Back 2

[dan]

Does anyone use back 2 (ring and pinky fingers) as part of their HB grip selection? 
Its not mentioned in the sample workouts in the book, but I have seen it used in other workouts (such as beastmaker). 
Utility-wise, I'm not sure I'd ever use the grip on real rock, but I sure feel weak as a kitten with the back 2 fingers isolated. 

[MarkAnderson]

Yes, some people do, usually trad climbers who want to improve their ability to fingerlock (in pin scars) with that pair. If you search around this forum you'll find some discussions about it.

[jcm]

It seems like a fair number of people train back-2 as a way to target and train those fingers in an isolated way-- especially the pinkie finger, which can "slack off" if you only train on 4-finger edges. The reasoning from those that advocate this approach is that getting your pinkie (and, of course, ring finger) stronger (in isolation) helps it contribute more when you can use it on a 4-finger hold. On the flip side, back-2 isn't a very common or realistic grip (unless you climb a lot of hard finger cracks), so training this grip will take time away from more realistic/specific grips.

As is often the case, this one comes down to a question of isolation vs. specificity.

[tedwelser]

I train all three 2 finger pairs. Currently my RP pair use the deep 2 finger, and the other 2 pairs use the shallower pockets on the bottom row of the RPTC. The RP pair have largely caught up to the other two in terms of weight. The RP pair used to be much weaker than the others. I started doing the RP on the jug, but switched to the pocket once i could do bodyweight on the RP on jugs.

I feel as though this focus has really helped both the ring finger and the pinky become much stronger as a baseline. I find that i cannot train my pinky well in other grips be cause it is much shorter than my other fingers.

[jcm]

Question: do you think that those gains in pinkie strength, made in isolation, have transferred effectively to greater pinkie strength on "normal" holds?

[tedwelser]

I had a couple of reasons that I wanted to isolate the RP pair. First, I noticed that on smaller open hand edges I was not engaging my pinky well or at all. So when I looked at the array of grips I was using I noticed that the main times that I was engaging the pinky was on semi-crimps. Sometimes this made my pinky feel a bit stressed / painful, especially when I pulled hard. So I wanted to build the pinky up slowly and safely, rather than just randomly use it hard on semi crimps.

I also noticed that my MR pair was weaker than my IM pair, and I suspected that this was due to weakness in my ring finger. I figured hangs with just ring and pinky would force the ring finger to develop as the stronger of the two.

To finally answer your question, my MR is now a bit stronger than my IM, and I have not had any tweaky feelings in my pinky on crimps. I count those both as improvements. Beyond those specifics, I feel much stronger on open hand edges which is generally due to the hangboard workouts, but I think catching my RP up generally helps whenever I use open hand grips (that are deep enough to engage all 4 fingers).

[jessebruni]

I also have been training the pinky finger (MRP in my last hangboard cycle and RP this cycle). I've noticed a few...interesting things to say the least. Firstly MRP is much easier to train than RP in terms of comfort and injury-prevention. After one cycle with MRP I certainly noticed that my pinky finger had gotten much stronger, but this may have been more of a CNS adaptation than anything else. I feel like if you never engage your pinky much it learns to be lazy. Targeting it with hangboarding trains it to pull it's own weight, whether or not it's actually gotten any stronger.

Now that I'm doing RP, I'm using the deep 3 finger slot and started my season with -60, -50, -40 for 7, 6, 5 reps respectively. I have noticed that the first set is always the hardest. I don't usually climb with back 2 and my body doesn't seem to understand what's going on at first. I use my thumbs to pull my index and middle fingers back because otherwise they naturally want to extend to go help their little bros. By the second set my fingers know what's up and I can hang fairly casually on RP. By the third set my pinky starts to give out somewhere on the 4th or 5th rep. Once the pinky gives this essentially becomes a ring finger mono with some friction support from the pinky. When this happens the hold starts to feel a lot tweakier and I'm certainly concerned that I could hurt myself with this hold. Basically, I'm monitoring the situation very closely. Increasing weight per workout still because I haven't failed yet, but I'm focused on the feedback I'm getting in my tendons so I don't hurt myself.

TL;DR - Working pinky has a benefit in teaching your pinky finger to pull in any grip combo, but it's a weird grip to train comfortably.

[MarkAnderson]

This is why I love this forum. It's so cool to have a community of people all following more or less the same program. It makes it really easy to compare notes. In the past I had to have arguments with my internal monologue, which was really pretty boring and risked alienating me from the rest of humanity.

Anyway, I was reading through the responses (mostly about the benefit of "teaching" the pinky to contribute), and I was thinking, "I don't need to do that, my pinkies already contribute." And then I read this:

Apr 13, 2015 9:03:27 GMT -7 jessebruni said:

I also have been training the pinky finger (MRP in my last hangboard cycle and RP this cycle). I've noticed a few...interesting things to say the least. ... After one cycle with MRP I certainly noticed that my pinky finger had gotten much stronger, but this may have been more of a CNS adaptation than anything else. I feel like if you never engage your pinky much it learns to be lazy. Targeting it with hangboarding trains it to pull it's own weight, whether or not it's actually gotten any stronger.

....

I trained MRP for many years. Actually I started training IMR, because I couldn't handle IM or MR. Eventually IMR got too strong, so I swapped in MRP, and I trained that, downsizing pockets again and again, until I was just crimping MRP on a sloping 3/4-pad edge. And then MRP got too strong for that so I stopped training it. But I still feel like that grip is really strong. I use it all the time. If I encounter a narrow edge (too narrow for 4 fingers), I usually crimp it with MRP. Reading through the comments I'm starting to think the reason my pinky contributes, and the reason this is not an issue for me, is that I trained MRP for a long time many moons ago. Also my MR is now much stronger than IM, but it didn't start out that way.

[dan]

Interesting responses---thanks!

Other than trying to iron out a weakness, another part of my motivation for getting RP stronger is ongoing shoulder issues. I know this might sound wierd, but in the last year after some minor shoulder injuries, I've basically told myself that if I ever get onto any kind of "shouldery" position (such as a gaston or long bump move) its not worth it and I let go. In addition to a variety of shoulder exercises, I've worked at overhauling my technique to favor sequences with cross-overs (which feel fine for the shoulders) rather than bumping a hand and getting spread out. When you cross into a hold from a back-stepped position, the back 3 or back 2 position seems like a much more ergonomical grip position. (Keeps the wrist straighter, try it)

Given the good responses you guys seemed to have, I'll work RP into my next HB cycle this summer and let you know how it goes.

[jcm]

Yes, all interesting data points. I had, until now, chosen to neglect the RP combo because of favoring specificity over isolation. The replies above have convinced me to rethink this idea-- I may experiment a bit with RP in the next hangboard cycle. Thanks!

[alvaro]

I started training R/P this winter and I noticed that it's really helped engage my pinkies on crimps and other open-handed grips as well. I have a Beastmaker 2000 so the R/P-specific pocket (the side for the ring finger is deeper than the pinky side) is really nice and comfortable to hang from. It may sound weird, but I can really tell that my pinky has been pulling it's weight while climbing just by feeling the amount of pressure I can put on my pinky pad.

Currently my HB grips are:
Half crimp
Full crimp
M/R pocket
I/M pocket
R/P pocket

By training the three 2-finger combos I feel like I can specifically strengthen each finger more effectively not only for 2-finger pockets but also for 3-finger combos and open-handed grips.

[jorgemendoza]

So, I just tweaked my finger hanging on RP. I started feeling good progress, and went on reducing weight in my hangs... until suddenly "POP"...  my palm started hurting and now am re-evaluating what to do with that grip. For the newbie on this grip, BE CAUTIOUS. I extrapolated my progression in MR and IM to RP, and that didn't work well. So, be at least twice as patient in the progression of RP. My two cents.

Apr 13, 2015 13:26:12 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

Apr 13, 2015 9:03:27 GMT -7 jessebruni said:

Mark, did you start training RP after you mastered MRP?

I am thinking about getting back to MRP instead of RP. Jesse is right about this .

Posted by jessebruni

Firstly MRP is much easier to train than RP in terms of comfort and injury-prevention.

[MarkAnderson]

No. I tried RP one or two times, and quickly abandoned it because i couldn't find a good grip to use.

[jorgemendoza]

Thanks for the response Mark.

[Chris W]

I'm back to wondering if I should try to train my RP grip. I tried switching my RPTC sloper to the Forge sloper because the grip seemed to be getting too easy. That was a disaster, because the forge sloper seems impossible right now to hang. Training the sloper seems to help, at least mentally, but I'm wondering if my energy would be better spent elsewhere. Right now I'm doing:

-Warm up (jug and large edge)
-SVDER open hand
-MR 2 finger pocket
-Forge crimp
-IM 2 finger pocket
-Wide Pinch
-RPTC sloper

I've considered replacing the sloper with a RP 2 finger pocket or adding the RP grip before the sloper, which would increase my total number of grips to one over what is recommended in the advanced protocol. I've re-read the post about the effectiveness of training slopers on the hangboard. Any thoughts? I do run into slopers or sloping edges on my local rock...