Why 7 second repeaters

5.samadhi wrote:Why not add weight and have your feet on the wall and roll up and down on a hold if you want to train that movement?

Yes that makes a lot of sense.

Or perhaps instead of feet on the wall, feet on a chair (for the case where you've got a fingerboard installed over a doorway).

Ken

Tipton wrote: It seems like what you're training [finger curls] is too dissimilar to actual climbing to ever be of use on real rock. You may have lost faith in the hang-board, but whatever method you choose should be as similar to climbing as possible while still isolating the muscles you're training.

Well almost no Concentric finger exercise is going to be very similar to actual climbing. The main point of trying finger curls is that it's another possible approach to achieve Hypertrophy of some key climbing muscles (and tendons?) -- as one part of a multi-phase training program.

I have not "lost faith" in hangboards -- only in using isometric contractions on them as a supposed HYPertrophy phase. Now I could see using isometric contractions for some other phase in a multi-phase program: e.g. some sort of "endurance" phase; or a "sharpening" phase focused on gripping very thin edges.

Also I'm pretty interested in mounting two fingerboards, one above the other, and making dynamic moves between them.

But lately I've having so much fun with campusing on simple wooden rungs that I haven't had time or energy for that (nor for finger curls).

Tipton wrote:
> "whatever method you choose should be as similar to climbing
> as possible while still isolating the muscles you're training."

Well it seems like there's two theories about that ...
One is that 90% of training ought to be bouldering (maybe including system-board as a specialized kind of bouldering).
The other theory is that (other than injury) the two long-term problems for training are: (a) boredom and (b) plateau-ing -- and the answer for both is Variety, and getting serious about Variety implies non-specificity.

Ken

Three problems I have with "hangboards":
(a) Hanging from a fingerboard implies that the main force on the hold is down-ward, and it trains you to unconsciously to see each edge on rock as something to hang down from. But on rock in the Gunks I'm finding that lots of face-climbing crux moves require stepping high onto smears and hanging out-ward on the edge grips. So a big part of success is training strength and especially perception for hanging outward on edges.

(b) Hanging with full body-weight for 5 or 7 seconds is not something I find myself doing much when climbing out on real rock.

(c) Isometric contractions are a sub-optimal way to achieve hypertrophy.

(d) Repeaters are tough on my skin. Skin can become a limitation on Repeater performance in a way that it rarely is on real rock.

Why I'm liking campus-ing so much just now:
(1) The word-of-mouth testimonials about gains I've heard from people who've gotten into campusing are way stronger and faster than gains I've read about from hangboard Repeaters.

(2) The campusing moves I've seen some of the regionally-competitive teens and 20s throw are really amazing. The reasons they climb so much better than me is not just about "technique".

(3) In the Gunks if like me you're less than 5ft9in and you want to climb harder, you've got to be able to launch and latch big deadpoints. I was never good at that (and hangboards just reinforce my old static approach to climbing) so an intense campusing phase is a way to jump-start me into dynamic climbing.

(4) Throwing big campusing moves (in addition to the obvious "ladder" exercises) is just way more fun than hanging.

Ken

kenr wrote:Three problems I have with "hangboards": (a) Hanging from a fingerboard implies that the main force on the hold is down-ward, and it trains you to unconsciously to see each edge on rock as something to hang down from. But on rock in the Gunks I'm finding that lots of face-climbing crux moves require stepping high onto smears and hanging out-ward on the edge grips. So a big part of success is training strength and especially perception for hanging outward on edges. (b) Hanging with full body-weight for 5 or 7 seconds is not something I find myself doing much when climbing out on real rock. (c) Isometric contractions are a sub-optimal way to achieve hypertrophy. (d) Repeaters are tough on my skin. Skin can become a limitation on Repeater performance in a way that it rarely is on real rock. Why I'm liking campus-ing so much just now: (1) The word-of-mouth testimonials about gains I've heard from people who've gotten into campusing are way stronger and faster than gains I've read about from hangboard Repeaters. (2) The campusing moves I've seen some of the regionally-competitive teens and 20s throw are really amazing. The reasons they climb so much better than me is not just about "technique". (3) In the Gunks if like me you're less than 5ft9in and you want to climb harder, you've got to be able to launch and latch big deadpoints. I was never good at that (and hangboards just reinforce my old static approach to climbing) so an intense campusing phase is a way to jump-start me into dynamic climbing. (4) Throwing big campusing moves (in addition to the obvious "ladder" exercises) is just way more fun than hanging. Ken

Ken, I'll bite on this.

A) Pulling out on a grip is still a function of the downward force you apply to a hold. On a flat edge the force of friction is the force you're pulling out with, which is (mew)*(fn). (mew) is the friction coefficient, which you can change by either chalking or spitting on your fingers, and force normal (fn) is the applied force down on the hold. So the greatest outward pulling effect you can attain is when you maximize both (fn) and (mew). That's why hangboarding works in that respect. How you choose to, or need to use that force is dependent on where and what you climb. That's more a question of application through technique than how you train I would think.

B) This is also somewhat area dependent, but if you look at many high-level boulderers, many times their feet cut loose on the tiniest holds during a crux sequence and holding this is essential to their success. Not to mention, training bodyweight on an 8mm edge is preferable to a pulley system which allows you to put 50lbs of your bodyweight on the less than credit card crux crimp, not to mention much safer for training.

C) I won't argue this one much, but hangboarding is all but the accepted method for specified climbing strength training. It allows you to use "holds" without the imprecise and potentially dangerous problem of bouldering at your limit for a full workout. Don't bring up genetic outliers who "just climb," that's not very relevant to what you and I should be doing.

D) Can't argue with this too much, BUT Antihydral and consistent taping can help, not to mention, during HYP you won't be climbing much so this shouldn't be of huge concern anyway. If you have a Simulator, file the edges a bit. It cuts down a lot on the "shearing" feeling on your skin. Secondly, skin isn't a limiting factor in your climbing? Come to Pawtuckaway and boulder for the fall :)

1) Yes, campusing will give rather quick gains to those who have never trained MaxR before. This is likely because they're operating at a low recruitment level, but have a lot of muscle mass. It's simply allowing them to use a larger percentage of those muscles at once, which on cruxes is crucial, but higher recruitment means lower endurance. Finally, recruitment trains quicker (but also fades) because it's just re-programming muscles rather than creating new ones. This is why it's trained later in a cycle, just like PE.

2) Yeah, they're stronger. No surprises there. I can't really argue the point that better climbers are stronger, especially competitive climbers.

3) Yes, MaxR will help with this, but so would dynamic movement drills. That's especially true if you're trying to re-program the way you climb. Training recruitment (if you haven't before) will show big gains in your big powerful movements, but you'll hit a plateau when you reach your body's maximum recruitment percentage. You'll then need more muscle mass to convert through recruitment. This is why HYP comes before MaxR and they need to be trained sequentially.

4) More fun? No arguments there, but it carries more risk potential, certainly isn't all inclusive, (reasons above in 3), and training isn't necessarily fun-based.

I'm interested in what you think as you seem to have a lot of differing opinions from the Andersons and the likes.

Why 7 second repeaters in a few easy steps:

1. The nature of the stimulus will dictate which muscle fiber types (Type-IIb, IIx, IIa) are hypertrophied.

2. We want to use the hangboard for hypertrophy in Type-IIb and II-x fibers. We will get the hypertrophy stimulus for IIa from our bouldering and PE work.

3. Since those Type-IIb and IIx fibers we want to hypertrophy are using the phosphagen energy system, and the phosphagen energy system can only provide enough energy for about 5-10seconds of full effort, our rep length needs to be somewhere around 5-10sec. They chose 7sec from that 5-10 range for specificity purposes, it was their measured avg time of being on a hold before moving again when redpointing.

4. From vast quantities of real world experience and studies, we know that the 3-8 reps per set range is most effective for building Type-II fibers.

Given the above: Using 5-10sec reps, at 3-8 reps/set, for 3-6 sets, is the sweet range for what we're trying to achieve.

Finally, don't think of repeaters vs. max single hangs as an either/or choice. They are optimized to train totally different things. Max weight single hangs are heavily neurolgically focused - motor unit dischage rate and synchronization, etc. Max weight repeaters in the 3-8 rep range are hypertrophy focused. Both have their place in your training toolbox.

So that's my $0.02 on why.

The Manderson approach is a long term system for consistent gains. Think of it as base theory to build your plan on: grow the muscle fibers, recruit them, train them to perform in anaerobic state, and increase the capillary network. There are many tools to achieve each of those.

The tried and true approach is to switch up whatever aspect you are targeting in your training every 3-4 weeks. That will keep you spending most of your training time on the steep parts of the returns curve. Going longer than that and you're getting less and less return on time invested (i.e. you plateau in that aspect). Going longer also means you lose more of the gains in other aspects before you train them again. That approach also tends to spread the stress around the body because you use different exercises or tools to target different aspects, and avoid some of the repetitive use issues.

Use your brain, choose your tools. If I am naturally strong in the shoulders and lats and can huck giant spans on the campus board, but get shut down by hard single fingery moves, then I might chose a hangboard phase of max-singles as a recruitment tool instead of campusing. Maybe two years down the road, it's a different story.

Every person is different, and those individual people will change in what they need as they progress in their training history, age, how far toward their ultimate genetic potential, etc.

The sort of bullshitting about "well this guy campused and it worked better than hangboarding to make him climb harder"...c'mon guys. First, the plural of anecdote is not data. Second, we have no way of knowing what was limiting the person in the first place or what grade they are climbing. Someone used to climbing vertical 5.11 face routes who is trying to break into steep cavey 5.12 is probably going to get more in the short term out of campusing and bouldering than hangboarding, their limiting factor is probably not fingers but shoulders, lats, and other prime movers.

Brendan Blanchard wrote:campusing will give rather quick gains to those who have never trained MaxR before.

You seem to be linking campusing workouts with Recruitment, but I'm not seeing why they have to be done that way. If you make fewer moves skipping rungs, like say 3 reps (1->4->7->10) or 2 reps (2->6->10) ... or just one big throw - Yes that's a focus on Recruitment.

But if you ladder up and down like say 2 -> -> 9 -> -> 2 then that's 14 reps. Do say 3 sets with short rests in between and seems to me it's a HYPertrophy workout. Even if only go upward 2 -> -> 10 that's 8 reps per set, which is getting into classic Hypertrophy range.

Brendan Blanchard wrote:you seem to have a lot of differing opinions from the Andersons and the likes.

It's not me who has differing opinions. It's almost any thoughtful climber writing who lives outside North America.

Ken

Will S wrote:From vast quantities of real world experience and studies, we know that the 3-8 reps per set range is most effective for building Type-II fibers.

But I think almost all of the studies that were done about number of reps per set were for Concentric contractions, not Isometric contractions. I'd be glad to be shown wrong here. But for now I'd suggest that from controlled studies, the optimal range of Isometric-contraction reps for Hypertrophy is:
No one really knows.

As for real world experience, what "we know" depends on the "we". Seems like for the "we" of top climbers outside USA, the most effective for Isometric-contractions is single rep with lots of rest in between. Maybe that's more of a focus on Recruitment than Hypertrophy.

But you've still got this widespread "real world experience" of non-USA climbers (e.g. Ben Moon, Dave MacLeod, Eva Lopez) not finding much use for Repeaters (for whatever purpose).

The other problem with "real world experience" for finger-strength Hypertrophy is that lots of people say it's tricky to measure the size of those muscles -- but the bigger problem is that most climbers don't even try to measure them (before and after a supposed HYP phase).

Ken

I don't have much to offer except that I think it's hilarious to talk about hypertrophy from isometric fingerboard work outs. Especially with most climbers being on starvation diets. Forearm muscles just don't really grow very much in the first place.

^ its years and years of this type of isometric work that will grow a muscle.

For instance, my father, an artist of 60+ years, is an illustrator and has grasped a pen or brush in between his fingers and drawn. The muscle between his pointer finger and thumb (go ahead squeeze these as if you are holding a brush between them and see the muscle) has hypertrophied to a ridiculous rate. Its the hugest THAT muscle I have ever seen on anybody. Isometric. Years. Pay the price.

kenr wrote: But I think almost all of the studies that were done about number of reps per set were for Concentric contractions, not Isometric contractions. I'd be glad to be shown wrong here. But for now I'd suggest that from controlled studies, the optimal range of Isometric-contraction reps for Hypertrophy is: No one really knows. As for real world experience, what "we know" depends on the "we". Seems like for the "we" of top climbers outside USA, the most effective for Isometric-contractions is single rep with lots of rest in between. Maybe that's more of a focus on Recruitment than Hypertrophy. But you've still got this widespread "real world experience" of non-USA climbers (e.g. Ben Moon, Dave MacLeod, Eva Lopez) not finding much use for Repeaters (for whatever purpose). The other problem with "real world experience" for finger-strength Hypertrophy is that lots of people say it's tricky to measure the size of those muscles -- but the bigger problem is that most climbers don't even try to measure them (before and after a supposed HYP phase). Ken

Ken, I actually like your idea of small ladder on campus boards for hypertrophy. I believe Eric Horst has talked about this a good bit. He calls it hypergravity training - any type of foot on or foot off training with weight added that is systematic. He says it is the best type of training for hypertrophy of forearm muscles and blows hangboarding out of the water.

By the way, I'm not too familiar with the Anderson brothers...that is Rockprodigy on rockclimbing.com...when I was seriously studying training it was Dale Goddard, Eric Horst, et all that were talking. Rockprodigy was just some guy on rockclimbing.com regurgitating their ideas of periodization. Has he actually contributed anything substantive to the community? (no offense intended seriously, I just remember his original rockprodigy posts on rc.com a decade+ ago being basically Dale Goddard's training plan).

Some science as to the hypertrophy effects of isometric contractions suggesting that short, max contractions do indeed stimulate muscle volume increases. Not forearm specific, but still interesting.

Anyone have access to the full article? I'd like to see their work to rest times.

effects of isometric contractions

kenr wrote: But I think almost all of the studies that were done about number of reps per set were for Concentric contractions, not Isometric contractions. Ken

You really love to beat the concentric/isometric drum. Give it up. It has basically ZERO real-world application here.

First, plenty of studies have shown isometrics are effective hypertrophy stimulus. Zach links one above, but there are literally dozens of them have demonstrated this over the years. And while iso is not the optimal choice in these studies, it's still quite effective and the difference between the two (iso vs concentric) is not that large. Further, most of these study designs are nothing at all like real world applications.

Second, because there is no effective way to train the finger-flexor muscles we want to train in a concentric/eccentric fashion, the theoretical benefit of concentric is moot.

Why moot? Because you will never fashion a concentric exercise for training these finger-flexors which achieves the same intensity and stimulus as you can with an isometric. Many reasons why that is the case, that should be blindingly obvious to anyone who's spent time on both the hangboard and heavy finger rolls or other concentrics. The very nature of a tiny contact area combined with the body moving around, along with shifts in the lever-arm length, will mean the limiter in those concentrics is often not force-application, but instead the limiter is subtle shifts in body positioning or coordination of the movement.

Additionally, given that we are using very, very high % of VMC to create this stimulus, doing it with isometrics, rather than a "moving"
rep, is safer from an injury-potential perspective.

You guys are all over the place. You are attempting to, what we call in my profession, over-optimize. You're losing focus of some very, very basic elements of athletic training. We are using the board, instead of the "HIT" stuff, for isolation purposes. We can only achieve a high enough level of stimulus for Type-IIb fiber hypertrophy by isolating the finger flexors and removing anything else that affects the ultimate loading we can put on them. That means the hangboard is the tool of choice.

"HIT", systems boards, etc have their place. They can be used for hypertrophy. But again, as I believe I said in a prior post, the relevant question is "Hypertrophy of which fiber-types?" along with "and of which muscles?". The typical HIT protocols are going to be a little more tilted toward Type-IIa than other tools. They won't be as effective for Type-IIb/x. And we are using other exercises, during other phases of the cycle, that effectively create hypertrophy in those other fiber-types. HIT or system boards are really in the realm of bouldering, just more structured instead of random moves.

I think we can all benefit from some experimenting. That said, I've not found campusing to be an adequate substitute for hang bored.
While explosive movements certain present themselves on real rock, it's not something you do for every move, even on highly dynamic routes or boulder problems. What I've found is campusing tires my body out before my fingers/forearms are sufficiently stressed (and I can crank a few one arm pullups each side). Also, my skin gets destroyed much faster than hangboarding. Just to be clear, I'm not saying campusing is inferior, just that the focus is different. YMMV.

My apologies if I'm coming across as a jerk here. Lots of stress right now, and I'm a smartass on the best of days. Trying to be constructive with input but probably compromising my message with the tone. Anyway...carry on.

ken, you bring up some good questions, but i agree that you are probably overanalyzing a bit. first, the biggest problem is that it would a take lot of work to put together any sort of definitive study that determines which methods create the most helpful-to-climbing hypertrophy in the forearms. for this reason, i think the best thing to do is to look at the effects in terms of strength gains. i don't think anybody has any doubt that using the hangboard via the rockprodigy style workouts or the Eva Lopez workouts will increase strength in an effective manner.

second, i think you are trying too hard to break down a pure difference between hypertrophy and recruitment. think of it more in terms of a spectrum with some crossover. a nasty downjump onto a small edge would more weighted towards the recruitment while a set of repeaters would be more weighted towards hypertrophy. both will provide strength gains, and both will affect recruitment. it isn't all or nothing.

you mention not running into circumstances where you are heavily loading the fingers for a 5 to 7 second period of time. i can think of a LOT of times that i have been in this situation, particularly in the last year. one example is clipping off a small hold with bad feet. another good example that i ran into recently was on several gear routes. i hadn't really placed many widgets in a while. the climbing was strenuous with bad feet, and the placements required some tinkering. i would basically count to 5 while trying to place gear, and if it didn't go in well i would switch hands and count to 5 again, etc. i was able to successfully get through several tough stretches to do this.

regarding hypertrophy training using the campusboard, i would have to say i don't recommend it. out of all of the training methods, the campus board is probably the most likely to be where you get injured. not only fingers, but elbows and shoulders as well. i don't recommend doing more than 1 campus board session a week, and i definitely do not recommend going overboard on that one session. my elbows are aching just talking about it.

another reason i don't recommend it for hypertrophy is that it introduces variables that can keep you from reaching the number of reps that are more optimal. for example, did you fall off due to just flubbing the coordination? did you just catch the rung wrong and slip off? i think it is a lot easier to control these things on the hangboard.

is the hangboard the perfect tool? obviously not. even the anderson bros have admitted that if it was a perfect world and they had infinite free time they would probably do something different. the hangboard is just a tool like anything else. it is just part of the big picture, and ultimately the results are measured on the rock.

slim wrote: second, i think you are trying too hard to break down a pure difference between hypertrophy and recruitment. think of it more in terms of a spectrum with some crossover. a nasty downjump onto a small edge would more weighted towards the recruitment while a set of repeaters would be more weighted towards hypertrophy. both will provide strength gains, and both will affect recruitment. it isn't all or nothing.

I quoted this because I think it needs emphasis and is often overlooked in this forum. I think some of workouts Ken is talking about ie non anderson bros, fall more towards the middle of the spectrum, ie 10 sec max hangs. Which is probably why those climbers recommend them.

Dana Bartlett wrote:Will, thanks for your posts. Always sensible, logical, and well reasoned.

+7/3
Or 6/4 in my feeble case

Its not just time it is of course also load. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious.

@WillS, great info, and thanks for adding to the discussion. I've spent the past couple evenings googling the different concepts you introduced above and have a pair of questions I was wondering if you could help answer regarding type II muscle fibers:

1) You mentioned IIb and IIx, how do these differ? From what I've come across, it is different names for the same fiber.

ptjournal.apta.org/content/… [scroll down to paragraph 3 under "Myosin Heavy Chain Identification"]

bit.ly/13xJPJK

2) I understand the fatigue time for type IIb/x fibers (5-10sec), but haven't found anything to support the associated rest times between reps as proposed for repeaters. Any insight on this? From my understanding, these fibers take some time to recover from their effort, and my assumption is that 3-4sec is not sufficient time (if the load is truly intense enough to force IIb/x recruitment). Is there any justification for this rest period? Eva Lopez's approach is go all out or that 7s (with a safety margin so one doesn't completely exhaust the muscles) and then recover 3min until the next effort - which to me seems a more specific way of training those IIb/x fibers. Anyway, thoughts.

thanks in advance

Erik W wrote: 1) You mentioned IIb and IIx, how do these differ? 2) I understand the fatigue time for type IIb/x fibers (5-10sec), but haven't found anything to support the associated rest times between reps as proposed for repeaters. Any insight on this?

1. The IIb and IIx labels, when speaking of human species, are really different names for the same thing. In truth, there is no such thing as "IIb" in humans, it is IIx. But since the nomenclature is not std, and it seems most early writers on the topic called them IIB, it's entrenched. So I cite both, so people exposed to one or the other naming convention don't get misled/confused.

They are broken into categories based on myosin isoforms. There are other fiber types in addition to IIb for non-human species that you won't see commmonly referenced...IIc, IId, etc.

2. My own idea about the rest times is that since the IIb/x are the last fiber-type recruited during a movement, if we are doing the next rep before they fully recover, we may be able to recruit/train more of those fibers. I haven't done much reading in this area, and would love to hear any info from people who have.