up to 66% gains for individual fingers

doesn’t translate that well to deadhanging

not as effective as traditional fingeboarding

half-crimp stronger than open-hand

great for injured climbers

This is the last post on my experiment with a new method for finger strength training. Here is the first, second and third post of the series.

I trained my fingers individually using a pulley system and weights. This means I didn’t hang from the hold but had it at chest height instead. I performed 5 on / 5 off repeaters in an open-hand and a half-crimp position. Four workouts were completed over the course of 2 weeks. Initially, I wanted to perform a fifth workout, but my fingers felt too tweaky. The method feels powerful, albeit potentially a bit dangerous. My example has shown that a quick weight progression is possible, but I think one should err on the side of caution. Quick progressions lead to injury quickly! I think if I’d repeat this finger training (and I will), I’d rather see it as a long term investment than a short term strength boost. I suspect that a lot can be gained in terms of muscle and tendon strength but progressions need to be slow and steady. Alright, enough of this chit chat, here are the results you were all waiting for.

Results & Discussion

Below are two tables showing the weight used for each digit and grip type over the course of the four workouts. As you can see, I increased the weight across all grips and fingers. Some of the increases are quite impressive, going from 7,5 kg to 12,5 kg on the index and ring finger means I improved by 66%. Other fingers have seen equal gains and I’m quite happy about these numbers.

Half-Crimp #1 #2 #3 #4 Index 7,5 8,75 10 13 Middle 10 11,75 13 15 Ring 7,5 8,75 10 13 Pinky 5 5 6,25 7,5

Open-hand #1 #2 #3 #4 Index 10 11,75 13 15 Middle 12,5 13,5 15 17,25 Ring 10 11,75 13 15 Pinky 7,5 8 8,75 10

As I told you in my first post I did an initial strength test on the hangboard. I wanted to see how and if the strength gains for individual fingers translated to deadhanging with all four fingers. I determined my max for a 10 second four finger open-handed and a half-crimp hang from a 25mm edge. The weight I could add two weeks ago was 8,75 kg for the open-hand hang and 7,5 kg for the half-crimped position. This was at 80 kg bodyweight, so total weight hung was 87,5 kg and 88,75 kg respectively. I tested again last Saturday and I was able to add 13 kg for the open-hand grip and 15 kg for the half-crimp position. I was quite surprised by the results because I didn’t expect such a jump in added weight without having done any actual deadhanging. The 4,8 % improvement for the open-hand position is not at all bad considering that I achieved this improvement over the course of 4 workouts. The 8,6 % improvement for the half-crimp grip is actually a pretty good score. However, the question remains if I could have gotten a better result using dead-hangs instead. Luckily, I completed a 4-week hangboard cycle in October, which means I’ve got some data for comparisons. I looked up the numbers in my training journal and two weeks into the cycle in October I was at 7,5 kg added weight for half-crimp and 8,75 kg for open-hand. I started at bodyweight which means I improved by 9,4 and 10,1 % respectively. However, this was using a different hanging protocol. I only did 6 second hangs instead of 10 second hangs. A fingerboard session in October looked like this:

4 finger open-hand: 3 x 6s hang /w 60s rest

3 min rest

front 2: 3 x 6s hang /w 60s rest

3 min rest

half-crimp: 3 x 6s hang /w 60s rest

3 min rest

middle 2: 3 x 6s hang /w 60s rest

This means there are quite a few differences in the training protocols I used. The first cycle was more of a max-hang protocol while the second cycle was based on a repeater style workout. I don’t know what kind of protocol is more effective and I could have used max-“hangs” for the pulley system cycle as well. This makes a comparison of the two methods more difficult. Another thing that comes into play here is that the gains likely slowed down after the first cycle because my fingers got used to the stress of fingeboarding. However, all these additional explanations can’t hide the fact that traditional fingerboarding was more effective than the new training method. Interestingly the new method seems to be more effective at increasing half-crimp strength than open-hand strength. This is something one has to consider if thinking about implementing the new program. Half-crimp improvement at 8,6 % is only one percent shy of the 9,4 % gain achieved through the previous fingerboard cycle. This means that the new method might be a viable option for training half-crimp. If such gains are replicable this method might be especially interesting for climbers sustaining a shoulder or elbow injury. The pulley system method reduces stress on the elbows and allows you to train with an injured shoulder. Therefore, I will continue to experiment with this method in another cycle and I might post up more results in the future.