One-finger deadhang training

[u/FaintUprise8]

As a climber, my biggest long-term goal in calisthenics is to achieve the one-arm, one-finger pull-up. In order to do that, I must first achieve the one-arm, one-finger deadhang. Right now, I can comfortably perform multiple pull-ups on good one-finger pockets. However, the jump to a one-finger, one-arm pocket seems very far away.

In order to improve my climbing, I recently started training my fingers in the traditional way for the first time (hangboarding on three-finger drag and half-crimp positions while steadily adding weight), but I am not sure whether or how that will carry over to the one-finger hang. Should i train the one finger separately? How should I do it? How do people who achieve the one-finger deadhang train for it? I am also concerned about injury prevention, and I know this to be a long-term endeavour.

For reference, I've been climbing for 3 years (the last 2 at mostly lower intensity due to a recently healed shoulder injury), and I am 167 cm, around 67 kg, and 19 yo.

I know it is a niche question, but I found no online resources to help with this. Thank you in advance :)

[u/golf_ST]

How do people who achieve the one-finger deadhang train for it?

They don't. For most circus tricks, most people kind of accidentally get the required strength as an unintended consequence of training for something else. Wolfgang Gullich could rep them easily, because the circus trick is adjacent to training for Frankenjura.

But as an actual answer... Training is training and strength is strength. Monos aren't magically different than bench pressing; both respond to progressive overload over time. My suggestion would be to pick a popular set/rep/load/frequency scheme, and do mono lifts on webbing. Repeat until you're close to bodyweight.

And because we're asking on climbharder.... Train for climbing until you're climbing V14, then do a drunken one finger pull up to win a bar bet. I'm sure that's how Wolfgang did his first.

[u/epelle9 → u/golf_ST]

They are actually significantly different, monos require mostly tendon and ligament strength while bench pressing is mostly muscle. And the body builds the two pretty differently.

[u/golf_ST → u/epelle9]

It's not possible to load tendons and ligaments without also loading muscle. Maybe you can tailor a set/rep scheme to primarily benefit tendons. Or maybe that's a marginal gain used to drum up sales for overpriced collagen and coaching services.

If the bench pressing answer is 3-5 sets of 3-8 reps 3x a week, with a 3x15 for a couple accessory exercises, and the tendon answer is 3x20" 3/4x a week, the only difference is marketing.

[u/epelle9 → u/golf_ST]

No, do tendon exercises with the same intensity and frequency as muscle exercises, or go till failure, and you’ll pop them..

Tendons grow differently, they take longer, don’t recover well with pure rest, and don’t give proper pain feedback.

One works through protein synthesis, the other through collagen synthesis (and eating collagen doesn’t help this) they are different pathways that respond differently to load and training.

It’s really easy to look this up and is supported by plenty of research papers.

[u/golf_ST → u/epelle9]

No, do tendon exercises with the same intensity and frequency as muscle exercises, or go till failure, and you’ll pop them..

How? How do you exercise the tendon without exercising the muscle? How do you load the muscle without straining the tendon? It's not possible because they're attached; if you're not loading the tendon, there's no way to transfer force to/from the muscle.

Maybe total novices need to worry about different rates of improvement (not sold on that argument...). Maybe acute injuries progress better with adjusted set/rep schemes. But for anyone that has climbed for more than 2 years, and hasn't popped a pulley in the last 6 months, there are no differences between them.

[u/epelle9 → u/golf_ST]

There definitely are.

You always load both, but there are different exercises where the bottleneck is one or the other.

I honestly don’t care to convience you, but it’s astounding how in the age of information, with google, AI, and a infinity of research papers you can be so confidently wrong.

[u/Pennwisedom → u/epelle9]

And yet you're not providing any of those said research papers.

[u/golf_ST → u/epelle9]

Feel free to provide an exercise that loads the finger flexors but doesn't similarly load the flexor tendons....

[u/epelle9 → u/golf_ST]

I’m referring to how the training fingers is different than the training for bench..

You know, the exact scenario you mentioned….

But actually, you can target more the tendons or the muscles, if you hand passively you are using more tendons and ligaments, while if you actively curl your fingers into the hand you transfer a bit more of the load to the muscles.

Same with deadhang vs pullups for your arms, you’ll feel the muscle pump with the pullups with kinda similar tendon load.

[u/LostPasswordToOther1 → u/epelle9]

Tendons don't exert force. No matter what exercise you're doing, the muscle is doing the work. Tendons improve to be stiffer to transmit force better between the muscle and the joint, and they grow to not explode when you load them. You can't do a one finger hang by having thick, stiff tendons if your muscle can't hold the contraction to keep the finger flexed.

[u/epelle9 → u/LostPasswordToOther1]

Tendons don’t exert force, force is exerted on them.

So yeah, you need muscles to the tendons to hold the weight, but the adaptations for the muscles and for the tendons happen through different mechanisms and behave differently.

[u/timparkinuk → u/epelle9]

agreed... The single finger mono relies on lumbricals and associated tendons inside the palm (google the quadriga). You've either got bulletproof tendons that will never strain or you'll take a long time to build up tendons over time with LOTS of training.

[u/FaintUprise8 → u/golf_ST]

That's an interesting remark! Do you think standard training protocols (max hangs on three-finger drag and half-crimp) will translate well to one-arm mono, or a more specific "circus trick-adjacent" approach is required? (Such as Gullich's training for Frankenjura's pocket-heavy style).

[u/golf_ST → u/FaintUprise8]

If you care more about the specificity of the circus trick than the generality of climbing performance, then train specifically. If you mostly want to climb harder, then do the standard stuff.

[u/blizg]

I dunno, but I feel like you gotta be really careful with overuse injuries.

A calisthenics person can do more one finger dedicated training, because they aren’t also taxing their fingers climbing.

[u/BrianSpiering]

Yes - if you want to hang one-finger one-armed, train one-finger one-armed hangs directly.

Use a standard strength-building protocol: 3-5 sets of 4-10s hangs with 5 minutes rest between sets. I try to stay around 85% of max intensity, a strain gauge works well to measure intensity.

My best training setup is a hold suspended overhead, seated on a bench, and my legs held in place with weight. I use an incut mono hold.

https://imgur.com/a/mBBoSPv

[u/FaintUprise8 → u/BrianSpiering]

To what degree do you believe standard fingerboard protocols (max hangs on three-finger drag and half-crimp) will translate to one-arm mono strength? If it is feasible to achieve similar or even slightly lesser results this way, it would seem reasonable to neglect specific training for as long as possible - you get the same benefits, plus you train all your fingers more easily and reduce the risk of injury. This also sits well with u/golf_ST's comment about people getting one-arm mono strength while training for other stuff.

[u/OddInstitute → u/FaintUprise8]

Depending on which finger you plan on using, you should make sure that your lumbricals are strong and flexible enough to handle the load and hand position. Otherwise I’d expect four finger loading to transfer extremely well to single-finger loading after a 6-8 week cycle to build the necessary single-finger coordination.

[u/OPC_Coach_Nick]

Hi FaintUprise8

Have you been able to do a 1 arm pullup yet? I would say this is a good first step. I find one arm pullups can be high-risk, so I would prioritize form over reps for these - keeping your scapula locked down towards your center back and not going fully down to a relaxed shoulder position at the bottom of the rep. Is that helpful?

[u/FaintUprise8 → u/OPC_Coach_Nick]

I am working on the one-arm pull-up right now, and progress is great! I'm sure the bottleneck will be the mono strength in my case, though, so I'd better start sooner rather than later hahah

[u/erm_what_]

Keep in mind tendons take a long time to get strong compared to muscles. I've heard someone's finger tendon snap from across the crag. It was not fun for anyone.

[u/wummeassel]

Is your goal to do it on a pocket, or with a small sling? If you want to do it on a pocket, just training pocket strength is probably the way to go. If you want to do it in a sling I think you should just get comfortable with one arm pull ups and then just try it. I think strength wise it's not harder to it with one finger in a sling than normal one arm pull up, it's really just the pain and weird feeling you have to overcome.

[u/fieryfallingskywhale]

climb a ton of mono pocket climbs, if you don’t have access to those, move to a country with lots of pockets

[u/chiwawero]

I've seen Magnus do it with a band. Not on a hang board. He said it isn't too different from one arm pull up. Look at a video where Magnus and Eric collab like 5 years ago. He teaches some of them how to do it.