Alex Honnold’s Hangboard Routine

https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/experience-story?cid=alex-honnold-freerider-hangboard-workout

One particularly funny moment in Free Solo was when, after soloing El Cap, Alex’s way of “celebrating” was to go hangboard.  I remembered wondering why the hell he would be hangboarding when he’s doing enduro soloing, but his explanation in this article actually made a lot of sense.  TL;DR: Alex does it to stay strong while he focuses on climbs that are relatively easy for him (Freerider) and also so that the few parts that are fingery (mostly the boulder problem) feel easy.

This got me wondering about my own experiences.  I tend to occilate between bouldering and lead and often find it hard to maintain either my endurance while I’m bouldering or my strength/power while I’m focusing on ropes, especially in the beginning when I’m going for volume.  Fitting in a hangboarding session during volume training is hard, as I would just be climbing on those days, but doing it after a long volume session (assuming sub-maximal climbing without stressing the tendons too much) might not be a bad idea IF done carefully.  

Obviously, I’m not Alex Honnold, so overuse injury would be the biggest concern and every other day would probably be too much (I also don’t do such long HB sessions).  Has anyone tried this?  Thoughts/fears/trolling?

Ted, how long are your boulder blocks and ropes blocks?
 

Eva Lopez is the most prominent researcher in this field and had this to say on a recent podcast https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2019/1/10/episode-118-the-best-hangboard-protocol-with-eva-lopez (clickbait title is a joke). Her position seems to be that hanging can be built into various phases of training, and that structural work is best during lower intensity micro cycles while nervous system changes are best sought during strength and power micro cycles. There is more info in the podcast regarding how to fit it into a given training session. I encourage you to listen to her. She also advocates using a minimum effective dose based approach, so start light. As you alluded, you (we) are not Alex Honnold. I read the five minute fingers article and do not think it’s useful. 

Albert B wrote: Ted, how long are your boulder blocks and ropes blocks?
 

Usually boulder between 1.5 (high intensity, working a project that powers me out) to 3 hrs (“volume” bouldering, focusing on easier onsights).  Lead 2-4 hrs.  Basically: what I can fit in after my daughter goes to bed and still get some semblance of sleep before waking up at 5:30.

Jon Frisby wrote: Eva Lopez is the most prominent researcher in this field 

Which does not mean she's right -- since it's almost impossible to carefully prove anything about this with well-controlled studies. And her approach to hangboarding (and her sponsored board) is very different from Alex Honnold's routine and his beastmaker board.
. . . (and Adam Ondra is on record as saying that he just doesn't find hangboarding effective at all for his climbing style).

Anyway the strategy of taking time to keep on training critical long-term stuff not relevant to current climbing surely makes sense.
Been doing it for lots of years.

Since I love multiple sports (especially ski mountaineering and and long easy solo climbing and route Development) in addition to Sport climbing, I surely do hard finger-training routines so I don't lose critical strength for peak sport climbing. I also do two special flexibility exercises and another special strength exercise.

Also when I'm in a season focusing on Sport clmibing, I do special exercises to maintain key strengths for ski mountaineering and route development -- but one result is that I'm always carrying a little extra muscle mass not relevant to sport climbing (and so hindering my max performance).

Ken

kenr wrote:

Which does not mean she's right -- since it's almost impossible to carefully prove anything about this with well-controlled studies. And her approach to hangboarding (and her sponsored board) is very different from Alex Honnold's routine and his beastmaker board.
. . . (and Adam Ondra is on record as saying that he just doesn't find hangboarding effective at all for his climbing style).

Anyway the strategy of taking time to keep on training critical long-term stuff not relevant to current climbing surely makes sense.
Been doing it for lots of years.

Since I love multiple sports (especially ski mountaineering and and long easy solo climbing and route Development) in addition to Sport climbing, I surely do hard finger-training routines so I don't lose critical strength for peak sport climbing. I also do two special flexibility exercises and another special strength exercise.

Also when I'm in a season focusing on Sport clmibing, I do special exercises to maintain key strengths for ski mountaineering and route development -- but one result is that I'm always carrying a little extra muscle mass not relevant to sport climbing (and so hindering my max performance).

Ken

FWIW Eva basically says (in that podcast linked above) that people misinterpret her research and emphasized that you need to do what makes sense for the goals, time of the year, and type of person you are. There is no one solution that works for everyone all the time. 

I am a huge proponent to hangboarding. There are a lot of misconceptions about it, if done right it can yield huge gains. I use it for warming up before climbing, training, finger recovery and PT.

Beastmaker training program
https://www.climbingworks.com/files/public/Training_Articles/beastmaker_fingerboard_article.pdf

Fingerboarding for shoulder recovery
https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/experience-story?cid=esther-smith-shoulder-maintenance-for-climbers

Fingerboarding for finger recovery
https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/experience-story?cid=esther-smith-nagging-finger-injuries

Gabe B. wrote: Eva Lopez basically says that people misinterpret her research and emphasized that you need to do what makes sense for the goals, time of the year, and type of person you are.

Sounds like Alex Honnold agrees with that message, since his routine and choice of hangboard are completely different from her recommendations.

I do think Eva Lopez has done a reasonable job of assembling what scientific research there is for climbing-specific training (given its limited quality), and then makes not-unreasonable extrapolations from it based on training principles which she has borrowed from other sports, whose relevance to climbing is _not_ scientifically demonstrated.

Myself I'd rather get my advice from Dave MacLeod, who acknowledges the severe limitations of "scientific" research on climbing training from the start, then offers his best recommendations with careful reasoning -- which I normally find myself agreeing with once I've read it and thought about it.
Much simpler is Dave MacLeod's masterly video on fingerboard training.
. . . (which explains early why Alex Honnold's routine is not likely best for most climbers).

Ken

The best hangboard routine.......The one you will stick with consistently and have some form of measurable progressive overload, while not getting injured.  Repeaters, max hangs, one arm hangs, tiny edges, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 7 seconds, etc don't matter if you don't stick with it enough to see some results, and you don't have a way to make it harder in some fashion.

Eric Carlos wrote: The best hangboard routine.......The one you will stick with consistently and have some form of measurable progressive overload, while not getting injured.

^ . . . . . . . . . . . . ^
| . Exactly right . |

Actually my view is that isometric static hanging (of any kind) is surely not the optimal way to train finger strength for climbing -- provided you have access to a well-designed climbing-specific dedicated facility. 

But intensity load no fingers are tricky to perform (non-static) concentric/eccentric contractions in a reliably measurable way. And I do not have regular access to a dedicated training facility. So I choose the non-optimal strategy of regular hangboard training because it's just the simple way to fit "measurable progressive overload" into my complicated busy lifestyle.

Ken

What exactly do you envision as a perfect “training facility”?  A climbing gym?  Bouldering wall?  System/moon/campus board?  The reason I ask is that it’s rare/hard to get that progressive overload that you describe with regular climbing.  Even bouldering, you’ll fall for a variety of reasons (body/foot positioning, contact strength, etc).

I found this helpful: http://stevenlow.org/my-5-year-self-assessment-of-climbing-strength-training-and-hangboard/

MacLeod's video that Ken referenced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeKE5VH5-qg

kenr wrote:

Which does not mean she's right -- since it's almost impossible to carefully prove anything about this with well-controlled studies. And her approach to hangboarding (and her sponsored board) is very different from Alex Honnold's routine and his beastmaker board.
. . . (and Adam Ondra is on record as saying that he just doesn't find hangboarding effective at all for his climbing style).

Anyway the strategy of taking time to keep on training critical long-term stuff not relevant to current climbing surely makes sense.
Been doing it for lots of years.

Since I love multiple sports (especially ski mountaineering and and long easy solo climbing and route Development) in addition to Sport climbing, I surely do hard finger-training routines so I don't lose critical strength for peak sport climbing. I also do two special flexibility exercises and another special strength exercise.

Also when I'm in a season focusing on Sport clmibing, I do special exercises to maintain key strengths for ski mountaineering and route development -- but one result is that I'm always carrying a little extra muscle mass not relevant to sport climbing (and so hindering my max performance).

Ken

kenr wrote:

Which does not mean she's right -- since it's almost impossible to carefully prove anything about this with well-controlled studies. And her approach to hangboarding (and her sponsored board) is very different from Alex Honnold's routine and his beastmaker board.
. . . (and Adam Ondra is on record as saying that he just doesn't find hangboarding effective at all for his climbing style).

Anyway the strategy of taking time to keep on training critical long-term stuff not relevant to current climbing surely makes sense.
Been doing it for lots of years.

Since I love multiple sports (especially ski mountaineering and and long easy solo climbing and route Development) in addition to Sport climbing, I surely do hard finger-training routines so I don't lose critical strength for peak sport climbing. I also do two special flexibility exercises and another special strength exercise.

Also when I'm in a season focusing on Sport clmibing, I do special exercises to maintain key strengths for ski mountaineering and route development -- but one result is that I'm always carrying a little extra muscle mass not relevant to sport climbing (and so hindering my max performance).

Ken

Any chance you could share these?

" I also do two special flexibility exercises and another special strength exercise."

I think Eric Carlos is right on.

But Tim, respectfully, with the level at which you are climbing based on your ticks, hang boarding might not be the most efficient use of limited training time. Focused movement practice and mental/tactical improvement will likely be the best bang for your buck at the 5.10- level.

This is actually harder/more involved to do than just follow a protocol to hang on a board in an organized fashion, but won't zap your recovery, and once you find some drills you like it'll take less time too.

I'm hardly the strongest person on this thread but I wish I had focused on technique more when I first started climbing, and likely still have a lot of movement efficiency /coordination gains I can make, as someone climbing on easy to mid 5.12 terrain when I sport climb.

For example, if you're over gripping holds or climbing super slow because you are scared on lead (like me haha ;)), no amount of hang boarding will help, you'll just be gripping the shit out of the holds and getting pumped!

Did you mean me (Ted)?  Tim doesn’t have any ticks listed so I assumed as much.  I would also be careful reading too much into recent ticks if that’s where you got the “10-“ thing, as my most recent trip was in pretty wet & frigid conditions (we got snowed on) so I was taking it easy.  Jackson Falls is also pretty sandbagged.  FWIW I generally climb in the low to mid 11s and am trying to break into 12s, so finger strength is beginning to become a limiting factor, although my biggest problem right now is power endurance (I generally boulder around V4/V5 and can do all of the moves on 11+/12- but have trouble linking them).

Yeah sorry I meant Ted. And no I didn't dig too deep in your profile just looked at the most recent. But in general I'm starting to think about movement efficiency as pretty freaking important... And if you boulder v5 you have the strength to climb 12c at many areas

Ted Pinson wrote: Did you mean me (Ted)?  Tim doesn’t have any ticks listed so I assumed as much.  I would also be careful reading too much into recent ticks if that’s where you got the “10-“ thing, as my most recent trip was in pretty wet & frigid conditions (we got snowed on) so I was taking it easy.  Jackson Falls is also pretty sandbagged.  FWIW I generally climb in the low to mid 11s and am trying to break into 12s, so finger strength is beginning to become a limiting factor, although my biggest problem right now is power endurance (I generally boulder around V4/V5 and can do all of the moves on 11+/12- but have trouble linking them).

A misconception many intermediate climbers make is feeling that power endurance(Lactic Anaerobic) is the weakness.  I personally sent my first 12d before sending V6 outside, and only had one V5 and a handful of V4's.  PE is also the hardest to work while also trying to improve the other two energy systems - strength/power (Alactic Anaerobic) and endurance (aerobic).  Where as is is much easier and many times more productive to work Power to pull up your anaerobic threshold from the top, and aerobic capacity to push it up from the bottom.   Being able to do hard moves(alactic anaerobic), and then recover your energy(aerobic capacity) to do more hard moves will further your ability at this stage in the game. 

Even at the RRG, which I see on your profile, there is very little PE on most routes, because most routes in the grades you are targeting have rest holds, if you have developed the ability to recover.  Take for instance Manifest Destiny 11d, a short powerful section for the first couple bolts(AA), jug shake(A), couple more tough-ish moves(AA) to the ledge(A).  Then you enter the crux moves at the mini-roof(AA) then pretty much giant jugs to the anchors (A).  

That’s a really good point, Eric.  My problem is maintaining my strength/power while training endurance and vice versa, which was why this idea sounded appealing.  So, if I’m bouldering a lot and get my power up, I can do V4/V5 moves, but my endurance sucks and I pump out OR my lead head starts to suck and I take prematurely.  I also find it harder to get it back, even on a jug.  If I’m focusing on ropes my endurance and head get better, but lose strength/power, etc.

So you’re saying ideally you would mostly focus on strength/power while also training recovery?

Ted Pinson wrote: That’s a really good point, Eric.  My problem is maintaining my strength/power while training endurance and vice versa, which was why this idea sounded appealing.  So, if I’m bouldering a lot and get my power up, I can do V4/V5 moves, but my endurance sucks and I pump out OR my lead head starts to suck and I take prematurely.  I also find it harder to get it back, even on a jug.  If I’m focusing on ropes my endurance and head get better, but lose strength/power, etc.

So you’re saying ideally you would mostly focus on strength/power while also training recovery?

I am saying work strength/power and much lower endurance, more of a High/Low style of training.  The key is the low needs to be low enough to almost be a recovery day.  For me, that is routes in the 11 range at a gym, or more importantly time on the wall, ARC style training.  That will build your ability to recover.  Lactic anaerobic training will not help you recover.  It will help climbing while pumped out of your mind, but if you don't have proper capillary density to get the H+ ions and lactate out of your forearms, you are actually reducing your recoverability.  Alternate between Maximum intensity days such as hangboard or limit bouldering and much lower intensity days such as time on the wall or mileage of routes a couple grades below your consistent onsight level.  Give it three weeks and you will notice a difference.