Hangboard protocol when not climbing at all due to injury

Hello. I’m currently unable to climb for the upcoming few months due to a surgery I just had on my ankle. Fortunately I’ve recovered enough to start hangboarding and am a couple weeks into that. I’ve never had a cycle before where I’ve been doing absolutely no climbing so I’m curious the best way to maximize this time. Would it make most sense for me to focus on one type of hang (max hang vs repeaters) at a time or since I’ll have so much extra capacity from not climbing that I should work both but different days. I’ve been hedging these first few weeks by following the 7:53 protocol basically every other day. Pre surgery o would have been able to do 2 days a week of these hangs on top of a few days of climbing. Since I’m not climbing and the overall volume is low I was debating switching to one day max hang, day repeaters 2 repeaters followed by a rest day or two. I’m a few months away from being able to climb again so hit me with any other ideas you have. I am a sport and trad climber so would like to not lose all my endurance and power endurance as well. 

TLDR: I’m really interested in this as well. I injured my ankle last week and will be having surgery next week.  In addition, I have some experience from a previous leg injury  

Believe it or not, I actually broke my tib/fib in March of 2023, so I have some experience to add. It was a few weeks before I felt I could get any routine. But I ultimately settled in to a 4 day cycle.

1. hangboard repeaters.  A little warm up and then three sets of 6x (7 sec on 3 off).  This was my standard routine before the injury but I was doing it once a week instead of once every four days.
2. Weights. Only upper body (lol) but I would do as much as I could. I had access to a rack and I think my routine was bench, pull up, shoulder press, bicep curl, Tricep extension.
3. core. I think I would watch some Pilates video. Not too much going on here
4. rest.

It was difficult at times to stick to. So definitely listen to your body.  The other side of that advice is that any form of exercise or activity helped immensely with the mental challenges presented by recovering from an injury.

I had troubles coming back the first time and re-aggregated the injury.  During the second recovery period, I focused on lifting more and really training my legs (obviously this was far from the surgery so I could do this).  In addition, I kept hangboarding at a similar cadence (every four days). When I came back, my fingers were solid, my body was strong, and I could boulder pretty similarly to where I was before the injury in a jiffy.  The power endurance (ropes) took longer but came back too.  

In retrospect, I actually think I could’ve hammered the fingers much more.  This is complete bro-science, but they just seem like such a small part of the body. I would worry about maxing the larger muscle groups of the upper body and taking away energy the body would need to heal.

The other retrospect, and it’s not really related to your question, but I would be conservative with your injury upon returning.  My reinjury didn’t happen in a fall, I was in an awkward position and pushed enough to cause it to re-injure. I spent a lot more time bulletproofing my leg for the next return and it paid off.

Best of luck in your recovery!

Thanks for the advice. I agree that hangboarding doesn’t feel too taxing. The first week I was feeling up to it I also tried working in some more activity like one leg rowing machine, bench press, single leg press and weighted pull ups. After 2 sessions I quickly saw the pattern of how it was way too much  for my body at this point and my ankle would hurt way more and my sleep would be way worse in the following days. My current routine is doing 30 mins of light mobility and stretching on the ground every morning. I’m trying to listen to my body more so that might be it for the day. If I’m feeling better I’ll add in an abs video and/or pushup. I’m hang days I’ve been doing 7:53s 6 reps on half crimp and 3fd. If I feel really good I’ll add in pull-ups after. The hangboarding doesn’t take much out of me at all so  at the very least hopefully I come back with strong fingers

Out of curiosity, how long was it before you were climbing again? And did you experiment at all with climbing one footed or even foot on the ground traversing? I’m 5 weeks post op and still not really weight bearing at all but obviously thinking of how to get back to it soonest, keeping in mind not rushing it. 

TL DR: 12 weeks initially, that was way too soon   Then after re-injuring i waited 16 weeks and that was great   No one legged climbing to report on.

I like the idea of checking in with my body every morning, that is a good way to not get ahead of myself with too grand of plans. Sleeping and healing and getting back to it are priority number 1 for sure!

I initially came back at about the 12 week mark.  I was honestly still having trouble walking (and really couldnt walk downhill).  Some mellower top roping was awesome, and I slowly worked my way back to climbing more and more. The climbing started to cut into the rehab, but at about the 20 week mark I decided to lead again. I knew falling was ill advised to say the least, so was really sewing it up and climbing conservatively. Then, I was in a pistol squat position on the bad leg and tried to just stand up. It gave out and I the doctors told me to basically start over.

This second incident wasn't anywhere near as bad as the first, but I waited longer, 16 weeks from the reinjury in total, before I climbed again.  I was putting all my energy towards legs. Squats, deads, a ton of calves and anterior tibialis stuff. Plus single leg versions of everything to get that bad leg up to speed. At that 16 week point, I really had no problem climbing, I felt awesome.  I still waited a while to lead, probably to the 22 week mark or so. I actually remember being very mentally fatigued by the exposure on the first climb (center route on cynical pinnacle). 

I personally didn't do any one legged climbing, I think the main thing was that it just felt like I wouldn't be able to do it 100%, and being an all-or-nothing person I chose nothing., But, I am keeping it on the table for this time because I have read here that it helps a ton with learning flagging. And just going to the gym with a friend would be a great change of pace. 

I think the story I outlined above has serious undertones of "don't climb soon at all! Wait extra time". But, I think it is more important to not push too hard when coming back and to prioritize rehab over climbing. If you can maintain those things, then climb away! 

 Similar thing just had ankle surgery a week ago will be non weight-bearing for 6-8weeks. feeling pretty good at the moment and am gonna start hangboarding and lifting in the next few days but I was curious if anyone has beta on diet or stretching/mobility stuff that they thought helped with recovery. good luck with your recovery Daniel!

What surgery/injury did you have? I’m at week 6 and would just advise not to do too much too early, granted your surgery and recovery could be totally different from mine. I started working out as soon as I started feeling good but that quickly had me not feeling so good again. Or at least be prepared mentally for that because it was tough mentally for me to go from feeling great to no great anymore.

To answer your question more directly, I still can’t do any ankle specific mobility except a few times a day I’m tracing the alphabet with my foot. At first o could barely move it. It’s amazing how much more range of motion I get every time I do it. My dr had me start doing this 2 weeks after surgery. As for the rest of my body, lots of stretches are hard in the boot but I’m finding a lot doable. My starting place was this video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rXMYfibgeCE&pp=ygUTQnJva2VuIGZvb3Qgd29ya291dA%3D%3D. It’s not amazing but helped give me a bit of inspiration. Now i do about half of it as a warm up. Then more 90-90 position hip stuff, fire hydrants, cat/cow, child’s pose up dog, etc. then I do longer static stretches focused more on frog pose and pancake, both are doable in the boot. Push ups are fine if you can hold your other leg in the air. Pull ups too. At first I couldn’t keep my foot down for too long but found some on the ground ab videos on YouTube which are very hard with a boot on. Now I’m just doing leg lifts from a pull up bar.

Diet wise, I am no expert but my doctor advised me to eat a lot of protein for the healing and have generally just been try to eat as healthy as possible while I’m recovering. At first I was still eating a lot but now a couple months into low activity, my metabolism seems to have slowed down and I’m definitely eating less. Adding in shakes at breakfast to make sure I’m getting enough protein. 

Fractured medial malleolus and some ligament damage on the other side. ended up w 5 screws and a plate. only a week post op now but have had very little pain. thanks for the suggestions will definetly do the alphabet thing once im a little further along

Different surgery from me so anything I said may not apply to you. Good luck with your recovery and hopefully someone weighs in on hangboarding protocols. 

I sprained my ankle badly enough in a bouldering fall that I was out of climbing for around 6 weeks. During that time I hangboarded three times a week

Day 1
20 sec hang 3 minutes off 5 reps 1 set half crimp 1 set open hand decreasing edge size each week (I used the rock prodigy hangboard and just slid down the rails. The eva lopez board would be perfect for this if you're stronger than me)

bench press during rest period half crimp

OHP during rest period open hand crimp

Day 2

7 sec on 53 sec of half crimp 20mm beastmaker 1000 edge + 20lb starting at 4 reps increasing 1 rep each week

7 sec on 53 sec of open hand 20mm beastmaker 1000 edge  starting at 4 reps increasing 1 rep each week

Day 3

Max hang attempts

7 sec on 3 min off 20mm beastmaker 1000 edge starting at +10 going up to whatever I could half crimp and open hand

bench and ohp during the rest periods

I had a similar 3 day cycle for pullups where I did volume, max weight, and assisted one arm scaffolds. followed by core work, farmer carries when I could start walking, and deadlifts when I could do that.

Came out of the ankle injury sending my hardest. My fingers felt crazy strong and I saw a lot of progress in the numbers I was putting up for weighted hangs and weighted pullups. I think the key is varying the load between volume/repeaters/max hangs enough so that you can keep making progress. Once I was back to climbing I went to just the volume hangs as I feel like that's the most adaptation for the least pully injury potential but I am pulling that out of thin air.

Jacob, Were you giving 100% effort on all the different finger training variations? Or was the RPE of the 20 sec hangs less than that of the the max hangs?

I'd quit if my form broke. So I'd say I gave 100% I could while maintaining good form but I definitely could have kept myself attached to the board for a few more seconds here or there if I was willing to really knuckle down. Hard to say about the RPE because the sensation was pretty different. I felt the max hangs and repeaters more in my fingers and more of a big pump in the forearm for the longer 20 second holds. If you accept that strength workouts in any domain exist on a continuum between building muscle and neuro-musular adaptation I think these three workouts were across that spectrum and so trying hard felt pretty different for each. It could be that only one or the other was really effective though. It was kind of a bizarre period for me because typically handboarding is an accessory to whatever climbing I'm doing and this was the first time I've treated it as the main event.

Gotcha, that makes sense.  I think it makes sense to cover the spectrum as much as possible while not climbing.  I think I’m just surprised that you were able to push the same muscle groups (fingers and forearms in this case) three days in a row.  I will have to give it a try, but I will definitely have to listen to my body to ensure I’m not over doing it.  Maybe start with two days on one off…

I had a similar experience last year where I was hangboarding and not climbing due to injury.  The hangboarding wasn’t really even a priority, but not climbing meant it happened with fresh fingers.  Even that was enough for a noticeable finger strength boost. I’m excited to see if I can make good gains while recovering from this injury with a little more prioritization of finger strength.

Hope your recovering is going well at this point 

3 days in a row does seem like a lot but hangboarding without climbing really doesn’t seem too fatiguing to me. Two days ago I did a bunch of sets progressively adding weight until I hit my working weight. Then did reps sets 7:53 half crimp, followed by 3fd followed my some min edge hangs. Had PRs on the weight for both half crimp and 3fd and followed that up with 5 mins feet on the ground traversing a kilter board to get pumped and a few sets of one arm hangs on jugs.

Woke up feeling totally fresh and did 3 sets of 7:3 repeaters today and still feel pretty fresh. I’ll definitely take a rest day tomorrow to be safe. Maybe I’m not pushing hard enough if I still feel good, but I am hitting PRs and by the end of the sessions I feel my max strength is depleted.

For what it’s worth, if you have access to a board or steep wall, I’m enjoying the 5 min sets of foot in the floor traversing to get pumped. Instead of just hanging on a flat edge. You get to feel different hold types and moving through your upper body. And periodically I’ll pull up and do short lockoffs. Feels more applicable while getting pumped

To be clear this was usually Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and so I did get some rest in between.

That makes a big difference lol. Thanks for the update