Your weighted pull up, that's near the top of our V10~V11 range. When we look at the finger strength
numbers, that puts you in about the V4~V5 median with our data. When I first started YouTube,
I was a happy average climber who climbed V5 at the max. After being on YouTube for a while,
I became motivated to start training and stop being average. One year later, I successfully
climbed my first V7. It seemed I would be on my way to V8 and finally not be average anymore,
but unfortunately, I injured my fingers 2 times in a row while training on the MoonBoard. It’s as if
fate wants me to be an average climber forever on YouTube. However, life is all about standing
up where you fall down, so here I am making another comeback again. In the past few months,
you might remember me saying multiple times that the V7 I was projecting got taken down
before I could finish it. I was hesitant to crimp hard because I didn’t want to injure my fingers
again. I shifted my attention to climbing slabs to hone in my technique, and I also knew that I
needed to crimp train in a controlled situation like hangboarding to gain enough confidence to
actually crimp hard in an uncontrolled situation like climbing. Although I feel I know the basic
principles of hangboard training, I still decided to reach out to an expert because I want to speed
up the progress and I don’t want to accidentally re-injure my fingers again. The expert I reached
out to is world-class climbing coach, Kris Hampton, who climbed 5.14 and V11 in his forties.
Prior to a video call with him, he asked me to measure 4 key measurements. First, the max weight
I can hang on a 20-mm edge for 10 seconds. Second, my max 7-3 repeaters, meaning how many rounds of
7-second hangs and 3-second rest that I can do. Third, my one rep max weighted pull-up. Lastly,
my max rep of the normal bodyweight pull-up. For the max weight I could hang on a 20-mm edge,
it was 18 lbs, which is around 13.7% of my body weight. For some reason, I never measured my max
weighted hang before I injured my fingers. The closest thing I did was measuring the max force
I could pull with one arm on a crane scale. At my peak, I could pull 63.7% of my body weight with
my right arm, and 61.4% of my body weight with my left arm. Assuming the numbers are transferable,
that would equate to a weighted hang of 25.1% of my body weight, which means I was 11.4% of
body weight away from my peak. For the max 7-3 repeaters, I was able to do 6 rounds,
which is 60 seconds. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pre-injury numbers that I can compare with.
As for my max weighted pull-up, it was 90 lbs, which is 68.7% of my body weight,
and my previous peak was 77% of my body weight. As for my max rep of the normal body weight pull-up,
it was 15 reps, which was my all-time best at the time. After showing the numbers to Kris, I had a
video call with him. In the call, he broke down my numbers and gave me a lot of valuable advice.
Data is actually a really interesting thing in climbing you know there's more and more of it,
but we also have to be really careful not to take it as like the hard truth you know.
There's so much more that goes into climbing. I have your numbers here. Your weighted pull-up
was at plus 90. That's really strong. That's near the top of our V10~V11 range.
As for the quantity of pull-ups, you did 15 pull-ups. That puts you solidly in our
V8~V9 range, so both of those things I would say aren't things you need to put a ton more
energy into in order to climb harder. When we look at the finger strength numbers,
first thing is the 10 second max hang on a 20 millimeter edge, you were able to add 18 pounds,
that puts you in about the V4~V5 median with our data. The repeaters you went 60 seconds,
that also puts you in the v4 v5 range or so, so definitely not as high level as your pulling
strength, so something we could put some time into and see some gains with. Your goal is to get
back to V7. In the V7~V8 range, we see about 100 seconds. That's gonna be something to shoot for,
and we also see plus 40 to plus 50 pounds in the max hang to get to that V7~V8 range.
At which climbing grade does it make sense to start training with the hangboard? I'm a big
fan of you should start experimenting with it as soon as you want to. I don't think it's ever too
early. Being able to load your fingers slowly and in a more controlled way, I think is really smart.
If you're still gaining finger strength from just going and climbing then by all means, keep doing
that. I actually have the same opinion as you do, but then you commonly hear people saying that,
okay hangboarding is dangerous, you could potentially injure yourself, but in my mind it's
like so controlled compared to say like normal climbing. The injury risk is so low. I'm not
sure where that myth came from that hangboarding is dangerous. I just don't think it is. I don't
think there's any inherent danger. It's all about can you handle the loads that you're putting on.
Now, if you're climbing six days a week, and then you add in hangboarding on top of that. It might
be too much load, and you might end up with an injury, but it's not hangboard's fault, it's your
fault for going overboard. Hangboarding is just simply more controlled, so there's no reason to
think that it would be more dangerous. Should you hangboard before climbing, after climbing,
or on non-climbing days? The sort of prevailing wisdom these days is that you should always hang
board before climbing. I don't necessarily think that's true. I've seen it work for people the
other way around. There are some general rules to follow. If you're trying to gain pure strength,
then you don't want to do that when you're tired. With those purely strength hangs, like max
style hangs, it's more of a neural response. That stuff a lot of us feel should go before climbing,
whereas something like repeaters, which is going to be a little more structural, should go after
climbing. There's also the idea that we have to keep in mind of, am I a really skilled climber,
or is skill something I still need to put a lot of work into, and where does finger strength fall in
that spectrum. Do I have lots of finger strength, or is finger strength something I really need to
work on. I'm a fan of putting the thing you need to work on the most first, then if there's time
for the other things by all means, go and do that. Is it more effective to train on a smaller edge,
or is it more effective to train on the same edge but add weight onto yourself? Yeah that's a good
question, and hotly debated actually amongst a lot of people who are really paying attention to
what makes fingers stronger. There's not a ton of research into climbing at all,
but I think finger strength is probably one of the most heavily researched parts of climbing,
so it's looking like staying on a larger edge somewhere around 20 millimeters,
something about the depth of your first pad of your finger, and adding weight until you get to
a place where it's going to be uncomfortable, now for some people that's half of their body weight,
for some people it's three quarters of their body weight, whatever it is, and then maybe move down
to a slightly smaller edge and add weight. And that's specifically for getting stronger fingers,
now hanging on just a small edge at body weight can be really really valuable for pain tolerance,
for just learning to trust hanging onto a small edge, and that can translate better to a lot of
you know small hold climbing if your gym still sets with tiny holds, so both are really good,
it just really depends on what your final outcome desire is. Do you want to be able to pull harder
on relatively big holds? Or are you climbing on these vertical things with tiny little razor
crimps? If that's the case, you might want to spend some time hanging on tiny little edges.
Should we cool down our fingers after climbing or handboard training? If yes, how? I don't think
it's as completely necessary if you're doing relatively low intensity endurance type work,
but i generally find that if I finish a hard finger session, and then I go straight into the
house to make dinner or whatever, then my fingers are pretty stiff afterward, but if I finish
by just doing a little low-intensity climbing afterward, something happens there that seems to
like lubricate my fingers a little bit, and allows them to move a little better throughout the night,
and into the next morning, so i'm a big fan of just doing relatively easy moves,
or even relatively easy hangs. It can be a good way to get your fingers out of that
state where they're ready to try really really hard. Thanks again Kris for taking the call,
and then work with me, I really appreciate that. I started to train with the training plan Kris gave
me. I won’t be revealing the details here in the video because Kris coaches climbers for a living.
If you are interested in finding out the details or potentially working with Kris yourself,
definitely click the link in the video description below to find out more about it. I trained,
trained, and trained. I had to take a break in between because a personal life-changing event
happened to me. After I was back, I continued to train, train, and train. Time flew really fast,
and I was halfway through the program, and Kris asked me to measure the 4 key measurements again.
For the max weight I can hang on a 20-mm edge for 10 seconds, it jumped all the way up to 55 lbs,
which is around 42% of my body weight. I was able to surpass my pre-injury best by around 24.6%,
and I am extremely happy about it. For the max 7-3 repeaters, I was able to do 9 rounds, which is 90
seconds. That’s a 50% improvement over the initial measurements, and I am also very happy about it.
As for my max weighted pull-up, even though Kris told me there isn’t a need to focus on it since
general pulling strength isn’t what stops me from climbing higher grades, I still decided to train
it because when my fingers and forearms are dead from climbing and hangboarding, my lats still have
a lot in the tank, so I might as well continue to improve my general pulling strength. Additionally,
I sometimes like to imagine that in an alternate universe where I didn’t injure my fingers twice,
my finger strength would progress at a similar pace as my general pull strength, and I could’ve
been climbing V11 now had I not injured my fingers twice. In any case, I was able to set a
new personal record and pull 105 lbs, which is 80% of my body weight. As for my max rep of the normal
body weight pull-up, I did not train for this specifically since Kris told me general pulling
endurance isn’t what stops me from climbing higher grades and I also don’t have an interest in
training general pulling endurance. However, I was still able to make a slight improvement by pulling
16 reps. I know what you are thinking, what about your actual climbing? Before starting the training
plan, I wasn’t even close to finishing any V7 in my gym. I wasn’t able to finish a V7 either
before the halfway point of the program, but I was able to slap the finish hold of the V7 I was
projecting. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to figure out how to cling onto the finish hold before it
got taken down, but to me this is still progress. It feels like I progressed from V6 to V6.9.
If you are interested in working with a great coach like Kris and potentially seeing the same
results as I did, definitely click the link in the video description below to find out more. Full
disclosure, the platform where Kris hosted his training program allows me to generate a referral
link, and if you use my link to sign up, I will receive a commission. Lastly, the full hangboard
I have been training on all these times is from Frictitious Climbing. If you are in the market
for a full hangboard, definitely click the link in the video description below to find out more
and use code GEEKCLIMBER to get free shipping, and definitely check out their innovative screw
free doorway hangboard mount as well. Again, full disclosure, I will receive a commission
if you make a purchase. Thanks for watching. Like, subscribe, and definitely stay tuned for part 2.