Posts Tagged ‘rock rings’
January 8th, 2010 | 
Author: If you haven’t already realized, I love grip training and my favorite piece of equipment is my rock rings. These versatile rock climbing holds feature four different grips to challenge one’s open hand strength. They make for some super hard chin and pull ups, but can be tied to basically anything…like dumbbells!
Rock Rings rigged to dumbbell with carabiner
Close up of the three finger pocket in use
Pictured here is Adam Baxley, a freshman catcher at Frostburg U. What we did with him was a 4 hold drop set – he started with the most difficult grip (3 finger shallow pocket) then when he couldn’t hold anymore, picked the weights back up with the next easiest grip, ending with the big sloper hold. This way we were able to get his hands under tension longer, which resulted in a really tough grip exercise (he’ll attest to that).
Hand and finger strength is really under-appreciated and under-trained in the baseball community. This blows my mind, as the last thing a thrown ball is in contact with is the (drumroll please) fingertips! Sure, doing wrist curls, holding heavy things, etc. etc. develops grip and forearm strength, but it’s just not the exact type of strength I see as most important- fingertip strength. If you haven’t been to your local rock climbing wall recently, you’ll realize how lacking your finger strength is – even if you have monster forearms and a great closed hand grip.
I’m hitting the rock climbing gym 2-3 times a week right now. Do I expect it to help me throw harder? Yes. I do. Can’t imagine how it wouldn’t.
One of my favorite pieces of specialty equipment are my Metolius Rock Rings, which are a free-hanging climbing holds. These also happen to be a companion of one of my favorite exercises of late, the chin-up.
The only thing I really dislike about chin-ups (aside from everyone in the gym doing them half-assed) is that they feel stressful on the elbow, due in part because of the way the arm articulates as the body ascends. The hands tend to want to pronate on the ascent, which is rendered impossible by holding a straight bar. Is this catastrophic? No, but I prefer individual, free holds for each arm to allow my joints to move comfortably in whatever path they choose.
The Rock Ring
These are made for climbers to functionally train for their sport. What do climbers have that everyone else does not? Crazy strong backs, forearms and fingers. We could all use a little more of that…
These hanging holds have 4 features(descending from the top, increasing in difficulty):
-a sloper (type of open palm hold)
-4 finger deep edge
-4 finger shallow edge
-3 finger 3/4 inch pocket (very, very tough to do chins with)
