grip article

8/4/2019 Grip Article

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Grip Injury risk key: green = safe. orange = careful now. red = danger zone

Font 8a,b,c its easy as 321 (not quite but it’ll help), bear in mind this process should take a year or two if your lucky, decades might be a better aim.

1 321

321 theory is based on an extension of isolation training but for grip, people often talk about back 3 helpingcrimp strength and front 3 (open handing) is undoubtedly the safest and strongest grip available to humanson most holds if properly unleashed. Training these grips should commence from an early period and theaverage Font 7a-7c climber should be a solid 3 finga grippa. 3 finger open hands are best started on the bigrungs before moving onto the 20 degree slopers, then the mini rungs, then the 35 degree slopers, then the45 degree slopers (snuggle fingers into the sloper sides or use thumbs to help between transfers)

There are 2 main ways to train on a fingerboard, Repeaters and Deadhangs. And each of these have differentvarieties (yes I am that sad)

• Deadhangs: Assume a state of rigor mortis on your chosen grip type for a selected time period anddon’t let go until its up, usually 30, 45 or 60 seconds, I personally prefer only to use this method when

I am breaking in a new grip type and I cannot do a decent set of repeaters without some serious weightbeing taken off, such as pinky monos.

• Repeaters: The Daddy of fingerboarding, monotony is turned into addiction as you fight off the burnto finish a set. Repeaters consist of hanging a grip type for 7 seconds then resting 3 seconds and thenholding for another 7 seconds, this should be done for 6 to 7 reps so if you’re on a stopwatch and youstart hanging at 3 seconds the finishing line is at 1 minute 10 seconds. This replicates the contractingand relaxing of muscles between moves on rock nicely and a similar pump is often achieved.

• Encores: Repeaters + French pullups. (My personal favourite for fingerboarding) Each repeat phaseshould be held at a different arm angle e.g.

– Grab 1: Full Lock

– Grab 2: arms nearly straight

–Grab 3: arms 3

4 lock– Grab 4: arms 1

4lock

– Grab 5: arms half lock

– Grab 6: arms full lock

– Grab 7: arms nearly straight

Beasts may wish to grip on deep lock 1 such as +1/4 and half lock

Simply put Encores together with different grips in a set and a beastly forearm and arm workout emerges.

When it all starts getting a bit easy you can do 3 things

• Add weight (upto 15 kg only then start again on one of the below)

• Remove an arm (not literally see other article)

• Remove some digits (definitely not literally)

Front 3 + back 3 training will benefit 4 finger sloper strength and crimp strength a lot.

And so we arrive at 2, not usually seen coming after 3 but climbing has always been a non conformist.. .

1Deep lock is when you can lock shoulders above hands on a fingerboard (much easier on a bar)

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2 2

2 aargh! The love it or hate it number, home of bird beaking, pockets and danger crimps. By 2 I am of course referring to the number of fingers used in training on your fingerboard, many climbers have THEFEAR when it comes to 2 fingers especially in England where pockets are a rarity, those in the know lovethem though for they are the way of brute contact strength and Resilience.

So let’s Split ’em. . .

• Front 2: seasoned crimpers usually have a disproportionately strong front 2 fingers due to years of unequal load; they may even find bird beaking 2 a touch easier than front 2 open handing. Whetheryou’re strong or weak on them it is likely they can be trained even more, Start on the deep pockets,then the shallow pockets, then the slopey pockets. And use progression techniques 3 to move betweenthem.

• Middle 2: The pocket stable that Tommy Caldwell or any Frankenjura veteran will tell you can bemade ridiculously strong, the foundation of the hand and many grips in a way, which is why care shouldbe taken when training them (we didn’t spend hours designing our boards to be the least tweaky outthere in order for you to hurt yourself but its still possible so listen to yer body)

• Back 2: You what! No I’m not on crack, take a look at that hand that’s on the end of your armthere, now see that HALF OF YOUR HAND which is attached to the other half, that’s back 2, trainit CAREFULLY and you will see a definite strength gain (a full grade in my experience) just be verygradual in the loading process, any danger signals and stop it and leave it the hell alone, get backon those nice safe slopers and do some CORE or something. Start training them gently on the back2 pockets, then progress in the same manner as all other pockets. Aim for a 3 month improvementperiod or similar, improvements should start arriving after around 4 weeks. If injuries come insteadyou’ve either gone too fast too soon, or chaos theory has conspired against a tendon pulley and a seriesof random yet associated events has lead to an inexplicable pulley injury, tell yourself whichever youprefer (AKA the truth & not the truth)

True beasts may wish to train crimp versions of the above grips, this is incredibly tweak susceptible trainingyet will help crimp strength massively, recommended if your stagnating at the font 8a+ mark and fancy abit of time out from the sport. Bigger risks can = bigger gains and its only risky if done hastily, the odd 10second hang with a foot on a chair built up slowly can lead to ridiculous crimp strength over a year or two.

So that about wraps up 2:

• Front 2 + middle 2: will benefit front 3 hugely

• Middle 2 + back 2: will benefit back 3 hugely

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1 NOOO! Monos monos monos. Here at Beastmaker we love em to bits, mono hanging competitions are

possibly the greatest climbing spectacle. especially off one arm, its where Wolfgang made Stallone look likea podgy punter, and where Alain Robert shows the public that he may not find juggy window scaffold not asmuch of a challenge as first appears. Maybe one arm mono dynoing will emerge one day to amaze the public.For now we shall just have to be content with minor routes like Action Directe, Agincourt, and Hubble. All

2Index straight & middle bent3Progression techniques: AKA cheating, Use of pulleys, chairs, thumbs and nestled fingers in order to advance to a more

difficult grip

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contain monos (Hubble’s is a rest!) and it says something about the cutting edge of climbing 10 years ago.If you want to be the best you need to start giving your other fingers a rest.

• Index monos: Some find them easy (many) others don’t, Monos are simple to train, stick a finger invarious sized holes and hang until mild discomfort is reached, don’t push too far with them or theywill shoot a gunshot so loud from your forearm you’ll wish that extra second hadn’t mattered more

than 3 months off climbing.

• Middle monos: Safest of the monos and the best place to start a mono campaign, ensure front 2 andmiddle 2 strength is good before moving onto it.

• Ring finger monos: You might have just winced and your not alone, flashbacks of old injury are commonbut pulleys heal stronger with care. The most fragile tendon so go extra slow with these.

• Pinky monos: the end of the line finger wise, Fred Nicole cracked out a one armer off one through asling for “Masters Of Stone” and he has done the odd spot of bouldering and even a route or two. Onearmering them on a fingerboard is much harder and slings are a bit cheaty but a good place to start.Most will be content with using both arms and finding this hard.

• Index+middle = ridiculous front 2 strength

• Middle+ring= well guess!

• Ring+pinky= back 2 crushing.

Get amazing at all of them and one of us might just be able to repeat some of John Gaskins Problems. Oryou could try topping yourself and being reborn as Adam Ondra and Charlotte Durifs future child, this ishowever unreliable and should be considered as a joke (they’ll never marry once charlotte sees Neds back!)

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