Training with an injury

It is often said that our fingers are not made to withstand the forces put on them during hard climbing.  I seem to collect pulley strains at a decreasing rate of one per year or so.  Early on this was from crimping all the time.  Now I have rules for myself of when I can crimp, but the forces of the universe conspire against me.  This time it started while trying the bottom of Parallel Universe at Rumney in the rain. If you've ever tried the route you already know on which hand the finger is, as well and the offending hold.  Luckily I was able to keep it under control for a good spring send, but now I'm looking out at beautiful climbing conditions getting myself ready for a hangboard session in my dark, wet basement.

There is good discussion of finger injuries on the web here and here.  I won't go deeply into how I treat my injuries, other than saying I try everything: contrast baths, cold water, heat pad, stretching, putty, etc.   The training described here is probably safe if you have a slight pulley injury, I can't speak for other injuries: collateral ligament, flexor tendon etc.

Okay, now down to business.  If you're going to train with an injury get used to the open handed grip.

photo: www.moonclimbing.com

My experience is that with a minor pulley injury one can pull as hard as you want as long as they don't close your hand more than the above picture.  This is difficult, but not impossible, if you are climbing outside.  The best tools, in order,  are the fingerboard, campus board, and a bouldering wall where special problems can be set.


1.  Fingerboard: Review the hangboard workouts on the workouts page of this blog.  Notice that only one set of each workout asks for a 1/2 crimp hang.  Either skip this hang or hang 3 finger open hand with the hand of the injured finger.

2.  Campus Board:  This is where I lose most people.  The campus board is thought to be a very dangerous training tool.  This is not deserved unless you campus with a full crimp.  With an injured pulley one can safely perform any campus workout if they stick to a 3 finger open hang grip.  This requires a fairly large degree of strength so its probably not best for everyone.  I have even experimented with two finger open handed campusing during an injury without aggravating my finger.

3.  Bouldering Wall:  This requires problems to be set so that the hold for the injured hand can be grabbed 3 finger open handed(see a trend?).  These problem can still be quite difficult, but care must be used to not close ones hand if the holds are poor.


Why is 3 finger open hand important?  This grip allows the fingers to be loaded while remaining nearly fully extended, thus there is very little load on the pulleys.  What about 4 finger open hand?  In order to engage your pinky the other fingers must bend.  This puts a nontrivial strain on the tendon pulleys.  The 4 finger open hand/ half crimp is very safe for training on non-injured fingers, but not so great for an injured finger.

Scaling for the Fingerboard

Before I get started, if your interested check out the charts of my fingerboard workouts by clicking above.

The last post was about the fingerboard workouts I do at the moment.  These have developed over the last several years.  I believe the workout can be done by only scaling size of hold and weight added down to a level of about V6 or mid 5.12 climbing.  If you take out the front 2 and back 2 hangs and replace them with front 3 hangs I think it scales down to V4 and low end 5.12.  Any climbing level below that and the fingerboard probably is not the best use of climbing time.

Its also worth noting that each workout has a totally different perceived difficulty.  The repeaters are by far the most painful of the three.  Because of all of the rest built into the single hang workout it feels like your not doing much work at all.  The maximum repeaters fall somewhere in between.

I do one workout of each every week.  This gives me one hard, one medium, and one easy day of fingerboarding each week.  Of course this can be scaled to your need.  Another good choice would be a three week cycle.  On the first week 2 days of repeaters, in the second week 2 days of maximum repeaters, and in the third week 2 days of single hangs.  This could be worked up to a 6 week or 12 week cycle as needed.  During the climbing season one day of maximum repeaters are probably sufficient to maintain finger strength.

The fingerboard may be less important for others than it is for me.  Whenever I'm on climbing trips I get progressively weaker throughout the trip.  I think some of this is due to missing training, but this will be the subject of an upcoming post.

Hangboard Workouts

This blog was started mostly so I could document my training. I'll begin be explaining all of the things I do separately and finish with how they fit together into a "program". Its worth noting that I have no formal education in these matters, but I have spent a considerable amount of time reading training material for climbing and other sports in general. Also I've been involved in sports at a high level that have more systematic training than climbing: gymnastics and diving.

First of all which hangboard to I use. I started out with the Revolution "Hovah", then moved to a Moon Board, then I used a combination of the two plus a single small campus rung. Now and for the foreseeable future I'll be using the Beastmaker 2000.

When I do a a hangboard workout I use five main grips.

1. Back 2: ring and pinky finger.
2. Front 2: index and middle finger.
3. Middle 2: middle and ring finger.
4. Half Crimp
5. Sloper

I have 3 different types of workouts I do with the hangboard. I'll describe each.

Repeaters:

This is the main workout described on the Beastmaker website. 1 set of repeaters consists of hanging for 7 seconds, resting for 3 seconds, and repeating 7 times. Between each set I rest 2 minutes. I order the grips as follows:

1. Back 2 (7s+3s)x7, rest 2 minutes
2. Front 2 (7s+3s)x7, rest 2 minutes
3. Middle 2 (7s+3s)x7, rest 2 minutes
4. Half Crimp (7s+3s)x7, rest 2 minutes
5. Sloper (7s+3s)x7, rest 2 minutes

I'll do two rounds of repeaters per workout with some one arm pull-up work between(to be described later). If I make it through all 7 "reps" in a given grip during a workout I'll add 2 or 3 extra pounds the next workout. If I fail before the 5th rep I'll subtract weight next time. This is the hardest of all the fingerboard workouts I do.

Maximum Repeaters:

These are performed the same as repeaters except there are only 4 "reps" per set, and I rest 3 minutes between sets. This allows for more resistance in the form of more added weight, the use of a worse hold, or hanging with only one arm(with a pulley system for assistance). I order the grips like this(with notes how I increase resistance):

1. Back 2 (7s+3s)x4(smaller hold), rest 3 minutes
2. Front 2 (7s+3s)x4(smaller hold), rest 3 minutes
3. Middle 2 (7s+3s)x4(more weight), rest 3 minutes
4. Half Crimp (7s+3s)x4(one arm), rest 3 minutes
5. Sloper (7s+3s)x4(one arm), rest 3 minutes

As above I'll do two rounds of these with some one arm pull ups between. If I make it through 4 "reps" in any grip I'll add 2 or 3 pounds next time. If I fail on the 1st or 2nd hang I subtract weight.

Single Hangs

These are well named. I do 3 single hangs in every grip type with as much rest between as needed. Here I use enough resistance to fail within 5 seconds. I order the grips as follows(with increased resistance):

1. Middle 2 (small sloping pockets)
2. Front 2 (with more weight)
3. Back 2 (1 arm)
4. Half Crimp(1 arm and smaller holds)
5. Sloper(45 degree sloper: HARD)

Sometimes I add mono work to the single hang day. Currently only index finger monos, but in the past I've done middle and ring fingers too. If I perform any hang for 7 seconds I add more resistance to the next hang. I'll only do one round of this during the workout.

In upcoming posts I'll discuss my one arm pull up workouts , there are three of these that fit in with the three fingerboard workouts, campus board workouts, bouldering wall workouts, cross training, and how I train while climbing outside(bouldering and routes).