forearm/finger strengh training?

Hey Bo, surely you´ve already read: http://www.8a.nu/site2/?IncPage=http://web.8a.nu/articles/ShowArticle.aspx?ArticleId=1322 There you can see the open hand grip position (also called hanging fingers). If you haven´t already done so, maybe you can try to focus your training on this position, i.e. climb as much as possible with this grip and/or train maximum strenght of this finger position. I found this quite helpful. It´s a good idea to train this grip, because the muscles mainly needed in this grip position (the ones that move your fingertips themselves) are different from those that move the "middle joint" of your fingers (which you typically use for a closed crimp or half open crimp position). So supposedly the whole deal is that if you train those fingertip muscles, you will also increase for crimping strenght. The other way around is supposed to not work equally as well, as training the "middle joints" of your fingers will not benefit the open hand/hanging fingers position. Besides increasing you crimp strenght, this will also increase your endurance, as you can switch between the two positions and use the different muscles in you forearm alternatingly, somewhat resting the one, while using the other. You can find some anatonomical background on that in the book "One move too many" (also in the 8a webshop). All this is trained best (I guess) by climbing itself while using the open hand position as much as possible. That said, the finger trainers you find via the link you sent, don´t allow for very effective climbing finger strenght training, nevertheless might be very valueable for overall hand strenght and recovery. Maybe also worth giving a shot is to focus on doing as many moves/meters as possible of easy climbing, and mixing it up with very hard moves/boulders. The easy climbing will make you forarm muscles grow more blood vessels (capillaries) and lead to some hypertrophy while the hard moves will increase the level of coordination of the muscles fibers resulting in more maximum strenght. Many say it is better for your forearm muscles, if you avoid to get "pumped" too frequently, as the acid condition is not a good thing when you wanna have your muscles recover/grow/get stronger. So maybe you can avoid climbing too many of those medium difficult, long and pumpy routes/boulders that will leave you very pumped. Rather climbing a lot of easier routes without the pump and including some harder boulders/routes that challenge your maximum strenght. Of course, eveyone knows that having an injury will ruin all your effort. So, if you haven´t climbed for so long, take it easy on your fingers and make sure to warm up and cool down. Depending on your body, you might need to routinely stretch your forearms and train your finger extendors to avoid getting tendon problems. The metolius ball or a rubber band can be used nicely to train the finger extendors (straightening the fingers). Besides this, you can make sure to keep your forearm in balance by doing reverse wrist curls. As always, a weak antagonist muscle will eventually limit the agonist muscle and/or lead to tendon problems. But eveyone´s different. Some never get trouble without doing any exercise, some always have whatever they do. So it´s best to be careful from the beginning. Cheers and have fun!

hi bo... I second all michael's suggestins. I also suggest you to focus more and more on the moves than on your physical possibilities, in the beginning. many beginners do have all the muscles required and make technical mistakes, but still think they fail because they lack strenght. maybe a teacher or training with better climber will help in this. also, consider that a couple of years of relaxed practice will give your tendons, ligaments, pulleys, connective tissues, enough time to grow stronger and get prepared to the abuses of "hard" climbing...if you train muscular strenght too early you seriously risk injuries : your muscles will pull harder than what your other tissues are prepared to withstand... ...remember that getting results in muscular strenght is just a matter of weeks, it's really one of the easiest and fastest things to improve in climbing, so when you are "ready" for it, you can get massive improvements (like going from 6b to 7a) in less than six months... enjoy!!! :)

thanks for all your responses, they are all taking in to consideration. Regards Bo thomsen Denmark