I listened to the latest Tim Ferris podcast, featuring Dr Keith Baar who discussed ways to strengthen and repair tendons.

Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@huchenme?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Hu Chen</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/man-climbing-cliff-beside-beach-FZ0qzjVF_-c?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Unsplash</a>

One of the key takeaways was that the currently prescribed treatment for tendon injury is eccentric based therapy (eg flex bar for tennis and golfers elbow) but this only works in so much that the associated velocity reduction in the movement approaches an isometric. So in other words you can get a greater response by just focussing on isometrics.

I was intrigued by an extremely simple protocol that they discussed for increasing grip strength and it inspired me to resurrect my grip strength experiment with this very defined sequence of exercises called Abrahangs.

Abrahangs are static holds (no hangs) performed at relatively low intensity over a period of 10 mins and they’ve been shown to be as effective in increasing finger strength as max intensity holds.

Emil describes the protocol he followed in his original youtube video. It comprises a series of different holds (3 finger / 2 finger etc) using a climbers fingerboard and does 10 second holds with 50 seconds rest between up to a total of 10 mins. He monitored his progress against some max hold times and max weight hangs - he astounded himself with the gains he reported - check the video to share in his joy.

Note that the holds are “no hangs” - your feet remain on the floor. You aim to just feel the tension through your forearms so are maybe putting out just 40% effort.

As I’m not a climber and my starting position for hangs is pitifully low, so I’m not going to invest in a fingerboard and will instead use the door frame for my sessions. I’m going to use my dead hang duration and readings from the hand dynamometer to gauge any strength increases but if you were already good at hangs you could define your own measure such as weighted hang time.

I will do this daily for 30 days as Emil did in his first experiment and I’m going to use the free Crimpd app that has a timer for Emil’s Sub-max Daily Fingerboard routine. I’m going to record the results in my grip strength monitoring spreadsheet but you can get a copy of your own here (save to your drive for edit access)

Day One

Max hang: 7.02 secs Dynamometer readings (R/L): 36.8 / 33.4

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