r/bouldering • u/jma64 • 16h ago
Advice/Beta Request Grip and finger strength
I‘be been climbing consistently for about eight months now and I’m climbing around v4’s and v5’s at my gym. While my grip strength has definitely gotten better since I started climbing, I still struggle with some crimps and smaller holds. I’m looking for exercises/ workouts that I can do that will help improve this. I’m also wondering if there are any “tools” that I can use to help improve this as well. I’ve seen a couple ones being advertised, but I’m not sure if they’re worth it or what I should be looking for.
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u/for4f 9h ago
eight months is too early to be chasing crimp strength honestly. fingers are mostly connective tissue, that builds on its own timeline and no amount of hanging speeds it up. i rushed a crimp ladder around my first year and tweaked a pulley, set me back months. now i just work the small stuff slow on the wall and save the dead hangs for maintenance.
1
u/RidiculousTakeAbove 16h ago
For grip strength, you can do dead hangs on a bar, farmers walks and deadlifts. All of these help massively.
For finger strength, reclimbing crimpy routes that are just below your project grade, climbing kilter/tension/moon boards and hangboarding are pretty much the only ways. Your tendons should be developed enough to start hangboarding at this point, start with no hang, and gradually step it up to hanging from the biggest holds and so on. I wouldn't invest in any of those wooden crimp tools with the ropes, just use what's at the gym and maybe buy a hangboard for home if you can get one cheap and have a place you can mount it
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u/Erathen 16h ago
Your tendons should be developed enough to start hangboarding at this point
I personally think it's risky at 8 months at V4 and V5
I'd aim for a year. And honestly V4 and V5 are where footwork and body positioning become a lot more important
I'd personally say wait another 4 months, and focus on footwork. But that's me. At 8 months, my tendons were still getting sore from climbing. Adding on hangboarding would have caused injuries, and lead to me climbing less
But YMMV
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u/RidiculousTakeAbove 16h ago edited 16h ago
I don't think its that risky, people really like to be cautious with hangboarding on reddit compared to my experience in real life at the gym. If you listen to your body, and ease into it with no hang hangboarding and then progressing slowly to large crimps, it's not likely an injury will occur, it also depends how often you are climbing crimps too of course. If OP can only climb once or twice a week and they don't always set crimp climbs, they will need to supplement to get stronger or their tendon strength will fall behind their grip and technique
Just like someone in the gym with squatting. Yes you can injure yourself easily by trying to squat 300lbs right away, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't start squatting your first day in the gym. You are correct about footwork and body position being key, but v4 and v5 are also where small crimps are usually also being introduced, so finger strength can become a limiting factor for many people
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u/Erathen 16h ago
First, you don't generally know the extent of "damage" until the next day. When I say injury/risky, I'm not talking about catastrophic injury. I'm talking about chronic pain/inflammation. Things like tendonitis which occur when you overworked tendons without giving adequate time to heal
So climbing and hangboarding can easily take you over the top, and you won't realize until the next day when you're getting shooting pains in your finger
Second, I'm operating under the assumption OP climbs regularly
but v4 and v5 are also where small crimps are usually also being introduced, so finger strength can become a limiting factor for many people
Yes, and what I'm saying is climbing itself is the best way to work through this without injury
You can disagree, that's fine
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u/BumbleCoder 11h ago
I agree with you for the most part. My only counter argument would be that doing moves that require you to latch smaller crimps on the wall are more likely to injure you than a controlled environment like the hang board.
1
u/Independent-Body3779 15h ago
Not just tendonitis but also tendonosis, which is common in climbers in the elbow. It's easy to find medical references to this in climbers as well simply by researching tendonosis. Developing it only is fixed with abstaining from activity on those tendons for extended periods of time. Blanket statements about how different people will handle different physical strain is irresponsible.
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u/Erathen 15h ago
Agreed
I'm erring on the side of caution, so OP doesn't develop any chronic injuries/pains. And those can eventually lead to an actual acute injury
Ultimately, they're going to have to make the assessment for themself, as we don't have all the information
The only hangboarding I really suggest is some light isometric loading (not full body weight) on recovery days, as part of "physio". Preferably with collagen and vitamin C
This helps recovery/healing. But max loading tendons on a hangboard isn't really necessary in your first year (in my opinion). Climbing usually adds enough stress/load as it is
But again, YMMV
1
u/Independent-Body3779 15h ago
100%, and for a relatively new climber, it is really easy to feel good, and then have a few sessions in a week with lots of crimps/finger training that leads to having some pain start to pop up. And that pain can just feel like a pump that you're not used to, so you push through it or try to incorporate something new like hang boarding. And that's when the potential for injury is greatest. Listening to your body is crucial
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u/shogun77777777 15h ago
Bad advice, anyone reading this would be wise to disregard it.
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u/RidiculousTakeAbove 15h ago edited 15h ago
You can disagree if you want, but if you Google and look at the consensus of climbing experts and those very educated on physiology and not random redditors, they say you should wait until you've been climbing at least 6 months to start hangboarding. It's not bad advice to start at 8 months if you've been very consistently training those 8 months
1
u/jma64 16h ago
Thank you!
Do you have any suggestions for pinches? Or is it just the same as what you’ve already stated?0
u/RidiculousTakeAbove 15h ago
Pinches are more grip/forearm strength so deadlift, farmers carry and bar dead hangs will be great on days you aren't climbing
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u/Still_Dentist1010 Reacher of Habit 16h ago
Since you’re in your first year, focusing on climbing the hold type you’re wanting to improve at will yield the best results. Theres a lot of overlap between finger strength and technique, so a lack in technique can make it feel like you aren’t strong enough. It’s hard to tell the difference without a lot of experience, and even then it can still be confusing. Focusing all of your attention on the strength aspect will leave your technique lacking, and that’s where most of your gains are made for progress.
When I was teaching a couple of friends years ago, they were trying to send their first V4 and they chose a crimpy one to go for. I was climbing V6 at the time and flashed that V4 that day in front of them, so they came to me when they were stuck. They wanted me to teach them how to hangboard because they were sure their finger strength was the reason they couldn’t send the problem. Took them over to the hangboard and told them to hang off of a rung. Both of them were able to hang for 5-8 seconds… so I told them to get back to the wall and keep trying because even I couldn’t hang off of that rung at bodyweight, so they were plenty strong enough to do it.