Modus Athletica

A good warm-up makes or breaks your climbing session, especially if you’re looking to project. Building up heat in the fingers will also make crimps feel stronger and more comfortable.

I highly recommend a finger block and resistance band be your warm-up kit for the crag. You can come up with a lot of creative ways to build up heat using these two devices. And of course, easy to moderate climbing is the best warm-up, so if that’s available, add your finger warm-ups to your warm-up climbs.

Nerd notes:
The fingers need extra attention since tendons and ligaments are the dominant soft tissues, which need extra heat to reduce viscosity (less internal friction) and improve elasticity, which helps to better absorb high forces like dead points in crimp positions. Ramp up to 50-100 crimp moves or 100-200s at an easy to moderate load, then progressing to a high load at the end, is a great target for the warm-up.

Training strength on the wall with intention, such as “today I’ll focus on hamstring engagement,” is really the only way to transfer your general strength you get from deadlifts and Nordic curls to improve specific positions you are weak in.

Comment “pod” and I’ll DM you today’s podcast link where we cover on and off the wall hamstring strength.

New Hamstring Strength Podcast!
Comment “Pod” and I’ll DM you the link.

This week .strong and I breakdown how hamstring strength shows up while climbing and how best to train them.