HANGBOARD TRAINING
Everything you need to know about your new favorite strength training and injury prevention tool.
Why hangboard?
To just climb for building finger strength is very difficult to track intensity and volume, and when we’re climbing we tend to get emotionally invested and want to send things— that’s mostly a good thing, but maybe not if you’re regularly pushing your limit on fingery climbs.
Hangboarding is measurable, regimented, and — if you do it right — it won’t affect your climbing practice.
Even just 20 minutes once per week can go a long way toward building finger strength and resilience.
When to hang
Keep in mind our two guiding principles:
Hangboarding needs to be intense enough to build the desired adaptation
It shouldn’t (significantly) take away from our on-the-wall skill practice.
With this in mind, we want to make sure our fingers are fully warmed up, and rested enough to get a good workout in — so the day before hangboarding should always be a rest day for the fingers.
Timing options:
On a rest day, after a finger warm-up
(my personal favorite) on a climbing day, after your off-the-wall warm-up but before any project-level climbing.
After climbing, but only if the session was light enough that you have finger strength left.
This works great for endurance hangboarding — for strength, it’s hard not to overdo it.
How do I choose?
The best training is the one you can stick to. If there’s a place that works easier for your schedule, or you can stack it with another habit (like after a morning jog), start there.
A note on form
Your finger training should be an overcoming isometric, not a yielding isometric.
In English? If your grip is opening, or form is slipping at all, the rep is over.
Can you pull more weight if you let the fingers gradually open? Sure.
Is it better training? No.
Respect the FINGERS
It might be tempting to do an extra set, or a higher intensity than you know you should.
Don’t! This would violate our guiding principle #2: Hangboarding shouldn’t (significantly) take away from our on-the-wall skill practice.
No one is giving you a trophy for your hangboard personal best. Treat it like what it is: a training tool.
should I use a hangboard or an edge block?
The truth is: your fingers don’t care. Learn good form, then do whichever you prefer.