Training the pinky - worth it?

[avaserfi]

The other day at the gym while I was campusing a fellow climber was doing their hangboard workout. I noticed that he incorporated three finger open hand grips including middle, ring and pinky in his workout along with pointer middle and ring. After we both finished I asked about his thoughts on training the pinky in such a manner. He said he feels like it has helped his overall climbing for larger holds where his pinky is always on and for smaller three finger holds where he can't fit his pointer.

What are your thoughts? Right now the only time my pinky gets any weight are when I am training a four finger hold or crimp. Any three finger or less hold I always drop the pinky when training, but I haven't thought about why much.

[tedwelser]

I think it is probably helpful to train the pinky to help strengthen that digit in "non cruxy" situations. I find the main time that I really load my pinky is on semi crimps and crimps. Usually those are not very good holds where I have to try hard. I feel as though that without special attention my pinky can become a risky weak link in those situations.

In my fall HB cycle I did both 3 finger groups [Index, Middle, Ring (IMR)] and MRP. Even in MRP my pinky does not contribute much.

This winter I advanced my grip selection to the three two finger teams: IM MR and RP. I do RP on the inside edge of the warmup jug because the inner 2 finger pockets seemed too shallow for me. I feel like I made good progress with my RP team--- my third set max successful 5th rep moved up from -30 to 0, though I started conservatively with this new grip. Both my ring and pinky feel stronger now. One way I can see that is that my other two finger hangs became more comparable to each other (due to ring getting stronger). My IM pair had been about 15 or 20 pounds stronger than my MR pair at the start of the cycle. On my sixth session I was using the same weight with both IM and MR (however, IM felt stronger on the final reps, so I think the index is still stronger than the ring, but the difference is not nearly as large as it was before.

During my ARC warmups I like to use my different two finger teams when I get to good rest stances, just to see how they are feeling. It is nice to chalk and rest while only holding on with the RP pair. I cycle back and forth and feel as though I am able to rest most of my strongest fingers completely.

[kerwinl]

I train 4 grip positions, always including the pinky. My ring and pinky fingers are the two weakest digits I have. I find that a training what I call the back three (MRP) has more of an effect on performance per training session that any other grip that I train. It is especially useful if you climb a lot of things that involve pockets or finger size cracks. You may find a different scenario for yourself, test, test, and train.

[MarkAnderson]

I trained MRP for a long time. It's no longer a high-enough priority to make it into my top 6 grips, but even after not training it for many years, that grip is still quite strong. I really enjoy climbing on pockets, and I often find that MRP just "fits better" in certain pockets, and it's really nice to have the strength to use that combo in certain situations. I often find myself imploring various climbers (cough, cough, jstar) to use their pinkies more often. It seems like some people would rather just cut them off to save the weight, but then they would miss a huge opportunity. If you make the effort to incorporate it in your training, you will definitely be much stronger in the long run than you would if you ignored it.