Another HYP/hangboard question

No, I agree with your underlying point: train all your grips, even the ones you are good at. The rest is just thread drift, which is equivalent to gravity in the IMB universe.

Mike, I was just pointing out that camhead had a specific goal that required that he improve on his weakness. I too am all for doing a little of every type of grip, changing weight a lot to achieve the correct intensity.

Along the lines of Tommy's advice. The best beta I've ever given is "Pull hard and don't let go", pretty much universally applicable.

camhead wrote:Hey Slim, do you have any pics of your crack-size hangboards?

+1 on crack machine hangboard pics! Show them off...

LeeAB wrote: The best beta I've ever given is "Pull hard and don't let go", pretty much universally applicable.

You should ask the PullHarder crew down in San Diego about how they got the name. The version I heard involved a "famous" climber, paid coaching, and the "coaching" amounting to being told to...PULL HARDER! at which point tendons exploded and the trainee was sidelined for months...something like that anyway.

hey will, one thing i was going to comment on and forgot - the 10 second hangs. that seems pretty long to me for a HYP workout. almost seems like it could be headed over into PE. i used to do 10 on 10 off, but ended up moving more towards a 5 second hang because i could feel a slight pump developing on the 10. another problem i had when i did 10 sec hangs was friction - particularly on the small sloping edge (open 3 finger), my toughest grip. usually it was a fight to keep from sliding off and i didn't feel it was fully strength focused.

last night was my 6th workout and it was a rough one. i crushed my 4th and 5th workouts and had great upwards trajectory. however, last night i knew i was a bit off during my warmup and shit kind of unraveled for the first several grips. i had to scramble and redesign my weights on the fly. ironically, i matched personal bests on all of my crack grips (WTF?). it will be interesting to see how #7 goes!

to the crackheads, i'll try to figure out how to get some photos posted.

slim wrote: however, last night i knew i was a bit off during my warmup and shit kind of unraveled for the first several grips. ... ironically, i matched personal bests on all of my crack grips (WTF?). it will be interesting to see how #7 goes!

This happens with me as well; if I do poorly on the first half of the w/o I tend to do better than usual on the last half. I think its simply because you aren't as fatigued entering the 2nd half, since many of the early sets were truncated.

slim wrote: i'll try to figure out how to get some photos posted.

Tripod, self-timer. If that fails, just shoot video, then use your video editing software to take a "video still" image after the fact. Or just post the video.

LeeAB wrote: Along the lines of Tommy's advice. The best beta I've ever given is "Pull hard and don't let go", pretty much universally applicable.

I recall a story of a guy who bought a private gym climbing session with a teenage Chris Lindner. It consisted of Chris yelling at him "PULL HARDER!" Right up until the guy blew out a tendon pulley.

EDIT: Will, I was not expecting to get scooped on that story!

slim wrote:hey will, one thing i was going to comment on and forgot - the 10 second hangs. that seems pretty long to me for a HYP workout. almost seems like it could be headed over into PE.

This is where it gets really interesting to me. The literature is sorely lacking in isometric studies, with most of them comparing isometric to concentric and/or eccentric, but I've yet to see one that focuses specifically on isometrics comparing how long the reps should be.

The studies and recommendations tend to take a "Time under tension" approach, with all of them I've seen suggesting that for hypertrophy the "time under tension" for the set should be from 30-60 seconds. So even if I hit 5x10sec, I'm still in that range at 50s, but more realistically I want my sets to look more like 2x10, 2x8, 1x5...something like that, because if I can do all 5 reps for 10sec, I could have added more weight. That puts me in the ~41 sec TUT for most sets.

As a side note, I use a 10on/5off and 2:30 between sets. If I'm doing more than 6 sets (not often), after #6 I rest probably 5min between sets.

Yeah Slim, I'd be really interested in seeing any photos you can post of your crack hangboard setup. I'm still trying to envision how one would properly stress the forearms, or even build endurance, with fingerlocks, since they involve more hanging on bones than muscles. Still, I'd imagine that if the cracks were flared enough, it would work. Is this your first time trying this crack-hangboard routine? Have you seen any improvements in outdoor crack performance.

If I ever to construct my own home campus board setup, I'd really be interested in putting in something like a 20 degree overhanging 1.5-inch crack for campus training.

willS - interesting info. i think all of the folks posting on this thread should pull together our lunch money and try to fund a 1000 person parametric study. that would be pretty handy! i've done the 10 on 5 off in the past and that is a MFKR. brutal. i felt like i was getting pumped though, so i was wondering if it was leaning more PE.

a few years ago i was out with an injury for a few months and i put together kind of an equal volume HYP workout with the 3 sets being 15 on 5 off x 3, 10 on 5 off x 6, and 5 on 10 off x 6. for a single month trying to just get back up and going, that was pretty effective.

camhead - i have used the 2 ringlock sizes off and on for a long time. when i was first learning those sizes i was getting slaughtered, so i built them to train over the winter. that spring i had enormous success - pretty much got every route up to the 11+ range first or second go. last fall i used them for about a month before getting on slice and dice, and i felt very comfortable on the route.

you get stronger with them, but i also learned a whole bunch of weird subtle stuff - for .5 camalots my right hand is stronger. for . 75 camalots my left hand is stronger. for both of these sizes there are several ways of configuring the stacks, etc.

after a few years i built the #2 friend thing and had similar success. i just built the tight and loose fingers this winter. for the . 3 camalots i am way stronger left hand thumbs down (also for some odd reason it hurts a hell of a lot less). for the loose fingers i am stronger right hand thumbs down (and both hands struggle immensely thumbs up).

i can't imagine campusing on any of these, it would be brutal on the skin. for me, it takes a few seconds to really lock the jam and load up.

be interesting to see how my desert season goes - i'm chomping at the bit, pacing the house, and driving my old lady nuts!

Really great stuff here guys. It's really interesting to read about you guys, the gurus, having those off nights. I have them too and sometimes think the hard training just isn't for me. I'm inspired to stick with it...

+1 for crack hang-board pics... quite interesting!

JLP - i think he mainly means that if you aren't climbing on slopers (ie climbing typical vertical crimping) then they aren't nearly as important to train. (mono can/ probably will chime in). i tend to agree as my experiences bouldering in the gym (largely slopers and pinches) have had virtually no (or possibly worse) translation to climbing outside on the front range.

taketaketake - one of the hardest things is starting into your workout, realizing that you are struggling, and still putting in the full effort to do the best you can with what you've got on a given night. its good experience though. i also agree, for me it helps to know that everybody has an off night.

JLP wrote:Mono - you posted something yesterday like "Slopers = waste of time" or somesuch, but then edited your post. Facetious, or ?

No, I thought I had seen a sloper set in camhead's detailed post. When I re-read it I didn't see it, so I deleted the comment, but I still think hangboarding slopers is a waste of energy (which is what I wrote, not 'time'), unless you regularly climb on routes with lots of crux sloper moves (this may be the case for dedicated boulderers). Personally, I can't think of a single route I've ever done with a crux sloper move. And from a bio-mechanical perspective, what is the difference between a sloper and an open hand edge, other than skin friction? So just train the open hand edge, which is something you will actually encounter on a rock climb.

RE: rep durations, FWIW, the Rockprodigy protocol originally called for 10 sec reps with 5 sec rest. Some time in the long long ago, in the beforetime, we came up with the 7sec on, 3 off. I think its "better" but it really depends on what you're training for. Shorter reps lean more towards MaxR, and longer more towards PE. The impetus for change at the time was that I found I was really good at PE and generally sucked at power, so I wanted to move my Hyp training more toward the direction of MaxR. I wanted a round number for a cycle (7+3 = 10 sec) for logistic reasons, and when considering typical weight lifting, it seems that the contraction needs to be significantly longer than the rest, so 6/4 or 5/5 seemed too short for Hypertrophy. A couple years ago Beastmaster arrived and they've been advocating the 7/3, which I assume they got from us.

I also found some shake-weight-type quackary device on-line that is intended to be used for isometric contractions, and they also advocate a 7 sec rep, which I thought was a pretty amazing coincidence since this device had nothing to do with climbing training.

I have found a "study" that claims this:

"Research has measured both longer duration actions (i.e. 10 seconds or above) and fewer repetitions, and shorter duration actions (i.e. 2-3 seconds) with more repetitions (6,7,8). Both approaches seem to increase static strength...The general consensus is that in healthy individuals training to improve strength (as opposed to rehabilitation of an injury), the most efficient use of isometric exercises is 15-20 maximal voluntary actions held for 3 to 5 seconds.... However, when submaximal loads are used (such as bodyweight) it may be more suitable to increase the duration and reduce the number of repetitions."

Monomaniac wrote: No, I thought I had seen a sloper set in camhead's detailed post. When I re-read it I didn't see it, so I deleted the comment, but I still think hangboarding slopers is a waste of energy (which is what I wrote, not 'time'), unless you regularly climb on routes with lots of crux sloper moves (this may be the case for dedicated boulderers). Personally, I can't think of a single route I've ever done with a crux sloper move. And from a bio-mechanical perspective, what is the difference between a sloper and an open hand edge, other than skin friction? So just train the open hand edge, which is something you will actually encounter on a rock climb.

I actually do use a sort of sloper at the very end of my workout, it's a large, 45 degree downward sloping edge on an old Metolius board that is big enough to get your whole palm on. I mostly only hang on it with 2 1/2 or 2 pads, though, so it's not really what one would think of as a "sloper."

wow, that is interesting in respect to the one workout that i had designed that was 15 on 5 off x3, 10 on 5 off x 6 and 5 on 10 off x 6. i had originally designed it to have sort of a 'blend', for lack of better word, between PE, HYP, and MR.

do you chalk between reps? 3 secs just isn't enough time for me to chalk, which i do religiously every rep. i even have 2 chalk bags tied onto the front of me so that my hands aren't fighting over that precious 5 second chalk time.

slim wrote:i even have 2 chalk bags tied onto the front of me so that my hands aren't fighting over that precious 5 second chalk time.

He he he.

"Hangboarding: Blurring the lines between rockclimbing and OCD since 1989"

No, I don't chalk between reps. Interesting that you bring it up though, because that was the big sticking point when we were first contemplating reducing the duty cycle.

Instaed I do all sorts of other marginally insane things that drive Kate bonkers to ensure I don't have to chalk between reps.

do you use tite grip? do you have a fan set on high to blow chalk dust all over the frickin place?

the saint isn't allowed to come down in the basement, or she will undoubtedly do something that will make me laugh and either get a hernia or blow out a shoulder.

with the 3 second rest, do you think it gives your muscles time to re-set to fire again? (totally uneducated question, where is aerili to give me a smackdown :) ???)

slim wrote:the saint isn't allowed to come down in the basement.

Ha, we have the same rule. No visitors allowed while hangboarding either.

Once you start laughing its all over. One season I experimented with listening to sports talk radio while hangboarding. Dan Patrick told a story about his child going on a field trip to an aquarium. This was just after March of the Penguins came out, and during the field trip one of Patrick Jr.'s classmates disappeared, then showed up about 15 minutes later soaking wet. It turned out he had jumped into the penguin tank and kidnapped a live penguin, which he stashed in his backpack. That was several years ago, but every so often that story will pop into my mind when I'm hangboarding and inevitably the set is ruined.