Should Beginner Climbers Hangboard? Experts Answer! 

All I could think of for the rest of the video……

That mint will bounce back even without leaves, they’re hardy lads.

It gave its life so our fingers can grow, rest in fertiliser king! #justiceformint

I know right that shit was brutal lmaoooo

Its why I only eat meat so I don't hurt cute little plants

You are probably fine especially because clearly you’re educating yourself on everything but if you really want to improve make sure your feet are never coming off and are starting every movement and don’t just rely on all that pulling power

@@slapthesloper thanks for the input! Yeah, I definitely have to especially drill good technique. My first session or two I muscled my way up to boulders I had no business doing, and it showed afterwards: my fingers were tweaky and my big toe hurt when walking. It’s definitely important for me to keep the ego in check for a while; I found that focussing on slabs helps keep me accountable, not least because of the footwork.

Bro I am exactly like you I started climbing about a month ago while having trained calisthenics for a while and I could do really hard climbs immediately if the holds were good but I was trying to do stuff my fingers couldn’t handle and I’ve alr hurt my fingers a few times (you obv have better self control then me😂) but I got a hang board recently and I’ve started slowly training that everyday, haven’t watch the video yet but everything I’ve seen before this has said not to start hang boarding immediately but I’m saying fuck it bc I need to

Very interesting feedback, thanks! Do you train finger strength seperately from your climbing session? Or as part of the session as suggested in the vid ?

​@@jiggyb2640It's not a matter of ego, just a matter of good setting. My current gym has V0's with crimps where you don't even pull on them if you're using your legs correctly. Setting lower grades with only jugs causes beginners to plateau hard, since you will never be forced to learn about positioning if you're on jugs. It also means there are no climbs where you can work out non-jug holds if you are a v2 or lower climber. Besides, grading should always be about how hard the climb is, not about what types of holds are on it.

​@@jiggyb2640I'll let nature know the crimps on a v0-1 shouldn't exist lol. Crimps on lower end grades should exist as long as its well set (generous feet, on appropriate wall angle, the correct type of crimps). That way it won't injure new climbers and eventually improve their climbing and make them stronger in that grip. Interested in hearing why you think they shouldn't?

@@jiggyb2640 You can Google any outdoor crag such as fontainebleau and they have f4 (which are v0) and even lower which feature crimps. Again, I'd like to hear why you think they shouldn't have crimps on lower grades?

Every scetchy lowgrade slab ever?@@jiggyb2640

outdoors there are heaps of them. @@jiggyb2640

Coincidentally, we talk about that in our (Hooper's Beta) latest video, along with campus boarding for youth.

@@EmileModesitt I will go and take a look .. we were going to do a video on strength training for younger climbers so would be good to include some finger discussion in there too!

Same here. My hands and fingers are tiny for a male, I'm sure, and it's 25mm that is pretty much exactly the first digit. There is no way a 20mm edge touches the first joint for many people.

@@rooomulus I just measured, my pinky is 25mm from tip to the first joint. Honestly outside of young people or females with small hands I don't think it'd cover anyone, so really Lattice probably shouldn't be advising beginners to use it based on the advice provided here. I guess once you build strength with a larger board it's fine, though, as it feels fine for me now although still quite challenging

this has always been an issue for me and why I have made custom hangboards is my distal pad is just at 29.6mm even though I have relatively small hands. I know climbers half a foot taller with an inch or two longer hands in total with smaller distal pads. Keeps me away from industry standards like a 20mm half crimp one hand. I can do this on a 27.5mm edge...

Same here. I have had problems with hanging bodyweight on the 20mm edges for yeaaars and thought that something was wrong with my fingers. After comparing my fingers to my friends I realized I often have fingers that are 10-20% longer 🙃. I feel like the beastmaker 2000 large edges fit my fingers just right

Whoa! What was the protocol that allowed you to progress so quickly after those two months?

likely this is a result of finger biomechanics more than phenomenal results from a given protocol. this is not to take anything away from the training and strength shown, merely there is no protocol to get most climbers to one handed hangs over a year and a half, and finger morphology will play a significant role (superficial tendon insertion points, smaller distal pad size, longer index than ring finger) atop a base of shoulder strength.

@@soccutd77 This type of progress is highly dependent on other factors. Bodyweight makes more of a difference than most people realize, as does age (tendon hypertrophy slows down quite a bit after adolescence), and morphology like the other guy said. For instance, I was able to train to a 1-arm pullup in 6 months at 135 lbs bodyweight, age 16. When I was 24 and tried to get it back at 180 lbs bw, I only got somewhat close after a year of training. And that was after I had already been able to do it in the past. It only makes sense to compare progress to people who are similar along these metrics, since they completely change how fast you will see results from the exact same training.

@@zacharylaschober obviously genetics are important, but I am shocked that finger morphology is so important that if “optimal” it can take you to one arming a 20 mm edge in 1.5 years. That’s pretty astonishing

@@soccutd77 check out Allison Vest for a good demonstration of the value of morphology. Of course, this is nothing to detract from hard work, you won't get these results from simply having the morphology; you have to work hard to make great use of good morphology. But, matters such as the stability of the dip joint and torque generation is widely predicated on finger morphology, the fortunate side is this is not a great predictor of climbing ability and simply progressive overload relative to you will make the difference, not absolute scores.

Would also like some more info about this. I suppose that adding weight on a 20 mm edge would be better for training the muscle and tendons then going to a smaller edge like 10 mm. But I think you also need to train the smaller crimps because that’s what you’ll encounter most in climbing. And training on smaller edges makes you improve on them so I wonder what exactly I’m training extra on the smaller crimps?

I think he says that supporting the distal joint means you can target a specific muscle used for half crimp. I just tried it, I'll probably stick with it for a while & see.

Interesting that you found that, as it goes against most strength training principles. What was your training/climbing history like before that? Are you talking about the improvements translating to sport climbing or bouldering? :)

@@Gannicius I was basically only doing short, weighted hangs for the first 6 months and at that point my one rep max was like 150% of bw on 10mm edge. My problem was that my fingers just weren’t recovering to the point where I could project boulders/routes where I needed that kind of finger strength, when I mixed it up and did heavy hanging for 4-6weeks and then what people often refer to as “endurance “ hanging for 8-12weeks I still kept getting stronger but without then recovery problems. I was generally fit and had a physical job before taking up climbing. And I have some experience with resistance training. What I do is kind of a standard approach in powerlifting, at least in my circle, where you train higher reps with lower weight most of the time and then have a phase where you crank up the intensity. It’s just because all heavy all the time is really hard on your joints and tissues and it can take a while to recover.

I think the answer to this comes from the beginning of the video. Hangboarding is self regulated, so you can begin to push yourself more and more until you hit a wall. Just remember that as you increase intensity, you also need to increase rest time between workouts to allow your body to properly recover. Another form of intensity increase is maintaining your current training level but decreasing the rest time between workouts. Just an alternative option that you can also mess around with.

Great question. However one that is quite hard to answer in the comments because it depends on a few variables. For example; how long have you been hangboarding/climbing, what difficulty and style do you climb most, what is your frequency of training. If you have been hangboarding (HB) for several months it would be fine to increase the intensity but pay attention to how well you recover and make sure to adjust training volume and frequency alongside. As Jason says in the video we need to manage the training load and recovery.

Two things to think about when adding hangboarding to your training are; 1. Can you start with very gentle hangs in your warm-up, to graduality build exposure without fatigue? This will set you for the future if you decide to put more effort into finger strength. 2. Are you doing too much if you can already barely recover from session to session? Perhaps making one session a bit lighter would improve the quality of the others and leave some room for introducing new training techniques that are likely to play a role in your future.

I think it’s also a mental thing. For some people like me, even small holds on a v3 can be intimidating when you don’t have that much finger strength as the probability you overload or blow off the wall is significantly greater (there’s just a lot more to balance). The hangboard can allow you to build baseline confidence and familiarity that can allow you to train harder on the wall as well.

I'd recommend watching the video again.

Replying to myself for all the repliers. I did watch the video. And, i maintain that, the video didn't so much answer the question "should beginners hangboard" rather than "can the beginners hangboard". 1-Can it be safe for beginners to hanboard : the video answers, yes, definitely. It takes some practice and education, but it's perfectly doable. 2-Is it useful : yes, you can intentionnaly build structure strength while you are a beginner, to prevent future injury in the harder problems (it's true in most gyms, and i critique that. I'll critique it further down) 3-It helps you achieving the goal of being able to climb more : i'm not sure this is true on the global picture. It's true from a phisio point, but it probably not true from a life organisation point. The probability of a beginner being able to invest time in two climbing sessions per week+one light load hangboard per week is pretty low in my experience. So i think that most of the time, hanboard time will replace climbing time in a beginner's schedule, not added into. Which is why i think the question of "SHOULD beginners hanboard" is not really answered, or it's not sufficiently emphasized in my opinion in the video, i guess? Training is always about using your time efficiently. I think that the main argument is "hangboard is a great tool to prepare your body to the higher grades, when you'll be there with tiny crimps". Right. Several problems with that : -not all climbers actually want to go to those higher grades. -small holds used to be encountered at pretty much any level, in gyms. It's especially true in vertical or slabs, profiles where beginners climb the most. -small holds are definitely encountered at any level outdoors, in bouldering or sportclimbing. Again, this is even more common in vertical or slab profiles. Is there a way around that : yes. Don't make the beginners only climb on good slopers, juggy large edges and so on. This is, by the way, what creates climbers than can climb V5/V6 in a gym, in a 20' overhang prow, but canno't climb V3 on crimps outdoors (or, even more frustrating, actually are able to climb the overhanging part of the boulder, but not top out the vertical finish on crimps !) Beginners should definitely spend some time using small holds too. The problem is that in many modern gyms, you sometime don't encounter them before V6, which is a shame. The problem is then the setting of the gym, beginners shouldn't need to develop strategies around a lack in variety of holds in the early levels. Setters should be able to propose problems that suit the desired load for beginners, with any type of hold. This way, beginners could exaclty do what is advised here : climb more, expand movement repertoire and build strength safely.

@@Ptitviaud1337 I think you've answered your own question but I'll hopefully clarify with our answer too. The "should" is an "it depends" answer. The aim of this video is to give you information that allows you to make your own decision and let the audience know it's fine either way. We can't give individual advice on a mass scale. So if you have no desire to climb harder or can't make 20 minutes to do some hangboarding then I guess you shouldn't hangboard in favour of getting more joy and practice out of your climbing sessions/time available. However, if time is the main barrier, including some hangs into your warm-up is very simple. Or setting up a hangboard at home. And in my experience, being stronger makes climbing more fun and enjoyable. Strength training is for more than just climbing harder. So it's up to the individual to decide if they "should" be hangboarding.

Yeah, i get it and agree. And you can't always pack 50 minutes video to treat every aspect of a topic ! My comments where to further discuss the matter, and you never fail to deliver that by answering comments, which is great !@@LatticeTraining

Hopefully this does not need clarifying, but we don't think climbers should put more focus on strength and conditioning than climbing or skills. Climbing comes first every time. The point of this video is to say, beginners can hangboard in addition to climbing. It's not an 'either, or' situation.

Yeah totally agree. We don't think beginners should replace practice, fun and learning with hangboarding either! The point of this video is to say beginners can do this in addition to climbing, not instead of. With something as simple as a warm up routine. This can help prevent injuries and let you do MORE climbing (fun) in the long run. Hopefully this comes across in the video.

Lentils are nutritionally-dense and inexpensive; I don't know why anyone would want to eat anything else... Hangboarding is fun for me, and it has helped me to climb harder, which is even more fun.