Pinch grip refuses to improve

[EMP]

Hi-

I've been following the Anderson's training plan for several years now (8-9 seasons?) and have seen good results, except in my pinch grip while hangboarding.

I am using the green forge hangboard. All my other grips improve steadily each season, except for the wide pinch, which has been stagnant for years.  It seems to me the pinch is more friction dependent than strength dependent.  I have moved the pinch to my first grip in the hangboard workout, no improvement. I have experimented with pinch blocks, no improvement.   

This lack of pinch strength does not seem to affect my performance on the rocks. At this point I want to prove to myself I can improve this grip, even if the results don't translate to the rock. Maybe it will someday if I climb some tufas?

Anyone have similar experiences?  Can anyone provide any advice?

[Chris W]

My pinch grip has been hard to improve. Last season, out of the blue, I set a new PB after being stagnant for a while (like two years), so there is a glimmer of hope there. I'm experimenting with a few things, which I'll post about later.

I'm in the same boat, where it doesn't seem to affect my climbing performance, so I'm not too worried about it.

[MarkAnderson]

I had a similar problem with the RPTC medium pinch, so i switched to the RPTC wide pinch and I’ve been making steady progress ever since, something like +25 lb over 2 or 3 years (now that I think about it, it’s probably the most I’ve improved any grip in that period). It would be interesting to see if my medium pinch has improved as a result.

Have you tried thoroughly cleaning your grips? They will get caked with chalk over time, making them much less grippy. The texture on the Forge is really light, so it wouldn’t take much chalk to gunk it up.

How consistent is your temp/humidity?

[Chris W]

How do you clean yours? I've just been brushing.

[MarkAnderson]

I don't clean mine, other than brushing after each set. I've heard of people using soap and water, I've heard of people using copper brushes (I wouldn't recommend that unless you've tested it first on something you don't care about).

[Chris W]

OK, sounds good. I haven't washed mine; I'm just neurotic about having squeaky clean hands before I touch mine and not allowing ANYONE else to touch my hangboard.

No wonder I can't find a reliable climbing partner...

[MarkAnderson]

Ya, I'm the same way, but chalk definitely builds up. Get on a ladder and look at the grips from above.

I haven't washed mine because I don't want a dramatic change in difficulty. Surely the grips have gotten more difficult to hold over time, but that's gradual and probably negligible form season to season. But, if I wanted to know how much stronger I got since 5 years ago, it would make sense to return the board to ~where it was 5 years ago (when it was new).

[EMP]

I do give the grip a good brushing after each set. As far as temperature and humidity, the temp is fairly consistent. Humidity could be lower (I live on the east coast) but short of building a bubble around my hangboard, that probably isn't going to happen.

I'm not sure if I'll abandon the pinch grip or not. Like I said it doesn't seem to impact rock climbing performance and my other grips improve slowly and steadily.

Thanks for the input anyway

[Chris W]

Build the bubble!! Mine makes a huge difference. I record the temp and humidity in my bubble with my other data.

[dsm]

I use pinch blocks and my wide pinch PR refuses to budge. I don't have any logs around but I'd guess it's been a year, maybe more, since I hit my last PR for the wide pinch. That said, when I'm gym climbing and actually using wide pinches, my wide pinch grip feels stronger than ever. This could be the result of my other grips but I don't know. I have kept at it this far but maybe I'll give up and see if I feel it makes a difference.

[erick]

My pinch has seen little improvement (maybe +5 every other season) and I have seen nothing in the last three seasons. I haven't been too worried cause my pinch strength seems to be sufficient for everything I am doing. There are a lot of nasty pinches on the Tension Board I have and sticking them is never a problem. I am currently following a integrated strength workout I got from "Liner Progression" which has me only training three grips. I am using advanced repeaters in this workout and I had no problem not including a pinch into one of the three grips I train. We will see if that leads to a drop in my pinch performance.

Eric

[dsm]

Eric, this is off topic from the o.g. post, but you touched on something I've been thinking of doing: i.e. dropping to three grips on an advanced protocol. I'd probably go with 3F open, half crimp, and narrow pinch. My goal in this: to save some time. Any thoughts about pros/cons of dropping other grips? What 3 do you use?

[erick]

Aug 31, 2018 16:38:37 GMT -7 dsm said:

I have a really hard time sticking to the RCTM plan during the summer with the way my work/climbing schedule so thats why I have been trying the system laid out in Logical Progression. For my first cycle of three grips I did the Horst 7-53 hangs and used a full crimp, half crimp, fully open. I am back to repeaters and am using a full crimp, fully open, MR. Specifically to answer the question you asked...

Pros
    My workouts get done quicker and I am much more likely to actually do the SE and some mobility work
    It easily lends itself to trying different hang protocols
    I don't really feel like I am missing much by dropping other grips

Cons
    Lack of variety in grips, I did a 7 session cycle without any pockets. Now that I am working them again I can see they have lost strength
    I really can't think of anything else

I have liked what I am doing but I don't really think it is any better just different. Once I am ready to dig into another full RCTM cycle I plan to follow it by the letter.

Eric

[dsm]

Thanks, Eric. This gives me something to think about.

[psathyrella]

I can think of two things that might make it harder to progress on pinches:
1) Like most people that don't live in tufa land, I very rarely pinch hard when I'm actually climbing. When I do, the strength gain from hangboarding is very apparent, but I think the lack of strong stimulus between hb phases means that, in contrast to all my other grips that get worked pretty hard when climbing, my maximum pinch strength probably drops off a lot between hb phases
2) I think all grips that are super friction dependent are harder to progress on. When doing repeaters there's no time to chalk up within a set, so any amount of sweating/skin dampening toward the last few reps of a set makes it so on friction-dependent holds the "effective" weight you're using I think can go up quite a bit in the last few reps. This means that when I think I'm doing an intermediate workout with sets at, say, -20lb, -10lb, that the actual end of the second set is really maybe more like -5lb or +0lb. So if I'm failing 5sec from the end of the last rep, I might stagnate there for quite a while before managing to finish that last 5sec and therefore progress, because those last 5sec are legitimately way tf harder than the previous seconds. (This is separate to the fact that friction-dependent grips are higher variance because they're so condition dependent).

otoh i never have any trouble coming up with lots of excuses why my numbers aren't improving, and sometimes it's just i need to try harder and hangboard more and not worry.