You’ve clicked on this article because you have reached the point in your climbing where you are ready to focus your training on increasing finger strength. You realize that you’ve progressed to a point where only climbing boulders or routes with jugs is not challenging enough, but using more than a handful of crimpy holds in a row zaps your forearms and fingers.
No, fear. You’ve landed on the right page, where you’ll find a comprehensive training routine to strengthen your fingers and improve on the wall. The secret weapon to this routine (or not-so-secret if you read the title) is a hangboard. The classic but nowadays often overlooked training tool for making gains.
A few housekeeping rules before diving into the routine:
- Always warm up before doing a hangboard workout. The warmup can use the hangboard, but choose the deepest edges and ease into loading your entire body weight. You can use a pulley system or keep your feet on the ground to offload weight. As you progress through your warmup, increase the load.
- Modify the workout as needed. This goes both ways. Use the modifications mentioned in the first bullet to reduce the load or add weight (i.e., weight vest) to make the workout harder. If you have not regularly used a hangboard, it’s advisable to start bodyweight for a few weeks before adding weight. When/if you add weight, do some in 5 lbs increments to reduce injury risk.
- Don’t do too much at once. If this is your first time incorporating a hangboard routine into your climbing training, start by adding a session 1x per week. After a few weeks of consistent hang boarding, you could increase to 2x per week, but not on back-to-back days. If you maintain a regular climbing schedule, two times per week should be sufficient to increase strength while allowing you to climb injury-free.
- Pay attention to the grip position. To prevent injuries, opt for a half-crimp grip. An open-handed grip is okay, but avoid the full crimp position—save it for challenging climbs.
Intermediate Hangboard Routine.
Two workouts are provided. One primarily targets finger strength, while the other targets finger and muscular strength. Feel free to test out both or pick the most suited to your goals. Both, when done consistently, will improve your climbing.
Workout #1: Repeaters
For this part of the workout, you must determine which edge you can hold for at least five seconds. A suggestion is to try 15mm or 20mm.
Once you determine the edge size you’ll use, perform the following:
5 Rounds
- Hang for 5-7 seconds
- Rest for 5-7 seconds
- Repeat five times
- Rest 90 – 120 seconds.
- Start next round
To increase the difficulty of this workout, first, reduce the edge size until you’re about to perform the routine on 10mm or 8mm. After that point, if you desire more difficulty, add weight.
Workout #2: 10 Minute EMOM
EMOM stands for every minute-on-the-minute. This means that you perform the listed exercise at the start of each minute, then rest for the remainder of the minute. You’ll need a timer and a hangboard with various edge types. Your rest period will be the remainder of each minute after you’ve finished the listed exercise.
Minute 1: 20-second hang on 20mm
Minute 2: 15-second hang on deep 3-finger pockets, 3 pull-ups on jugs
Minute 3: 10 second 20mm hang, 5 knee raises on jugs
Minute 4: 15-second bent arm hang on 15mm
Minute 5: 10-second hang sloper, three pullups on jugs
Minute 6: 10-second hang on medium 3-finger pockets
Minute 7: 3 off-set pull-ups (one hand on jug, one hand on small edge)
Minute 8: 25-second hang on 15mm edge
Minute 9: 20-second hang on 20mm, 10 knee raises on jugs
Minute 10: Max hang sloper
To increase the difficulty of this workout, you can reduce the edge sizes of the hangs, increase the rep count, or add weight. You can add weight and keep everything the same for increased difficulty for this workout.
Screenshot these workouts or write them in a training notebook so you’ll have them readily on hand. If you want to jump into two hangboard sessions per week, opt for one of each workout rather than the same one twice. Since the second workout mixes hangs with pull-ups and core work, it’s slightly less intense on the fingers. Feel free to comment below if anything is unclear, and don’t forget to share your hangboarding progress!