Principles of Progression

Progressing grip strength for rock climbing and bouldering follows the exact same principle as those who are looking to progress their squat strength or improve their 5km run time. Understanding these principles will help you understand how to improve your grip strength for climbing over long periods of time.

Overload

Overload is the most important principle in strength and conditioning. Overload is where a stress is placed on the body and it creates an adaptation. Overload is the crucial factor for creating change. In this example, overload is used to change grip strength, we load the position enough to create substantial change.

Progressive Overload

Progressive overload is where we slowly increase the stress placed upon the body over time. This involves increasing the amount of weight used, hold duration, hold difficulty and volume (sets) performed to overload the body. It also involves resting the body and allowing it to adapt. I have written an extensive article on the topic if you are interested in the details, the key is that stress is increased slowly over time, with periods of rest built in.

Differentiating Between Finger and Grip Strength

When we are discussing grip strength, it is very important to differentiate between grip strength (forearm strength / endurance) and finger strength and endurance. Specificity is key to strength and conditioning. The difference between grip strength and finger strength will be extremely important for your climbing goals. Those looking to be excellent climbers will need both, but training both will require different exercise selection.

Resistance Training For Climbing

Resistance training for climbing is crucial for injury prevention and peak performance. The programme app is the perfect companion for a climber looking to improve their full body strength.

How To Increase Grip Strength For Rock Climbing

Finger Strength Training

Finger strength training will involve using a hang board, which will provide multiple challenging holds for the fingers that will mimic the boulders. I suggest using the 20mm hold as it will allow you to get started with finger training and allow you to start adding some weight earlier on than focusing on smaller holds. Strength training for the fingers mimics strength training for the muscles, we are looking to perform short duration holds (between 10-20 seconds) under a load that is high enough to create strength adaptations, this could be body weight or with an external load. Increasing strength in the tendons and ligaments of the fingers is what we are aiming to do, not the muscles within the fingers. It is important we do not overload the fingers too much as it will create a much higher risk of injury and prolonger soreness.

If the 20mm board is not possible, then you will need to decrease the difficulty through using a larger board, if you are simple not strong enough to hang from your fingers, you will need to keep your feet slightly on the floor and perform a supported hang. This way you will be able to provide overload to the fingers specifically.

Finger Endurance Training

Finger endurance training will use the same exercise as finger strength training but the emphasis will be on longer holds. This will involve hanging for longer periods of time, between 30-90 second holds depending on your ability. The goal here will be to hang until you accumulate a high amounts of fatigue, then stop hanging, take a rest and repeat. We are not looking to hang to failure every time as this will generate to much fatigue in the fingers. Most beginners will simply not be strong enough to perform finger endurance training, this is not an problem, take your time getting your fingers strong first them aim to improve finger endurance capabilities.

Grip Strength Training

Grip strength training follows the exact same principles as finger strength training, heavy loads for short holds, we are just changing the position. Grip strength for climbing can be performed through hanging from a traditional pull up bar, a fat bar or even a more challenging hold with the hand wide open so that it targets the forearm and not the fingers. Grip strength training will likely need an external load as the forearms are much stronger than the fingers and therefor will be able to tolerate much more load. If you cannot hang for more than 20 seconds on a typical pull up bar, then the bar will be enough to work on strength, once you can hang for more than a minute, you will need to start thinking about external load. Grip strength training should be done through hanging with a load you find challenging for between 10-20 seconds.

Grip Endurance Training

Grip endurance training will involve similar training to finger endurance training, holding for extending periods of time while you build up high amounts of fatigue. Again, this could be done on a traditional pull up bar, a fat bar or a more challenging hold. The key is to be able to hold for more extended periods of time, between 30-90 seconds, this will allow you to improve your grip endurance.

Creating Your Programme

Needs Analysis

In order to design a programme, you will need to perform a needs analysis. A needs analysis is simple asking the question, what do I need or want to progress. An example might be someone relatively new to climbing who wants and or needs to improve finger strength and grip endurance. Once these physical characteristics have been selected we can design a programme to improve them. Below I have provided a sample training programme.

In the example below, this individual has a 15 second max hang on the 20mm board and an active hang of 60 seconds, therefore these holds will be challenging but not maximal.

Programme Design

Session 1 (Finger Strength)

3 x 10 seconds at 20mm hold

Rest 2 minutes between holds

Session 2 (Grip Endurance)

3 x 45 seconds active hang on pull up bar.

Rest 2 minutes between holds

Applying Progressive Overload

The principle of progressive overload will need to be followed in order to ensure continued progression. This can be done through four techniques:

If you perform a programme like the once above and slowly apply overload for 3 months, then retest, you should see a significant improvement. Remember, you will need to perform your needs analysis, these holds may be way to easy or way to hard for your current abilities.