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Post by tedwelser on May 11, 2015 21:09:40 GMT -7
My training over the last 2 seasons seems to be poorly matched with my goals (or at least my goal of sending Tuna Town). My training emphasized finger strength and power, and I focused on smaller / more challenging grips with 30-50 pounds off. In retrospect this seems to be a better strategy for routes closer to vertical. I did this because I was thinking longer term, and I assumed that the endurance would come, and that I needed to focus on what had always been my main weaknesses. I got back on Tuna Town this spring, and although I did feel stronger, I was not close to having enough endurance to recover effectively on the Tuna rest (even when conditions were dry). The weekend of my spring recon effort saw record rainfall and flooding. All the holds after the last two bolts were running with water. Anyways, since then I focused on other routes but I could tell that I still did not have anything close to the necessary capacity to recover on big open hand holds. I was reminded by my friend Grady that other friends had an endurance training tool they called a Maxi-Pull board and that, 10 reps of 45 seconds on with 15 seconds rest would result in Madness cave level endurance. He also pointed out that he had never been as pumped on a route as he got using the maxi-pull. This intrigued me because I used to have stacks and stacks of open hand endurance. However, I had earned that endurance by putting in huge volumes of time on steep routes and the Red and New, and I no longer have the luxury of all that extra climbing time. So, I wondered if training endurance/power endurance on the maxi-pull board could be missing ingredient that I needed to train for the volume of open hand hanging necessary for regaining the stacks of endurance that I lost. I should point out that my RCTM training cycles have resulted in unprecedented finger strength. I got back on a couple of 11's at Torrent (Bandoleer 11a and Receiver 11b). I climbed both first try (in 20 years) and I felt much stronger on the brief small hold sections than I used to. My finger strength was strikingly better than it was when I was younger and climbing 12d/13a. This is super motivating and encouraging. However, my big liability was my open hand endurance. This is funny because it used to be my main advantage, but now, it seems without the crazy volume of climbing I consumed when younger I was not cultivating that open hand endurance. So, until I can solve my endurance short coming I likely need some less pumpy and more powerful routes as goals, which is fine. My main question or comment, is to what extent could a hanging routine on the maxi-pull boards represent a missing ingredient that is especially helpful for cultivating the deep, open hand endurance / power endurance necessary for resting your way up steep sandstone routes? I wondered this, and so I decided to experiment. I made two versions of maxi-pull boards, one with a half cylinder of pvc with an external diameter of about 7 inches, the other is nearly a full cylinder made from 4 inch pvc. Both are covered with skateboard grip tape. The 7 inch is intense and is more suitable for training open hand strength in the standard RCTM hangboard protocol. The 4 inch is very solid, and is where I have experimented primarily with the 45 on /15 rest duty cycle mentioned earlier. I just tried another protocol that begins with the 45/15 duty cycle until you are super pumped and then introduces a rapid fire rest / hang duty cycle that edges upward towards longer rest/hang lengths until you somewhat recover. [ blog post I wrote on the design and use of maxi-pull boards] Anyways, Mark, you mentioned that your brother tended to ARC his way up the steep pumpy routes of the RRG while you tended to sprint. I wonder, if his training differed from yours in some ways that helped him cultivate more open hand endurance/power endurance. Also, I should point out that my power endurance training routes have tended to be more crimp focused because that is what the crux sections are like, but I have not been cultivating the same type of recovery potential from open hand holds, and perhaps the maxi-pull design will help with that. Finally, the greater depth of the maxi-pull board feels totally different from my experience on the sloper of the RPTC. If I fully open hand the RPTC sloper, it is only my last pad or so that is on the hold and my pinkies are not engaged. In contrast, on the maxi-pull board the effort is spread across my whole fingers, starting from the very first knuckles and up to the tips. When I fail on the maxi-pull I experience a slow motion slide down the hold that lasts for about 5 seconds. I am curious to hear your thoughts. It is still too early in my experiment to see any concrete results, but I should have some benchmark comparisons this summer.
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Post by jonfrisby on May 12, 2015 6:23:58 GMT -7
I don't have any suggestions for you, but I read your blog post and it is AWESOME. I can't wait to find the space to put something like this up. Where do you suggest putting these workouts in your macro-cycle? I was thinking of adding #2 to base fitness, but that intensity is obviously much higher than something like ARCing or interval bouldering.
By the way, I suspect that the top joint vs. whole hand training on your slopers versus other boards' has something to do with thumb engagement. It appears that the fact that your thumb is on the board puts your hand in a less stable position or something that forces you to use the whole hand to compensate. But that's just a theory. I was watching my buddy do sloper hangs on the RTCM the other day and comparing it to your pictures gives me that thought. Also the fact that yours is simply much bigger in terms of surface area may be a factor. You can't reach the best part of the hold without at least getting some skin on there in the DIP and third joint, as well as the palm itself, which is not touching the board at all on the RTCM or any of the beastmaker slopers
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Post by tedwelser on May 12, 2015 8:08:04 GMT -7
Thanks a bunch! I think they are worth the experiment. Grip tape from Amazon was about $6 and the pipe is cheap too. I will add a couple photos to the blog with views of the smaller maxipull and the range of grip depth. From those shots you can see how the grip can engage your fingers from the base of your hand to the tips, or you can treat it more like a very low angle sloper with just the last two joints engaged.
AS far as training cycles I am not sure where to add these, but I think they make most sense at either the base fitness stage (at the end of the workout) or during the power endurance phase (also at the end of the work out). The funny thing about them is that while they are intense they do not feel intense on you fingers at all, it is you forearms that get hit.
I am using them now in my PE stage, though if I hope to perform on the weekend I will only do them early in the week so that I have time to recover.
Next season I plan to integrate the 45/15 with the 4 inch pipe in both base fitness and PE, and use the 7 inch in my strength phase using pulleys / weights and the 7/3 or 10/5 protocol. The 10/5 would make it easier to chalk between reps.
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Post by jessebruni on May 12, 2015 9:08:17 GMT -7
My training emphasized finger strength and power, and I focused on smaller / more challenging grips with 30-50 pounds off...I did this because I was thinking longer term, and I assumed that the endurance would come... My thought, and it is just a thought, is that a pro boulderer, or someone who boulders at the V12 level, but never trained for sport climbing, would have trouble on Tuna Town. It's an endurance rig at that level, at your level it's endurance and power endurance. I'm sure you can do every move on the problem, you just need to do most of them while you're pumped. I think that picking smaller and more challenging grips and reducing weight was probably fine but didn't help much with this goal route. But that doesn't mean you need to switch up your hangboard routine. Personally I would prepare for this route by ARCing on steeper terrain and start doing LBC's or some other sort of intervals, 60-70 moves of medium-medium hard difficulty moves or however many more closely approximates Tuna Town. TL;DR Don't worry about your grip strength right now if you can do all the moves on the dog. Focus on your power endurance and recovery.
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 12, 2015 9:08:33 GMT -7
This is really intriguing. For you first question, the main things Mike did different were: -He bought a massive treadwall, and climbed on it a bunch (lots of ARC and some PE) -He climbed at the Red a lot
More to the point, I wonder, if your goal is really to improve your recovery ability while shaking out on slopey jugs, why not create a protocol that simulates just that (as opposed to the Stooopid pumped recovery simulator)? For example, do one of the PE protocols to get really pumped, then place your feet on an appropriately located kick plate (ie, behind the maxi-pulls to simulate overhanging terrain), and just shake out on whichever Maxipull makes more sense until you are recovered? This would be very specific and allow you to actually practice the tactics of shaking out (duty cycle, relaxation, body position).
My first reaction to this thread was that this isn't for me because I never climb anything that pumpy (all my local crags are short and bouldery). However, I like to go on trips too, and I could see real value in something like this to train for a trip to, say, Maple, where all the holds are big slopers and everything is overhanging. It would be much less interesting and specific* than a PE circuit, but offering way more isolation and quantification. Also if you train at home, PE training circuit options can be limited in length, steepness and hold type. This gets around that.
[*specificity is debatable, but I mean it in the sense that a PE circuit is actual climbing, training the entire body, skill development and mental aspects. Maxipulls could be more specific in terms of hold type as they seem to be in your case. Though really, you could use the same approach with any hold type, or varieties of hold type]
From a programming perspective, I could see doing some in BF, but mostly I would use these in PE. One way to use them would be to do a standard PE workout first, and then "finish myself off" with one of your protocols, since you don't need any motor coordination to use them. My big fear would be that you are getting into that "junk miles" range of effort, where the intensity is fairly low and volume is quite high. The 10 reps of 45/15 is 7.5 minutes of TUT in 10 elapsed minutes. That's huge! An entire Advanced HB workout is around 12 minutes TUT (but over ~80 elapsed minutes), so you're doing 60% of that in 10 minutes, presumably at the end of an already full-length workout (especially the way I suggested doing it). I would never do something like that if I needed anywhere near max power. Basically I would only consider doing that right at the very end of a season when I had a one or two week trip to some really pumpy, non-powerful crag. And I would expect to be worked after that trip.
Considering all that, perhaps the best way to go would be to use them concurrently with a PE interval workout. One thing that's always troubled me about standard PE training is that it really doesn't resemble route climbing very well. For example, you do a 2-4 minute effort, then stand around chalking for 2-4 minutes, then repeat. That NEVER happens outside. Even if you had a no hands rest you would wait until you were fully recovered before proceeding. Many years ago Matt Samet told me about a PE workout he used to do (training for Rifle) where he would do a circuit that started and ended at jugs. At the end of each lap he would shake out at the jugs until he was ready to proceed, do another lap, and so on. You could use these the same way. Do an LBC or RI set, then recover on the Maxipulls (with a kick plate), and repeat. That would be very specific to route climbing, so much so that the intensity would likely be insufficient to qualify as standard PE training. So if you had a variety of goals you might want to start out your PE phase with a more typical approach, and as you get more and more dialed on your circuit, and your performance phase trends toward less powerful/more sustained routes, start working in "active recovery" sets. This would work well with programming it later in the Performance Phase, and could make it be a really excellent training strategy for long, pumpy, non-powerful routes.
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Post by tedwelser on May 13, 2015 10:36:15 GMT -7
Thanks Jesse and Mark for the great comments.
Sadly I was just about to complete a long reply and I hit a control key and backed out of the tab I was typing in. So, this reply was not going to be as complete nor as thoughtful as it would have been. But then I typed up this reply offline, and perhaps went into too much depth on hold type. But, here it is anyways.
Jesse- Earlier this spring I was pursuing a strategy similar to what you describe, and I think it was certainly helping. (I had a 70 move problem that shared some general dynamic features in terms of moves between rests as Tuna Town). This helped me manage my pump but also cost me skin off my fingers, largely because fully resting at the rest stances was on imperfectly ergonomic holds.
I think though that there is level of open hand strength/endurance that I need to cultivate directly. I tried to “re-onsight” Yowsah at the hole two weeks ago and I made it through the main roof and onto the facey section before the second roof. I can remember getting to that position long ago and thinking “game over” because there were flat matching holds and decent feet, so I could just camp out till I got it all back. This time I was pumped out of my mind and I could not recover after using a series of open hand holds to get there. I had spent my open hand strength and did not have enough to get a series of resting cycles going to get anything back.
This relates to Mark’s suggestion about doing my standard PE circuits and ending them by matching on a maxi-pull board to recover. I really like this suggestion, and I plan to add a couple maxi pull type holds to strategic locations in my dojo to use for recovery between PE sets. However, I think there is an open-hand specific strength that I need to cultivate directly. I can make a couple PE circuits with more open hand holds, but this option is pretty limited because most of my challenging holds in the dojo are crimps, pockets and medium holds because they are much more compact than big open hand holds.
TLDR for following section: These are just my observations but it seems that the key muscles for RRG open hand holds are not trained in standard RPTC holds because the joints deflected are different. In big open hand holds the wrist and or first knuckle are deflected. While in most RPTC holds the last and or second to last knuckles are deflected.
Here are my non technical observations: it seems that the forearm muscles that are primarily loaded by a grip depend on which joint from the wrist to the last finger knuckle that are deflected, and also depend on the rotation of the palm. In the simplest hangboard training situation we have palms facing away, and all joints but the deflected joint are straight.
In climbing the forearm muscles are resisting an eccentric force in one of four joints: the wrist, the bottom knuckle, middle knuckle or top knuckle. When the other knuckles are in a straight position then maintaining a slight concentric deflection with each knuckle seems to primarily tax certain areas of muscles. For the middle and top knuckle (these are primarily trained in the RPTC grips) the main muscles used (exerting the most effort) are on the outside of the forearm. Indeed, after 4 seasons of RPTC hangs I can see these muscles flex when I could not before. For the bottom knuckle and wrist, these are on the inside of the forearm. The grips I have been using on the RPTC do not engage these muscles much, but I think they are crucial for hanging the deep, open hand holds on steep pumpy sandstone routes.
You can experiment with this yourself. Extend your the wrist and fingers of your right hand straight out, then press the sharp edge of a table or countertop into the center of your palm, and pull as though you were loading a hold to hang from. Look at and press on your arm to see what part is most flexed. Then, move the edge up and pull from in the center of each finger section between each subsequent finger section, and when you get to the last section, try semi crimping the edge. My observation is that across the different load locations (from palm to fingertips) the relative effort in the muscles shifts from primarily in the belly to primarily in the top or outer part of the arm. In particular, when I am loading a hold that cuts into the palm of my hand I am actively trying to relax the muscles on the outside of my arm. In contrast a semi crimp brings a feeling of tightness and effort to that same area on the outside of my arm.
Mark- I agree that the TUT of the 45/15 protocol is pretty far out there, and that training protocol may well become junk miles. [though, the RRG is mainly junk miles! just kidding] However, I wonder if the type of power endurance needed for utilizing slopey jugs is somewhat specialized, and that the main way to develop it is to exhaust those muscles specifically and force them to contend with being pumped. Perhaps it takes a longer time of lower intensity to tax the muscles for deflecting the wrist and first knuckles. Since they are normally engaged on jugs and other deep holds. The other path would be to increase weight and decrease TUT. I have not tried adding weight using the maxipull board, but I will try, thought it might get too heavy for my shoulders pretty quickly.
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 13, 2015 14:18:35 GMT -7
I tried to “re-onsight” Yowsah at the hole two weeks ago There's your mistake! Did you ever read the article by Matt Samet about aging gracefully as a climber? It was one of those "10 tips to blah blah blah" pieces. One of the tips was NEVER return to a route your crushed in your youth. Nothing good could possibly come from it it seems that the key muscles for RRG open hand holds are not trained in standard RPTC holds because the joints deflected are different. In big open hand holds the wrist and or first knuckle are deflected. While in most RPTC holds the last and or second to last knuckles are deflected. I agree with this observation [with a possible slight exception for the medium and small pinch grips, although I suspect they wouldn't be very effective for training the type of strength we are talking about.] I would argue that for most climbers, most of the time, this is not a limiting weakness. One might expect a snide comment to the effect of, "if you aren't strong enough to hang on the rest jugs, then...", however, I've made a point to HB on a big sloper in the past when I knew I would need to shake out on huge-yet-non-incut holds (holds that require a 90-degree-ish bend at the MCP joint), so I do think this is a legitimate issue. It's not that you can't hang the holds, its that you want to be able to hang them effortlessly. It's the old argument about strength improving endurance. It may take 50% effort to hang them now, but if you get stronger in that grip, it would only take 20 or 30% effort, etc. Anyway...ideally the RPTC sloper would be deep enough to allow for this, but honestly it was an afterthought and I didn't want it to drive the depth of the board, which already required a huge volume of plastic. I think the RPTC 2.0 will fix this by incorporating a deep sloper above the pinches.
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Post by tedwelser on May 14, 2015 20:44:01 GMT -7
I am a fool for ignoring Matt Samet's advice! I am doomed to age ungracefully. I was unable to train today, and I am about to travel to Slovenia for work (and a little bit of climbing). But I did take the time to put in two sets on the maxipull board. I have a couple of observations. First, it burns! My first set hit 6 reps with the 45/15 duty cycle and I eventually failed due to combination of fatigue and inability to force myself to endure the pain. It reminded me of how it feels to sprint uphill on a bicycle, eventually the pain of the burn is too much to endure. Second, I found that as I neared my fatigue limits I would play off the effort between the different finger joints to forestall failure. A couple of times I increased the pressure on my finger tips in order to buy time to hold on with the lower joints. This brings me to an interesting aspect of the large cylindrical hold- the angles of deflection are similar for each joint, but the quality of the hold (compared to a downward pull) diminishes from top to bottom. This is different than some key types of open hand holds outdoors where the only good way to grab them is at one depth, for instance with pressure at the wrist, such that the edge of hold cuts into the skin at the base of the fingers. This raises the further issue, on which I am very interested to hear your thoughts, which is about the use of holds that do not engage the last two digits of the fingers. I think at some point, if you develop enough strength in muscles that fire the last two joints that you will be strong in the first two as well. However, when I went to the New last time I climbed with 2 younger guys who are super strong on those last two finger joints, but who are not similarly strong on the wrist and first finger joint. That is, they could easily pull on shallow 2 finger pockets, or bad crimps, but they were worse off than me on big squarecut sloper edges. This is similar to your comment about Mike-- he used the treadwall and he climbed at the red a lot. Is it possible that climbing on that sandstone forced Mike to use holds that heavily loaded the wrist and first knuckle flexing muscles, and that, your training regime did not? I ask this partly because I wonder if it seems like relative exposure to those types of holds is the main key difference between your preparations. I suspect that most of my climbing ability when I was younger depended on my ability to trade off hanging on holds that engaged the first two joints in order to fully rest the muscles that primarily fired the last two. From the outside this looks like endurance, but it is not really endurance in the sense that spending effort with one set of muscles allows the nearly full rest of another set. It is not a matter of being more efficient with the same set of muscles. I am hopeful that the maxipull can provide that "full hand" endurance because it is a great advantage at places like the red and the new. Anyways, I think there is something to all of this and I look forward to learning more about it.
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 15, 2015 13:32:30 GMT -7
Is it possible that climbing on that sandstone forced Mike to use holds that heavily loaded the wrist and first knuckle flexing muscles, and that, your training regime did not? It's a near certainty that my training neglects those two joints, except to the extent that training the DIP and PIP provide some collateral training stimulus. I would guess Mike was training on larger holds, at least while ARCing and climbing, and he may have benefited from that. ...trade off hanging on holds that engaged the first two joints in order to fully rest the muscles that primarily fired the last two. From the outside this looks like endurance, but it is not really endurance in the sense that spending effort with one set of muscles allows the nearly full rest of another set. It is not a matter of being more efficient with the same set of muscles. I don't think it's quite that clearcut, but I agree with the larger point that it's helpful to trade off the load between different flexor units. But in the interest of being obnoxiously precise, I think its more likely that both sets of flexors (DIP + PIP and MCP + Wrist) tire, albeit to a lesser extent, when either is under load. This is perhaps due to blood occlusion caused by the flexing of the active muscle fibers, and the simple inability to completely relax the inactive muscles fibers while the others are firing. It's like when you get a strenuous arm thread or chicken wing--you may be able to wiggle your fingers, but it's not 100% restful (like standing on the ground).
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Post by slimshaky on May 15, 2015 14:52:44 GMT -7
ted - for the PVC pipe hold, one thing that might be worth looking at is NOT putting grip tape on it. i think you will end up with it being too easy to really use unless you add a bunch of weight. i have 2 foot long piece of black PVC (i think 4 inches) that i have set up with a cord through it so it is horizontal. i don't really use it that often, but it if i were to train a big open handed grip this is what i would use. it is pretty slippery so you have to lock down on it like a pitbull on brisket.
maybe set up one of each style and try them out? fairly cheap experiment.
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Post by tedwelser on May 17, 2015 3:23:34 GMT -7
I am now in Slovenia for work (and a little climbing!) so I have not had much chance to reply.
Thanks for the insights and comments!
Mark- I wonder if the muscles for the MCP and wrist are initially larger (?) dunno, but that might influence their training response.
Slim- I have both the 7 inch and the 4 inch diameter pipes. The 7 inch is more of the strength workout-- it is not easy to hold, especially as you adjust your grip a bit lower. The 4 is more for strength endurance, and does feel easy at first but becomes difficult enough as you tire.
However, I will also try the 4 without tape-- though it it is able to rotate, I assume you grab it like a pinch? I am sure that is tough to hold.
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Post by slimshaky on May 18, 2015 12:31:20 GMT -7
at first i set mine up so that it could rotate freely about the rope that supported it (it used one long piece of rope that attached to one rafter, came down and through the pipe, and then up to another rafter. it was really hard to hold, but the one thing that i didn't like was that it was a little bit hard on the wrists/elbows/shoulders. i ended up putting a couple small holes in the top and hanging it that way, which keeps it from rotating.
i don't grab it like a pinch, i hold it like a big sloper (it would be too big for me to pinch from below, i think - never tried it).
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Post by daustin on Jul 8, 2015 14:47:39 GMT -7
tedwelser hey your link to your blog post about the maxi-pull board seems to be broken. Did it migrate somewhere else?
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Post by tedwelser on Jul 15, 2015 20:31:48 GMT -7
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kelly7687
New Member
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Post by kelly7687 on Jul 17, 2015 5:15:27 GMT -7
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