Hangboarding till failure?

Data point for ya'll...

Finished 4 weeks of "Eva style" max hangs instead of repeaters with one extra day as a feeler for the correct starting weight before week 1. Week 1 was 3 sets, week 2 was 4 sets, week 3 and 4 was 5 sets. 4 finger open, two arm hang on a big edge on beastmaker2000 (yes that's it!). Long rest since previous dead hangs, fingers felt healthyish and even better now.

Starting weight +45lbs, ending weight +80lbs. I did pretty well *not* going to failure but trying to respect her 10(3) thing (where failure would be at 13 sec, not 10). You do have to tweak it day to day and set to set at times. I can see people's skepticism with the method as it's very different than repeaters and you are not worked muscularly afterwards. It's much faster. With a solid warmup and some quick core/lockoff work I could be done in an hour. It was great to be able to climb a lot more during this method, either on plastic or outside.

While I'm not in a big sending mode at the moment, I've been really happy with the way I performed throughout the month. I even absolutely crushed a long term project on the garage wall despite the summer heat that I could not do during the last peak phase. Considering its a short finger and power test I'm psyched. My strength in the other finger combos (front 3, back 3, pockets) feels great too. I mostly train open as my crimp is still disproportionately stronger. I had done two rounds of repeaters prior to this so maybe my fingers were ready for a different type of workout?

Next up I'm dropping to the smallest beastmaker edge (4 finger half crimp) at body weight or light weight added for 4 weeks. Before starting I'm taking a week off hangs and doing 2 campus workouts to try and maintain the contact and coordination gains I made earlier in the year. I did workout #1 yesterday and was pleased with how I felt after the long campus layoff. I improved my 4 finger latching which was a definite weak point of the last phase (often caught 3 open).

If you'd like to keep climbing a lot and have done repeaters in the past, perhaps something like max hangs deserves a place in a training schedule. Despite not going to failure I still saw pretty big gains.

If I haven't mentioned it yet, the wood beastmaker is awesome on the skin. Sooooooo much nicer and less abrasive than my simulator.

nice! i just finished my hangboard phase today and saw a max gain of 40 lbs on the 15 mm edge, although less on the 10 mm and the pockets/pinches. I primarily used the 'rockprodigy' method. I can totally see what you're saying, as the 'rockprodigy' hypertrophy method seems to really tire me out muscularly. Did you still take 72 hours (2 rest days) before doing another workout? It might be effective to alternate each week with the eva lopez method and the rockprodigy method. The chris webb parson's method is pretty similar to eva lopez's, which you can probably switch to once you get to half body weight on a hold (for me about 80 lbs). vimeo.com/61430224

Dave Macleod shows using something similar as well: onlineclimbingcoach.blogspo…

The only issue is if these are all hypertrophy or if they're going into recruitment. I've read that hypertrophy should achieve close to failure in approximately 1 minute, and that's only been shown in the 'rockprodigy' method and heavy finger rolls. The other methods seem to achieve close to failure within 5-10 seconds, which would make me think that you're targeting recruitment.

Nevertheless, I too have been focusing more on stopping before absolute failure, which seems to be making a large difference. This seems to be most noticeable on my 'nerves' and my desire to pull really hard, which is most likely interrelated to physical adaptions.

I was still taking 72 hrs rest from strength work but not climbing. I frequently hung tues/fri AM and climbed wed/sat/sun with an extra rest day whenever I needed. With repeaters I was pretty worthless the next two days outside, especially bouldering. Sometimes I needed 96hrs to feel fresh if I dug really really deep. FWIW I'm pretty good at pushing myself alone after years of training for a variety of sports. If anything, maybe the 10(3) system keeps me from getting too close to danger. I've never had a major finger injury though I had some minor tweakiness after my last peak phase when the late snow put me back on plastic. I should have probably started resting earlier but I didn't.

lately i have been switching over to a 5 sec on, 15 sec rest, 3 rep configuration when i start plateauing on my usual 5x5x6. i might try the eva/progressive method as another extension in my next phase.

chris, sorry about not getting back about your previous question. i think PE workouts are good for recovery on PE routes, indeed. but i also think you can train recovery for power routes on the HB, while doing the HYP phase.

in my experience, power recovery (whether training on HB or CIR boulder sessions) works well for power routes and decently well for PE routes. however, it seems like PE recovery only helps my recovery on PE routes, but not so much for power routes. optimally i would train power recovery via power workouts and PE recovery via PE workouts. you would think that recovery is recovery, and that it shouldn't matter, but i think it is kind of specialized.

A little ot, but still hang related:

After having some shoulder issues that were giving me problems when hanging straight-armed, for my last HB phase (ended about 5 weeks ago), I did almost exclusively single rep, 7sec, max weight hangs on the smallest hold on my board (as opposed to repeaters, which seem to really demand more from my shoulder girdle overall).

The workout would look something like:

10min warmup of easy bodyweight hangs, 10sec ea, about a minute between hangs, with the holds getting progressively smaller.

Then I'd do the "meat" of the workout that was looked roughly like this (all on the smallest edge) with a 3-4min break between hangs:

+25, +40, +55, +70, +80, +90 (fail @ 4 sec), +90 attempt #2 (fail @ 5sec), +90 attempt #3 (full 7 sec rep), +80, +60, +45.

I'd give up to 3 attempts on the target weight for the day, and almost invariably would fail mid-rep on the first two and then crush it on the third. Makes me wonder how often I really warm up enough at the crags.

Anyway, it worked reasonably well. I gained about as much over the course of the phase as I typically have when doing repeater style. It was also psychologically easier for me. In my prior phase, I had added a few max-singles in the last few workouts, done prior to the repeaters when fresh. So I had a good idea of roughly where my max hang should be. I think (don't have my laptop with me) the overall improvement was from 85 or 90 to 130 or 135; with the best max hang from the prior phase coming in around 120.

Was it better than repeaters? Who knows. Seem to be training different things to me (with some crossover). I also can't really judge how it has affected my climbing, because somehow I gained 10lb of bodyweight since the spring and have barely gotten out on real rock. I KNOW my fingers are stronger, but I also know I've dropped about 1.5 V grades since winter and really hope that is just the extra pounds, not the beginning of the downhill slide (I'm 40, it's coming sometime, just hoping that isn't until about 50...lotsa stuff I still want to climb)

Will,

Some follow-up questions and a comment:

You started off mentioning shoulder issues. Did you have fewer shoulder problems with this routine versus repeaters?

Were all your hangs using the same grip? 4 finger half crimp?

The slide at 40 doesn't have to be steep. Stay thin, stay in motion.

Will S wrote:I'd give up to 3 attempts on the target weight for the day, and almost invariably would fail mid-rep on the first two and then crush it on the third. Makes me wonder how often I really warm up enough at the crags.

I actually notice the same thing. For the rockprodigy HB workout, the 7 sec set will usually feel much harder than the 6 second. I guess this means that the latter sets need a larger weight increase to compensate for the 1 sec difference. Or, there is some kind of recruitment going on there between sets. This is similar to trying a hard boulder problem or a crux, after several attempts the moves will feel suddenly 'easy' where they felt very difficult before.

Frank,

Yes, it was slightly easier on the shoulder with that routine. My problem with repeaters was that at the weights I use, my shouler girdle would start to slacken a bit by the 3rd rep or so (before my fingers were failing), and I'd end up doing half the set basically hanging fully straight-armed, which causes or exacerbates the pain/damage in the shoulder.

With singles, even with higher weights, I could usually finish the rep with the shoulders and back still well-engaged.

All those hangs, aside from the initial bodyweight warmups, are on the same grip, 4 finger, as open-handed as I can make it and still get 4 fingers on there.

I've got friends who are older, who are climbing harder than me, or at least continued to climb harder than they ever had, well into their 50s before the inevitable slide. I don't sweat it too much, but I know that once I recognize that slide is in progress it will be REALLY hard to motivate to train or diet.

Will S wrote:Frank, Yes, it was slightly easier on the shoulder with that routine. My problem with repeaters was that at the weights I use, my shouler girdle would start to slacken a bit by the 3rd rep or so (before my fingers were failing), and I'd end up doing half the set basically hanging fully straight-armed, which causes or exacerbates the pain/damage in the shoulder. With singles, even with higher weights, I could usually finish the rep with the shoulders and back still well-engaged. All those hangs, aside from the initial bodyweight warmups, are on the same grip, 4 finger, as open-handed as I can make it and still get 4 fingers on there. I've got friends who are older, who are climbing harder than me, or at least continued to climb harder than they ever had, well into their 50s before the inevitable slide. I don't sweat it too much, but I know that once I recognize that slide is in progress it will be REALLY hard to motivate to train or diet.

i have exactly the same problem with my sets of 6, particularly around my 4th or 5th workout, when i am starting to add a fair amount of weight. my shoulders aren't strong enough to prevent slumping into a straight arm position. i stop the hang instead of trying to fight through it, which is really hard on your shoulders. it kind of sucks, because i feel my fingers could definitely go harder.

i have also found it is easier for my shoulders to handle fewer reps with a lot more weight, which is part of the reason i adjust my HB workouts in this direction when i am getting closer to the end of my phase.

At +80 pounds my shoulders really need a fight to stay tight. I can do it but am pretty careful with them. Any way to strengthen them for this other than slow increases?

Chris Plesko wrote:At +80 pounds my shoulders really need a fight to stay tight. I can do it but am pretty careful with them. Any way to strengthen them for this other than slow increases?

Here is a good pdf with a whole shit load of exercises for strengthening the rotator cuff. Dave Macleod has published a few good exercises in Climbing magazine as well. I can't remember the issue numbers off the top of my head but they were published in the last 3 or 4 months.

I also found doing a comprehensive shoulder workout (hang cleans, jerk, up-right row, military press , dips, and push-ups) once or twice a week help keep the shoulders tight. I usually pick 2-3 exercises a week, changing the up the exercises every week.

orthoinfo.org/PDFs/Rehab_Shoulder_5.pdf

koreo wrote: Here is a good pdf with a whole shit load of exercises for strengthening the rotator cuff. Dave Macleod has published a few good exercises in Climbing magazine as well. I can't remember the issue numbers off the top of my head but they were published in the last 3 or 4 months. I also found doing a comprehensive shoulder workout (hang cleans, jerk, up-right row, military press , dips, and push-ups) once or twice a week help keep the shoulders tight. I usually pick 2-3 exercises a week, changing the up the exercises every week. orthoinfo.org/PDFs/Rehab_Shoulder_5.pdf

Awesome pdf, thanks a lot!