UKC

Have had a few discussions with climbing partners and no one seems quite sure of whether when fingerboard training for maximum strength it's better to use smaller holds or add weight.

Or perhaps it doesn't matter provided the intensity of each hang is high enough?

IIRC Eva Lopez's research suggested larger holds with added weight resulted in the most gains; although, the sample size was small and she recommended the odd period of using smaller holds and less weight to avoid getting habituated.  I can't recall precisely her physiological explanation for a large holds / more weight protocol being more effective but it seems a sensible approach just because it's easier on the skin and seems less likely to result in injuries.

My understanding is that this question isn't particularly well studied, and we don't really have a good answer.

It's clear that at a certain point reducing the hold size becomes unpleasant and impractical.

It's also clear that training with added weight on relatively large (~1 pad/20mm) holds is beneficial for climbing performance.

I think this is key. Pick an established protocol, stick with it for 8 weeks, try hard and track your progress.

As said above, intensity is key.

Purely anecdotal but I trained max strength hangs on 20mm holds last year (more accurately 1 arm with slight pulley assistance), this improved my ability to hang stuff smaller than 20mm massively.

I think I'd agree, once you start going really small it's just a matter of increasing the pressure on your skin. (Same body weight on a smaller and smaller surface area).

I reckon beyond building a bit of pain tolerance, super small or sharp edges should be saved for the real deal. 

You can pull a lot more weight through your tendons etc when your fingers are on something big enough to hold, I reckon first pad is about right of you're reasonably strong already and want to get stronger by adding weight etc.

(Just a side note this is all just based on indirect experience, I do all my training on a 30 and 45 degree board and barley use finger boards because they are boring and I've plenty of time to train / climb)

I like using weights as it's really measurable. Progress is very evident. And the sessions are really short and simple. Which suits my approach to training as I quickly get very bored. 

I did one 10 week block of max hangs fingerboarding and it went like this:

 - measure strength as % of bodyweight

 - do fingerboarding for 10 weeks, improving by going on smaller and smaller holds until I was on pretty much the smallest

 - measure strength as % of bodyweight again - to find no improvement at all

 - give up fingerboarding.

So if you're going to do it, I'd suggest using weights.

I can honestly picture your reaction and it's making me laugh That max hangs thing on the crimpd app is good tho. 12mins it takes, 2 times a week, super simple. 8 weeks later and it's made a noticeable difference for me. I started at 26kg and just did 34kg after 8 weeks of it (though I weigh 2.5kg less). Pretty sure I'll get to 40kg before summer. Need to buy more weights mind.