UKC

I’ve seen many posts on the internet discussing teen hangboarding. But opinions seem to vary a lot, so I was just wondering: should I, a 15 year old climber whose been climbing for around 4 years, use a hangboard?

I boulder around V5-6 and lead climb maybe 6c, and have found the thing most holding me back is my strength, given that I’ve been climbing a while and have quite good technique. We already have a beast maker 1000 in the house and so it would be easy for me to give it a go and see how I feel. Any advice would be appreciated.

^also note that I play piano a lot. More then I climb. So Injury in the fingers, whylst I’ve never experienced it, is highly inconvenient.

In reply to Seab:

I'm not in a position to say either way.

I would suggest seeking professional training advice.

As you're saying it's your strength that's holding you back, it might be general conditioning that'll help or a range of other factors. The best way to answer that question is with some professional training advice.

Best of luck 

In reply to Seab:

If playing the piano is important to you, a look around the gym at the shape of the hands of older climbers who've been training for years might put you off fingerboarding. It's hard to get very strong fingers that are also highly dexterous.

Also, if you're bouldering V6 you have the finger strength to be climbing well into the French 7s so that's not what's holding you back at 6c. Have a look at core strength, technique and stamina; as Tew says a coach could help identify where your weaknesses are.

In reply to Ciro:

I'm not sure I buy that. I play both piano and guitar to a reasonable standard, and have used a fingerboard to get strong and climb well. And I've been doing all these things for over 30 years. So I don't feel they are mutually exclusive. Injuries though - that's a different matter.

I agree 100% with this, though!

To the OP: fingerboards are a shortcut to strong fingers, but they are also very easy to misuse and injure yourself suddenly, which will almost certainly affect your piano playing for a few weeks. As Ciro says, if you are bouldering V5/6 you already have the strength to be strolling up sport 7a onsight and redpointing 7b (when I was climbing 8a, my max bouldering grade was only around V8).

So my recommendation is to think very carefully about using the using the fingerboard.

In reply to Seab: if you are still growing, you’re at more risk of a growth plate fracture if you do intense finger training. Finger strength is important- so worth considering finger boarding at some point -but it’s gained over many years, ideally slowly and consistently. Bear in mind there are people who climb at the highest level who have never finger boarded. They just climb a lot. Contrary to what a lot of companies would have you believe, there is no quick fix to getting better. There are quick ways to injure yourself though! 

In reply to Seab:

Some interesting points made here in the section about fingerboard/campus board for youths...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUumjZEEQbc&t=851s

In reply to Alun:

Indeed, not mutually exclusive, perhaps "hard" was too strong a word, might be better to say it's easy to mess up your finger dexterity and end up with arthritic knuckles from too much finger strength training or a badly thought out program, so if you value dexterity, be careful.

In reply to Alun:

I'm going to argue against this, respectfully, because I think that actually if the OP fingerboarded they'd be less, not more, likely to get finger injuries. 

Fingerboards are very safe. There's no shock loads, no tweaky twisty pockets, no dynamic movement. You statically load until you fail and when you fail you just put your feet down and let go. You are very unlikely to get injured fingers if you do even a reasonably short warm up into max hangs

What will injure your fingers is climbing with relatively weak fingers. Fingerboarding will make them stronger and less likely to suffer loads that damage them. As for age; lots of youth climbers Fingerboard and I believe Lattice said their data actually showed less injuries in young climbers who Fingerboard than more.

I'd say; get fingerboarding youth!

In reply to Andrew Wells:

Totally agree.

To the OP: The reality is, all forms of physical training are potentially harmful if executed incorrectly, irrespective of age. The key here is to incorporate fingerboarding into your routine in a structured way that’s safe and progressive, something you’d probably benefit taking advice on from a professional. Best of luck.

Talking to a professional will definitely help, but a lot of people use a standardised program. For example I do this 2-3 times a week.

Warm-Up (1-3 mins rest between)

10 seconds on the big BM1000 edges, toes on ground

10 seconds on the big BM1000 edges, hang.

10 seconds on the 20mm edges, toes on ground

3x 10 seconds on the 20mm edges, hang

10 seconds, 20mm, 8kgs added

10 seconds, 20mm, 16kgs added

10 seconds, 20mm, 26kgs added

Main hangs

6x hangs at 35 to 40kgs added on the 20mm. 5-7 mins rest between.

Something like that would do you a lot of good. Of course work to your level and start by taking it easy, slowly build up. Max hangs after a few weeks of two sessions a week. Maybe you work up to adding 10kgs, or 15. And as always... don't hang, pull!

In reply to Seab:

This was the BMC article that said under 18s shouldn't use them; from a couple of years back when two experts looked at the medical evidence:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/should-u18s-use-campus-boards-finger-injuries

In reply to Offwidth:

This article is specific to campus boards rather than finger boards. 

In reply to plyometrics:

Much of the same issues apply. Read  teh chapter on youth training in "One Move Too Many". A previous thread:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/should-u18s-use-campus-boards-finger-injuries

In reply to Offwidth:

I read it. What it says is, acute finger injuries can permanently affect young climbers' performance and quality of life. And I agree! Absolutely. It also says is that adolescent bone growth can be impaired by acute trauma, compressive forces and shearing etc, And this is also true

But fingerboarding doesn't cause those things. Fingerboarding is safer for your fingers than climbing! Fingerboarding would make fingers that are more resistant to acute trauma, shearing etc. Just because people are still growing doesn't mean they shouldn't train or there aren't both health and performance benefits from training.

Ultimately the safest thing to do to avoid finger injury is not climb. The second safest thing to do is climb with really strong fingers that don't get hurt even if you rag them about. And the third is to climb with weak fingers that get injured. Ultimately the OP can fingerboard or not if they want that's up to them. But the study is about campus boards, not fingerboards, the risk isn't the same, the stimulus isn't the same, the studies are not cross applicable and the old adage of "young people shouldn't fingerboard" is based off very little actual evidence. 

In reply to Andrew Wells:

Sorry, wrong link (the second time). The one I intended was a specific UKC thread on hangboards, where Shark is the closest to something I could just about agree with on their use:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/starting_out/hangboard_under_16-627555

Frankly we already know they can cause injury and I'd argue we don't know the risks of careful use (that I would regard as under supervision of a coach who understands the risks, not a 15 year old without such help). I'm one of many older climbers suffering from joint issues on hands and feet because of bad advice (these days good advice is pretty clear and might have prevented it).

Feel free to link medical studies that prove me wrong and I will apologise.

In reply to Andrew Wells:

thank you for this! still debating whether or not ill do it but probs will ask someone irl that i trust. Internet is great for specific things until you create a forum of a hundred different viewpoints.

In reply to Ciro:

true, but i think it may be the other way round. Being surrounded by climbers and climbing for like 4 years has given me (gradually) pretty good technique that can help me climb without the strength needed for a good balance between the two. I reckon my technique is at V6 but my strength is whats holding me back. 

still, piano is more important to me than climbing so i cant decide. I feel like hangboarding shouldnt be sacrificing piano though. Surely the two can go hand in hand. 

In reply to Seab:

As others have said, your boulder grade could support a route grade at least 4 grades harder than it currently does. It may not be "technique" in the sense of pure movement technique - it could be pacing, over gripping, route climbing tactics, even just basic aerobic capacity in your forearms - but it isn't strength that's holding your route climbing back, it really isn't. Unless all the routes you try are basic thuggery and all the V6s you can do are delicate balancy smearing tests, of course.

In reply to Seab:

Where are you climbing? If it's mostly indoors, mostly at 1 wall then your assessment of your current grades may be based on flawed data, if you get my drift. 

Do you have a particular route you want to do? ("getting better" is a bit vague for a target).

In reply to Seab:

Have you read 9 out of 10 Climbers Make The Same Mistakes?

If not, I'd recommend it. MacLeod goes into this topic in some depth.