Six New Hangboard Workouts

New Ideas on Old Stanbys

Even today, a debate rages on whether we should hang from edges or not in order to get good at hanging on edges (I’ll give you a hint: we should). And then we get into whether to do Max Hangs or Repeaters, which boggles my mind. It’s as if we were trying to decide between having either donuts for lunch or a roasted turkey and only had those two choices.

Here’s my take: Our fingers can take a lot of abuse, and the more robust we make them, the better we can adapt to climbing on them. If, by some miracle, I could go climbing on rock five days a week, my fingers might not need the help. But I am a person with a job and a family and a dog and a house that winter comes to…so I need to bridge the gap.

The key to hangboard work is not in the exercises. It’s not in the durations we hang, even. It’s in how many times per cycle we load the fingers, and whether it is somewhat challenging or not. Anything more than that gets pretty specialized in a hurry.

In a nutshell (if we want to get stronger) we should load heavily and rest for longer than we hang (such as 5 seconds hanging with 15 seconds of rest), and if we want to build fatigue resistance, we can back off on the load, and rest less, such as 5 seconds hanging and 5 seconds of rest). We should do this just a few times in any session. We should not hang to the point we think we might come ripping off the board.

The rest is mostly for entertainment purposes.

We’ve published dozens of workouts for the fingers over the years. Here are a handful more, some might become staples in your program, some might just be a curiosity you engage with once. Enjoy.

1. Quick Ten

Tools: Hangboard with large, medium, and small edges. Timer.

Set your timer to repeat 10 rounds of 10 seconds work and 50 seconds rest. This is a simple “get something done” session, and can work as a warm-up for a more involved session. This session can be loaded up to where the work sets are very challenging, or you can simply aim at bodyweight, depending on your goal for the training phase.

1. 2 hand hang, straight arm, large edge

2. 2 hand hang, 90 degree elbow, large edge

3. 2 hand hang, lock off, large edge

4. 2 hand hang, straight arm, medium edge

5. 2 hand hang, 90 degree elbow, medium edge

6. 2 hand hang, lock off, medium edge

7. 2 hand hang, straight arm, small edge

8. 2 hand hang, 90 degree elbow, small edge

9. 2 hand hang, lock off, small edge

10. Pull-Ups to technical failure, large edge

2. 10:30s With Elbow Angle Variation

Tools: Hangboard with varying holds, blocks, etc. Timer.

This is a strength workout, even though we’re holding for full 10 second reps. The reason I like 10 is because it is easy, sport-specific, and probably not prone to hurt you. Each rep takes 40 seconds, so we do six in a row (which takes 3 minutes and 30 seconds). You then rest 2 minutes, and then repeat the same hold position again, but at a different elbow angle. I like 4 sets per hold position. These are all done with a half crimp edge. After a full group of 4 (about 22 minutes), rest 10 minutes, then do it again with an open hand position or a pinch.

A set might look like:

6x 10:30 straight arm

Rest 2:00

6x 10:30 full lock

Rest 2:00

6x 10:30 90 degree elbow

Rest 2:00

6x 10:30 120 degree elbow

Rest 2:00

I’ve also done this with the second exercise as a squeeze gripper, as finger rolls, or even as foot-on campus locks.

Although I offer this as a specific workout structure, the 10:30 x 6 set-up is a good option for almost any hang type.