To clarify "passive tension", it is provided by spring-like, structural, non-contractile fibers that wrap and protect our contractile muscle fibers. When the muscle fiber unit extends under load, as happens when the contractile tissue is not strong enough to sustain the contraction, the non-contractile tissue tightens around it and extends, absorbing some of the extension force. That non-contractile tissue is obviously adaptive: it prevents overextension of and damage to the contractile fibers. But it does not "actively" contribute to your force production in any sense. It kicks in precisely when the contractile tissue is being extended, most commonly during overloading and eccentrics (or quasi-eccentrics). Now, the passive tension is obviously very useful! But it's useful for power / plyometrics and for eccentric force absorption (i.e. power and injury-reducing capacities). It does not contribute directly to slow force production as occurs often in climbing.
Great video, I have also developed the habit of focusing on contracting my forearms while hangboarding, but I never thought about it in the precise terms you laid out here. Wonderful explanation!
Sick Vid dude!!! Very informative! You probably already know this but the passiv Strength you were talking about the whole time are the tendons which take way longer to strengthen. Also why the comp kids are that strong. Tendons are just like you said way easier to overload and injure. But I never thought about actively loading the forearm that way. Thank you for saving our fingers!!! Love this style of video!! Keep up the work homie!!!
I really appreciate your videos and your explanations! I'm not a climber in the slightest, though I do reference your videos a lot for training both grip and pull strength
its funny how you're saying the right terms, while you seem sooooo unsure about it. and when you're missing the point you just put on the correction. keep up the good work, you seem sincere :) (commenting for engagement tbh)
i feel like when the pinch trainer is incut then there definitely can be a passive component for me! but on slopey ones, or just flat pinches it is just all active! super interesting video, thanks for the inspiration!
Congrats on lattice partnership! Curious how you’re gonna find the training style of “active” contraction vs more conventional passive tension style hangboarding. I think probably it has merits, and like, while you’ve got a finger tweak it may be great choice. I’m honestly not convinced though that it’s broadly superior. There’s a lot of people who’ve gotten a lot of results from conventional hangboarding, where we moreso isometrically lock the position and resist opening. And that can be described as putting more force through the fingers than we do in the act of rock climbing, but that in itself does not negate its value. Strength training intentionally overloads tissues and positions more than sport , and provides protective benefit because of this. This new style of training you are demonstrating is the Tyler Nelson method, it’s kind of new and flashy, and probably has some value for certain applications. But as broad recommendation just for most climbers, honestly I’m more sold on what I’ve learned from Dave Macleod.
It is also necessary to realise that your muscles are pulling on your tendons. So whatever you do during training, the load will go through this structures anyway, especially once you get on the wall. Strengthening muscle is a lot quicker than tendons which is why you run the risk of overpowering your tendons. Imagine training the power output in your legs without ever properly loading the tendons structures to a point where your output is sufficient for a say 40 inch vertical jump. If you then go out and put all that power through your unready connective tissues that's a recipe for disaster. So I'm with you on that one.
You're falling into the trap of methods. The point of training is to be able to create more force. Creating more force means recruiting more muscle fibres. Good finger training is thus exercises where the outcome is increased muscle recruitment (and limiting injury risk). Don't focus on the method, look at the actual physiological changes. It's not Dave vs C4HP, it's does an exercise load the structure in the way that I want. Both ways recruit muscle fibres but one comes with additional load. Obviously if the outcome is the same why risk the injury. Principles > Methods.
@@LucasMcLove Your first two premises are correct, but I don’t agree with your conclusion of muscles outpacing tendons. In the case of a half crimp, a half crimp resisting opening/isometrics is always going to resist more force than actively closing, simply because resisting opening uses both active tension and passive tension, while actively closing minimizes passive tension. It’s impossible for your muscles to outpace your tendons and produce more force and snap your tendons (you neurologically can’t do this). Rather it’s more likely that you place your tendons in a grip with extremely high passive tension (like full crimp or drag) which your tendons aren’t accustomed to that result in an injury. The overwhelming force in this case is not your muscles, it’s gravity. For example in the vertical jump case, if you trained the muscles and not the tendons, the athlete would simply be not able to jump really high because neurologically, your muscles won’t produce more force than your tendons can handle. However, where you might get injured is on the landing, where the force of gravity, torque of motion, or lack of coordination puts more force on untrained tendons than they can handle.
@@soccutd77 Oh I agree, I just wasn't specific enough. What I meant was that over time you'd expose yourself to loads that your muscles are prepared for, your tendons are not. so yeah, gravity is the injury inducing force, but the underlying lack of preparation is due to muscle/connective tissue imbalances.
@@LucasMcLove right, the other thing is that training in an active manner also increases passive tendon stiffness-just like you mentioned, your tendons can’t differentiate the force on them. So it’s not like your passive tendon strength will remain really weak while your muscles get really strong. Your passive tendon strength will grow too to accommodate the load that your muscles place on them, just potentially at a lower rate relative to isometric hanging. In my opinion, you should actually do both-the active stuff is great as early or warmup sets and will allow you to be more intentional with your forearm contraction on the wall, while passive hanging in a variety of grip types is protective for the variety of loading positions your tendons might encounter while climbing.
Great video and I'm curious about this style of training fingers. Do you happen to have any research articles for this that you can link? Would love to see the research before I go implementing it. Thanks!
Do you have any advice on isolating your forearms when doing edge pulls with weight on a lifting pin instead of a Tindeq? Feels like it is difficult to not put unnecessary load through the fingers as you are lifting the weight off of the ground with your legs when using a lifting pin. Is it just a matter of pulling the slack out of it, ensuring you maintain good form and only then lifting the weight off of the ground with your legs? Any advice appreciated as I dont have access to a Tindeq - for now anyway
I totally agree with you experience. It's actually this exact reason that I do not like edge lifting. You can use this same setup without a tindeq and get the same gains you will just not know how much force you are outputting. Alternatively my favourite approach is to do it pulling down on a hangboard. You don't know exactly how much you are pulling but every couple weeks you will lift off with your added weight so you know you are progressing.
@@loiduongjr Thanks for the quick reply :) I will give that a go. So with this method on the hangboard, would the goal be to contract with your fingers in the same manner as the edge lifting but due to the added weight you are unable to lift yourself off of the ground? I guess if you are hang-boarding with added weight you could always stand on a scale to get an estimate of the amount of weight you are pulling lol?
So to clarify what you're suggesting, you think that it makes more sense to go lower in weight and do finger curls for non-climbing finger strength training rather than to, say, do max assisted one arm deadhangs because they both build muscle but one builds it without injuring you? Also, how many out of your 4 years of climbing have you been applying these principles?
I started around June 2022. You are not lowering the weight, you are just loading your muscular tissue to its limit without additionally overloading your connective tissue. One builds it without introducing unnecessary load. The forces applied to your hand during active curling is enough to produce changes in thickness and stiffness. You will introduce these loads naturally when you’re actually climbing.
nice vid loi! Do u think that using a gandgrip is a good idea for active flexion of the fingers? I sometimes climb but i focus in calisthenics and especially in training one arm pullups rn so i can progressive overload them and simulate weighted pullups but i really want to strenghten up a bit my fingers, i love your content and i learn a lot keep going ^^
Great video! I have been trying to improve my sloper strength, which I know is a lot of wrist strength. Up until now, I have been training this strength by pulling (close to) max force on the beastmaker 2000 slopers for like 10 sec each hand (1 set) and repeating that 5 times. Do you think this might also fall into the category of putting unnecessary stress on my fingers? That it might be better to train wrist power doing for example dumbbell forearm curls?
I'm not as well informed on this but from what I know there is a seriously similar properties when it comes to slopers (we see this in a large number of tfcc injuries). I actually think C4HP recently made a post regarding this. Sloper strength is 3 parts Skin quality, Passive tension and wrist strength (assuming perfect technique). If we are looking from a training perspective we definitely want to be weary of exercises that overload the tfcc in a passive way. I don't have concrete thoughts but from my small experience training wrist wrench it is mostly muscular activation (or else it just rolls out) so as long as you build up slowly (like any other exercise) you should be good. Can't say anything about hanging since I've never trained like that but if it is similar to the feeling when you climb then it might not be activating your muscles all that much.
Do you think that you can get your active flexion numbers more accurately by pulling from above your head instead of off the floor? What about using this as a max load instead? Thoughts?
awesome vid, appreciate you putting these out - one thing, when you are actively curling the fingers, where are you trying to generate the force exactly? ie curling at the mcp/pip/dip? have tried these and ended up straining my dip joints.. also these are still supposed to be completely isometric right? thanks!
Very great question. I can totally see what you’re describing. I prefer to use an edge that covers my dip joint so that would resolve the issue you’re describing. I focus on curling the wood (that’s covered by my dip) towards my palm.
@@jonzo802 Hmm it could be that you arent starting in drag enough and so when you curl you are excessively contracting to a awkward position, loading the mcp unnecessarily high.
So, in this case with this method, how your sets looks like? how many sets and reps of max effort and how much rest in between? im gonna give this a try! Thanks!
You can program it following any of the basic protocols. The most basic would be some sort of 3x4 starting at 80% if 1rm. Adjust as needed. I prefer something more intense after a good warm up of 2x1 at rpe 9. Up to your style and what works best for you.
I appreciate your content. In the Lattice video on the MXedge, they use a lifting pin, and their technique seems more like a deadlift. You recommend using more of a finger-curling technique along with a Tindeq. Since I don’t want to spend $200 on a Tindeq, what are the best practices for using a lifting pin? I’m taller, so I’ve elevated the pin on a bumper plate. I’m keeping my legs straight and trying to lift the edge using only a curling motion in my fingers. Does that sound correct? Could you clarify this further?
You don’t need a tindeq, it just allows you to get numbers. For the majority of the time using this training philosophy I’ve set it up without a tindeq and programmed off of RPE.
V14 strength and climbing V14 are completely different things. I climb with plenty of elite level climbing athletes and I do beat them in these isolated tests.
@loiduongjr Yea, it's deliberately misleading. If you haven't climbed V14 you don't have V14 fingers. You have "fingers that can pass isolated physical tests that are similar to V14 climbers." V14 is a bouldering grade, not a strength metric.
What is your rep and set protocol for the active flexion. Is it 2 reps on each hand for 3 sets? Apologies if I missed it in the vid. Also, any thoughts on combining the active flexion sets followed by max pull (passive) sets. Best of both worlds?
Max pull passive sets won't recruit more muscles compared to active flexion so you aren't gaining anything besides more training volume and more volume load on your fingers. In any case you will be doing a ton of it in your actual climbing session so if I'm wrong you still wouldn't be missing out. As for sets reps it's dependent on the style of training that you like. The science says that many different ways are pretty much similarly effective for muscle recruitment and size. If you like high intensity then do low volume high intensity (thats what I do). Otherwise standard sets such as 3x4 would work as well. Just make sure that your are progressively overloading.
I did it as my warm up every climbing session. Since you are not overloading your connective tissue you only produce the amount of force that you can on a given day. This also lets you know if you're having a good or bad day.
It is part of the Tindeq Progressor. Lattice has some bundles that include it. But also you don’t need it to perform the exercise. I did something similar to this without ever know bowing much force I was pulling and purely going by rpe.
What is your opinion on Emil's sub-max hangboard routine in comparison to what you do in this video? I'm not well versed in exercise science. Are they achieving the same thing? If so, is one better than the other?
thanks for the video! i'm just wondering whether it's even necessary to do the “finger curls” from the 1st exercise, as the forearm muscles of the fingers are trained in nearly the same way when pinching?!
@@loiduongjr damn, I really want to improve. I’ve been using the Tindeq like your video weekly but it’s so hard to pull past 105 lbs. I get pain on the side of my wrist and in my fingers. Guess I just need more time to adapt. I’ve only been climbing for about 2 years, I’ve climbed up to v5 highest
You shouldn't be feeling any pain in your wrist or fingers. The sensation should really just be the contraction of your forearm muscle. I think you are pulling harder than you need to. You always have to remember to kill your ego with this. It's not about the number it's about the muscular rpe.
A lot of different points. The point of training is to be able to create more force. Creating more force means recruiting more muscle fibres. Good finger training is thus exercises where the outcome is increased muscle recruitment. The stimulus to the fingers are already adequate to develop tendon and pulley thickness. Any additional load is simply extra. Put simply overloading your fingers literally doesn't make your fingers stronger. Both ways recruit muscle fibres but one comes with additional load. Obviously if the outcome is the same why risk the injury. Principles > Methods.
I agree with intentionally targeting the finger flexor muscles, but why not also target the non-muscle structures (tendons, pulleys, etc) by doing yielding isometric hangs at heavier load? Of course, we want to be careful about volume and proper recovery, but progressive overload to non-muscle structures should stimulate these as well and create adaptations (e.g. tendon stiffness) that would be beneficial for injury prevention as well as overall finger strength. Perhaps this could be done with incorporating some yielding isometric hangs into a weekly training program?
@@loiduongjr can you explain why connective tissue is adequately loaded, but muscle tissue isn't? Like if there is need to train one off the wall, why not both?
@@angustaylor711 Great question! Generally, in a more standard exercise, the adequate loading of the muscle will also be adequate loading of the connective tissue. With hangboarding or edge lifts enters something different which is passive tension. This allows for our muscles to take a backseat, thus overloading our connective tissue. In this case we are always overloading our connective tissue. This method aims to normalize the load to both systems. Does that make sense?
Thanks bro, think will implement a similar approach with load and no tindeq to do reps of 8ish. More used to bodybuilding style reps and train, but also cuz love load on the extended position, what do you think of a dropset of 8 reps at 80% ish then fingercurls accenctuating the streched position, kidna similar to benchpress and flies, starting 1 set then climbing up? Also, since someone asked about Emil low intensity high frequency protocol and read your answer, i think it's very questionable for active recovery, if you want blood there just opening and closing the hands would get more and its easier to do, but from personal use seems to help a ton to keep my tendons stiff, which is very useful to me as a noob with hypermobility in the DIP.
@loiduongjr btw they need to give you a link, referal or something. literally never considered anything lattice before but MX Edge Large pitch convinced me in a heartbeat.
You are explaining a completely different exercise. It’s fine but it’s not what I’m doing. Your explanation on Emil is completely load dependant. The principal has nothing to do with its ease of accessibility or use.
@@loiduongjr I am terrible at explaining, but really dont see how they are different. What you are doing are sets of 1 rep maxes not moving the plataform you are standing on nor the lattice edge and against the resistence your body provides, flexing your fingers via forarm flexors right? What I am trying to explain is doing sets of 8 reps at 80%ish max efforth with a setup similar to no hang pull blocks (ruclips.net/video/I_-YapmymjA/видео.html), having my body totally locked and not moving from feet to shoulder, flexing the forarm flexors and moving the lattice edge attached to weight. The rep range and thus focus is indeed different, but... ain't it the same exercise for the muscle? If not ill do your setup and just change the rep range, but honestly can't see how they differ. The second part dropsets into fingercurls is just because i love to work on the stretch positions on the muscle, and since I cant think on how to do it with the lattice edge, ill just dropset into it like bench presses and pec flys.
Well aren´t we actually looking to load the tendons and ligaments in fingerboarding? I have not read that much of the literature on the subject but it seemed to suggest that 95+% of maximum voluntary contraction are required to trigger an adaptation in the tendons and that´s at least in part what we want to do, right? What you´re trying to do is basically hypertrophy the forearms with concentric and eccentric contraction, but tendon strength and neural drive are just as important as potential limiting factors and much better adressed with traditional hangboarding...
@@loiduongjr I´m not ignoring you, just questioning the claims that the passive structures already get the stimulus they need to adapt and that further loading increases the risk of injury. Principles based training is great, only if the assuptions on which you base your principles are correct. Take Will Bosi for example, who does traditional max hangs before every session. He´s not worried about overloading his passive structures, in fact he claims the consistent loading is necessary to build resilience. That´s also principles based training, based on different assumptions. I´m not qualified to say who´s right in this case, but I´d like to be, which is why I´m asking poinient questions.
@@herrar6595 Will Bossi is literally a generationally elite outdoor climber with generationally elite genetics for climbing... You are not Lu by Zach Telander is a great youtube video that explains why looking up to the goats of your sport is a terrible idea. Also it's not principle based at all... its method based. The long standing method has been to do max hang style training to gain finger strength. Analyzing this style of training using sport science principles is what I explain in the video.
@@loiduongjr How is it not principle based to argue that the stiffness of your connective tissue in the hand and forearm is a limiting factor in climbing performance and it is a trainable quality if saying that the muscle strength in your forearms is limiting factor and a trainable quality is principle based
@@loiduongjrI think you fail to specify in the course of the training exactly why this may be a superior method for athletes actively climbing hard enough while doing targeted finger training, and the suggestion this won't injure the fingers is wrong in a myriad of ways. These I mention as explicit inaccuracies because of using Principles > Methods despite presenting a method over another. But anything else as a critique would be ignoring this being the perspective of an athlete. It largely demonstrates what you do and gives a quick notion of why. I think someone can learn enough to try this and see a result.
The method is valid, but the execution isn't. There is usually a loss of about 30% to 50% from a passive to an active tension (only pulling with your fingers without any help from your body). Meaning that with those numbers, you would be pulling ~200lbs with your left and ~235lbs with your right if you were to start deadlifting the edge. I don't know what's your bodyweight but if that was the case you could curl your fingers from open hand to half crimp on the beast maker 2000 middle edge. I also remember the pulling numbers of this video being similar to others videos of you trying your max strength with a deadlift method (hangoboard pr & moonboard V11). If you want to do this method right, you should do it seated with your elbow resting on a surface and the tension block hanging from above. This way you can't cheat the exercise, the only force you'll apply would be the one of your flexors muscles, which is what you're pursuing.
I stated that I on my last reps I def leaned into it at the end to get a high peak force. Peak force is not the same as consistent force over time. So all your calculations are wrong. It’s not perfect but effective training draws the line between ease and technique.
While likelier to minimize noise in an iso over curl with a constraining setup, the difference in force between iso over and iso yield style training is not necessarily 30-50%, and having bodyweight numbers does not mean being able to one hand bodyweight. We expect a 35-50% increase in maximum force production in an eccentric phase of an isotonic exercise, and while iso yield exercises are more eccentric like they are, importantly, not an eccentric. The same may be said of iso over work being concentric like... but it is an isometric contraction which is why it still produces forces 10-15% greater than a concentric contraction. Less noise is beneficial to track progress and preserve quality of reps, but being able to sling a weight plate and get this done with intent to actively flex the fingers is accomplishing the majority of this which is assuring higher motor unit recruitment while reducing fatigue.
I don't particularly have good genetics for climbing... That's just a fact. But I do the most with what I have and I excel in some aspects of the sport.
I find the approach a little contrived. You are trying to objectively isolate the muscled group with a subjective feedback loop. I appreciate some of the insight but you say leave your ego at the door (I.e. don’t be concerned about high numbers) and do an objective job. However, you’re simultaneously chasing higher numbers to push yourself, which leads to in your last attempt leaning back and getting the 170 number. Overall it’s not controlled enough but I’m sure there are gains to be had
Bad take. If I just wanted numbers I would have. just pulled 200. One small lean back leading to a tiny peak by accident doesn't change the fact that for the most part of the exercise the force was produced with the fore arm flexors. Watch the graph. In any case if your solution is to just do normal lifting then you will always max out your numbers which is clearly overloading your hand. So being annoyed that it isn't 100% perfect setup completely disregards the reality of day in day out training.
@@loiduongjr I’d never heard that before so I looked it up. Chat GPT sums it up nicely: **Adaption** and **adaptation** are often confused, but only **adaptation** is the more widely accepted term, especially in formal writing. - **Adaptation**: This is the correct and standard word used to describe the process of adjusting or changing to suit a new environment or situation. For example, "Evolution is driven by the adaptation of species to their environments." - **Adaption**: While it exists as a word, **adaption** is less common and often considered a mistaken form of *adaptation*. It's occasionally used as a variant, but most dictionaries and style guides prefer **adaptation**. In summary, *adaptation* is the preferred term, especially in scientific, academic, and formal contexts. In any case, found the finger curling approach to finger training interesting 👍
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Congrats on the Lattice partnership!
Thank you!
Thanks! I’m recovering from an A2 pulley injury and I was having a good time training while listening to you.
Glad you enjoyed :)
To clarify "passive tension", it is provided by spring-like, structural, non-contractile fibers that wrap and protect our contractile muscle fibers. When the muscle fiber unit extends under load, as happens when the contractile tissue is not strong enough to sustain the contraction, the non-contractile tissue tightens around it and extends, absorbing some of the extension force. That non-contractile tissue is obviously adaptive: it prevents overextension of and damage to the contractile fibers. But it does not "actively" contribute to your force production in any sense. It kicks in precisely when the contractile tissue is being extended, most commonly during overloading and eccentrics (or quasi-eccentrics).
Now, the passive tension is obviously very useful! But it's useful for power / plyometrics and for eccentric force absorption (i.e. power and injury-reducing capacities). It does not contribute directly to slow force production as occurs often in climbing.
Great video, I have also developed the habit of focusing on contracting my forearms while hangboarding, but I never thought about it in the precise terms you laid out here. Wonderful explanation!
Glad I could put it into good words! I was scared it would be a little rambly
Sick Vid dude!!! Very informative! You probably already know this but the passiv Strength you were talking about the whole time are the tendons which take way longer to strengthen. Also why the comp kids are that strong. Tendons are just like you said way easier to overload and injure. But I never thought about actively loading the forearm that way. Thank you for saving our fingers!!!
Love this style of video!! Keep up the work homie!!!
Yes exactly! Glad I could help!
Would definitely want to watch a video of you with this principle applied to pinch blocks and front lever!! This is a goldmine!
ouu front lever would be a good one. I'll put it on the list.
I really appreciate your videos and your explanations! I'm not a climber in the slightest, though I do reference your videos a lot for training both grip and pull strength
Awesome I'm glad the videos are helpful!
its funny how you're saying the right terms, while you seem sooooo unsure about it. and when you're missing the point you just put on the correction. keep up the good work, you seem sincere :)
(commenting for engagement tbh)
Yea these videos aren’t really scripted so I’m saying everything off the top of the dome in the moment. I should probably plan a bit better lol 😂
i feel like when the pinch trainer is incut then there definitely can be a passive component for me! but on slopey ones, or just flat pinches it is just all active! super interesting video, thanks for the inspiration!
Glad you enjoyed! I was definitely surprised!
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it
Congrats on lattice partnership! Curious how you’re gonna find the training style of “active” contraction vs more conventional passive tension style hangboarding. I think probably it has merits, and like, while you’ve got a finger tweak it may be great choice. I’m honestly not convinced though that it’s broadly superior. There’s a lot of people who’ve gotten a lot of results from conventional hangboarding, where we moreso isometrically lock the position and resist opening. And that can be described as putting more force through the fingers than we do in the act of rock climbing, but that in itself does not negate its value. Strength training intentionally overloads tissues and positions more than sport , and provides protective benefit because of this. This new style of training you are demonstrating is the Tyler Nelson method, it’s kind of new and flashy, and probably has some value for certain applications. But as broad recommendation just for most climbers, honestly I’m more sold on what I’ve learned from Dave Macleod.
It is also necessary to realise that your muscles are pulling on your tendons. So whatever you do during training, the load will go through this structures anyway, especially once you get on the wall. Strengthening muscle is a lot quicker than tendons which is why you run the risk of overpowering your tendons.
Imagine training the power output in your legs without ever properly loading the tendons structures to a point where your output is sufficient for a say 40 inch vertical jump. If you then go out and put all that power through your unready connective tissues that's a recipe for disaster. So I'm with you on that one.
You're falling into the trap of methods. The point of training is to be able to create more force. Creating more force means recruiting more muscle fibres. Good finger training is thus exercises where the outcome is increased muscle recruitment (and limiting injury risk). Don't focus on the method, look at the actual physiological changes.
It's not Dave vs C4HP, it's does an exercise load the structure in the way that I want.
Both ways recruit muscle fibres but one comes with additional load. Obviously if the outcome is the same why risk the injury. Principles > Methods.
@@LucasMcLove Your first two premises are correct, but I don’t agree with your conclusion of muscles outpacing tendons. In the case of a half crimp, a half crimp resisting opening/isometrics is always going to resist more force than actively closing, simply because resisting opening uses both active tension and passive tension, while actively closing minimizes passive tension. It’s impossible for your muscles to outpace your tendons and produce more force and snap your tendons (you neurologically can’t do this). Rather it’s more likely that you place your tendons in a grip with extremely high passive tension (like full crimp or drag) which your tendons aren’t accustomed to that result in an injury. The overwhelming force in this case is not your muscles, it’s gravity.
For example in the vertical jump case, if you trained the muscles and not the tendons, the athlete would simply be not able to jump really high because neurologically, your muscles won’t produce more force than your tendons can handle. However, where you might get injured is on the landing, where the force of gravity, torque of motion, or lack of coordination puts more force on untrained tendons than they can handle.
@@soccutd77 Oh I agree, I just wasn't specific enough. What I meant was that over time you'd expose yourself to loads that your muscles are prepared for, your tendons are not. so yeah, gravity is the injury inducing force, but the underlying lack of preparation is due to muscle/connective tissue imbalances.
@@LucasMcLove right, the other thing is that training in an active manner also increases passive tendon stiffness-just like you mentioned, your tendons can’t differentiate the force on them. So it’s not like your passive tendon strength will remain really weak while your muscles get really strong. Your passive tendon strength will grow too to accommodate the load that your muscles place on them, just potentially at a lower rate relative to isometric hanging.
In my opinion, you should actually do both-the active stuff is great as early or warmup sets and will allow you to be more intentional with your forearm contraction on the wall, while passive hanging in a variety of grip types is protective for the variety of loading positions your tendons might encounter while climbing.
Great video and I'm curious about this style of training fingers. Do you happen to have any research articles for this that you can link? Would love to see the research before I go implementing it. Thanks!
Tyler Nelson from C4HP has all the brains on it. Check out his Instagram!
Yea Loi!!! 🔥🔥🔥
Thanks Lu!
Do you have any advice on isolating your forearms when doing edge pulls with weight on a lifting pin instead of a Tindeq? Feels like it is difficult to not put unnecessary load through the fingers as you are lifting the weight off of the ground with your legs when using a lifting pin. Is it just a matter of pulling the slack out of it, ensuring you maintain good form and only then lifting the weight off of the ground with your legs? Any advice appreciated as I dont have access to a Tindeq - for now anyway
I totally agree with you experience. It's actually this exact reason that I do not like edge lifting. You can use this same setup without a tindeq and get the same gains you will just not know how much force you are outputting. Alternatively my favourite approach is to do it pulling down on a hangboard. You don't know exactly how much you are pulling but every couple weeks you will lift off with your added weight so you know you are progressing.
@@loiduongjr Thanks for the quick reply :) I will give that a go. So with this method on the hangboard, would the goal be to contract with your fingers in the same manner as the edge lifting but due to the added weight you are unable to lift yourself off of the ground? I guess if you are hang-boarding with added weight you could always stand on a scale to get an estimate of the amount of weight you are pulling lol?
This has changed my entire outlook - Great work
Glad you learned something!
Prob you know but instead of sling you can get a daisy chain for climbing, much more versatile
Oh totally true lol. I just have this because I borrowed it indefinitely from a friend 😅😂
So to clarify what you're suggesting, you think that it makes more sense to go lower in weight and do finger curls for non-climbing finger strength training rather than to, say, do max assisted one arm deadhangs because they both build muscle but one builds it without injuring you?
Also, how many out of your 4 years of climbing have you been applying these principles?
I started around June 2022. You are not lowering the weight, you are just loading your muscular tissue to its limit without additionally overloading your connective tissue.
One builds it without introducing unnecessary load. The forces applied to your hand during active curling is enough to produce changes in thickness and stiffness. You will introduce these loads naturally when you’re actually climbing.
@@loiduongjr Okay awesome, thanks for the clarification!
nice vid loi! Do u think that using a gandgrip is a good idea for active flexion of the fingers? I sometimes climb but i focus in calisthenics and especially in training one arm pullups rn so i can progressive overload them and simulate weighted pullups but i really want to strenghten up a bit my fingers, i love your content and i learn a lot keep going ^^
Yes but it will take some work to apply the strength in a climbing context. I would prefer something like barbell wrist curls.
Moonboard videos plzzzzz🙏🙏
Would love to board climb soon!
Great video! I have been trying to improve my sloper strength, which I know is a lot of wrist strength. Up until now, I have been training this strength by pulling (close to) max force on the beastmaker 2000 slopers for like 10 sec each hand (1 set) and repeating that 5 times. Do you think this might also fall into the category of putting unnecessary stress on my fingers? That it might be better to train wrist power doing for example dumbbell forearm curls?
I'm not as well informed on this but from what I know there is a seriously similar properties when it comes to slopers (we see this in a large number of tfcc injuries). I actually think C4HP recently made a post regarding this. Sloper strength is 3 parts Skin quality, Passive tension and wrist strength (assuming perfect technique). If we are looking from a training perspective we definitely want to be weary of exercises that overload the tfcc in a passive way.
I don't have concrete thoughts but from my small experience training wrist wrench it is mostly muscular activation (or else it just rolls out) so as long as you build up slowly (like any other exercise) you should be good.
Can't say anything about hanging since I've never trained like that but if it is similar to the feeling when you climb then it might not be activating your muscles all that much.
Do you think that you can get your active flexion numbers more accurately by pulling from above your head instead of off the floor? What about using this as a max load instead? Thoughts?
Tyler Nelson shows the most accurate set up. But like it doesn’t matter.
too late got injured and went from v13 fingers to v5 fingers
F
Where did you get the information on passive vs active tension in the context of finger training?
A C4HP post from 2022! Very influential to my training 🫡
My comment was deleted, actually.
@@c4hp.⚰️☠️
@@c4hp.And what are you saying?
awesome vid, appreciate you putting these out - one thing, when you are actively curling the fingers, where are you trying to generate the force exactly? ie curling at the mcp/pip/dip? have tried these and ended up straining my dip joints.. also these are still supposed to be completely isometric right? thanks!
Very great question. I can totally see what you’re describing. I prefer to use an edge that covers my dip joint so that would resolve the issue you’re describing. I focus on curling the wood (that’s covered by my dip) towards my palm.
@@loiduongjrbigger edge got it - i actually meant to say i strained my mcp (not dip whoops), but that’s good beta regardless, thanks!
@@jonzo802 Hmm it could be that you arent starting in drag enough and so when you curl you are excessively contracting to a awkward position, loading the mcp unnecessarily high.
So, in this case with this method, how your sets looks like? how many sets and reps of max effort and how much rest in between? im gonna give this a try! Thanks!
You can program it following any of the basic protocols. The most basic would be some sort of 3x4 starting at 80% if 1rm. Adjust as needed. I prefer something more intense after a good warm up of 2x1 at rpe 9. Up to your style and what works best for you.
I appreciate your content.
In the Lattice video on the MXedge, they use a lifting pin, and their technique seems more like a deadlift.
You recommend using more of a finger-curling technique along with a Tindeq.
Since I don’t want to spend $200 on a Tindeq, what are the best practices for using a lifting pin?
I’m taller, so I’ve elevated the pin on a bumper plate. I’m keeping my legs straight and trying to lift the edge using only a curling motion in my fingers. Does that sound correct?
Could you clarify this further?
You don’t need a tindeq, it just allows you to get numbers. For the majority of the time using this training philosophy I’ve set it up without a tindeq and programmed off of RPE.
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NEW VID ITS BEEN A WHILE HUH
Indeed. Glad to be back.
Congrats bro! Whats your Ape index btw?
Im 5’7” with 5’9” wingspan
So, what V14 did you climb?
V14 strength and climbing V14 are completely different things. I climb with plenty of elite level climbing athletes and I do beat them in these isolated tests.
@loiduongjr Yea, it's deliberately misleading. If you haven't climbed V14 you don't have V14 fingers. You have "fingers that can pass isolated physical tests that are similar to V14 climbers." V14 is a bouldering grade, not a strength metric.
what are your thoughts on finger rolls vs finger curls? would these be comparable as they both isolate the forearm?
What length sling do you use?
seems 100cm
Just get a lifting pin from Lattice, it won’t be too long. Of course, maybe not for tindeq training, but for lifting weights.
Still a great way to build strength!
What is your rep and set protocol for the active flexion. Is it 2 reps on each hand for 3 sets? Apologies if I missed it in the vid.
Also, any thoughts on combining the active flexion sets followed by max pull (passive) sets. Best of both worlds?
Max pull passive sets won't recruit more muscles compared to active flexion so you aren't gaining anything besides more training volume and more volume load on your fingers. In any case you will be doing a ton of it in your actual climbing session so if I'm wrong you still wouldn't be missing out.
As for sets reps it's dependent on the style of training that you like. The science says that many different ways are pretty much similarly effective for muscle recruitment and size. If you like high intensity then do low volume high intensity (thats what I do). Otherwise standard sets such as 3x4 would work as well. Just make sure that your are progressively overloading.
@@loiduongjr Thanks for the considered reply! 🙂
Yoooo I was there Tuesday morning
Nice!
How often would you do this training? How do you balance with board/wall training to avoid injuries?
I did it as my warm up every climbing session. Since you are not overloading your connective tissue you only produce the amount of force that you can on a given day. This also lets you know if you're having a good or bad day.
how does the mobile app work? if i buy the mxedge does it include the device that measures it?
It is part of the Tindeq Progressor. Lattice has some bundles that include it. But also you don’t need it to perform the exercise. I did something similar to this without ever know bowing much force I was pulling and purely going by rpe.
tutorial on edging when??
As soon as I get some skin fr
What is your opinion on Emil's sub-max hangboard routine in comparison to what you do in this video? I'm not well versed in exercise science. Are they achieving the same thing? If so, is one better than the other?
That's more about active recover. Definitely a useful tool that I've found effective.
Bro we need to do a vlog soon 🧐
Real af.
thanks for the video!
i'm just wondering whether it's even necessary to do the “finger curls” from the 1st exercise, as the forearm muscles of the fingers are trained in nearly the same way when pinching?!
Definitely a different sensation
holy shit hes famous
real.
No way MTL represents 💪💪
Montreal 🫶
très bien expliqué, j'vais essayer de mettre ça en pratique dans mes entraînements
Sick!
Damn how are you able to pull 140 lbs? lol
I can barely pull 100 lbs on the tindeq, how long have you been climbing?
4 years now and 2 years finger training. With passive tension I peak load over 200lbs.
@@loiduongjr damn, I really want to improve. I’ve been using the Tindeq like your video weekly but it’s so hard to pull past 105 lbs. I get pain on the side of my wrist and in my fingers.
Guess I just need more time to adapt. I’ve only been climbing for about 2 years, I’ve climbed up to v5 highest
You shouldn't be feeling any pain in your wrist or fingers. The sensation should really just be the contraction of your forearm muscle. I think you are pulling harder than you need to. You always have to remember to kill your ego with this. It's not about the number it's about the muscular rpe.
Genetically gifted hehe
people always forget that its a curve and not black and white.
Why do you need the muscles if you do passive tension when on the wall. More muscle doesn’t equal more finger strength right?
Only for injury reasons?
A lot of different points. The point of training is to be able to create more force. Creating more force means recruiting more muscle fibres. Good finger training is thus exercises where the outcome is increased muscle recruitment.
The stimulus to the fingers are already adequate to develop tendon and pulley thickness. Any additional load is simply extra.
Put simply overloading your fingers literally doesn't make your fingers stronger.
Both ways recruit muscle fibres but one comes with additional load. Obviously if the outcome is the same why risk the injury. Principles > Methods.
I agree with intentionally targeting the finger flexor muscles, but why not also target the non-muscle structures (tendons, pulleys, etc) by doing yielding isometric hangs at heavier load? Of course, we want to be careful about volume and proper recovery, but progressive overload to non-muscle structures should stimulate these as well and create adaptations (e.g. tendon stiffness) that would be beneficial for injury prevention as well as overall finger strength. Perhaps this could be done with incorporating some yielding isometric hangs into a weekly training program?
They are already adequately loaded in the exercise and with normal climbing.
@@loiduongjr can you explain why connective tissue is adequately loaded, but muscle tissue isn't? Like if there is need to train one off the wall, why not both?
@@angustaylor711 Great question! Generally, in a more standard exercise, the adequate loading of the muscle will also be adequate loading of the connective tissue. With hangboarding or edge lifts enters something different which is passive tension. This allows for our muscles to take a backseat, thus overloading our connective tissue. In this case we are always overloading our connective tissue. This method aims to normalize the load to both systems. Does that make sense?
Thanks bro, think will implement a similar approach with load and no tindeq to do reps of 8ish. More used to bodybuilding style reps and train, but also cuz love load on the extended position, what do you think of a dropset of 8 reps at 80% ish then fingercurls accenctuating the streched position, kidna similar to benchpress and flies, starting 1 set then climbing up?
Also, since someone asked about Emil low intensity high frequency protocol and read your answer, i think it's very questionable for active recovery, if you want blood there just opening and closing the hands would get more and its easier to do, but from personal use seems to help a ton to keep my tendons stiff, which is very useful to me as a noob with hypermobility in the DIP.
@loiduongjr btw they need to give you a link, referal or something. literally never considered anything lattice before but MX Edge Large pitch convinced me in a heartbeat.
You are explaining a completely different exercise. It’s fine but it’s not what I’m doing.
Your explanation on Emil is completely load dependant. The principal has nothing to do with its ease of accessibility or use.
@@omaroberto they’re working on it!
@@loiduongjr I am terrible at explaining, but really dont see how they are different. What you are doing are sets of 1 rep maxes not moving the plataform you are standing on nor the lattice edge and against the resistence your body provides, flexing your fingers via forarm flexors right? What I am trying to explain is doing sets of 8 reps at 80%ish max efforth with a setup similar to no hang pull blocks (ruclips.net/video/I_-YapmymjA/видео.html), having my body totally locked and not moving from feet to shoulder, flexing the forarm flexors and moving the lattice edge attached to weight.
The rep range and thus focus is indeed different, but... ain't it the same exercise for the muscle? If not ill do your setup and just change the rep range, but honestly can't see how they differ. The second part dropsets into fingercurls is just because i love to work on the stretch positions on the muscle, and since I cant think on how to do it with the lattice edge, ill just dropset into it like bench presses and pec flys.
@@omaroberto Because you won't be actively concentrically flexing your forearms, you will instead be resisting the load. The mechanics are different.
'In Europe they don't have gym equipment' xDDDD yeah it's really the third world out here
Well aren´t we actually looking to load the tendons and ligaments in fingerboarding? I have not read that much of the literature on the subject but it seemed to suggest that 95+% of maximum voluntary contraction are required to trigger an adaptation in the tendons and that´s at least in part what we want to do, right? What you´re trying to do is basically hypertrophy the forearms with concentric and eccentric contraction, but tendon strength and neural drive are just as important as potential limiting factors and much better adressed with traditional hangboarding...
You ignored everything I said in the video.
@@loiduongjr I´m not ignoring you, just questioning the claims that the passive structures already get the stimulus they need to adapt and that further loading increases the risk of injury. Principles based training is great, only if the assuptions on which you base your principles are correct. Take Will Bosi for example, who does traditional max hangs before every session. He´s not worried about overloading his passive structures, in fact he claims the consistent loading is necessary to build resilience. That´s also principles based training, based on different assumptions. I´m not qualified to say who´s right in this case, but I´d like to be, which is why I´m asking poinient questions.
@@herrar6595 Will Bossi is literally a generationally elite outdoor climber with generationally elite genetics for climbing... You are not Lu by Zach Telander is a great youtube video that explains why looking up to the goats of your sport is a terrible idea.
Also it's not principle based at all... its method based. The long standing method has been to do max hang style training to gain finger strength. Analyzing this style of training using sport science principles is what I explain in the video.
I'm with you, herrar, and he isn't repliying to your point. Argument something to his questions and not about "wil bosi" comparison 😂
@@loiduongjr How is it not principle based to argue that the stiffness of your connective tissue in the hand and forearm is a limiting factor in climbing performance and it is a trainable quality if saying that the muscle strength in your forearms is limiting factor and a trainable quality is principle based
Tyler Nelson is nodding approvingly somewhere :D
Probably not lmao. He’s probably pissed off because I said something wrong 😂😂
@@loiduongjrI think you fail to specify in the course of the training exactly why this may be a superior method for athletes actively climbing hard enough while doing targeted finger training, and the suggestion this won't injure the fingers is wrong in a myriad of ways. These I mention as explicit inaccuracies because of using Principles > Methods despite presenting a method over another.
But anything else as a critique would be ignoring this being the perspective of an athlete. It largely demonstrates what you do and gives a quick notion of why. I think someone can learn enough to try this and see a result.
The method is valid, but the execution isn't.
There is usually a loss of about 30% to 50% from a passive to an active tension (only pulling with your fingers without any help from your body). Meaning that with those numbers, you would be pulling ~200lbs with your left and ~235lbs with your right if you were to start deadlifting the edge.
I don't know what's your bodyweight but if that was the case you could curl your fingers from open hand to half crimp on the beast maker 2000 middle edge. I also remember the pulling numbers of this video being similar to others videos of you trying your max strength with a deadlift method (hangoboard pr & moonboard V11).
If you want to do this method right, you should do it seated with your elbow resting on a surface and the tension block hanging from above. This way you can't cheat the exercise, the only force you'll apply would be the one of your flexors muscles, which is what you're pursuing.
I stated that I on my last reps I def leaned into it at the end to get a high peak force. Peak force is not the same as consistent force over time. So all your calculations are wrong. It’s not perfect but effective training draws the line between ease and technique.
While likelier to minimize noise in an iso over curl with a constraining setup, the difference in force between iso over and iso yield style training is not necessarily 30-50%, and having bodyweight numbers does not mean being able to one hand bodyweight. We expect a 35-50% increase in maximum force production in an eccentric phase of an isotonic exercise, and while iso yield exercises are more eccentric like they are, importantly, not an eccentric. The same may be said of iso over work being concentric like... but it is an isometric contraction which is why it still produces forces 10-15% greater than a concentric contraction.
Less noise is beneficial to track progress and preserve quality of reps, but being able to sling a weight plate and get this done with intent to actively flex the fingers is accomplishing the majority of this which is assuring higher motor unit recruitment while reducing fatigue.
Step 1: be a tiny compact asian dude
I don't particularly have good genetics for climbing... That's just a fact. But I do the most with what I have and I excel in some aspects of the sport.
I find the approach a little contrived. You are trying to objectively isolate the muscled group with a subjective feedback loop.
I appreciate some of the insight but you say leave your ego at the door (I.e. don’t be concerned about high numbers) and do an objective job. However, you’re simultaneously chasing higher numbers to push yourself, which leads to in your last attempt leaning back and getting the 170 number.
Overall it’s not controlled enough but I’m sure there are gains to be had
Bad take. If I just wanted numbers I would have. just pulled 200. One small lean back leading to a tiny peak by accident doesn't change the fact that for the most part of the exercise the force was produced with the fore arm flexors. Watch the graph. In any case if your solution is to just do normal lifting then you will always max out your numbers which is clearly overloading your hand. So being annoyed that it isn't 100% perfect setup completely disregards the reality of day in day out training.
AdapTAtion
they are true synonyms
@@loiduongjr I’d never heard that before so I looked it up. Chat GPT sums it up nicely:
**Adaption** and **adaptation** are often confused, but only **adaptation** is the more widely accepted term, especially in formal writing.
- **Adaptation**: This is the correct and standard word used to describe the process of adjusting or changing to suit a new environment or situation. For example, "Evolution is driven by the adaptation of species to their environments."
- **Adaption**: While it exists as a word, **adaption** is less common and often considered a mistaken form of *adaptation*. It's occasionally used as a variant, but most dictionaries and style guides prefer **adaptation**.
In summary, *adaptation* is the preferred term, especially in scientific, academic, and formal contexts.
In any case, found the finger curling approach to finger training interesting 👍