RPTC Pinch Grip Stalled

While following the rock prodigy training method for the hangboard, I've found that I've progressed very little on the pinch grip when opposed to other holds. Everything else has consistently had me adding +5 to my base each week however I've been stuck on the same wide and medium pinch base for the last 4 sessions. Any tips for overcoming a plateau on just the pinch grips while everything else is still continually progressing? I have 4 more hangboard sessions until I was going to move on to Power.

I have had the same problem as well. I decided during my last hangboard session to move it from the last hold that I work to the first hold and I was able to progress. At this point my next strength phase will be just losing 5-10 lbs and see how much I can progress from there. I talked to a friend the other day and he was shocked at how bad I sucked at that particular hold. Some people (such as myself) just have to work a lot harder to progress on pinches.

Same situation for me. After the full hangboard period I was only a little better on the pinches. Not sure how to interpret the lack of improvement (relative to the other grips). Perhaps the pinch muscles just take longer to strengthen?

There are posts which i am so glad get posted. I too, or four, am flummoxed by the wide pinch. The medium pinch is fine, -#15, but the wide sux eggs. I don't have enough weight to take off. Tried just keeping my toes on the ground, but you can not quantify what is going on, too easy to not try hard. SO i happen to have the H.I.T. strips, avec pinches. Use those, no problem. The wide pinch on the Trango board is just the wrong shape for me? Strong climbing partner feels the same way, just awkward more than physically impossible.
The other trick (cheating?) is to put your finger tips on top of the pinch, making it more of a jug pinch. As you get stronger, use less tip over the top.

Can't speak for whether it works or not, but you could try the pinch blocks described here:
stevemaischtraining.com/fin…

A lot of interesting information on his site. Also he has an interesting interview on the Training Beta website (Anderson brothers are there too, and tons of other good interviews as well).

When I first added the wide pinch to my routine I also felt totally flummoxed. I had multiple workouts in a row where I'd fail all the sets, even taking what felt like a ton of weight off. I kept taking more and more weight off until I could complete all my sets in a workout, and I think the real problem was just that my baseline was much lower than I expected it would be -- even lower than my MR baseline, which is my other weakest grip.

Once I found that super low but "true" baseline and completed a couple sequential workouts with it, I was able to progress as normal afterward.

Interestingly, for my most recent cycle, I moved the pinch grip to a later slot in the workout than it had been previously, and I again grossly overestimated my baseline -- I didn't take into account how much more fatigued I'd be by the time I got to the pinch to the later slot.

This is a bit of a tangent, but it makes me wonder if there's any value in systematically cycling the order of grips from cycle to cycle for beginner/intermediate trainers. (Or maybe shuffle the order after 2 cycles, or 3 cycles, or n cycles.) This would interfere with tracking progress from cycle to cycle, but not over the long term.

As a relative beginner I think I have a lot of room to grow in all around strength across grips rather than really needing to pinpoint certain weak grips. I wonder if I'm doing my long term growth a disservice by e.g. keeping the pinch as the last grip where it feels like I'm not getting as much out of it as if it were earlier. Instead I could have it as the last grip for Cycle 1, C2 and C3, as the second grip in C4, C5, C6, as the third grip in C7, C8, C9, etc. Then by C19 it would be back to the last position again, allowing for the long term progress tracking.

Anyone try something like this before?

That's one hard pinch compared to other hangboards I've used. It really doesn't allow any slight leverage assistance from other contact points between your hand and the pinch-hold like so many other hangboard pinches do, it's pure pinch and nothing but pinch.
...that's a lot of pinches!

Muscrat wrote: I too, or four, am flummoxed by the wide pinch. The medium pinch is fine, -#15, but the wide sux eggs.

Weird, you are the first one I know that has a harder time on the wide pinch. I've seen people do better on the medium pinch, but only because they cheat, whereas most people's fingers aren't long enough to cheat on the wide pinch.

Anyway, if you are gonna mess w/ weights anyway, I high recommend just fabricate pinch blocks. It'll be less stress on your shoulders. Same thing w/ monos, I'd just thread finger through sling to pick up weights.

reboot wrote: Weird, you are the first one I know that has a harder time on the wide pinch. Anyway, if you are gonna mess w/ weights anyway, I high recommend just fabricate pinch blocks. It'll be less stress on your shoulders. Same thing w/ monos, I'd just thread finger through sling to pick up weights.

That's what I was thinking, the wides are way easier than the med, to the point I don't even train them. I think there is a wrist element/back of forearms that comes into play when doing things like monos or two-fingers on the board (if you don't go totally slack on your shoulders/arms) vs. slings so I see some value in using the board.

The problem I've had using blocks and similar for pinch training is that I can often use the "web" between my middle thumb knuckle and the index finger and a bit of the meat of my "thumb muscle" to get a lot more skin friction than I can using the RPTC pinch, where all the force is on my thumb itself and the distal halves of the fingers. But maybe I just need to cut the blocks so they are only 2"-2.5" deep (I've tried with various stacks of lumber blocks and stacked barbell plates, dimensional lumber at #x4 is about 3.5" deep).

Will S wrote: The problem I've had using blocks and similar for pinch training is that I can often use the "web" between my middle thumb knuckle and the index finger and a bit of the meat of my "thumb muscle" to get a lot more skin friction than I can using the RPTC pinch, where all the force is on my thumb itself and the distal halves of the fingers. But maybe I just need to cut the blocks so they are only 2"-2.5" deep (I've tried with various stacks of lumber blocks and stacked barbell plates, dimensional lumber at #x4 is about 3.5" deep).

You can also install little "backstops" on the pinch blocks to limit how far down the block your fingers can go, thus limiting the depth of the pinch. This would keep the "web" part of you hand away from the pinch. See video in link here: stevemaischtraining.com/fin…

Will S wrote: The problem I've had using blocks and similar for pinch training is that I can often use the "web" between my middle thumb knuckle and the index finger and a bit of the meat of my "thumb muscle" to get a lot more skin friction than I can using the RPTC pinch, where all the force is on my thumb itself and the distal halves of the fingers. But maybe I just need to cut the blocks so they are only 2"-2.5" deep (I've tried with various stacks of lumber blocks and stacked barbell plates, dimensional lumber at #x4 is about 3.5" deep).

Since wood blocks are so cheap, you can build more than one and bolt on stopper strips to vary between shallow, finger tip to deep, meat-hooking pinches. Although I think shallow pinches has more overlap w/ finger strength than hand strength & so I don't train it as much.

Hey Tim, what point in your workout are you doing the pinch? Keep in mind that if its near the end, you are working harder and harder every week up to the point that you get on the pinch, so you're probably just more taxed already (if you have multiple grips before it). If it's a target grip for you and you're satisfied with the progression on the other grips you're training, maybe try moving it up in sequence and see if it makes a difference.

Also, pinches are funny because the force you are applying is not nearly as directly related to the resistance as other grips. This is because you're having to generate enough NORMAL force (i.e. inward force to create frictional force) as opposed to just mechanical force of keeping your finger bent on a flat crimp/edge (where normal force is significantly less critical). So if you train on a more humid or hotter day and you don't progress in the resistance you have hanging on the pinch grip, you may very well actually be progressing without realizing it by having to create more normal force since the friction is worse.

• disclaimer - i may have misused a term somewhere in there, but the concept should be clear enough.

I had the same problem, couldn't even take my weight off the ground with the wide pinch. But I found that if I started with 45lb taken off of the wide pinch on the first session, I was able to progress really quickly, to the point where after 8 sessions, I was able to do one session of body weight on the wide pinch. So start lower than you think you need to, and try that?

for me, the big pinch is odd in the other direction - i have consistently improved a ton with it. it is my last grip of the workout also, so i would have initially guessed that i would get killed on it.

i used to have the wood block setup. it works great if you do them individually (ie either one set per hand at a time, or maybe separate weighting systems). i found that if i did them at the same time it would crush my thumbs between the blocks (which hurts and cheats) or by trying to 'spread' the blocks apart, which kind of felt like cheating also.

have you tried liquid chalk? i think it really helps a lot.

I think the differences in the wide and medium pinch may be due to finger "crimp" strength and finger "sloper" strength. As you can see in the pictures, for the large pinch you are bearing down with the finger tips (1 or 2 pads) and the medium pinch you are bearing down at the base knuckle. Just a possibility. For example, I am pretty decent at slopers and find the medium pinch easier than the large pinch. However, my boyfriend who has superior crimp strength than me can use the large pinch but can barely use the medium pinch.

I'm also wondering has anyone ever held the smallest pinch on the bottom? Monomaniac? I can use the M/L pinches with about 20% body weight added for 10s but that tiny pinch seems damn near impossible.

Large pinch grip

Medium pinch grip

Tiny impossible pinch??