UKC

Hi All,

So I've been climbing about two and a half years, and had gotten into doing a small bit of hangboarding at the gym, and then all the gyms shut and we have just gone into yet another lockdown, so thought I'd get myself one for home. 

I've done some googling, read articles on hangboarding and I've read "the climbing Bible" (IMO a great bouldering book for loads of climbers of varying experience) and have been using their protocalls for max strength training and endurance training. 

My question is that whenever I do the endurance training, I get a real pump and slight muscle soreness like I would do in the climbing gym/regular gym on the same day and the day after, however whenever I do max strength training I have yet to get that feeling? 

I've been doing 10s hangs 5 times with about 3 minutes between them, at the max weight I can manage so that I fail near at the end of the final 10 seconds.

I've noticed strength gains in the last couple of weeks, but I'm so used to feeling that slight muscle soreness/DOMS (which I'm not currently experiencing) that it feels like I'm missing out on potential progress? 

Am I not training hard enough am I doing something wrong or am I looking for a feeling that you're not supposed to get? 

Any help appreciated! 

Lewis 

I don’t think you are doing it wrong. In my experience the max hangs don’t give much “feed back”. As long as you are working on the verge of failure and your numbers are going up over time then carry on as you are.

I would say that if you're seeing strength improvements, then what you're doing is working!

Once you stop seeing improvements, then you might want to change things up a bit to break through a plateau, but keep in mind that finger strength is gained in small amounts over a long time period (unlike endurance which usually comes fairly quickly in comparison).

Following a 'Max Added Weight' type protocol as you have described, I would say that you shouldn't expect to feel the same kind of 'soreness' that you would get from an endurance session (such as repeaters), as the adaptations and the way you're stressing your body are quite different. 

Think of max strength training as more neurological, and endurance training as teaching your body to deal with byproducts which cause the pump. These byproducts are what cause the soreness, you don't really hang for long enough in a max strength session to generate them (and you don't need to either). 

I might suggest tweaking your protocol slightly though, and you should be careful actually going to failure when doing a max hang. It's quite common to train in the 85-95% of your max, and training at 100% could increase your risk of injury. That's not to say you shouldn't ever train at 100%, but don't feel like you need to in order to see improvement. 

A common protocol might be to find your max total weight (body weight + added weight) for a 5 second hang, and then use 85-95% of the total weight for 10 second hangs in your training session. This is basically the 'Eva Lopez protocol' - have a look at her blog. Obviously you can also tweak the times to suit you + your goals. 

Ultimately though, with 2.5 years of climbing under your belt you will see progress in both strength and endurance from any fingerboarding protocol at the moment, and I wouldn't worry too much about the detail - consistency is by far the most important thing with training fingers and people got really strong doing repeaters for strength, before max hangs became popular!

What you are doing sounds fine to me. Max hangs are so low volume that you shouldn't feel tired and definitely not pumped. I don't get DOMS from max strength exercises either.

Thank you very much for such a detailed response! I really appreciate it! 

I'll read some of her works for sure actually as she is also mentioned in the book I've been reading! 

Wonderful! Thanks you! I thought I was going crazy!

Great! Thank you! 

Mike’s reply above is spot on but I’d just add the following;

Because doing max hangs doesn’t leave you with any tiredness or muscle soreness, you need to be careful about overtraining.  It can be tempting to climb hard the day after but that can lead to injury.  It’s better to rest the day after, or climb/train a different energy system instead.

I think Dave MacLeod said failure was the most important thing, according to the data he'd seen. If I find the video I'll add it to the post.

I started using hang to failure and have seen better results than timed hangs. Although it's hard to say for sure because I didn't control for other factors. And I used timed hangs for a few years so it's possibly the change in stimulus.

I don't hang until I literally drop off the board, which I think would be dangerous. When I can't maintain a strict half crimp I stop.

I agree, I'm not saying the OP shouldn't use timed hangs, I did them for years and saw good results.

EDIT: 

Found the Dave MacLeod video...

youtube.com/watch?v=Z5HZTN4MR-o&

About 32:50 in he mentions hang to failure. Although the whole vid is worthwhile.

This is great info! I'll watch it today, thank you. 

Yeah I agree, I was wary of this from my reading. I've been doing 1 training day to 2 rest days for fingers. (I've been doing core and stretching and stuff in the other two days) 

I think we might be saying the same thing. ‘Max Hangs’ should feel hard and at your limit, but hanging to failure implies falling off the board to me, which isn’t ideal!

85%-95% of a 5s hang will feel pretty hard for 10s. That being said, the hang length is still pretty arbitrary and somebody might see more benefit from heavier shorter hangs, or lighter long ones. Part of the fun is tweaking the sessions in my opinion. 
 

Without going off on a massive tangent, it seems like the future of finger strength training could be in adjusting the length of each hang so that you stop hanging as soon as you drop below say 90% of your max. Far more specific than timed hangs, but needs extra equipment or a reliance on perceived effort. 
 

There’s no right or wrong way though necessarily, just lots of different ways which will probably all work to some degree! I saw a good quote from @usefulcoach on Instagram this morning: “Find what is hard and repeat until it’s easier” 
 

No, different. I don't stop at a specific time. I stop at failure. Failure being unable to maintain a strict half crimp.

Protocols will vary in their results, from mostly useless right up to the  most effective. Might not be the same for everyone.

For what it’s worth, the protocol I liked went like this...

I did a one off test session to establish what added weight I could hang for 13 seconds.

For the purposes of this example we’ll say that was 10kg.

Subsequent training sessions I would do 5 hangs (3min rests)

Hang 1 : 7kg for 10 second (I.e. 70% of 10kg, round up to nearest 0.5kg)

Hang 2 : 8.5kg for 10 seconds (I.e. 85% of 10kg, round up to nearest 0.5kg)

Hang 3 : 10kg to failure (I.e. 100% of 10kg)

Now, I’d change the weight depending on when failure occurred.

If at less than 8sec (rare), decrease weight by 1kg.

If at 8sec, decrease weight by 0.5kg.

If at 9 or 10sec, leave weight the same.

If at 11sec, increase weight by 0.5kg.

If at 12sec or more, increase weight by 1kg.

Hang 4: New weight to failure.

Change weight based on Hang 4 hang time.

Hang 5: New weight to failure.

For next session change weight based on Hang 5 hang time.

Say you managed 11kg for 11sec then start start then next session based on 11.5kg

Hang 1 : 8.5kg for 10 second (I.e. 70% of 11.5kg, rounded up to nearest 0.5kg)

This could probably be improved by checking body weight at the start of each session and adjusting your added weight to compensate for body weight fluctuations but I never bothered with that with no issues.

I really struggle with fingerboarding. I never know what to do with my thumbs in half/open crimp and I always end up getting horrific cramp in them. The best I can manage is bodyweight for about 8 seconds on a 25mm edge and then I'm totally cooked. 

I tend to be better at crimpy routes outside as well so I really don't get it.

Ooh thank you! I line this! I'll play around with it!

Try the Crimpd app out if you can. None of it is anything you can't get from the 'net, but the free portion of it is fully capable and has a nice structure similar to the above protocol and will do the maths for you.

Set up a pulley to subtract 10kg or whatever you need to make repeater sets relatively comfortable. Each subsequent session remove 0.5kg from the subtraction. You’ll eventually get to doing your repeater sets at body weight. Then have a go at max hangs for a month or two... then go back to repeaters and rather than subtracting weight start adding 0.5kg every couple of sessions... Baby steps over a few months and you’ll get a feel for it.