Episode 58: Comparing Hangboard Protocols with Steve Maisch

One of the guests most requested by our listeners, Steve Maisch is a Salt Lake City climber/coach/economics professor who, much like myself, uses himself as a guinea pig to test new approaches to training.  As such, we decided to nerd out on a couple of topics.  For this one, we discuss the different hangboard protocols, when and why to use them, what they can do for you, and where they can go wrong.  I'm sure we forgot a few, which is ok, because we can always record more...

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kris Hampton  00:33

What's up everybody? I'm your host, Kris Hampton. Welcome to Episode 58 of The Power Company Podcast brought to you by Powercompanyclimbing.com. As always, hopefully you guys are visiting over there. I am currently visiting in Jasper, Arkansas, where I'll be emceeing 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell again. I don't compete anymore, because it's just too much for me to compete and emcee. No way I can do it. It just destroys me. My voice is gonna take a beating here, because the after party gets a little...... excited. And I will be a little excited and I'll be yelling on the microphone. So I'm going to get this thing out to you guys now, because if I don't, it's gonna be a week before I can talk again. Anyway, here at the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, it's a pretty special place. If you guys haven't been, you should definitely visit at some point. And they are currently looking to rebolt the Ranch, and they've teamed up with the Beta Fund and the Ranch was going to do this all on their own, but the Beta Fund wanted to jump in and help and get help from the climbers. All total, the project is going to cost $30,000. You guys can donate and then your donation will be matched by the Beta Fund and you can do that at betafund.org/reboltHCR or you can just Google Beta Fund Horseshoe Canyon Ranch and and you'll find a link to it. And you know, the Ranch is private property and you do have to pay to climb there. And I've seen the argument that if you have to pay to climb there, you shouldn't have to help, you know rebolt the place, but frankly, $10 to climb there is less than the cost of a day pass at halfway decent gym. So, you know, I think if it's if you have the means to do it, I think it's something you should definitely look into. Keeping climbing safe and keeping climbing open for all of us should be a priority. So that was betafund.org.reboltHCR. Please go check that out. From here I go to Rocktoberfest. So hopefully I see a bunch of you guys there. That's October 6 to October 8 in the Red River Gorge. If you haven't registered and you want a discount on your registration, you can do that at rrgcc.org/register. So you know, don't wait. Don't wait till you get there. It's going to cost you more money and we're all poor climbers here. So go and register early. And we'll be in the Red for a few weeks, Nate and I will. Blake and Paul will also be joining us on October 14 for a live Board Meeting at Land of the Arches campground. So if you guys are interested in coming and checking out the Board Meeting, checking out a recording, asking questions, please come and see us. And Nate and I'll be around for a while and doing outdoor sessions while we're there, so if you're interested in getting some outdoor coaching, hit us up. I'm going to jump into this thing now, because you know, it's it's been a while, we've been talking a lot about nebulous ideas, esoteric ideas, and I figured it was time to nerd out a little bit. So I sat down with Steve Maisch in Salt Lake City during Outdoor Retailer this year and we nerd it out about a couple of things. This is the first of two with Maisch and you'll get another one fairly soon. But for this one, we sat down and we talked about hangboard protocols. There are a lot of them out there and we discussed what they do, what the shortcomings are and where things can go wrong. All right.

Steve Maisch  04:29

For most people like it's it's just climbing, and I think hanging just isn't necessary for a lot of people.

Kris Hampton  04:57

So we were just talking about how "keeping the goal the goal", you shouldn't only focus on hangboarding and you should you should be climbing too and now we're going to just dig in, hardcore, to hangboarding

Steve Maisch  05:09

Haha totally.

Kris Hampton  05:10

 So, so everyone out there listening, don't go do this for the next 90% of your training time, you know. Go go climbing too. I'm just gonna go ahead and preface this with that. So there's a, you know, a lot of different protocols for hanging, I mean, tons and tons of them. And they all do something slightly different, you know, and there are always arguments about which is better, you know, but in reality, they all work. They all just do different things, so better is going to be is going to depend on what your goal is. You know, so let's, let's dig into it. What's what do you think is the most popular hangboard protocol where people kind of get started?  Would that be repeaters?

Steve Maisch  05:58

I think the 7:3 repeaters. I think, yeah, I mean, that seems to be the one that I see people doing a lot. And it's, it's good...I mean, one of the things people one thing people seem to get concerned about is hurting injuring a finger on the hangboard. 

Kris Hampton  06:17

Right.

Steve Maisch  06:17

 They're like", Oh, if I'm doing 7:3 repeaters, I'm not adding weight", etc, etc. and I'm of the opinion of the hangboard is probably the safest thing you can possibly do.

Kris Hampton  06:25

 It's a hell of a lot safer than bouldering in the gym

Steve Maisch  06:28

Exactly. Because you just kind of you set up, you get everything, you're not going to pop a foot when you're in some weird position. 

Kris Hampton  06:34

Right,

Steve Maisch  06:34

You get your fingers just right, the way you want them and then you slowly pull your feet off the ground. 

Kris Hampton  06:39

Yeah, totally. I'm with you there for sure.

Steve Maisch  06:41

So yeah, I think, I think that is that you don't need to worry about injuring yourself so much on the hangboard

Kris Hampton  06:48

Yeah, in fact, we use it for people coming off of injuries, you know, slowly build them up on the hangboard just because it's easier to control, easier to measure.

Steve Maisch  06:57

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, yeah, so I think that that idea, you don't need to worry about getting hurt so much on the hangboard. So I wouldn't say that would be the benefit of so much the 7:3 repeater zone. One thing that I like about the 7:3 repeater zone is from our assessment, it comes out, it turns out that a seven second hang correlates well with a single rep. So what you can then start applying is 7:3, the 7:3 protocol, using different established weight, rep and percentages structures.

Kris Hampton  07:38

Like percentages, right right. 

Steve Maisch  07:39

So like, you know, Wendler's 5/3/1, or like a Bompa, some sort of protocol or whatever, 80%, do five reps, three sets. It works quite well, the 7:3 part, in that the numbers correlate pretty well with that. So and I like that about it. I also like the seven seconds, because I've done you know, I've looked at a lot of just video analysis and it ends up being well, six to eight seconds is about the time you spend on a hold. Now if you go to some places,

Kris Hampton  08:11

 You obviously weren't watching me climbing haha. 

Steve Maisch  08:12

Hahah the amount of time you should spend on a hold. So but but I mean, speaking of that, like when you go to like, we went to Font last year, and there are problems there where you're on the hold, it's like 23 seconds. 

Kris Hampton  08:26

Sure, yeah

Steve Maisch  08:27

It's like just it's crazy. 

Kris Hampton  08:28

So body position intensive 

Steve Maisch  08:29

Yeah you are just like bumping around and like slowly working your way up. But six seconds seemed like a pretty...seems like a pretty decent timeframe. And then I like the fact that you can set it up, the reps work nicely with different protocols that you might find for.... that had been shown to work for various weightlifting, you know, aspects.

Kris Hampton  08:53

Right.

Steve Maisch  08:54

 I also like the fact that with.... one of the big issues that I found with hangboarding and adding weight and all that, is that people, particularly with the half crimp grip, people lose the grip in the middle of the hang. So there's that index finger straightens out and suddenly, you're basically draping this hold, which is not going to do you much good when it comes time to move off of the hold and pull it down to your waist when your fingers are straight. So the 7:3, since the weights tend to be lower and even if you're adding weight like I do, I add a bunch of weight, but it's you get at least a few reps where your fingers are really holding that half crimp well. Even if you blow it on the last rep, you still get say four to five reps of like good half crimp, which then transfers better to the full crimp. But I've said something that, and I remember seeing this for isometric training, where it trains roughly 20 degrees in either direction.

Kris Hampton  09:56

Either direction, right. 

Steve Maisch  09:58

And that was my argument for why you should do the half crimp grip.

Kris Hampton  10:02

Right.

Steve Maisch  10:02

Because you're going to get slopers and you're going to get full crimp. It turns out, talking to people and myself included, you don't. So, like when you train the half crimp grip, you're probably gonna get stronger on slopers. But the full crimp is a different ballgame. 

Kris Hampton  10:17

Yeah, I agree.

Steve Maisch  10:18

 Yeah, it just does not work. So I've got a lot of people that like, say, "Oh, man, I got my half crimps up. They are great, but you know, my full crimps really suffered." And they come back. Like they... come on, like, if you go climbing for a month, your full crimps are gonna come, come on. They're gonna be stronger than they were before, but there's definitely that suffering, that period where it's like, "Wow, my fingers felt really strong on the hangboard but they're not crimping". So the 7:3, one, it allows you to maintain the full crimp better, but also I do full crimps with the 7:3. And I think that the repeater aspect of it works really well instead of just piling up a bunch of weight and trying to  full crimp something. 

Kris Hampton  11:01

Now these these repeaters have also kind of become popular with doing these really, really long hangboard workouts where you're doing, you know, six or seven different grips and you know, five sets on each and just these hour long hangboard marathons. Is that something that you that you also do? Are there shorter workouts? How do you... when you're using a 7:3 repeaters, because I don't use them much, so I'm curious how you go about using them?

Steve Maisch  11:30

Yeah, so I do shorter workout. So I go with three grips. For me, it's half crimp, full crimp, and then the pinch block, but I actually put the pinch block on a lat pulldown machine. 

Kris Hampton  11:42

Right.

Steve Maisch  11:42

 I think it works a lot better. 

Kris Hampton  11:43

Yep.

Steve Maisch  11:45

 And I do three sets. So I basically, you know, it'll either be after climbing or now I'm kind of time crunched, so I'll actually just do the hangboard workout. Speaking of the 75 bit

Kris Hampton  11:56

Haha yeah

Steve Maisch  11:56

But it's a time issue haha. It's a time issue in this case. So I'll just roll in and just warm up on the hangboard. 

Steve Maisch  12:02

And, you know, do a bunch of sets. But if I, normally I would do it, if I had a little more time right now, I'd want to do my climbing and then hang at the end of the day. So what I would do is I do half crimp, full crimp, pinch block. The first one of say the half crimp is just a bodyweight set of five reps. The second one is getting close to where..... my third one's gonna be my max, so then I'll add weight to get about halfway between the bodyweight and what my third one's gonna be, which is about 85. I've been working like 80 to 85% of my max. So then that second one is heavy, but not that heavy. And then my third one, I go as heavy as I can, which is about 85% for me right now, 80 to 85% of my one rep max, and try to get five sets and just keep going until I fail. So I usually get like, you know, like five and a half sets. So I'm shooting for five. And then I moved to the full crimps and do the same thing with the full crimps. 

Kris Hampton  12:02

Yep. 

Kris Hampton  13:04

So you do go all the way until you fail?

Steve Maisch  13:06

 On that last one. On the very last one. So I'll get two, so for a half crimps, I'll get two where I'm like, I'm not failing and it's good. And then that last one, of each one of my three, I do go to failure. 

Kris Hampton  13:22

Okay. Cool. You know, I had the... I had the best, kind of my breakout, sport climbing season after doing largely just hangboarding, a little bit of hard bouldering on a really tiny little wall in this guy's basement, and then just largely hangboarding. And part of it was that I was trad climber before. My finger strength was piss poor at best, so I had a lot to gain in that department. 

Steve Maisch  13:51

Yeah,

Kris Hampton  13:52

 But I definitely did hangs to failure. Not like every hang to failure, but I would do sets of quite a few hangs until I eventually failed, and then I would move on to another.

Steve Maisch  14:04

 Yeah.

Kris Hampton  14:05

 So. So I don't know. I mean, I definitely agree in some cases with this whole trend of not failing while you train. Again, you know, I'm harping on this, but sometimes I think it's important, you know, to know where you're at and be mentally prepared to go to that end. 

Steve Maisch  14:23

Yeah, and I think that's one of the benefits of, say the 7:3  repeater because even if you're going to failure, you're going to failure in reps. So say I fail at five and a half reps. That still means I got four reps where I was in pretty good control, so I was really working in that submaximal zone, so I'm kind of commanding the hold, and then that fifth rep I might have started to shake a little bit. So those four reps where I'm really doing well, I see those as my strength building reps and that last one, one and a half is my recruitment rep, is just kind of getting whatever I got left. So I think most of that workout is spent in that strength zone, because the first two sets are definitely in the strength zone, because they're not going to failure and it's not even max weights. And then that last one, yeah, you do kinda go big.

Kris Hampton  15:19

Okay. And then probably the second most popular one is gonna be like the Eva Lopez protocol, the 10 seconds on, 3 minutes off, you know, sort of start with three sets and then build up to five sets over time or whatever. Do you... have you used this one at all? 

Steve Maisch  15:40

Oh yeah, that was that was kind of my initial, that was my big one initially. It was the one I did pretty much predominantly because of that Eva Lopez board. 

Steve Maisch  15:50

So it's like...or that Eva Lopez article. Because that was like the one case where I was like, Oh, look, somebody did research on this and look, it turns out, I mean, yeah n was, whatever, six people or something like that. And it turns out that yeah, hanging more weight from the larger edge seemed to work better for this group. And I was like, oh, okay, well, that's, that's all we got. I might as well do that. So I did the 10 second thing and I've told a lot of people to do the 10 second thing.... suggested....and it's worked for a lot of people and a lot of people that have had, you know, who are already coming into the game with really strong fingers and really good climbers.

Kris Hampton  15:50

Yep. 

Kris Hampton  16:32

 Yep. 

Steve Maisch  16:33

And that 10 second protocol works well and has improved both their climbing and their finger strength on the edge. The one thing that I've noticed, though, in recent times, is that it tends to lead to a plateau.

Kris Hampton  16:48

Yep. 

Steve Maisch  16:48

So like

Kris Hampton  16:49

It did for me for sure,

Steve Maisch  16:50

Yeah. So like you kind of... the way it seems to work out for me with hangboarding in general is I'll, I'll come into it, you know, I'll be going climbing or whatever and then I'll hit my training block. And I'll come into it, I'll get all my numbers for the hangboard and then the next couple of hangboard workouts, I'm actually worse. So I just kill myself on that first day, then I'm worse for a couple workouts, then I start to slowly ramp up each workout and by about six to nine workouts, I've I've hit my plateau. 

Kris Hampton  17:20

Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  17:21

And I'm basically back to where, this was the case with the 10 second ones, I ended up basically back to where I was the previous training cycle. And I was like, well, this, I just keep getting up to this level and then my fingers feel pretty strong, but I'm not breaking through. And I think one of the problems with that 10 second one is, again, this idea of recruitment, where because you're operating at such a high intensity level, it's like, full on. It's as much as you can hang for 10 seconds.

Kris Hampton  17:54

Right

Steve Maisch  17:55

 That you're just... there's no real strength building. It's just like doing a, you know, like a snatch, like a heavy snatch. Like you just go out and try to do the heaviest snatch you can do. And that's your training.

Kris Hampton  18:07

That's interesting. So you see it more like performance? Like a like a test? 

Steve Maisch  18:12

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  18:13

Less like, you're building strength. 

Steve Maisch  18:15

Exactly. I think it becomes, like you're just performing, rep after rep, like, day after day, on the hangboard and I don't think you can really build.... in the long term, I don't think the strength is gonna, just gonna work. I think it works really well in the short term, because like you said, anything's gonna work well, in the short term.

Kris Hampton  18:33

Right. 

Steve Maisch  18:34

And I also think it could work well, incorporated in with some of the other hang protocols that we can chat about. But one of the things that I find with the 10 second thing that works really well is well, because of this recruitment aspect, is doing the 10 second hang, and then immediately going to a campus board and doing doubles, up downs. 

Kris Hampton  18:58

Right.

Steve Maisch  18:58

 And I think that, this sort of

Kris Hampton  19:01

 Compound or complex training

Steve Maisch  19:03

Complex training, yeah. And I think that's kind of I like to think of that sort of the topper, like right before you go to that trip to Hueco.

Kris Hampton  19:10

 Mm hmm. 

Steve Maisch  19:11

If you can get three or four workouts in of 10 second hangs with the doubles, that just like gets your whole body firing. But if you train that way, the other 50 weeks of the year, you're just gonna hit a plateau and you're just not going to get any stronger. 

Kris Hampton  19:26

Sure, sure. Yeah. And that's, you know, I will say this, just qualify that, that that complex training definitely isn't for everybody.

Steve Maisch  19:34

 No, no

Kris Hampton  19:34

You know, if you're V4, V5 climber, it's probably not what you need to be doing. 

Steve Maisch  19:39

Right. 

Kris Hampton  19:39

And you've got better ways to get more powerful.

Steve Maisch  19:43

Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, I think with a lot of this stuff, I mean, my....for most people, like it's, it's just climbing, and I think, you know, to say, I know this one is about hangboarding, but hanging just isn't necessary for a lot of people. 

Kris Hampton  20:02

Sure. 

Steve Maisch  20:02

I think what's more important, if you're that V4 climber, what you need to work on is you need to work on your boulder pyramid. Like you need to be saying, okay, I can climb a V4, but can I do, have I done three? Have I done eight V3s? 

Kris Hampton  20:15

Right

Steve Maisch  20:16

So you go out, you gotta try to do eight V3s before you can go on to a V5. You know, so I'm a firm believer...so just to throw that out there at the beginning. 

Kris Hampton  20:24

Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  20:25

And that holds all the way up to V15. Like you, you want to get that pyramid going. But it's even more important when you're just starting out.

Kris Hampton  20:32

Yeah, actually, that's another reason I like these Eva Lopez hangs is because when I have a climber who, whose main need is to go out and climb more but they are like, "Well I need hangboarding" and  "I want hangboarding" and, you know, "Why isn't hangboard in my program?"  and they're just not going to be happy until they have it. These are great to work into, like Steve's Integrated Strength plans. 

Steve Maisch  20:56

Yeah, exactly. 

Kris Hampton  20:57

And, and they don't take up a ton of extra time, or a ton of energy. And the things that they are generally climbing on aren't taxing their fingers, or they don't need their fingers to be super fresh for it, so these aren't gonna hurt their going out and doing submaximal climbing and more of it.

Steve Maisch  21:18

Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think that's a that's a great point with these 10 second things, because you can, it's pretty easy to figure out what the weight is going to be, what the edge is going to be

Kris Hampton  21:29

Yep

Steve Maisch  21:30

 It does improve...I mean, it's one the research shows, but also like, I mean, I have I've had personally had big gains with them. 

Kris Hampton  21:38

Yeah, same here. 

Steve Maisch  21:39

So the 10 seconds works really well and they work really well with other, you know, combining your lifts, like the Integrated Strength thing with Steve...working that in, you know, it's just so easy to do your 10 seconds and in your three or four minute rest, you go do your deadlifts

Kris Hampton  21:58

Yep. 

Steve Maisch  21:58

And you come back and do your 10 seconds.

Kris Hampton  21:59

Yeah, I really like them for that reason for sure. Other protocols? What else is out there?

Steve Maisch  22:06

So one of the... so the Lattice guys are big on the five second one arm hangs. And this is this is definitely not for you know, you want to be able to to hang from one arm.

Kris Hampton  22:21

Yeah, but and actually, I'll go ahead and say this, one of my clients, Van, turned me on to this Ido Portal one arm hang protocol that... all these steps leading up to being able to do advanced one arm hanging work. And it's really great. You know, it just makes sure that your your shoulders and, and everything are ready to do these one arm hangs. And because I mean, frankly, the one arm hang can be pretty dangerous if you just jump into it.

Steve Maisch  22:58

Oh yeah.

Kris Hampton  22:59

You know, think that you're gonna be fine. 

Steve Maisch  23:01

Yeah

Kris Hampton  23:01

It's it's definitely something that should be worked into and, and there's really no reason for anyone under the, you know, V8 level probably, to be doing them in my opinion. There...you know, I may not know what the reason is. So maybe there is but

Steve Maisch  23:18

Yeah, I would agree. I don't think there's you know, I think it's a it's an upper, whatever the V grade would be, it would be upper upper end. And it's definitely, it runs the risk of... I hurt, I tweaked my pec doing them last, you know, just just last year.  The classic, I just was like, "Oh, I'm gonna see how much I can hang from one arm" after not doing them for like two months. 

Kris Hampton  23:40

Haha yep.

Steve Maisch  23:41

 And I'm just like, piling weight on and I'm like, oh, my pec hurts now. So it was like two months of pain.

Kris Hampton  23:48

Yeah. And you should definitely have a hangboard training age built up. 

Steve Maisch  23:52

Yeah

Kris Hampton  23:53

Like you should have spent quite a bit of time on the hangboard already before you're doing one arm hangs on an edge.

Steve Maisch  23:58

Yeah. And but there's a few like, I definitely I do think there's there's some good and some bad with the one arms. The first thing is, is well actually, that's so one way to  advance your way up to a smaller edge for one arms, is that you want to start with an edge that you can actually hang bodyweight from. So  a big, if it feels like a jug, you're what you're working, you work the one arms you're working most of your cross body recruitment.

Kris Hampton  24:29

Yeah, that whole stabilizing structure has to be in place. 

Steve Maisch  24:33

Yeah. So it's like you, you know you're hanging with that one arm, but as you get better at them, you realize, you know, you do the thing where you make a fist with your other arm to try to tense across your body. 

Kris Hampton  24:43

Irradiation

Steve Maisch  24:43

Yeah. And you start and you learn how to really recruit your whole body to hang from this one arm, which is particularly beneficial with bouldering because a lot of times, you know, you end up in some position where you're just, you might not be dangling one arm but you have a lot of your weight on that one arm.

Kris Hampton  25:00

 Yeah

Steve Maisch  25:00

You got to somehow pull through.

Kris Hampton  25:02

Totally.

Steve Maisch  25:03

 So I think the one arms are really good for that sort of cross body recruitment. And the way to get up to a smaller edge, like an 18 mil edge, is to start on a bigger edge and work your way down instead of what I see a lot of people doing is taking weight off on the on the lower edge. And what that does, is that it doesn't get you that cross body recruitment, because you're pulling down on this, this row and you're missing that and it just doesn't seem.... it didn't work for me. I didn't find like... I didn't start making gains on the one arms until I went to a slightly bigger edge that I could bodyweight hang from. So I think that's that's the way to do it. But it's also it's really good for that cross body recruitment and it should be incorporated into with the other hangs. The one thing that I find that's problematic with the one arms though, is again, the half crimp grip, like 

Kris Hampton  25:55

Yeah, it's hard to keep that

Steve Maisch  25:56

 It's hard to keep it and if you're like, I don't know if you saw the Facebook of Daniel Woods, like hanging like 10 seconds with like 45 pounds of weight, and he's just locked in on a half crimp. Like it's just, he's just crushing it. 

Kris Hampton  26:09

Right. 

Steve Maisch  26:09

And yeah, if you're D. Woods, okay, you can do it. 

Kris Hampton  26:11

Exactly. Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  26:12

Right? But for the other, you know, whatever, 6 billion people out there, most of us are going to lose that half crimp. 

Kris Hampton  26:20

Yep. 

Steve Maisch  26:20

And then it becomes more of just this radiation crossbody recruitment training and you end up training, that sort of drag grip, which isn't going to help you when it comes time to push something down below your chest.

Kris Hampton  26:34

Right. 

Steve Maisch  26:35

So that's where I see the fault of the one arm hangs for most of us, which I think I think they're really useful if combined, either with outside climbing, where you're actually crimping a lot and climbing on small holds. Or, you know, something like Moonboarding, where you're holding on to, you're forced to kind of maintain that crimp. You need to be doing something that's like hitting your half crimps and your full crimps while you're doing that.

Kris Hampton  27:01

Totally. Yep, I agree. That's the hardest part of one arms for me is keeping the half crimp.

Steve Maisch  27:06

 Yeah

Kris Hampton  27:06

Like once I start to melt into an open hand, it's just I'm just over. I don't even.... there's no reason for me to keep hanging and risk my shoulder and everything else, you know. 

Steve Maisch  27:17

Yeah

Kris Hampton  27:17

And, and I like the beta for going up to a bigger hold bigger edge. And I hadn't thought about the fact that the big problem with grabbing something or you know, taking weight off or whatever, is that you do lose a lot of that tension that you have to keep to hold a one arm hang.

Steve Maisch  27:38

Yeah, yeah. And I noticed it kind of accidentally with my last year with my training for my performing on the hangboard. I was trying to hang that 18 mil edge and I had to take like 15 pounds off. And for weeks and weeks and weeks, I was like not making any progress at all. And then one day, I noticed on the other side of the board, they've got one of the other Beastmakers and has a slightly bigger edge in the middle. And I kind of pulled up and was like, "Whoa, I can hang out with one arm. Why don't I just use this one?" and then I started training on that one and it was like, literally every workout was like adding two pounds. And then I went back to the 18 mil and just was crushing it. 

Kris Hampton  28:16

Hmm. Okay.

Steve Maisch  28:17

 It was sort of an accident of fortuitous accident sort of thing.

Kris Hampton  28:22

Yeah. And I've noticed and now that you say it that way, I think back and there are times when I'm doing one arm hangs, where just.... I mean not even pulling down on anything but just putting my hand against a wall, I can I can hang for considerably longer if I put my hand against something. 

Steve Maisch  28:42

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  28:43

You know, just to keep me from rotating. 

Steve Maisch  28:45

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  28:46

And all I'm doing really is getting rid of all that tension that I had to keep to stop myself from rotating around my shoulder. 

Steve Maisch  28:53

Right. Yeah,

Kris Hampton  28:54

 You know, so, yeah, I think that's I think that's really good beta that I hadn't really thought about which way would be better to progress.

Steve Maisch  29:01

 Yeah.

Kris Hampton  29:01

 So cool. And then when doing these one arm hangs, what is the...should we be shooting for five seconds, do you think? Is it...should we be shooting for longer time than five seconds or more weight at five seconds?

Steve Maisch  29:20

I think more weight at five seconds. And again, that's sort of one of the problems where, you know, it's rarely the case that you're only going to be on a hold for five seconds. 

Kris Hampton  29:31

Right.

Steve Maisch  29:31

 You know, most of the time you're on it for....and you don't want to be really strong on hold for five seconds. 

Kris Hampton  29:35

The only time I'm on hold for five seconds is if I fall off hahaha.

Steve Maisch  29:40

Haha so yeah, like if you you know, and you don't want to be like okay, um, you know, at second six, I just fall off the wall.

Kris Hampton  29:47

Right.

Steve Maisch  29:48

So that's kind of a negative effect of the five second thing, but uh, I've tried them with 10 seconds and 7 seconds and the problem is...seven isn't so bad, but 10, it's just hell on your shoulder and bicep. 

Kris Hampton  30:02

I would think so, yeah

Steve Maisch  30:03

You just, you just start spinning around and you're just like, it's just too much on the on the structure. Seven is okay. But I would... five is just kind of the standard I think.

Kris Hampton  30:14

 Yeah.

Steve Maisch  30:15

 You know, five to seven would be, is what I would say.

Kris Hampton  30:18

And then what about how much you're pulling up? You know, do you think it matters? You know, I see some people almost in a full lock off when they're doing these things.

Steve Maisch  30:26

Yeah. So you are gonna be stronger, pulling up. So when you bend your arm, you start getting that cross body radiation, and you start bringing in your lats into holding on to the hold...I'm just, I just think wherever you can hang the most weight from.

Kris Hampton  30:41

Yeah, you're still hanging on your fingers 

Steve Maisch  30:42

You're still hanging on your fingers, yeah. It'd be, yeah, I mean, sometimes you see people just dangling and it's like, oh okay, but whatever.

Kris Hampton  30:52

 Okay, cool. What else is out there? I mean, I know there's, we do some different things. More, we do a lot of 10 second on, 10 second off, more for the sake of just fitting them into sessions better. 

Steve Maisch  31:10

Right. 

Kris Hampton  31:13

So I don't know, I don't know what else is out there.

Steve Maisch  31:16

Okay, there are a few like, I've seen Steve has that one that's like three seconds, six second, nine 

Kris Hampton  31:21

The ladder. 

Steve Maisch  31:21

Yeah the 3 second ladder.

Kris Hampton  31:24

Have you tried those at all? 

Steve Maisch  31:25

I have not tried those. I do know a few people that have been doing them and they seem to like them.

Kris Hampton  31:31

Yeah, I haven't tried them either.

Steve Maisch  31:32

Yeah. My one complaint would be with that 3 second one, like you're never on... I mean, if you're never on hold for five seconds, you're definitely never on one for three seconds. 

Kris Hampton  31:43

Sure.

Steve Maisch  31:44

 And I think the idea is the warm up aspect of it. But I would say I think a better protocol be something like okay, seven seconds, and then just increase the weight. So instead of going 3-6-9 and having nine be your max, do all three of them at seven seconds, or 10 seconds, and increase the weight so that your third one is where you had the most weight.

Kris Hampton  32:08

Right, right. Yep, I see. The weight thing is tough for a lot of people, you know. I think that, especially people who have hangboards at their house, don't have weight to add or, you know, if they're working professionals or whatever, whose husband is like, you're not keeping weights laying around the living room just so you can hangboard you know. So I think that's a concern too, that, that people run into. I think what it comes down to no matter what the protocol is, is, if it's working for you, and you're getting stronger than great. 

Steve Maisch  32:49

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  32:50

Do it until you're not getting stronger that way anymore.

Steve Maisch  32:53

Yeah, and I think that's where all three of these kind of have their place in an extended training program. You know, you can do your strength building with your 7:3 repeaters and then as you get closer to your trip, you hit the 10 second complex training, and then maybe somewhere in there, you do a few weeks of the one arms to try to get that going and then you go back to your 7:3. So you're, you're avoiding that plateau on the hangboard, which is kind of like, it's like the campus board, like you, you do whatever you can do in your ladders, and you never get any better.

Kris Hampton  33:29

 Exactly, yeah, you're just stuck there. 

Steve Maisch  33:31

You're stuck there forever.

Kris Hampton  33:32

 Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  33:32

And you know, the same is true with the hangboard if you just keep doing the same thing.

Kris Hampton  33:36

Have you ever tested, I'm curious, after doing a round of repeaters, you know, a whole cycle of repeaters, have you then tested your max hang strength to see if it changed, based on the repeaters? 

Steve Maisch  33:50

Ummmm...Yes, I have. And most I've been mostly doing these repeaters just kind of recently, this past, I sort of fell into them this spring, has been really my, with this assessment and kind of seeing how all that's fitting together. 

Kris Hampton  34:05

Yeah, they've always seemed to me like they lean a little more towards strength endurance than pure strength, so I'm just curious. 

Steve Maisch  34:11

And that's, yeah, so, so my tests haven't been... I haven't had enough time. I mean, I after I do this one, I've got this sort of protocol that I'm doing with this 5-3-1 business, I'm going to do my next test and we'll see if it does. 

Kris Hampton  34:30

Cool. 

Steve Maisch  34:30

Yeah, so I'm not totally sure about it. But I do think when we think about the strength endurance versus the strength component, I was just just chatting with Justin about this, I still think if you're in that five rep range with the 7:3s, you're still really working strength because I'm starting to kind of get away from the idea of trying to... I mean, in one sense, try to correlate hangs, the isometric contraction with the like 

Kris Hampton  34:59

Like a weightlifting type protocol?

Steve Maisch  34:59

The concentric like weightlifting type movement, yeah. And, but the difference between a seven second hang, and a one rep max, in terms of time, is large. So you know, you do a one rep benchpress and you're like three to four seconds in there.

Kris Hampton  35:16

 Right.

Steve Maisch  35:17

So then the question becomes, do we say a three second hang is a one rep max?

Kris Hampton  35:23

Gotcha. Yeah.

Steve Maisch  35:24

 So some people would say, yes, it is. And I would say, you know what, I think that's, I think it's a totally different thing. I think we find a hang protocol, a hang time, that correlates well with people's reps on a normal weightlifting move and then just call that the one rep max. And that happens to be seven seconds. 

Kris Hampton  35:44

Yeah. You like seven seconds.

Steve Maisch  35:45

Yeah, is what the data is showing. So going from... I think that's then so then five reps would be like doing five reps of the benchpress, so you're still in your strength zone. 

Kris Hampton  35:57

Sure.

Steve Maisch  35:57

Even though it's taking whatever that is, 50 seconds, to do it.

Kris Hampton  36:00

Yep. Yeah, I see exactly what you're saying. And I think I agree. I think that doing five reps at 7:3 does sound like more strength to me than strength endurance. I think where my brain started to go, that's more strength endurance was these really long repeater workouts.

Steve Maisch  36:20

 Yeah 

Kris Hampton  36:21

That I've seen quite a bit of. You know, that and those I don't view as strength workouts. 

Steve Maisch  36:28

Right. 

Kris Hampton  36:29

You know, I think they have to be done at such a sub max load, you know, somewhere below 80%. 

Steve Maisch  36:35

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  36:38

To be able to complete the workout that they can't be true strength.

Steve Maisch  36:41

 Right. Yeah. And I would agree with that. And I mean, just the one I'm doing now, is it actually alternates. So week one, you do five reps. Week two, you do three reps, Week three you do 5-3-1. 

Kris Hampton  36:54

Okay, 

Steve Maisch  36:54

So you're working your way down and that last one rep is going to be a seven second, that'll be my test. You know, I'll be like "Oh, do I do more?", etc.

Kris Hampton  37:02

Cool.

Steve Maisch  37:03

 So that's even actually reducing it even more as far as number of reps go.

Kris Hampton  37:08

Yeah. Cool. Do you hangboard year round, or through all of your training cycles? Do you stop during your performance phases?

Steve Maisch  37:18

I stop during my performance phases. And I'm questioning that.

Steve Maisch  37:23

I'm wondering if that should be the case. Hanging does kind of zap me. But I also find that I lose so much. When I when I do a round of hangs and then go climbing for a month or two, and come back to my hangs, I'm, you know, 20 30% weaker, on the hangs and it's like, well, you know, how is that affecting my climbing? Like, I lost that, as I was getting more used to climbing on the rock, my fingers were getting weaker. 

Kris Hampton  37:23

 Yeah

Kris Hampton  37:54

Right. And that's even mostly bouldering right? 

Steve Maisch  37:57

Yeah. Mostly bouldering.

Kris Hampton  37:58

 Okay.

Steve Maisch  37:58

You know, I've been, ah, the past year has when mostly bouldering. Prior to that was, I did year sport climbing for a little while there. Yeah,

Kris Hampton  38:07

I mean, when I have sport climbers, because most of the people I started with training were in the Red and I know it's a pretty specific type of climbing there. But I definitely had people hang during the performance season, specifically the weekend warriors. You know, I would have them doing max strength hangs of some type during the week before they went out and just did long pumpy pitches all weekend and I think that works pretty well in that situation. 

Steve Maisch  38:39

Yeah, I think that works would work really well in that situation. So that you know, I'm thinking the non, so being out here in Salt Lake it's like, you know, I can climb pretty much year round. 

Kris Hampton  38:51

Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  38:51

All week long.

Kris Hampton  38:52

 Yep. Same in Lander now where I'm at yeah.

Steve Maisch  38:54

So it's, like when I think of a performance cycle, like I'm climbing outside, you know, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then again Sunday.

Kris Hampton  39:04

Right.

Steve Maisch  39:05

 So that's where like the the hanging might get in in might start impacting the redpointing. 

Kris Hampton  39:12

Yep. 

Steve Maisch  39:13

But I'm also thinking like, you know, this past fall in in Little Cottonwood, I I started just hanging I would do three sets of 7:3s, just kind of like five reps just basically at bodyweight when I got home from climbing in Little Cottonwood.

Kris Hampton  39:31

 Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  39:32

And it it felt okay. Like it wasn't hurting my climbing and it felt like it was kind of maintaining a little bit of that. So that might be something I might move toward, but yeah, generally I haven't been hanging during the season but I think that might be kind of a mistake. 

Kris Hampton  39:49

Yeah. Be interesting to see. 

Steve Maisch  39:50

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  39:51

Do you subscribe to pocket hangs?

Steve Maisch  39:55

I do. Yeah, cuz I'm weak as hell on pockets. 

Kris Hampton  39:58

Do you do those in a half crimp as well or?

Steve Maisch  40:00

 No, open, 

Kris Hampton  40:01

Stay open handed with those.

Steve Maisch  40:02

 Yeah, and I think so, I think that's the other thing. Like if you pick your three grips and if you're hanging year round, you work on your grips until you you don't have, you know, weak ones.  So maybe one cycle, you'll do half crimp, full crimp, pinch block. The next cycle, you'll do half crimp full crimp, middle two. The next cycle, you might toss in slopers or you might go front three, or back three, or mono or whatever. Like you, you can kind of keep inserting one or two grips that you want to work on with the hangboarding and if you just kind of constantly doing it year round to keep those up. So right now, like most of my, the stuff I want to do this fall doesn't have... it's not a pocket in sight, so I'm like oh I'm not gonna worry

Kris Hampton  40:51

Yep. Haha that's all that's in sight for the things that I'm looking at. The pinch blocks, I think are interesting. I've, I've not seen much transfer from pinch blocks to actual climbing. But a lot of that, again, was looking at the Red where most everything is a horizontal edge, that's fairly big, that people are pulling on. 

Steve Maisch  41:15

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  41:15

 So what have you seen with the pinch blocks? And I'm.... pinch, pinches, were probably my strongest grip, just naturally.

Steve Maisch  41:25

Right.

Kris Hampton  41:25

 So I never got a ton out of pinch blocks, where I did get a ton out of hanging on edges. 

Steve Maisch  41:31

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  41:32

So.

Steve Maisch  41:32

So I think, again, that, you know, it points to where your, where are your weaknesses? If you're already strong on something, you're probably not going to get a lot out of  bumping that one up.

Steve Maisch  41:41

Right, exactly.

Steve Maisch  41:43

But also, it depends where you're climbing, you know. So if you're like at the Red, or at Iris or Sinks or like, you're not doing a whole lot of pinching there.

Kris Hampton  41:50

Right.

Steve Maisch  41:50

 Whereas you go to Fontainebleau and you're, you're pinching a lot or you go to some of these, you know, kind of tufa zones and you do a lot of pinching. I've noticed that the pinches do, like in Little Cottonwood, we got a lot of pinchy stuff. I think the pinch blocks do help with my pinches and I'm naturally strong on pinches as well. Like that's kind of my strong grip. And if I can get those up pretty well, then I feel even stronger on the pinches. I kind of like them. And you know, if you watch

Kris Hampton  42:24

 And you switched to doing yours hanging now, instead of.... or you use a lat pulldown machind

Steve Maisch  42:28

 I use the lat pulldown machine

Kris Hampton  42:30

 Instead of the pinch block deadlifts.

Steve Maisch  42:31

Yeah, and a few things I've noticed. So on my new ones that I just made, I actually offset the eyebolt, so that it's a it's not in the dead middle. And what it does, I mean, you can't see... I'm just sitting here doing this in my hand haha. What it does is it actually cocks your wrist. The way the weight pulls on your wrist, it forces your hand into a more climbing specific pinch position. So if you watch someone just sort of doing the deadlift with the pinches, you'll see that their thumb and index finger move up to toward their wrist

Kris Hampton  43:06

Right,

Steve Maisch  43:06

 As the weight gets heavier. And when you're pinching outside, you're never in that position.

Kris Hampton  43:12

Right.

Steve Maisch  43:12

Your wrist is always going the other direction, where your pinky is going toward your wrist on the other side. And if you offset the eyebolt, a little bit toward the top, where your index finger is and if you do it on a lat pulldown machine or even a cable row machine, you get a much more realistic actual climbing move pinch. 

Kris Hampton  43:34

Gotcha. 

Steve Maisch  43:34

Yeah

Kris Hampton  43:35

Cool. I'll have to play around with that.

Steve Maisch  43:37

Yeah, it's kind of you'll sort of notice it as your, you know, your hand, it's like, Oh, this feels a little bit more like real climbing.

Kris Hampton  43:43

Mm hmm. Have you played around at all with the the no hang stuff?

Steve Maisch  43:49

So yeah, the other one that I, so I made, I got pinch blocks and crimp rails, all this stuff, 

Kris Hampton  43:54

All the toys. 

Steve Maisch  43:56

So I made one that's just a, it's a 2x4 with two little 12 mil, or whatever, 1/4 inch, 3/8s or something edges on the side of it. And I attach that one to the cable row machine rows 

Steve Maisch  44:09

And I do rows

Kris Hampton  44:09

When you're doing rows?

Kris Hampton  44:10

 With the crimp on each side 

Steve Maisch  44:11

Pull with the crimp, yeah. Well, I pull it into crimp. I don't bother with the row. So I pull, just do the fingers. I just pull it into a crimp. Hold.

Kris Hampton  44:17

So like those finger curls that you 

Steve Maisch  44:19

It's like a finger curl. Exactly. Yeah, so it's like a finger curl

Kris Hampton  44:22

Those seem like they are going to explode my fingers. 

Steve Maisch  44:23

Yeah which you don't want to do at bodyweight, but if you're on the cable row machine or the lat pulldown, you put it at whatever 50, 60 pounds and you can do a nice controlled, you're not like dynoing into the crimp. 

Steve Maisch  44:38

You do a really nice controlled finger curl. And for those I've been doing, like super high reps, you know, like trying to do like I do two minutes on, one minute off, one minute on, one minute off, one minute on, one minute off. 

Kris Hampton  44:38

Right.

Kris Hampton  44:50

Right

Steve Maisch  44:50

Just to

Kris Hampton  44:51

Now you're gonna go to the Red and every hold you grab, you're gonna pull it into a full crimp for entire routes haha. 

Steve Maisch  44:57

Haha yeah. Yeah, that's the plan.

Kris Hampton  45:01

Yeah that's a good idea. I hadn't thought of doing those finger curls that way.

Steve Maisch  45:05

Yeah. And it feels really climbing naturally, like, it feels like I'm actually pulling into a crimp on a route. 

Kris Hampton  45:11

Right

Steve Maisch  45:12

 And it's you can just adjust the weight to whatever, you know, from 10 pounds to yeah, whatever they go to.

Kris Hampton  45:17

Yeah. Have you used any just for heavy hangs?

Steve Maisch  45:22

So I have not personally but I've talked to some people who were doing that. And it turns out that it's actually really bad for your shoulders, the way the positioning is. So he was doing heavy, like 10 second hangs, but with the deadlift, just pulling it off the ground. And he said he got this really bad bicep tendonitis thing going, and he went and saw a PT friend of his and the guy was like, Oh, yeah, it's because of the way.... there's something about the way we're designed to hold on to a hold. It's totally not what you're doing when you're doing a deadlift with this little pinch thing.

Kris Hampton  46:01

Right

Steve Maisch  46:02

Like your shoulders are kind of compressing in and it's putting all this undue stress on the top of your bicep somehow.

Kris Hampton  46:08

Yeah. Was he doing it was something similar to what you were talking about? So he's got both hands?

Steve Maisch  46:12

Yeah yeah, he's got both hands on it.

Kris Hampton  46:13

 Okay. 

Steve Maisch  46:14

Um, so it's like a pinch block with two edges on the sides and then he was just deadlifting...he...I forget exactly. I think he had a bum...he had some injury that he couldn't hang.

Kris Hampton  46:24

Yeah. 

Steve Maisch  46:25

So he's like, Oh, I'm gonna do the deadlift thing. 

Steve Maisch  46:26

Pronated?

Kris Hampton  46:26

That makes sense if you have your, your that would be your arms....what is it? 

Kris Hampton  46:26

Externally rotated, Iguess. 

Steve Maisch  46:26

They'd be internally, it would be like that.

Kris Hampton  46:27

Right. So you've got them slightly externally rotated and together? 

Steve Maisch  46:29

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  46:29

 And your shoulders? 

Steve Maisch  46:31

Yeah that's how it is

Kris Hampton  46:43

 Yeah, on the front, it's gonna be hard to pull your shoulders back in that position. 

Steve Maisch  46:47

Right

Kris Hampton  46:47

Yeah.

Steve Maisch  46:48

And I think if you go heavy, that's putting a lot of undue stress on the bicep, whereas what I'm doing is pretty light.

Kris Hampton  46:55

Right. Sure. 

Steve Maisch  46:56

You know, so it's so my biceps, like, I'm not getting pumped at all in my back and my biceps. It's all just forearms.

Kris Hampton  47:02

Yeah. I haven't played with any of the like the Grippul or any of those things yet. I did just recently, when I injured my hand at the skate park and I had been training my monos leading up to that, but I couldn't hang with my right hand on a mono anymore. And I just happened to be down in Boulder and I interviewed Will Anglin and Ben Spannuth from Tension. And Will had just a single mono that I could, I could use to just, I could just attach a kettlebell to it. 

Steve Maisch  47:37

Yeah

Kris Hampton  47:37

And I kept training my left hand because that's the one I'm most concerned about anyway, because the route I want to do has a ring finger mono from my left hand. 

Steve Maisch  47:46

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  47:47

So so I was able to use that and I really like it. I hadn't played around with any of these, these little toys like that, but but so far, I really like it. And Nate is doing something interesting where he's just doing isometric holds on, like he takes the the Flash Board, the Tension Flash Board, that portable hangboard and he basically takes a tie down strap, and those last couple inches of his deadlift or where it resists him, and he just, he just does an isometric hold in a in a deadlift for those last couple inches just on a regular sized, portable hangboard. 

Steve Maisch  48:31

Yeah

Kris Hampton  48:32

And he's just playing around with them but so far he likes them so

Steve Maisch  48:35

Interesting. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, I did, I I saw this thing that the Tension guys have  and I just made one at one point.

Kris Hampton  48:43

 Yeah.

Steve Maisch  48:43

For the monos. And I was using them for, one of the things I played around with a little bit was super long duration hangs, like three minutes. And I tried first, I tried doing it from a hangboard and it was just, it just destroyed my shoulders just hanging there. 

Kris Hampton  49:00

Hanging there for three minutes. Yeah, I bet.

Steve Maisch  49:01

 So then I switched to these little, then I was like, oh pinch blocks could work well for that. But then I also, since I'm weak on pockets, I was like, oh, I'll just do the one, just do one finger.

Kris Hampton  49:10

 Yep. 

Steve Maisch  49:11

And you're just standing in a pretty comfortable position and I don't know if it really worked at all. It was painful

Kris Hampton  49:19

Yeah, and I, you know, I think I might like it a little better than taking weight off on a hangboard.

Steve Maisch  49:26

 Yeah,

Kris Hampton  49:26

 You know, like if you if you want to work on your monos, but you can't hang on a mono. Well if you can't hang bodyweight, how the hell do you train those without taking weight off? 

Steve Maisch  49:34

Exactly. Yeah.

Kris Hampton  49:35

You know, I think I think that's a good way but I haven't played with crimps, the little like crimp edges that you hang weight off of and just hold in one hand. I haven't played with those, so

Steve Maisch  49:46

Yeah, I think even the with the mono things that the guys, the Tension guys have, like if you attach that to a lat pulldown machine

Kris Hampton  49:52

Yep. Totally.

Steve Maisch  49:52

 Or you know what I just did my garage I have like a pulley and you just set the pulley up over the rafter and 

Kris Hampton  49:53

Yep, put weight on the othe side

Steve Maisch  50:00

Yeah, and then you're kind of doing like an actual climbing move with your mono. 

Kris Hampton  50:05

Yep. 

Steve Maisch  50:05

And you can put whatever weight on it.

Kris Hampton  50:07

Yeah. Cool. Any other tricks and hangboard things that we haven't talked about? I mean, I'm sure there's a million toys out there.

Steve Maisch  50:16

There's a million of them out there.

Kris Hampton  50:19

 How do you feel about the portable hangboards that you warm up with at the crag?

Steve Maisch  50:23

 I like them.

Kris Hampton  50:23

Yeah, yeah, I do, too. 

Steve Maisch  50:24

Yeah, I think they're really, it's, it's, yeah, I think they're great. I mean, you can save your skin. A lot of times I find with bouldering, like to get the fingers actually warmed up, I have to either try something hard which is just gonna zap my skin. 

Kris Hampton  50:38

Yep.

Steve Maisch  50:38

 Or well yeah, or just, you know, the those portable boards are really good for that. And sometimes, you know, I mean, it depends, like you were just in Hueco, you got a ton of stuff to do. 

Kris Hampton  50:50

Right. 

Steve Maisch  50:50

Whereas, you know, some of these places, you know, a place like South Africa, their good stuff is kind of spread out and you'll go to a place where there's only just that one boulder and the next boulder is, you know, a 15 minute walk away. In areas like that they're really helpful, really useful.

Kris Hampton  51:05

Yeah, the final season I spent in the Red, I was trying to just clean up the bouldery stuff I hadn't done and it was super helpful for me there. Because I could you know, I was gonna need to full crimp. I was gonna need to try hard, right at the bottom of a route. And I couldn't warm up on the 5.12s next to it, because they're all giant holds, you know. I could get my body worn, but my fingers weren't even close. 

Steve Maisch  51:31

Right. 

Kris Hampton  51:31

So being able to hang on that Flash Board before I got on and get to the point where I felt comfortable pulling into a full crimp, then I was ready to go.

Steve Maisch  51:40

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's you know, I noticed that just with the hangboard. Like, my first set is never very good. Even my second set is not that good. It's my third. So it takes me like three sets to hit it. So if you're on a route, and you waste that first go, and then the second go, and if okay, yeah, third go, your fingers are finally warmed up but the rest of you is destroyed.

Kris Hampton  52:04

Yep. Totally. Alright, one last question. Maybe. I might think of something else. But there's there are these big battles all the time, and I don't, I don't watch the Reddit sub, the subReddit "Training for Climbing" thing, but Nate does.

Steve Maisch  52:19

Okay,

Kris Hampton  52:20

 And so I hear all the feedback of what's going on there. And there are all these battles about which is better, the 7 second hang, or the 10 second hang, or  the 5 second hang, or whatever. And I know you like seven seconds.

Steve Maisch  52:34

Well, I also.... I think I'm on Reddit saying 10 seconds haha. 

Kris Hampton  52:38

Oh, really? Hahahaha How much difference do you think there really is between the five verses seven versus ten or whatever?

Steve Maisch  52:49

I don't think it's so much the time. I think it's the protocol. 

Kris Hampton  52:53

And the total time under tension?

Steve Maisch  52:54

Yeah, so the five second I think is a good one arm protocol. 

Kris Hampton  52:58

Yeah.

Steve Maisch  52:59

 The 10 second, I think is a really good recruitment protocol, where your recruitment plus that complex, because we're, we tend to.... it's that last couple of seconds where your body is just starting to fire, all that extra, those extra fibers. But I also think it leads to a plateau. And I think the 7:3 repeater is a good protocol, because it allows you to use grips that are more climbing specific and it allows you to work in a weight that you get a couple of sets in that are submaximal, so you're working in that strength zone. Yeah. So that would be my quotable answer.

Kris Hampton  53:38

There you have it, Reddit. From the from the lips of Steve Maisch. So man, I appreciate it again, sitting down. Let's Let's do this again in the future. 

Steve Maisch  53:49

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  53:50

Like we could sit here and talk all damn night probably. Yeah, I appreciate it, man. Thanks. 

Steve Maisch  53:54

Alright, yeah.

Kris Hampton  53:57

So, you know, is there one best way? No, there definitely is not one best way. It depends on your situation, your needs, your goals, your training age, so many things. And, you know, do we need to be training finger strength year round? Sure. Does that mean we need to be hangboarding year round? Not necessarily. You can, you can gain a lot of finger strength through bouldering, especially if you're not up in the upper V levels. If you're you know, if you're a V4 climber, you've got a lot of finger strength you can still get through just some focused bouldering. So don't get trapped into that "I need to be hangboarding all the damn time" theory. It's just not true. You know, if you have limited time, hangboarding is a great option. But a lot of us have tons of time. So there there are better ways. So I'm going to get back to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch over here, get ready to start destroying my voice this weekend at 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell. Please go check out betafund.org/reboltHCR. And if you have the means to give some money to rebolt the canyon, please do that. The Beta Fund is matching donations up to $8,000 I believe. Also if you're coming to Rocktoberfest and you've not yet registered, you can do so. You get a little bit of money off. That'll be super helpful for all of us poor climbers out there. rrgcc.org/register. Go do that now. I'll see you there. Come and find me. I'm the guy on the mic. And October 14, if you're still going to be in the Red, live Board Meeting at Land of the Arches, evening time. Probably a little bit after dark, we'll be getting started so just come by when you're finished up climbing. I hope to see all of you guys out there. More podcasts coming soon. Just as soon as my voice recovers. Don't forget to go check us out on the interwebs. Powercompanyclimbing.com We've got new journals out. We've got our Applied Body Tension ebook out. Tons of cool things coming down the pipeline right now as soon as I.... we just bought a house so as soon as I get my gym built in there and get things going, you guys are gonna get inundated with Power Company shit. It's gonna be everywhere. So find us PowerCompanyClimbing.com Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. For God's sakes, I still don't know what goes on at Pinterest. And no Twitters. You guys know that. We don't tweet. We scream like eagles.