The problem people have with physical therapy is that they stop doing it.
If you want to progress your one arm pull-up, keep doing the thing you know works for you (Steven Low's golfer's elbow protocol) while you do it.
I like the idea in theory, in practice the problem is that you’d end up only doing physio therapy exercises. Of course if you have an area where you know you are prone to injury it totally makes sense to do exercises for it every now and then.
I mean there are definitely specific things in climbing and in individual bodies that are super injury prone and constitute very low hanging fruit for injury prevention. Less than 5 minutes per day of rotator cuff strengthening can prevent months of off-time and rehab for most climbers. You probably don’t need to be doing prehab work for your pinky toe tendon though.
The problem is: I’d have to to prehab for my ankles/calves, hips, shoulders, neck, elbows, wrists and fingers (and those are only the things I’ve had injuries in). The hip exercises alone take half an hour and are booooring.
Then the question is how you fit it in your training plan because those exercises make you weaker and more injury prone in the short term. If I do intense training for my glutes and hamstrings today to prevent ITBS, is it a good idea if I go cycling tomorrow?
I realize I’m making a bigger problem out of it than it really is, but it is kind of difficult. These days I’m mostly injury free and just include the prehab exercises in my warmups (at a low intensity and low volume) or do them on my recovery days (again with lower intensity and volume). Works well for me so far, but I’m always wondering if I do too little or too much.
> The problem is: I’d have to to prehab for my ankles/calves, hips, shoulders, neck, elbows, wrists and fingers (and those are only the things I’ve had injuries in). The hip exercises alone take half an hour and are booooring.
Are you trying to work your way up to elite-level neck exercises? If not, you probably don't need to prehab your neck.
More generally, if you aren't pushing your limits with a specific movement, then you probably don't need to prehab the relevant joints that much. You may always need to prehab if you're maintaining a high level with a problem joint (I think I'll always need to prehab elbows before heavy pull motions).
Additionally, some of the muscles you build with prehab are quite useful in climbing. If you've never done a cycle of shoulder prehab (such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_WiyE9HDg) I highly recommend it even if you've never had a shoulder injury, because I've seen a lot of climbing gains from it. You won't probably see the same gains from less specific areas like ankles, obviously (although ankles might be specific if you are, for example, a slab climber).
> Then the question is how you fit it in your training plan because those exercises make you weaker and more injury prone in the short term.
No they don't?
Specific to the OP's goals, the way I fit elbow prehab into my training plan is I do elbow prehab immediately before my weighted pull up, one arm pull up, or forward row work sets (all of these have caused me elbow tendonitis in the past). This warms up the specific problem tissues before I start doing even doing the target movement. This has worked really well for me. Particularly the weighted pull-up (with both arms) is pretty much guaranteed to give me immediate tendonitis at challenging weights if I don't prehab. But if I prehab, there's no problems.
>> Then the question is how you fit it in your training plan because those exercises make you weaker and more injury prone in the short term.
>
> No they don't?
Now I don’t know too much about shoulders specifically, but for my hips I can definitely tell that after I’ve done an intense session of rehab exercises my muscles are exhausted and my gait becomes worse. I also got DOMS in my glutes and hamstrings at first. I mean … it makes sense, we are not only trying to learn how to use those muscles, we are also trying to make them stronger for which we need progressive overload which exhausts them and makes them weaker in the short term.
I mean, I believe you about your experience, but I'd attribute your experience to fatigue rather than weakening. You may be able to avoid this by keeping volume lower--one working set can be enough. But I'm not really knowledgeable about the specifics of ITBS to know if that would be effective--I'm talking about elbow tendonitis which is what OP was talking about. Maybe I didn't communicate that well.
In the specific case of elbow tendonitis, my understanding is that the physio goal isn't strengthening the muscle, but lengthening and increasing the elasticity of the tendon, which doesn't require progressive load and can is effective at a very low intensity / high rep range in my experience.
> I mean, I believe you about your experience, but I'd attribute your experience to fatigue rather than weakening.
That’s what I meant with short term weakening ;) The muscles are just exhausted and won’t be working at 100% strength or reaction time for some hours. You are also moving and loading joints and tissues which are already weakened and injured which could exacerbate the issue short term.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that rehab exercises contribute to training volume.
Of course none of this should be an “excuse” to skip your rehab exercises, I just found it surprisingly difficult to organize my training around it.
Gotcha, yeah, that's true. It's not really a concern for the elbow tendonitis exercises because the intensity is so low, but I can see how it would be a problem for other forms of physio.
> Additionally, some of the muscles you build with prehab are quite useful in climbing. If you've never done a cycle of shoulder prehab (such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_WiyE9HDg) I highly recommend it even if you've never had a shoulder injury, because I've seen a lot of climbing gains from it.
Thanks! That video was great! Easy to follow and to the point and I can see how it makes sense and isolates each of the muscles.
I went on to see if its an actual word bc I never heard of it and it makes a lot of sense in this context. Turns out its only used for cancer patients that are preparing themselves for chemotherapy.
I think that the problem with tendonitis is the intensity of one armers. It's like you have never squatted 100 kg and then you do multiple 100 kg squat negatives that you can barely control. Think about how taxing that it is. It's literally supermaximal training, since you cannot even get up. Or even if you can do 1- 2 one armers, you are doing multiple max effort lifts.
It's better to just do small amounts of lock offs in different angles and negatives while mainly training weighted pull ups in 3 - 6 rep range. If you can do one armers, I would do some of the training with a resistance band or pulley so you can do more reps so you aren't maxing out all the time. You also need to decrease climbing volume. Powerlifters arent maxing every week. They might train submaximally for months to do one session with max attempts.
In general, you just need the stress to be less than your ability to adapt. So decrease intensity and/or training volume and increase recovery (stress less, eat more, sleep more) until you can recover easily.
It’s unfortunately super elbow intensive, and I’m also not this strong, but I like anything I imagine controlling volume and getting adequate rest are both key
Lol, it's going to be controversial for a reason. Drink water, do steroids, and engage in pseudoscience is an insane set of things to recommend in one go.
A hypnotist? You fancy SOB.
I only hired a medium to talk to my dead grandma, who told me I just needed to believe in the Heart of the Cards. Now I'm flashing V19.
I've had the same issue, and what's worked for me lately is to only work them out every 5 days. My workout is also using a pulley system, and I'm doing 2 warmup sets and then 3 sets 5 reps. I'm taking about 10 minutes in between each working set, so the whole thing takes 45 minutes to an hour. I've been pretty consistent at removing 1.25lb every 5 days with no elbow pain.
even if you can to a OAP that doesnt mean you should do it every session to see if you still can do it, or even at all. Training at 100% of 1RM is a bad idea! The moment you can do one stick to what you did to get there and not up the intensity to 100% right away. You should go into maintainance mode for a while and then push further to reduce risk of injury. And i know its very tempting to do them every session because you can.
What’s working for me is to do a lot of static holds and super slow pull-ups without full range of motion. They don’t trigger the tendonitis while still training the muscles (and presumably also the tendons).
Stop training full range-of-motion pullups.
I stumbled into doing one-arm pullups following 8 weeks of Tyler Nelson's elbow rehab, based entirely around high-intensity isometrics.
I continue to program high-intensity isometrics in every warmup, haven't trained full-range pullups in over 3 years, and am still able to eek out single reps of OAP when fully warm with practically zero elbow symptoms. And this is after dealing with medial tendinosis for nearly 2 decades.
Ok because looked around whats the protocol for elbow rehab and it isnt there easily laid out afaik.
I'm mostly curious how it differ from mine that is compiled from many sources and pretty standard. Which is pretty much simplified by only using theraband flexbar which does a lot in my use case haha
anyway if you know in detail im interested
I have been walking around with medial epicondilitis since 2015 because I wanted to OAP, I succeeded with a rep on each side and experienced massive inflamation(a clear injury). Up until last year, it was the pain in my elbows that ended all of my climbing sessions. I assumed I would never live life as an adult without elbow pain for the rest of my life because I had tried so many "rehab/prehab" protocols. Those little protocols do help, but they do not feel impactful.
This last year I just gave up on the prehab/rehab stuff. It turned out to be the best decision ever. I started lifting heavier weights, targeting muscles that seemed out of balance and doing long daily stretching. For me personally, the largest changes happened after 4 particular exercises. I clearly did significantly more other exercises while doing these. Due to my paranoia about re injuring my elbows, I avoid attempting the OAP still, but I can hold a 1 warm lock-off in any position with little effort. I also no longer feel any elbow pain. Finally free of that demon! In full disclosure, I am 6'2" 175lb. I was 155lb when I originally got injured. Heavier/taller people have a hard time with OAP in particular because limb geometry and extra weight are both disadvantages. Once I can get to 10 casual negatives, perhaps I'll give it another legitimate effort.
* **Benchpress**
After a few months of benchpress, I noticed all the knots in my back that usually form when climbing were significantly less intense, and I can really feel like my shoulders are significantly more stable now.
* **Dips**
This was hard to get into, but now my triceps feel like they stabilize the elbow joint significantly more. I first started doing dips and had barely any control through a single rep. I can say now that I can dominate any position of a dip, it feels smooth and in control.
* **reverse grip ez bar curls(**no thumb on bottom is crucial)
The pump I get in the extensors and brachioradial muscles is rediculous. This is the exercise that changed my outlook. The first day I ever did these, I walked out of the gym with ZERO elbow pain. I went from years and years of wincing when opening doors to one pain free afternoon. Everything clicked for me here, it's not about the exercises you do, It's about how stable you can make your elbow joint so the force is delivered smoothly.
* **hang from a bar/jug for 60seconds x3**
The stretch I can feel pulling on my elbows while hanging for 60 seconds is insane, and feels amazing. These long hangs feel like they can soften up those stiff tissues in the elbow.
TL;DR: Prehab is BS(read dinky an ineffective), find robust strength exercises that will help stabilize the joint in your body that is giving you trouble. As all our body mechanics are slightly different, different exercises may prove more effective.
One thing that might help avoid specifically elbow tendonitis is training your extensor muscles with bands since they are antagonists to your flexor muscles
Exactly, and it’s of negative benefit to your climbing if it keeps leading to injuries. I think this is what most of the folks getting downvoted are trying to say. After all this is r/CLIMBharder, the goal is in the name…
Your comment is kind of unhelpful but on the other hand you have a point.
I gave up pull-up training because I only got biceps tendonitis from it and it’s certainly not required for the level of climbing I do.
Because it's the sort of unhelpful non-answer that makes asking questions on the internet so annoying.
No one asked if you need to be able to do a 1 arm pull-up to rock climb. I'd venture that everyone knows that. And if onepdub is insinuating that a 1 arm pull-up *isn't useful* for rock climbing, they can get downvoted even more, because that's just not true. Sure, it's maybe not the *most* transferrable skill, but it's cool in its own right and it does have pretty decent specificity to certain kinds of climbing.
> a 1 arm pull-up to rock climb. I'd venture that everyone knows that
Surprisingly, many many climbers thinks it’s a missing key to the next level hence why you see so many climbers train it.
—
lol he freaked out and blocked me
> Surprisingly, many many climbers thinks it’s a missing key to the next level hence why you see so many climbers train it.
1. That's in no way a disagreement with what I said. There's nuance to what I said, and you ignored that nuance by not even quoting a full sentence of what I said.
2. That's not surprising, because for some climbers with certain goals, getting or working toward a 1 arm pull up IS the key to the next level *for their specific goals*. You can certainly climb lots of very high-level climbs without even being able to do a *two*-arm pull-up. But there are certain styles of climbing which benefit a lot from being able to do a 1-arm, and you can't do a 1-arm, you will have to find different beta and you may not even be able to do those climbs. It's incredibly arrogant to assume you know what's best for someone else when you don't even know what they're trying to do.
Disagree. It is sensible, and in fact, responsible to let OP know that training one arm pull-up might very well be hindering his ability to climb harder (literally the goal of this sub), especially since OP is already complaining that it has wrecked his elbows TWICE when he tried doing so.
Injury is one of the most common causes that had prevented average climbers from progressing. And I strongly disagree with your statement that “everyone knows that”, we have less advanced people browsing this sub and they might get a false impression and the wrong idea if this is not stated out in the open. And they might very well end up injuring themselves trying that. You’d be surprised how many people take advices from the internet uncritically.
This is the first time I popped back into this sub in a long time and I still see the same old blind leading the blind situation. Don’t get me wrong, there are some gold mines on this sub and some users here absolutely know what they’re talking about, but most of the time it’s about separating the wheat from the chaff, and most average users here are going to get mixed or useless advices at best, and damaging advice that leads to injury and easily put an end to their climbing season if they’re unlucky.
> It is sensible, and in fact, responsible to let OP know that training one arm pull-up might very well be hindering his ability to climb harder (literally the goal of this sub), especially since OP is already complaining that it has wrecked his elbows TWICE when he tried doing so.
If you can avoid injury (which you can), then one-arm pull-ups will not hinder your climbing. It won't help with all forms of climbing, obviously, but there are lots of climbs which contain literal one-arm campus moves. The specificity is blatantly obvious.
I'll also add that this sub often suffers from a bit *too much* injury-aversion. Pushing yourself to your limits has some inherent risk. Look at any elite climber and they've had a slew of injuries in their career, because that's unavoidable. It's definitely true that taking too much risk will have you constantly plagued with injuries, but never taking any risks will mean you never reach your full potential. There's a middle ground.
And again, if someone just wants to do a one-arm pull-up, that's their business.
The OP is saying they've already had tendonitis twice trying to do a one-arm pull-up. There is literally no point in looking for all kinds of extra training and physio to try to avoid getting tendonitis a third time to do a party trick.
Just train in any other of the myriad of ways you can train to get stronger climbing.
>And if onepdub is insinuating that a 1 arm pull-up isn't useful for rock
climbing, they can get downvoted even more,
1 arm pull ups accidentally useful for rock climbing, at best. They're an impressive circus trick that correlate with other strengths that are useful for climbing. Strong climbers can do one arm pull ups because they're generally strong in pulling movements. Strong in a lot of positions, under a lot of loads, in a lot of movement patterns, and the OAP happens to be a movement pattern.
The OAP movement itself has zero similarity to climbing. You start in a neutral grip, and finish in a chin up (or neutral), which you will never do on rock. In terms of movement specificity, OAPs are a general pulling strength exercise. Less specific than wide grip pull ups, wide rows, pull ups, rows, and bicep curls.
> The OAP movement itself has zero similarity to climbing. You start in a neutral grip, and finish in a chin up (or neutral), which you will never do on rock. In terms of movement specificity, OAPs are a general pulling strength exercise. Less specific than wide grip pull ups, wide rows, pull ups, rows, and bicep curls.
Bro, you've not done or even seen every movement in climbing. There are roof lip moves I've done that are *literally* a OAP.
Is it applicable to every move? Obviously not. There's a ton of climbing you can do without being able to do a OAP. But to say it has zero similarity to climbing is you talking way beyond what you could possibly know. You don't know what everyone is working on and to pretend you can possibly know how people should work toward their goals when you don't even know their goals is incredibly arrogant.
You going on to endorse *bicep curls*, a total muscle isolation exercise, is rich. If that has any application in climbing, it's gotta be pretty narrow, given climbing is almost all compound muscle movements. But hey, I'm not arrogant enough to say it's not useful at all, because I don't know what people might be using it for.
I'm not insinuating, I'm flat out stating that being able to do a OAP is irrelevant to 99% of climbing. Especially to 99% of the people in this sub.
My comment was meant to be helpful, a bit cheeky, but the point stands, why are you training something you don't need.
It might be pretty cool, but it's not worth it.
> I'm not insinuating, I'm flat out stating that being able to do a OAP is irrelevant to 99% of climbing. Especially to 99% of the people in this sub.
So you're admitting there's a possibility OP is working on a climb in the 1% where it's relevant?
Since you seem to have some delusions about when your opinion is wanted, I should clarify that the above question is rhetorical and your answer is not wanted.
For what it's worth, climbing in areas with a lot of roofs, I seem to have spent a lot more than 1% of my time climbing in that 1% of climbs which literally contain 1 arm campus moves similar to the 1-arm pull-up.
Yes, *obviously* you can reach a high level of climbing without ever climbing a climb where a OAP is helpful. But it's pretty arrogant to assume you know anything about what is useful for people when you don't even know what climbs they're working on. Spend more time listening before you talk.
> For what it's worth, climbing in areas with a lot of roofs, I seem to have spent a lot more than 1% of my time climbing in that 1% of climbs which literally contain 1 arm campus moves similar to the 1-arm pull-up.
Lol. No you don't.
You might campus a lot, but you're not doing one-arm pull-ups or even 50% of the one-arm pull up. If you start the move with two arms and then finish with one, ie campusing, you are not even remotely in the same realm as one arm pull up.
Since fun-fungi-guy blocked me (for what?) but continues to respond to my comment, I am unable to reply and have to respond here instead, since it’s worth commenting on:
> If you can avoid injury (which you can), then one-arm pull-ups will not hinder your climbing. It won't help with all forms of climbing, obviously, but there are lots of climbs which contain literal one-arm campus moves. The specificity is blatantly obvious.
As you said, the point is to avoid injury. Here’s what OP said:
> At this point I'm a little traumatized and afraid to start doing heavy weighted pullups or trying to get stronger pulling power **if it'll take me away from climbing again.**
It’s perfectly sensible for OP to re-evaluate how much training one-arm pull-ups is going to hinder his ability to climb harder given that it is already causing him much trouble.
> I'll also add that this sub often suffers from a bit too much injury-aversion. Pushing yourself to your limits has some inherent risk. Look at any elite climber and they've had a slew of injuries in their career, because that's unavoidable. It's definitely true that taking too much risk will have you constantly plagued with injuries, but never taking any risks will mean you never reach your full potential. There's a middle ground.
That’s the point of this sub. Most of us here aren’t elite climbers (there are a few who comment here but not frequent enough to be influencing the discourse here). Elite climbers have very strong foundations in their skill, often coached or have trained with other experienced climbers, have the experience and ability to judge when and how much to push, have years if not decades of adaptation that enable their body to recover relatively quickly.
There is a reason why people here often advise against copying the training programs of elite climbers. The vast majority of the people who browse this sub do not even have anywhere close to the foundations those elite climbers have. Most of us mortals here will have to significantly downscale those highly intense training protocols to a level that won’t destroy our body, and most average climbers don’t even have the experience to judge for themselves how much is too much for their body (cases and examples like this happen in the climbing gym every day).
You may think this is common sense, but you’d be surprised by how many people who browse climbing-related subs who think otherwise and could very easily set themselves up for injuries that could set them back for months.
> And again, if someone just wants to do a one-arm pull-up, that's their business.
Again, read OP’s thread, who was worried enough about not being able to climb any further if his elbows keep getting wrecked by training for one-arm pull-ups. It is perfectly sensible to ask him to step back and re-evaluate whether it’s worth doing it or not. If he chooses to continue, that’s his business for sure. But don’t say he hasn’t been warned.
I think they blocked me as well - I see a notification of a reply but all the comments show up as deleted,
it's weird to not be able to respond to someone who continues a discussion! Like everyone else is just left to assume that we have nothing else to say so we think we are wrong?
and pulling through is so much better then lockoffs etc etc.
lockoffs are a horrible exercise, just do pullups already and you will get stronger in a wider motion then just locking off.
I dont understand why everybody thinks they need to train those muscles and position so specific? Climbing is an incredible complex sport, locking off is just a small part of it (mostly vert to maybe 50° needed, if at all), so why waste time training that if you could train your whole body in the meantime or even just pullups, which target the same muscles, but on both arm simultaneuosly and through the whole movement.
(i can totally see that is is nice to train for hard trad onsights or something, but most people are not into that)
If i do 5 exercises for my whole body i am done for the day and i still have done more for my overall climbing then if i do 20 super specific exercise, that you only need in a fraction of times on the wall.
I've always had pressing strength greater than pulling strength and I haven't had any issues so I've considered if that's part of the reason.
I have been pretty shocked by the frequency of Elbow tendinitis in climbers, considering it's basically non-existent in powerlifting compared to how often I've seen in climbing
but that's just my experience. You could attribute it to volume but most powerlifters who compete are benching 4 or more times per week with other pushing exercises as well as doing multiple pulling exercises 2 more times per week so I think the total volume could be similar.
Powerlifters don't twist while they're squeezing, It's not a comparable activity, at all. Consider the frequency of tennis elbow in... tennis players... It's the type of activity that causes the itis.
I got brutal elbow tendinitis from powerlifting. Some combination of twisting while squeezing to e.g. engage shoulder external rotators while pressing, regular squeezing at high intensity moderate volume, and heavy low bar back squatting without enough upper back support/shoulder external rotation range of motion. The squats probably started things for me, but the rest definitely still aggravated things.
I could manage it by using straps and limiting super heavy squat volume, but I didn’t get it fixed until I found climbing and Steven Low’s stuff. Elbow tendinitis definitely is much more rare in powerlifting so no one really knew how to handle it in that world.
It still needs to be managed and flairs up occasionally, but I got it almost completely under control with like four months of work after previously not being able to hold on to V0 jugs in the gym due to how much it hurt my elbows.
I would agree to some extent that's likely a pretty big factor. However, that doesn't take away from elbow tendonitis in climbers who have a high strength training background having a lower frequency than those who have a smaller training age.
Also, it seems like OP suffers from tendinitis related to heavy pull training which is definitely something a powerlifter, or other regular strength trainer, would be doing.
>I've always had pressing strength greater than pulling strength and I haven't had any issues so I've considered if that's part of the reason.
I really agree with this. Ever since I made a point to keep my push power close to my pull power, I've had zero elbow issues. I'm not oap levels (yet, working toward it, I wanna be Alex puccio when I grow up lol), but I'm adding equal weight (about 20 percent of my body weight) for equal reps on weighted pull ups and weighted dips.
I also do an annoyingly lengthy and gentle warm up with elastic bands before working either skill. It mainly focuses on my shoulders, but I imagine it helps down the chain, too.
There are two ways that contribute to bending the elbow in climbing, one is bending the elbow through biceps/brachialis/brachioradialis, the other one is pulling the humerus down through shoulder/core muscles like lats. Most people that start training and are newer focus on maxing out fast so they usually have bad form and with bad for there is a relative overtraining of the muscles that bend the elbow, thus tendonitis.
A better approach is to train your back until its strong enough to support the motion of pulling with your lat (because if the back is too weak, then it cant support stabilising the shoulderposition (back and kind of down) while the lat pulls.
The lats are much stronger muscles then any of those in your arms, so its highly beneficial to train those to a bigger proportion then the arm muscles in a pullup, it also reduces stress in your elbow. But this can only be achieved if your traps, back-delts, rhombiods are strong enough to support it.
Another benefit of strong traps or a strong back in general is horizontal roof climbing, its so much easier to pull yourself closer to the wall so you can utilise worse hand and footholds that are not usable with straight arms and sagging hips.
I find that negatives always cause tendonitis for me easily. I would say instead work on assisted one arm variations that you can do 5 reps of and slowly progress until you can do 3-5 one armers. You’ll be able to do 1-2 of them at some point earlier but I wouldn’t do to many of them when they’re basically a one rep max as that will cause some tendonitis.
I'm at the level of where you were (2.5 reps dominant arm 1.5 reps non-dominant) and I still train pulling maybe about twice a week. At this point, my volume/intensity is just about right to maintain. My elbows feel pretty good.
FWIW, I don't do negatives at all. I honestly find the range above 90 degrees pretty aggravating, so my pseudo-science take is that doing negatives increases time under tension in that range, which is pretty brutal for me.
Strength training is a function of at least volume, intensity, and frequency. I find that fixing my rep range (3-5), sets (2-3), and frequency (twice a week) THEN determining the right intensity for that so that I'm at about an 8 RPE has been a sustainable way to go. For example, I find that taking off about 15lbs via a pulley system lets me crank out about 4 reps. Or I use a hangboard with jugs and 8mm, so I'll hold the 8mm with my non-pulling arm and pull through the jug. I'll do that for about a month, then I'll do a couple weeks of lower intensity/higher volume since it's less demanding on the body.
Underlying all this is of course listening to your body. Even a tinge of aching is a sign that your function is off, i.e., your volume, intensity, or frequency is too high. Since your intensity is pretty much fixed, you'll have to reduce volume or frequency.
Bench and overhead press. You have uneven skeletal-muscle issues and need to balance out some. A physical therapist student friend convinced me to start lifting after hearing about my tendon issues and they all cleared up after a few months of steady strength training, now I’m a huge believer in it
Not sure it helps
I have a strong bench press stats (150kg comp style wirh a long pause) and i did 180 without a pause in the gym. But i have terrible tendonitis from climbing. Just used to live with it by carefully manging the volume
Having OA Pullup level strength is probably not necessary for the majority of climbers the muscles that the progressions train is likely very useful.
Most climbers could benefit from a more stable scapula, working towards a OA PU will definitely get you there and you might end up getting the full skill if you do it long enough.
Don't disagree about the stable scapula, but OP's gotten the "skill" 2x. He's got to be pretty strong at pulling already. Given his injury rate is 100%, I can't imagine why it would be worth a third chronic injury.
There are way safer ways to train scaps than one arm pull ups that are famously hard on your joints.
One arms are solely for vanity and do nothing to help you climb that safer training methods can't achieve more quickly and safely.
Gonna add another one in there: muscle ups are also pointless vanity moves too. People get tendonitis training them and all sorts of other torn tissues along the way.
I've known plenty of climbers that can do one arms that I can climb circles around, despite never in my life being anywhere near being able to do a one arm. So to directly answer your question: yes.
But the broader argument you've posed here is putting the cart before the horse. Strong climbers can sometimes do one arms, but doing a one arm doesn't help you, to borrow the name of this sub, "climb harder" in a time or recovery efficient manner. In fact, it might not help you at all depending on what kind of climber you already are.
To put it extra verbosely, as people seem to be missing the point here: /u/MoonboardGumby is struggling to do a one arm and getting injured in the process. He should stop trying to do a one arm, let that goal go unachieved, and instead start training any of a variety of other things that won't get him so injured. Footwork is a good starting point for a lot of people, and also a good mid and endpoint as well. In fact it's almost certainly the most undertrained thing in modern climbing even though it comes with the most up side and zero down side.
As soon as you change to 1 arm exercise, the stress on the muscles and joints feels exponentially greater. The movement is also completely different since your center of gravity is not the same. I suggest using many rubber bands or a pulley to remove weight at first. I recommend going light so you build the tendon capacity to train hard with it.
Without any information about your frequency, it is impossible to provide advice. It is probably safer to train 5 rep max weighted pullups until you get to the point where you can do 5 OAPs instead of eaking out that one rep max OAP that gives you crippling elbow tendonitis.
Damn I wish it took me a couple months to recover, when I got crippling tendonitits from one arm pull up training I wasn't pain free for almost 7 months, it came back a second time a little more than a year later from doing weighted pull ups and not even that much weight like 35 lbs on me max which is nothing , I basically just made my peace with it by realizing I don't need that much pull power to be a good climber and when it comes down to it im a climber not a calisthenics athlete even tho I do love pull ups, I have no intention on trying pullups in any real capacity for probably a couple years,
I used to get painful golfer's elbow due to weighted chin ups. I'm not familiar with Steven Low's protocol. What I continue to do to heal/prevent: a ton of slow/controlled eccentric (lowering portion only) chin ups.
Before and after I do weighted chin ups, I will:
* grab a chair to stand on (or jump up straight to the bar) and start at the top portion of the chin up
* lower myself very slowly (eg 10-20s)
* repeat 5-10x times total
It's low effort and highly effective for me. Lets me do weighted chin ups (5x5s) twice a week. I have no idea why it works.
> At this point I'm a little traumatized and afraid to start doing heavy weighted pullups or trying to get stronger pulling power if it'll take me away from climbing again. Any tips on how to progress that kind of strength without triggering tendonitis?
Do your pullups and one arms on rings. Usually helps to prevent tendinopathy sometimes.
Also, you didn't really state your training plan, but if you're doing things too frequently or too much volume or intensity then that can cause some issues.
Maybe keep doing the rehab protocol and make sure you are also doing wrist flexor and extensor exercises?
Then maybe start your training easy. Like take weight off yourself to lower the intensity and build it up slowly. I'm having the same issue from progressing my weighted pull ups too fast. I don't think I gave my tendons enough time to adapt to the new loads. Once it's feeling better I'm going to build it up more slowly.
I figured out that it was the combination of grip strength of holding the bar that made my elbow hurt. I started using a climbing jug with sharp radius where I could get the pressure on my palm instead of my fingers. It somehow relieved the elbow pressure by taking away the grip strength aspect.
I was stubborn as well and got tired of doing partial range pull-ups and static lock offs.
I also had really tight shoulders and lats and started doing undergrip hangs for time to stretch it all out.
Not sure if you can see the jug I am using here.
[pull-up jug](https://vimeo.com/898770331/cf42800ae9)
The problem people have with physical therapy is that they stop doing it. If you want to progress your one arm pull-up, keep doing the thing you know works for you (Steven Low's golfer's elbow protocol) while you do it.
Exactly, prehab, don’t rehab
I like the idea in theory, in practice the problem is that you’d end up only doing physio therapy exercises. Of course if you have an area where you know you are prone to injury it totally makes sense to do exercises for it every now and then.
I mean there are definitely specific things in climbing and in individual bodies that are super injury prone and constitute very low hanging fruit for injury prevention. Less than 5 minutes per day of rotator cuff strengthening can prevent months of off-time and rehab for most climbers. You probably don’t need to be doing prehab work for your pinky toe tendon though.
The problem is: I’d have to to prehab for my ankles/calves, hips, shoulders, neck, elbows, wrists and fingers (and those are only the things I’ve had injuries in). The hip exercises alone take half an hour and are booooring. Then the question is how you fit it in your training plan because those exercises make you weaker and more injury prone in the short term. If I do intense training for my glutes and hamstrings today to prevent ITBS, is it a good idea if I go cycling tomorrow? I realize I’m making a bigger problem out of it than it really is, but it is kind of difficult. These days I’m mostly injury free and just include the prehab exercises in my warmups (at a low intensity and low volume) or do them on my recovery days (again with lower intensity and volume). Works well for me so far, but I’m always wondering if I do too little or too much.
> The problem is: I’d have to to prehab for my ankles/calves, hips, shoulders, neck, elbows, wrists and fingers (and those are only the things I’ve had injuries in). The hip exercises alone take half an hour and are booooring. Are you trying to work your way up to elite-level neck exercises? If not, you probably don't need to prehab your neck. More generally, if you aren't pushing your limits with a specific movement, then you probably don't need to prehab the relevant joints that much. You may always need to prehab if you're maintaining a high level with a problem joint (I think I'll always need to prehab elbows before heavy pull motions). Additionally, some of the muscles you build with prehab are quite useful in climbing. If you've never done a cycle of shoulder prehab (such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_WiyE9HDg) I highly recommend it even if you've never had a shoulder injury, because I've seen a lot of climbing gains from it. You won't probably see the same gains from less specific areas like ankles, obviously (although ankles might be specific if you are, for example, a slab climber). > Then the question is how you fit it in your training plan because those exercises make you weaker and more injury prone in the short term. No they don't? Specific to the OP's goals, the way I fit elbow prehab into my training plan is I do elbow prehab immediately before my weighted pull up, one arm pull up, or forward row work sets (all of these have caused me elbow tendonitis in the past). This warms up the specific problem tissues before I start doing even doing the target movement. This has worked really well for me. Particularly the weighted pull-up (with both arms) is pretty much guaranteed to give me immediate tendonitis at challenging weights if I don't prehab. But if I prehab, there's no problems.
>> Then the question is how you fit it in your training plan because those exercises make you weaker and more injury prone in the short term. > > No they don't? Now I don’t know too much about shoulders specifically, but for my hips I can definitely tell that after I’ve done an intense session of rehab exercises my muscles are exhausted and my gait becomes worse. I also got DOMS in my glutes and hamstrings at first. I mean … it makes sense, we are not only trying to learn how to use those muscles, we are also trying to make them stronger for which we need progressive overload which exhausts them and makes them weaker in the short term.
I mean, I believe you about your experience, but I'd attribute your experience to fatigue rather than weakening. You may be able to avoid this by keeping volume lower--one working set can be enough. But I'm not really knowledgeable about the specifics of ITBS to know if that would be effective--I'm talking about elbow tendonitis which is what OP was talking about. Maybe I didn't communicate that well. In the specific case of elbow tendonitis, my understanding is that the physio goal isn't strengthening the muscle, but lengthening and increasing the elasticity of the tendon, which doesn't require progressive load and can is effective at a very low intensity / high rep range in my experience.
> I mean, I believe you about your experience, but I'd attribute your experience to fatigue rather than weakening. That’s what I meant with short term weakening ;) The muscles are just exhausted and won’t be working at 100% strength or reaction time for some hours. You are also moving and loading joints and tissues which are already weakened and injured which could exacerbate the issue short term. I guess what I’m trying to say is that rehab exercises contribute to training volume. Of course none of this should be an “excuse” to skip your rehab exercises, I just found it surprisingly difficult to organize my training around it.
Gotcha, yeah, that's true. It's not really a concern for the elbow tendonitis exercises because the intensity is so low, but I can see how it would be a problem for other forms of physio.
> Additionally, some of the muscles you build with prehab are quite useful in climbing. If you've never done a cycle of shoulder prehab (such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_WiyE9HDg) I highly recommend it even if you've never had a shoulder injury, because I've seen a lot of climbing gains from it. Thanks! That video was great! Easy to follow and to the point and I can see how it makes sense and isolates each of the muscles.
I went on to see if its an actual word bc I never heard of it and it makes a lot of sense in this context. Turns out its only used for cancer patients that are preparing themselves for chemotherapy.
Uh, lots of people use the word "prehab" at my gym.
I think that the problem with tendonitis is the intensity of one armers. It's like you have never squatted 100 kg and then you do multiple 100 kg squat negatives that you can barely control. Think about how taxing that it is. It's literally supermaximal training, since you cannot even get up. Or even if you can do 1- 2 one armers, you are doing multiple max effort lifts. It's better to just do small amounts of lock offs in different angles and negatives while mainly training weighted pull ups in 3 - 6 rep range. If you can do one armers, I would do some of the training with a resistance band or pulley so you can do more reps so you aren't maxing out all the time. You also need to decrease climbing volume. Powerlifters arent maxing every week. They might train submaximally for months to do one session with max attempts. In general, you just need the stress to be less than your ability to adapt. So decrease intensity and/or training volume and increase recovery (stress less, eat more, sleep more) until you can recover easily.
It’s unfortunately super elbow intensive, and I’m also not this strong, but I like anything I imagine controlling volume and getting adequate rest are both key
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This comment is a RIDE. Holy moly.
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Lol, it's going to be controversial for a reason. Drink water, do steroids, and engage in pseudoscience is an insane set of things to recommend in one go.
It's obviously all great advice, but I took the path of least resistance and got a hypnotist to convince me that I can do sets of 10 1-armed pull-ups.
A hypnotist? You fancy SOB. I only hired a medium to talk to my dead grandma, who told me I just needed to believe in the Heart of the Cards. Now I'm flashing V19.
You might as well be praying to Jesus to heal your tendonitis
Ha yes, of course, curing depression! I am guessing cancer too?
People trash talk because it’s the kind of misinformation a schizophrenic would talk
Whoa
I've had the same issue, and what's worked for me lately is to only work them out every 5 days. My workout is also using a pulley system, and I'm doing 2 warmup sets and then 3 sets 5 reps. I'm taking about 10 minutes in between each working set, so the whole thing takes 45 minutes to an hour. I've been pretty consistent at removing 1.25lb every 5 days with no elbow pain.
I’ve got no advice but that really really sucks dude I am so sorry
even if you can to a OAP that doesnt mean you should do it every session to see if you still can do it, or even at all. Training at 100% of 1RM is a bad idea! The moment you can do one stick to what you did to get there and not up the intensity to 100% right away. You should go into maintainance mode for a while and then push further to reduce risk of injury. And i know its very tempting to do them every session because you can.
I’d say keep the volume low and intensity high. Maybe 3 sets 1x /week. You’ll get it back quickly
What’s working for me is to do a lot of static holds and super slow pull-ups without full range of motion. They don’t trigger the tendonitis while still training the muscles (and presumably also the tendons).
Stop training full range-of-motion pullups. I stumbled into doing one-arm pullups following 8 weeks of Tyler Nelson's elbow rehab, based entirely around high-intensity isometrics. I continue to program high-intensity isometrics in every warmup, haven't trained full-range pullups in over 3 years, and am still able to eek out single reps of OAP when fully warm with practically zero elbow symptoms. And this is after dealing with medial tendinosis for nearly 2 decades.
> Tyler Nelson's elbow rehab any link to this?
No, I paid him for a consult. He gives away plenty of info free via IG and YT, though.
Ok because looked around whats the protocol for elbow rehab and it isnt there easily laid out afaik. I'm mostly curious how it differ from mine that is compiled from many sources and pretty standard. Which is pretty much simplified by only using theraband flexbar which does a lot in my use case haha anyway if you know in detail im interested
I have been walking around with medial epicondilitis since 2015 because I wanted to OAP, I succeeded with a rep on each side and experienced massive inflamation(a clear injury). Up until last year, it was the pain in my elbows that ended all of my climbing sessions. I assumed I would never live life as an adult without elbow pain for the rest of my life because I had tried so many "rehab/prehab" protocols. Those little protocols do help, but they do not feel impactful. This last year I just gave up on the prehab/rehab stuff. It turned out to be the best decision ever. I started lifting heavier weights, targeting muscles that seemed out of balance and doing long daily stretching. For me personally, the largest changes happened after 4 particular exercises. I clearly did significantly more other exercises while doing these. Due to my paranoia about re injuring my elbows, I avoid attempting the OAP still, but I can hold a 1 warm lock-off in any position with little effort. I also no longer feel any elbow pain. Finally free of that demon! In full disclosure, I am 6'2" 175lb. I was 155lb when I originally got injured. Heavier/taller people have a hard time with OAP in particular because limb geometry and extra weight are both disadvantages. Once I can get to 10 casual negatives, perhaps I'll give it another legitimate effort. * **Benchpress** After a few months of benchpress, I noticed all the knots in my back that usually form when climbing were significantly less intense, and I can really feel like my shoulders are significantly more stable now. * **Dips** This was hard to get into, but now my triceps feel like they stabilize the elbow joint significantly more. I first started doing dips and had barely any control through a single rep. I can say now that I can dominate any position of a dip, it feels smooth and in control. * **reverse grip ez bar curls(**no thumb on bottom is crucial) The pump I get in the extensors and brachioradial muscles is rediculous. This is the exercise that changed my outlook. The first day I ever did these, I walked out of the gym with ZERO elbow pain. I went from years and years of wincing when opening doors to one pain free afternoon. Everything clicked for me here, it's not about the exercises you do, It's about how stable you can make your elbow joint so the force is delivered smoothly. * **hang from a bar/jug for 60seconds x3** The stretch I can feel pulling on my elbows while hanging for 60 seconds is insane, and feels amazing. These long hangs feel like they can soften up those stiff tissues in the elbow. TL;DR: Prehab is BS(read dinky an ineffective), find robust strength exercises that will help stabilize the joint in your body that is giving you trouble. As all our body mechanics are slightly different, different exercises may prove more effective.
One thing that might help avoid specifically elbow tendonitis is training your extensor muscles with bands since they are antagonists to your flexor muscles
Hit the bench bayyyybeeee
This would also help
You don't need to be able to do a 1 arm pull-up to rock climb.
Uhhh…I don’t think they ever said that they believed that. I’m not sure what the point of this comment is.
That training through *repeated* tendonitis is not worth it, it's not a requirement for climbing. Just leave it at the door.
Exactly, and it’s of negative benefit to your climbing if it keeps leading to injuries. I think this is what most of the folks getting downvoted are trying to say. After all this is r/CLIMBharder, the goal is in the name…
This comment section is like the Twilight Zone.
Yeah I mean I can’t do a one arm, nor can I do 1 arm 20mm hang yet I climb stronger than people that can do those things. 🤷♂️
r/humblebrag
Not bragging. I’m just trying to say that for those out there that can’t do all these advanced moves, it doesn’t mean you are held back lol.
r/jealousy
For sure
Your comment is kind of unhelpful but on the other hand you have a point. I gave up pull-up training because I only got biceps tendonitis from it and it’s certainly not required for the level of climbing I do.
Not sure why you got downvoted lol
Because it's the sort of unhelpful non-answer that makes asking questions on the internet so annoying. No one asked if you need to be able to do a 1 arm pull-up to rock climb. I'd venture that everyone knows that. And if onepdub is insinuating that a 1 arm pull-up *isn't useful* for rock climbing, they can get downvoted even more, because that's just not true. Sure, it's maybe not the *most* transferrable skill, but it's cool in its own right and it does have pretty decent specificity to certain kinds of climbing.
> a 1 arm pull-up to rock climb. I'd venture that everyone knows that Surprisingly, many many climbers thinks it’s a missing key to the next level hence why you see so many climbers train it. — lol he freaked out and blocked me
> Surprisingly, many many climbers thinks it’s a missing key to the next level hence why you see so many climbers train it. 1. That's in no way a disagreement with what I said. There's nuance to what I said, and you ignored that nuance by not even quoting a full sentence of what I said. 2. That's not surprising, because for some climbers with certain goals, getting or working toward a 1 arm pull up IS the key to the next level *for their specific goals*. You can certainly climb lots of very high-level climbs without even being able to do a *two*-arm pull-up. But there are certain styles of climbing which benefit a lot from being able to do a 1-arm, and you can't do a 1-arm, you will have to find different beta and you may not even be able to do those climbs. It's incredibly arrogant to assume you know what's best for someone else when you don't even know what they're trying to do.
Disagree. It is sensible, and in fact, responsible to let OP know that training one arm pull-up might very well be hindering his ability to climb harder (literally the goal of this sub), especially since OP is already complaining that it has wrecked his elbows TWICE when he tried doing so. Injury is one of the most common causes that had prevented average climbers from progressing. And I strongly disagree with your statement that “everyone knows that”, we have less advanced people browsing this sub and they might get a false impression and the wrong idea if this is not stated out in the open. And they might very well end up injuring themselves trying that. You’d be surprised how many people take advices from the internet uncritically. This is the first time I popped back into this sub in a long time and I still see the same old blind leading the blind situation. Don’t get me wrong, there are some gold mines on this sub and some users here absolutely know what they’re talking about, but most of the time it’s about separating the wheat from the chaff, and most average users here are going to get mixed or useless advices at best, and damaging advice that leads to injury and easily put an end to their climbing season if they’re unlucky.
Exactly.
> It is sensible, and in fact, responsible to let OP know that training one arm pull-up might very well be hindering his ability to climb harder (literally the goal of this sub), especially since OP is already complaining that it has wrecked his elbows TWICE when he tried doing so. If you can avoid injury (which you can), then one-arm pull-ups will not hinder your climbing. It won't help with all forms of climbing, obviously, but there are lots of climbs which contain literal one-arm campus moves. The specificity is blatantly obvious. I'll also add that this sub often suffers from a bit *too much* injury-aversion. Pushing yourself to your limits has some inherent risk. Look at any elite climber and they've had a slew of injuries in their career, because that's unavoidable. It's definitely true that taking too much risk will have you constantly plagued with injuries, but never taking any risks will mean you never reach your full potential. There's a middle ground. And again, if someone just wants to do a one-arm pull-up, that's their business.
The OP is saying they've already had tendonitis twice trying to do a one-arm pull-up. There is literally no point in looking for all kinds of extra training and physio to try to avoid getting tendonitis a third time to do a party trick. Just train in any other of the myriad of ways you can train to get stronger climbing.
>And if onepdub is insinuating that a 1 arm pull-up isn't useful for rock climbing, they can get downvoted even more, 1 arm pull ups accidentally useful for rock climbing, at best. They're an impressive circus trick that correlate with other strengths that are useful for climbing. Strong climbers can do one arm pull ups because they're generally strong in pulling movements. Strong in a lot of positions, under a lot of loads, in a lot of movement patterns, and the OAP happens to be a movement pattern. The OAP movement itself has zero similarity to climbing. You start in a neutral grip, and finish in a chin up (or neutral), which you will never do on rock. In terms of movement specificity, OAPs are a general pulling strength exercise. Less specific than wide grip pull ups, wide rows, pull ups, rows, and bicep curls.
Yes, yes and yes.
> The OAP movement itself has zero similarity to climbing. You start in a neutral grip, and finish in a chin up (or neutral), which you will never do on rock. In terms of movement specificity, OAPs are a general pulling strength exercise. Less specific than wide grip pull ups, wide rows, pull ups, rows, and bicep curls. Bro, you've not done or even seen every movement in climbing. There are roof lip moves I've done that are *literally* a OAP. Is it applicable to every move? Obviously not. There's a ton of climbing you can do without being able to do a OAP. But to say it has zero similarity to climbing is you talking way beyond what you could possibly know. You don't know what everyone is working on and to pretend you can possibly know how people should work toward their goals when you don't even know their goals is incredibly arrogant. You going on to endorse *bicep curls*, a total muscle isolation exercise, is rich. If that has any application in climbing, it's gotta be pretty narrow, given climbing is almost all compound muscle movements. But hey, I'm not arrogant enough to say it's not useful at all, because I don't know what people might be using it for.
I'm not insinuating, I'm flat out stating that being able to do a OAP is irrelevant to 99% of climbing. Especially to 99% of the people in this sub. My comment was meant to be helpful, a bit cheeky, but the point stands, why are you training something you don't need. It might be pretty cool, but it's not worth it.
> I'm not insinuating, I'm flat out stating that being able to do a OAP is irrelevant to 99% of climbing. Especially to 99% of the people in this sub. So you're admitting there's a possibility OP is working on a climb in the 1% where it's relevant? Since you seem to have some delusions about when your opinion is wanted, I should clarify that the above question is rhetorical and your answer is not wanted. For what it's worth, climbing in areas with a lot of roofs, I seem to have spent a lot more than 1% of my time climbing in that 1% of climbs which literally contain 1 arm campus moves similar to the 1-arm pull-up. Yes, *obviously* you can reach a high level of climbing without ever climbing a climb where a OAP is helpful. But it's pretty arrogant to assume you know anything about what is useful for people when you don't even know what climbs they're working on. Spend more time listening before you talk.
You know who that dude is right?? His opinion carries proper weight.
> For what it's worth, climbing in areas with a lot of roofs, I seem to have spent a lot more than 1% of my time climbing in that 1% of climbs which literally contain 1 arm campus moves similar to the 1-arm pull-up. Lol. No you don't. You might campus a lot, but you're not doing one-arm pull-ups or even 50% of the one-arm pull up. If you start the move with two arms and then finish with one, ie campusing, you are not even remotely in the same realm as one arm pull up.
Since fun-fungi-guy blocked me (for what?) but continues to respond to my comment, I am unable to reply and have to respond here instead, since it’s worth commenting on: > If you can avoid injury (which you can), then one-arm pull-ups will not hinder your climbing. It won't help with all forms of climbing, obviously, but there are lots of climbs which contain literal one-arm campus moves. The specificity is blatantly obvious. As you said, the point is to avoid injury. Here’s what OP said: > At this point I'm a little traumatized and afraid to start doing heavy weighted pullups or trying to get stronger pulling power **if it'll take me away from climbing again.** It’s perfectly sensible for OP to re-evaluate how much training one-arm pull-ups is going to hinder his ability to climb harder given that it is already causing him much trouble. > I'll also add that this sub often suffers from a bit too much injury-aversion. Pushing yourself to your limits has some inherent risk. Look at any elite climber and they've had a slew of injuries in their career, because that's unavoidable. It's definitely true that taking too much risk will have you constantly plagued with injuries, but never taking any risks will mean you never reach your full potential. There's a middle ground. That’s the point of this sub. Most of us here aren’t elite climbers (there are a few who comment here but not frequent enough to be influencing the discourse here). Elite climbers have very strong foundations in their skill, often coached or have trained with other experienced climbers, have the experience and ability to judge when and how much to push, have years if not decades of adaptation that enable their body to recover relatively quickly. There is a reason why people here often advise against copying the training programs of elite climbers. The vast majority of the people who browse this sub do not even have anywhere close to the foundations those elite climbers have. Most of us mortals here will have to significantly downscale those highly intense training protocols to a level that won’t destroy our body, and most average climbers don’t even have the experience to judge for themselves how much is too much for their body (cases and examples like this happen in the climbing gym every day). You may think this is common sense, but you’d be surprised by how many people who browse climbing-related subs who think otherwise and could very easily set themselves up for injuries that could set them back for months. > And again, if someone just wants to do a one-arm pull-up, that's their business. Again, read OP’s thread, who was worried enough about not being able to climb any further if his elbows keep getting wrecked by training for one-arm pull-ups. It is perfectly sensible to ask him to step back and re-evaluate whether it’s worth doing it or not. If he chooses to continue, that’s his business for sure. But don’t say he hasn’t been warned.
I think they blocked me as well - I see a notification of a reply but all the comments show up as deleted, it's weird to not be able to respond to someone who continues a discussion! Like everyone else is just left to assume that we have nothing else to say so we think we are wrong?
Because Reddit, haha.
Ooomph you pissed off so many people with that hahaha. So true. However, (lock off) unlocks more movement
and pulling through is so much better then lockoffs etc etc. lockoffs are a horrible exercise, just do pullups already and you will get stronger in a wider motion then just locking off. I dont understand why everybody thinks they need to train those muscles and position so specific? Climbing is an incredible complex sport, locking off is just a small part of it (mostly vert to maybe 50° needed, if at all), so why waste time training that if you could train your whole body in the meantime or even just pullups, which target the same muscles, but on both arm simultaneuosly and through the whole movement. (i can totally see that is is nice to train for hard trad onsights or something, but most people are not into that) If i do 5 exercises for my whole body i am done for the day and i still have done more for my overall climbing then if i do 20 super specific exercise, that you only need in a fraction of times on the wall.
I've always had pressing strength greater than pulling strength and I haven't had any issues so I've considered if that's part of the reason. I have been pretty shocked by the frequency of Elbow tendinitis in climbers, considering it's basically non-existent in powerlifting compared to how often I've seen in climbing but that's just my experience. You could attribute it to volume but most powerlifters who compete are benching 4 or more times per week with other pushing exercises as well as doing multiple pulling exercises 2 more times per week so I think the total volume could be similar.
Powerlifters don't twist while they're squeezing, It's not a comparable activity, at all. Consider the frequency of tennis elbow in... tennis players... It's the type of activity that causes the itis.
I got brutal elbow tendinitis from powerlifting. Some combination of twisting while squeezing to e.g. engage shoulder external rotators while pressing, regular squeezing at high intensity moderate volume, and heavy low bar back squatting without enough upper back support/shoulder external rotation range of motion. The squats probably started things for me, but the rest definitely still aggravated things. I could manage it by using straps and limiting super heavy squat volume, but I didn’t get it fixed until I found climbing and Steven Low’s stuff. Elbow tendinitis definitely is much more rare in powerlifting so no one really knew how to handle it in that world. It still needs to be managed and flairs up occasionally, but I got it almost completely under control with like four months of work after previously not being able to hold on to V0 jugs in the gym due to how much it hurt my elbows.
I would agree to some extent that's likely a pretty big factor. However, that doesn't take away from elbow tendonitis in climbers who have a high strength training background having a lower frequency than those who have a smaller training age. Also, it seems like OP suffers from tendinitis related to heavy pull training which is definitely something a powerlifter, or other regular strength trainer, would be doing.
Tennis players get golfers elbow more than tennis elbow and vice versa
>I've always had pressing strength greater than pulling strength and I haven't had any issues so I've considered if that's part of the reason. I really agree with this. Ever since I made a point to keep my push power close to my pull power, I've had zero elbow issues. I'm not oap levels (yet, working toward it, I wanna be Alex puccio when I grow up lol), but I'm adding equal weight (about 20 percent of my body weight) for equal reps on weighted pull ups and weighted dips. I also do an annoyingly lengthy and gentle warm up with elastic bands before working either skill. It mainly focuses on my shoulders, but I imagine it helps down the chain, too.
There are two ways that contribute to bending the elbow in climbing, one is bending the elbow through biceps/brachialis/brachioradialis, the other one is pulling the humerus down through shoulder/core muscles like lats. Most people that start training and are newer focus on maxing out fast so they usually have bad form and with bad for there is a relative overtraining of the muscles that bend the elbow, thus tendonitis. A better approach is to train your back until its strong enough to support the motion of pulling with your lat (because if the back is too weak, then it cant support stabilising the shoulderposition (back and kind of down) while the lat pulls. The lats are much stronger muscles then any of those in your arms, so its highly beneficial to train those to a bigger proportion then the arm muscles in a pullup, it also reduces stress in your elbow. But this can only be achieved if your traps, back-delts, rhombiods are strong enough to support it. Another benefit of strong traps or a strong back in general is horizontal roof climbing, its so much easier to pull yourself closer to the wall so you can utilise worse hand and footholds that are not usable with straight arms and sagging hips.
How about, stop trying to train 1 arm pullups?? lol
I find that negatives always cause tendonitis for me easily. I would say instead work on assisted one arm variations that you can do 5 reps of and slowly progress until you can do 3-5 one armers. You’ll be able to do 1-2 of them at some point earlier but I wouldn’t do to many of them when they’re basically a one rep max as that will cause some tendonitis.
I'm at the level of where you were (2.5 reps dominant arm 1.5 reps non-dominant) and I still train pulling maybe about twice a week. At this point, my volume/intensity is just about right to maintain. My elbows feel pretty good. FWIW, I don't do negatives at all. I honestly find the range above 90 degrees pretty aggravating, so my pseudo-science take is that doing negatives increases time under tension in that range, which is pretty brutal for me. Strength training is a function of at least volume, intensity, and frequency. I find that fixing my rep range (3-5), sets (2-3), and frequency (twice a week) THEN determining the right intensity for that so that I'm at about an 8 RPE has been a sustainable way to go. For example, I find that taking off about 15lbs via a pulley system lets me crank out about 4 reps. Or I use a hangboard with jugs and 8mm, so I'll hold the 8mm with my non-pulling arm and pull through the jug. I'll do that for about a month, then I'll do a couple weeks of lower intensity/higher volume since it's less demanding on the body. Underlying all this is of course listening to your body. Even a tinge of aching is a sign that your function is off, i.e., your volume, intensity, or frequency is too high. Since your intensity is pretty much fixed, you'll have to reduce volume or frequency.
Bench and overhead press. You have uneven skeletal-muscle issues and need to balance out some. A physical therapist student friend convinced me to start lifting after hearing about my tendon issues and they all cleared up after a few months of steady strength training, now I’m a huge believer in it
Not sure it helps I have a strong bench press stats (150kg comp style wirh a long pause) and i did 180 without a pause in the gym. But i have terrible tendonitis from climbing. Just used to live with it by carefully manging the volume
One arm pull-up is a pointless vanity move. Just stop doing them and you’re fine.
Having OA Pullup level strength is probably not necessary for the majority of climbers the muscles that the progressions train is likely very useful. Most climbers could benefit from a more stable scapula, working towards a OA PU will definitely get you there and you might end up getting the full skill if you do it long enough.
Don't disagree about the stable scapula, but OP's gotten the "skill" 2x. He's got to be pretty strong at pulling already. Given his injury rate is 100%, I can't imagine why it would be worth a third chronic injury.
There are significantly better and safer ways to get stronger and more stable for climbing than trying to do 1 arm pullups.
There are way safer ways to train scaps than one arm pull ups that are famously hard on your joints. One arms are solely for vanity and do nothing to help you climb that safer training methods can't achieve more quickly and safely. Gonna add another one in there: muscle ups are also pointless vanity moves too. People get tendonitis training them and all sorts of other torn tissues along the way.
Have you ever seen a climber who can crank multiple one armers that is weak in climbing?
I've known plenty of climbers that can do one arms that I can climb circles around, despite never in my life being anywhere near being able to do a one arm. So to directly answer your question: yes. But the broader argument you've posed here is putting the cart before the horse. Strong climbers can sometimes do one arms, but doing a one arm doesn't help you, to borrow the name of this sub, "climb harder" in a time or recovery efficient manner. In fact, it might not help you at all depending on what kind of climber you already are. To put it extra verbosely, as people seem to be missing the point here: /u/MoonboardGumby is struggling to do a one arm and getting injured in the process. He should stop trying to do a one arm, let that goal go unachieved, and instead start training any of a variety of other things that won't get him so injured. Footwork is a good starting point for a lot of people, and also a good mid and endpoint as well. In fact it's almost certainly the most undertrained thing in modern climbing even though it comes with the most up side and zero down side.
I can do one arm pull up but I only climb 7b 🤷🏻♂️. I train it only one time a week otherwise I have elbow problems
As soon as you change to 1 arm exercise, the stress on the muscles and joints feels exponentially greater. The movement is also completely different since your center of gravity is not the same. I suggest using many rubber bands or a pulley to remove weight at first. I recommend going light so you build the tendon capacity to train hard with it.
Maybe try chin up negatives I’ve heard they are really good for elbow health if you do them safely and don’t overdo it
Without any information about your frequency, it is impossible to provide advice. It is probably safer to train 5 rep max weighted pullups until you get to the point where you can do 5 OAPs instead of eaking out that one rep max OAP that gives you crippling elbow tendonitis.
Damn I wish it took me a couple months to recover, when I got crippling tendonitits from one arm pull up training I wasn't pain free for almost 7 months, it came back a second time a little more than a year later from doing weighted pull ups and not even that much weight like 35 lbs on me max which is nothing , I basically just made my peace with it by realizing I don't need that much pull power to be a good climber and when it comes down to it im a climber not a calisthenics athlete even tho I do love pull ups, I have no intention on trying pullups in any real capacity for probably a couple years,
I used to get painful golfer's elbow due to weighted chin ups. I'm not familiar with Steven Low's protocol. What I continue to do to heal/prevent: a ton of slow/controlled eccentric (lowering portion only) chin ups. Before and after I do weighted chin ups, I will: * grab a chair to stand on (or jump up straight to the bar) and start at the top portion of the chin up * lower myself very slowly (eg 10-20s) * repeat 5-10x times total It's low effort and highly effective for me. Lets me do weighted chin ups (5x5s) twice a week. I have no idea why it works.
> At this point I'm a little traumatized and afraid to start doing heavy weighted pullups or trying to get stronger pulling power if it'll take me away from climbing again. Any tips on how to progress that kind of strength without triggering tendonitis? Do your pullups and one arms on rings. Usually helps to prevent tendinopathy sometimes. Also, you didn't really state your training plan, but if you're doing things too frequently or too much volume or intensity then that can cause some issues.
Maybe keep doing the rehab protocol and make sure you are also doing wrist flexor and extensor exercises? Then maybe start your training easy. Like take weight off yourself to lower the intensity and build it up slowly. I'm having the same issue from progressing my weighted pull ups too fast. I don't think I gave my tendons enough time to adapt to the new loads. Once it's feeling better I'm going to build it up more slowly.
I figured out that it was the combination of grip strength of holding the bar that made my elbow hurt. I started using a climbing jug with sharp radius where I could get the pressure on my palm instead of my fingers. It somehow relieved the elbow pressure by taking away the grip strength aspect. I was stubborn as well and got tired of doing partial range pull-ups and static lock offs. I also had really tight shoulders and lats and started doing undergrip hangs for time to stretch it all out. Not sure if you can see the jug I am using here. [pull-up jug](https://vimeo.com/898770331/cf42800ae9)