One-arm pullup program

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rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 2, 2013 - 07:51pm PT
I originally posted this in answer to a question in the At 60? thread. Now for sure we have a bunch o' golden oldies here, but the population of superannuated geezers busting one-arm pullups and staying out of the emergency room while doing it is mighty, perhaps vanishingly, small. Hell, I gave up doing 'em twenty years ago when I was fifty.

So I thought I'd liberate the program description from its sextagenarian prison and give it a life of its own here, on the off chance that someone under sixty might also read SuperTopo now and again.

0. Fuhgettabout high repetitions of body-weight pullups. You'll never get anywhere doing that. (Well, you'll manage more and more two-arm pullups of course, but you'll make only the most minimal progress towards a one-arm pullup. I encountered a guy in the gym years ago who could do 100 two-arm pullups---with a bit of a kip, but still---and not even a single one-arm pullup.)

1. But you do need a base level of ordinary pullup strength before you raise the intensity. For me, this has always been five sets of ten pullups with three-minute rests.

2. Start with weighted pullups. They are safer, more finely tuneable, and will give you the necessary base. After a short while, you can intersperse these with uneven-grip pullups, which are not quite as fine-tuneable but are more specific to the ultimate goal. For both types of pullups, I found a routine of five sets of five with three minutes rest in between, to be the most effective most of the time. When you increase the resistance for weighted pullups and/or increase the hand span gap for uneven pullups, shoot for five sets of four and build up to five sets of five. Every now and then, crank up the resistances and do maybe six sessions at five sets of three.

3. When you are doing your weighted pullups with about 120% of your body weight (i.e. having added 20% of body weight in additional weight), I think it is a good time to add in uneven grip pullups. You have to be a little more sophisticated about the uneven-grip pullups then looping a towel over a bar for the lower hand. I suggest a pair of still-rings on adjustable straps. You can buy some rather pricey ones or just get the rings and use luggage tie-down straps. The point is to have fine control over the spacing between the upper and lower hands, so you can make progress incrementally and so that you can replicate your workouts at any one particular level. Having still rings is not so important until you start to get big hand spacing, in which case the lower hand will have to take a false grip and will be pressing, not pulling for most or all of the motion. A ring accommodates a false grip a lot better than homemade loops or handles.

Given the previous weighted pullups, I think it will be easy to start with the rings set up so that, in the starting position, the low hand is at the elbow of the high hand. As strength gains are made, the spacing is increased. The straps inable you to do this in small increments. The eventual goal is to have the low hand at the level of the armpit of the high hand. Of course you work both sides. Let the weaker side determine when you stop, and over time you will even out the strength on both sides.

When you are doing uneven grip pullups with the low hand at the high-hand armpit, you can add lockoff training. Do an uneven-grip pullup and simply lift the low hand slightly to unweight it. You can immediately reweight the lower hand when your strength starts to fail, which is far safer and better than dropping on your locking arm once it is too fatigued to hold you in place.

4. When you can lock off for, say, three seconds and/or are doing weighted pullups with about 140% of body weight, it is time to start doing elastic-assisted one-arm pullups. The elastic in question should not be bungie cord, which doesn't stretch nearly enough. The only thing that works is latex surgical tubing. You want to get a piece maybe ten feet long with the most rubber possible: large outside diameter and small inside diameter. Years ago, I got fantastic samples from a hospital supply room, but the days when a bum from the street could walk in and buy ten feet are long gone. Right now the best source I know of is diving supply houses, since the tubing is used for gases under high pressure. Make sure you are getting latex tubing and not something else.

The idea behind the tubing is to perform the exact muscular motions with less than bodyweight. If you want to estimate how much help you are getting, the following excel spreadsheet should help: http://www.primelineindustries.com/tools/forcecalculator.xls.

What you do is to put a small webbing foot loop on your tubing, which you clove-hitch to the chinning bar. Make sure you have enough tubing to leave long ends behind the clove hitches. You need to tie the tubing loop up quite tightly---you'll have to stand on a stool to get your foot into the webbing loop. As with aiders, there's a brief learning curve about positioning your foot relative to your body; the main thing is you can't let the tubing pull your foot straight out in front of you.

Do not just stand on the tubing. If you do, it will one day roll of your foot when fully stretched and smack you really hard, and you will never do that again, unless of course you already enjoy being flagellated with a bull whip.

So you get up on your stool, step in the webbing loop, straighten out your leg to tension the tubing, lower yourself to full hang to further tension the tubing, and then release one hand and perform your assisted one-arm pullup reps; I think the same five sets of five with three minute rests works well, with as before a periodic intensity burst at the level of five sets of three reps. As you get stronger, you tie up the tubing so that it hangs lower, hence stretches less and so gives you less help. I found pony-tail hair ties a useful way to mark where you are tying the knots so that you can replicate the intensity from workout to workout.

That's about it. People start at enormously different base levels, but I'd guess that many, if they follow this program and don't get injured, could get to repetitions of one-arm pullups in a year.

By the way, don't equate poundages for weighted two-arm pullups with one-arm pullups, which are in some sense easier because of the way the body is oriented when hanging from only one arm. For a while I tried, but never could push my weighted two-arm pullups much past about 160% of body weight, while at the same time I could do one-arm pullups with relative ease. This is one of several reasons for shifting from weighted pullups to uneven and assisted one-arms. On the other hand, the two-arm weighted pullups are easier on the shoulders, which is why one should start with them.

I should add that some people have substituted a counterweight and pulley system for the elastic assistance. In principle, this sounds even better, but the few times I tried it I found that I preferred the variable resistance of the elastic to the constant assitance of the weights. As you near the top of your pullup, the elastic is less stretched and so provides less help, but you are also stronger in this range, so I always felt I was betting a better training effect from the elastic.
jogill

climber
Colorado
Mar 2, 2013 - 08:18pm PT
The idea behind the tubing . . .

I recall 45 years ago or so you refered to this as a "FFD."

Remember?


;>)
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2013 - 08:48pm PT
Yup. I must confess I didn't coin the term. Someone sidled up to me in the West Side Y while I was rigging tubing contraption to the high bar and said, "Say, what is that, a french f#cking device?"

Being young, earnest, and naive, I actually explained to him what it was for, a topic he hadn't the slightest interest in learning about. But his terminology, or the acronym corresponding to it, seemed rather better than LTAGR ("latex tubing anti-gravity rig") or any other succinct specifications I could think of, and so FFD it became.
RyanD

climber
Squamish
Mar 2, 2013 - 08:51pm PT
Cool stuff Rgold. I've never been too interested in 1 arms but I like how you lay it out in terms of progression. Seems like the greatest benefit would be increased lock off ability. Thanks.
darkmagus

Mountain climber
San Diego, CA
Mar 2, 2013 - 08:57pm PT
Thanks for posting, good stuff!!
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2013 - 08:59pm PT
Please note that nowhere do I claim that these are of any use to climbing. Some climbers seem to acquire a side interest in feats of body weight strength, performed for their own sake, and that's who the article is aimed at.

Others imagine, probably to their detriment as climbers, that this or that physical capability is all that stands between them and whatever grade they can't currently manage.

For some insight into just how useful feats of strength can be, have a look at http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/996070/The-Saga-of-the-Triple-Lever-A-Trippy-Report
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 2, 2013 - 09:17pm PT
May as well transfer my post from the 60s thread;

I learned to do one-arms way back when simply by hanging a bicycle innertube off the pullup bar. When you do pullups you grab the bar with one hand and grab the tubing as high as possible with the other hand and do pullups like that for awhile. Gradually you move the hand down that holds the tubing. As the one hand gets lower, you can even use it to push down on the tubing. As the hand gets lower through training though, you can't get the push down on the tubing, and that benefit goes away, but the hand going lower means you are getting stronger. Eventually you just grab the tubing for psychological support and don't really need it. I once could do 3 quality one-arms on my left arm, and 2 on the right without doing an obsessive amount of training.

It's mostly about doing the 'specific' training that makes it possible, and following through with the training. I'm sure I experienced the usual ups and downs, peaks and valleys of training. I started from a base of being able to easily do 20 to 30 quality chinups however - quality meaning going all the way down. The one-arm pull ends up being a neutral hand position on the bar - between the chin-up and pull-up postion. It probably helps to be fairly light-weight with a high weight to strength ratio as they say. I never did much power-lifting - what lifting I did was aimed at endurance.

I remember when John Gill ripped one of his biceps years ago. Older folks would want to make sure they were pretty gradual in building up to this stuff. I was in my late teens and early 20s at my peak doing these, although I could do them into my 30s. I no longer do it because of various injuries. Now. I just try to build as much power and endurance as I can through, bouldering, buildering, climbing gyms, and climbing.





klk

Trad climber
cali
Mar 2, 2013 - 10:11pm PT
Someone sidled up to me in the West Side Y

yeah, i bet that happened a lot

heh
Michelle

Social climber
Toshi's Station, picking up power converters.
Mar 2, 2013 - 10:19pm PT
Thank you all for making me feel young at 40.
jstan

climber
Mar 2, 2013 - 10:52pm PT
If this thread does not devolve into a study of all known FFD's I shall be very surprised.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2013 - 11:20pm PT
yeah, i bet that happened a lot

You know the West Side Y? It did happen a lot, at least for a while, until everyone figured out whose orientations were what.

There were many gay regulars there; I think they outnumbered the straight members, at least in the late-afternoon early-evening crowd.

I met someone I knew from the Y about twelve years later, another three-day a week regular. I started asking him about various people I remembered, and almost all of them were dead from aids.

We've forgotten what it was like before all the drugs were found.
Shack

Big Wall climber
Reno NV
Mar 3, 2013 - 12:08am PT
I saw Moffett bust off a few one arm fingertip pull-ups and I don't think he did any of that stuff.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2013 - 01:47am PT
Yeah, and I'm sure we could say the same about Sharma. I tried to give an idea about how an ordinary athlete could progress sensibly, in a carefully controlled manner, toward a goal like one-arm pullups. Some folks have gotten there doing less, and a whole lot more people try and never make it.

Moffet isn't the best example, even if he could do what you remember him doing. First of all, he was arguably the best climber in the world for a while, and so was certainly physically exceptional. It wouldn't make sense to use him as a model for what more ordinarily gifted people should try or could do. And then his training methods, whatever they were, screwed up his elbows so badly he needed surgery and two years off to recover. That's exactly the sort of outcome my pedestrian approach is meant to prevent. So Moffet's example actually argues for an approach like the one I've outlined rather than suggesting it is overdone.
Shack

Big Wall climber
Reno NV
Mar 3, 2013 - 03:55am PT
Wasn't knocking your approach at all...just stating a fact. Some people are freaks like that.
I think Jerry's tendinitis was from climbing as hard as he could, everyday, for years without missing less than a hand full of days in like 4 or 5 years.
Least that's what he believed.
chappy

Social climber
ventura
Mar 3, 2013 - 11:29am PT
Hey Dan, Mark Chapman here. Its been a long long time since we have seen each other! Seems like you are well. You showed me your inner tube trick when I was a youngster and it worked great. I used to be able to do stacks of one arms...now I can barely do a two arm pull up! In fact I owe you a lot for getting me focused on climbing specific training BITD. You were one of the strongest guys I knew and ahead of the curve on the climbing work out thing. All the best...
Chappy
Curt

climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
Mar 3, 2013 - 12:22pm PT
I think Jerry's tendinitis was from climbing as hard as he could, everyday, for years without missing less than a hand full of days in like 4 or 5 years.

Just watching the campus board training he did would give most people tendonitis...

Curt
klk

Trad climber
cali
Mar 3, 2013 - 02:30pm PT
We've forgotten what it was like before all the drugs were found.

it was a catastrophe in the bay area.

so far as the one-arm regimen, when i was trying to learn them i spent a lot of time doing various pull-up routines, chins w. weights, etc. but i couldn't do one until after i had started rope climbing seriously.

after climbing rope for awhile, i realized i could do a one-arm on the bar fairly easily. although i never could do multiples.
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 3, 2013 - 03:22pm PT
Mark! 77 was the last time I saw you. You showed me your mushroom mobile! Hahah!

As for rope climbing, I picked up a fat rope climbing type rope that I want to mount next to wall so that there can be a good feet assist on the wall. Seems like that would be a good old man exercise.

rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2013 - 03:28pm PT
Yes, rope-climbing might well be the best method of all. I left it out for two reasons: (i) Access to rope-climbing ropes has become almost non-existent in gyms, so you'd have to buy one and have a place to mount it. (ii) There is, I think, a substantially higher risk of elbow tendinitis because of the extra gripping involved and the wrist position when fully locked.

That said, here are some rope-climbing tactics.

(1) You have to learn how to hold on with your feet so you can rest if you pump out when you're up high. With the rope between your legs, you spin, say, the right leg around in front of the rope, then behind, and pick up the rope on top of the instep of the right foot. Then you stand on this with your left foot. You should be able to crook an elbow around the rope and hang comfortably this way without needing either hand.

(2) You can either climb (without feet, of course) dynamically for speed or statically for lock-off power. I chose statically, Gill always did it for speed. Either way seems to work if you aim for increasing the length of your "stride," but the gains from the dynamic approach may decrease as you learn the coordination.

(3) For static climbing, the progression is to first just get up the rope, using a stride as short as necessary to make it up. At the top, you pinch the rope between your feet and then lower down one hand at a time.

(4) Meanwhile, you start working on climbing up with longer and longer strides and locking off fully while regrasping. A really good intermediate stage is to begin with one arm fully stretched and the other at armpit level. Pull up, lock fully, and reach fully with the new upper arm, which will put you in the same position except the arms are reversed.

(5) When you can do this, you can probably also start lowering down the rope one hand at a time without pinching the rope with your feet.

(6) The final stage is to do a one arm pullup, reach high with the free hand, release the locking and sag back to full extension on the high hand, and do a one-arm pullup on that hand, and repeat.

Additional remarks:

(a) You really have to chalk the rope up every time you climb it, otherwise it gets too slimy to hang on to one-handed. This is another place the foot grabbing technique is required so that your hands are free for chalking.

(b) The rope workout is similar to but superior to the Bachar ladder in my opinion. You aren't forced to use any one particular rung spacing and, in particular, can shorten your stride as you fatigue. There is also no good Bachar ladder activity corresponding to lowering down the rope one-handed while pinching the rope with the feet. (I should add that John disagreed with me about all this, and I think his responses might be somewhere on this site.)

(c) With a few pulleys, you can set up a counterweight system that uses weights to effectively reduce your bodyweight. You'll want two pulleys mounted horizontally up at the top so that the descending weight is not coming down on top of your head. You can wear a harness. I found it works best to tie in at the back of the harness, not through the tie-in loops, because a rope in front seems to get in the way.
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 3, 2013 - 03:45pm PT
I picked up a nice feeling fat rope, used, at a yachting shop. It must be part of a tugboat line or something.


I remember watching some gymnasts when I was in Jr High. I think they had come over from high school to put on a demo. They flew up the ropes, really. They has a swinging kipping technique it seems, but also, the arm pulling down would go well into a downward pushoff while the other hand reached high again.
jogill

climber
Colorado
Mar 3, 2013 - 04:11pm PT
FYI . . .



Competitive Rope Climbing
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 3, 2013 - 10:52pm PT
Thanks John. I did not know rope climbing had fallen out of favor. You must have been in your fifties when I read that you had 'detached' one of your biceps! It sounded traumatic and I've always wondered what you did. Maybe it was not as bad as it sounded - it made the climbing news though! Care to elaborate and give us old timers some advice there?
mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Mar 3, 2013 - 11:15pm PT
Where is the two arm pullup program?
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2013 - 11:22pm PT
Actually, jokes notwithstanding, the tubing, or FFD, is the ideal way for people who can't do a single two-arm pullup to build up to them. It is also perfect for rehabbing injuries with a pullup motion that is less than body weight.

By the way, some folks claim you can get the same effect from lat pulldowns. I've tried that and don't believe it. The tubing allows you to engage all of your body the way it is used in a pull up. The lat pulldown stabilizes too much of your midsection.
cliffhanger

Trad climber
California
Mar 4, 2013 - 01:10am PT
Thanks John for the very interesting history of rope climbing. Hard to believe it could be climbed so fast.

Cool mathematics on John Gill's site too. Check out "Veil of Spirits":

http://www128.pair.com/r3d4k7/Mathematicae1.html

jogill

climber
Colorado
Mar 4, 2013 - 01:14am PT
Back in 1987, when I was 50, I was repeating a very short boulder problem, just a foot or so off the ground, when my foot slipped off a tiny hold. I had just reached up over the slight overhang to a big jug and should have simply dropped off, but I hung on by reflex and as my body twisted the right biceps were pulled off the forearm. It didn't really hurt - it turned out that there had only been scar tissue holding it on before. I had it reattached, then decided that there were probably other such places in my body and I should stop trying harder problems and return to my original love of adventure climbing - soloing easy and moderate longer routes I had established in obscure areas. The next 20 years were the most enjoyable of my climbing career. Didn't miss bouldering at all.


;>)
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Mar 4, 2013 - 01:25am PT
Your remark about Dylan Thomas re drinking of alcohol spurred some creativity and I happened on the wickedPDA look at your time of 3.4 from a sitting start up to twenty feet.

Zounds! Cranking like that, you got to know your limits or you won't be doing it long.

We had some Filipino laddies who made short work of the rope climb in our inter-company games in naval boot camp, but they could no more sit-start than most of us. Their technique involved the leg/ankle wrap--the one the Flabby Gym Teacher makes you do.

Blakey

Trad climber
Sierra Vista
Mar 4, 2013 - 07:18am PT
John,

I hope you realise what you have done. Internationally there are tens of thousands of boulderers, straining to reach a fraction of the standard you achieved.

An international sub culture has become established, supported by an industry that sells specialist hats, mats, tinctures, guidebooks, pants an all. People travel the world chasing grades and reputation.....

Families get broken up, children get sold, and fortunes are expended or lost in pursuit of of this esoteric game.

Your casual pronoucement that when you packed it in you, 'didn't miss it' will be devastating to the community. I suspect many will throw themselves off their boulders - but being 8' high and well padded out it prolly won't matter. ;-)

Steve

A recovering boulderer.
Borut

Mountain climber
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Mar 4, 2013 - 07:31am PT
Here is a very fine link : Levers And One Arm Day, by Stevie Haston :
http://steviehaston.blogspot.fr/2012/08/levers-and-one-arm-day-by-stevie-haston.html

You may ask LaurenceGH :
http://www.supertopo.com/inc/view_profile.php?dcid=Ozs0NDY-ICQh
The Taco topic is titled: Training tips by Stevie Haston
Jaybro

Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
Mar 4, 2013 - 08:15am PT
children get sold

The Horror!
David Lewis

Trad climber
North Conway,New Hampshire
Mar 4, 2013 - 08:17am PT
Just felt the need to comment on R Gold's inability (or too cautious to attempt at his current youthful age) to do an one armed pull up. Mr Gold you may no longer be able to perform this feat but, you were at this dance many times before and I dare say that this is better than most folks will ever be able to claim.
Blakey

Trad climber
Sierra Vista
Mar 4, 2013 - 11:41am PT
Ha!

In fleeting moment of electronic serendipity this thread sat directly above that on horse linament.

We need to start some threads on knackered tendons, and screwed up joints to increase the probablity again!

Steve

karodrinker

Trad climber
San Jose, CA
Mar 4, 2013 - 12:10pm PT
So I can do one arms with both arms, but not from full hanging. I have to have a slight bend in the elbow and shoulder to do em.

Do they only count if you can do a full hang one arm? Cause that is really hard!
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2013 - 02:13pm PT

Do they only count if you can do a full hang one arm?

Yup. Otherwise it is a mere partial one-arm pullup.

I suspect a lot of claims about one-arm pullups are really about partial ones, either starting high and/or finishing low. That plus all the ones in which one arm is grabbing the wrist of the other arm.
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 4, 2013 - 02:21pm PT
That is one reason why I could only do a limited number; 3 on the left, 2 on the right - I always held myself to the standard of a full hang. I was watching a very powerful gymnast on you tube doing some amazing routines, but when it came to his one-arms he was not impressive. He could only do a single partial one-arm.

Thanks John! ;

I had it reattached, then decided that there were probably other such places in my body and I should stop trying harder problems and return to my original love of adventure climbing - soloing easy and moderate longer routes I had established in obscure areas. The next 20 years were the most enjoyable of my climbing career. Didn't miss bouldering at all.

Crackslayer

Trad climber
Eldo
Mar 4, 2013 - 02:46pm PT
I used to train to do a 1 arm pullup and was able to do one with my right for a few years and only a short time with my left. I gave up that training mainly because I don;t really think that it helps your climbing. Sure, if your climbing hard sport or bouldering, your going to want to be able to do 1 arms but for 5.11 trad, your never really going to need to do a 1 arm.

Now, I just do frenchies and lock offs. BTW I am a little taller (6'1") so I think it akes 1 arms a bit harder. I've seen some shorter guys crank out a 1 arm no problem but never really seen a "taller" guy do a full 1 arm.
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 4, 2013 - 02:51pm PT
I am 6' and weighed about 175 when I did them. Just for the heck of it I may explore training to do them on my left again. That's why I asked John Gill how he ripped his bicep off. My left arm may still be capable, my right is recovering from a 3rd degree separation. I will have to lose a little weight. The whole program would be easier than attempting to set the age record for soloing El Cap.
FTOR

Sport climber
CA
Mar 4, 2013 - 03:57pm PT
having had a strong one-arm bitd, i'd say for the most part it's genetics whether or not one is able to do one. yes, it takes specific training to get there, but why? few climbing moves, if any, require a pure one-arm and my experience has been the cumulative damage inflicted on joints not worth any real increase in climbing skills or being able to show off in the gym. then again, hindsight is alway 20/20.
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
Mar 4, 2013 - 04:39pm PT
To be honest, it would be a miracle if I could be able to do one again. I don't have joint problems though, having always done things in moderation. The main reason I could not do more one-arms back when I did them was that I probably did not care - I get bored with things pretty easily. I don't think I'm particularly endowed, it's more about making the mental connections, like getting the wiring and training right. It's totally not needed for climbing.....fun for one-handed boulder moves etc. It's more transcendental - just figuring out a way to do something that is intriguing - that has payoffs elsewhere, not to mention transcending what is supposed to be old age.

A can do attitude is important. Back in grammar school the firemen came to give a talk about something. One of them made an analogy or metaphor for something - I don't remember the details, but I remembered one of them saying you could not stop on a dime. To myself I said that's bullshit - he does not know what he's talking about. It's funny, that later in high school, trying out for basketball, we were running across the gym and back for speed, and on the turn-around on the farside of the gym I stopped and ripped the bottom off one of my converse shoes. It may have been rotten and old or something, but ironically, my tryout stopped then and there!

Anyway, I'll just go through the motions and see what happens. I'll set up the inner tube on the bar and also stand in another tube loop for awhile.....maybe even wear knee pads. I'll report back.
ms55401

Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
May 5, 2014 - 08:33pm PT
idly curious about training for this utterly jackass parlor trick


but before embarking on my end-all 1UP campaign, has any legit climber showed off this stunt? for some reason, I can't even imagine Bachar or some Euro-waif firing a single rep
jgill

Boulder climber
Colorado
May 5, 2014 - 08:42pm PT
You see what happens when you get old, Rich?

We become illegitimate.


;>(
ms55401

Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
May 5, 2014 - 08:46pm PT
Johnny on the spot! much respect.

but how transferable is this skill? I do as much ice climbing as rock, and I see it more applicable to ice, but even there the skill doesn't strike me as all that useful. [but I can't do a single rep, so what do I know]
zBrown

Ice climber
Brujo de la Playa
May 5, 2014 - 10:17pm PT
I used to be able to do one where the arm doing the pullup was actually grabbing the lose arm's wrist. I called the it zBrown's Mobius. Had to quit because the audience got too confused.





Fulls or partials?


[Click to View YouTube Video]
Todd Eastman

climber
Bellingham, WA
May 5, 2014 - 10:50pm PT
I could do three with left arm and two with right arm. The stars for that were not aligned very long, though lots of bouldering helped.
Rudbud

Gym climber
Grover Beach, CA
May 5, 2014 - 11:29pm PT
has any legit climber showed off this stunt? for some reason, I can't even imagine Bachar or some Euro-waif firing a single rep
[Click to View YouTube Video]
jgill

Boulder climber
Colorado
May 6, 2014 - 12:01am PT
but how transferable is this skill?

Occasionally it might help on a longer climb, but for several years I had a goal of minimizing contact with the rock when bouldering - a very peculiar approach to the sport which never caught on. Instead boulderers plaster every part of the body onto the rock in order to raise difficulty levels.

It's more a part of bodyweight exercise, challenging in that athletic arena (see Frank Medrano) but having limited transfer to the rock.
clinker

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
May 6, 2014 - 12:03am PT
So I can do one arms with both arms, but not from full hanging.

I found trick is to start the thing with your lat/back muscles, to slightly rotate your arm and get it bent, then bring the bicep in to play. Palm out version. I'm right handed and my left arm was quite a bit weaker than my right. I had to concentrate more with my left and was able to do them first with my left. Concentration curls help.Try practicing the start and finish separately. Good luck
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - May 6, 2014 - 01:30am PT
has any legit climber showed off this stunt? for some reason, I can't even imagine Bachar or some Euro-waif firing a single rep

Well, what we have here is a failure of imagination.

Of course Bachar could do one-arms, as the video posted above by Rudbud shows. So that leaves us with the Euro-waifs. Does Fred Nicole qualify? One-arm one-pinky pullup anyone?

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Here is Magnus Midtbø, Norway's best climber. He ended 4th in the last World championship.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

A quote from Chris Sharma (dunno...is he a "legit" climber?)

"Some holds are less than a quarter-inch, and you might only be able to get two fingertips on, and you have to put all your weight on that little hold. There are different ways to prepare for that. The classic is one-armed one-finger pull-ups, supporting all your body weight with one finger. It sounds crazy, but quite a few climbers can. Our tendons, forearms, elbows, shoulders generate an amazing amount of force. I can do a few one-finger pull-ups in the gym, but for me, the gym atmosphere is not motivating..."

From http://espn.go.com/sports/endurance/story/_/page/bodyissue2013chrissharma/rock-climber-chris-sharma-undresses-2013-body-issue-espn-magazine

In the crowded Euro-waif category we also have, for example, Alain Robert:

[Click to View YouTube Video]

I could go on...there seem to be a whole lot o' elite climber jackasses out there sportin' this parlor trick...

You see what happens when you get old, Rich?

We become illegitimate.

Legitimacy is overrated. But considering the amount of work it took to become illegitimate, I'm going to consider it an accomplishment!

McHale's Navy

Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
May 12, 2014 - 02:31pm PT
Seeing the Galen Rowell 1st ascent thread today reminded me that Galen could do one arms.
Michael Fascinan

climber
Chamonix, france
May 12, 2014 - 03:00pm PT
3. When you are doing your weighted pullups with about 120% of your body weight, I think it is a good time to add in uneven grip pullups.

Really..?? You can do a pull-up with 120% of your body weight added?
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
May 12, 2014 - 03:44pm PT
That does seem excessive. I had to go back and read that post. THAT is probably not needed! Ho! On the other hand, I was able to do a couple chin-ups with 100 lbs hanging around my neck while in High school weight training.....without hardly much specific training for it....just did it one day on a whim and dare in class one day.
jgill

Boulder climber
Colorado
May 12, 2014 - 03:52pm PT
Maybe 120% of your body weight (add 20%) rather than 120% of your body weight added.
Michael Fascinan

climber
Chamonix, france
May 12, 2014 - 04:14pm PT
Humm... must be my english, I thought he was implying adding 120% of ones bodyweight....which would be some party trick.
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
May 12, 2014 - 05:59pm PT
Maybe 120% of your body weight (add 20%)

I'm sure that's how I had to read to the first go round.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - May 12, 2014 - 07:20pm PT
3. When you are doing your weighted pullups with about 120% of your body weight, I think it is a good time to add in uneven grip pullups.

Yeah, not too well-written; sorry about that. I meant, of course, that you are pulling 120% of your body weight, which means that you added about 20%, which isn't much extra weight (30 lbs. extra for a 150 lb. person...)

I edited the original post, hopefully now it is clearer.
mcreel

climber
Barcelona
May 13, 2014 - 07:14am PT
IIRC, Wolfgang Gullich blew out a finger doing one finger one arm pullups. I bet that pissed him off! There was a photo of him doing a one arm holding onto the barrel of a tank's gun.

I think that most of the young hard climbers prefer to injure themselves climbing, rather than while training. There has been some progress made over the years.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - May 13, 2014 - 08:43am PT
I think that most of the young hard climbers prefer to injure themselves climbing, rather than while training. There has been some progress made over the years.

I have no statistics, but my sense from both the internet and the young climbers I know is that there are far more training injuries than ever.

If so, one of the reasons might be that training has become an integral part of the sport now, whereas BITD many fewer climbers trained and quite a few were even proud that they did not train. Which led, inevitably, to the converse problem: injuries one might ascribe to not training.

mcreel

climber
Barcelona
May 13, 2014 - 12:31pm PT
I don't have any stats, nor do I really pay much attention, but I do see how the young sport climbers work out in the gym. They're pretty systematic, and they seem to stay healthy and strong, and they make progress. A lot of people in my age range tweaked their elbows and shoulders working out on Bachar ladders and doing excessive pullups. The early years of fingerboards caused a lot of casualties, too. Probably too much extreme dieting had a negative effect, too. It seems to me that people are getting more out of training now, and for those who look, there's a lot more good information (which is also easier to find). The most common injury I have seen lately are tweaked ankles from people optimistically falling off boulder problems.
zBrown

Ice climber
Brujo de la Playa
May 19, 2014 - 11:05am PT
That's about it. People start at enormously different base levels, but I'd guess that many, if they follow this program and don't get injured, could get to repetitions of one-arm pullups in a year.

That seems like a long time, though I could never do one without cheating.

I'm embarking on my program, which is signficantly different, this week. Will let you know how it goes. I'm starting basically at absolute zero, one-arm-wise, and only about ten @two.

klk

Trad climber
cali
May 19, 2014 - 11:59am PT
You see what happens when you get old, Rich?

We become illegitimate.

that's probably true so far as styles of bouldering movement are concerned, but not when it comes to one-arms.

ms is just out of the loop-- campus board has become a standard training item for all of the top-level boulderers and sport climbers i see. i bet most of the best boulderers i know in my area can do one-arms.

that wasn't true 3o yrs ago.

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