Yves Gravelle's unusual finger strength training exercise

[Liamhutch89]

Twice daily low intensity hangs are old news now so we need a new bandwagon to jump on. Enter Yves Gravelle, owner of some of the strongest fingers in the game and student of Olympic weightlifting training principles.

Here he chooses to lift weights off the floor with a portable fingerboard to avoid calculating total weight each time, but the interesting part is the use of reps - high intensity low reps with only around a second under tension for each rep, reminiscent of a deadlift:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UrEyRdKGFx0?start=738

Obviously this rep scheme could be done with regular weighted hangs too.

I don't know if this will lead to 2000% gains in a month like last week's programme, and the injury risk is probably quite high due to the level of intensity, but it looks promising as an addition to max hangs and repeaters.

In gymnastic strength training, dynamic exercises with a lower specificity are often considered to be more effective at building strength than static exercises. E.g. bent-arm pressing exercises are prescribed as part of a training programme to improve the planche rather than just doing more planches. It's possible these could have a similar effect?

 

[Simon Lee]

Nice.

The exercise to prevent spinning when one arming sounds good.

Regarding short hangs this advocated by Tyler Nelson with his speed pulls but mainly for recruitment which I found it was really effective training for dynamically latching an edge initially and over time been able to gradually keep me feet off the ground a little longer.

https://youtu.be/0dRn1dOIp-s

https://www.trainingbeta.com/the-simplest-finger-training-program/

 

[AMorris]

The shoulder thing looked a bit worrying to me. I will take him at his word that it worked for him, but deadhanging a bar and rotating round the shoulder just looked like a recipe for rotator cuff inflammation :sick:

Love Yves though, absolute unit.

 

[gollum]

The shoulder thing looked a bit worrying to me. I will take him at his word that it worked for him, but deadhanging a bar and rotating round the shoulder just looked like a recipe for rotator cuff inflammation :sick:

Love Yves though, absolute unit.

Certainly something I’ve seen before and seems to be effective. Probably part of a regime with a whole host of things to protect your shoulders.

 

[tomtom]

https://youtu.be/0dRn1dOIp-s

https://www.trainingbeta.com/the-simplest-finger-training-program/

? isnt that just a one arm hang - with a bent arm?

 

[Simon Lee]

? isnt that just a one arm hang - with a bent arm?

It does look like a short one arm hang but the difference is the intent - you are pulling down as hard as possible which if you were strong enough would see you do a one arm pull up on the edge.

we aren’t necessarily hanging here, but just pulling with the intention of creating force quickly.

When doing velocity pulls, I always recommend starting with slight tension into the hold (10-20% max) before pulling down fast

NB Confusingly he refers to them as both velocity pulls and speed pulls in the same article

 

[Simon Lee]

The shoulder thing looked a bit worrying to me. I will take him at his word that it worked for him, but deadhanging a bar and rotating round the shoulder just looked like a recipe for rotator cuff inflammation :sick:

Love Yves though, absolute unit.

Certainly something I’ve seen before and seems to be effective. Probably part of a regime with a whole host of things to protect your shoulders.

I’ve done a lot of two arm shoulder shrugging over the past few months as part of finger board warm ups (and can do them one armed) so tempted to give these go unless there’s another intermediate step you’d recommend

 

[Bradders]

Here he chooses to lift weights off the floor with a portable fingerboard to avoid calculating total weight each time, but the interesting part is the use of reps - high intensity low reps with only around a second under tension for each rep, reminiscent of a deadlift:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UrEyRdKGFx0?start=738

Obviously this rep scheme could be done with regular weighted hangs too.

Yep I did this (I know them as edge lifts, for want of a better term) in a training cycle late last year.

Increased my 10s max hang by 14%, although I was doing hangs (and all sorts of other things) as well so hard to know what caused that change.

 

[gollum]

The shoulder thing looked a bit worrying to me. I will take him at his word that it worked for him, but deadhanging a bar and rotating round the shoulder just looked like a recipe for rotator cuff inflammation :sick:

Love Yves though, absolute unit.

Certainly something I’ve seen before and seems to be effective. Probably part of a regime with a whole host of things to protect your shoulders.

I’ve done a lot of two arm shoulder shrugging over the past few months as part of finger board warm ups (and can do them one armed) so tempted to give these go unless there’s another intermediate step you’d recommend

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CK4SAvuFC78/?igshid=xc3onjbsl41u

 

[Simon Lee]

Thanks :thumbsup:

 

[duncan]

Here he chooses to lift weights off the floor with a portable fingerboard to avoid calculating total weight each time, but the interesting part is the use of reps - high intensity low reps with only around a second under tension for each rep, reminiscent of a deadlift:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UrEyRdKGFx0?start=738

Obviously this rep scheme could be done with regular weighted hangs too.

Yep I did this (I know them as edge lifts, for want of a better term) in a training cycle late last year.

Increased my 10s max hang by 14%, although I was doing hangs (and all sorts of other things) as well so hard to know what caused that change.

I’ve been intermittently doing vanilla 7-10 second ‘fingerboard pick-ups’ (also seen them called ‘no-hangs’) over the last couple of years. A good way to load my fingers when my shoulder(s) are tweaky and not liking hangs. The gains have transferred to hangs and rock

It’s good to see people exploring shorter duration efforts with an emphasis on speed of contraction. This strikes me as a potentially useful avenue given the duration of absolute maximum efforts (snatching for a hold).

 

[SA Chris]

Interesting. I've got some old slats from a garden chair i've been thinking of making a mini board from for doing some similar lifts from the comfort of the house watching TV, rather than braving the currently baltic garage.

 

[MischaHY]

The shoulder thing looked a bit worrying to me. I will take him at his word that it worked for him, but deadhanging a bar and rotating round the shoulder just looked like a recipe for rotator cuff inflammation :sick:

Love Yves though, absolute unit.

Certainly something I’ve seen before and seems to be effective. Probably part of a regime with a whole host of things to protect your shoulders.

I’ve done a lot of two arm shoulder shrugging over the past few months as part of finger board warm ups (and can do them one armed) so tempted to give these go unless there’s another intermediate step you’d recommend

You could also consider weighted isometric hangs as a supplement to that routine. Engage shoulder then weight it with 5-10 kilo extra in the other hand. I've had similar from Lattice recently and found it effective.

 

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Here he chooses to lift weights off the floor with a portable fingerboard to avoid calculating total weight each time, but the interesting part is the use of reps - high intensity low reps with only around a second under tension for each rep, reminiscent of a deadlift:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UrEyRdKGFx0?start=738

Obviously this rep scheme could be done with regular weighted hangs too.

Yep I did this (I know them as edge lifts, for want of a better term) in a training cycle late last year.

Increased my 10s max hang by 14%, although I was doing hangs (and all sorts of other things) as well so hard to know what caused that change.

It’s good to see people exploring shorter duration efforts with an emphasis on speed of contraction. This strikes me as a potentially useful avenue given the duration of absolute maximum efforts (snatching for a hold).

Agree.

I've been thinking about this for a while - the difference between the intensity of contraction when training, as compared to the timing and relative intensity of contraction when climbing.

I think it would be interesting to explore the total work done during a typical bouldering session. ie. the ratio of low intensity work/holding vs high intensity - and when this occurs - and comparing that to how we work when training.

And great thread BTW :thumbsup:

 

[Davo]

Went to have a go at these type of finger strength training exercises the other day. I had a suitable portable fingerboard but quickly realised that I simply don’t have enough weight. I have about 45kg but this is not enough to be anywhere near the right limit. I was quite keen to try these as I experimented with much shorter hang duration last year and thought this might be a good way of not having to consider changes in body weight as well.