Hooper’s Beta Ep. 120

INTRODUCTION

Could a few simple strength tests actually be enough to tell us what’s holding us back from climbing 2, 3, 4, 5 grades harder? Or is it the opposite, and is climbing way too complex of a sport for us to worry about those kinds of metrics? I started wondering about this more after seeing the “Magnus Midtbø 9C Test,” which is a series of four tests anyone can perform and is meant to approximate how hard you could or should be climbing. So we’re going to do the tests and try to answer those questions, but with a twist. We’ll learn the anatomy behind each test, critique their usefulness, compare our results to our actual climbing ability, and then see what we learned. To perform the tests we have quite the variety, with: USA team climber Ross Fulkerson, pro outdoor climber Anna Hazelnutt, a washed-up boulder bro [shot of Jason], and…oh, my fiance, Aleena, who’s also a novice climber. Let’s get to testing!

Test #1: Max Dead Hang

The first test is a maximum weighted hang on a 20mm edge for five seconds. Most people will default to a half crimp position for this, so the pulley system will be heavily involved as well as the finger flexors (flexor digitorum profundus and flexor digitorum superficialis) and wrist flexors (flexor carpi ulnaris). It will also be highly dependent on the ability of your back and shoulders to resist the load and maintain form, heavily taxing the lats, brachialis, rotator cuff, and low trap muscles. This is clearly not just a test of finger strength alone, but the anatomy being used is obviously very similar to climbing.

Analysis

The thing I like about this test is that 20mm is a pretty standard edge size for testing and it doesn’t rely on the condition of your skin like a tiny edge would. Any test like this will involve compromises, but I think the creators, Martin and Stian, did a great job making it simple for anyone to perform. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re aware of the limitations.

Speaking of which, the first thing to be aware of with this test is the risk of jacking up the weight too quickly to follow the scoring system. The weight increments are huge, especially for the higher scores that have 20% increases between points! You’re obviously going to try to reach the highest score you can, so for a 160 lb [72.5 kg] person, a 20% increase would be 32 pounds [14.5kg]! Far too likely to get someone injured in my opinion -- so consider increasing in smaller increments to avoid an uncontrolled load to your fingers and shoulders.

The other thing I don’t love is that this is the only test involving finger strength, arguably the most important metric for climbers, but it’s constrained to a dead hang on a single edge. A two-arm hang on a somewhat large edge with lots of added weight probably works okay at the lower end of the scores, but at the upper end I think it may lose some usefulness as a climbing metric. For example, I know a few V10 climbers that can hang 200% bodyweight or more on this test. If their climbing technique is not a limiting factor for them, is it a useful test if a V10 climber can score the same as the best climbers in the world? For some tests, yes, of course. But for a climbing test involving finger strength, I’m not so sure.

Plus, what about smaller edges?

Now of course the people that made these tests are aware of these limitations, but they had to choose something that was approachable for everyone. I still think it’s useful for climbers, but there may be a good alternative or supplemental tests as well.

I think a more finger-focused test can be quite useful. I like doing single-hand pulls with a crane scale. This isolates the fingers more, allows you to compare both hands, is much safer due to it being self-limiting, and can be performed on multiple edge sizes for a more holistic approach.

Test #2: Max Weight Pull-Up

The second test is a one-rep max pull-up on a standard bar. The purpose here is to assess the strength of the shoulder and back pulling muscles including the lats, mid and lower traps, rotator cuff, and elbow flexors like the brachialis while eliminating finger strength from the equation. The concentric motion is the only focus of this test, as a complete rep is counted as moving from a dead hang to chin-over-the-bar.

Analysis

What I like about this test is that pullup strength translates well to many aspects of climbing, and this test involves pulling through a full range of motion unlike the previous one. Testing full-range pull-up strength can help us identify weaknesses in the upper extremity and specific ranges of motion. Comparing your finger strength to your pull-up strength can help elucidate a large discrepancy between the two, which could be a limiting factor for your climbing. For example, I’ve had patients that score extremely high in finger strength, but quite low in shoulder strength, especially in a hanging position. Guess why they came to see me? They could grip tiny holds but had no control through the shoulders, resulting in shoulder injuries.  Of course, the opposite can be true as well. If you score low in finger strength but high in pull-up strength, you may be annoyed when you can campus some people’s projects but can’t even establish on a crimp line that an eight-year-old just flashed.

As far as things I don’t love, I do think this test may miss out on specificity to climbing being just a one-rep max test, which may not be as applicable to climbing as a weighted multi-rep test, but it’s certainly still useful.

My only real complaint is that there are no rules for hand width on the bar or form in general. Since the only rule is “get your chin over the bar,” you can compromise form in pretty much any way to achieve the rep. I’m not a huge fan of that, but maybe that’s just the stodgy old PT in me talking. If you do this test, be mindful of your shoulder engagement, and don’t allow your form to completely fall apart just to score an extra point.

Test #3: Core Strength

The third test is designed to assess core strength for climbers. This one breaks the mold a bit as rather than keeping the same exact exercise throughout, it involves three different scoring tiers. The first tier is a bent knee L-sit, the second a straight leg L-sit, and the third a front lever. I think this test actually does have a pretty huge problem in its design because of those tiers, so let’s go do it and then discuss.

Analysis

I think this test is much better than something like a standard plank test, which has very little application to climbing. So what’s my issue with it? It all comes down to anatomy.

The first two tiers involve similar muscles, mostly facilitated by the rectus abdominis, hip flexors, some obliques, plus some back and shoulder strength to maintain the hang. That’s all fine and mildly applicable to climbing. The third tier is the problem, where you suddenly have to go from a 20-second L-sit to a five-second front lever just to get one extra point. Not only is that an absolutely huge jump in difficulty compared to the rest of the test, but the front lever also involves very different biomechanics. The front lever is mostly contingent on the strength of your lats and mid-back! You’ll still need some ab, glute, and hip flexor strength to keep your body straight, but the limiting factor will almost always be back strength. You can have the strongest core in the world and not be able to do a front lever. So, jumping from an L-sit to a full front lever isn’t a very logical progression for this test, plus we already tested back strength in the previous test.

So why did the test creators do this to us? In all fairness, I’m not sure there’s an easy way to test true core strength for climbing, especially at higher levers, so to keep this test in line with the simplicity of the other tests, a front lever probably seemed like the best option. I do like Kevin Cowell’s five step approach at The Climb Clinic, but I think for most climbers trying to test your max core strength will not be a fruitful endeavor. Also, in my experience, most climbers that feel they’re lacking core strength are often instead lacking back or shoulder strength or simply haven’t learned to engage their core, back, and legs together on the wall. Overall, I wouldn’t worry too much about your performance on this test.

Test #4: Endurance Hang

The fourth and final test is an endurance hang on a standard bar. The creators specify that you cannot change hand or grip position during the test and that both hands must remain on the bar the whole time. Hanging for such a long period on a bar will of course heavily tax the shoulders, back, and finger flexor muscles. However, as we grow tired we will naturally start to lose engagement from those muscles. This will cause us to “sag” and start relying more on the passive strength of our joints and connective tissues with less and less muscular contraction. This test is quite interesting because I think it’s actually less a test of climbing endurance as it is of something even more important for climbers, but we’ll discuss that in a minute.

Analysis

Naturally this test will be more applicable to sport climbers than boulderers, though it’s tough to say how applicable since even in sport climbing we don’t exactly hang on a bar for minutes at a time without moving our arms.

What’s most interesting is that this test is possibly more useful as a measure of mental fortitude than true climbing endurance. If you ever watched the video where Magnus visits the Lattice Training crew and gets tested by them, you might remember how they remarked on Magnus’ ability to try his absolute hardest for every test. They implied that the mental strength required to do so is a key factor in what separates elite athletes from everyone else. It’s not about completely ignoring your body and being reckless; it’s about knowing how hard you can push yourself and being mentally willing to go there repeatedly. The long duration of this test and the increased acidity in our forearm muscles that causes the pumped feeling makes it far more mentally taxing than any of the other tests, to the point where many will drop off due to pure misery rather than actual muscle failure. So I like that this endurance hang test is a safe way to see how long you can force yourself to keep trying hard when it feels miserable. Do you give up when you feel the slightest pump? Do you do that when you’re climbing too? Would you have been able to hang on longer if you were competing against a group rather than testing yourself solo? Though I personally wouldn’t use this test to determine my physical climbing endurance, it might give you some interesting insights as to your mental fortitude.

TEST RESULTS

Now that we know a bit more about each test and their pros and cons, let’s tally the results!

THE TAKEAWAY

So, is the Magnus 9C test the ultimate measure of climbing ability? Well, high-level climbers will score much better than lower-level climbers, so that’s maybe an argument in its favor, but it’s definitely not the ultimate measure of our abilities. It can absolutely be useful though. Testing your upper extremity strength and mental fortitude may very well help you figure out what’s keeping you from getting to that next grade, or at least give you some insight into your strengths and weaknesses. But, there's also much more to it than that, so here are my recommended dos and don’ts for all climbers.

1. Do: Understand this is not a comprehensive test of climbing ability and will never be a perfect measurement of that, BUT…

2. Don’t: Avoid doing tests because they’re not perfect -- they can be useful if you understand what is and what is not actually being tested and the limitations of each.

3. Don’t: Worry about extensive strength testing if you’re a newer climber. Instead, focus on getting as much climbing experience as possible.

4. Do: Remember some tests will be more or less applicable to your style and type of climbing. For example, an endurance hang test will not be very useful for boulderers.

5. Do: Use strength tests to help you identify your personal strengths and weaknesses so you can make more informed training decisions and obtain objective data that you can track over time.

6. Don’t: Get tricked into training to get better at strength tests rather than training to get better at climbing.

7. Do: Realize there are many other key skills you need for climbing that are not accounted for in these tests, many of which you can and should assess yourself. This includes hip mobility, shoulder mobility, shoulder external rotator strength, hamstring strength, and possibly a power or campus board test. I’m not saying you have to get all sciency about testing all this stuff; just do casual assessments to see if you have any glaring deficits.

8. Don’t: Immediately assume that if you score poorly on a test then it must be the biggest thing holding you back and that you should spend all your time trying to improve it.

9. Do: Remember that learning technique is equally as important as climbing-specific strength, and strength tests cannot account for that.

10. Do: Remember the only perfect test for determining climbing ability is climbing. In the words of the test’s creators: [Clip from Magnus vid where Martin says “You can have strong climbers and still climb like shit or be a fantastic climber and still be pretty weak.”]

CONCLUSION

If you like watching awesome climbing content on YouTube and Instagram, check out Ross’ vlogs where he gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to be a professional competition climber, training with the likes of Brooke Raboutou, Natalia Grossman, and other crushers.

And you hopefully know Anna Hazelnutt by now because she’s in basically every climbing video ever, but if not I guarantee you’ll enjoy her videos about sketchy hard trad routes, climbing with cool people like the Wide Boyz, and being a unique voice in the climbing community.

Until next time: train, climb, send, assess your strengths and weaknesses every once in a while, aaaand repeat.

DISCLAIMER

As always, exercises are to be performed assuming your own risk and should not be done if you feel you are at risk for injury. See a medical professional if you have concerns before starting new exercises.

Written and Presented by Jason Hooper, PT, DPT, OCS, SCS, CAFS

IG: @hoopersbetaofficial

Filming and Editing by Emile Modesitt

www.emilemodesitt.com

IG: @emile166