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OK, you're at mile two, you're covered with mud, perhaps its been raining and the temperature is only friendly to certain species of Arctic terns and those ten numb appendages at the end of your arms that we call fingers and thumbs feel a bit, well, not so good. You break clear of the forest and there it is the rope climb, or the scaling wall, or the huge cumbersome object to be dragged by a thick chain or rope, or any other wet, mud-slicked, obstacle worn smooth by a hundred grubby grasping hands. Now it's your turn to get your wet, cold, muddy paws on it.
Feel that uncertainty? That little "Man, can I do this?"
Yeah, we all do. Even if we climb ropes like champs in the dry conditions of the gym, scale walls like educated monkeys in the climbing center, grip pull-bar bars, Olympic bars, and battling ropes with confident aplomb most days of the week with our trusted hard-earned grip-cold wet hands coupled with the lubricant of mud changes the equation for even those with the trustiest of grips.
As for those of you who feel that your grip is lacking in the best of conditions, well, you're probably out of luck on the aforementioned obstacles.
So, what can we do about grip deficits? Do we need to purchase some Iron Mind hand grips? Wad sheet after sheet of newspaper? Work toward 1-finger pull-ups, bend nails with our hands, and other such strongman feats? It couldn't hurt, but I think there might be a more functional, pragmatic way to prepare our grips; a way that is a bit more reflective of the conditions that we will face on the course. It also a method that calls for zero extra training time as you incorporate the following suggestions directly into what you already do.
The first thing I want you to do is to stop right now and think about how you grip something, say a pull-up bar. Don't actually grab one, don't clinch your fists and try and imagine your go-to grip, just tell me cold how do you grip that bar?
Do you pull towards your thumb more with the index and middle fingers, or do you pull from the outside-in (pinkie and ring fingers)? Are you a whole-hand gripper-all fingers clinching equally? Are you a thumb-less gripper?
Chances are you might not have thought about exactly how you grip before, no worries, I'm not going to suggest that one way to grip is superior to another. What I am suggesting is that we have a tendency to grip across a habitual pressure zone, a grip habit that we have probably put no thought into and when we are confronted with that slippery object we try to overcome our lack of traction with increased pressure in our habitual pressure zone rather than compensating by changing our pressure zone.
Pretty nit-picky, huh?
To get going with our grip micro-management education let's number our fingers (we'll assume that the Thumb is T):
Your index finger is #1.
Your middle finger #2.
Your ring finger is #3,
And your little finger is #4.
With these numbers in mind let's approach the pull-up bar. Hop up there and give yourself a quick 10 reps with how you normally grip.
Done?
Ok, now hop up there and give me 10 more whith primarily a 1, 2, and T squeeze from each hand with very light pressure from 3 and 4.
Now, 10 more with a T, 3, and 4 squeeze and light on 1 and 2.
What we're doing here is getting our pull-up training in (which we all need) and perhaps waking up to the realization that you can alter your grip pressure from outside to inside or vice versa (or even opposing pressure from each hand). This realization is sometimes enough for those with good grips to learn to alter finger pressures in difficult circumstances. Those with weaker grips, please proceed.
We can build grip strength not by having to add new exercises or additional time to our current training regimen, but by consciously approaching each set of exercise that requires our grip in a different fingering combination. We can do this with pull-ups, deadlifts, cleans, kettlebell swings, et cetera. Altering fingering combinations is invisible work as no one sees you do it, but you can create forearm burn far sooner and start building grip strength/endurance inside the context of what you already do.
Where you'll find the most benefit of this fingering idea is on your rope work. Whether you use actual rope climbs or rope pull-ups, at the very least, working through various grip fingering combinations reaps many rewards.
Rope work also awakens us to the idea of grip surface area. That is, the more of your fingers, palms, fingertips that you can get into contact with the gripped surface the better.
Case in point, often if there is a rope climbing grip deficit it's because the climber is squeezing H-A-R-D with the thumb and fingers 1 and 2. It make sense as these are the three strongest digits, but...
Over-compensating with these three lightens fingers 3 and 4 and essentially reduces gripping surface area, thusly reducing rope friction. Think of the grip surface area like a car brake pad, the more of the pad that is in contact with the wheel the greater the friction. If we squeeze equally from fingers 4 through 1 we are engaging more surface area, and splitting our grip load for the long haul; which is ideal because often what spells the difference between a successful and unsuccessful traverse wall navigation is lactic acid build up in the forearms. We squeeze so hard on the initial wall travel with our go-to digits that we've "burned" ourselves out for the final third.
Becoming more conscious of surface area and altering which fingers are and/or are not engaged can allows us to manage workload a bit better.
So, there we go, we've discussed why and where we need grip for our muddy fun, how to strengthen our grip in the context of activities that we already do, and, perhaps most importantly, made us conscious of just how we grip in different circumstances so we can take a bit more control over that process. Know when to squeeze, know when to relax, know how to grip the way you wanna grip and not blindly reach and grasp.
That's it in a nutshell, you want conscious grip-control not desperate grasping.
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