hangs like a 1 rep max. If you were trying to get stronger in the bench press, heavy singles might work for a while, but a foundation of higher repetition sets will usually yield better results (e.g. 5x5 bench press program = 5 sets of 5 rep repeaters?). Actually, this makes me wonder whether the ever successful 5/3/1 powerlifting program could be applied to finger strength e.g. 5 rep repeaters on week 1, 3 rep on week 2 and 1 rep (max hang) on week 3, then deload and start again with increased loads :-\