Lessons from 7 years of fingerboard training

Its been a while since I have posted on this blog. I haven’t decided if I am going to start doing regular updates or just write about how my training has changed in the last few years, which should last for at least a few posts.

The early years:

For the first three and a half years I trained my fingers I did so only with maximal singles hangs. After a short warm-up, I would perform 5 single hangs with as much resistance as possible and as much rest as I wanted between hangs. If I succeeded in hanging for 7 seconds I would add more weight to the very next rep. I focused on 4 grips:

1. front 3 open hand

2. middle 2 open hand

3. 4 finger half crimp

4. 4 finger full crimp

This seems like a short workout but if my memory is correct, it took forever. This was probably due to the fact that I was always over resting so I could get new personal bests during every session. There were several negatives about only relying on this type of training and a few positive.

Negatives:

1. Time commitment: This took too long, especially considering that my life is much different now. I have a job and toddler, whereas back then I was a beginning grad student taking classes with material I was already familiar with.

2. Frustration: Always working within a few percent of your max is a recipe for major frustration. When I increased weight I would do so by 2.5 lbs, which is within the daily variation of my bodyweight. I was attempting to make finer variations in intensity than was even possible.

3. Injury: I injured tendon pulleys a few times while training full crimped.

Positives:

1. Strength: I did greatly increase my finger strength. I sent some of the hardest fingery one move wonders of my entire climbing career during this time. Putting focus of climbing sessions on power endurance will also help smooth out inconsistencies.

2. Experience: Training this way for a few years provided a base of finger strength that was easy to build on.

The recent era:

In the fall of 2009 the Beastmaker 2000 was becoming a popular fingerboard and with it, came a band of “multi-rep” fingerboard training. I have written about the basic repeater protocol on this site before so I won’t repeat that discussion here. As history goes, I continued with this two set repeated protocol until the Spring of 2012. This still seems like a solid system, but I would like to describe a variation that I used during August-December of 2012.

Pick four grips -  I use back 2, front 2, middle 2, and half crimp, but lets call them A,B,C and D. A `rep’ is defined as hanging for 7 seconds and resting for 3 seconds. A set is any number of reps strung together one after another.

1. Start with grip A.

      a. Perform an 8 rep set

      b. rest 90 seconds

      c. Perform a 7 rep set

      d. rest 90 seconds

      e. Perform a 6 rep set

      f. rest 3 minutes

2. Repeat this with grips B, C, and D.

During this time, I would perform similar workouts with a 5-4-3 rep-scheme and a 2-1-1 rep-scheme.

The weekly fingerboarding schedule was as follows:

Monday: Repeaters 8-7-6

Wednesday: Repeaters 5-4-3

Thursday: Repeaters 2-1-1

Negatives: All of the negatives have to do with the 8-7-6 workout.

1. Time: The 8-7-6 workout took over an hour.

2. Too many hangs: I suffered collateral-ligament soreness from hanging on pockets too much. I also noticed that by the time I got to half crimp (my last grip) I was too tired to hang a quality weight. The half-crimp is by far the most important grip, so this was a major issue.

Positives:

1. Lots of hangs: My fingers got really used to being loaded. This was by far the pumpiest hangboard workout I have ever performed.

2. Variety: Varying the rep schemes from day to day is something that I always try to do. I am loosely following the “daily undulating periodization” protocol.

Summary:

Probably the most important realization i have had over the years is not to rely on the fingerboard for more than strength development. This seems very obvious now that I write it down, but I spent years using training protocols that ventured into the realm of power endurance. There is too much going on with the rest of the body during climbing for this to be apppropriate and I will discuss more late on my current power endurance training.

That’s it for now. I am doing yet another fingerboard scheme at the moment that has many advantages over those I have done in the past. The next post will outline this in detail.

Three climbers and the story of climbing level.

Lets start with a few definitions.

1. We'll say a climber's base level is the level at which a person climbs quickly(in a day for routes, an hour or so for boulders) when they are fit but haven't performed any intense training.  
2. The standard level is the level at which a person climbs quickly when a person is benefitting from a training regimen. 
3. The maximum level is the level at which a person climbs, after training, given a large amount of time.

Now lets look at three common types of climbers.

1. The organic climber only trains by climbing. More specifically, this climber only trains by trying a project.  The organic climber will try other climbs but only for "fun" and never at a level appropriate to add significant fitness. This climbing style is best suited to a person who wants other interests and lives near a never-ending supply of climbs
2. The human climber uses traditional training methods for climbing. This climber holds to the mantra "the best training for climbing is climbing". The human climber trains by doing intervals on routes/boulders, repeating difficult routes, having multiple projects that work different strengths, etc. Cross-training is achieved through running, calisthenics, and other standard fitness builders. This climbing style is suited to someone who wants to perform well in a wide area of climbing and has no interest in boring training.
3. The robot climber uses all of the methods of the human climber but adds to them some "advanced techniques". These techniques are what this blog is devoted to. See the workouts page above if you're new. The robot climber thoughtfully combines all of these training methods so that nothing important to the goal is left out. This style of climbing is suited to someone who wants to push their physical limits and redefine what is possible.

Now lets put these ideas together, here is a rough chart showing the three different levels of the three different climbers. For simplicity I've shown the case when all three climbers have the same base level. There is no hard data behind this, these are from observations I've made in the field.

Here are some important things to notice from the above chart. Because of how the organic climber trains his standard level is never much higher than his base level, though his maximum level is a good deal higher than either. The human climber and robot climber have similar standard levels while the robot climber has a significantly higher maximum level. This will play out with the human and robot climber performing similarly on a week or two road trip even though the robot has climbed much harder at home.

We'll end there for today. Next time we'll discuss how to "reset" you base level and how that process differs for the three different climbers.

Data Collection and other notes

The fingerboard and one arm pull-up spreadsheets are being updated live during workouts. Look at the top of the page and click on "Training Charts and Logs" if you are interested. I'm going to start keeping a log of climbing days as well so I can start to see how the training numbers carry over to climbing performance.

In other news, my friend Tyler has joined the chart keeping team. It will be interesting to have another set of data points.

Readers may have noticed that the information in this blog is devoted to the physical aspect of climbing as opposed to the technical or mental. There are a few reasons for this bias. I'll make a list.

1. I don't believe climbing is quite as technical as everyone says. This might have something to do with my background in much more technical sports(gymnastics, diving).
2. I don't feel qualified to talk in depth about the mental side of climbing. Dave Macleod's book 9 out of 10 climbers makes the same mistakes has some good writing on this topic.
3. I feel like the training methods I have developed are very beneficial while breaking most of the standard "rules" regarding training for climbing.

If anyone has a good link or reference for training climbing movement skills or mental strategies: Write a comment!

One last thing.  You can now "like" this blog on facebook. If you are interested in such things click the box at the top of the page, or search for "Robot Climbing" on facebook.

Maximum vs. "Usable" Strength

I am still collecting data on the relation of Beastmaker training numbers (like these here, here, and here) to climbing performance. What would really help was if someone would join me in the study so we could have two data sets. Anyone? Before we get started here is a new addition to the Robot Training Facility.

From Robot Training Facility

Reading this thread on the Gymnastic Bodies forum got me thinking how this applies to training for climbing. The main point of the thread is that maximum strength has little use if you cannot apply it. For this discussion lets distill climbing strength down to finger strength and upper body pulling strength. Obviously there are a lot more subtle things going on, but lets ignore them for now. I train maximum finger strength with my fingerboard, and pulling strength with one arm pull ups(either weighted, unweighted, or with assistance). As I see it there are two methods for refining this maximum strength into something usable.

Campus Boarding: The campus board is the most basic method for refining maximum strength. While campusing one's muscles have to react quickly and with coordination. Both of these are missing in a fingerboard workout.

Bouldering: The subtle way muscles work together is not captured when pulling straight down on a campus board, but Bouldering does not develop quickness as much as campus boarding. A complete training plan contains at least fingerboarding, campus boarding, and bouldering.

Now I'll present a few examples from my own climbing history, keeping my level at the time in mind. I've tried to keep the spray at a minimum on the blog but its hard to give these examples without mentioning grades and such, I apologize.

Example 1(Winter 2005/2006-Spring 2006): This was the beginning of my serious training(I was climbing around V6/7, and 5.12b/c). For November and December I trained with the complete trinity(fingerboard, campus board, bouldering). That January I spent in Hueco and climbed several V7s easily, a handfull of V8s, and one V9. Shortly thereafter I injured a finger. I trained myself back to what I thought was a high level only using the fingerboard and took a spring break trip to the Red. On this trip I barely climbed 12a and got shut down on 12c's. Upon returning I added bouldering and campusing to the equation and quickly climbed 13a for the first time. There was not enough time between the red and this to add any strength, but the strength gains needed to be refined.

Example 2(Late summer/fall 2007):At this point I had climbed V9 and 13b consistently. My training in the summer of 2007 consisted of fingerboarding and campusing without bouldering. When I started climbing again in september it took a few days to get back in the swing of things(due to the zero bouldering). After this, I quickly dispatched V10/11 for the first time. Later that fall I nearly climbed 13d(I didn't from a beta mistake not a lack of strength).

Example 3(Winter 2009/2010): At this point I had climbed V11 and 14a. After a good Rumney season working on China Beach I spent around 6 weeks training for a bouldering trip to Arkansas. The training focus was one arm pull-ups, fingerboarding, and a small amount of bouldering. In the trip to Arkansas I was able to climb many problems in the V8/V9 range very quickly. I was only able to climb one very soft V10. This was a slight disappointment. Every problem I climbed I was able to do so with control, but I didn't have the "pop" to climb the next level problems.

I'll leave you with a video from last weekend.

Rumney Trip

After a summer full of very little training and no climbing I can safely say that my finger is finally better. This has been the worst finger injury I've had, and the first that has forced me to take significant time away from climbing. I was able to maintain some of my strength through supplementary exercises and thus climbed much better on an end of the summer two week trip to Rumney than I expected. We didn't catch any sends on video but here are some edited ascents from the trip:


Serious training will begin tomorrow at which point my training charts and logs will finally be updated live again. It should be interesting to see the relationship of my "training numbers" with the success of this "comeback".

Special Home Improvement Post

There has not been much climbing this summer for the robot.  This is mostly due to my fingjury(thanks for the term beastermaker.co.uk), which was the worst I've ever had.  For the lower elevation areas of the northern hemisphere summer does not lend itself to difficult climbing.  A climber has a few choices around this:

1.  Travel(hopefully we'll do that next summer)
2.  Climb sub-maximally(I don't really enjoy this)
3.  Explore other facets of life.

This summer has been devoted to the third.  There were three main projects this summer, the kitchen tile back-splash, the floor, and the garden. I was nervous about installing tile on the walls of the kitchen, but it turned out being a very reasonable project I would recommend to anyone.  Here are some before and after pictures.




Next up was the tile floor. After our new found skills we decided to shoot for the stars by laying it down in an off-set diagonal pattern. I highly suggest against this if the space is small complex(ie our old house). Here are some before, during, and after pictures. Note how much open space is left after all of the full sized tiles are down.






An ongoing project for the summer has been the garden. We have a garden in our front yard and Murph has a plot at the community garden. I haven't talked any about diet related to climbing performance, mostly because I have a somewhat unorthodox diet(vegan) for an athlete. I used to think that my diet hindered my performance, but now I think it helps me. Here are some photos of out front yard garden:



Now climbing has begun again, and I'm already thinking of good posts. Like the relationship of hangboard numbers to climbing performance.

Summer 2010 Goals and Schedule

I'm on a rest day in the Red River Gorge right now, staying here.  I've decided to take it easy for our two week trip to give my body some down time and hopefully finish healing my finger.  This is slightly frustrating but not too bad seeing as the conditions are not great.
I'm working on a post on periodization but until it's ready I thought I'd share my training plans and goals for the summer.


1. Active rest(May 1 - May 22): I would have rather done this some other time but my finger conspired against me.  The first of these weeks I played around with some of the exercises which will become my goals for the summer.  The second two are spent climbing at the red.  The intention is to climb 2 or more number grades below my hardest redpoint.


2.  Rock Climbing and Cross Training(May 22 - June 24):  I should emphasize during this portion I plan to climb on actual rocks.  I consider this to be not as effective for training versus climbing on plastic, but the idea is to ease my finger into functionality.  Assuming the weather cooperates this gives me 10 days at Rumney to do some climbs I have been ignoring and four days bouldering.  Here is the schedule


Monday: rest(maybe easy bike ride or run) 
Tuesday: Rumney
Wednesday: Rumney
Thursday:  AM:  Fingerboard(maximum repeaters), one arm pull up pyramids, strength.

                        PM:  Metcon

Friday: AM: 8x500m rowing intervals

           PM: 4x1/2 mile run.
Saturday: Bouldering, weighted one arm pull up pyramid.
Sunday:  AM: Fingerboard(maximum hangs), one arm pull ups on holds, strength.

             PM: 2000m row and 1 mile run. Metcon.

All of the finger board work will be open handed(not even 1/2 crimp) focusing on one arm hangs on bigger holds.  

3.  Adaptation to Serious Training(June 25-July 5) This is a transition from training for my non-climbing goals to a more serious training for climbing.  I'll test my current level by doing a couple of finger board sets as listed here, and revisit the campus board and my bouldering wall. 

4.  Training(July 6 - August 10) This is the hottest part of the year and thus best for focusing on training and not actual climbing.  I plan to follow this approximate schedule:

Monday: AM:  Repeaters and one arm pull-up pyramids.

             PM:  Campus board power endurance.

Tuesday: AM: Metcon

              PM: Timed climbing intervals.

Wednesday:  AM: Maximum Repeaters and one arm pull-up pyramids plus.

                    PM:  Campus board maximum efforts, bouldering.

Thursday:  AM: Maximum Hangs and one arm pull-ups on holds.

                PM: Metcon 

Friday:  rest or easy bike ride/run.

Saturday:  Rumney

Sunday:  Rumney

5.  Rifle, CO(August 11-August 27)  Earlier this year 6 weeks the above training program gave me the fitness to send China Beach so if everything goes well I should have pretty good fitness for this trip.  

Goals:

Here is a list of my non-climbing related goals for the summer.  

Rowing: 2000m: under 7:00(best so far 7:24)

            1000m: under 3:20(best so far 3:29)

             500m: under 1:30(best so far 1:37)

Running:  mile: under 6:00

             800m: under 2:30

             400m: under 1:00

Strength:  iron cross

               front lever pull up(I can do this straddled now)

               one arm standing ab wheel

               one arm pull up +20lbs(I've done one +10lbs).