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Hangboard Warm-Up Routine for Climbers

Hangboard Warm-Up Routine for Climbers

Plan your training • • Félix Bourassa-Moreau • Updated

A climbing warm-up takes about five minutes: a minute of cardio, finger mobility, four light hangs at 20 to 30% of your maximum, a little specific work, then easy climbing built into a pyramid. Warming up improves performance in most studies. Its effect on injuries is less proven.

Climbers often jump straight on the wall when they arrive at the gym. I think that’s a mistake: a proper warm-up gives you more strength for the session that follows. Here is the routine I use, with what the research does and doesn’t say about each part.

Does warming up actually help?

For performance, yes. A systematic review of 32 high-quality studies found that warming up improved performance in 79% of the outcomes examined, and little evidence that it hurts (Fradkin et al., 2010). For injuries, the evidence is weaker. I found no climbing trial that shows a warm-up prevents injury, so I won’t promise that. The routine is five minutes because that is what I can keep up every time; no study has set the right length for climbers.

How should you do the cardio?

Raising your pulse and blood flow prepares your body for what’s coming. A steep approach to the crag, or the ride to the gym, already does the job.

For a warm-up at the gym, use this time to play and make it fun. Animal walks, modified jumping jacks, and team games are a better alternative to the standard treadmill minute. Find something you like and do it for a minute.

Should you stretch before climbing?

Not for long holds. Mobility is testing your body’s range of motion; stretching is holding it. I focus on the fingers here because of the risk they carry in climbing, but equivalent work for shoulders, hips, and ankles belongs in this slot too.

A 2016 systematic review of stretching and performance found that static stretching reduced performance by about 4.6% when held 60 seconds or more per muscle, against about 1.1% under 60 seconds. When dynamic activity followed the stretching, no clear performance effect was seen, and static stretching had no clear effect on injuries (Behm et al.). So keep any static hold short, save the long ones for after the session, and before climbing keep the fingers moving through their range instead.

The sequence I use is five tendon glide positions, borrowed from hand therapy. They move the finger joints through their range without load. I use them because they make me pay attention to each finger; I know of no climbing trial showing they prevent injury.

  1. Straight hand: fingers extended, knuckles flat.
  2. Hook fist: bend the two end joints, keep the knuckles straight.
  3. Full fist: close everything down.
  4. Tabletop: bend at the knuckles only, fingers straight.
  5. Straight fist: tabletop, then curl the middle joints, leaving the fingertips straight.

Move through all five, three times, keeping your attention on the range of motion and on what each individual finger tells you. If one of them feels different from the others today, that is useful information before you load it. If a finger hurts, don’t load it: stop and, if it lasts, see a physiotherapist.

How do you warm up your fingers?

Low-intensity finger work lets blood into the small structures of the hand, and gets them ready for the workout.

Pull on grips for 10-second intervals with 5 seconds of rest, four times through. Keep it at roughly 20 to 30% of your maximum, an effort you could hold well past 10 seconds without any urge to stop. Without a force plate, the test is simple: if you feel like you are gripping, you are too high. The percentages are my practice, not a tested protocol.

What specific work comes next?

Once you’re warm, move to more advanced exercises and grip types. This is what prepares you for whatever the session throws at you.

I use one-finger hangs and dynamic contact-strength exercises here. Both are done at low load: the point is to visit the positions and speeds you’re about to climb at, not to train them. Keep single-finger loads very light, because single fingers carry a real injury risk (see Training for monos). If today’s session is bouldering, this is where you wake up the fast, dynamic end of things. If it’s endurance, keep it calmer.

Why finish the warm-up with a climbing pyramid?

Finally, get on the wall. Even after a proper warm-up it’s good practice to start with easy climbs and build a pyramid of progressively harder problems. Each step confirms you’re ready for the next one.

This is the part most people skip when they’re short on time. In my experience it is the part worth keeping, because the first hard move of the day lands on cold fingers. That is my observation, not a measured result.

Where to go next

Do this in Entralpi

The max strength test measures your max; type it in Settings (Profile, then Settings, under Physical Profile, Max strength), and a load in % max becomes kilograms. Then use a workout from the Train tab or build your own with four hangs of 10 seconds on and 5 seconds off. Without the plate, the timer runs the intervals and you use the feel test.

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