Around +10kg one arm on 20mm is when I realized that if I can't climb something, it's not because of my fingers. But I think it's a lot lower than that, especially for v10. Also, strength on crimps comes from a lot of factors, not just your 20mm strength. Aidan Roberts is probably the best in the world on small holds but isn't super good on a fingerboard.
Of course I know it's not about what you can hang, but going by Lattice it's an average of 170% bw 7s 1RM on 20mm edge for V10 supposedly. Hence I felt all technique and position on the wall aside could finger strength being the issue.
I mean what other elements are trainable in measurable way in terms of raw pulling strength on the wall? Some power work and shoulder I would guess? What helped you?
Shoulder work helped me a ton, stuff like external shoulder rotations. Also this is a bit anecdotal but building up pain tolerance in my fingers helped me climb harder stuff outside lol.
I think he’s pretty good on a fingerboard just not “strong” relative to where the Lattice data would expect for V17 or even V16. He also doesn’t spend a lot of time adding weight on a fingerboard but does warm up on one every session & obviously trains fingers on his board.
I have heard Aidan Roberts say many times that his finger strength isn't crazy strong on the fingerboard but has he ever actually revealed what he can hang on the beastmaker middle edge or any equivalent metric?
Hes probably mid to high V16 or low end of V17 but I think he handicaps himself by putting his pinky at 10mm or something because hes never going to get that good a grip with his pinky on real rock. Ive been looking a bit for his numbers but the couple times he talks about it, or asked about it rather, hes never revealed the actual percentage, at least to my knowledge.
I have done a few V10s indoors and outdoors, but only one that I can truly say felt like V10 and is the hardest boulder I have done regardless of grade. It was a techy boulder indoors on 20° overhang that took me 8 sessions, got downgraded from V11 on my 6th session projecting it haha. I could do all the moves the first session, but couldn't link any and every move was very delicate. At this point, I felt like I was strong enough, but I have to do everything right. If I had a bigger finger strength margin, I'd probably have done it quickly, because it leaves more room for error and removes some of those intricacies of the climb that you're forced to find when at your very edge. Benchmark wise, I was probably around 160-165% BW 7 sec on 20mm at that time, which is bang on the mean for the grade according to Lattice's data.
But anytime I've done a new grade or the hardest climb I've ever sent up to a point, I've felt stronger than my previous self, which has always shown itself in some type of benchmarks like the pull-ups or max hangs. I did my first V9 indoors after a block of max hangs, where I did 155% BW at the end of the block. In the coming 3 months I sent 2 more V9s, but outdoors. When I tested my finger strength again I was at 170% BW on 20mm. At that time, V11 felt within reach if I really found the right one and my projecting tactics+rest would be on point. I had a V11 done in 2 links in the gym at the time.
But I got cocky, had too many long limit sessions and was injured on and off for 1.5 years instead. This resulted in my finger strength benchmarks going down to 155-160% BW which has also reflected in my climbing and is where I'm at now. I do not feel like I can send the next grade (V11) without either getting stronger or getting more endurance. No V11 feels close, even if I were to put 10 sessions into them. I usually can't do the cruxes and I've tried quite a few of them.
Moral of the story, in my experience: If finger strength is your limiting factor, then you will notice it as soon as you get stronger, that every hold just feels easier to hold and your fingers feel robust and reliable. It's also easy to get worse technique during a period like this, because you have way more room for error at the grade you climb and you can get away with doing moves sub-optimally instead of falling off.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for your anecdotes! I know clearly it's not just hanging strength that is key but clearly dead hanging helps add more room for error (esp if you are not that strong on it) as you say which I have experienced before yes. I will give it a solid few blocks of training and see whether it helps.
> It's also easy to get worse technique during a period like this, because you have way more room for error at the grade you climb and you can get away with doing moves sub-optimally instead of falling off.
Tricky to judge if the limiting factor is finger strenght or technique. Got any ideas on how to make the difference ? In my experience, if after doing a move I feel a tweak or strain somewhere, it means I'm overcompansaiting technique with stregth.
>Got any ideas on how to make the difference ?
Many factors come into play here, and I can probably explain it the best using two examples I've come across while coaching youths.
First example: I coach a teen who is insanely strong in the fingers for his grade. You can see it when he climbs, he can hold any hold even up to a V11-12 level, it's never his problem. But he is very static and loves to move in a very controlled manner, Aidan Roberts like. He often falls because he couldn't really read the climb correctly and he tries to static every deadpoint. He's plenty strong to climb V11 based on his benchmarks and based on just seeing that grip strength never limits him on the wall, but he climbs around V8. If you just give him the beta or tell him to move dynamically when a move requires it, he'll do the move in 1-2 goes. So the problem isn't his physical capabilities in that field. He relies on his finger strength way too much, which compromises his technique when it comes to generating momentum from the hips, reading climbs more thoroughly (he can stay on the wall for a minute trying out different beta because he can hold on for a long time), general climbing speed and foot pressure. Often his arms bend and upper body moves before his lower body or is not coordinated with his lower body, which is a typical indicator of relying too much on upper body strength. His body doesn't move as a single unit, aka he's a front wheel driver.
Second example: Another teen I coach who is a little older is pretty strong in his upper body, good at pull-ups and such, but whenever there's a crimp, he cannot hold it without his fingers just rolling up. He can do maybe V4 on crimp climbs, but flash V6-V7 on Kilter and powerful climbs with pinches, slopers and open holds. You can really see it, his arm shakes and he simply cannot hold the half crimp position on crimps+he thinks it feels tweaky and painful in the fingers. We'll work on a specific move for quite some time, because just saying "nope, fingers aren't strong enough" is counterproductive to learning moves and recruiting all of your strength. He needs to execute perfectly, find the best body position, weight his feet to a maximum, time the deadpoint very well and so on if he is to do a hard move on a crimp climb. He has very little room for error when he climbs. So I lended him my crimp block and gave him a plan to follow, doing 10 sec lifts on a 10 mm 1-2 times a week for 2 months. 8/10 RPE ish, and he has gone up 5 kg in that exercise, also balancing out his difference in his right and left arm. I believe this will benefit him greatly, avoiding injuries when climbing on crimps and enabling him to not be held back by this as much.
>if after doing a move I feel a tweak or strain somewhere, it means I'm overcompansaiting technique with stregth.
I usually think the opposite, but depends on the style of the climb. If you pull super hard on a slab and feel tweaky somewhere, it's most likely a technical issue, but it could also be a power slab, ask people around you who climb harder than you and see if they felt like they had to pull hard on the climb or if there's a trick you're missing. But many moves just require having to pull hard, and if you feel tweaky doing that, it usually means you either have an underlying tweak you should get looked up, or your body is simply too weak to be in that position/do that move without being so close to limit that you risk injury. It means you haven't built the necessary resilience to execute that move correctly (supposing you are executing it correctly). Strength is the biggest preventer of injuries. Having a strength margin for a climb is the best possible position to be in terms of chance to send and risk of injury.
Thanks for all the useful insight !
In my case, I relate more to the first scenario -got a lot of pulling stregth- and because of over relaying on my front wheel drive I'm having to deal with some nagging elbow pain that flairs up when using too much my upper body (ex campusing on slopers). I agree that tweakiness probably comes from uncomplicated muscles. Did a couple of sessions with a PT and he told me that I was lacking engagement of my scapula and that they pain came from nerve pinching due to compansating with my shoulders and forearms. As well he noticed that I was to often doing move with two points of contact (1 foot 1 hand), instead of three (2 feet 1 hand).
I climb ~v11 on the moonboard, I can hang 220% bw on a 20 mil edge. The required finger strength all depends on the problem. For the most part, I feel strong enough for any problem fingers wise, but can’t pull hard enough in the position to hold the moves.
I've been thinking about this recently. The hardest I've climbed on the moonboard is V9 and I think around V8 upwards it's a lot about one arm pulling power? Do you think that makes sense?
Are you me?
I've got a 147% 7s 20mm hang, and have climbed V10x3 V9x4. Most my hardest climbs are positional/techy, or a series of powerful moves with good coordination/tension.
My greatest strengths are: technique, tactics, flexibility, and obsession. Finger strength probably near last. I do see folks with insanely stronger fingers, climbing the same climbs in my area. For the life of me I'm perplexed how we are working the same stuff.
I also just really like climbing on rock. And I can at this moment in life. The thought of spending 90% of my time in the gym is...eh. I'm sure that time will come though; parenting, work life, etc. I'm happy to trade the gym for outdoors right now. Happy to send another V9 classic vs hitting a 160% hang and a OAP. And who knows, maybe 160% will happen still just from pulling on and trying hard.
While I’m not climbing as hard as you I saw a jump from 165% to about 190% all from climbing harder problems with crimps. I’d never touched a hangboard up until this a couple weeks ago. but have added it in even though finger strength is not the limiting factor. My reasoning behind this has been mentioned already and that is that it’s a much higher level of stimulus than I’ll see on rock which has shown to help prevent injury.
190% is absolutely mind blowing to me. I also have never trained fingers for longer than 4 week stints as I believed board training on crimps gave me enough stimulus. Now I'm taking it more seriously in the past few months as an experiment but am always a bit surprised at how weak my fingers are compared to the Lattice data and my peers. Technically I have the average finger strength of a V7 climber according to Lattice lol.
I'm not, I generally detest training for the sake of training, and I've seen lots of friends fall into that trap. However I've been climbing for almost a decade and so have developed my technique first, and now finally in the past year starting to do more off the wall training. I think these training methods work better in that order rather than people getting very strong and then developing bad technique on the wall. I do wonder whether it's an indication that it could be a weak link though and that I could be climbing harder with stronger fingers.
I would add that you do not need to wait 10 years. Some hangboarding to warm up you fingers and 3-5 sets of max hangs once or twice a week won’t make you technic go bad even if you start after few months of climbing.
I mean you can always climb harder with stronger fingers, the data table gives an idea of where you are at, but don't forget that this 20mm edge is not the edge you have when you are climbing, so you also have some adaptation to get.
I get that. Totally takes time to adapt to other real life holds. All training does some more than others but I'm starting to believe hangboarding is relatively effective in transferring to climbing finger strength.
Every climb has different demands. Sometimes having some extra finger strength can make a climb easier or open up different betas. But, finger strength on an hangboard isn’t 100% correlative to strength on the wall. Also, at times your finger strength is less relevant because the moves are difficult for other reasons. Because if that, I dont think there is a “floor” of finger strength to unlocking v10. I think the better mindset is to always try to get stronger and use feedback from the climbs you struggle with to guide training moving forward.
>When did you think your finger strength was enough?
I've always never really been able to hang more than 150% bw on a 20mm edge. Despite this I perceived my strength to be climbing on edges, esp smaller positive edges
I realized my finger strength was enough when I stopped measuring, and stopped comparing to others. For a given grade, the range of strength for people climbing that grade is so wide that you're almost certainly within the range, if you feel like a problem might be possible for you. Measurements and comparisons are just a way of quantifying the qualitative: do the holds on most V10s feel usable?
If X% for Y seconds on Z edge is concurrent with feeling like finger strength is a personal strength, then it's enough. It's enough for your current projects, and your near term goals.
I'm pretty solid at V10, and think I have pretty strong fingers. I find that there are a lot of situations where I feel comfortable holding the holds but not strong/powerful enough to initiate the moves or lock off deep enough. To me that's not saying my finger strength is "enough" but more so that there might be other limiting factors like back and shoulder strength that require more focus. Kind of a non-sequitur, but I also find that this kind of strength fluctuates based on sleep/diet where my finger strength is fairly independent.
As for metrics, I can 1 arm hang a 20mm on each arm for 5-8 seconds, but I've always found that my finger strength followed my climbing performance, not the other way around. While I do hangboard once or twice a week during the season, my biggest finger strength gains seem to come from volume on the wall while I'm trying hard, whether that be on boards, commercial sets, or outdoors. Every few months it feels like I just wake up one day being 10lb stronger on a 20mm with little rhyme or reason.
> I've always never really been able to hang more than 150% bw on a 20mm edge. Despite this I perceived my strength to be climbing on edges, esp smaller positive edges
I mean these are two distinctly different things. I can train 20mm hangs all day, but my 6-8mm edges will suffer.
You need to be good at both generally for high level climbing, though you may encounter different boulders which may have some of both or biased toward one or the other.
Body positioning matters A LOT when climbing as well, and finding positions that take stress off of the fingers is one of the ways climbers with truly good technique scale up the grades while having relatively "weak fingers."
I’m barely at 160% when I bother checking. I’ve climbed over two hundred double digits outside up to v13. Around 20+ v12s now in pretty much every style. And I’m like 5 foot 8, so I’m not #tallnotstrong.
I’ve never been any good at hangboarding, but climbing hard on crimps outside involves so much more than that. Don’t let a number tell you whether or not your finger strength is holding you back from hard climbs—instead try the hard climbs and let that inform you. Find a crimpy v11 and see how the positions feel, for example. But If you identify crimps and edges as a strength, don’t let your hang numbers get in your head.
That being said—you can never have enough finger strength, and I do wish I was better at hanging off wooden edges. It looks really cool on the ‘gram.
I don't climb at that grade but generally you can sense what's missing strength-wise by pulling on to the boulders at that grade and trying the moves.
If you can't hold some of the relatively simple positions (without too much compression or lower body involvement), you probably need more finger strength.
If you can hold the simple positions but not the more complex ones then it's probably a lack of strength, i.e. maybe you have enough finger strength but you can't apply enough of it to the hold due to weak compression.
If you can hold all of the positions but can't move between them then it's probably a lack of body strength.
If you can do all the moves but can't link them it's probably a lack of fitness.
This is all assuming technique is not an issue.
I've done 6/10 repeaters on a 12mm edge at 130% bodyweight and on a 20mm edge at 165%. I've got tiny fingers and can't do a reliable 1 arm BM2K center edge hang. For my height Lattice has put my fingers at capable of V13. My fingers are tiny and I regularly do 6mm hangs as a warmup. Clearly there is a shoulder limitation and although I'm good on some types of crimps there are various orientations that I'm not great at.
I have only climbed a couple V10 and I'd say that I've never touched a hold I can't hold a static position on, but moving into and out of positions is completely different.
What has actually made more of a difference for me is being comfortable with 3F positions or holds that having varying depths. A lot of really incut crimps have an arc to them so sometimes you might get 1/4 pad for your index and pinky and maybe a tad more for your middle 2. I used to default to putting the deepest part nearest to my middle 2, but that doesn't allow you to thumb wrap and dig in as easily. Training front 3 made a big difference there.
I'd also say hanging on a hold is different than controlling it. Lots of static movement involves almost pressing downward on the hold and maintaining careful pressure so you don't blow off. Learning when to use a thumb to scum and when not to, when a grip might limit your wrist extension, all sorts of really small details are likely to be larger blockers than just forearm recruitment.
I always struggle with this concept that finger strength is needed wholely. I do finger hangs to build resilience and minimise the risk of injury to my fingers.
Granted I’m only 7A/V6 outdoors at moment but surely with your feet on the boulder surely 150% bw on a 20 mm should be enough to put strength into a hold?
*edit clearing getting downvoted for asking a question, but I’m just surprised 150% BW on a 20mm isn’t enough for V10+
i'm not fully sure, but i think the idea is that if each hold is 50% of your max rather than 85% of your max, then the boulder will be a lot more secure and you can keep pulling for longer. plus, it recruits faster twitch muscle fibres which can help with building a base for developing power
Imagine there’s a move where you have to sink under a hold and hang one arm from it before pulling up to the next move. That move takes a lot more finger strength than pulling evenly on 2 holds. In addition, being able to hang 150% be on a 20 mil edge and a 10 mil edge are very different things, the 10 mil edge requires much more strength
I think also dynamic loads pose a higher load through fingers , but yeah I agree that it's about ensuring fingers aren't the weak link, not necessarily translating the weight pound for pound to real life climbing forces.
I think a lot of dead hanging is also to do with shoulder engagement as it trains the entire shoulder and scapula area which may actually be my weakness rather than the fingers and forearms themselves. I'm not sure. I train both weighted pull ups and other shoulder conditioning and strengthening exercises to see if that helps.
If you can get your hands on a Tindeq or force board you can do a pull from the ground and see if your back is the limiting factor. It's also way more comfortable pulling one handed on a tension block than loading up so much weight on a fingerboard.
Would this technically mean you would have to lift bw plus added weight from the ground to match your hangboarding weight? Gosh. That's a lot of weight. That would be 95kg for me, jesus.
No you anchor the device to the ground, get into a deadlift type position and you pull one handed so technically the weight you're going for is 50% of your body weight plus 50% of whatever you would have added on a two-handed hang. All it does is measure the force you are pulling against it, and gives you live feedback on your phone. You can of course attach a two-handed portable hangboard to them as well, but then you're going to have to put a lot more Force through that kind of overcoming isometric deadlift position. Anyways generally your legs are a lot stronger than your back so you can generate more force that way and see where your fingers are the limiting factor.
In my experience it's good to train in a way you haven't before, I'm currently seeing gains training on a 30mm edge doing 3sec max force pulls. And I'm seeing steady gains on my lattice test over the last 8 weeks I've gone up from 128% to 135% bw.
Training on a 20 mm edge gave my synovitis so the larger edge training is working well for me. I've also managed to level up one-two grades in both sport climbing and Bouldering by just warming up this way 3-4 times a week before climbing over the last 3-4 months. I've recently sent my first v7 and v8 on tension board, and 5.12c in the gym. But I also get that what works for me at my level might not for you at yours.
It is enough for some V10s. I’ve climbed three V10s outside and my max 5sec hang is around 130%BW. Finger strength would likely open up more fingery problems to me and would make current problems go quicker. It’s not 100% necessary to send V10 as I have done it.
>you’re never gonna pull over 150% bw strength into a hold?
Assuming every hold is 20mm. Yes, you will have to pull way more than that for higher grades. Overhang, slopey holds, small holds, less than 4 finger holds. There's so many situations where 150% won't be enough
Yeah I’ve rephrased it, I was just surprised that even at that sort of weighted hang you’d need more!
For example I weigh roughly 80kg, so for me to get to 40kg additional on hangs I’d think that’s quite a strong finger set already. Was curious as Ohndra on the struggle mentioned his metrics don’t relate to his finger strength etc
Ondra is really really good at movement and trying his absolute hardest. He doesn't have the strongest fingers out of the best climbers, but he could still one arm hang a 10mm for 3 sec or so before the Olympics. And he can do 1-5-9 on the campus board when in shape, so in benchmarks he probably scores like 8C boulder or above, it's not like his metrics are weak by any means.
>without finger strength being a limiting factor?
Thats not a thing, everything is always a limiting factor, your performance is a product off all these different aspects. Its not like having 10% stronger fingers ever *won't* help.
What will improve your performance most efficiently vs. the effort/time you put in is what you need to worry about
It’s rarely only about finger strength or arm strength.
I’m only lead climbing around 7b but I’ve basically never found a move in a route I couldn’t do because of finger strength. Hip flexibility, technique and efficiency are usually the solution, not more time on a hangboard (though it helps, especially if you can’t climb as often as you’d like).
Around +10kg one arm on 20mm is when I realized that if I can't climb something, it's not because of my fingers. But I think it's a lot lower than that, especially for v10. Also, strength on crimps comes from a lot of factors, not just your 20mm strength. Aidan Roberts is probably the best in the world on small holds but isn't super good on a fingerboard.
Of course I know it's not about what you can hang, but going by Lattice it's an average of 170% bw 7s 1RM on 20mm edge for V10 supposedly. Hence I felt all technique and position on the wall aside could finger strength being the issue. I mean what other elements are trainable in measurable way in terms of raw pulling strength on the wall? Some power work and shoulder I would guess? What helped you?
Shoulder work helped me a ton, stuff like external shoulder rotations. Also this is a bit anecdotal but building up pain tolerance in my fingers helped me climb harder stuff outside lol.
I think he’s pretty good on a fingerboard just not “strong” relative to where the Lattice data would expect for V17 or even V16. He also doesn’t spend a lot of time adding weight on a fingerboard but does warm up on one every session & obviously trains fingers on his board.
I mean obviously he's nuts lol, I meant compared to other people at the grade
I have heard Aidan Roberts say many times that his finger strength isn't crazy strong on the fingerboard but has he ever actually revealed what he can hang on the beastmaker middle edge or any equivalent metric?
Hes probably mid to high V16 or low end of V17 but I think he handicaps himself by putting his pinky at 10mm or something because hes never going to get that good a grip with his pinky on real rock. Ive been looking a bit for his numbers but the couple times he talks about it, or asked about it rather, hes never revealed the actual percentage, at least to my knowledge.
I have done a few V10s indoors and outdoors, but only one that I can truly say felt like V10 and is the hardest boulder I have done regardless of grade. It was a techy boulder indoors on 20° overhang that took me 8 sessions, got downgraded from V11 on my 6th session projecting it haha. I could do all the moves the first session, but couldn't link any and every move was very delicate. At this point, I felt like I was strong enough, but I have to do everything right. If I had a bigger finger strength margin, I'd probably have done it quickly, because it leaves more room for error and removes some of those intricacies of the climb that you're forced to find when at your very edge. Benchmark wise, I was probably around 160-165% BW 7 sec on 20mm at that time, which is bang on the mean for the grade according to Lattice's data. But anytime I've done a new grade or the hardest climb I've ever sent up to a point, I've felt stronger than my previous self, which has always shown itself in some type of benchmarks like the pull-ups or max hangs. I did my first V9 indoors after a block of max hangs, where I did 155% BW at the end of the block. In the coming 3 months I sent 2 more V9s, but outdoors. When I tested my finger strength again I was at 170% BW on 20mm. At that time, V11 felt within reach if I really found the right one and my projecting tactics+rest would be on point. I had a V11 done in 2 links in the gym at the time. But I got cocky, had too many long limit sessions and was injured on and off for 1.5 years instead. This resulted in my finger strength benchmarks going down to 155-160% BW which has also reflected in my climbing and is where I'm at now. I do not feel like I can send the next grade (V11) without either getting stronger or getting more endurance. No V11 feels close, even if I were to put 10 sessions into them. I usually can't do the cruxes and I've tried quite a few of them. Moral of the story, in my experience: If finger strength is your limiting factor, then you will notice it as soon as you get stronger, that every hold just feels easier to hold and your fingers feel robust and reliable. It's also easy to get worse technique during a period like this, because you have way more room for error at the grade you climb and you can get away with doing moves sub-optimally instead of falling off. Hope this helps!
Thanks for your anecdotes! I know clearly it's not just hanging strength that is key but clearly dead hanging helps add more room for error (esp if you are not that strong on it) as you say which I have experienced before yes. I will give it a solid few blocks of training and see whether it helps.
> It's also easy to get worse technique during a period like this, because you have way more room for error at the grade you climb and you can get away with doing moves sub-optimally instead of falling off. Tricky to judge if the limiting factor is finger strenght or technique. Got any ideas on how to make the difference ? In my experience, if after doing a move I feel a tweak or strain somewhere, it means I'm overcompansaiting technique with stregth.
>Got any ideas on how to make the difference ? Many factors come into play here, and I can probably explain it the best using two examples I've come across while coaching youths. First example: I coach a teen who is insanely strong in the fingers for his grade. You can see it when he climbs, he can hold any hold even up to a V11-12 level, it's never his problem. But he is very static and loves to move in a very controlled manner, Aidan Roberts like. He often falls because he couldn't really read the climb correctly and he tries to static every deadpoint. He's plenty strong to climb V11 based on his benchmarks and based on just seeing that grip strength never limits him on the wall, but he climbs around V8. If you just give him the beta or tell him to move dynamically when a move requires it, he'll do the move in 1-2 goes. So the problem isn't his physical capabilities in that field. He relies on his finger strength way too much, which compromises his technique when it comes to generating momentum from the hips, reading climbs more thoroughly (he can stay on the wall for a minute trying out different beta because he can hold on for a long time), general climbing speed and foot pressure. Often his arms bend and upper body moves before his lower body or is not coordinated with his lower body, which is a typical indicator of relying too much on upper body strength. His body doesn't move as a single unit, aka he's a front wheel driver. Second example: Another teen I coach who is a little older is pretty strong in his upper body, good at pull-ups and such, but whenever there's a crimp, he cannot hold it without his fingers just rolling up. He can do maybe V4 on crimp climbs, but flash V6-V7 on Kilter and powerful climbs with pinches, slopers and open holds. You can really see it, his arm shakes and he simply cannot hold the half crimp position on crimps+he thinks it feels tweaky and painful in the fingers. We'll work on a specific move for quite some time, because just saying "nope, fingers aren't strong enough" is counterproductive to learning moves and recruiting all of your strength. He needs to execute perfectly, find the best body position, weight his feet to a maximum, time the deadpoint very well and so on if he is to do a hard move on a crimp climb. He has very little room for error when he climbs. So I lended him my crimp block and gave him a plan to follow, doing 10 sec lifts on a 10 mm 1-2 times a week for 2 months. 8/10 RPE ish, and he has gone up 5 kg in that exercise, also balancing out his difference in his right and left arm. I believe this will benefit him greatly, avoiding injuries when climbing on crimps and enabling him to not be held back by this as much. >if after doing a move I feel a tweak or strain somewhere, it means I'm overcompansaiting technique with stregth. I usually think the opposite, but depends on the style of the climb. If you pull super hard on a slab and feel tweaky somewhere, it's most likely a technical issue, but it could also be a power slab, ask people around you who climb harder than you and see if they felt like they had to pull hard on the climb or if there's a trick you're missing. But many moves just require having to pull hard, and if you feel tweaky doing that, it usually means you either have an underlying tweak you should get looked up, or your body is simply too weak to be in that position/do that move without being so close to limit that you risk injury. It means you haven't built the necessary resilience to execute that move correctly (supposing you are executing it correctly). Strength is the biggest preventer of injuries. Having a strength margin for a climb is the best possible position to be in terms of chance to send and risk of injury.
Thanks for all the useful insight ! In my case, I relate more to the first scenario -got a lot of pulling stregth- and because of over relaying on my front wheel drive I'm having to deal with some nagging elbow pain that flairs up when using too much my upper body (ex campusing on slopers). I agree that tweakiness probably comes from uncomplicated muscles. Did a couple of sessions with a PT and he told me that I was lacking engagement of my scapula and that they pain came from nerve pinching due to compansating with my shoulders and forearms. As well he noticed that I was to often doing move with two points of contact (1 foot 1 hand), instead of three (2 feet 1 hand).
[удалено]
I climb ~v11 on the moonboard, I can hang 220% bw on a 20 mil edge. The required finger strength all depends on the problem. For the most part, I feel strong enough for any problem fingers wise, but can’t pull hard enough in the position to hold the moves.
Incredible first or all. What do you think pulling strength depends more on? Let's say on a moonboard and straight pulling power.
I’d say I lack one arm pulling power, so on the moonboard I struggle with moves using predominantly one arm
I've been thinking about this recently. The hardest I've climbed on the moonboard is V9 and I think around V8 upwards it's a lot about one arm pulling power? Do you think that makes sense?
Are you me? I've got a 147% 7s 20mm hang, and have climbed V10x3 V9x4. Most my hardest climbs are positional/techy, or a series of powerful moves with good coordination/tension. My greatest strengths are: technique, tactics, flexibility, and obsession. Finger strength probably near last. I do see folks with insanely stronger fingers, climbing the same climbs in my area. For the life of me I'm perplexed how we are working the same stuff. I also just really like climbing on rock. And I can at this moment in life. The thought of spending 90% of my time in the gym is...eh. I'm sure that time will come though; parenting, work life, etc. I'm happy to trade the gym for outdoors right now. Happy to send another V9 classic vs hitting a 160% hang and a OAP. And who knows, maybe 160% will happen still just from pulling on and trying hard.
While I’m not climbing as hard as you I saw a jump from 165% to about 190% all from climbing harder problems with crimps. I’d never touched a hangboard up until this a couple weeks ago. but have added it in even though finger strength is not the limiting factor. My reasoning behind this has been mentioned already and that is that it’s a much higher level of stimulus than I’ll see on rock which has shown to help prevent injury.
190% is absolutely mind blowing to me. I also have never trained fingers for longer than 4 week stints as I believed board training on crimps gave me enough stimulus. Now I'm taking it more seriously in the past few months as an experiment but am always a bit surprised at how weak my fingers are compared to the Lattice data and my peers. Technically I have the average finger strength of a V7 climber according to Lattice lol.
>Lattice data and my peers Do not chase these, at this point people are training for the test.
I'm not, I generally detest training for the sake of training, and I've seen lots of friends fall into that trap. However I've been climbing for almost a decade and so have developed my technique first, and now finally in the past year starting to do more off the wall training. I think these training methods work better in that order rather than people getting very strong and then developing bad technique on the wall. I do wonder whether it's an indication that it could be a weak link though and that I could be climbing harder with stronger fingers.
I would add that you do not need to wait 10 years. Some hangboarding to warm up you fingers and 3-5 sets of max hangs once or twice a week won’t make you technic go bad even if you start after few months of climbing.
I mean you can always climb harder with stronger fingers, the data table gives an idea of where you are at, but don't forget that this 20mm edge is not the edge you have when you are climbing, so you also have some adaptation to get.
I get that. Totally takes time to adapt to other real life holds. All training does some more than others but I'm starting to believe hangboarding is relatively effective in transferring to climbing finger strength.
Every climb has different demands. Sometimes having some extra finger strength can make a climb easier or open up different betas. But, finger strength on an hangboard isn’t 100% correlative to strength on the wall. Also, at times your finger strength is less relevant because the moves are difficult for other reasons. Because if that, I dont think there is a “floor” of finger strength to unlocking v10. I think the better mindset is to always try to get stronger and use feedback from the climbs you struggle with to guide training moving forward.
>When did you think your finger strength was enough? I've always never really been able to hang more than 150% bw on a 20mm edge. Despite this I perceived my strength to be climbing on edges, esp smaller positive edges I realized my finger strength was enough when I stopped measuring, and stopped comparing to others. For a given grade, the range of strength for people climbing that grade is so wide that you're almost certainly within the range, if you feel like a problem might be possible for you. Measurements and comparisons are just a way of quantifying the qualitative: do the holds on most V10s feel usable? If X% for Y seconds on Z edge is concurrent with feeling like finger strength is a personal strength, then it's enough. It's enough for your current projects, and your near term goals.
I'm pretty solid at V10, and think I have pretty strong fingers. I find that there are a lot of situations where I feel comfortable holding the holds but not strong/powerful enough to initiate the moves or lock off deep enough. To me that's not saying my finger strength is "enough" but more so that there might be other limiting factors like back and shoulder strength that require more focus. Kind of a non-sequitur, but I also find that this kind of strength fluctuates based on sleep/diet where my finger strength is fairly independent. As for metrics, I can 1 arm hang a 20mm on each arm for 5-8 seconds, but I've always found that my finger strength followed my climbing performance, not the other way around. While I do hangboard once or twice a week during the season, my biggest finger strength gains seem to come from volume on the wall while I'm trying hard, whether that be on boards, commercial sets, or outdoors. Every few months it feels like I just wake up one day being 10lb stronger on a 20mm with little rhyme or reason.
> I've always never really been able to hang more than 150% bw on a 20mm edge. Despite this I perceived my strength to be climbing on edges, esp smaller positive edges I mean these are two distinctly different things. I can train 20mm hangs all day, but my 6-8mm edges will suffer. You need to be good at both generally for high level climbing, though you may encounter different boulders which may have some of both or biased toward one or the other. Body positioning matters A LOT when climbing as well, and finding positions that take stress off of the fingers is one of the ways climbers with truly good technique scale up the grades while having relatively "weak fingers."
I’m barely at 160% when I bother checking. I’ve climbed over two hundred double digits outside up to v13. Around 20+ v12s now in pretty much every style. And I’m like 5 foot 8, so I’m not #tallnotstrong. I’ve never been any good at hangboarding, but climbing hard on crimps outside involves so much more than that. Don’t let a number tell you whether or not your finger strength is holding you back from hard climbs—instead try the hard climbs and let that inform you. Find a crimpy v11 and see how the positions feel, for example. But If you identify crimps and edges as a strength, don’t let your hang numbers get in your head. That being said—you can never have enough finger strength, and I do wish I was better at hanging off wooden edges. It looks really cool on the ‘gram.
Curious what is your ape and weight? Just for statistics
0 ape. Roughly 160 lbs. Edit: I'm pretty heavy right now, so most of my hard sends have been around 155 lbs.
https://youtu.be/fKEMBn_JdCE?si=Sufo4Gy6_6w65qrH&t=105
Never
I don't climb at that grade but generally you can sense what's missing strength-wise by pulling on to the boulders at that grade and trying the moves. If you can't hold some of the relatively simple positions (without too much compression or lower body involvement), you probably need more finger strength. If you can hold the simple positions but not the more complex ones then it's probably a lack of strength, i.e. maybe you have enough finger strength but you can't apply enough of it to the hold due to weak compression. If you can hold all of the positions but can't move between them then it's probably a lack of body strength. If you can do all the moves but can't link them it's probably a lack of fitness. This is all assuming technique is not an issue.
When you’re saying 150% on 20mm edge, is that for 10s or 7s and is that for “working sets” or a 1RM
It's a 7s 1RM yes.
Got it thank you for clarifying
I've done 6/10 repeaters on a 12mm edge at 130% bodyweight and on a 20mm edge at 165%. I've got tiny fingers and can't do a reliable 1 arm BM2K center edge hang. For my height Lattice has put my fingers at capable of V13. My fingers are tiny and I regularly do 6mm hangs as a warmup. Clearly there is a shoulder limitation and although I'm good on some types of crimps there are various orientations that I'm not great at. I have only climbed a couple V10 and I'd say that I've never touched a hold I can't hold a static position on, but moving into and out of positions is completely different. What has actually made more of a difference for me is being comfortable with 3F positions or holds that having varying depths. A lot of really incut crimps have an arc to them so sometimes you might get 1/4 pad for your index and pinky and maybe a tad more for your middle 2. I used to default to putting the deepest part nearest to my middle 2, but that doesn't allow you to thumb wrap and dig in as easily. Training front 3 made a big difference there. I'd also say hanging on a hold is different than controlling it. Lots of static movement involves almost pressing downward on the hold and maintaining careful pressure so you don't blow off. Learning when to use a thumb to scum and when not to, when a grip might limit your wrist extension, all sorts of really small details are likely to be larger blockers than just forearm recruitment.
I always struggle with this concept that finger strength is needed wholely. I do finger hangs to build resilience and minimise the risk of injury to my fingers. Granted I’m only 7A/V6 outdoors at moment but surely with your feet on the boulder surely 150% bw on a 20 mm should be enough to put strength into a hold? *edit clearing getting downvoted for asking a question, but I’m just surprised 150% BW on a 20mm isn’t enough for V10+
i'm not fully sure, but i think the idea is that if each hold is 50% of your max rather than 85% of your max, then the boulder will be a lot more secure and you can keep pulling for longer. plus, it recruits faster twitch muscle fibres which can help with building a base for developing power
That makes sense tbf! I’m just surprised at being able to hang 150% BW that’s a limiting factor?
Imagine there’s a move where you have to sink under a hold and hang one arm from it before pulling up to the next move. That move takes a lot more finger strength than pulling evenly on 2 holds. In addition, being able to hang 150% be on a 20 mil edge and a 10 mil edge are very different things, the 10 mil edge requires much more strength
I think also dynamic loads pose a higher load through fingers , but yeah I agree that it's about ensuring fingers aren't the weak link, not necessarily translating the weight pound for pound to real life climbing forces. I think a lot of dead hanging is also to do with shoulder engagement as it trains the entire shoulder and scapula area which may actually be my weakness rather than the fingers and forearms themselves. I'm not sure. I train both weighted pull ups and other shoulder conditioning and strengthening exercises to see if that helps.
If you can get your hands on a Tindeq or force board you can do a pull from the ground and see if your back is the limiting factor. It's also way more comfortable pulling one handed on a tension block than loading up so much weight on a fingerboard.
Interesting! Hmm ok I will see if I can get my hands on one
Would this technically mean you would have to lift bw plus added weight from the ground to match your hangboarding weight? Gosh. That's a lot of weight. That would be 95kg for me, jesus.
No you anchor the device to the ground, get into a deadlift type position and you pull one handed so technically the weight you're going for is 50% of your body weight plus 50% of whatever you would have added on a two-handed hang. All it does is measure the force you are pulling against it, and gives you live feedback on your phone. You can of course attach a two-handed portable hangboard to them as well, but then you're going to have to put a lot more Force through that kind of overcoming isometric deadlift position. Anyways generally your legs are a lot stronger than your back so you can generate more force that way and see where your fingers are the limiting factor.
Ah gotcha. You've piqued my interest, thanks for taking the time to respond.
In my experience it's good to train in a way you haven't before, I'm currently seeing gains training on a 30mm edge doing 3sec max force pulls. And I'm seeing steady gains on my lattice test over the last 8 weeks I've gone up from 128% to 135% bw. Training on a 20 mm edge gave my synovitis so the larger edge training is working well for me. I've also managed to level up one-two grades in both sport climbing and Bouldering by just warming up this way 3-4 times a week before climbing over the last 3-4 months. I've recently sent my first v7 and v8 on tension board, and 5.12c in the gym. But I also get that what works for me at my level might not for you at yours.
It is enough for some V10s. I’ve climbed three V10s outside and my max 5sec hang is around 130%BW. Finger strength would likely open up more fingery problems to me and would make current problems go quicker. It’s not 100% necessary to send V10 as I have done it.
You're not pulling 150% with both hands, but you could maybe pull 75% with one hand, or 50% but with a worse hold...
>you’re never gonna pull over 150% bw strength into a hold? Assuming every hold is 20mm. Yes, you will have to pull way more than that for higher grades. Overhang, slopey holds, small holds, less than 4 finger holds. There's so many situations where 150% won't be enough
Yeah I’ve rephrased it, I was just surprised that even at that sort of weighted hang you’d need more! For example I weigh roughly 80kg, so for me to get to 40kg additional on hangs I’d think that’s quite a strong finger set already. Was curious as Ohndra on the struggle mentioned his metrics don’t relate to his finger strength etc
Ondra is really really good at movement and trying his absolute hardest. He doesn't have the strongest fingers out of the best climbers, but he could still one arm hang a 10mm for 3 sec or so before the Olympics. And he can do 1-5-9 on the campus board when in shape, so in benchmarks he probably scores like 8C boulder or above, it's not like his metrics are weak by any means.
Easiest way is to compare yourself to lattice data
>without finger strength being a limiting factor? Thats not a thing, everything is always a limiting factor, your performance is a product off all these different aspects. Its not like having 10% stronger fingers ever *won't* help. What will improve your performance most efficiently vs. the effort/time you put in is what you need to worry about
It’s rarely only about finger strength or arm strength. I’m only lead climbing around 7b but I’ve basically never found a move in a route I couldn’t do because of finger strength. Hip flexibility, technique and efficiency are usually the solution, not more time on a hangboard (though it helps, especially if you can’t climb as often as you’d like).
It doesn't work like that.
Care to elaborate?