RRC Archives

"To strengthen your grip, try this plate pinch from Strongman competitor C.J. Murphy: Place a pair of 5- or 10-pound plates together, smooth sides out. Pinch the plates between your thumbs and forefingers. Try holding the weights for 30 seconds. Add plates as you gain strength. And watch your toes."

I did an exercise similar to this and ended up with a really bad case of elbow tendinitis.

Dead hangs have helped me improve my grip strength... not having any to begin with left plenty of room for imporvment... and pulling on plastic with Penut and JB defintiely helped as well.

i do this all day everyday with 40 lb blocks. hope it helps.

Some research geeks looked at the anthropomorphic characteristics that predict a good climber about 6 years ago. One of the few features that actually made a difference was grip-strenght:body weight ratio (sorry short people, height wasn't a very good predictor of climbing abilities). There are two variables in the equation. You gotta decide which is easier or more effective, dropping weight or increasing grip strength. It's probably easier to increase your grip strength by 10% then it is to loose 10% of your body weight, so working grip strength is likely one of the best means to improved climbing. If your grip strenght is 30#, increase it to 33#. If your weight is 150, drop to 135#. Which seems easier? Problem is, both wieght and grip strength are genetically pre-programed. You likely have more control over wieght than grip strength. Be careful to train for absolute strength and not endurance. How often do you hold one small hold for 30 seconds? (insert the words weight and strength where needed)

I used a Jamr grip dynamometer (good grip strength measuring tool) and measured a bunch of people and compared that to their weight and average climbing ability. It never failed that the guy whose ratio of grip strength to weight was equal to 1 or even greater that 1 (this didn't happen very ofter- only in the guys who were bouldering v10+) were the strongest climbers. So like Roentgen said, get your weight down or your grip strength up. Beware the lateral epicondylitis, though.
Check out Avenco grip strength trainers. Bill Ramsey swears by his.

i get on my home wall and dead hang on a sloper for as long as i can - then switch hands in rotations (feet on small jibs) this has helped my hand strength wholistically (open hand, crimp, etc). I do the same with pinch holds. Rob Butsch showed me this drill a few years back - it helps and transfers well to real rock.

What is Lateral epicondylitis?

inflammation of the lateral epicondyle

haha.. thank you for the clarification, crankmas