I started bouldering late last year and have plateaued at around a V4 level. I feel like my biggest weakness by far is my finger strength, so I’m thinking of starting hangboarding to work on that.

I’m not sure where to start though, I feel like I already tax my fingers when climbing so I don’t want to go overboard and injure myself.

  • jnjEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    There’s tons of resources on YouTube discussing it, check out Hooper’s Beta and Lattice videos on the subject.

    My condensed takeaway for you would be something like: absolutely DO start hangboarding, but take it easy to start and build slowly rather than trying for big gains from day one.

    Warm up gently, and when you’re getting started, don’t go past what feels like 80% max. Build to 100% over several sessions and only then start pushing your max. Personally I’ve been training about as long as you and I do hangboard, but I have already given myself a minor injury (lumbrical sprain) by going too hard in a relatively untrained grip (3 finger drag) without sufficient warmup.

    Another thing you hear is to do your max hang sessions when you’re fresh, and start out with relatively few sessions per week – maybe 2 sessions, on days that you’re feeling good, BEFORE you hit the climbing gym.