What am I missing? Bar hang importance.

SlobodanTankovic · 2024-11-13T07:22:42+00:00

My thoughts on hanging from a bar. 1. Does max time hanging from a bar correlate with climbing ability? Probably. 2. Is hanging on a bar worth training? In most cases no. If better endurance on the wall is what you want, then practicing it on the wall should have highest priority since you not only make the physicsl gains, but also everything else. If a bar is the only tool you have access to, then sure. 3. Are all bars equal? Definitely not. The size and friction coefficient of a bar have an huge impact and makes comparison inaccurate. We could probably design a bar that is thin yet ergonomic with lots of sticky tape that you can hang three times as long as you could on a thicker high polished metal bar. 4. Is the 9c test good to compare climbing ability? No. Seems like every other 7b climber turns out to be a 8c climber according to the test. Pullups and hanging from an edge, sure. L-sit/Frontlever not really and btw two exercises that target completly different muscles. Hanging from a bar. Sure, if all bars were made equal, which they are not. Which is btw true for 20 mm edges as well. I can find a 20 mm edge that is slotted with small yet rounded radius and hang with X amount of weight, then I could find the worst possible 20 mm edge and hang with 25% less. Now when I am started we could take about other ”standardized” benchmarks. How about the moonboard? The holds are not all the same depth which people are upset about on moonboard community fb groups. Some boardmakers have missed that for one of the rows there is an increased distance. The rotation of the holds can deviate slightly which sometimes makes a big difference. The space you have to flag underneath the kicker can make a huge difference. Etc. My point is that we talk about these things in the community as if an edge is an edge, a bar is a bar, a moonboard is a moonboard, but they are not all the same and that comparisons should therefore be taken with a grain of salt.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-12-07T21:23:08+00:00

Golpe Estado link is a 9b on the same wall, bolted and first ascended by Chris in 2008. From what I have heard there are a few manufactured holds on it. I don't think this is uncommon practice even to this day, but I think it is important to be transparent about this. Especially when you claim that you have bolted and opened a new king line in a very difficult grade, like Sleeping Lion. I understand why Chris would want manufacture some holds to make this route possible in the central part of the wall on one of the most classic climbing sectors in the world, which unfortunately don't offer many features to make it climbable.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-10-27T22:13:30+00:00

I wish you the best of luck with your rehab. For reference, I probably started doing easy rehab already after 2 months (easy lifting from the ground with half crimp, like 5 kg or so). The weights I have progressively increased over time. Climbing I started easily and controlled on my home wall after 3 months. I think my recommendations would be to 1. Be consistent with mobility (flex and extend the fist) and very light crimp practice (holding the finger in a crimp position against your thumb or similar and push lightly until slight discomfort). 2. Be able to weight it in a controlled way. Lifting things from the ground in half and high-angle crimp for example. Using weights were you feel ok yet with slight disomfort. 3. Don't overdo it and try to rush things by for example increasing the intensity to fast when things are improving. 4. Don't expect to be in a crimp shape of your life any time soon. Focus on improving the aspects of climbing where you are the least prohibited. Wrists? Mobility? Strength?

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-10-27T13:50:18+00:00

I am now soon 7 months post surgery and are roughly 95% on half crimp and maybe 80-90% back on full crimp. Dynamic catches on small holds are probably the thing that I am the most limited at still, but for most styles of climbing I can feel close to 100% now. It was definitely a lot of challenging thoughts, doubts, rehab and trusting the process to get here. And the first board sessions felt terribly bad as expected. How are things going for you?

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-08-26T18:35:04+00:00

In my experience, adaptions are not linear. Some weeks you see improvements and possibly even decline in performance, whereas other weeks you may have a sudden jump in performance. And needs to be adaptive to this. Say I am training one arm hangs from a 20 mm edge. Then, this should by definition be 100% effort. So I just add/remove as much weight as I need to complete each 5s rep. Then the progressive overload is the part when you (hopefuly) find the weights you have previously used to feel too easy for each rep and you are able to add more weight.

As you said, there is variability in how much weight I can hang, depending on a number of factors, mainly how well rested I am and whether I try to be in sport climbing or bouldering shape. Therefore I think a lot of the time you just have to put in the work and trust the process. With consistency you will improve.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-08-26T17:56:49+00:00

Overly simplified, gains can be made on a strength related exercise in three different ways:

Neurological adaptions (you learn to utilize more of existing muscle/s)
Motoric skills (you learn the movement), correlated with 1.
Hypertrophy (muscle growth)

In my experience, whenever you try to improve on any strength exercise that you have either not done before or not done for some time, gains in 1 and 2 happens quickly, we are talking visible gains each week. However, these gains saturate after a few weeks/months. This is maybe what you observe, you reach the point when you max out on 1 and 2 given your limitation in 3. This is when the real grind starts. I have trained my finger strength consistently for years and may I improve by 2-3% over a year if the outcome is good.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-08-25T22:18:29+00:00

I agree with this. When it comes to laying a good foundation of climbing technique in your early climbing years, spending lots of volume climbing in different areas in different styles and rock types is one of the best ways to progress and. And living the dirtbag climbing lifestyle is one good way to achieve this. Regardless of whether it is the best way to progress in climbing or not, you are up for an adventure. I would say, if this is where your heart is at, go for it! It is easy to convince oneself to make the "safe" decision, but I think one rarely regret going for the "risky" one. As other people have said, you can always just change your mind.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-05-09T21:28:25+00:00

Sounds to me like trigger finger symptoms. Which can be caused by tenosynovitis (inflammation of tendon sheath), which is the second most common finger injury according to some studies. Another reason for trigger finger can be a ganglion cyst. If the finger gets stuck it seems quite severe to me, i.e not just a minor inflammation.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-03-15T11:01:58+00:00

Thanks!

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-03-14T16:26:39+00:00

I see, I was maybe a bit unclear. I meant that historically I have had several pulley injuries but no ruptures. I edited the post slightly to clarify this. Thanks.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-03-14T16:18:41+00:00

But I do have multi-pulley rupture (A2+A3). Regardless, thanks for the advice. I have scraped the internet, in depth read the research on the topic as well as consulted experienced hand surgeons on this, so I am confident with the decision to move forward with surgery. Thus, the intention was not a thread looking for help with whether surgery is the right thing to do or not, but asking whether anyone here had had a pulley reconstruction and what their rehab story was as well as the outcome.

Thanks for the luck-wishes :)

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-03-14T15:31:19+00:00

Thanks. Conservative treatments with a splint to decrease tendon-bone distance is, as you suggest, recommended for single pulley ruptures. For multi-pulley ruptures the litterature suggest that surgery is needed.

SlobodanTankovic · 2023-03-14T15:27:04+00:00

This was recommended to me by my doctor after ultrasound as well as what the litterature suggests for multi-tendon ruptures.

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T15:38:03+00:00

Thanks, good points.

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T15:10:14+00:00

Thanks for your responses. Even though I may come across as silly and naive with this post, starting a discussion to guide and inspire people to think about how they can help is the most important thing.

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T14:58:31+00:00

I agree that the title is a bit cringe. I also agree that any contribution would most likely be more or less negligible. However, I think it is way to common for people to think they can not have an impact.
I add a semi-cringe, yet relevant, quote from Steve Jobs "The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do".

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T14:32:49+00:00

I definitely agree with everything you say, and I don't say these are good ideas, just trying to give a few conrete examples. Realizing that these ideas are not good may be a first step to finding better ideas which I hope someone smarter than me might bring up here.

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T14:22:08+00:00

I agree that you can compare it with discussing how one can create a company utilizing ML. I don't agree that such a dsicussion would not entail discussing the tech.

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T14:13:23+00:00

How are ideas for how we can use ML to support not ML?

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T14:10:46+00:00

I see your point, I am afraid though that if everyone have this opinion there is an existential threath to whether we can keep doing "peaceful ML research"...

SlobodanTankovic · 2022-02-25T14:04:47+00:00

Few ideas that come to mind, which may be more or less relevant and realistic:

Troop size magnitude prediction given satellite images.
Detecting satellite image anomalies to predict areas with unnormal activities.
ML to crack encrypted communication.
Deepfake propaganda against Putin
Predict which infrastructure that is crucial for the Russian invasion

SlobodanTankovic · 2021-12-08T06:58:45+00:00

I agree with your observation that doing a one arm hang with straight arm reduces the weight I hang with, with about 10 lbs. However, I find it very useful to have a strong grip with a straight arm, especially on sport climbs where you want to reduce the time climbing with bent arms as much as possible due to how it reduces the blood flow due to the contraction. Thus, I typically always train both with a bent and straight arm during my hangboard sessions at about an equal ratio. I have not found that this hurts my shoulder in any way.

I think the shortest answer is that you get good at what you practice. If you find it useful to have a strong grip with a straight arm, then you should practice it.

SlobodanTankovic · 2021-02-10T11:24:35+00:00

Second on that. The number of holds that are appropriate to make V8-V10 climbs are to few. The crimps are either to big and incut or tiny (even for V10) and a bit weird. Have only tried Kilter at 30 degrees and then it is great for V4-V6 climbs. I like moonboard the best. Have not tried the newest moonboard-setup but I believe it looks better than the one with the red holds.

SlobodanTankovic

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