jingo
New Member
Posts: 18
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Post by jingo on Mar 7, 2020 15:47:17 GMT -7
1) maintenance loads? 2) max hangs?
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Post by psathyrella on Mar 7, 2020 17:36:51 GMT -7
I think you're suggesting these as solutions to the two points I mention? Sorry, I should have been more clear -- I'm not meaning to sound like these are problems, but rather that they could be reasons why our hb numbers aren't improving while we're still getting the effect we actually care about (getting better at rock climbing). More specifically, yes I could totally design a pinch maintenance program, but as evidenced by the lack of pinches when I'm actually climbing, this would be unlikely to actually improve my rock climbing. And as to max hangs, I fully subscribe to the rptm point of view that we should maximize training time actually climbing, i.e. I only want to do the one phase on the hb that I can't get any other way (hypertrophy), and thus prefer recruitment via bouldering or campusing.
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Post by MarkAnderson on Mar 9, 2020 19:28:07 GMT -7
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. Both great points. Re 1, I’ve noticed in particular that my pocket grips have stagnated now that I very rarely climb outdoor pocket routes. I actually pinch a fair bit during my performance phases, but that’s only because many of my limit boulder problems incorporate pinches. Limiting pinch moves are pretty rare on outdoor sport routes at the crags I frequent. Re 2, there definitely seems to be an exponential difficulty component to all the friction-dependent grips. I suspect a big reason for this is the relatively large difference between static and kinetic friction. If you can’t hold it when the friction is static, you have no prayer of arresting once you start to slide. With horizontal or incut grips, once you get feedback that you’re starting to fail, you have the opportunity to refocus and try harder. Once you realize you’re failing a pinch or sloper it’s way too late. Why not “try hard” the whole time? To send any grip near your limit, you need to avoid over gripping early in the set, and then gradually ramp up your effort as you tire. This is much harder to perfect on friction grips because you have to predict when and how much to ramp up, rather than waiting for your fingers to tell you. Another theory I have is that as we progress, we add more and more weight (body weight + weight added). This weight creates a “moment,” or lever arm, acting to twist the hangboard and it’s mounting structure. This moment increases as you progress, causing greater and greater deformations, which essentially makes every grip more slopey. So the more weight you add, the slopey-er the grips get, creating a significant asymptote that is ultimately unsurpassable. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, haha! That latter theory would actually be pretty easy to test/measure empirically.
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Post by RobF on Mar 14, 2020 9:54:56 GMT -7
Captain of Crush, number one or number two...
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hangboarderjon
New Member
Sometimes the hard way is the only way.
Posts: 44
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Post by hangboarderjon on May 4, 2020 0:20:53 GMT -7
A friction-independent pinch-grip strength tool you might want to try is called "Titan's Telegraph Key" made by Ironmind.com.
It's basically a weighted pinch machine. What's nice about it is you can also wrap some kind of rubber band or tube around it instead of adding weights to change the resistance, although I'm not currently doing this or training on it at all. From my experiments using it, it added too much complication to my workout plans (either that or I just didn't have clear enough goals at the time), so I never tried tracking my progress with it.
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Post by psathyrella on May 12, 2020 11:47:07 GMT -7
I accidentally made an indirect measurement of how much hb mount flex could contribute to this. Between hb5 and hb6 I realized that the 2x6 I had mounted with two screws on each end over a doorway had gradually warped (maybe it started a little warped as well) so that my forge was overhanging by 1.75 degrees (+/- 0.25ish. 1.75deg is about 4mm difference between top and bottom). I remounted with a fresh and very straight 2x8 with three screws/side so it was perfectly vertical, and was expecting a big difference. But it turned out I progressed only about as many grips as I usually do midway through a phase. Maybe it made a difference of 1-2lb on some grips, but I don't think it was more. I think this is a pretty solid upper bound for how much flex could matter, since even with it pre-warped this much (which I think would make it flexier, since it gives the higher grips more torque around the lower screws), while I couldn't figure out a way to measure flex by myself, it looked to be less than the constant 4 deg. This was particularly surprising to me because between hb6 and hb7 it was getting a bit warmer (70F 50%) so I stopped being lazy about skin moisture management and a) did my first iontophoresis session (8min 12V + 7min 18V each hand) since the fall and b) mixed up some liquid chalk. And this combination clearly made about a 5lb difference on most of my grips. Now I know that the importance of neuroticism about skin moisture management isn't news to anyone on here, but I'm still going to write out my rant just to help me remember in the future how extraordinarily pernicious it is to be sweating toward the end of a set.
Things that make the whole set harder, like using a smaller grip or (to a first approximation) tilting the hb as above, don't matter much, you just use a different weight. But things that make the end of the set harder than the start mean the first few reps will be too easy, and the last ones too hard (so you don't finish them). And achieving any appreciable supercompensation is dependent on being *right* *at* the optimal load. Your tips starting to sweat on rep 4 is kind of like adding 30lb (instead of the standard 10lb) between sets -- the first set would be way too easy and the second way too hard, with the result that you'll progress weight much more slowly.
There's a couple things that likely made this a bigger effect for me right now than it would be in other circumstances (but that's how it always is -- you don't realize you're screwing up until you screw up really badly so it's obvious). I use 10s/5s hangs rather than 7s/3s, since long term I only really care about granite onsighting, so sets are longer. And May skin in the PNW with gyms closed for months is about as soft and moist before treatment as you'd imagine. But I'm thoroughly convinced that it's worth putting every possible effort into eliminating sweating as much as humanly possible.
A second order effect is of course that tilting the hb makes the grips slopier, so they're more friction dependent, so if you're lazy about moisture management they would get harder during the set.
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 12, 2020 12:36:06 GMT -7
Great analysis, thanks for sharing. It’s nice to know board flex is likely not a huge factor.
As you descend into skin obsession, consider that if your skin gets “too dry” that can create its own HB problems, specifically dry-firing off friction dependent holds. These issues may be unlikely if you live in the PNW, but here in CO my pinch grip is about 10 lb worse in the winter (which is normally my strong eat season due to abundant cold temps) due to perpetual dry air.
The other potential problem is cracking and splitting, which again are unlikely where you live.
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