Krises fullcrimp journey

Physical Training
#1

Hi everyone, cool new forum. I’d like to know a little bit of of a detailed timeline from Kris Hampton about his journey from full crimp avoider to full crimp user. I heard you mentioned on patrion podcast that after being schooled by a fullcrimp dependent problem outdoors you made it your goal to get better at it. Im interested how you have planned to learn the position? Was it step wise, fx get used to easy no hangs / foot on hangboard, then get to foot off hangboard and in parallel try to climb easier problems only on fullcrimps? And whether you intentionally did little rather than too much to avoid injury? Also whether you experimented with different “depth” to which you curl the wrist and how far your thumb has to be in order to acheive best comfort + stability feeling?

Thanks!

#2

I’m doing it mostly by feel, and haven’t cared too much about logging it all, but I can give you the basics.

At first I couldn’t hang bodyweight on a medium campus rung. Even fully warmed up. I could one arm the same rung in halfcrimp.

I started by gradually getting used to trying to hold bodyweight on that edge. Took a few sessions, but I could pretty quickly hang for 10-15 seconds once I was warmed up.

Next I started doing easy warmups all full crimped.

I gradually moved to hanging smaller edges, and at the same time began using weighted no hangs, doing finger curls with light weight to get used to pulling into the position from fully open.

Gradually moved to practicing that on easy warmups.

While climbing, I tried to pay attention to how positions felt with the new wrist angles, and explore whether or not my go-to good positions needed to change. I still don’t fully understand the when and why, it I can feel it more often.

It was around this time that it really started showing up in climbing. I started intuiting when it would be beneficial, and found myself not realizing I had done it (I would see it on video or a friend would point it out) in some cases.

My current training is max pulls at both half and full crimp. Low volume, really high intensity.

They are still my weakest grip, but much stronger than before, and getting used more often, including while fatigued, which felt like a big win. I believe Nate and I talked about that in a Patron episode. I can full crimp hang on pretty small edges with no warmup now, with no worry, which feels like a big win.

Unlikely that they’ll ever be even close to as useful to me as half crimp, but they are a good tool that’s opened up a few things.

#3

Great to hear, thanks for sharing, im in the beginning of this journey, so now basically crimping the edge of my table at work :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: and carefully trying an attempt to feet on hangboard on BM1000. The idea with pulling from open to full crimp on a no hang is great, i can imagine it can really add to having less injury in a long run since you have strength in the entire range. Max pulls being pullups with max added weight? Or isometric pulling with feet on the floor like Tyler Nelson?

#4

One arm isometric pulling on 10mm for the full crimp.
Just take it slow and curious, feel your way rather than force it, and it’ll start showing up when you need it.
Also, I’ve still only see one hold I HAD to full crimp. So often people say “you have to full crimp this one - no way this can be used half crimp.”

They are wrong every time.

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#5

Yeah there are no rules if you’re strong enough, me and my buddy are climbing on a project, my buddy is a master full crimper, never openhanded once in his life. And every time i think gosh i need to step up my crimping game to hold that, there comes a local strong dude and warms up on our project with back 3 openhand :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

#6

I find myself in the opposite situation… I tend to full crimp everything. It’s stronger and I move more confidently with it. I’ve done a lot of open-hand training in the last year, and it’s really changed some of my outdoor experiences on sport. However, recently I was working a Kilter Board problem and my friend Tyler could confidently move through a half crimp position very quickly and strongly and it would take me 3 times as long on the hold to match and full crimp before moving. I do no hangboarding in the full crimp style; only half crimp or open hand. I’m curious how you guys might recommend I move AWAY from that “full crimp” mentality and strengthen my positioning in the half crimp while climbing.

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#7

I have a similar issue where I might be fairly strong on a hangboard in half crimp but I rarely climb with it. I think this has more to do with being comfortable with the way the grip feels and the positions it is more useful in. This would make sense with how full crimp feels like it activates my bicep and shoulder more (radiation). It puts you in a different position with different muscle engagement, so hangboard strength doesn’t necessarily translate to knowing how to move through those positions.

I’d loosely recommend trying to half crimp your warm-up to mid level boulders and slowly bringing that level higher. Disclaimer: Not a coach

Note: I feel like grip preference can be hold dependent too. I can’t half crimp anything incut. I can half crimp flat edges but I still often default to full crimp, so that’s where I would start.

Interesting anecdote: I was climbing a route where I had to pinch the crux hold from below but as I move up to it I had to lock it in as a side pull and had to drop the thumb and half crimp to get it close to my body. Typically I would think that position would be somewhere I would switch to a full crimp, but the edge was flat bordering on slopey, so it felt more natural to leave it at half crimp

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#8

are you able to climb on 2 and 3 finger pockets? Really hard to crimp a nice deep pocket. It might help you get a feel for climbing with a more drag type grip? just a thought.

I tend to grab almost everything half crimp or chisel…

#9

I can climb pockets fairly well. Open hand grip is something I’ve worked a lot on to be a better Red River Sport Climber, however I still default to full crimp on things the more tired I get. I’d like to use the half crimp grip more to reduce my muscle load, increase efficiency, and try to allow the full crimp to be a tool and not a default.

#10

I’ll have been at this 2 years in January, and it’s just now that I’m choosing full crimp based on how the holds are shaped or what positions I end up in, without realizing I’m doing it. This past week was the first time that I noticed in a video when I hit a hold a particular way, I full crimped. When I hit it a different way, I stayed half crimped. For my money, this is a more organic way to engage with it, but it took a lot of deliberately switching between the two and trying to better understand the body positions inherent to the different wrist positions caused by the two different grips. Often times during practice I could do moves both ways, but exploring all of the facets led me to determine what works best for me, and that has slowly been added to the repertoire. I don’t really have the language to explain it further than that - yet.

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