Hangboarding or Grip Trainers

What are opinions or preferences about these? One or the other? Both?

Pretty well established that hangboarding is way better from a training standpoint however grip trainers can be good for warmup and injury rehab.

Imagine that a grip trainier could help if you are very new to climbing but if you are already a decent climber a hangboard provides much more specific training.

Always been curious to know if grip trainers are a complete waste of time or if they are better than nothing but still inferior to hangboards.

I spend a lot of time on the road in hotels not climbing for a week or so and a grip trainer could be better than nothing if I’m in a room working on a computer and not wanting to do the door frame hang thing. 

wisam wrote: Always been curious to know if grip trainers are a complete waste of time or if they are better than nothing but still inferior to hangboards.

 

They're not a complete waste of time, but are still inferior to hangboards.  The specificity that one gets from actually hanging and engaging the small muscle groups and connective tissues is vastly different than squeezing something in order to increase grip strength.  Yes, they both work the forearms, but in different ways.  Hangboards mimic as close as possible how one would employ those muscle groups when climbing, grip trainers, though engaging the same muscle groups, don't engage all the muscle groups and don't do so in a way that mimics climbing.

I've had the most gain out of hangboarding than any other workout. Hangboarding I think is more of an intermediate trainer. No one new to climbing should jump strait into hangboarding. The issue is that your muscles grow faster than your tendons, thus resulting in finger injury when doing advanced hangboard holds when your fingers are not ready. A proper hangboard workout will do more than any other finger trainer. Also, fingerboards can be great for rehab if done proparly, BD has a great article about Hangboard PT.

I find grip trainers for the most part are a waste of time, with a few exceptions.
The only grip trainers I think are worthy is a rice bucket and the dynaflex powerball. Try to hold onto a powerball at 15,000+ rpm for 5 min.