As I told you in my previous post, I’m going to experiment with a new method for training finger strength. I was kinda forced into this experiment because my left shoulder is slightly tweaky but I didn’t want to lay-off strength phase. Deadhanging seems to aggravate my shoulder problems so I decided to do no fingerboarding for at least 2 weeks. I mostly rested during the last week and didn’t perform any additional strength training. I also climbed about 50% less than I usually do. Luckily, I just heard about a new method for training finger strength in a trainingbeta podcast with climbing trainer Adam Macke. He uses a pulley system or cable machine and weights to target fingers individually. This means that you don’t have to do any overhead work to strengthen your fingers. You can have a hold at chest height and you won’t have to stress your shoulders through deadhanging. Perfect! I did some more research and I found a training AMA with Macke on reddit, where he gets in a little more detail on training your fingers with his method. He also posted some pictures on his facebook, which show his finger strength training with weight plates and with a cable machine.

My setup

Looking at the pictures Macke posted on facebook, I figured that you could make the exercise a bit more climbing specific by actually using some sort of climbing hold. Some time ago, I built myself wooden rock rings, which are perfect to use for this workout.

For the pulley system I’m using a piece of rope and a pulley which I attach to an eyebolt that I have set-up for fingerboarding anyways. I’m attaching the hold to one side of the rope and I put weights on the other side. This allows me to have the hold at about chest height. The hold has 3 different rungs. The largest rung is 35 mm, the second rung is 25 mm and the smallest rung is 15 mm.

The Testing

As I want this to be an experiment I have to have different data points against which I can actually measure my progress. I performed an initial strength test and I’ll perform another test after two weeks of training. After the second test I’ll decide if I continue with this type of training or if I resume normal fingerboarding. I performed three tests last week. This was after a heavy week of climbing, so the numbers could have been a bit higher if I was fully rested. I tested deadhangs in a 4-finger half-crimp and an open-hand grip position. I could perform a half-crimp deadhang for 10 seconds with 7,5 kg of added weight and I could add 8,75 kg for the open-hand grip. This was both on a 25mm rung. I also tested individual fingers with the pulley system. I didn’t perform 10 second “max-hangs” with the pulley system and opted for 5 seconds on / 5 seconds off repeaters instead. I chose this method because I want to use repeaters for my actual workouts and I wanted the test to be as specific as possible. I’ll train my fingers both in a half-crimp and in an open-hand position.

For the half-crimp sets I’m using the 15mm rung and for the open-handed grips it’s gonna be the 25mm rung. I opted for the larger hold because my finger tended to slip when using the 15mm hold for open-handing. See the weights I could initially use for one repeater set (5 on/5 off x 6) below:

Half-Crimp

Pointer and ring: 7,5 kg

Middle: 10 kg

Pinky: 5 kg

Open-Hand

Pointer and ring: 10 kg

Middle: 12,5 kg

Pinky: 7,5 kg

I was rather conservative because I didn’t want to injure myself, so my baseline might be a bit higher than these numbers indicate.

The Experiment

I will perform 2 repeater workouts per week. I’ll use the same structure as in the testing session (5 on/5 off) and I’ll try to add weight every session. After two weeks of training I’ll repeat the initial tests and this will show me if the isolated finger training method is effective for increasing deadhang performance. I’d like to measure the progress against climbing achievements but that’s rather hard because there might be other limiting factors than finger strength. I’m aware of the fact that this is in no way a scientific experiment and I am performing this experiment solely out of personal interest and to try something new for a while. I’ll keep you updated on how the experiment is going and what experiences I make during the process of training my fingers in this isolated fashion.