Be good, and if you can’t be good, be strong.
– Richie Patterson
As with any physical training ask your doctor first before embarking on any program. If you hurt yourself it’s always your own fault!
This is only just a brief primer on grip strength…I am not going to go into any real specifics, but rather present only a very high level overview of the subject. Subsequent articles may be posted that deal with the details of any given exercise protocol.
Sonnie Trotter once told me that it’s all in the fingers, and I believe him. Sure as far as strength goes, pull strength is important, as is that so called core strength stuff you keep hearing about, but when you are rock climbing usually only two things touch the rock: Your feet and your hands. So, if you are entertaining hunting power at the extreme edges of the possible then your footwork had better be flawless; and your finger strength must be without equal.
The best way bar none, to develop finger strength for climbing, is by climbing; Lots of hard climbing. You need to log many hours on routes and especially bouldering. Now that is not always going to be available, or practical, and it comes with its own set of drawbacks, so there are some alternatives…
I am well aware of the SAID principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand), and it’s applicability to contact strength as related to rock climbing so the first things I will touch on are very climbing-centric. Aside from actual climbing and bouldering either on real rock or artificial walls there are only a couple of options and these are Hang Boards and Campus Boards.
Hang Boards can be purchased or homemade. Quite simple to use; just grab some holds and hang. The beauty is that you can mount one of these babies almost anywhere and with a variety holds and hand positions you can quite effectively work on climbing hand strength as it relates to finger pockets, crimping, open hand and some pinching. You can purchase a wide variety of Hang Boards or you can easily make your own.
There are some cautions that should be heeded when doing Hang Board training. Regardless of whether you purchase or build a Hang Board one thing to watch out for are sharp radius holds. This is something you can’t always avoid on real rock, but if doing a lot of training off the rock, you want to be as kind to your finger tendons as possible. Stressing them repeatedly over sharp radius edges will have you plagued with finger issues that once get established take a long time of not climbing to be rid of. Of course you can just put up with the pain and limitations of weakened finger strength, and a chronic debilitating condition but that’s entirely up to you. Additional precautions to take, are favouring open hand over crimp positions, and to use two finger positions only sparingly and avoid one finger pockets altogether. Another very real danger is in damaging your shoulders. A common thing that people do when hanging is fully extending their shoulders, in what is referred to as a dead hang. Unfortunately the shoulders were not designed to take that kind of stress. Doing so for even short periods increases the risk of serious damage to the various complicated structures that make up the shoulder. I learned the hard way on this one. One way to help prevent this is to ensure that your shoulders are fully engaged and pulled down into their sockets during any hanging type exercises. This is also referred to ‘packing’ your shoulders, or an ‘anti-shrug’. And then of course there are the good old elbows. They can take a beating too. Always keep them ‘soft’; or with an almost imperceptible bend in them. One other fairly common hand injury that can occur, that you should watch out for, is hyperextending your thumb. This can happen from trying to pinch hard on anything that is too wide. Of course this varies with hand size somewhat, but be wary of pinching anything over four inches wide.
So armed with this injury potential information now all you need to do is just hang. I am not going to delve into a bunch of routines at this point; you should be able to research that and devise some of your own based on any weaknesses you might want to be working on, or specific climbs you might be training for. But like in all progressive overload training, the basic theories of repetitions, sets, duration, and rest holds true. You can use various protocols like ladders and pyramids, or perhaps even Tabata. You can add resistance by wearing a pack or strapping weights to yourself, or you can lessen resistance by using a bungee system or by supporting your feet on a chair or stool placed in front of you. Before you think about adding weight however, do yourself a big favour and try and exhaust all other bodyweight leverage variations.
If you have ever read any strength articles by a certain contemporary Russian strongman; he talks about what he calls ‘greasing the groove’. Hang Boards can be ideal for this if they are situated in the right location in your house; whenever you walk by it do some hang. Mine was over the door from the garage. Whenever I came in from the garage, I could do a hang. It doesn’t have to be much. What it does is gradually build up the body to be accustomed to the load, so that you are always in a state of readiness for the real training.
I don’t know what an ‘average’ rock climber is, but I will wager that an average climber has no need of or business being on a Campus Board.
I am not a big fan so I won’t go into great detail. If you really think that you need this type of training you can do the research. Campusing can be done both statically and dynamically. Be warned that this is a very physical apparatus and the potential for injury is pretty high in using them; even using them correctly, let alone the damage that can be done by incorrect usage. You should only entertain using campus drills if you already possess high levels of contact strength and have no injuries in the hands, fingers, wrists, elbows, or shoulders. They really are only to take you to that next level of strength and power. In my opinion you should be knocking on at least the 5.13 door before you entertain campus boards. Their best uses are to increase power endurance and explosive power, both of which can come in pretty handy for new school bouldering and high end sport climbing. Warm up thoroughly before a campus session and use sparingly.
The SAID principle notwithstanding; I do believe that there is a variety of what I like to refer to as ‘Strongman’ exercises that offer some merit to the rock climber and certainly can add variety to a routine. These should be considered as an adjunct to climbing specific related exercises and not a substitute. If you aren’t interested in climbing but just want improved grip, then these are especially for you.
Imagination and creativity can serve you well when it comes to grip strength. I am not a big fan of props in general but in some cases I make an exception. Some of my favourite strongman grip exercises follow: Plate pinches; grab two barbell plates (smooth sides out) between your thumb and fingers, pinch like hell and lift off the floor. This will develop killer pinch strength that translates well to climbing. In case you are interested, pinching two forty five pound York plates is considered pretty damn good. Russian Curls. I don’t know where the name comes from but it’s a fantastic way to blast your forearms. Use an Olympic barbell loaded with weight. From a standing position hold the bar with your arms hanging by your side palms facing front. The bar should be resting against your upper thighs. Slowly uncurl your fingers until the bar is just at your fingertips then curl those fingers back into a tight fist. Use a real heavy weight and low reps for this one. If you have a squat rack you can use it for safety, because you really do want to load up the bar. Another great forearm blaster is the wrist roller. Ask a hockey player if you don’t know how to do one. A couple of other good things to round it out are sand bag tosses and sledge hammer finger walks. Every good strongman worth his salt has some sledge hammers lying around. Good old fashioned fingertip push-ups have great merit too as long as they are done safely. You can use spring loaded grippers if you want but I think that they are mostly a waste of time and money. They do not translate well to climbing strength but they are easy to use, portable, and can also be used when recovering from an injury.
I would like to describe one other phenomenal technique for grip training and that is the towel hang. Again with all hangs, you need to ensure that your shoulders are engaged prior to executing the actual hang. Loop a thick towel over a standard pull-up bar and grasp the towel in one hand (start with your least strong) Grab it like it were an ice tool. Grab the bar with your other hand as if you were doing a pull-up and hang. Switch sides and repeat. You can make this progressively harder by: Grabbing at different locations on the towel, grasping the towel with both hands (one above the other), using a towel for each hand, using thicker towels, layering two or more towels, hanging from one arm. You get the picture. There is a wide range of possibilities to explore in towel hanging. It may sound easy. Try doing a one arm towel hang for sixty seconds and then comment.
One key thing to remember in all grip work is this; the grip needs to be strong in all hand positions from fully open to fully closed; from straight fingers to curled fingers. So correspondingly the grip needs to be trained at a wide variety of angles and positions.
All of this grip stuff is good but like all hard physical training takes its toll. There are some proactive preventative maintenance measures that one can do to help reduce (not eliminate) the risk. Doing these can seem like a workout in their own right but the old adage of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure comes to mind here. Our fingers and hands are what allow us to rock climb in the first place, so it’s really in our best interest to keep them in tip top condition. So be sure to check into wrist pronators, reverse wrist curls, finger extensor bands, Chinese Iron Balls, Rice Buckets, and finger yoga. Some people may question or scoff at the effectiveness of some of these methods, but I have put them to very good use.
Finger strength and grip strength is something that does not develop quickly. For some reason the dense muscles of the forearms aren’t designed to respond quickly to stimulus. It takes month after month of concerted effort to see even marginal results. But results will come to the dedicated, disciplined and patient. The catch, however, as with most physical training is in understanding how to listen to your body to avoid injury and overtraining, but at the same time develop grip strength that will allow you to crush coconuts with your bare hands.