Tell us about your home gym....

[JowGaWolf]

I still believe if a weight lifter put more effort in grip strength, the result is the same. Just they don't. Climbing is not unique.

That is only true if he's doing the same exercises and conditioning that rock climbers do. There's no way around it. No matter how we think we can pick certain thing out to strengthen. If it's not the same movement then it's not the same or similar movement then it's not the same group of muscles and tendons being conditioned and strength.

It's ONLY scientific it you have sample size of like 100.

Take a look at photos of rock climbers and you'll see the same muscle and tendon structure being developed. Biologically when we make a fist the same muscles and tendons are used to make the same fist. When we grabs like climbers grab then it's a different set of muscles being used. Climbers in similar or same positions should have similar muscles flexing and tendons in use. Take a look at her hands. When body builders and gym rats work on grip strength in the gym. Their hands are not in this position and because they aren't in the same position the muscles and tendons aren't being stressed, position, or moving in the same manner.

Most of us train grips by closing the hand around a bar. This is a different grip than what climbers use. This is grip is closer to tiger claw in kung fu. I'll spare you the kung fu video because some of those traditional martial arts exercises can be seen in the video below. Instead of jars they are using dumb bells. Personally I like jars because you can adjust the weight without adjusting the grip size.

Don't use that video, that was bad, you will get attack on that and mudding up your point.

As nice as it would be for me to pull up 100 pictures of me measuring the thickness of tendons and writing a scientific paper on it. It's not going to happen people will either believe or not believe. It's much quicker if people just look at their own experiences with things like this.
Or even better take a look at recommended exercises for a specific sport or activity. You'll be surprised at how many non weight lifting exercises are involve. I like weight training butthe majority of my training is non weight lifting. I think this is true with alot of training.

 

[Alan0354]

That is only true if he's doing the same exercises and conditioning that rock climbers do. There's no way around it. No matter how we think we can pick certain thing out to strengthen. If it's not the same movement then it's not the same or similar movement then it's not the same group of muscles and tendons being conditioned and strength.

Take a look at photos of rock climbers and you'll see the same muscle and tendon structure being developed. Biologically when we make a fist the same muscles and tendons are used to make the same fist. When we grabs like climbers grab then it's a different set of muscles being used. Climbers in similar or same positions should have similar muscles flexing and tendons in use. Take a look at her hands. When body builders and gym rats work on grip strength in the gym. Their hands are not in this position and because they aren't in the same position the muscles and tendons aren't being stressed, position, or moving in the same manner.
View attachment 29000

Most of us train grips by closing the hand around a bar. This is a different grip than what climbers use. This is grip is closer to tiger claw in kung fu. I'll spare you the kung fu video because some of those traditional martial arts exercises can be seen in the video below. Instead of jars they are using dumb bells. Personally I like jars because you can adjust the weight without adjusting the grip size.

As nice as it would be for me to pull up 100 pictures of me measuring the thickness of tendons and writing a scientific paper on it. It's not going to happen people will either believe or not believe. It's much quicker if people just look at their own experiences with things like this.
Or even better take a look at recommended exercises for a specific sport or activity. You'll be surprised at how many non weight lifting exercises are involve. I like weight training butthe majority of my training is non weight lifting. I think this is true with alot of training.

No, I don't agree. This is your OPINION only, it make sense that climber have strong forearm, but climbing is NOT the only way. There are ways to train grip, you do NOT need to climb rocks and it's NOT the only way.

Yes, there are specific type of exercise for certain type of sport, that's very obvious, but there is no one way to do it. I do stick fight, I use this instead of climbing:
https://www.amazon.com/KDG-Strengthener-Adjustable-Resistance-Exerciser，Grip/dp/B087X35JJ8/ref=sr_1_7?crid=5NGOCMMFO362&keywords=grip+strength+trainer&qid=1664769304&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI1LjU4IiwicXNhIjoiNS4wNiIsInFzcCI6IjQuODcifQ==&sprefix=grip+,aps,684&sr=8-7

For one, when I get stronger, I adjust it harder, I don't need to climb the wall longer. The more scientific and effective way when climbing wall becomes easier, wear weight jacket to climb, NOT climb longer!!!

Climbing is ONE of the ways, NOT the only way.

ALSO MORE IMPORTANTLY, you don't want to use technique that you have to do it longer as you improve. There is a law of diminish return and wearing out joints that comes into play. You do NOT want to do longer as it gets easier. You want to increase resistance and keep it at below 20 reps.

You better do more research on this.

Remember I used to do pushup wearing up to 75lbs weight jacket, I do not do that anymore. The reason is I can do over 25 reps. It is getting too bulky to put any more weight and hard to put it on. So instead of doing more reps, I change to elastic band and I only do 15 reps. You do NOT want to do more and more reps, it's law of diminish return and wearing out joints. It's like doing push ups, just because it's easy, you do NOT want to do 100 or 200 of them each set. Not only waste time, you can get injured from repetitive motion.

Back to the grip strength, I sure as hell am not going to waste my time go climbing. I am busy enough already on my own exercise, last thing I want is to do something more time consuming. I just want to spend 20mins a week on grip exercise and that's it.

KNOW what is your ultimate goal. If your goal is climbing, yes, go do it. But if MA is your goal, don't side track into something that is as time consuming. Don't side track yourself into something that is very involved, if you do climbing, before you know it, you might find some exercise that improve climbing, are you going to side track again? Sooner or later, you might get totally lost chasing something. You might lost your original goal.

 

[MetalBoar]

Unfortunately, I had work I had to finish this evening and I just now have the chance to get back to this thread. I'd like to reply to all of your posts related to our conversation but I expect I may have missed some. Hopefully I'll hit all the highlights regardless.

Did you work to become strong or did you work to be a body builder and have a body builder's look?
If you worked to be strong then you have already made comments on how strong you are . It seems like you accomplished the goal you were seeking by your own comments on how much you are able to lift and what is easy for you.

If you want to look like a body builder then I have to ask if you were following the same diet and exercises that people in body building do. Now when you talk about how strong you are but no muscles for you to show for it. Then I think you are confusing 2 things. Being strong is one thing and having the body of a body builder is something else. Unless you train like a body builder to sculpt your body a certain way then you aren't going to look like that. Train according to purpose.

There are 4 primary things that give a bodybuilder the "bodybuilder" look you're talking about.

In order of importance:

1. Long muscle belly length. Entirely genetically determined.
2. Low-ish to zero myostatin levels. This is almost entirely genetically determined. If you don't know about this google "whippet" and then "bully whippet". They are the exact same breed, the bully whippet is just a whippet with a genetic disorder that prevents the production of myostatin. They aren't juicing and they aren't even weight lifting.
3. A willingness to consume vast quantities of controlled anabolic substances.
4. A lot of resistance training, generally speaking, more than you can do if you aren't doing #3.

If you don't have 1, 3 & 4 aren't going to make you look like Andrea Presti, or even close, no matter what you do. If you don't have 2 it will be a lot harder. Look at the guys who compete in the natural body building leagues. A lot of them are thought to be juicing off and on too, but they have to be more discrete about it and they're 50 lbs or more lighter than the "unnatural" body builders and they've all got 1 and 4 and a lot of them probably have 2 to some degree as well. The exercise routine they choose to use isn't what determines their overall size. I will agree that body builders sometimes focus on trying to achieve a particular aesthetic by training some body parts relatively less, but their success is only a matter of degree, largely dictated by how well their genetics conform to the look they wish to obtain.

As far as strength and appearance go, have you looked at Eddie Hall and Thor Bjornsson when they dieted down for their fight? They look a lot like bodybuilders and if you tell me they didn't train for, and achieve, strength, you need to explain to me what you think strength is.

Certain exercises work a group of muscles more than other exercises. Tendons strengthen during static holes. The longer someone holds a position the stronger the tendon will become as it must stay engaged. The less time that a tendon has to stays engaged the less of a work out it has and as a result it doesn't develop at the same pace as the muscles which are engaged for a longer amount of time.

For example. Standing in a horse stance will give you stronger tendons. It will give you stronger leg muscles only at the position of the horse stance. It doesn't make your legs actually stronger because you can do horse stance for 20 years and still have a weak squat. In order to make the muscle stronger, a person has to work the full range of that muscles. Full extension and full contraction. This is different for tendons. For tendons, static holds and continuous tension develop those better than they develop muscle.

When you see rock climbers you will see that their grip is engaged for longer periods of times, which is why that guys tendons looked that way. His forearms aren't built like those of someone who lifts weights. So he's gaining more tendon strength faster than he his gaining muscle strength. At most he is gaining a lot of muscle endurance but not any muscle build that will allow him to lift heavy weights.

This is why rehab exercises often look like this (these are actually supposed to be done slowly and with holds)

This is more at the pace the exercises should be done. These exercises help engage the tendons more than the muscles. In short the tendons will get stronger, but no one is getting big calf muscles from these exercises as they are designed the rehab the tendons of the angle and not the muscles. are muscles involved. Yes, any movement of the body requires muscle use. What changes is how much muscle use is actually being used.

If you want stronger tendons, then do a lot of static holds where the tendons have to be continuous engaged. It doesn't take a lot of weight to strengthen tendons. In reality it's better to use the minimum weight for such things so that the tendon's don't start to tear. For me it's easier to know when I tendon is reaching it's limit because it's like feeling a cord in the body that's close to the joint in. It's always closes to the joint in. Muscle failures are the opposite and can be felt away from the joints. If you are doing horse stance and the knees start to hurt then that means too much tension is on the tendons of the knee. If you feel it in the thighs then that means you are doing it correctly. For tendons strengthening exercises you don't want to feel it in the tendons. The moment you do, you'll need to stop or you may need to position the body better. If you are using the correct technique then you shouldn't feel much in the tendon at first. If you are using bad technique or bad body positioning then you'll feel that right way that the load is on the joint.

There's a lot to unpack here but it's late and I need to go to bed so I'll keep it short.

I've not seen any indication that static holds are more effective at strengthening tendons and I just looked again. I found this meta-analysis I hadn't seen before that looked at 27 different studies on the topic of increasing tendon strength and it concluded specifically that concentric-eccentric resistance training (which includes standard weight lifting), eccentric (negative only training) and isometric training (which would include the horse stance) are all equally effective at improving tendon strength in healthy individuals and that the results for plyometrics were less clear. They also concluded that higher intensity contractions and weights closer to 1RM were significantly more effective than low intensity contractions and lighter loads.

Note, this was specifically looking at healthy subjects. Rehabilitation is another matter and the methods and objectives may be substantially different when dealing with tendons suffering from compromised integrity.

 

[Jimmythebull]

I've fallen out of that mindset a long time ago. As I get older, my focus has turned toward function. I just want to move without difficulty

More older people than ever are in Gyms all around the USA unless you've been living under a Rock you should know this . You've a negative mentality towards anything Gym related, your Obsession with climbers tendons is unhealthy. Check out Mike Mentzers forearms...

 

[Jimmythebull]

Anyway check out these Mongolian Bros baseball bat his abs...

 

[Jimmythebull]

One thing I've noticed as I get older is my weight workouts are shorter, but intensive. More recovery time. It makes sense. I feel sronger now & multiple sets & multiple exercises are a thing of the past. Indeed I've dropped my working sets to 2. One warm up Set then 2 relatively high intensity sets. Not as extreme as Mike Mentzers training but I do like his ideas. I can't do these on every workout but I'll use intensity techniques, negatives, forced reps..etc High rep training stuff is for me martial arts practice.

Certainly not the only way to train & some do very well with volume training..but you got to find out what's good for your body. Rest & recovery

Mike Mentzer High Intensity Training Information

Mike Mentzer FAQ, the ultimate resource for Mike Mentzer high intensity training information, read the most frequently asked questions and answers about Mike Mentzer and his Heavy Duty, High Intensity Training. Also you can submit any questions you have about HIT bodybuilding workouts...

www.trulyhuge.com

 

[Alan0354]

One thing I've noticed as I get older is my weight workouts are shorter, but intensive. More recovery time. It makes sense. I feel sronger now & multiple sets & multiple exercises are a thing of the past. Indeed I've dropped my working sets to 2. One warm up Set then 2 relatively high intensity sets. Not as extreme as Mike Mentzers training but I do like his ideas. I can't do these on every workout but I'll use intensity techniques, negatives, forced reps..etc High rep training stuff is for me martial arts practice.

Certainly not the only way to train & some do very well with volume training..but you got to find out what's good for your body. Rest & recovery

Mike Mentzer High Intensity Training Information

Mike Mentzer FAQ, the ultimate resource for Mike Mentzer high intensity training information, read the most frequently asked questions and answers about Mike Mentzer and his Heavy Duty, High Intensity Training. Also you can submit any questions you have about HIT bodybuilding workouts...

www.trulyhuge.com

2 sets? I thought people usually do 4 sets. It's hard to get to the 4th!!! But seems like the 4th burns more.

I am open for experiment, I feel stale anyway.

 

[Jimmythebull]

2 sets? I thought people usually do 4 sets. It's hard to get to the 4th!!! But seems like the 4th burns more.

I am open for experiment, I feel stale anyway.

I used to pyramid up in weight so in reality the last Set say Set number 4/5 was the real working Set, however you're holding back on the other Sets or when using multiple sets & exercises in general. Wasted energy. If I do 3 or 4 exercises per body part..which of these exercises was really productive. I think it's better with 2 exercises I feel stimulate growth than doing other exercises for no real results

 

[Jimmythebull]

I always liked Greg Plitt (RIP) you want funtional strength..he had it all. was i think an ex US Ranger too.
Dude was ripped !

 

[Jimmythebull]

I like how greg mixed it up..bodyweight stuff & weights. seen some amazing results from this type of training too..

 

[JowGaWolf]

No, I don't agree. This is your OPINION only, it make sense that climber have strong forearm, but climbing is NOT the only way.

If you want to have same muscular and tendon build that climbers have then yes. If you just want strong forearms that aren't designed for climbing then no you don't have to. But if you want thick tendons in your forearm like the climbers have then you will need to do the same training they do which includes climbing. Climbing puts various stresses on the body that as the climber moves through various positions. You can't simulate those same positions and stress without actually climbing. Again if you just want strong forearms then there are many ways to do that. If you want a climbers grip or forearm then you'll need to climb.

 

[Jimmythebull]

If you want a climbers grip or forearm then you'll need to climb.

so they have a different anatomy to us mere mortals? what will they train that an overhand grip chin won´t? or lifting a 400LB deadlift won´t? talking about no lifting aids here such as straps.
you know what i think you´re talking more specifics here..if i want to be a good climber i climb...if i want to be a good runner i run..it´s logical. However the muscles can be trained in many ways. sure a climber has great grip but i have done chins in the gym using just my finger grip on a climbers grip. however i´m no climber & don´t have their skills.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I do stick fight, I use this instead of climbing:

That's because you don't use the same grip that climbers use. That grip exercise equipment is good for when you want to close your hand around something like a bat , an arm , or a stick. It doesn't condition the grip for an open grip that climbers use.

 

[Jimmythebull]

now this climber talks like pinch grip training is something new..it´s not. Old time strength guys did pinch grips decades ago. Indeed bodybuilders too, pinching a smooth barbell plate. try it.

 

[JowGaWolf]

so they have a different anatomy to us mere mortals? what will they train that an overhand grip chin won´t? or lifting a 400LB deadlift won´t? talking about no lifting aids here such as straps.
you know what i think you´re talking more specifics here..if i want to be a good climber i climb...if i want to be a good runner i run..it´s logical. However the muscles can be trained in many ways. sure a climber has great grip but i have done chins in the gym using just my finger grip on a climbers grip. however i´m no climber & don´t have their skills.

They develop their muscles differently, in a way that is beneficial to climbing. It is specialized muscle development based on the mechanics of using the fingers to grip the type of surfaces they hold on to which is why the. There's actually a video that a climber made to develop the muscles when there is no way to climb. He didn't recommend any of the stuff that Alan has suggest or how body builders train.

 

[Jimmythebull]

There's actually a video that a climber made to develop the muscles when there is no way to climb. He didn't recommend any of the stuff that Alan has suggest or how body builders train.

dosn´t mean Alan is wrong though does it. Post the video

 

[JowGaWolf]

now this climber talks like pinch grip training is something new..it´s not. Old time strength guys did pinch grips decades ago. Indeed bodybuilders too, pinching a smooth barbell plate. try it.

The climber pinch grip is like training tiger claw. But it's not the same as what the plate grip strength is. The amount that the hand is opened or closed makes a difference and the angle of the arm makes a difference in how the muscles and tendons are developed. There may be a valid reason why most climbers he knows don't use the same training tool or why he didn't show the plate grip. The pinch climber tool may be what is new and not the exercise. The tool seems to target specific types of grips.

 

[Jimmythebull]

The climber pinch grip is like training tiger claw. But it's not the same as what the plate grip strength is. The amount that the hand is opened or closed makes a difference and the angle of the arm makes a difference in how the muscles and tendons are developed. There may be a valid reason why most climbers he knows don't use the same training tool or why he didn't show the plate grip. The pinch climber tool may be what is new and not the exercise. The tool seems to target specific types of grips.

post up the video showing the special training then i will give my opinion... until then all this "Tiger Claw" stuff is just nonsence.

 

[geezer]

More older people than ever are in Gyms all around the USA unless you've been living under a Rock you should know this . You've a negative mentality towards anything Gym related, your Obsession with climbers tendons is unhealthy. Check out Mike Mentzers forearms...
View attachment 29001

Now that ^^^^ looks unhealthy! Now I'm sure he has a strong grip, but for functionality how does it stack up?

 

[Jimmythebull]

Now that ^^^^ looks unhealthy! Now I'm sure he has a strong grip, but for functionality how does it stack up?

how functional must a grip be..to grip. either it´s strong or it´s not. sure over many repatitions i can´t say for him as he passed some years back but mine are certainly good & have staminia. I think that´s the direction you´re going.