[James Malloch]

This is something that's had me puzzled for a bit so I though I'd see if anyone here has any ideas...

I live on a narrowboat and therefore there's not much space. Definitely no room for a fingerboard and we don't really have anywhere to put a campus rung up without drilling through the roof and using that as a support.

I'm recovering from a finger injury so would like to start slowly progressing what I do over the next few months so I'm imaging progressive fingerboarding type activities to try and build my strength back up.
 
Does anyone know of any other decent ways to train finger strength at home without being able to hang off things?

I've thought of things like a Crusher Holds wedge on some thick elastic that could be attached to something/stood on similar to therabanding. Another option is just joining the cheap gym next to my work and hanging a wedge (or similar) off the pull-up bars. I thought I'd check that there weren't any odd but good things to do at home first though.

Any thoughts are welcomed.

[Three Nine]

Join the cheap gym and build a portable fingerboard to hang off a bar. The wedges are crap for training (sorry Simon).

[Tommy]

I've seen some pretty decent data from a guy in the States who does it with a "farmer's style" lift with the big heavy weight being lifted in the crimp / half crimp grip. The fact that his data correlated quite nicely with increase in grade, suggests to me that the forearm stimulation in this position has some relevance to climbing.

Seems a nice way to avoid too much overhead work for those with shoulders that suffer as well....

[Oldmanmatt]

Give me a while, we made some plywood thingies for hanging weights on for just that. I'll put a photo here later, when I go into work this eve. Basically 3 x 18 mm ply squares of decreasing size with a t-nut and eye bolt.
Also use rockrings like that too.

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[shark]

Join the cheap gym and build a portable fingerboard to hang off a bar. The wedges are crap for training (sorry Simon).

Yeah. There are much better portable alternatives now

[i.munro]

Yeah. There are much better portable alternatives now

      Names please¡

[Oldmanmatt]

Right, not going back to work after all (result!).
However, have an unclear foto of a couple of options.
The plywood plates. 3 of them 18mm. One 60x60mm, one 80x80, one 100x100.
They're drilled through 12mm, standard tnut on the 60x60 and glued together. Eye bolt, trimmed and cranked up to tnut. Then a couple of tapes (these are old troll quickdaw slings (unsown)) which can be larksfooted to a kettle bell etc. Mainly pinch, but because it's finger tip (one pad) has some carry over.

The other option, for either a lifting weight style or hooking to a door/bar/broomstick across hatchway etc (and you can roll them into your pocket) are tape "Bear" or "Eagle" claws (depending on where you buy them). Cheap as chips (£5~ Amazon). These you can chose the depth of grip, number of fingers etc and they're not a horrendously bad alternative to a FB.



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[measles23]

I quite like my wedge      I use(d) it in the gym attached to a row machine while killing time between heavy lifts, as well as for crag-side warm-ups... I'm sure it would work ok for lifting weights off the floor..

I lived on a canal boat in Brum for 2 yrs - I screwed some small wooden blocks on the door lintel to the loo, then sacked it off and went to the walls instead! Good luck

[Oldmanmatt]

Oh yeah...
In lieu of (expensive) Kettle Bells...

A couple of 25ltr water/fuel cans, filled with sand; weigh 22kg each (fill them on the bathroom scales) and can be looped together with a bit of tape/old rope or used one on each arm.



Bigger Jerry cans are available.

Also:
In the photo above of the plywood plates, is a cheapy Argos Dumbbell bar, threaded with Paracord, with a plywood disk (cut with a standard "spotlight" 100mm hole saw) attached (stopper knot on the Paracord) and a small (less than 25mm wide) maillon at the top. If you do have weight plates, you can use this to stack them to attach to the mentioned grips.
Again, we also use a set of Rockrings for this.

I used this stuff a lot for a client with a TBI (Tetraplegic) who had no overhead ability and massive left/right asymmetry.
Two years later and he's doing pull-ups on the BM 45's and climbing V4 outside. On Dartmoor Granite ffs!

[i.munro]

I quite like my wedge     

Me too! I've been using it with a kettlebell, as described, when I can't get to a wall and seeing steady progress. How well this translates to rock

[duncan]

I've seen some pretty decent data from a guy in the States who does it with a "farmer's style" lift with the big heavy weight being lifted in the crimp / half crimp grip. The fact that his data correlated quite nicely with increase in grade, suggests to me that the forearm stimulation in this position has some relevance to climbing.

Seems a nice way to avoid too much overhead work for those with shoulders that suffer as well....

That's interesting. One of your clients? I'm building a 'tufa-trainer' for lifting weights farmer-style with pinch grips. I struggle with putting in any time on a fingerboard because of shoulder issues. Sounds like it might be worth incorporating an edge.

[mctrials23]

I've been doing some 'no hangs' stuff recently which seems to be working just as well as using a fingerboard so far.

Basically just one arm lifting a stack of weights from the ground via a crimp.

You can make something akin to this for about £5 worth of wood etc.

http://beastfingersclimbing.com/products/grippul

[Nibile]

James, it is obvious that a fingerboard is a must have for any climber worth this name.
I'd simply look for another place to live, maybe leaving behind a small note like this one...
image by Nibile, on Flickr

[Probes]

Yeah. There are much better portable alternatives now

      Names please¡

http://crusherholds.co.uk/crusher-mission-portable-hangboard-fingerboard
&
http://crusherholds.co.uk/crusher-slave-pair-hangboard-fingerboard


I used to work in a drawing office in my yoof and whilst waiting for drawings to plot I'd get a 15 min work out crimping the door frame (uprights) with my feet either side of the frame, colleagues always wondered why I was so keen to do the plotting   

[James Malloch]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll reply properly when my head isn't bunged up full of shit and I feel able to get out of bed...

[joel182]

Lots of content on the climberharder subreddit about "no hangs".

[James Malloch]

First off sorry for the late reply to this. I was ill for a while and wanted to take some time to read through everything and now is the first chance I've had time to sit and give the topic some attention.

Join the cheap gym and build a portable fingerboard to hang off a bar. The wedges are crap for training (sorry Simon).

This is the option I'm looking at right now, however I need to check out a few gyms first. There is a 24h one in my office but it's pretty small and doesn't really offer much to accommodate this. The only option would be to buy something like a wedge (I saw a good alternative one at the depot recently) and put this on the Lat pull down machines. I guess it should do a similar job to hanging it off a bar.

Has anyone tried this before?

I still intend to get to the wall a few times each week so this could be a way to get some extra sessions in at lunch etc.

I've seen some pretty decent data from a guy in the States who does it with a "farmer's style" lift with the big heavy weight being lifted in the crimp / half crimp grip. The fact that his data correlated quite nicely with increase in grade, suggests to me that the forearm stimulation in this position has some relevance to climbing.

Seems a nice way to avoid too much overhead work for those with shoulders that suffer as well....

It's good to here that data suggests this kind of thing works!

James, it is obvious that a fingerboard is a must have for any climber worth this name.
I'd simply look for another place to live, maybe leaving behind a small note like this one...
image by Nibile, on Flickr

I could never leave my little metal home, unfortunately!

Give me a while, we made some plywood thingies for hanging weights on for just that. I'll put a photo here later, when I go into work this eve. Basically 3 x 18 mm ply squares of decreasing size with a t-nut and eye bolt.
Also use rockrings like that too.

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Matt - these look interesting, thanks! I could definitely knock something like that up and use it should I join a gym. Not sure it would work well at home as space is a premium unfortunately so the larger jerry cans that you mentioned would be hard to store (but would make an awesome ballast!).

[James Malloch]

https://www.problemsolver.rocks/hanzo-hangboard/

I'm thinking of getting one of these if the hanging from a weights machine would work okay...

[Muenchener]

I've been doing some 'no hangs' stuff recently which seems to be working just as well as using a fingerboard so far.

Basically just one arm lifting a stack of weights from the ground via a crimp.

You can make something akin to this for about £5 worth of wood etc.

A delicate shoulder has motivated me to start experimenting with this setup too.

Don't drop the weights through the bottom of the boat.

[filz]

https://www.problemsolver.rocks/hanzo-hangboard/

I'm thinking of getting one of these if the hanging from a weights machine would work okay...

I have one of these. For a quick training session during lunch breaks I go to a park near the office and hang it to a swing.
Great tool IMHO.

[chris j]

http://crusherholds.co.uk/crusher-mission-portable-hangboard-fingerboard

I take one of these offshore with me, tis a brilliant bit of kit! I used a wedge for a little while, but hanging off a single one wasn't good for the front of my shoulders, though this isn't likely to be a problem if you're using it to lift instead.

[duncan]

I've seen some pretty decent data from a guy in the States who does it with a "farmer's style" lift with the big heavy weight being lifted in the crimp / half crimp grip. The fact that his data correlated quite nicely with increase in grade, suggests to me that the forearm stimulation in this position has some relevance to climbing.

Seems a nice way to avoid too much overhead work for those with shoulders that suffer as well....

That's interesting. One of your clients? I'm building a 'tufa-trainer' for lifting weights farmer-style with pinch grips. I struggle with putting in any time on a fingerboard because of shoulder issues. Sounds like it might be worth incorporating an edge.

Mr Fingers

DIY efforts. Doing pick-ups rather than hangs due to aforementioned shoulder dodginess. Seems to be hitting the spot, I'll be interested to see if it has any impact on climbing.

[slackline]

This seems to fit the remit of this thread...

https://www.crimpwerks.com/

[Oldmanmatt]

As part of my ongoing research stuff...
I'm putting together a way of measuring absolute max pull strength and it occured that it answers the op's requirements to a high degree.

The unit hooks onto a table and is pulled toward the subject (subjcts end of table suitably padded. I use an office chair reversed, so the back is the pad).
It can also be hung on a wall mounted frame and pulled like a conventional FB (against foot anchors).

It is, of course, an Isometric pull. (I want to measure the force at various arm flexions. (I will be building a 45* to the ground mount too)).
I'm mid redesign on attachment mech. but I'll detail that later, when I'm happy with it (need more length adjustment than I originally thought. People have annoyingly different reaches, who knew?).
This is with a standard 24mm campus rung (upper) and an 18mm below. Drilled and t-nutted to allow some specific hold attachment. Also going to add slopers (matched pairs either side of strain gauge).




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[James Malloch]

Looks like an interesting contraption. I guess it could tell you how much weight you need to add/remove for a one arm hang etc?