My 7.5 year self assessment of climbing, strength training, and hangboard

Background and timeline
Current abilities and weakness assessment
Technique focus with strength base
Contribution of strength training to climbing
Grade chasing versus completing all problems at level
The effect of hangboard and hand strength on climbing
Various holds in hangboard
Scheduling sessions
Summary and Recommendations
Optimizing my own climbing routine
Compilation of climbing injury rehab articles

This was delayed ~1 year because of not climbing during COVID (March 2020 to April-ish 2021) then 1.5 years while I’ve been regaining my abilities and other life stuff. Thus, we have the 7.5 year assessment!

Past version assessments: 4 Year Assessment, 5 Year Assessment and 6 Year Assessment.

Need personal help?

Can’t find the answers you’re looking for? Let’s talk.

Consult me

1. Background and timeline

Background:

Did gymnastics and parkour before getting into climbing
Wrote Overcoming Gravity 2nd Edition (digital version)
Have had a high strength base starting and during: 1-4ish one arm chinups, dip 90+ lbs, weighted pistols +50% bw, etc.
Overcoming Gravity has appeared in climbing stuff before: Steve Maisch’s articles on isometrics on hangboard

Timeline:

~2012-2013 – Started climbing but had many periods during 2012-2015 (and 2020) where I didn’t climb for several months to a year. Hence, this is why my assessment for years of climbing is 7.5 years than ~9-10 years climbing.
2017 – Start climbing outside a bunch. Send my first V7-8s outside.
2018 – Send my first V9s and V10s outside. My first son is born. Got injured — lack of recovery like sleep — but come back from injury.
2019 – Able to climb V10 again outside. Injured again when second son was born (lack of recovery). Came back and climbed V10 again.
2020 – Lost all of this due to COVID. Still trained mostly bodyweight strength training. Hand strength deteriorated to ~V4-5 in gym level.
2021 – Started the comeback in March to April-ish. Daughter born. Cycle of overuse with recovery issues again.
2022 – Finally found a good pattern of hitting Tu/F as moderately hard volume days by summer with very light climbing on Sunday or light tension block. Progressed nicely from sessioning V6-V7s on tension board in June/July to, at the time of writing, being able to single session multiple V8s and sometimes V9 per training day. Hand strength still down from peak but slowly improving with new schedule.

2. Current abilities and weakness assessment

4 year assessment:

Strengths: Pinches, compression, thuggy moves, stemming, crossovers, lockoffs
Moderate: Heel hooks, body positioning, dynos, slopers, overhangs, roofs
Weaknesses: Balance-y slab, crimps, pain tolerance, sweaty fingers (which is no longer a weakness)

5 year assessment: Added new categories. My heel hooks and roofs improved. Removed: sweaty fingers. I use anti-hydral now.

Excellent: Compression, thuggy moves, stemming, open hand
Good: Pinches, lockoffs, crossovers, heel hooks, slopers, roofs
Fair: Body positioning, overhangs, half crimps
Poor: Pain tolerance, dynos, full crimps
Terrible: balance-y slab, highballs, bad landings

6 year assessment: About the same for me as the above, except full crimps improved from terrible to poor.

It’s not that I didn’t work any of my weaknesses, but I think I progressed in my strength and weaknesses about the same. My pain tolerance mainly varies based on how much I use small holds. My gym doesn’t really have any place for slab. I don’t do highballs or climbs with bad landings because I have a family and can’t get injured. I have been working on full crimps and they’re slowly getting better.

7.5 year assessment: Added potential weaknesses in climbing when someone was inspired by my post.

Excellent: Compression, thuggy moves, stemming, open hand, pinches
Good: Lockoffs, crossovers, heel hooks, slopers, roofs, route reading, accuracy of hand/foot placements, mentality toward failure, work your weaknesses, rest between climbs
Fair: Body positioning, overhangs, half crimps, toe hooks, deadpoints, minimizing readjustments, finding micro-beta, extreme try hard, warm up effectively, skin management
Poor: Pain tolerance, dynos, full crimps, endurance, strength/power endurance
Terrible: balance-y slab, highballs, bad landings, other rope tactics since I don’t climb ropes (rest spots, rope management, clipping, etc.)

My profile has changed because my hand strength is still lower than it has been. I’ve been actively trying to bring my full crimps up to fair-good range, but it’s a slow process. I’m looking to improve a lot of the “fair” stuff to good and excellent, but I’m at the point in my climbing (37 y/o) that I’m not interested in spending tons of time doing stuff I don’t enjoy (slab, risky dynos, high balls). I’m OK with leaving some poor and terrible weaknesses the same. Obviously, if you are younger or a competitive climber I would suggest to be more well rounded.

3. Technique focus with strength base

2017 opinion — Most climbs from the V0-4/5 range focus on learning significant amounts of techniques including body shifting, weight transfers, toe/heel hooks, hand and shoulder positioning, and so on. If one is strong, they can mostly just muscle their way through the V4-5+ range within a few months while virtually ignoring technique.

Unlike most conventional wisdom, I would not necessarily count this as a detriment in the true sense of “detriment” (although I will say it is somewhat debatable). Higher grades tend to require more technique than the lower grades, which means you are forced to learn good technique. Obviously, I do think that learning technique the earlier the better is important, but you will learn it regardless anyway if you are focused on pushing your grades up.

2018 opinion — I recant on the former opinion above. After climbing outside more and focusing much more on technique, I believe that you should focus on technique focus all the time and never try to muscle through anything. If you get a problem by muscling through it, you should try to come back later and do it with better technique.

You should mainly focus on optimal body position and footwork to minimize the amount of force put onto the hands and fingers. This will allow you to feel the very subtle positions that your body needs to be in to make the correct movements. If you rely on muscling and crappy technique indoors, it is only magnified when you start to climb outside.

2019 opinion — Same as above.

2022 opinion — Double down on extreme technique practice. Given that I had the experience of going from V4 again to V8+ there are a lot more technique nuances than I thought given my hand strength was down but I could get a lot more climbs than I thought. Any climber in the V0-V10 range should be focusing on finding ways to initiate movement and weight shift with the feet, finding good body positions, and maintaining good tension while minimizing the pressure on the hands. Minimizing the pressure on the hands does not stop your hands from getting stronger because you will get more hand strength stimulus as grades go up anyway.

My current opinion — Train technique from the beginning if possible for “optimal” results. For ~~“good” (2018)~~ “~~mediocre to poor (2019)”~~ “poor or terrible” results, muscling through problems works but will definitely come back to haunt you later on even though it can be corrected. This usually requires years of focused training to improve technique to a higher level.

4. Contribution of strength training to climbing

2017 opinion — A solid strength base will help an athlete progress up to the V6-7 range indoors fairly rapidly (note: indoor grading is generally 1-3 V grades easier than outside). If one came in with similar strength levels as me, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them reaching the V6-7 range within 1.5-2 years and probably less than a year. Maybe even as small as 3-6 months for the more genetically gifted. The benefits of strength focus at higher strength levels start to lose steam in the V7-V10 range. Generally speaking, hand strength becomes much more important as holding onto smaller and smaller holds in the 4-10mm range become more important. After all, what good is your strength if you can’t use it because your fingers can’t hold onto a hold?

Over the past ~6 months, I’ve started trending toward more hand strength focus over training strength focus with better measurable progress and results on the wall. I’ve adapted into a more minimalistic routine of OAC/OA DB Rows, dips, and pistols with more hangboard focus. This has pushed me back up from some/most V7 into most/all V8s while the grades in our gym have been trending from easier than outside to about the same as outside grades. List of exercises I’ve found most effective are:

Legs: Deadlifts (low volume up to only 2x bodyweight) and/or weighted pistols.
Core: reverse hyperextensions and weighted decline situps.
Upper push: Weighted dips, and maybe overhead pressing or pseudo planche pushups.
Upper pull: One arm chin progression as a main, and maybe front lever row progression and/or one arm DB rows.
Antagonist exercises: rice bucket or wrist roller or DB wrist extension

I personally use weighted pistols, weighted decline situps, weighted dips, and OAC as main exercises. Then supplement a session as needed.

2018 opinion — I’ve been experimenting heavily with how much I can remove and still improve in climbing, and what exercises I can add that give the most benefit in climbing over the past year. My opinion has changed heavily so you can compare the lists.

Legs: 1-2 sets of 10 reps pistols are sufficient for leg strength.
Core: 1-2 sets of 20-30 reps of weighted reverse hyperextensions and 5-10 reps of ab wheel or hanging leg raises.
Pull: Super wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups. Alternative is campus board uneven pullups focusing on the top or bottom arm depending on if you want lock off or pull strength. Add weight if necessary.
Push/pull: Strict bar muscle ups / weighted ring muscle ups.
Scapular strength: Arched back front lever pulls
Other: Antagonist work if needed
Fingers: Finger rolls and traversing. Hangboard if you need it.
Specific: Depends on climb. See below.

Notable changes reasoning:

Barbells and weighted pistols are too draining on recovery and replaced with minimal leg work.
Long sets of abs endurance is fairly useless, and posterior core is more important than anterior core.
One arm chins and front lever aren’t that great for climbing specific moves.
Strict muscle ups can help lockoffs and double as pushing so you don’t have to have a direct pushing movement.
Added a category for scapular strength and antagonist work only if you need it.
Minimized use of hangboard. Some other thoughts on why things are good and bad here.

I usually only work 2-4 of these exercises in a single session, usually focusing on what I’m weak or what I need for specific climbs that I’m doing. 20-30 minutes max per S&C session about 2x per week. Also, you can potentially add a specific routine for a specific climb. I added 3 rounds of 5 pullups and 5 rows with no rest between all the rounds to send Shoot the Moon V10 because my strength failed near the end of the minute climb. This helped me send it much easier.

2019 opinion — Since having a kid and getting stronger outside and recovering from injury, I’ve further made improvements and minimization to training. I went back to an old mainstay face pulls and found that progressive overload with them was probably slightly superior to arch back FL pulls. It also benefited posterior delts, external rotator cuff and forearm work too.

Here’s my new list of recommended exercises. Explanations below.

Legs: 1 sets of 10 reps pistols. Weighted pistols are fine if you have recovery. Pistols >= deadlifts >> squats.
Core: 1 sets of 20-30 reps of weighted reverse hyperextensions and 5-10 reps of ab wheel or hanging leg raises. Most people overrate core. Train for strength and train power transmission of core climbing. Long circuits or holds are a waste of time.
Pull: 1-2 sets of 5-10 reps no kip explosive muscle ups or high pulls > Wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups = campus board uneven pullups (top or bottom arm for lock off or pull strength) = weighted ring muscle ups (for powerful lockoff). Add weight if necessary. Explosive muscle ups build power and strength simultaneously and you can make them wider if needed. Face pulls half eliminate the need for wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups because of the strong gaston strength you get from them. Hence, focused pull is better.
Push: 1 set of anything that does not injure your shoulders. Dips, bench, overhead press, whatever. If you are doing muscle ups, you get to eliminate this. It should be pretty obvious why a pull muscle up variation is helpful as you can eliminate a pushing exercise.
Scapular strength: 3 sets of 5-20 rep range Face pulls (rings version if no machine) > Arched back front lever pulls. Face pulls are superior to the FL pulls and save recovery for focused pulling work.
Prehab: Antagonist, rotator cuff, etc. Work if needed. Face pulls hit both of these if you use the rope above or rings. Face pulls are basically a 4 in 1 exercise also hitting antagonists and rotator cuff.
Fingers: Hangboard repeaters + 1 set max hangs > traversing > repeaters > max hangs = Finger rolls. See comments below.
Specific: Depends on climb (e.g. longer climbs could require some endurance pullups and rows like I did with a longer V10 climb I did).

Comments — Fingers: Multiple caveats: Repeaters allow enough volume hangboarding to elicit a hypertrophy adaptation by themselves. If you are able to climb enough to get enough volume on your hands, max hangs are hands down the best exercise if you can keep progressing through plateaus. Traversing is generally superior to repeaters, hangs and finger rolls because you are working climbing specific movement but generally not as measurable so I knocked it down to a combo of repeaters + 1 max hang. This is probably the hardest category to classify, so if you find something that works for you then go for it.

Overall, I’ve minimized my routine to 1-2 sets of pistols, 1 set of core work posterior/anterior (if I feel like it), 2-3 sets of face pulls, and 1-2 sets of explosive muscle ups while still getting stronger on the wall. Haven’t been able to test it outside much so far this year because of the A2, but a couple of early sessions outside are promising.

2022 Opinion — I have not changed my opinion significantly on this, but I am making some small changes. I prefer minimalistic strength training for climbing focused on improving weaknesses.

For each of these usually 1 exercise per section at most for 1-2 sets of 5-10 reps.

Legs — Pistols >= Deadlifts >> Squats. DL worth it up to ~1.5x bodyweight. 2x bw at the max. Squats not worth compared to DL with the extra negative effect on recovery. Nordic curls or natural leg curls may be used for heel hooking strength and power.
Core — Weighted Reverse hyperextensions and ab wheel or weighted hanging leg raises. Deadlifts can double as posterior core.
Push — Anything that does not injure your shoulders (pick one at a time): dips, bench, overhead press/handstand pushups, whatever. Dips, bench and OHP/HSPUs have their own benefits, so you can alternate to choose for weaknesses.
Pull — Smear one arm pullups/negatives > high pulls or bar explosive muscle ups > One arm chins via counterweight pulley or weighted pullups > front lever. Front lever training sucks unless it’s a FL scapular pull, and one arm/weighted pullups give you FL strength eventually anyway.
Specific pull weakness: Wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups (scapular power for wide moves), campus board uneven pullups (top arm pull strength or bottom arm lock off), Strict bar muscle ups / weighted ring muscle ups (stronger lockoffs).
Scapular — Face pulls cover pull, scapular, and rotator cuff. Heavier weight focuses on scapular muscles while lighter weight focus on external rotation.
Prehab, fingers, specific — as needed. Ideally, try to get whatever you need on the wall first. For instance, if you need small edge work, instead of doing hangboard minimum edge start working 2-3 climbs per session on smaller edges. See 2019 comments for specific recs if you need to get some isolation training.

These should take no more than about 20-30 minutes in the gym and can be done about 2x a week.

I currently am only doing face pulls every climbing session as long as I’m getting improvement in my climbs and 1-2x a week for 1-2 sets of weighted pistols, reverse hypers, dips or HSPUs, and high pulls as maintenance of my abilities so they don’t atrophy.

My current opinion — focus on using strength training only as a tool to improve potential weaknesses. If you can get training on the wall to mimic gym training you should do that instead.

Beginners: Focus on minimalist strength training if you are a beginner (0-12 months). 80-85%+ of your time should be spent climbing and focusing on technique. 3x a week should be climbing for 1-1.5 hours. As work capacity increases, you may continue to add time but generally stop around when your peak performance starts to decrease. This is usually around 1.5-2 hours and occasionally 3 if rest a long time. Strength training should be at most about 20-30 minutes of strength training 2x a week at most. Focus one leg, one anterior and posterior core, one pull, one push, and face pulls.

Intermediate to advanced+ — Don’t unilaterally add climbing days or strength exercises. More is not always better. Small changes can break plateaus, and if you have been doing a lot then actually reducing the amount of things you are doing can make you improve faster sometimes. RP article on volume landmarks for hypertrophy improvement which also applies to strength training and improvement in climbing: You want to be in the maximal adaptive volume range and not moving toward maximal recoverable volume which is closer to overuse injuries and overtraining. Strength training should still be at most about 20-30 minutes of strength training 2x a week. If you have specific weaknesses that need more than 1-2 sets you can increase to 3-4 sets.

Strength may be a limiting factor in your training if you cannot lock off around V6-7. If you can do a one arm pullup, you are likely not strength limited until you can do at least V10+.

5. Grade chasing versus completing all problems at level

Text for 2017-2018. Added a few caveats for 2019 in italics — These two things are not mutually exclusive, but most people have a preference. I tend toward “grade chasing” along with most of my friends, but there are a few that prefer to complete everything at a given level. Both have their place from my perspective.

It’s useful to acknowledge that grade chasing will bring up your technique in other areas. When you’re working at the limit of what you can do, you’re generally challenging the strength, technique, fitness, hand strength, and other variables from a lot of different perspectives. I almost exclusively grade chased until a few months ago, and I think focusing on both facets has made me a bit more well rounded (still suck on pure slab though). However, it hasn’t changed my life in terms of thinking that this is something I should have been doing all along.

Completing all of the grades at a certain level is generally more ‘telling’ when climbing you’re a “VX” climber. Generally, in my mind when someone claims they’re say a “V8 climber,” I would expect them to be able to send a V8 in front of me in a session or two. It can be humbling to claim your highest grade as “the grade you climb,” especially knowing that it was probably soft for it’s grade. Generally, all of the first grades you get are going to be soft unless you find a problem that perfectly fits your style.

In general, I think whatever fits your personality best is the way to go. I prefer grade chasing and that is what motivates me to continue climbing well. I want to eventually be able to send V12 and flash V10s. Others who are motivated by completing all of the climbs or being well rounded — which is indeed better for competitions if you are into that — should stick to that.

Currently, since my gym puts up climbs 1x a week now, I usually try to do all of the climbs in a 1-2 days when the come out (project) then then just do volume the other 1-2 days I climb (perfect technique repeats, traversing, make easier climbs harder by doing them 3 finger open hand or skipping holds, etc.). (2019) If climbing outside, I will only do volume in the gym and focus my projecting on climbs outside.
What do I mean by volume day? Example.

My 2022 opinion — Since I’ve had the rebuilding phase again this has changed my perspective some.

There’s a lot of pros and coaches who say to build a base for projecting and vice versa. A strong base of climbs allows someone to have a wider variety and practice with general movement improvement. This is particularly useful for beginners, which is why I am changing my opinion to 2-3x a week volume (1-3 attempts at flash range) trying to do as many climbs as you can while focusing on improving technique as much as possible (not just send) and 0-1x a week projecting (3+ sessions). Even for intermediates and advanced I’d recommend 2x volume and 1x projecting.

I was a bit skeptical of a massive amount of volume improving the ability to project better, but since switching down to no projecting and only 2x climbing a week with only moderately hard volume days, I’ve made the most improvement that I’ve ever had in a small time frame and it doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon at least. Instagram post about it.

Mid-June to Nov (4.5 months) I’ve been able to move up a full 2 grades on Tension Board from V6-7 to V8-9 range in a single session.
October in particular I was able to put down ~30 easy V8s and ~10 hard V8s plus other V6-7. Started with 1-3 V8s in a session and built up to 7-10 per session over 8 total sessions which averages to ~5/session. Didn’t project any of the days that month. Early Nov I started trying some V9s and to my surprise I was able to get 1-3 V9s per session.
Volume sessions via incremental progress method: Some V6 and some V7 in a session -> Mainly V7s in a session -> Some V7 and 1-2 V8 in a session -> Some V7 and Some V8 in a session -> Mainly V8s in a session -> All V8s in a session -> tried and got 1-3 V9s and some V8s in a session. Going to continue building on this eventually going for some V9s and some V8s then mostly V9s and so on.
Conclusion: Just grinding a strong volume base can take you up grades with good incremental progress if done right.

Obviously, there is room for projecting and you can switch it up here and there if you want, but the best way to improve in the long run is probably volume just like I came to the same conclusion that the best way to improve on hangboard or no hangs is probably repeaters. You simply need enough consistent intensity and volume on the hands to get them stronger in the long run.

It seems dumb to me now, but this is very similar to strength and hypertrophy training. You don’t want to be trying to go really heavy with few reps over time. The fastest way to build strength and hypertrophy over time is to stick with 5-10ish rep range. You can go for 3-4 reps for some strength training programs, but rarely should you work 1-2 reps unless you’re competing.

My current opinion: Both grade chasing and being well rounded can work well because they fit different athlete’s various motivations. However, those whose nature is mainly to project can generally benefit a lot more from more volume work in their climbing. There probably is a ~~80/20 (2018)~~ ~~67/33 or 60/40 (2019)~~ 25-33% projecting and 67-75% volume split (possibly even 20-80% or more) where you will make the most improvement.

If you’re a grade chaser, spend at least 1 if not 2+ sessions a week working 1-3 attempts on flash level climbs up to climbs you can get in a session and focus on technique and minimizing pressure on the hands. If you can’t get it in 3 attempts just stop and don’t keep trying it because of ego. A dedicated month or two of volume climbing can be effective to break plateaus.
If you mainly do volume then you probably already have a good base and need to start projecting at least 1x a week and possibly up to 2 sometimes if it’s a severe weakness.

I am also cognizant that some people do extremely well with extreme try-hard projecting for several sessions a week. If that’s working for you then keep at it, but usually plateaus I tend to see now seem to be from not building a good enough climbing foundation.

6. The effect of hangboard and hand strength on climbing

2017 opinion — Hand strength is well correlated with climbing ability, so if you have a weakness then this is one big thing to address.

Eric Horst’s article on Energy System Training accurately summarizes the pyramid aspect of climbing.

Climbing is the foundation of the pyramid. Most of the time spent on climbing should be aimed at improving sports specific training.
A standard foundation of strength and conditioning for agonists (pulling muscles), antagonists (pushing muscles, and forearm extensors), legs, and core should be built on that.
Specific work such as hangboard, campus board, and system boards are after that to focus on specific weaknesses and bring up hand strength. Hand strength strongly correlates with climbing ability, based on various studies
Finally, energy system training is to maximize performance after all of those factors.

This type of pyramid progression — sports specific, strength and conditioning, isolation work, and energy system — works for most, if not all, sports and disciplines from novice to elite. This jives well from my experience, as it should. I had a solid strength base coming in which helped me improve very rapidly up to V6-7 range, but after that range I needed a lot more climbing specific isolation work.

Right now, I currently do a routine of 3x a week bouldering for 2-3 hours, 20-30 minutes hangboard, then brief strength workout 20-30 minutes. I find that works better than 4-5x a week for me, and I can do recovery work on the other days such as cardio if need be. Slightly different than last year. I’m trying to transition to what I said earlier about 3-4x a week about 1:30-2 hours building up to about 3 hours. With 2-3x a week hangboard and 1-2x minimalistic strength training since I’m already strong in the body.

2018 opinion — I still recommend the pyramid, but with a higher emphasis on the ground level. It is more important to train technique over anything else, especially when you can get good hand strength with technique. Replacing hangboard with traversing can be useful if you don’t do sport climbing and still be effective since you’re getting both technique practice and high volume forearm work for long term hypertrophy which helps with strength.

This overall means placing hangboard and other higher level things to a slightly lower level than I thought before, unless that is a specific weakness.

2019 opinion — Pretty much the same as 2018. Identify your weaknesses to see if you need to hangboard or not. I do not think it’s needed for everyone, especially beginners (<1 year of climbing). Even after 1 year it is not necessarily needed.

2022 opinion — Double down further on more climbing. Hangboard or no hang only if you REALLY need it. This is to say that you already tried “on the wall” ways to try to improve your finger strength in a multiple ways first. For example, climbing more crimpy climbs or more pinch climbs if you need more crimp and pinch strength respectively, trying traversing and doing a bunch more volume with crimps or pinches, and things like these.

My current opinion: Focus mainly onto techniques that can keep you on the wall that still work your weaknesses before you try to go to any other supplementing training methods. Hangboard, campus board, and system board and energy system training are good tools to use to break through plateaus in climbing. Likewise, they can be used concurrently with climbing and strength training to make continued progress without plateaus.

7. Various holds in hangboard

2017 opinion — I’ve experimented a lot with different holds for improvement in hand strength over the past 2 years, especially once I found that just climbing and strength training wasn’t working as well to improve my climbing ability.

What works: half crimp max weight, open hand crimp, minimum edge
What doesn’t work well: Slopers, pinches, repeaters (to an extent).

Let’s go over what doesn’t work well first.

I’ve found pinches to not work at all for me. On the Rock Climbing Training Hangboard (Anderson Brothers), I worked my way up from 0 lbs pinching to +40 lbs, with a 50 lbs hold thrown in as well. This did jack squat for improving my climbing ability. On the other hand, Reddit’s climbharder has had similar effects from different results. In general, they’ve found little to no improvement from cycle to cycle. You only see great improvement over the course of many cycles. My current theory on pinches is that they correlate to getting stronger in the upper body. The harder you can pinch is similar to how hard your co-contraction is in your forearm flexors/extensors and upper body such as biceps/triceps, shoulders. This would explain why newbies tend to get increased gains from doing pinch work, but those who have been climbing in the intermediate V5+ range don’t benefit as well if at all.
Holding slopers just does not work. It’s too dependent on humidity and skin friction to matter. They don’t even translate to the wall which sucks. That’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s a waste of time. Open hand hanging translates significantly better.
Max hangs are better than repeaters for hand strength. This should not be a surprise to anyone give that repeaters typically train more endurance than strength with shorter rest times. I don’t see a point to doing repeaters at all unless you’re a route climber.[1]

What works.

Half crimp max weight. Work by hanging weight off you and doing it on a hangboard or no hang devices such as the Grippul. Either seems fine from my experience, although no hangs have an easier set in my opinion. These get your hand strength up. There’s a range of about 1-2s to about 10s that you can work with as long as you get enough climbing + hangboard volume to improve. I usually do about 2-5 sets of 5-10 seconds.[1]
Open hand crimp is what slopers holds wish they trained. Open hand crimp builds finger strength in open hand and is less stressful on the connective tissues. Generally, you can do much more weight open hand when trained than half crimp. I’ve been working 3 finger open hand crimp on the RCT Anderson’s hangboard to solid effect. Down to 3 fingers on one hand with some added weight.
Minimum edge you may need to use a board like the Transgression board to get accurate sizing of holds to work systematically down with. Some larger gyms carry them in their training section (Earth Treks has some for example). Min edge seems to be mostly about training pain tolerance, distal interphalangeal joint (DIP joint) connective tissue integrity, and getting strong(er) on smaller holds. Generally speaking, if you’re in the V8+ range you’re going to encounter < 8mm crimps, so if you tend to work a lot of crimp problems then minimum edge training may not be necessary.

[1] Edit: I no longer do max hangs for 5-10s holds. I started doing an investigation of max hangs versus repeaters for strength and hypertrophy. I came to the conclusion that repeaters are superior in isolation, but max hangs can be effective with hard climbing in certain circumstances. Circumstantially, given that my current gym — after moving to CA from Earth Treks in MD — no longer has a lot of hard crimp climbs, repeaters are superior for strength and hypertrophy given my current situation. The volume with max hangs and half crimp work during a session must be practiced probably for 10-15 or maybe more climbs in order to get the volume along with max hangs to force adaptations. Initial tests (2 weeks of repeaters) have confirmed my hypothesis, but further testing is still needed. This is Steve Maisch’s current conclusion too (see above link).

I recently wrote this up on reddit on my switch in training philosophy from strict minimum edge training to minimum edge pulling. Previously, I had mainly been doing it for the pain tolerance as I didn’t really see that much carryover from it to being able to pull on smaller holds that well.

About a 3-4 weeks ago, I decided to try ~3ish sets of 3-5 pullups on minimum edge as my minimum edge training. I’ve seen a clearly improve difference in my ability to pull on smaller holds while still getting the pain tolerance training that the fingertips need to some extent. I’ve worked up from 3 sets of 3 pullups with no weight to +25 lbs for 3 sets of 5 reps on the small edge of the RPTC hangboard (trango) which is the 7.9mm. Joints were slightly sore for the first couple sessions, but have since not hurt at all during the training.

This makes logical sense to me since when I climb I don’t necessarily need to hang on the smallest hold. What limits me is going to be my ability to exert force off the smallest hold that my fingers can tolerate. One of my bigger weaknesses has always been terrible crimps, but I’ve noticed that I’m actually decent on terrible crimps now.

Anyway, just want to hear some different types of experiences to see if this has been the case for other people and/or if some other people may want to see if it benefits them better than straight minimum edge hangs.

2018 opinion — After experimenting a bit more and getting a larger volume of climbing, I think that the 3 grips are still the best bang for the buck.

Half crimp max weight
Open hand crimp (often 3 finger drag)
Minimal edge

As long as climbing volume is sufficient to continue to improve technique, you don’t need the repeaters volume. It would be better to do traverses instead of repeaters for more climbing focus hand endurance and hypertrophy. Extra volume that is needed on the FDS and FDP muscles can be replaced with finger rolls.

I do not currently hangboard at the moment, and I have been still making good progress in improving my ability to flash lower grades and send higher grades. I attribute this to these things:

3 finger open hand climbing for all warm ups up to about V4-5 indoors
Traversing to work endurance and hypertrophy while still getting climbing specific skills
Modifying my workout routine to work the specific weaknesses for the muscle groups while minimizing the amount that I do to improve recovery
5-10 climbs with closed crimp to work improving recruitment in those positions. This has been helping substantially compared to hangboarding because it’s more specific with climbing focus, and it’s lower volume so I don’t need to worry too much about overdoing the closed crimps to injury.

I still like hangboard and think it has a place, but it is unneeded at this point as my hand strength is still improving from other sources.

2019 opinion — I still think half crimp max weight, open hand, and minimal edge are the best 3 edges. The antagonist work from face pulls actually has significantly helped improve my grip strength, and I was up to 4-5s left arm and 7-8s right arm one arm hang on BM2k bottom rung before the pulley injuries. Working back up to that now.

2022 opinion — I’ve slightly changed my recommendations to half crimp, pockets, and minimal edge as the best 3 edges. 3 finger drag is fine until you can do 2 finger pockets at which time those are better. Still the focus should not be on hangboard but to work your weaknesses on the wall if possible.

My current opinion — Try to avoid hangboard as long as possible and work on various climbs that will improve the grips that you are weak with. 3 finger open climbing for warm-up has been extremely effective without actually having to train 3 finger open on hangboard. Similarly, moving from 3 finger open to 2 finger pockets you can do 2 fingers on jugs in warm ups.

Closed crimping starting on 2-3 climbs per session and building up to 3-5 climbs has been effective in gaining crimping strength without having to do it on hangboard. Finger rolls and traversing have been effective for forearm hypertrophy and thus strength without hanging to hangboard, and traversing is more effective for climbing.

If you are going to hangboard, open hand -> 2 finger pockets and half crimp are critical to train. Min edge has some use depending on various goals and climbs on the wall. Repeaters are superior to max hangs in isolation for strength and hypertrophy. Max hangs can be utilized effectively if you have hard crimp climbs during your training session to compensate for the lack of volume. Pinches, slopers, and other variants not mentioned do not seem to have as much use to them. YMMV. 3 main ones to train: half crimp repeaters, open hand -> 2 finger pickets, minimum edge holds or min edge pullups.

8. Scheduling sessions

2017 opinion — I’ve experimented with different scheduling sessions numerous times over the past couple years. What I’ve ended up as the “best fit” for me seems to be oriented around 3x a week scheduling.

2-3 hours of bouldering, 20-30 minutes of hangboard, 20-30 minutes of S&C

I’ve tried hangboard before climbing, but it doesn’t feel as good to me. Bouldering then S&C and hangboard or bouldering then handboard and S&C are similarly most effective. Overall, I’ve found that with my style of “grade chasing” that climbing more than 3-4x a week isn’t that good for me. If I were to climb 5+ times a week, then I would have to cut down my sessions to 1-2 hours to build up volume and potentially do some lighter sessions.

Scheduling in additional work such as hangboard and/or S&C work is also another potential factor. I know that some people like scheduling this on their off days, but I like scheduling it on the same day so I have about 48 hours between workouts. That has also seemed to work best for me, but I also know others who do workouts on their off days effectively.

I know several people who train days in a row or multiple days in a row, and their progress has been effective as well. However, for newer people, more than 3x per week seems to yield an increased incidence of overuse injuries.

2018 opinion — I think climbing more often with shorter sessions is more effective in the long run (building from 3x a week to 4-5x a week), but it needs to be balanced with adequate recovery to prevent overuse injuries. This gives each session a “fresher” way to work on technique. I still like the schedule, although it varies a bit depending on how you like to do things. Daniel Beall suggested hangboard before climbing.

Hangboard / Climb
Climb / Hangboard
Traverse, if any
Minimal strength training / finger rolls

2019 opinion — Find a schedule that works well for you. Personally, with my baby boy I can only climb about 3x per week for about 1.5-2ish hours + 20-30 mins of strength training after that. I can still make good progress on this schedule with minimizing the amount of strength training work I do to barely enough to progress.

I’ve been trending toward being more efficient in my workouts, and that can be emphasized by this article. Most people try to do as much volume as they can to progress, but this “maximal recoverable volume” actually probably leaves a bit of gains on the table. You want to to aim for the region of “minimal adaptive volume” to “optimal volume” as pushing toward the maximal recoverable volume puts you closer to overuse injuries. Rather slightly too little than slightly too much, and you can play around with the sets. I’ve been doing 1 heavy set on face pulls and 1 moderate to high rep set and I’m still progressing well for my main exercise in both scapular, posterior delt, and rotator cuff strength which has helped feel a lot more stable on the wall especially with any shouldery moves.

2022 opinion — You probably need less than you think you need. You should experiment with more and then experiment with less to see what works the best if you are beyond the beginner phase. Tweaked the current opinion below to reflect this.

My Current Opinion — Beginners should start out climbing 3x a week. Whether you incorporate S&C and hangboard on the same day is up to you. It can be trained effectively doing either. Adding more climbing days after your body has adapted to 3x a week may also be beneficial if programmed effectively, but sometimes so can dropping back to 2x per week. It really depends on the work capacity, capabilities, susceptibility to injuries, and scheduling of other activities whether or not to add extra climbing days and/or S&C and hangboard on certain days. This is where a solid coach may be useful to help a beginner progress effectively.

Obviously, as you become more experienced, you can experiment with more training days on. However, it needs to be well balanced in terms of recovery lest you develop overuse injuries.

In general, I would suggest someone experiments with more for a bit and then experiments with less for a bit. This will allow them to get a better gauge on whether they are already close to maximal adaptive volume or pushing lower or higher than it.

Added: If you have high recovery and want to experiment moving up to 4-5x a week training, you can and split the volume apart as necessary. For instance, if you do 3x a week for 2 hours that’s about 6 hours of volume per week. If you wanted to go to 4x a week, you should split the 6 hours of volume into 4 chunks of 1.5 hours. This allows you to spread out the volume which does not put a huge load on the body. Going from 3x for 2 hours to 4x for 2 hours is a 33% increase in volume which start to push out of the sweet spot of decreased injury risk up for acute:chronic workload ratio toward the danger zone. This is not taking into account the fact that there is less recovery with a back to back session which can be brutal on the fingers.

9. Summary and Recommendations

These are simply my thoughts based on my background of experience and experimentation.

Technique versus muscling climbs:

Double down on extreme technique practice. Given that I had the experience of going from V4 again to V8+ there are a lot more technique nuances than I thought given my hand strength was down but I could get a lot more climbs than I thought. Any climber in the V0-V10 range should be focusing on finding ways to initiate movement and weight shift with the feet, finding good body positions, and maintaining good tension while minimizing the pressure on the hands. Minimizing the pressure on the hands does not stop your hands from getting stronger because you will get more hand work as grades go up anyway.

My current opinion — Train technique from the beginning if possible for “optimal” results. For ~~“good” (2018)~~ “~~mediocre” (2019)~~ “poor or terrible” results, muscling through problems works but will definitely come back to haunt you later on even though it can be corrected. This usually requires years of focused training to improve technique to a higher level.

The most fundamental thing to keep in mind through at least V10+ is learning how to maximize the amount of pressure on the feet at all times and minimizing the pressure on the hands. Dragging, pulling in, weighting, rocking over, and finding the right pressure angles on the feet with the right body position are critical to do this.

The applicability of strength training and climbing schedules:

Focus on using strength training only as a tool to improve potential weaknesses. If you can get training on the wall to mimic gym training you should do that instead.

Strength may be a limiting factor in your training if you cannot lock off around V6-7. If you can do a one arm pullup, you are likely not strength limited until you can do at least V10+.

Adding days: Whenever you want to add an extra training day, take one day and split it in half or take the total volume of the week and divide it between the new days. For instance, 3x a week for 2.5 hours is 7.5 hours of training. If you are going to do 4 days, you can split this into 3 days of 2 hours and 1 day of 1.5 hours. This ensures that you are doing a similar amount of volume so as not to cause overuse injuries. Do not do two high intensity days in a row. Typically, do an intense day followed by a volume day or something similar.

Modulating sessions: Generally, understanding the concept of fatigue is important. Climbing past your ability to peak perform typically rapidly turns into junk volume. You’re at most getting marginally better adaptations to possibly none and negative adaptations as well as drastically increasing your chance for overuse injuries. Once you start losing the ability to perform optimally during a session either you need to terminate your sessions or be careful and focus on eking out better technical improvements as fatigue starts to mount.

Grade chasing versus grade completion:

Both grade chasing and being well rounded can work well because they fit different athlete’s various motivations. However, those whose nature is mainly to project can generally benefit a lot more from more volume work in their climbing. There probably is a ~~80/20 (2018)~~ ~~67/33 or 60/40 (2019)~~ 25-33% projecting and 67-75% volume split (possibly even 20-80% or more) where you will make the most improvement.

If you’re a grade chaser, spend at least 1 if not 2+ sessions a week working 1-3 attempts on flash level climbs up to climbs you can get in a session and focus on technique and minimizing pressure on the hands. If you can’t get it in 3 attempts just stop and don’t keep trying it because of ego. A dedicated month or two of volume climbing can be effective to break plateaus.
If you mainly do volume then you probably already have a good base and need to start projecting at least 1x a week and possibly up to 2 sometimes if it’s a severe weakness.

Projecting/limit moves/high intensity: Hard sessions should be trying really really really hard at your limit to make the hard moves. The top climbers have an inherent ability to try hard on almost every attempt. Don’t get frustrated and get sloppy on your attempts. Rest enough to be able to give full effort.

Volume/technique/moderate intensity: Volume sessions should generally be approximately at your flash level focusing on perfecting technique and getting in a variety of climbs. For example, if you project V9-V10 indoors you should be able to flash or few tries V6-8ish. Focus on doing climbs in this spread and give up to about 3 tries max. Don’t let your ego get to you and keep trying climbs you already finished even though you can’t get it one day.

The place of hangboard and similar implements in training:

Focus mainly onto techniques that can keep you on the wall that still work your weaknesses before you try to go to any other supplementing training methods. What I mean by this is if you’re having trouble with say strength endurance, extended traversing might be better than sitting around doing repeaters on the hangboard. You movements on actual climbing which can help build the grip endurance as opposed to just the pure grip work of hangboard.

Of course, hangboard, campus board, and system board and energy system training are good tools to use to break through plateaus in climbing. Likewise, they can be used concurrently with climbing and strength training to make continued progress without plateaus. Will Anglin’s Hangboarding: A Way goes into more detail about when and why these should be used and I generally agree with his conclusions.

Figuring out your specific weaknesses and if they need a pure targeted tool such as a hangboard or if they can be trained with climbing-like methods such as traversing is one of the keys to be efficient and optimized with your training.

Holds to train on hangboard:

Try to avoid hangboard as long as possible and work on various climbs that will improve the grips that you are weak with. 3 finger open climbing for warm-up has been extremely effective without actually having to train 3 finger open on hangboard. Similarly, moving from 3 finger open to 2 finger pockets you can do 2 fingers on jugs in warm ups.

Closed crimping starting on 2-3 climber per session and building up to 3-5 climbs has been effective in gaining crimping strength without having to do it on hangboard. Finger rolls and traversing have been effective for forearm hypertrophy and thus strength without hanging to hangboard, and traversing is more effective for climbing.

Half crimp > open hand & pockets = larger or smaller edges > pinches >> slopers. Full crimp can be added if you have a specific weakness in limited quantities and progressed slowly.

Scheduling Sessions:

Beginners should start out climbing 3x a week. Whether you incorporate S&C and hangboard on the same day is up to you. It can be trained effectively doing either. Adding more climbing days after your body has adapted to 3x a week may also be beneficial if programmed effectively, but sometimes so can dropping back to 2x per week. It really depends on the work capacity, capabilities, susceptibility to injuries, and scheduling of other activities whether or not to add extra climbing days and/or S&C and hangboard on certain days. This is where a solid coach may be useful to help a beginner progress effectively.

Obviously, as you become more experienced, you can experiment with more training days on. However, it needs to be well balanced in terms of recovery lest you develop overuse injuries.

10. Optimizing my own climbing routine

Interestingly, as I noted in the post already, I’ve moved back to 2x a week and made the most improvement in the past few months than I have in my whole time climbing. Right now I’m doing:

Moderately hard volume climbing on tension board 2x per week (Tu/F).
I’ve moved up from mid June to end Aug (V6-7 to V7-8) then mid-Sept to Nov (V7-8 to V8-9) or about 4 months. There was a couple weeks break in there because I started to do more gym climbing then stopped because it wasn’t as helpful. Also, when I say V6-7 that means I am doing some V6s and some V7s in a single session. V8-9 is doing 1-3 V9s and some V8s in a session. See progression below for more details.
October in particular I was able to put down ~30 easy V8s and ~10 hard V8s plus other V6-7. Started with 1-3 V8s in a session and built up to 7-10 per session over 8 total sessions which averages to ~5/session. Didn’t project any of the days that month. Early Nov I started trying some V9s and to my surprise I was able to get a few easier ones.

Sunday I leave open for some very light climbing with warmup up to about V6-7 and then call it quits to leave my fingers fresh for next moderately hard volume day OR I will just take it off climbing and do some very light tension block with < 50 lbs for half crimp. Warms up the fingers and work on mind-muscle connection without trying to produce either repeater or max hang type of adaptations.

Volume via incremental progress method (3 mo update Feb 1st 2023) – aim to do 5-10 climbs in a session):

At first mostly V6s with V7 here and there (June)
Balance of V6 and V7. Starting with V7 work and filling out with V6 near the end (Jul)
A couple V6 (as warmup) and most V7 (Early to Mid Aug)
All V7 (Late Aug to Early Sept)
Mostly V7 with V8 here and there (Mid to Late Sept)
Start with some V8s and fill out with some V7s at the end. (Late Sept to Early Oct)
Mostly V8s with couple V7. (Mid to Late Oct)
Mostly V8s (7B) with occasional hard V8 (7B+) or V9 (Nov to mid Jan)
Mainly Hard V8s (7B+), occasional V9, and fill rest with regular V8s (end of Jan)

Consistently in a session:

V6 –> V7 (June to Late Aug)
V7 –> easy V8/7B (Early Sept -> Early Nov)
easy V8/7B –> hard V8/7B+ (Early Nov -> Late Jan)
hard V8/7B+ –> V9/7C (Late Jan -> ???)
V9 –> V10 (??? -> ???)

Volume of climbs accumulation (Feb 1st 2023):

~105 easy V8 (7B)
~30 hard V8 (7B+)
~16 V9 (7C)
1 V10 (7C+) – Breakfast Scrambler 35 deg. Apparently egg pinches are my best hold?

One of my buddies who is around the same level as me just sent V10 again after 4-5 sessions outside, so we’re likely seeing improvement toward outdoor grades. Haven’t gotten outside much myself because of kids but am planning to get some sessions soon.

Aiming to hopefully start sending V9s in a session regularly by the March to May range, and perhaps V10s on the board somewhere in Fall to Winter. That should push my max grades outside from V10ish to V11-12 range I’m thinking.

Goals: Aiming to get outside some and hit up some V10 projects and hopefully push into V11 sometime next year. I expect once I can do V9-10s in a session I should be able to project some V11s and definitely get some V10s outside.

A typical climbing day will look somewhat like this:

Warm-up & light weakness work (10-15 minutes) — Typically, I climb at least 1-2 climbs all the way up to my volume or projecting days. V0, V1, V3, up to V7-8 currently in gym. During this I try to work on my weaknesses or get in some on the wall training to minimize hangboard work. For example, I don’t want to spend time on the hangboard for things like 2 finger pockets or smaller crimps, so I try to work in some training for these during this. The first V0-V2 climbs I will climb up with full hand or 3 finger but then I will downclimb or start doing some with 2 fingers so I get some free pocket work in. If there’s new sets on the gym walls I usually do some flash or pass.
Tension block (none) — If I was going to add some specific hand work I’d put it either before climbing if max hangs or after if repeaters. Haven’t had to do this for several months with consistent progress without it, so I’m happy I don’t have to waste recovery on this at the moment. Occasionally do some 2 finger pocket repeaters.
Climbing via volume and projecting (75-90 minutes) — Right now as I stated above I’m ONLY doing 2x a week moderately hard volume climbing on the Tension board on Tues/Fri. No projecting as it’s too hard on the fingers with sleep issues and kids. If you are doing 3x a week or more I’d generally split between volume and projecting as necessary to work on your weaknesses.
Modifications — If my fingers are feeling a bit overused I just use the Sunday day to do lighter climbing or just do some light tension block. If they are feeling very overused I can decrease the moderately hard volume sessions (V8-9s) down to V6-7s again for a session or two.
Training (15ish minutes 2ish times per week) — Right now I’m maintaining my abilities in legs, core, push, pull with 1-2 sets about 1-2x a week of weighted pistols, reverse hypers, dips, and high pulls or one arm chins. Only exercise I’m aiming to improve on is 2x a week 2-3 sets of face pulls focusing on power and not maxing reps. This can change if I stall with mostly just climbing, but since I’m still making really good improvements I don’t need to change much here.

As you can see, there are a bunch of built in mechanisms to identify and work on specific weaknesses that I have while coming back. Tension board climbing for me — no moon or kilter, and I don’t like our system board — seems to be the best bet for continual improvement at the moment. I tried mostly gym climbing from April-ish 2021 to Summer-ish 2022 and that only got me back to around V8-9 in gym and about V6-7ish tension board and the consistency of improvement was fairly slow with too many bouts of finger overuse.

Dropping down to 2x a week with all of the recovery factors and my age seems to be the best so far, so we’ll stick with it for the time being. Others may find they can climb more and improve effectively, but given how more is not always better I would encourage experimenting with less to see if you get better progress. A lot of times that can be the case.

Pros who use this method

Went back over a Steve Maisch Nugget Podcast and found he recommend pretty much something extremely similar.
CFmacc on climbharder said John Glassberg also uses Steve Maisch’s general plan on his 2nd part of the Nugget Podcast

11. Compilation of climbing injury rehab articles

In one recent injury post, I realized I didn’t have a complete list for the stuff I’ve written on this site. Since this is my comprehensive climbing article I usually do every year I will link them here.

Injured pulleys (lumbricals can use the same method, just do open hand and pockets).
Tendonitis / Tendinopathy (golfer’s, tennis, patellar, rotator cuff, Achilles, etc)
Muscle strains
PIP synovitis / synovitis generally
General treatment of climbing injuries
Acute vs chronic pain issues
Cracking, popping, clicking joints
Simple back pain exercises one and two, more complex & severe back pain
Postural cue for back and neck soreness or tightness

I will produce more over time.

If I missed any categories in this article, I will add them later on.

Questions about this article may be addressed to:

Author: Steven Low

Steven Low is the author of Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength (Second Edition), Overcoming Poor Posture, Overcoming Tendonitis, and Overcoming Gravity Advanced Programming. He is a former gymnast who has performed with and coached the exhibitional gymnastics troupe, Gymkana. Steven has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland College Park, and his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from the University of Maryland Baltimore. Steven is a Senior trainer for Dragon Door’s Progressive Calisthenics Certification (PCC). He has also spent thousands of hours independently researching the scientific foundations of health, fitness and nutrition and is able to provide many insights into practical care for injuries. His training is varied and intense with a focus on gymnastics, parkour, rock climbing, and sprinting. Digital copies of the books are available in the store.