In climbing, the skills needed could be split into three well-defined pillars. Mental, Physical & Attitude. One may argue that these three are not equally important, that the physicality is way more important than the other two. That’s far from the truth. You don’t need to blind trust me on this one, I am not a climbing expert, neither a doctor nor coach. But I have read a lot of resources about this topic, written by eminences in the field. And all of them talk about these different pillars that build you as a climber, and all of them refer to them as equally important.
Each of these three pillars could also be split into different components that can be tackled individually, and be trained separately, improving therefore our overall climbing performance.
Some of them can be tackled easily than others. For example, for some, being able to climb every day could be easy, they could be surrounded by a community of climbers, or even they could have a climbing gym right on the corner! But for others, having the time to train three days a week could be a big challenge.
I will try to talk about all the pillars in coming posts, but today I want to focus on a component inside the Physic pillar. Finger Strength.
Finger strength is a complex topic in climbing. It is also the hardest component to improve of the four in the Physic pillar, (Endurance, Movement, Finger Strength and Body).
As a side note, there are elements in the Body component that we can not even change! Like our height, or our wingspan.
Goal
I wanted to create some training plan for me, one that could improve my finger strength but also help to recover the ligaments and tendons in my fingers along the way. Could this be done at the same time?
I have read about the active rest for recovery and for training in different books and resources, and decided to apply it to my finger training.
Tendons and ligaments tend to recover really slow, basically the ability to heal comes from the synovial fluid; in opposition, muscles have the blood helping them to recover, that’s why they heal faster. So why not trying to help the former recover by helping to pump the synovial fluid, while at the same time preventing the potential injuries, and ultimately training my finger strength?
I have a job that makes me sit from six to eight hours daily, so compared with someone that has a more physical job, I have some advantages and some disadvantages. I am not physically tired when I go training, which is optimal, but I am damaging my flexibility and my posture by sitting so many hours.
Due to my job, I normally train in the evenings. I have been climbing for 4 years now, and I have improved a lot, but I’ve reached the 7a/7a+ (V7) plateau. That is why I need this finger strength improvement.
My Current Training
I currently go to the gym three days a week. I only do boulder, but I try that one of the days is focused on endurance, trying to do longer routes, or do problems up, down, up and down. Not only that, but I also do twice a week flexibility and antagonist trainings at home. And then once a week, finger training on the BeastMaker 2000.
Passive-active Training Plan
I have decided to add, once a day, a ten minutes finger routine. I call it passive-active, because it is more a warm up than a training. I start by doing finger extensions, for one minute, then I do hangs on the BeastMaker, with my feet on the ground to control the weight. I warm each joint and finger, and I do different grips and pockets.
⚠️ Hic Sunt Dracones
Beware that this training may be dangerous if you have some sort of pulley injury, it doesn’t matter if it is only a strain. I don’t see someone doing fingerboard training with a partial tear or a full rupture…
Results
I have being doing this for three weeks now, and I can tell I have improved on my finger strength, so I will keep doing this training. But what has surprised me a lot, is that the light pain I had on my middle finger’s middle joint (PIP) is gone.
I will add updates each month.