When I visit a climbing gym, I see people train wrist rolling from time to time.
I have no idea what it is all about and I never bother to find out more about
it.
However, the max grade I can climb, which is V7, has been the same for the past 2 years,
so I know I need to change things up and experiment new things and see what works.
Einstein once said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results."
Therefore, I decided to try out training wrist rolling for 30 days.
First, I went to the gym and see the max weight that I could wrist roll for one rep.
I started with 10 lbs.
In my mind, I expected it to be effortless, but it was actually surprisingly challenging.
I then tried 15 lbs.
I was still able to do it, but it felt near my max effort.
I tried 20 lbs, and not surprisingly, I could barely get it off the ground.
After searching the weight rack, I found an 18 lb kettlebell.
I was only able to get it halfway up.
I was very surprised that my one rep max was only 15 lbs.
When I woke up the next day, my entire upper body was very sore.
My body doesn't get nearly as sore from training one-arm pull-ups nowadays, so this
was pretty shocking to me.
The intensity of wrist rolling can't be higher than that of the one-arm pull-up, right?
It feels like wrist rolling activates some parts of my muscles that have never been activated
before.
Realizing how little I knew about wrist rolling, I decided to reach out to Jason, who is a
doctor of physical therapy and a sports and J orthopedics clinical specialist, for advice.
He also runs an extremely underrated YouTube channel called Hooper's Beta, which you
should definitely check out.
-[Geek Climber] What part of the body does wrist rolling train, and what's the main benefit of it?
-[Jason] So wrist rolling will primarily train the wrist extensors or the wrist flexors, but
you also going to have an affect on the elbow flexors as well.
The main benefit of wrist rolling is to work those forearm muscles. You can use it like
I mentioned before to train the wrist flexors, but typically the greatest benefit will be
antagonistic wrist extension training.
-[Geek Climber] Yeah, and you know I often heard the term of training antagonist is important, but I
never really fully understand like why.
-[Jason] When we go to grip and we flex, our wrist wants to extend because that extension, that
angle, creates a stronger grip position. If I were here, that grip is not going to be
as strong. So whenever we grip something, we like are working those flexors really hard.
The wrist extensors have to stabilize to put us in these better position, so not only will
it help your strength of your grip and finger flexion, it can help prevent overuse injuries
by training those antagonistic muscles, and it helps with a lot of stability.
Doing antagonistic training has multiple benefits.
-[Geek Climber] In terms of wrist rolling, is there anything that we should be careful in terms of the
form?
-[Jason] Start with your wrist in that pronated position, so your palms will be facing down, and you
want to have your arms by your side, so your elbows are going to be bent in 90 degrees.
So a lot of people will hold their arms straight out and in front of them with their elbows
straight. That's a big mistake because then you are essentially turning this into a shoulder
exercise. Because the shoulders in that position are much more likely to fatigue before the
forearms would, and then when you are actually doing your repetitions, you wanna be aware
of the amount of flexion that you are getting from your elbows, so like how much the elbows are
bending during that motion. Basically what is happening is your wrist aren't strong enough
to curl that weight up. The compensation at the elbow will basically change the effect
gravity has, so instead of that weight coming straight down, as you flex your elbow, it's
coming here, so now that gravity pointing straight down to here. It's a lot easier
for your wrist to be able to do that motion, so that's a compensation we want to look for
because you maybe doing more weight than you actually can comfortably tolerate.
-[Geek Climber] So I also do realize when I do the first initial measurement. I do realize that my elbows, it
wants to go out.
Why is training wrist rolling good for climbing, like how would training wrist rolling help
me climb better?
-[Jason] The two primary benefits are working on your antagonistic muscles and most importantly
because you can work on concentric and eccentric motions.
The eccentric is the focus on this because eccentric training is one of like the better
tools we have not only for strengthening like our muscles and connective tissues, but it's
often actually used a lot in rehab.
They've done a lot of research on eccentrics to treat tendinopathy. Eccentric load forces
better adaptation; they can potentially prevent an injury, or help you recover from one.
-[Geek Climber] So if I am understanding correctly, does that - mean that when I do the wrist rolling, the
lowering part is actually what's the most important part?
-[Jason] Yea, that is correct, so that's a mistake that a lot of people make is they will roll
the bar up, and then just let it slide right back down. It's gonna loosen the grip and
let the bar roll in their hands.
That lowering part is harder to do because it takes more control. It kinda is more natural
to just like, no, just let it go back down because I feel like I am getting the work here while
I am shortening and pulling it back up. But it is correct
the lowering is actually more important, where you should really work on that control as
it comes back down.
-[Geek Climber] What would be a good training routine you will recommend for me on the wrist roller
for the next 30 days?
-[Jason] I would recommend people doing this after climbing, or as part of a rehab or prehab
days, and I recommend doing something like this twice a week.
Sometimes up to 3 times a week is fair.
As you are doing it for your sets and repetitions, we want to choose the correct weight that
will allow you to perform like one or maybe two complete roll up and downs, and you consider
that to be like a set.
You can perform like three or four total sets with a good rest period in between.
If you are spending like 30~60 seconds on the wall, you don't need to be wrist rolling
for 3 minutes. You want to work a similar energy system, so that those improvements
in the wrist roll training are going to translate well to your style of climbing.
-[Geek Climber] Thank you so much, Jason, for taking the call and then collab for this video.
I really appreciate it.
Based on the advice from Jason, I started training with 3 sets of 1 rep with 10 lbs
post climb twice a week.
My muscles also felt way less sore the next day, so it seems like my body was adapting
to wrist rolling.
On day 11, I felt a bit stronger and decided to increase the weight to 12 lbs.
I trained and trained and trained.
30 days flew by really fast, and it's time to measure my one rep max.
I decided to start with 20 lbs and to my surprise, I was able to roll it up quite easily.
I increased the weight to 22.5 lbs.
To my surprise again, I was able to roll it up.
I increased the weight again to 25 lbs.
I was able to roll it up with near max effort.
After taking a long rest, I gave 28 lbs a try, but I could only barely get it off the
ground.
So just with 30 days of training, I improved from 15 lbs to 25 lbs, which is a significant
67% of improvement.
This proves again that if you are a beginner at something, all you need to do is put in
the work consistently, and you will be able to see good progress.
I know you are going to ask the million-dollar question.
Yeah, you wrist roll is better but did you actually climb better?
Obviously I have to climb better according to the science explained by Jason.
Unfortunately, I haven't sent a V8 since this experiment, so I cannot prove it to you
anecdotally.
The improvement is most likely, like improving from V7.3 to V7.5, the kind of improvement
that you can't see for sure.
Recently I have sent a MoonBoard V6 and a bunch of MoonBoard V5s.
I am not sure if those count in your eyes, but in any case, I feel like I improved,
and I would suggest you try out wrist rolling as I did if your max grade has been the same
for a long period of time.
Thanks for watching.
The wrist roller I used in the video is from a small brand called Redge Climbing.
I know you can get a random PVC pipe and DIY a wrist roller yourself, but if you want a
wrist roller that feels amazing, sustainable, and is of high quality, you should definitely
click the link in the video description to check it out.
Redge Climbing is based in Europe, so definitely check them out if you happen to be in Europe.
Full disclosure, I am not sponsored, but I will earn a commission for each purchase.
This is a great way to support my channel as well as small passionate climbing brands.
I turned down 95% of product shoutout requests from various brands because I don't want
to recommend products I don't even use on this channel.
I will only recommend products on this channel that I truly found useful, so be sure to check
out the link in the video description below.