Beginner HB Numbers

[elevate]

I just started training after ~10 years of climbing (of varying levels of consistency). I started with a half phase of HB with super low weights to rehab a chronic A4 pulley injury in my ring finger which worked phenomenally after 10 months of traditional rest and easy climbing made 0 progress! I am now midway through my first "real" phase. I think I have just about dialed in the grip sets and weights that I will build from. 

The purpose of this post is two-fold: to get any comments or suggestions about the plan and because I have scoured this forum for other beginner's numbers to help rationalize some of mine and figured it could help others.

Caveat: Don't copy my plan, start very light and put in the effort to dial in your own. Don't be too proud to stop mid-rep if it doesn't feel right, etc, etc.
I feel like I have done a great job of removing ego from the equation and finding appropriate and safe weights. You see so many articles and posts about people doing BW + XX%, so hopefully this helps people see that there is a spectrum.

Calibration:
Height: 5'6" - Weight: 145lb
Years Climbing: ~10 (of varying levels of consistency)
Training: First "real" hangboard phase (performed an injury recovery/ learning phase a couple months ago)
Outdoor Bouldering: Hardest V6 (crimping), Many V4,V5
Outdoor Sport: Hardest 5.11c (Power Endurance crimping); Many low 5.11
  - Have only redpointed two routes ever... which I plan to begin doing more and which I fully assume will add more to my progression than any amount of hangboarding. Who would've thunk that actually trying harder routes would be necessary for sending harder routes?!


Board: Metolius Simulator 3d (Unfortunately - public facility)
Sets/ hold: 1
Reps: 6
Duration: 10
Rest: 5

Warmup Jug: BW
5 (Semi-open aka: Chisel): BW-10 (Pretty easy, pinky A4 callous gets irritated)
11 (Half crimp): BW-25
  - Feel absolutely no pain in ring finger!
  - Pinky felt slightly too hyperextended on one set (make sure to use far side of holds). 
12 (MI): BW-20 (Released prior to failure on last rep @ 8s)
11 (Open): BW-??
  - Want to swap this grip in to my standard set (replacing IMR jug), for some reason didn't include it initially
  - Completed 2 reps at BW-35, before abandoning the set as it was clearly too hard
  - Try BW-50 next session
12 (MR): BW-25
  - Completed the last set literally at the second of failure (maybe should have stopped a second earlier)
  - Was careful to avoid lumbrical issues by not aggressively contracting inactive fingers
  - Feels like it has a lot to do with skin friction and passive skeletal/ tendon loading (vs engaging muscles) and feels like my fingers are going to rip out of my hand
  - I think I'm going to dial back the weight significantly even though it was technically successful. (BW-40??)

Comments? Suggestions? Flames for claiming to keep ego out of it then posting numbers online? All welcome, cheers! 


  

[MarkAnderson]

If its flaming you're after you've come to the wrong place. Good work with the rehab, a lot of people struggle to see it through to completion. I'm doing some of that myself at the moment and its really tedious; sometimes its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway, your plan looks good. You might consider moving up MR earlier in the workout if it ever feels tweaky--I like to do teaky stuff near the front before everything gets all stretched out.

Also, about it having to do with passive skeletal loading... Yes, this is a real thing. You need to make a conscious effort to squeeze your finger flexors to make strength gains and avoid hurting yourself. It may not be a big issue now, but as the weight increases, one day you'll jump on the board and realize you aren't strong enough for the load, because your muscles have been coasting through this grip until that day. And that is the best-case scenario. Its the same idea as keeping your shoulders tensed and engaged while hangboarding. You can just sag and let your ligaments do all the work but sooner or later you'll regret that choice.

[jetjackson]

Nov 15, 2018 11:48:29 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

Also, about it having to do with passive skeletal loading... Yes, this is a real thing. You need to make a conscious effort to squeeze your finger flexors to make strength gains and avoid hurting yourself. It may not be a big issue now, but as the weight increases, one day you'll jump on the board and realize you aren't strong enough for the load, because your muscles have been coasting through this grip until that day. And that is the best-case scenario. Its the same idea as keeping your shoulders tensed and engaged while hangboarding. You can just sag and let your ligaments do all the work but sooner or later you'll regret that choice.

I can speak to that - I used to hang pretty passively on the two finger pockets and thought I was doing fairly well. Once I started engaging the shoulders, elbows and really pulling, my numbers went down. 

I've been hitting about +30kg, approx 70 pound I think that is, lately on the SVDR on an open hand, and I'm getting to the point where my shoulders and arms can't handle the load.

[Charlie S]

Nov 15, 2018 18:45:49 GMT -7 jetjackson said:

I've been hitting about +30kg, approx 70 pound I think that is, lately on the SVDR on an open hand, and I'm getting to the point where my shoulders and arms can't handle the load.

I was doing that for a while, and then all sorts of things hurt and I wasn't improving outside. I switch to smaller grips around +50 lbs.

[jetjackson]

Yeah, that's my plan for next season.

I've found that once I get about +25kg, my shoulders start to get pain. The problem is, I'm not sure how much smaller I can go before an open grip just won'e hang on any more... I'm going down to the first indent on the SVDER next season - the one on on the Forge - will see how that goes.

[Chris W]

So... elevate, does BW-10 mean you're removing 10 pounds from body weight, or do you mean you're adding 10 pounds to body weight?

I checked my first ever hangboard numbers. My heaviest grip on my first ever hangboard session was the open hand edge (large VDER on the RPTC) with -20 pounds, or 20 pounds removed from bodyweight. My next heaviest grip was with 40 pounds removed.

I'm interested in this concept of "passive skeletal loading". I've never thought about it before for the fingers, just the shoulders and back with engaging those muscles when hanging. I'll have to pay attention to this with my next season, which starts on Sunday.

[elevate]

Yes, I'm removing weight from every grip. I was going for BW "minus" 10.

When you say "open hand" do you mean with four fingers or totally open with 3 fingers? For me the 3 finger open hand is very weak.

The two finger pocket on the simulator is very deep, and I feel like if I don't intentionally engage the forearms my body will try to get by with skin friction and putting the load on bones/ tendons. They aren't wedged in the pocket by any means, but there is so much skin contacting that it almost seems comparable.

[Chris W]

By open hand, I mean all four fingers on as open as possible while still being engaged. My "open hand" grip now is a much smaller edge, so it's probably closer to what other folks call a "half crimp", but I still consider it open hand.

I first started hangboarding systematically when the Rock Climbers Training Manual came out. I did my first real hangboard workouts on the Rock Prodigy hangboard. Before that, I had a Metolius board which I dabbled on using the little print out guide that came with the board.

I'm a little biased, but the RPTC and the Forge are MUCH nicer hangboards than the Metolius board. The Metolius board, at least the older model, hurt my fingers in the ways you are describing, while the RPTC board is much nicer to hang on.

[elevate]

Thanks for the suggestions! Made a few tweaks based on them in my workout today and it was a huge success. Also feeling good about learning how to dial in workouts, as this seems like a very important skill to have.

1. Switched order of MR pocket with MI pocket to address the tweaky hold (MR) sooner
2. Decreased MR weight to BW-40 (from BW-25), and felt very able to engage the forearms without feeling the tweaky lumbrical tension.
- Definitely seems like the proper weight to build from.
3. Moved open-hand (3 finger drag) up to the bigger (5) edge and decreased weight to BW-50.
- Maybe a bit too conservative, but will still only progress by the prescribed 5lb next workout to ease into it. Very encouraging to not feel that scary tweakiness!

The only other tweak I'm considering is moving the 4 finger open hand (chisel) to the smaller (11) edge (and removing a bit more weight) because my pinky callous hooks right over the lip of the bigger (5) edge and gets pulled up uncomfortably. This one seems like it will allow a lot of progression in adding weight and I'm afraid as I add more the problem will get worse.

[Chris W]

You could also consider just sanding down the callous.