Over the last year, I've been implementing several foundational changes to my finger strength training that have helped me break through a plateau. In this blog post, I will share the four changes I've made to the training I did that allowed me to break through that plateau.

My finger strength plateau

Stuck on the same finger strength numbers

I believe I reached my finger strength plateau roughly 5 years ago. At the time, I was hanging 165% of my bodyweight on the 20mm 7-second hang assessment. I made little progress for the following 2 years. Results were marginally better after a cycle of more intense finger strength training, but I've never felt that the results were any structurally better than before.

However, things started to change a lot over the last year. First of all, in September 2025, I added 171% of my body weight. This was already a big increase compared to my previous numbers. Psyched with the results, I continued with my path on improving my finger strength, and managed to completely blow myself away by hanging 178% of my body weight to my most recent assessment (last week, late February 2026).

The four changes that allowed me to break through my finger strength plateau

Taking deload periods and resolving my overuse injury

The first major change I introduced was allowing my body to rest between training cycles, seasons, and stressful periods. I have been neglecting accepting the need for down time for the last few years, as I was always eagerly moving from project to project. As a result, fatigue accummulated and a nagging overuse injury appeared.

I had an overuse injury on the right middle finger's DIP joint, which started after accumulating a lot of training volume for my project "Shingen" in Freyr, which I sent in the Spring of 2024 (still one of my most proudest climbing moments). After I sent this project, I went on a city trip with a group of friends to Valencia. We ended up partying a lot and sleeping little. I remember going to the bouldering gym on my last day there. When warming up, I could feel a painful feeling in my DIP joint.

Instead of giving my body a bit of a break, I went to Ceuse the week after my city trip. The pain was manageable, but didn't go away either. After this trip, the pain was always coming back after pushing the volume too much; it kept doing that till January this year, when it got away completely.

The trick that did it for me was having several moments of very little or no finger strength training. I had two distinct moments, the first "break" was a 5 day break of no climbing when I moved from Italy to Copenhagen. During this time, there was simply no time to climb or do any sort of training (moving into a new country is already stressful enough). And the second time was during the holiday, where my girlfriend and I spent two weeks in Italy. We spent very little time training and climbing, but indulged in sunny weather, netflix and great food. Over the course of two weeks, we did two very short outdoor sessions only. After these two periods of rest, my finger felt completely recovered.

Pressure to perform through social media

It hasn't been easy to find acceptance in climbing and training less. I would often feel bad about not training, or not going every weekend to the crag to try my projects. This was especially triggered more when I would find myself on Instagram. Here it seemed that everyone was still just trying hard every time, pushing their grades or trying their projects. Everytime I stopped scrolling, I had this bad feeling of not pushing myself as well. But, I realised that we cannot keep pushing our bodies every single week of the year, nor can we strive for our best performance at the crag every weekend.

It is thanks to these finger strength results that I started to realise that we can find a lot of value in allowing our bodies to rest. It felt so incredibly good to come back on the hangboard after a couple days of rest and just feeling my fingers feeling fired up very fast.

Fixing my half crimp weakness

The seconds major change was my focus on addressing the weakness of my half crimp grip position. My strength on my half crimp grip used to be a big weakness of mine. Instead, I excelled in the chisel and drag 3 finger grip position a lot. With these two dragging grip types, you rely much more on the friction of the hold, rather than on the isometric hold of the forearm flexor, and as a result, the stimulus to the muscle is a lot less big. I believe the preference of dragging comes from the fact that I spent most of my youth route climbing and not bouldering. I believe that in route climbing I tend to opt for a more passive grip type and relying a lot more on friction.

I will go into much more detail of how I overcame this weakness in a separate article, but by addressing this weakness, I gained a lot more strength in my forearm flexors which I believe was a crucial element in breaking through this finger strength plateau.

Eating enough for climbing performance

Another major change was learning to fuel my body properly to support training. For years, I believed that staying as light as possible would make me climb better. It worked for a while — I saw short-term gains from dropping a bit of weight — but eventually, it left me in suboptimal condition for building real strength. Now, I focus on giving my body enough energy to recover and grow stronger, rather than just trying to be lighter. The difference is noticeable: I go into training sessions energized, ready to attack the wall, and actually want to “rip those hangboards off.” It’s a great feeling to have.

Understanding periodisation and training stimulus

Another major change I’ve implemented is adopting periodisation in my training. By following a periodisation protocol, I first focus on developing the structural components of finger strength — the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Afterwards, I shift my focus to enhancing neural activation, which allows me to fully utilize the structural adaptations I’ve built. I would like to spend a separate article discussing the periodisation protocols I followed, so please stay tuned for a next update!

Concrete results

I broke my PR for the following benchmarks.

Benchmark 1: 20mm hang for 7 seconds

For this benchmark, I improved my results from hanging with 165% of my body weight to 178%.

Benchmark 2: one arm deadhang on Beastmaker 2000 middle edge

One arm hang 20mm hang: I went from hanging 5 seconds chisel grip (90 degree lock off position) to 5 seconds half crimp with a straight arm. In the two videos shared here below you can see a clear difference in control of the hang.

Benchmark 3: one arm deadhang on 20mm edge

Here as well, I made some significant improvements. In the videos you can see great progress for the one arm hangs on the 20mm edge. I believe for this hang the usage of the half crimp has made a lot of difference.

So what's next?

Now that I feel I’ve unlocked new strength levels, it’s time to apply them on rock. I have several bouldering projects in Hultastenen (Sweden) that I’d like to finish this year, and I’m excited to see how this stronger base translates outside!

Need help breaking through your finger strength plateau?

If you’re currently stuck in a plateau yourself, I know how frustrating that can feel. And if my experience has taught me anything, it’s that breakthroughs rarely come from trying harder — they come from fixing the right foundations.

If you’re looking for help applying these principles to your own training, I’d be more than happy to help. I'm currently offering free 30-minute consultation calls where we will discuss your climbing goals and how structured training can help. Book a call here