New paper about low load hangs- comments?

Effects of Different Loading Programs on Finger Strength in Rock Climbers

Interesting article and approach, using Crimpd app data.

Bottom line, article suggests that a 10 minute Abrahamsson type low load protocol is just as effective as max hangs for building finger strength and that the two approaches are additive.

I have some reservations, although adding 10 minutes a day of low load seems worth trying.

The following may not make sense unless you read the paper.

Critique 1- the results from the low load arm may be overstated because of two factors.

1) the subjects in the low load group trained for a longer time than the other groups between tests and 

2) since the low load protocol is also known as a rehab protocol, it' possible, maybe likely, that some/many of the subjects in that group were initially injured, making their initial strength test artificially low and exaggerating the effect of their training.

Critique 2- the inclusion criteria for each group seem a little indistinct to me. 

To be in one of the low load groups, meant more than three such hangs weekly- seems ok, but up to one max hang every other week and you are still included in the group.

One the other hand, to be in the max hang only group, you only needed to do more than one max hang every two weeks? And could still do up to 5 low load hangs every two weeks?

Critique 3- the max hang plus low load group seems like a unique group dedicated to training. Maybe they improved the most because they were also doing lots of other training related activities, such as limit bouldering, 4x4s, whatever.

You could recast these results as :

any amount or type of finger training is better than just climbing for increasing strength and that more finger training is better than less.

What do you think?

I’ve been doing “no hangs” once per day on my non- climbing days since June, coupled with max hangs as part of my warm-up on my climbing days.  I take supercharged collagen about an hour before both.

I have definitely increased my finger strength significantly. My understanding is that the no- hangs build tendon health.  A double blind study needs to be done to know for sure, but at 10 minutes a day there is little downside. 

I actually think you could do an RCT pretty easily with non-climbing university students, run it for a month, maybe even include a group "just climbing" at the gym, as well as a true control group.

Unfortunately I think it wouldn't be generalizable to the population of active climbers.

And an RCT of the active climber group would suffer too much from extraneous factors, like other training, how much climbing the subjects are doing, etc.

Personally I've found a lot of training protocols helpful, max hangs, small edge hangs, repeaters, but in the end, you kind of hit your genetic limits.

As for collagen, never did anything for me. Different diets, different metabolisms.

It's not clear from the first post but strength gains per se are not the point. Strength gains sufficient to handle the loads of high-end climbing are the point. Otherwise climbing or bouldering harder would be more than sufficient.

It would be really helpful to know the climbing level of the "participants."

The bigger methodological aspects discussed in the three critiques in the original post also present serious problems.

It may be a while before any actual science sorts this out.

If I read the paper correctly, the average ability across all groups was about V6/12c.

Which makes me more suspicious that the climbers in the low load group may have been injured initially. 

Thereby making their improvement over the course of the study partially due to recovery from the injury itself, rather than the intervention.

Other than using it for rehab, how many 12c climbers would do low load hangs for up to 16 weeks without also doing max hangs?

maybe i missed it (just skimming), but it sounds like the study is not really rigorous. 

"Interestingly, the improvement in the “Both” group was statistically greater than either the “Abrahangs Only” or “Max Hangs Only” groups, with the mean increase (5.8%) being the approximate sum of the mean “Abrahangs Only” (2.5%) and the “Max Hangs Only” (3.2%) groups. "

the criterion was completion of some exercise set. but that really makes no sense. someone who trains 5 days a week will see more results than someone who trains 5 minutes a year. so the data would have a selection bias towards those that simply trained more.

i also didn't see any grade relation in the paper. i agree unrelated random training can improve climbing grades at the low end. for example, picking up lumber can absolutely improve grip strength to v1. however, this won't be effective at v13, for example. it says ircra grades of 20. what is 20? sent a soft 20 in the softest gym? sent a dozen moonboards? was 20 the data set where abr hangs had the most promise? the most overlap with max hangs? 

abrahangs with abra as an author. sounds like a major conflict of interest to me. how much massaging and cherry picking was necessary to push this paper?

the lack of definitions, the lack of tendons addressed for loading, it really does lack the rigor of scientific review, imo. where is fdp and fds? where are the vo2 max or metabolites? self reporting on some random app is a basis for data? the whole things sounds like a few bros who picked up a few key words and said 'yooooo [insert smiley emoji]'. the lack of precision like '18 - 22' is absolute bonkers. it should have read 'all participants were tested on a 22.0001 cm edge, measured by laser resonance after every attempt. 

the COI alone makes is grounds enough to toss this in the trash, imo. there are other studies with higher rigor that showed 40 60 80% efforts, where the 60% had no improvement. i didn't read all of the citations to see if it was cited because i don't really care.

No hangs are cool and are much like a rehab protocol. But there is no miracle workout. The best finger training protocol is the one you do regularly week after week for years. Trying to maximize marginal gains as an adult/ amateur can be fun but probably unnecessary in most cases. IMO. 

I've heard a hand surgeon state that the most tendon development that he has seen was in agricultural workers

Ward Smith wrote:

I’ve been doing “no hangs” once per day on my non- climbing days since June, coupled with max hangs as part of my warm-up on my climbing days.  I take supercharged collagen about an hour before both.

I have definitely increased my finger strength significantly. My understanding is that the no- hangs build tendon health.  A double blind study needs to be done to know for sure, but at 10 minutes a day there is little downside. 

What kind of loads do you use for the no-hangs?

Just did them a few minutes ago. I go by feel, vary between maybe 60% bodyweight to a few full bodyweight with feet off the ground.  I do mostly full crimp and three finger drag.  Ten seconds on, 20 seconds off for 10 minutes. I think that the exact load and hang/rest ratio are less important than just doing them.

FWIW, the Abrahang protocol in the paper is fairly complicated, lasts 10 minutes, involves 10 sec on/20 sec off, and uses 6 different finger positions. 

The intensity is supposed to be "only a small strain should be felt in the forearms."

@ first last- I don't really see a conflict of interest here- nobody is going to make money off low load hangs. Just the normal risk of confirmation bias all researchers face.

Furthermore, while using the Crimpd app for data has many problems, it strikes me as a clever way to get at data that is otherwise pretty much unavailable, unless you work for Lattice or a National team.