Hangboard Training Plans

Does hangboarding work?

Yes for finger strength and endurance. Probably yes for climbing performance, but the evidence is weaker there.

A 2023 meta-analysis found that adding finger or resistance training beat climbing alone for finger strength, rate of force development and forearm endurance. Strength gained on a board still needs climbing to become performance. Read the full review in Does hangboarding work?. For eight recent studies on strength, testing and training, see the climbing science roundup.

Where do you start?

Start when you have climbed regularly for at least a year, ideally two, and climb two or more times a week. You should have no current finger, wrist or elbow pain, and be done growing.

There is no validated cut-off, so these are practical signs. The beginner guide gives a first 8 weeks: open hand and half crimp, two sessions a week, with your feet helping at first. A gentler option is no-hangs, with your feet on the floor at around 40% of your strength. See Hangboarding for beginners.

How often should you hangboard?

Two sessions a week for hard work. Almost every strength study used that, and found gains in 4 to 8 weeks.

Heavy hangs need about 48 hours between sessions. Very light loading can be done much more often, even daily. Your climbing counts as finger training too, so count hard bouldering or limit routes as a hard finger day and avoid three hard finger days in a row. No study has compared two sessions a week with more, so these frequencies are what worked, not proof that more would not. The article has weekly templates and signs you are doing too much: How often should you hangboard?

A ready-made week is in Hangboard routine.

How do you warm up?

Five minutes is enough: cardio, mobility, a finger warm-up, specific work, then climbing pyramids.

Keep the finger warm-up light, at roughly 20 to 30% of your maximum. Do mobility, not long static stretches, before climbing: a small study of nine climbers found that static stretching before hanging shortened finger-flexor hang time on one hold, with no change in grip strength or climbing performance. Start the wall with easy climbs and build up. Details are in the warm-up routine.

What can you do on rest days?

A three-minute routine of low-intensity finger work, which can also be your morning warm-up. At the end you should feel like you did nothing: no pump, no shake, no soreness the next morning.

The routine uses the open hand, then single fingers. Tendon research suggests that short and frequent loading beats long and hard for connective tissue. Start at the bottom of the range, because single-finger tissue adapts slowly. See the daily training routine.

The same idea, spread across the day, is in Daily low-intensity hangs.

Can you train at home?

Yes. Keep the finger work simple, match it to your current cycle and goals, and vary the routine from time to time. Do not try to replace all your climbing volume with hangs if your body is not used to it.

One climber’s example splits finger work by energy system: strength, contact strength, resistance and endurance, with a sample week. Read Training at home.

How do you know it works?

Test every 4 to 8 weeks. Improving numbers mean the load is working. Flat or falling numbers mean you need more recovery or a different stimulus.

Testing is reliable when you standardize it: the research recommends an edge of about 20 to 23 mm, with the same grip and the same device each time. Track trends rather than single results.

Train it with Entralpi

In the Entralpi app, a plan tells you what to do each day for several weeks. You pick one from the Plan tab or have one built from your answers, and you follow one plan at a time. The app can remind you on the morning of a training day, and it keeps a missed session owed until you do it or skip it. Read Follow a training plan.

You can also build a workout of your own, for example the three-minute daily routine, in Build your own workout.