Pull-up bar-mountable hangboards?

While I’m at college, I unfortunately don’t have access to a hangboard I can do max hangs on. I’m lucky enough to have a gym on campus that I can climb at with bouldering up to V5 and stuff on ropes up to 5.12. However, I feel that my fingers generally just get weaker while I’m here. I’m hoping to whip myself into shape before it’s warm enough to go outside, starting with finger power. Does anyone know of a hangboard that can be somehow attached to a gym’s pull-up bar? The weight room next door has a couple pull-up bars but I have no board strong enough to do max hangs on. Any suggestions? 

Rock rings? 

I mounted a hanging board to one of the cheap pull-up bars that locks on a door frame by chopping off the pull-up bar handles that stuck straight out inserting wooden dowels into the hollow aluminum tubes and mounting the block of wood that hang board was connected to the wooden dowels inside the tubes of the door frame mounted pull up bar.

This allowed the wood that the hangboard was connected to to sit flush with the door frame hanging down from the pull up bars. The downside is that it is a head knocking Hazard as you lose six to eight inches from the height of the doorway, depending on what style of hangboard you have.

A while back I followed what this guy did but found that the extra leverage it put on the cheap aluminum pull up bar was enough to bend it.

A method I used for several years was to use a Flash Board, but instead of attaching it to the gym pull-up bar, I attached it to the last pull down cable machine. By unclipping the usual bar from the machine and clipping in my flash board to the cable loops. Have to set up the cord length on the flash board so the reach/ergonomics are right. I would do reps by setting a weight that I'd lift by just an inch, hold it for the usual 7 second rep, then set it back down, repeat.  

To summarize: you are not hanging, but lifting and holding a weight from a seated position on the lat pull down machine. Using the typical edge holds on the flash board.

This worked out great, I thought. Good ergonomics, super easy to adjust weight, easy to set up, engages the fingers/arm/shoulder in a climbing specific manner.  It's especially good for working smaller holds or weak grips, since you can easily set a very light weight to work from (more convenient than a hangboard pulley arrangement).

For hone use, of course just stick with a regular hangboard. But if using a campus or office gym that has cable machines, this works well.

Andrew R wrote:

A while back I followed what this guy did but found that the extra leverage it put on the cheap aluminum pull up bar was enough to bend it.

This is a bit of a tangent from the OP question about the university gym, but if we're talking about attaching a hangboard to a door mount pull-up bar - this is my setup. Been using it for apartment-life hangboarding. It is surprisingly adequate. It's a bit lower than ideal hangboard height, so you're hanging with knees bent. Good enough for my purposes though, and minimal assembly. Less leverage on the bar since the board hangs closer to the door frame.

This is what I use at home. Find a 2x8 piece of lumber and cut it just wider than your door frame. Screw 5-7 bike mounting hooks into the wood and then mount the hangboard to the wood. Whole set up costs like $30 including the pull up bar. You can add some of those wool sticky pads people put under chair legs on the back of the wood to avoid scratching up your door frame.

JCM wrote:

This is a bit of a tangent from the OP question about the university gym, but if we're talking about attaching a hangboard to a door mount pull-up bar - this is my setup. Been using it for apartment-life hangboarding. It is surprisingly adequate. It's a bit lower than ideal hangboard height, so you're hanging with knees bent. Good enough for my purposes though, and minimal assembly. Less leverage on the bar since the board hangs closer to the door frame.

Are you able to do max hangs on a flash board? I would do that but I’m worried I’d snap my board in half…

Chronically Injured wrote:

Are you able to do max hangs on a flash board? I would do that but I’m worried I’d snap my board in half…

The flash board feels pretty sturdy. Sure seems like my fingers would break long before the board does. 

I wouldn't say the same of the doorway pull-up bar. I wouldn't want to load that much more than body weight. Definitely a scenario to go to smaller edges, or band assisted 1 arm hangs, rather than loading heavy 2 arm hangs.

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Another solution not yet mentioned here for your university gym situation is to get a Tension Block and a loading pin. Then you can just load it up with weight plates at the gym and do no-hangs (where you pick up the weight off the floor). This is a very effective and controlled way to build finger strength in a gym without a hangboard.

Andrew R wrote:

A while back I followed what this guy did but found that the extra leverage it put on the cheap aluminum pull up bar was enough to bend it.

I made this using my board. it works well, but I did have to shim a little behind the board to get it to hang plumb.   ive used it for about 6 months with no problems now.