Finger Strength and Plateau
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I’ve been climbing for just over a year now and have got to the v6 indoor and v5 outdoor level. As I know, my technique always needs to improve, but I would have to say strength-wise it’s finger strength that I need to work on. |
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Jaren Watson wrote: How old are you? 28 |
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Joe B wrote: I’ve been climbing for just over a year now... Tendons take time...a lot of time. Longer for some people than others. Climbing progress is a long-term process. A year is nothing. Be patient, give your body time to catch up to your ambition. |
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Jaren Watson wrote: That’s old enough you’ll want to be (as you’ve found already) very careful about pushing too hard too fast. Thank you for the response and advice! Gotta check my ego and take it slow. I can’t hardly wait 3 days without climbing so I can’t imagine a serious injury.... And yes I agree I have to get outside much much more. |
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JCM wrote: Thanks for the advice! I’ll stop the grade chasing and enjoy the process.... have to work on technique anyhow! |
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If you're not doing it already, look in to training your antagonist forearm felxors to mitigate those injuries. Here's two exercises from Eric Horst: https://trainingforclimbing.com/effective-forearm-antagonist-training-for-climbers/ |
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What's the evidence that forearm antagonist exercises prevent finger pulley injuries? |
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My understanding was that antagonist training helped prevent muscular imbalance thus lessening the likelihood of tendonitis, etc. but I’ve never heard it having an effect on pulley injury prevention. ? |
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kenr wrote: Or if evidence is difficult to find, what's the reasoning in physiology + biomechanics for why we ought to believe that it helps?I don’t know if there’s any peer reviewed literature out there to confirm it, but one of the thoughts behind it is that your pulleys get stronger by a responding to a stress (like crimping hard on the proj) by adding more collagen strands to the existing ones. Collagen is delivered through the bloodstream, but pulleys experience poor blood flow compared to our muscles and other parts of the body. These antagonist exercises will encourage more blood flow to your pulleys which will aid in their recovery and growth from the stress of crimping hard on the proj.
Hmm, seems like there could be some lurking variables in this assumption... |
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Incorporating everything said so far into my training! Doing push-ups made a huge difference in elbow soreness I had in the past. So it makes sense to incorporate antagonist training for my other muscles/tendons. |
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I don’t have any evidence that antagonist exercises help prevent pulley injuries, but I swear by them now. Wrist curls, reverse wrist curls, and rubber band extensions have helped me get past a injury plateau. I was always stuck at a certain strength level and whenever I tried to surpass that level I would get terrible tendinitis in my left forearm. |
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Will O. wrote: These antagonist exercises will encourage more blood flow to your pulleys which will aid in their recovery and growth from the stress of crimping hard on the projNot getting why "antagonist" exercises with fingers/forearms would do any better at stimulating blood flow any better than positive "agonist" usage. The muscles used for forearm exercises are nowhere near the finger pulley tendons. Why not just open and close your fingers repeatedly? That is moving the joints which are actually near to the pulleys. I do lots of that. Mostly while I'm climbing, sometimes when I'm not climbing. Ken |
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Ned Plimpton wrote: My understanding was that antagonist training helped prevent muscular imbalance thus lessening the likelihood of tendonitis, etc. but I’ve never heard it having an effect on pulley injury prevention. ?Yes especially since the "antagonist" exercises for normal finger/forearm motion + pulling are not antagonist / opposite pulls for the finger pulleys. Yes the "muscular imbalance" explanation is the usual old-school argument for doing antagonist exercises. But one of the smartest new-school Physical Therapy experts who writes for climbers has pointed out that finger/forearm imbalance is the most dramatic proof that the whole "antagonist" strategy for injury-prevention must be fundamentally flawed. Because a serious climber is never going to get the strength of the finger extensor muscles anywhere close to the strength of their finger flexor primary climbing grip muscles. So even if do forearm antagonist exercise, the remaining "imbalance" can be slightly reduced, but it will not come close to going away. Reducing the ratio of finger flexor to finger extensor strength from 5:1 to 4:1 remains an "imbalance". Ken |
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kenr wrote:Ken, I don't think we're going to convince each other to switch camps, but I've really enjoyed revisiting my training rationale with a more critical eye. Not getting why "antagonist" exercises with fingers/forearms would do any better at stimulating blood flow any better than positive "agonist" usage.I'll admit, I am skeptical that wrist curls are going to increase the blood flow to your pulleys, but the extensor and flexor tendons are attached to and powered by the same muscle in the forearm. While pulleys are exclusive to the flexor tendons, blood delivered to both the flexor and extensor tendons is sourced from veins located in the connective tissue between them, so I wouldn't say it's not possible. I agree that nothing will stimulate blood flow better than "agonist" usage. However, this "agonsit" usage is responsible for the stress on the pulleys. Maybe some sort of low intensity cool-down could have the same effect without the damage? With that being said, many extensor exercises are commonly used as PT for pulley injuries as they bring blood to the same area while deloading your pulleys. So I guess this is a form of prehab. Why not just open and close your fingers repeatedly? That is moving the joints which are actually near to the pulleys. It's been shown that resistance exercises increase blood flow to our limbs more than aerobic exercises. So opening your hands is a good step, tendon glides would be better, but an exercise with resistance would be best. |
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Take a week off each month, and occasionally a 2+ week break. Your tendons need it if you're already experiencing chronic issues. Thank me in a year... |
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The top response to this thread over on r/climbing has some great points for anyone interested in dealing with finger injuries. |
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Take 5 mg collagen 30 min before climbing (especially if your session will involve hard crimping.) |