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.
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- Look at hangboard
- “I really should do some dedicated hangboarding”
- Look at really funky problem that’s been bugging me
- Work on problem until I’m burnt out
- Look at hangboard again
- “Damn I’m too tired to hangboard”
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.
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By the way, I like this follow-along routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PebF3NyEGPc
To agree with other posters here V4 is the first plateau you tend to hit a new climber, then getting to consistent V6; and do not rush into heavy ass hangboarding too soon. Tendons develop much slower than muscle and going too hard too fast will just lead to you hurting yourself and being injured for long periods of time.
Starting with sub max hangs and working into just bodyweight would be good starting goals to supplement your climbing. I tend to follow the advice from Beastmaking in the “little and often” mentality now; I do 2 sessions a week after warming up before climbing that are very short that are up to 6 hangs if I’m feeling very strong, but as little as 3 hangs.
Since I’m working back into V6 after a very long break and I’m a pretty big guy I will do either sets of half crimp and/or 3 finger drag (at bodyweight) with hangs going up to 10 seconds and up to 3 minute rests before my climbing sessions. Depending on how I feel I will cut that down to just one grip type , preferring 3 finger drag.
For someone who hasn’t been climbing for very long I would honestly recommend getting as much milage as you can and doing sub max or “no hang” as supplemental to help build your tendons up.
Just my 2 cents and your mileage may vary and all that.
A little clarity to add is once you can climb V4 consistently then you could start worrying about things like actually incorporating hamgboarding but the sub max training you could start doing very early.
It’s still easy to overdo sub-max hanging though. You don’t get any feedback until it’s already too late. You only start noticing the problem on your next session.
That’s why I was recommending 50% bodyweight if they decide to start now.