Multiple hangboard reps vs more grip positions

[markdixon]

Gentlemen (and anybody else with an opinion...),
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the advisability of multiple reps on fewer holds vs single reps on more holds. 
I believe the research suggests that a single rep will provide as much as 85% of the training effect of an infinite number of reps.
In which case it seems more efficient to train a larger number of grips.
Or does the small increase in strength from multiple reps matter that much?
Mark

[MarkAnderson]

Mark,

That's an intriguing statistic. I'd love to hear more details about it. Does the study methodology allow for a warmup? At my age my first rep of anything (even/especially getting out of the bed in the morning) is pitiful

I think one of the issues garbling the '1 Rep vs Many' debate is the distinction between Strength and Power. A 1 rep set is a Power Exercise (or really, a Maximum Recruitment exercise, which is a subset of Power from my perspective). Such an exercise does not produce any metabolic stress, so it is far from ideal for producing gains in strength. As a power exercise, perhaps it has merit if you only have a hangboard and can't get to a bouldering facility, campus board, or real rock. But considering that such an exercise completely ignores contraction speed, its a pretty poor power exercise.

Look at it this way: You have the capacity to improve your ability to exert force by increasing strength by some amount "X", and then by increasing your recruitment some amount "Y". If you spend your Strength Phase increasing your recruitment, you may have achieved '85% effectiveness', but you've missed out on the opportunity to improve "X". Once you get to your Power Phase, you will have less opportunity to improve, because you already improved some or all of "Y". My mom would say you are 'robbing Peter to pay Paul', so to speak.

Does the "85% effective" study say what happens if the test subjects then proceed to a true Power Phase? I wonder if that number would hold up in such a case. I suspect the "1 rep" group would flatline, while the "Multiple Rep" group would continue to improve.

Anyway, if that doesn't convince you, go to Gold's Gym and see how many competitive power lifters are doing 1 rep sets (and how often). These athletes are training for a single rep performance, and they still do multiple reps. If multiple reps make sense for them, surely they make sense for a sport (like climbing) in which the performance demands multiple reps.

Perhaps I'm dodging your actual question, but until we can get to the root of the "85% effective" statistic, trying to weigh that against training a wider variety of grips would be quite difficult. For me personally, I think being at 85% would be completely unacceptable. I like to joke that at this point in my career I'm pretty much trying to squeeze water out of a rock. I need to absolutely maximize every element of performance just to regain my previous highpoint each season. Improving between seasons is another challenge in itself.

[markdixon]

Sorry Mark, my bad.
I meant to say single set vs multiple set, not single rep vs multiple reps.
I agree with your points above, although I'm curious how you explain the results of folks like Dave MacLeod and Eva Lopez who seem to advocate Max R hangboarding.
I can look around for the reference for the single set giving 85% of the results of multiple sets. I looked into the research recently and it seems there was a single researcher who made his career advocating single sets. Unfortunately for him, the most recent, and probably definitive, meta analysis showed pretty clearly that multiple sets were more effective.
I think my original question may still remain unanswered- how much better (if at all) is it to do say, two sets of front and back three finger hangs (total 4 sets) vs one set each of the two finger pairs with maybe a four finger hang thrown in to the latter to bring it up to four total sets?

[MarkAnderson]

Ok, I see. Well, plenty of other people have asked the question so hopefully somebody will get something out of my rant

I think you may be referring to Ralph Carpinelli? He's definitely a huge critic of the Multiple Set Training (MST) argument, although I don't recall if he actually advocates SST, or is rather trying to make the case that the favoritism for MST is unsubstantiated. I'm pretty sure we discuss this in Chapter 6, but regardless, it played significantly into how we came up with the Hangboard Routines. Our thinking was that untrained climbers can still benefit a great deal from a relatively low volume of finger strength training, whereas as you become more well-trained, you need to do more work to continue to progress. So we prescribed 1 set per exercise for the beginner Hangboard Routine, 2 for the Intermediate, and 3 for the Advanced Routine. If you really wanted to maximize your strength gains, you would do at least 3 sets regardless of your experience level, but beginners often don't have as much time to spend on pure training, and even if they did, they should be ARCing more to work Skill Development, Grip Control, etc.

Anyway, if it were me, a well-trained climber who is no longer a spring chicken, I would definitely do at least two sets. For no other reason, I would do it just because I need a warmup. I've noticed this especially during my supplemental exercises, but it applies to the hangboard too; I'm way stronger in my second set of any exercise. Your case is complicated because you're weighing 3 finger hangs vs 2 finger hangs. Again if it were me, I would skip the RP 2-finger pair, and train 2 sets each of IM and MR, or two sets each of IMR and MRP. Whether to do 2 or 3 finger hangs is another question (depending on your goals and current strength level).