SSC for finger tendon conditioning?

Hi all,

I've started climbing again as of the start of this year and am concerned about my finger tendons, my current approach is just to take things easy and stick to nice big holds for the most part and only work smaller crimps very seldomly and if my fingers start to feel fatigued I stop. So far I've been making rapid progress as my strength develops but I know I'll want to start working routes with more demanding holds in the future and want to prepare for this as thoroughly as possible to avoid injury.

Would a steady state cycle be a useful aproach? so start by hangin for 12 seconds off a large hold, repeat to accumulate a minutes total work. The following week increase hold time to 20 seconds, conttinue this process until I can hold a minute with little difficulty and then repeat the whole process whilst wearing a 2kg weight.

Contiune in this manner until I've got up to 1.5 times bodyweight and then move onto a smaller hold using only bodyweight,build up to 1.5 times bodyweight again, proceed to a smaller hold.

Does this sound like a sensible approach? should I stay at a given hold time for longer? If I remember correctly we were supposed to hold at a given time for 4 weeks but I'm not sure.

Cheers

I can't say I've climbed at a high enough level to require devoted finger conditioning (at least more than I have always done). Generally the training of it has been enough, as it's been my fingers as the weak link which dictated how much/what level I was climbing that day. Pretty sure you will get some strong advice here though

What kind of routes are you talking about; rating-wise?

I think your climbing approach is sensible. However, I wouldn't begin to do specialised grip work just yet. I would rather progress very gradually to harder routes. Just be very conscious about the feedback you get from your finger joints. Like, if you're working a problem and you get slight pain from a joint, leave the problem for next week.

Small twinges to the fingers usually go away in a few days, so if you limit your climbing to once a week for the first six months, and then increase it to two times per week, you should be safe.

aiken54: I mostly boulder and can reliebly complete V2s and the occasional V3 so nothing too difficult yet. I've climed but not lead on a couple of HVS trad routes as well

Ravn: Ok I'll just enjoy the climbing for the next few months and then start adding upping the frequency. I play a lot of guitar which I've found helps with th erecovery of the fingers the next day and I imagine means there's already a certain degree of confitioning there but of course hanging off of a crimp is a different matter.

I'll report back if I run into any trouble

Sounds good. Oh, and one more thing. Focus on doing the most with what you have: If you lack finger strength make up for it with technique. 80% of your currently unclimbable problems could most likely be solved by using better footwork, sequencing, route reading, power conservation etc. So work with your limitations by getting creative.

Have fun!

Ravn said:

Sounds good. Oh, and one more thing. Focus on doing the most with what you have: If you lack finger strength make up for it with technique. 80% of your currently unclimbable problems could most likely be solved by using better footwork, sequencing, route reading, power conservation etc. So work with your limitations by getting creative.

 

 

Cimb better not harder, right?

Campus everything

I would be interested to hear more about this.  personally at a v2-3 level i dont think dedicated finger training is warranted but im trying to bust through v8-9  and my fingers are definitely the weak link.  does anyone have any advice or info that might help?  i see a lot of fingerboard programs around but there is little to no information as to why they do these things it is mostly just "it worked for....."  and " this is what these people have tried and say is good".

Using a wet towel and wringing it out is great conditioning for climbing without too much stress on the finger tendons . I find presses off of a wall on fingertips to be good.

If you've had issues with your fingers before, I'd suggest you find out exactly what causes it. For me, crimping initially hurt after I got an injury. However I was able do deadhang and later campus on small rungs without any issue. This is important because you want to stress the finger, so it will grow stronger, but can avoid injuring it more in the process.

This is just an example though. I don't recommend you doing campus work!

If you're comfortable hanging on jugs, maybe try using one hand on a jug and the other hand on a rung?