UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => diet, training and injuries => Topic started by: Danny on October 22, 2018, 06:32:03 pm
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My max hanging routine currently revolves around the standard 20 mm edge and some two finger pockets. I have a couple of aspirational projects that require a significant bump in crimp strength, and I'm tentatively considering incorporating some full crimps into my routine. I'd be keen to hear whether anyone here is doing crimpy max hangs? Is it usefully distinct from the more weight in the half crimp position approach? And is the approach the same as for the other grip types, or more conservative?
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I thought the received wisdom was that training in the half crimp position would give just as good results in strength gains (transferable to when crimping on your projects), with less risk of injury. :shrug:
Hopefully someone who actually knows about such things will be along shortly to give a more informed view.
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From my sample size of 1, training in full crimp makes a difference if that's what is on your project. A big difference for me.
Anecdotally, I'd say its also good injury prevention, as long as you don't overdo it. Strengthening that position in a controlled manner can only be good for it, rather than only unleashing it in extremis on a cold wet crag.
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Your approach should be far more conservative than with half crimp training.
A lot of the business comes down to pain tolerance also.
I personally tend to avoid full crimp training and leave it just for the climbing (board), which is training anyway, but I seriously put a lot of effort into half crimp training, trying to flex the fingers and force the hang into a crimp while hanging.
Try to actively hang the hold.
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You could do some max hangs on smaller edges using half-crimp grip and save the full-crimps for climbing outside.
No point trying to make gains at the expense of injury.
I used to full crimp everything, but now, after years of strict half-crimped training, I find I never full-crimp whilst training or climbing inside, and only ever full-crimp occasionally outside.
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Just to add confusion - I find fingerboarding with the half crimp really hurts my PIP (my fingers are normally pretty injury free) with a day or two of aching right in the joint afterwards. I now fully crimp or open hand - and have no such problems.
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I wouldn’t fancy full crimp max hangs myself. Would rather bone up on the board if needed to improve full crimp.
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I wouldn’t fancy full crimp max hangs myself. Would rather bone up on the board if needed to improve full crimp.
Yeah - see what you're saying. Mine are on a BM - where you can't really fully crimp the slopey small holds anyway...
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Or the 8 or 10mm micros might be ok. Certainly preferable to hanging a load of weight off you and boning. :shrug:
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Have personally always found half crimp and open hand the best means of training contact strength on things like a beast maker/small campus rung etc. Having some well crafted very thin holds allows you to train full crimp in a controlled fashion.
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Lots of useful points here. Much appreciated. I think on balance I might initially try half crimp max hangs on a smaller edge, and then maybe mix it up with some full crimp repeaters. The idea of adding weight and then going full crimp is, I admit, :sick:
I think my contact strength is improved from consistently doing my current max hang routine but, contrary to received wisdom, I'm not sure all this half crimping has really improved my full crimp strength.
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Or the 8 or 10mm micros might be ok. Certainly preferable to hanging a load of weight off you and boning. :shrug:
I think I'll be getting some of them.
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Have personally always found half crimp and open hand the best means of training contact strength on things like a beast maker/small campus rung etc. Having some well crafted very thin holds allows you to train full crimp in a controlled fashion.
Good point on the contact strength Mono - you have to hit stuff half crimp then wind it in to the full crimp...
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If you wanted to get better on micro crimps, you could add a footboard in front of whatever fingerboard you're using. Experiment with size of foot holds/smears etc.
I also found training back two half crimp to be very beneficial to overall finger strength. Can then try that on one arm but with shallow mono dish drags on the other etc. In this context, the loading conditions are as controlled as they can be and you can be very systematic with your sets.
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I have always had a rule to never full crimp while I am hanging, always half crimp or open depending on the set. Because of that I very rarely full crimp if I can avoid it. My philosophy on it is that full crimp is only useful when your fingers are too weak to half crimp a hold and perform the necessary movement. No one would full crimp anything if they could half crimp everything, because of the increased chance of injury.
Having said this, if I find myself full crimping hard outdoors I often find that my little fingers complain because they simply are not used to the position they are in, which is essentially a half crimp, since during half crimp they are effectively dragging.
Disclaimer: this is a combination of my n=1 and some general observations I have made about crimp/half crimp, it may be nonsense :shrug:
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The thumb is also a finger, so a crimp with thumb is stronger than a crimp without, obviously. Closing the crimp is often useful to stabilise the position and pull inwards. Crimping doesn't come natural to me, so on redpoints I have to memorise which holds are better as full crimps.
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Surely only full crimping whilst on a project or whilst climbing on a board and not whilst on a fingerboard is a bit counterintuitive and inviting injury. I think it is inevitable on most boulder problems of reasonable difficulty you will full crimp so why not train it and build up confidence in that position and pain tolerance in the most controlled way i.e. on a fingerboard.
Again n =1 but i have only ever had finger tweaks half crimping/ half crimp pinching and i regularly do weighted hangs and pull ups full crimp. I would start doing hands without weight on holds significantly smaller than 20mm if you want to get better on small holds.
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Good thread this. Very useful. Personally I never train full crimp or even half crimp. Everything on the fingerboard is open. I try to do some of the easier hangs half crimp but am not very disciplined about it. Then when I’m outside I open hand everything still. Pretty much never crimp. Even the crimp on my project I open hand.
So the question, hopefully someone knows...are there some problems where you have to crimp, is this something that really comes in at the higher grades? Trying to find an excuse to get back on my fingerboard as suffering withdrawal.
Strengthening that position in a controlled manner can only be good for it, rather than only unleashing it in extremis on a cold wet crag.
Totally. If I was going to use one in the real world it would make sense to have practiced it a bit first.
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are there some problems where you have to crimp, is this something that really comes in at the higher grades?
Every problem on peak limestone except Powerband?
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Crimping allows you to move further up past the hold - as the focus of the pressure is at the very back of the hold rather than towards the lip.
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Crimping allows you to move further up past the hold - as the focus of the pressure is at the very back of the hold rather than towards the lip.
thats a helpful bit of wisdom, diolch
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Good thread this. Very useful. Personally I never train full crimp or even half crimp. Everything on the fingerboard is open. I try to do some of the easier hangs half crimp but am not very disciplined about it. Then when I’m outside I open hand everything still. Pretty much never crimp. Even the crimp on my project I open hand.
I've seen you say this a few times and it's confusing me; could you explain exactly what you mean by 'open'? Or take a photo of how you have the holds when fingerboarding?
The reason I ask is this is so completely alien to me! I just can't imagine open handing anything on peak lime!
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Alright Bradders lets give this a go. I’m going to try to link to a couple of pictures of two climbers on the same hold on a Peak Lime mega classic 7C+. One is holding the crimp in a full crimp, the other is holding it “open”.
https://imgur.com/gallery/iTQFRa2
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Or dragging.
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Yeah or dragging.
Anyway, when world + dog are all saying the same thing maybe it’s time to conform. Time to put the micros up and start crimping the little f*@£&ers.
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Doesn't Bransby (in)famously drag everything? Operating at a pretty high level, so clearly dragging isn't a dead end technique.
I usually drag or open hand small holds, unless they really force me to crimp, which isn't very often. As a result I don't think my fingers have built up the same strength in the crimp position, so it normally feels like a weaker option.
I had a go on the micros down the wall last year, and they were ok to drag, if a bit gnarly on the skin. If I'd tried crimping I think I'd have struggled.
At the other end of the scale, I've seen die hard crimpers bone down in full crimp mode on giant slopers. Sickening.
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Bransby’s a freak.
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Bransby’s a freak.
According to my advanced mathematical model, running on a super-computer powered by gin and bullshit, Bransby would be climbing 9c if he crimped.
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Bransby’s a freak.
Everything of his I've ever tried on grit, regardless of grade, has resulted in a shutdown. Magician. Be interested to review your footage of him on The Beast to see if hes crimping anything!
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Seem to remember a lot of dragging on that.
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I have found that my preferred grip style has changed dramatically over the years. When I first started I was really weak open handed and dragging pockets. I was forced to crimp everything. However, this resulted in getting injuries from crimping and from being open handed and dragging pockets. Back then there seemed to be a lot of information about training open handed and then also the back two (Beastmaker). Therefore, I trained this loads which really helped me stop getting injured (particularly strengthening the back 2) and I started dragging almost everything!
More recently a lot of fingerboard training seems to focus on the half crimp (i.e. being actively engaged on the hold) e.g. that Chris Webb Parsons routine and the Lattice guys as well. For the past couple of years I have focused on that and now where necessary I seem to half crimp a lot more even on holds where before I would have had to rely on the crimp. I might be imagining it but getting though hard sequences with this this grip style on sport routes seems to induce less pump than crimping.
Having said all that I still think it is beneficial to include some controlled crimping in your fingerboard routine both with and without the pinky.
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I'm 100% a natural crimper. Because of this (and received wisdom on the half crimp) I've totally avoided training crimps. I am incredibly poor on pockets in general: I've finally gotten to hanging body weight on my middle two in 20 mm pockets (as I think I mentioned elsewhere, my front two seem to be far stronger). For me the contact strength benefits of half crimping seem to translate to board style problems, rather than vert style take a hold in full control and crush it. I think in the UK even a lot of the steep problems are of the latter style.
I've noticed a few natural draggers, and FWIW, they all seem to have short and chisel-like fingers. I on the other hand am a classic ectomorph, with long skinny fingers. I think there's probably some biomechanical basis for favouring one or the other, even if training can change your relative strengths on grip types. I've thrown a lot at dragging, half crimps and pockets training-wise in the last 6 months. There are maybe 3 pockets in all of Cornwall, so probably time to start some cautious crimpy training.
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Alright Bradders lets give this a go. I’m going to try to link to a couple of pictures of two climbers on the same hold on a Peak Lime mega classic 7C+. One is holding the crimp in a full crimp, the other is holding it “open”.
https://imgur.com/gallery/iTQFRa2
To be honest I'm a little more interested in how you hold your fingers whilst on a fingerboard, but that's still a really interesting comparison.
The reason I'm specifically interested in the fingerboard position is that when I use a fully open grip (I.e. the classic drag), on either of the two rungs on the BM2k, I literally cannot get my pinky anywhere near the hold.
I've noticed a few natural draggers, and FWIW, they all seem to have short and chisel-like fingers. I on the other hand am a classic ectomorph, with long skinny fingers. I think there's probably some biomechanical basis for favouring one or the other
I think this is a really important point; I likewise have very long skinny fingers and am therefore seemingly predisposed to the crimp or half crimp, almost more as a way of getting all four fingers on to the hold than as a stronger grip.
If all of your fingers are roughly equal lengths and you can easily get your pinky on in a drag then more power too you.
Try to actively hang the hold.
However, I think this is really important too. It strikes me that dragging is a very passive way to use a hold, and in a sense you're almost just smushing your skin onto the hold and then using the rest of your body to engage it (for example via compression or body positioning). A half or full crimp, by contrast, is far more active way yo engage a hold, and I would think forces you to generate more force via your forearm muscles and finger ligaments/tendons. This presumably is also why the variations of the crimp are more injurious, but also I would argue why they're stronger grip types where you're much more able to lock down a hold.
Personally I think building up a careful controlled base of this kind of force must be a good thing, and the fingerboard is easily the best place to do that.
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To be honest I'm a little more interested in how you hold your fingers whilst on a fingerboard, but that's still a really interesting comparison.
The reason I'm specifically interested in the fingerboard position is that when I use a fully open grip (I.e. the classic drag), on either of the two rungs on the BM2k, I literally cannot get my pinky anywhere near the hold.
Hi Bradders, I was going to get someone to take pictures of me fingerboarding but Dave MacLeod already put together a great video on the dark art. He shows three grip types, starting from 6:55.
https://youtu.be/VeKE5VH5-qg
Pictures of the hangs and what DM calls them - "four fingers open", "half crimp" and "full open hand or three finger drag as some people call it". I usually use four fingers open and having just checked, it looks much like the picture here. And according to DM, yeah you shouldn't be getting your pinky involved in a fully open hang. But two of the hangs he demonstrates have "open" in the name.
https://imgur.com/gallery/TFyOiql
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The reason I'm specifically interested in the fingerboard position is that when I use a fully open grip (I.e. the classic drag), on either of the two rungs on the BM2k, I literally cannot get my pinky anywhere near the hold.
I've noticed a few natural draggers, and FWIW, they all seem to have short and chisel-like fingers. I on the other hand am a classic ectomorph, with long skinny fingers. I think there's probably some biomechanical basis for favouring one or the other
I think this is a really important point; I likewise have very long skinny fingers and am therefore seemingly predisposed to the crimp or half crimp, almost more as a way of getting all four fingers on to the hold than as a stronger grip.
If all of your fingers are roughly equal lengths and you can easily get your pinky on in a drag then more power too you.
This is interesting to me. I don't know whether my fingers would count as "long", but yeah, certainly in a drag my little finger's not on the hold.
However, I tended from early on to open-hand things, maybe partly because of hearing early on that it was safer to get strong open-handed than try to crimp everything.
In the last few years, I've had some ongoing tweaks in both ring fingers, and my current theory is that it's because when I do crimp, the little finger still tends to drop or not be involved, and as a result the ring finger skews sideways slightly and bad things happen in the joint.
Thus, currently trying to build up a solid half-crimp and work on convincing my little finger to pull its weight.
I'm even playing with little-finger hands picking up weight with the Problemsolver Nano, not because I expect to be doing any pinky monos any time soon but just to convince myself that I can actually exert some force through that finger.
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Pictures of the hangs and what DM calls them - "four fingers open", "half crimp" and "full open hand or three finger drag as some people call it". I usually use four fingers open and having just checked, it looks much like the picture here. And according to DM, yeah you shouldn't be getting your pinky involved in a fully open hang. But two of the hangs he demonstrates have "open" in the name.
https://imgur.com/gallery/TFyOiql
That clears things up a fair bit, cheers.
Although it's interesting that the four finger open grip is literally physically impossible for me! My pinky is so much shorter than my other fingers that they're forced into a half crimp in order to get the pinky on :-\
In the last few years, I've had some ongoing tweaks in both ring fingers, and my current theory is that it's because when I do crimp, the little finger still tends to drop or not be involved, and as a result the ring finger skews sideways slightly and bad things happen in the joint.
I think that's a solid theory. I noticed last year that the natural way my fingers settle in a crimp or half crimp (particularly the former) is for the middle finger to rotate away from the index, creating a gap. This was, I think, causing a recurring injury in my middle finger PIP joints, which I resolved by simply buddy taping my index and middle fingers together whilst training.
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what to call this though?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpkTvc6HBMX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
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Hmmm...
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A front lever on the BM 45 slopers?
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I have found that my preferred grip style has changed dramatically over the years. When I first started I was really weak open handed and dragging pockets. I was forced to crimp everything. However, this resulted in getting injuries from crimping and from being open handed and dragging pockets. Back then there seemed to be a lot of information about training open handed and then also the back two (Beastmaker). Therefore, I trained this loads which really helped me stop getting injured (particularly strengthening the back 2) and I started dragging almost everything!
Snap. (as in likewise, not the sound my pulleys make).
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Hmmm...
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A front lever on the BM 45 slopers?
the BM 45 open crimpers?
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what to call this though?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpkTvc6HBMX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Whatever you call it, I think most training-interested folk would be pretty happy to be able to do it.
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I would for sure, even though I take every feat on the BM 45 slopes with a handful of salt.
I personally experienced very big differences even on my own BM from day to day, going from not hanging to doing 12" hangs, let alone from BM to BM.
I would prefer a lot more to do it on pinky monos.
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what to call this though?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpkTvc6HBMX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Whatever you call it, I think most training-interested folk would be pretty happy to be able to do it.
His arms are bent, which makes things significantly easier. Back around Megos.
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what to call this though?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpkTvc6HBMX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Whatever you call it, I think most training-interested folk would be pretty happy to be able to do it.
His arms are bent, which makes things significantly easier. Back around Megos.
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No carrots here. Only sticks.
Indeed!!!
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