good video! i started climbing last December, and i DEFINITELY found myself full crimping all the time. because it worked, and it got me sending higher levels. but bending my finger tips would hurt for a day or two afterwards. now i try to avoid full crimps, and my finger tips never hurt after sessions. kind of a good sanity check.
I'm pretty new to rock climbing and have been watching a lot of your videos lately... they've all been really helpful. People are making stupid comments about the vegan thing or whatever but honestly your videos are so well explained and demonstrative and it's helped me a LOT. Just wanted to say thank you
Without reading any of the other comments let me just say - never ever EVER crimp unless you absolutely have to and even then think about it twice. Crimping is undoubtedly the most dangerous type of hand position in terms of injury. Open hand grip is by far the best. Practice open hand grips and have mercy on your fingers and pulleys. They will return the love with longevity and reliability.
I feel like there's a lot missing from this video. You mention several ways to grip different holds, but don't talk at all about when to use which and why. You ended by saying to use grips that are as open as possible when climbing indoors. Is injury prevention the only reason? Should I practice crimps indoors if I want to climb outdoors in the future? What does it mean that a grip is more aggressive? It's more difficult? Takes more energy? Gives a stronger hold? Maybe I need to find the level that goes before beginner before this technique video is good for me.
To piggyback on this, it would be helpful to have the suggestions interspersed with actual on the wall examples, showing a climber employing the varying degrees of aggression and how it affects the climb.
Peter VanderMeulen The aggressiveness of the grip style doesn't affect your climbing so much on edges and other holds that are small, but you have a higher risk of hurting your joints in your fingers if you full crimp. The thing is, when you haven't been climbing for that long, full crimping is easier than taking a hold in a more open handed way, because your forearms aren't strong yet, so putting force on the tips of your fingers with your thumb feels more secure and you can focus more on other things. But it hurts to crimp because it's not natural for your hands, so on slopers and other holds where you have the option to take it open handed it's always better to train doing that. And I guess crimping outdoors is okay because you spend less time there than indoors for most people, and the climbs there are more difficult and demanding.
If you want to do the thing, practice it. He says 'Don't always crimp' because stressing the same muscles means the others will lag behind... The same applies to using everything BUT those muscles. The crimp muscles will lag behind. Just try to resist the crimp if you can, use the least aggressive hold possible basically.
In fact, the less area your fingers cover on the hold, the more aggressive your grip is.. agressive in a destructive way... Less energy, less difficult, stronger hold...devestating for a beginners tendons.... fast injury.. Don't practice crimps, practice NOT doing them and concentrate on open grip(lot of surface) When time comes you really need to be somewhere, you will crimp automatically... This is verry good to know for a beginner because the tendons are not yet strong enough to cope with crimping...
im a newbie and have watch a lot of videos but you have a very nice in-depth of the types of hold that i never heard from others. very informative. thanks for sharing!
I've been following your channel for a couple of months and it's quite nice, congrats! I've just injured my A2 pulley working on a humble 7a route... I had already heard about the risks of full crimping, but I wish I had watched this video earlier... maybe It would have saved my pulley. keep climbing!
Thanks. Just started with a home built wall in my garage and I never knew there were so many different ways to grip a hold. I learned something and I will add on a couple things now to expand my training effort. Thanks again..
Oh No!! I started climbing just over 1 month now. As I progress to the harder routes and holds, I start feeling soreness on my fingers. Referring to the finger anatomy graph in the video, the soreness generally happens on A2 and C2, sometimes C3 and C4. I wasn't sure if that's just the result of training fingers (just like getting sore muscles after work out) or if that's something I need to address. Turnout, I am probably doing it wrong. Thanks for the video!
Your videos have been super useful! Recently started climbing 2 months ago. Can you consider doing a video on the different techniques and how to incorporate them into climbing? I'm aware of flagging, drop knee, etc.. but sometimes get lost on how and when to use them. thankyou!!
i'm a beginner (bouldering for 2 months now) and improved quite a lot (fortunately) and i never used a all these different techiques before. so i will try these ones next week for sure! :) danke für die super videos! gerade solche hinweise, die verletzungen vorbeugen sind extrem wichtig und interessant für mich und deine videos erklären diese thematiken sehr gut! werde wohl erst mal deine tipp videos komplett durch suchten :D also noch mal danke und mach weiter so! :)
No fuckin way! I'm vegan, today just bought some climbing shoes and signed up for a beginners course next month. INSTANT SUBSCRIBE. Thank you vegan brother!
Same :) Been vegan for a little over a year and started getting into climbing in the last month or so. Just stumbled upon this channel and already getting loads of great info! Keep it up @Vegan Rockclimbing!
also newbie to. Been going 1 day a week for past 2 weeks and today to. Hopefully will be consistent with this as I've not much prior experience. Am loving it!
Super helpful. I'm definitely guilty of using the full crimp as a go-to on edge holds. Aaaand I'm starting to feel it in my finger tendons. I'll be changing that up going forward. Thanks for the tips!!
I will try this, i am stuck at 6b or so for quite a while and recently i topped a 6c. I now come to realize that i could only top that one because it deviated a lot from what i am used to in terms of gripping style, i had to adapt. I will now give more focus to how i grip stuff and like you mentioned add more variety because i do tend to use too much full grips resulting in early fatique. With the right effort i may finally overcome the barrier that is 7.
I know this is an older video but I've been trying to find a vegan climber to follow and didn't come up with anything decent so I gave up and then I found this/you while trying to improve technique.
I am a new climber and you described exactly what I've been doing ... full crimping indoors!! And I do feel some stress on my fingers afterwards. So thanks for that!! Also, kudos to you being vegan too brotha! I have been vegan for 5 years now and was the best decision of my life.
Hi Mani! I have started climbing about 4 months ago and I think I subscribed to your channel 2 months ago. I found your videos very useful and for that I thank you very much. Could you edit the description of the video and add other lessons you learned for quicker access? Also, exercises for forearms muscles would be great, if you have done such a video. Also, I want to improve my holds grabbing technique, specially when it comes to more dynamic moves on small holds, I seem to have problems sticking to them.
There are a few holds indoors that do warrant a full crimp. I have a route at my wall where it is actually designed to crimp a lot by using very tiny, hard to grip holds (I designed it to increase my crimp strength). I definitely agree to not crimp when it is not warranted, as I usually do (just loosely latch onto slopes for example). Use as much of the muscles in the forearm as I can, because the alternative ain't that pleasant. Also, that route I mentioned is so strenuous that I can only really climb it 3 to 4 times a day and then have to do stretches to avoid tinnitus.
I found this video to be very helpful as I think I started crimping too soon on just a hangboard, which has caused some lasting pain in my left ring finger down through my wrist. It's slowly subsiding, but had I taken the open grip approach from the start, I may have been able to avoid this discomfort.
I would say that for some of us, indoor climbing is sometimes our limit or redpoint climbing. If you train for months for a competition or to try to make a new grade, it's reasonable to crimp as though you were trying to redpoint outdoors. Very good video though, thanks for making it.
Great and informative! As a beginner this was very helpful! I've heard a lot of warnings about the full crimp but never knew why it's dangerous until this video
me too, but in my case thats because most if not all of the rather easy problems in the gym are made with holds wich are easy to grip so you dont have to crimp.
Probably a lot to do with the routes you're climbing. Typically beginners have VERY meaty holds, with a lot to hold onto. Therefore, you never really need to crimp. Crimps are something you only really resort to when you 'have' t0, ie you can't get more of your hand on the hold.
Strained my pulley last week, will have to take a break this week because I pushed to hard for the next difficulty. Luckily I stopped before injuring myself! TAKE CARE OF YOUR HANDS!
I love what you said about varying the approach to pinch holds - I'd never thought about using them from a sideways approach - I'm so excited to try this today!
Thanks, as a beginner (bouldered roughly once per week for ~4 months) with no formal training, I'm now suspecting I've been crimping a lot. i'll pay attention next time I'm at the climbing gym and will make a conscious effort to avoid crimping, even if it sets me back in regards to short-term success. I suspect that as an overweight person who've started in his late 20ies, I'm probably particularly prone to injuries, so I'll try to take your advice serious. On another note: You mention that in general, employing fewer fingers is more aggressive, but you also point out that the 4-finger open holdis more aggressive than the 3-finger one. Why is that? Because using your pinky naturally bends the hand into a a more crimp-shaped position?
Good on you for promoting Veganism. Most wouldn't have the guts. I commend you for it. Id just like to know how aggressive of a grip I should use for each situation. Thanks!
Jimmy Lanik Trust me, you're doing the right thing by moving away from the full crimps despite them being so much stronger. I had been climbing for over three years, 2-5 times a week, 1,5-6 hours each session. Climbing was such a huge part of my life. And I was a massive crimper, I was crimping everything I possibly could. Until suddenly, mid 2014 I was forced to quit due to my fingers, and I still haven't been able to get back into climbing again. Even till this day, almost 2,5 years later, I can still feel that easy to recognize crimp pain even from just using dumbbells or stuff like carrying grocery bags when it's cold outside. Don't repeat my mistake
Jimmy Lanik Trust me, you're doing the right thing by moving away from the full crimps despite them being so much stronger. I had been climbing for over three years, 2-5 times a week, 1,5-6 hours each session. Climbing was such a huge part of my life. And I was a massive crimper, I was crimping everything I possibly could. Until suddenly, mid 2014 I was forced to quit due to my fingers, and I still haven't been able to get back into climbing again. Even till this day, almost 2,5 years later, I can still feel that easy to recognize crimp pain even from just using dumbbells or stuff like carrying grocery bags when it's cold outside. Don't repeat my mistake
Thank you for the truly important and interesting information. Just a quick advice: The music in the background is highly annoying. I recommend you don't have any music at all or choose something else.
@Mani_the_Monkey Thank you for this thorough coverage. This all makes a lot of sense. I wonder if it would be straightforward for you to connect some of the later ideas here (about reduced aggressiveness for indoors) to any underlying physics principle to a sensible extent - say looking from the perspective of contact area and friction?
many reasons, one being the rotational direction of the hand and forearm. another could be the direction of the hold. in my gym is a cool dynamic problem where you have jump to a hold in the 2o'clock position. but you need to kinda push yourself a little bit with your right hand in this direction. now the starthold is made so you cna have all fingers in a 5 o'clock position ,from wich its really hard to push upwards. if you just put your index finger to a 2 o'clock pos. it turns the forearm a few degrees counterclockwise , making it reeeally easy to push in the jump direction.
If you've ever watched a video of a cadaver's hand being manipulated, each finger has an individual tendon/muscle that can be pulled for flexion. There is also another separate tendon that pulls the middle, ring, and pinky fingers together (I guess why some people cant flex their middle and ring fingers separately). So those fingers can actually have 2 sets of muscles/tendons pulling at once. I assume this is why the middle/ring fingers are used in 2 finger pockets vs the index/middle finger.
Pockety Crimps is that old guy that's always yelling at kids for their ball going in his yard. We used to jump into his side pools; Pockety side pools.
Your video was really interesting! Keep going on this way ;) PS:I'm french and i'm 17 ( 1.80m for 70kg) I've been climbing for 3 years now and i would like to reach the 7C. However in my climbing club, there is only two 7C and i already managed to do them without any rest ( The wall is about 8m ). My question is: How can I improve my abilities to reach this level, I mean, be able to clear a lot of 7C onsight. I'm training about 4 or 6H a week ---> ( Sorry for my English )
Well for firing off 7c's onsight you probably should be able to redpoint 8a's or 8a+'s. You're young and thus quite fast progressing, if I was you I would just try to stay consist, maybe up the volume a bit to a steady 8h per week, and incorporate some bouldering in case of max strength being your weakness. Hope this helps, cheers.
When you showed the diagram of the finger I got really excited but ended up just saying everything I’ve heard already...damn. Can’t say it’s bad info, was really hoping you’d be the one to take it a little deeper on the anatomy of what you are actually doing w/ the grips...
I've been climbing about a year now. Mostly bouldering only. I'm preventing injury from happening with really high effort. I warm up properly, do my stretches, even for fingers and my wrist before i get on a problem. Though, i pulled my ring band about 6 weeks ago (never had injury before). I'm sure i gripped some holds with a full cramp, there is no question about that but pulling my ring band, cant actually happen by gripping only SOME holds with a full cramp, right? So why did that happen to me? is it a sign of too much stress in general? i took a 1 day brake between my sessions mostly.
I don't know if that is a realistic goal. Fantastic to think about possible diverse approaches yet when even in gym. 5.11s (na), these can vertically require some sort of crimp. Maybe they have a few slopers. That's wishful thinking. Granted I'm talking about short 15 to 20m climbs. Though easily in a night I can only spend time on a route like that.
I have only been climbing for a couple of months now but I noticed today that I have started to get some pain in my elbow. Do you think this could be from fully extending my arms when resting? Or perhaps just climbing too much too soon? I know it isn't related to the video but you seem the the type of guy who knows a lot about climbing!
Is the pain located at the inner or outer side of the elbow (golfers or tennis)? Climbing/Training/Resting a lot in the fully extended arm can be a reason, but if you're a super psyched beginner I'd rather go with the assumption that you've just overdone it a bit (especially if you haven't done any high impact stuff like hangboarding or campusing yet). My suggestion: Don't stop completely, but do nothing that hurts or leads to more pain.
These ones are often caused by sudden forceful extensions, like after a footslip or uncontrolled downcampusing for example. I had this as well, I just kept on climbing but did nothing that hurt, or lead to more pain. You're welcome, I will :)
Very important lession right there! I usually use the half-crimp grip and have recently noticed that whenever I start to get tired my fingers automatically switch to a more open-handed grip type even though I hadn't intended to use it (for instance some fingers stay half crimped while others drag more). Seeing this video it's probably not a coincidence, rather a different muscle group seems to be recruited when switching to open-handed grip type. Any idea which muscles differ? Another thing: I can't half/full-crimp with my pinkie, it always stays in the extended state no matter what I do. Do you think this is due to a lack of muscular control over the pinkie and could be limiting my gripping strenght longterm? (I dont plan on full crimping with my pinkie regularly but would like to retain the option for when it matters). Do you bend your pinkie when you half/full crimp? How do other high level climbers do it? Lastly here's a bit from "Make or Break" by Dave MacLeod: "Spreading the stress on the body: The goal of training is to maximise the overload placed on the body without injuring it. Clearly, if the overload is unevenly balanced, with one area recieving too much stress, it can become overtrained and then injured while other areas are actually undertrained. [...] Possibly the single most important method to spread the stress of climbing is to vary the grip type we use. [...] Once this balance of using both [open hand and crimp] types of grip is established, it is generally good for your climbing, giving you a wider repertoire to suit all the weird and wonderful shapes of hold we encounter. [...] Once you get stronger and proficient openhanding, you will be able to use progessively smaller edges without needing to crimp. In fact, where the edge is convex shaped, you will often find it stronger openhanded, whereas concave shaped holds with a sharp edge can be better crimped." - Section 3: Removing the causes of injury for prevention and treatment. I don't climb particularily hard but I honestly encourage everyone to focus more on subtle changes which don't seem to translate into higher grades immediately. Be that ARC Training for endurance, a better warm-up routine or learning a new grip type. It will pay off so make sure you put the hours in because it matters. Cheers!
Thanks for your great input! To be honest I don't know exactly which muscles differ, but I have the feeling that crimpy climbing stresses the proximal region of the forearm, while open, slopy climbing stresses more of the distal region of the forearm. I do bend my pinkie only when full crimping, but I think it doesn't make too much of a difference strengthwise to leave it extended.
Thank you for this! I just started climbing a few weeks ago and i keep hearing talk of the importance of not over crimping. I don't think that I crimp all that often because open hand just feels a lot better for me naturally, but I'll check my hand technique again at the gym next time. My biggest problem now is my forearms and the inside of my elbows get so sore. Do you have any advice you would recommend for that?
I get the same soreness inside my elbows! I recommend building up your bicep strength as I notice when I don't train biceps the elbow pain is worse. Having adequate rest days also helps.
When I first started climbing I had a lot of pain on the inside of my elbow. If I understand your problem correctly, when you are looking at your arms palms up, it's pain in the outer part of the elbow crease. This is inflammation of the tendons of the forearm extensor muscles where they insert into the lateral epicondoyle (aka lateral epicondoylitis, aka tennis elbow). For me this was because of extensive hand extension trying to grip smaller holds. To fix it, you can either take longer breaks between climbing sessions (at least 2-3 days), or do eccentric exercises for those tendons (i.e. slowly releasing against tension) in order to strengthen the tendons.
thx man! although my hands and forearms are the strongest part of my body i still think this vid is very helpfull for me and many others!! but do you know a prevention for shoulder injuries? i know started climbing again after a year of injuries from my shoulders...
Hey Mani, Thanks for the videos! I have an old thumb injury that is flaring up now that I'm climbing. It was from falling on a mountain bike and trying to catch myself with my hands (dumb I know, but happened so fast). I haven't been full crimping at all, but I guess the tendons are connected to my thumb from my other fingers and are making my thumb sore. Any suggestions on exercises or ways to prevent this?
What does it mean to grab a hold as openly as possible? I'm new. How would you tehn recommend I grab holds where I am tempted to grab full crimp? Thanks!
It means your fingers should engage into the most open position possible for that given hold. It means not crimping a sloper, which can be engaged with the 3 fingers or 4 fingers open grip. It means not full crimping an edge which can be engaged with the half crimp, 4 f open grip or even 3 f open grip.
Thanks my friend! Could you give me a suggestion on how to find (on the internet) hand positions showing the most "open" (which I still don't quite understand/picture) positions for different holds? Thanks for your advice!
Jeffery Scott The more you bend your fingers, the less open. The closer you bring your thumb to your fingertips, the more strain is put on your fingers
good video! i started climbing last December, and i DEFINITELY found myself full crimping all the time. because it worked, and it got me sending higher levels. but bending my finger tips would hurt for a day or two afterwards. now i try to avoid full crimps, and my finger tips never hurt after sessions. kind of a good sanity check.
Have been climbing for 7 years on and off and still got something from this video! Thanks man
I'm pretty new to rock climbing and have been watching a lot of your videos lately... they've all been really helpful. People are making stupid comments about the vegan thing or whatever but honestly your videos are so well explained and demonstrative and it's helped me a LOT. Just wanted to say thank you
Without reading any of the other comments let me just say - never ever EVER crimp unless you absolutely have to and even then think about it twice.
Crimping is undoubtedly the most dangerous type of hand position in terms of injury. Open hand grip is by far the best. Practice open hand grips and have mercy on your fingers and pulleys. They will return the love with longevity and reliability.
I feel like there's a lot missing from this video. You mention several ways to grip different holds, but don't talk at all about when to use which and why. You ended by saying to use grips that are as open as possible when climbing indoors. Is injury prevention the only reason? Should I practice crimps indoors if I want to climb outdoors in the future? What does it mean that a grip is more aggressive? It's more difficult? Takes more energy? Gives a stronger hold? Maybe I need to find the level that goes before beginner before this technique video is good for me.
Peter VanderMeulen i agree, i thought i missed an explanation about the agressive grips
To piggyback on this, it would be helpful to have the suggestions interspersed with actual on the wall examples, showing a climber employing the varying degrees of aggression and how it affects the climb.
Peter VanderMeulen The aggressiveness of the grip style doesn't affect your climbing so much on edges and other holds that are small, but you have a higher risk of hurting your joints in your fingers if you full crimp. The thing is, when you haven't been climbing for that long, full crimping is easier than taking a hold in a more open handed way, because your forearms aren't strong yet, so putting force on the tips of your fingers with your thumb feels more secure and you can focus more on other things. But it hurts to crimp because it's not natural for your hands, so on slopers and other holds where you have the option to take it open handed it's always better to train doing that. And I guess crimping outdoors is okay because you spend less time there than indoors for most people, and the climbs there are more difficult and demanding.
If you want to do the thing, practice it.
He says 'Don't always crimp' because stressing the same muscles means the others will lag behind...
The same applies to using everything BUT those muscles. The crimp muscles will lag behind.
Just try to resist the crimp if you can, use the least aggressive hold possible basically.
In fact, the less area your fingers cover on the hold, the more aggressive your grip is.. agressive in a destructive way...
Less energy, less difficult, stronger hold...devestating for a beginners tendons.... fast injury..
Don't practice crimps, practice NOT doing them and concentrate on open grip(lot of surface)
When time comes you really need to be somewhere, you will crimp automatically...
This is verry good to know for a beginner because the tendons are not yet strong enough to cope with crimping...
Super helpful. I realized I'm fully crimping all the time and it's totally unnecessary. Thanks.
im a newbie and have watch a lot of videos but you have a very nice in-depth of the types of hold that i never heard from others. very informative. thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the awesome feedback!
I've been following your channel for a couple of months and it's quite nice, congrats! I've just injured my A2 pulley working on a humble 7a route... I had already heard about the risks of full crimping, but I wish I had watched this video earlier... maybe It would have saved my pulley.
keep climbing!
Thanks. Just started with a home built wall in my garage and I never knew there were so many different ways to grip a hold. I learned something and I will add on a couple things now to expand my training effort. Thanks again..
New to climbing, that was just soooo helpful for injury free efficient climbing, many many thanks.
Oh No!! I started climbing just over 1 month now. As I progress to the harder routes and holds, I start feeling soreness on my fingers. Referring to the finger anatomy graph in the video, the soreness generally happens on A2 and C2, sometimes C3 and C4. I wasn't sure if that's just the result of training fingers (just like getting sore muscles after work out) or if that's something I need to address. Turnout, I am probably doing it wrong. Thanks for the video!
Your videos have been super useful! Recently started climbing 2 months ago. Can you consider doing a video on the different techniques and how to incorporate them into climbing? I'm aware of flagging, drop knee, etc.. but sometimes get lost on how and when to use them. thankyou!!
These ones I will definitely cover soon, stay tuned :)
+Vegan Rockclimbing Looking foward to it :)
i'm a beginner (bouldering for 2 months now) and improved quite a lot (fortunately) and i never used a all these different techiques before. so i will try these ones next week for sure! :)
danke für die super videos! gerade solche hinweise, die verletzungen vorbeugen sind extrem wichtig und interessant für mich und deine videos erklären diese thematiken sehr gut! werde wohl erst mal deine tipp videos komplett durch suchten :D
also noch mal danke und mach weiter so! :)
These are unbelievably helpful. This makes perfect sense but never would have occurred to me. Will know to pay attention to it now. Thank you!
No fuckin way! I'm vegan, today just bought some climbing shoes and signed up for a beginners course next month. INSTANT SUBSCRIBE. Thank you vegan brother!
It's a pleasure to me my friend!
Same :) Been vegan for a little over a year and started getting into climbing in the last month or so. Just stumbled upon this channel and already getting loads of great info! Keep it up @Vegan Rockclimbing!
also newbie to. Been going 1 day a week for past 2 weeks and today to. Hopefully will be consistent with this as I've not much prior experience. Am loving it!
Super helpful. I'm definitely guilty of using the full crimp as a go-to on edge holds. Aaaand I'm starting to feel it in my finger tendons. I'll be changing that up going forward. Thanks for the tips!!
If I had seen it before my two fingers injurieshappened! good work with explaining these important things
I've watched several of your videos now, they're great. Lots of good information, thank you!
Take care of your fingers!
I will try this, i am stuck at 6b or so for quite a while and recently i topped a 6c. I now come to realize that i could only top that one because it deviated a lot from what i am used to in terms of gripping style, i had to adapt. I will now give more focus to how i grip stuff and like you mentioned add more variety because i do tend to use too much full grips resulting in early fatique. With the right effort i may finally overcome the barrier that is 7.
I know this is an older video but I've been trying to find a vegan climber to follow and didn't come up with anything decent so I gave up and then I found this/you while trying to improve technique.
really well articulated - and helpful opinion about full crimps indoors!
Thank you my friend!
Would love more examples regarding tricky hold types and how to deal with them!
I am a new climber and you described exactly what I've been doing ... full crimping indoors!! And I do feel some stress on my fingers afterwards. So thanks for that!!
Also, kudos to you being vegan too brotha! I have been vegan for 5 years now and was the best decision of my life.
Dude this vid was amazing, I was looking for info this complete, and couldn´t find it! I myself am a beginner and this is very helpful! cheers!
Hi Mani! I have started climbing about 4 months ago and I think I subscribed to your channel 2 months ago. I found your videos very useful and for that I thank you very much. Could you edit the description of the video and add other lessons you learned for quicker access? Also, exercises for forearms muscles would be great, if you have done such a video. Also, I want to improve my holds grabbing technique, specially when it comes to more dynamic moves on small holds, I seem to have problems sticking to them.
There are a few holds indoors that do warrant a full crimp. I have a route at my wall where it is actually designed to crimp a lot by using very tiny, hard to grip holds (I designed it to increase my crimp strength). I definitely agree to not crimp when it is not warranted, as I usually do (just loosely latch onto slopes for example). Use as much of the muscles in the forearm as I can, because the alternative ain't that pleasant. Also, that route I mentioned is so strenuous that I can only really climb it 3 to 4 times a day and then have to do stretches to avoid tinnitus.
Thanks for the tips, actually injured right now precisely because of what you mention
I found this video to be very helpful as I think I started crimping too soon on just a hangboard, which has caused some lasting pain in my left ring finger down through my wrist. It's slowly subsiding, but had I taken the open grip approach from the start, I may have been able to avoid this discomfort.
I would say that for some of us, indoor climbing is sometimes our limit or redpoint climbing.
If you train for months for a competition or to try to make a new grade, it's reasonable to crimp as though you were trying to redpoint outdoors.
Very good video though, thanks for making it.
legends man. those endurance grips
Great and informative! As a beginner this was very helpful! I've heard a lot of warnings about the full crimp but never knew why it's dangerous until this video
thanks Arnold 💪
Great technik Video for Climbing! Thanks for posting!
Interesting, as a beginner I never "naturally" crimped. Maybe it just didn't feel as comfortable to me.
me too, but in my case thats because most if not all of the rather easy problems in the gym are made with holds wich are easy to grip so you dont have to crimp.
Probably a lot to do with the routes you're climbing. Typically beginners have VERY meaty holds, with a lot to hold onto. Therefore, you never really need to crimp.
Crimps are something you only really resort to when you 'have' t0, ie you can't get more of your hand on the hold.
Christian W. Hundley 9
This was absolutely amazing and informative video. Thank you very much. Love it!
Strained my pulley last week, will have to take a break this week because I pushed to hard for the next difficulty. Luckily I stopped before injuring myself!
TAKE CARE OF YOUR HANDS!
I love what you said about varying the approach to pinch holds - I'd never thought about using them from a sideways approach - I'm so excited to try this today!
Great video! Super glad I watched.
Very informative vid, cheers Mani
This is great advice cheers. Also, who wrote that riff at the start because that's gnarly!
Sometimes I notice myself going straight to a crimp in the gym. Great vid for beginners.
currently on grade 1 a2 pulley on my ring finger, wish I had seen this vid earlier ^^
thank you for all your tips... as a new climber I need all the meta I can learn. :)
I really enjoy his calm and professional choice of words. good job. Also thx for being vegan.
Thanks, as a beginner (bouldered roughly once per week for ~4 months) with no formal training, I'm now suspecting I've been crimping a lot. i'll pay attention next time I'm at the climbing gym and will make a conscious effort to avoid crimping, even if it sets me back in regards to short-term success. I suspect that as an overweight person who've started in his late 20ies, I'm probably particularly prone to injuries, so I'll try to take your advice serious.
On another note: You mention that in general, employing fewer fingers is more aggressive, but you also point out that the 4-finger open holdis more aggressive than the 3-finger one. Why is that? Because using your pinky naturally bends the hand into a a more crimp-shaped position?
I just started around last month and watching your vid is awesome advise and it helped me a lot and it's also good to start claiming early lol I
So helping videos, thank you very much!!
Thank you Mani!
Good on you for promoting Veganism. Most wouldn't have the guts. I commend you for it.
Id just like to know how aggressive of a grip I should use for each situation. Thanks!
I just watch your video and at the end I saw that you're vegan, well done, regards from another vegan climber :)
Definetely will follow your channel.
YES great to hear from you man, thanks for the support!
What is the purpose of crimp? Why is it considered stronger? And why does it cause more injuries?
I do a lot of full crimps on indoor holds and I have felt pain in my finger joints (knuckles). All open hand now
Jimmy Lanik
Trust me, you're doing the right thing by moving away from the full crimps despite them being so much stronger. I had been climbing for over three years, 2-5 times a week, 1,5-6 hours each session. Climbing was such a huge part of my life. And I was a massive crimper, I was crimping everything I possibly could. Until suddenly, mid 2014 I was forced to quit due to my fingers, and I still haven't been able to get back into climbing again. Even till this day, almost 2,5 years later, I can still feel that easy to recognize crimp pain even from just using dumbbells or stuff like carrying grocery bags when it's cold outside. Don't repeat my mistake
Jimmy Lanik
Trust me, you're doing the right thing by moving away from the full crimps despite them being so much stronger. I had been climbing for over three years, 2-5 times a week, 1,5-6 hours each session. Climbing was such a huge part of my life. And I was a massive crimper, I was crimping everything I possibly could. Until suddenly, mid 2014 I was forced to quit due to my fingers, and I still haven't been able to get back into climbing again. Even till this day, almost 2,5 years later, I can still feel that easy to recognize crimp pain even from just using dumbbells or stuff like carrying grocery bags when it's cold outside. Don't repeat my mistake
Thank you for the truly important and interesting information.
Just a quick advice: The music in the background is highly annoying. I recommend you don't have any music at all or choose something else.
You're doing a great work! Thank you!
@Mani_the_Monkey Thank you for this thorough coverage. This all makes a lot of sense.
I wonder if it would be straightforward for you to connect some of the later ideas here (about reduced aggressiveness for indoors) to any underlying physics principle to a sensible extent - say looking from the perspective of contact area and friction?
I eat meat, will these grips still work?
GB988
Nah bro, we're screwed =/
GB988 no vegan diet, no vegan powers
grips become slippery with all that meat fat
unfortunately not
Nah mate you'll have cardiac arrest from all those fats from meat haha
Really informative
I like it
Great job
wowww I just Found my perfect TH-cam channel. Awesome review, very useful for beginners and for professionals too. nice!!! :)
For two finger holds why do people use the middle and ring finger, and not the index and middle finger?
many reasons, one being the rotational direction of the hand and forearm. another could be the direction of the hold.
in my gym is a cool dynamic problem where you have jump to a hold in the 2o'clock position. but you need to kinda push yourself a little bit with your right hand in this direction. now the starthold is made so you cna have all fingers in a 5 o'clock position ,from wich its really hard to push upwards. if you just put your index finger to a 2 o'clock pos. it turns the forearm a few degrees counterclockwise , making it reeeally easy to push in the jump direction.
If you've ever watched a video of a cadaver's hand being manipulated, each finger has an individual tendon/muscle that can be pulled for flexion. There is also another separate tendon that pulls the middle, ring, and pinky fingers together (I guess why some people cant flex their middle and ring fingers separately). So those fingers can actually have 2 sets of muscles/tendons pulling at once. I assume this is why the middle/ring fingers are used in 2 finger pockets vs the index/middle finger.
Thanks for this video dude. Great explanation!
You're welcome :) Thanks!
Dude I love your videos
Pockety Crimps is that old guy that's always yelling at kids for their ball going in his yard. We used to jump into his side pools; Pockety side pools.
:D
Your video was really interesting! Keep going on this way ;)
PS:I'm french and i'm 17 ( 1.80m for 70kg)
I've been climbing for 3 years now and i would like to reach the 7C.
However in my climbing club, there is only two 7C and i already managed to do them without any rest ( The wall is about 8m ).
My question is: How can I improve my abilities to reach this level, I mean, be able to clear a lot of 7C onsight. I'm training about 4 or 6H a week ---> ( Sorry for my English )
Well for firing off 7c's onsight you probably should be able to redpoint 8a's or 8a+'s. You're young and thus quite fast progressing, if I was you I would just try to stay consist, maybe up the volume a bit to a steady 8h per week, and incorporate some bouldering in case of max strength being your weakness. Hope this helps, cheers.
Thanks for your time and advice :)
When you showed the diagram of the finger I got really excited but ended up just saying everything I’ve heard already...damn. Can’t say it’s bad info, was really hoping you’d be the one to take it a little deeper on the anatomy of what you are actually doing w/ the grips...
So good videos, love them! Thank you a lot
“Climbing career” love it
I've been climbing about a year now. Mostly bouldering only. I'm preventing injury from happening with really high effort. I warm up properly, do my stretches, even for fingers and my wrist before i get on a problem. Though, i pulled my ring band about 6 weeks ago (never had injury before). I'm sure i gripped some holds with a full cramp, there is no question about that but pulling my ring band, cant actually happen by gripping only SOME holds with a full cramp, right? So why did that happen to me? is it a sign of too much stress in general? i took a 1 day brake between my sessions mostly.
Excellent video thank you
Liked and subscribed. Liked another video of yours to. Thanks for sharing!
I don't know if that is a realistic goal. Fantastic to think about possible diverse approaches yet when even in gym. 5.11s (na), these can vertically require some sort of crimp. Maybe they have a few slopers. That's wishful thinking.
Granted I'm talking about short 15 to 20m climbs. Though easily in a night I can only spend time on a route like that.
great tips, thanks!
awesome video, when is it a good time to go see a physiotherapist regarding finger injuries? like if hang on it or asap?
Thanks a lot, lots of great info.
Thanks for the advise
I have only been climbing for a couple of months now but I noticed today that I have started to get some pain in my elbow. Do you think this could be from fully extending my arms when resting? Or perhaps just climbing too much too soon? I know it isn't related to the video but you seem the the type of guy who knows a lot about climbing!
Is the pain located at the inner or outer side of the elbow (golfers or tennis)? Climbing/Training/Resting a lot in the fully extended arm can be a reason, but if you're a super psyched beginner I'd rather go with the assumption that you've just overdone it a bit (especially if you haven't done any high impact stuff like hangboarding or campusing yet). My suggestion: Don't stop completely, but do nothing that hurts or leads to more pain.
+Vegan Rockclimbing its on the outside, thanks very much for the advice. Keep up the good videos!
These ones are often caused by sudden forceful extensions, like after a footslip or uncontrolled downcampusing for example. I had this as well, I just kept on climbing but did nothing that hurt, or lead to more pain. You're welcome, I will :)
Simply, Thank you...
Very important lession right there!
I usually use the half-crimp grip and have recently noticed that whenever I start to get tired my fingers automatically switch to a more open-handed grip type even though I hadn't intended to use it (for instance some fingers stay half crimped while others drag more). Seeing this video it's probably not a coincidence, rather a different muscle group seems to be recruited when switching to open-handed grip type. Any idea which muscles differ?
Another thing: I can't half/full-crimp with my pinkie, it always stays in the extended state no matter what I do. Do you think this is due to a lack of muscular control over the pinkie and could be limiting my gripping strenght longterm? (I dont plan on full crimping with my pinkie regularly but would like to retain the option for when it matters). Do you bend your pinkie when you half/full crimp? How do other high level climbers do it?
Lastly here's a bit from "Make or Break" by Dave MacLeod:
"Spreading the stress on the body:
The goal of training is to maximise the overload placed on the body without injuring it. Clearly, if the overload is unevenly balanced, with one area recieving too much stress, it can become overtrained and then injured while other areas are actually undertrained. [...] Possibly the single most important method to spread the stress of climbing is to vary the grip type we use. [...] Once this balance of using both [open hand and crimp] types of grip is established, it is generally good for your climbing, giving you a wider repertoire to suit all the weird and wonderful shapes of hold we encounter. [...] Once you get stronger and proficient openhanding, you will be able to use progessively smaller edges without needing to crimp. In fact, where the edge is convex shaped, you will often find it stronger openhanded, whereas concave shaped holds with a sharp edge can be better crimped." - Section 3: Removing the causes of injury for prevention and treatment.
I don't climb particularily hard but I honestly encourage everyone to focus more on subtle changes which don't seem to translate into higher grades immediately. Be that ARC Training for endurance, a better warm-up routine or learning a new grip type. It will pay off so make sure you put the hours in because it matters.
Cheers!
Thanks for your great input! To be honest I don't know exactly which muscles differ, but I have the feeling that crimpy climbing stresses the proximal region of the forearm, while open, slopy climbing stresses more of the distal region of the forearm. I do bend my pinkie only when full crimping, but I think it doesn't make too much of a difference strengthwise to leave it extended.
Very helpful, thanks!
thanks
What does he mean by more aggressive? Does that mean that would be a worse and harder way to crimp the hold?
subscribed very informative
great videos bro!
Really helpful video..thanks for sharing!
P.S. Nice picture of Buddha behind you!! :D
Thank you for this! I just started climbing a few weeks ago and i keep hearing talk of the importance of not over crimping. I don't think that I crimp all that often because open hand just feels a lot better for me naturally, but I'll check my hand technique again at the gym next time. My biggest problem now is my forearms and the inside of my elbows get so sore. Do you have any advice you would recommend for that?
I get the same soreness inside my elbows! I recommend building up your bicep strength as I notice when I don't train biceps the elbow pain is worse. Having adequate rest days also helps.
When I first started climbing I had a lot of pain on the inside of my elbow. If I understand your problem correctly, when you are looking at your arms palms up, it's pain in the outer part of the elbow crease. This is inflammation of the tendons of the forearm extensor muscles where they insert into the lateral epicondoyle (aka lateral epicondoylitis, aka tennis elbow). For me this was because of extensive hand extension trying to grip smaller holds. To fix it, you can either take longer breaks between climbing sessions (at least 2-3 days), or do eccentric exercises for those tendons (i.e. slowly releasing against tension) in order to strengthen the tendons.
train
que buenos consejos, gracias dude!!!
Nice! Thanks!
thx man! although my hands and forearms are the strongest part of my body i still think this vid is very helpfull for me and many others!! but do you know a prevention for shoulder injuries? i know started climbing again after a year of injuries from my shoulders...
I think the next injury related video is going to be about shoulders.
thanks for the video. it's very useful. regards from a fellow vegan climber ;)
thank you! very helpful!
this is gold! thank you!
Thanks, you're welcome!
Thank you! great video! :D
Jugs are always amazing no matter the situation
Still very new to climbing - this was an excellent video, learned loads about grips! I didn't know!! Thank you. Also yet vegan army :)
thanks for the info! i appreciate it!
They say there are those who open handed crimp, and those who will open hand grip.
Thank you!!!😘😘😘
Hey Mani,
Thanks for the videos! I have an old thumb injury that is flaring up now that I'm climbing. It was from falling on a mountain bike and trying to catch myself with my hands (dumb I know, but happened so fast). I haven't been full crimping at all, but I guess the tendons are connected to my thumb from my other fingers and are making my thumb sore. Any suggestions on exercises or ways to prevent this?
Good vid
What does it mean to grab a hold as openly as possible? I'm new. How would you tehn recommend I grab holds where I am tempted to grab full crimp? Thanks!
It means your fingers should engage into the most open position possible for that given hold. It means not crimping a sloper, which can be engaged with the 3 fingers or 4 fingers open grip. It means not full crimping an edge which can be engaged with the half crimp, 4 f open grip or even 3 f open grip.
Thanks my friend! Could you give me a suggestion on how to find (on the internet) hand positions showing the most "open" (which I still don't quite understand/picture) positions for different holds? Thanks for your advice!
Jeffery Scott
The more you bend your fingers, the less open. The closer you bring your thumb to your fingertips, the more strain is put on your fingers
Great thanks for your advice!!
thank you!
You're welcome!