Earlier this year, all the climbing gyms in my county closed temporarily.
I know in order to maintain my finger strength, I should've trained on the hangboard consistently
until the gym opened again.
Not going to lie, I failed to do so partially because hangboarding alone is relatively boring,
and partially because I thought the gym would reopen soon.
Unfortunately, the gym did not reopen soon, and after a few months of no climbing, I realized
that I was having trouble hanging myself on 20mm edges.
It was definitely a shocker to me.
One day my friend showed me the Instagram page of C4HP.
The owner of the page, Dr. Tyler Nelson, showcases a new innovative hangboard training method
called "one-arm max-pull isometrics."
I found it very interesting, so I reached out to Dr. Nelson.
He was very kind and gave me a free consulting session.
I won't show it in this video but if you are into the details of the science and research
of finger training, I highly recommend you book a consultation session with Dr. Nelson.
Here's my understanding why the "one-arm max-pull isometrics" is better than the
good old two-arm hangboarding.
First, you will be less prone to injury.
If you can barely hang your body weight with both arms on a specific edge and you push
too hard and all of a sudden your fingers can't take the weight, you injure your fingers.
But if you stand on the ground pulling as hard as you can with one arm, this kind of
injury will never happen.
Second, it's very beginner-friendly.
If you are a beginner, chances are high that your fingers can't hold your body weight
with both arms on a 20mm edge.
That means there's nothing you can do except for "just climbing more" if you want to
improve your finger strength on a 20mm edge.
However, with the "one-arm max-pull isometrics," you can stand on the ground and pull as hard
as you can with one arm on the 20mm edge. Even though the force you can generate is
going to be less than half of your body weight,
your fingers can still be trained properly.
Third, it's also perfect for advanced climbers.
If you are an advanced climber, hanging on 20mm edges with both arms is likely too easy.
You can try to hang as long as you can, but that's the training for endurance, not for
strength.
With the "one-arm max-pull isometrics," again, you can stand on the ground and pull
as hard as you can with one arm on the 20mm edge.
Your max force generated might be 80 percent of your body weight, but you can continue
to train and increase your finger strength to 85 percent of your body weight.
Essentially, you can train weighted hangboarding at home without weights at a much lower risk
of injuring your fingers.
In my opinion, this is pretty remarkable.
However, there's one thing you have to do for this method to work.
The thing you have to have,though,is you have to try hard.
I decided to train 30 days with the "one-arm max-pull isometrics" on the 20mm edge to
see how much I would improve.
Excited to start, I first measured how much finger strength I had.
First I measured the right hand, and it was 65.6 lbs, which is around 50% of my body weight.
Next, I measured the left hand, and it was only 48.8 lbs, which is only around 37.5%
of my body weight.
I knew I regressed but it was shocking to see the actual numbers, and that kinda explained
why I was having trouble hanging myself on the 20mm edge with both arms.
I wasn't ready to accept how low the numbers were, so I measured both hands two more times.
The second time for my right was 63.6 lbs, and the third time for my right was 53.8 lbs.
The second time for my left was 47.8 lbs, and the third time for my left was 40.2 lbs.
Yeah, the numbers were not getting better.
I was getting weaker, no doubt about it.
Dr. Nelson recommended me a training plan but I simplified it to make it work for my
schedule.
Prior to training the one-arm max-pull isometrics, I warm up my body with whatever workout plan I
plan to do for the day.
After that, it's "half crimp recruitment pulls," meaning 5 reps of pulling down with
4 fingers as hard as I can for around 3~4s for both right and left arm,
1-minute rest between reps.
After that, it's "open-hand recruitment pulls," exactly the same protocol as the
"half crimp recruitment pulls" but with 3-finger drags instead.
That's it!就是這樣！
It's pretty simple and it doesn't take up too much time.
I trained it 3~4 times a week, and 30 days just flew by really fast.
It was time to measure the numbers again.
My right hand improved to 82 lbs, which is 63% of my body weight, and my left hand improved
to 67.6 lbs, which is 52% of my body weight.
I thought I could do better, so I measured again one more time, but my right came out
to be 80.4 lbs, and my left came out to be 67.4 lbs, so yeah, the first try is always
the best try.
As you might notice, even though the improvement was pretty significant, but I wasn't particularly
excited in the video, and that was because my numbers are still worse than my pre shut-down
numbers. But looking back, I am actually happy that I was able to regain my finger strength
at such a fast pace.
That's why my climbing has not been too bad since the gym reopened.
I've been training on the MoonBoard pretty hard lately, and I halted the hangboard training.
Otherwise, it would be too much on the fingers.
However, I can totally see myself do regular gym climbing while training the new one-arm
max-pull isometric, and see continued gains.
I highly recommend you give this one-arm max-pull isometrics a try, especially if you aren't
training your fingers in any shape or form or if you are having hangboard training the
old school way.
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Frictitious Climbing is currently running a promotion where if you buy the doorway mount,
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Full disclosure, I am not sponsored, but I will earn a commission on each purchase.
This is a great way to support my channel as well as innovative climbing startups.
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