It is commonly understood that hangboarding is the best method for improving finger strength. However, if you are in a bind and have enough motivation, hangboards can be used to train everything from power endurance to full on route endurance. Hangboarding for endurance may not be the most exciting form of training, but, if done properly, it can be just as effective as even the best route gyms.
To help you understand how hangboarding for endurance works, here’s an article from Rock and Ice by coach and trainer Neil Gresham. In it, he lays out different fingerboard protocols that will help you target different facets of climbing endurance and goes on to cover exactly how you can progress the difficulty of these workouts as your endurance improves.
“For training endurance, climbing gyms are the default setting. The standard procedures of lapping routes or circuits will always deliver the pump, increasing your stamina.”
“But what if you can’t get to a gym and need to up your endurance for a trip or project? If you’ve been in this situation and dismissed hangboards as only useful for training power, think again! It is possible to show up at Rodellar or Kalymnos with killer endurance, despite not having worn your rock shoes in weeks or months.” – Neil Gresham
Types of Hangboarding for Endurance:
To make hangboarding for endurance easier to follow, Gresham splits this training into two categories:
- Strength-endurance
- Long endurance
For strength endurance, Gresham recommends a variation of the classic deadhang repeater workout. Essentially, the workout is the same as standard repeaters, but Gresham recommends keeping the intensity slightly lower and going for more volume.
To train long endurance on a hangboard, Gresham prescribes a variation of foot-on campusing. For this workout, you need to have you feet on some small foot jibs or the edge of a door frame and you simply move between the various holds on the hangboard as if you were climbing. While this certainly will not be as exciting as doing laps on well set routes at the gym, it will definitely produce a debilitating pump and, if done consistently, will lead to some major endurance gains.
Click through below to read the full article. Both of these workouts are outlined in greater detail and Gresham describes exactly how the difficulty of each one should be progressed as you improve.
Full Article: Hangboarding for Endurance
(photo courtesy of rockandice.com)
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