I did not know this is possible.
Hi, I am Geek Climber.
I have been climbing for about 10 years.
Usually I am able to climb V4s, and in my best days V5s, but never a V6.
I've been climbing at this level for about 6~7 years.
Whaaat?
The reason for the plateau is most likely that I never attempted to train on a hangboard.
Hangboard is a training device that rock climbers use to train their finger strength.
I still have the dream of doing something like deep water solo, which is exclusive to
climbers at the next level, so I decided today is the day to make a change.
I had the opportunity to work with Royal Edge, which makes high quality hangboards that cater
to all level of climbers.
I am going to challenge myself to train on the hangboard for 30 straight days.
I am going to test how long I can hang on each rung, and then do the same test again
after 30 days and see how much I improve.
The initial test is worse than expected.
For the first 1-inch rung, I am able to hang for about 30 seconds.
For the three-fourths of an inch rung, my hang time goes down to 9 seconds, and for the half-an-inch
rung, I can not even hang for a second.
In terms of how to train, I did some research by myself and saw Paul Robinson's video,
mentioning a hangboard workout routine in the form of 10-second hang, 5-second rest,
5 sets, and 3 cycles.
I thought it will work for me buuuuuut
Oh, too intense.
Ok, come on man.
Hang.
Ah, can't do it.
So today obviously doesn't work too well, so we make some adjustments, I make it a 7-
second hang, 7-second rest, 3 sets.
After training by myself for a few days, I realized how little I knew about hangboarding,
so I decided to reach out to an expert, Peter, who coaches the UCSD climbing team, for some
advice on training properly on hangboards.
When you are hanging, you are kind of just hanging with your shoulders down by your ears,
you want to bring them up.
It's going to be uncomfortable at first, but theoretically with every single movement you
make while climbing, you want your shoulders to be engaged anyways. You never want to be
climbing like this. The reason that you are climbing like this is when you are resting.
Bend a little bit.
tiny bit.
They should never be straight.
You shouldn't be like locking them off like this. It should just be a little bit, not
90 or anything, just to take the weight off.
You do 10 seconds on 10 seconds off, 10 seconds on 10 seconds off, and then rest for 4 minutes.
Let your body almost fully recovered and then do it again.
Right, and you repeat that maybe 6~7 times. You can do it every other day, and when you
start getting better, start adding in some weight.
Add like, you know, 5 pounds, 10 pounds. Make it so that you can only hang at least 7 seconds,
at most 10 seconds.
See how that goes for a month. Take like a week off; you should be able to see some kind
of progress when you come back to it. After that week off, you will be a little shaky in
climbing for maybe about 2~3 days' worth, but you are going to get back into it and you
are going to be way stronger.
Go outside. Find a project that you are really psyched on. Work on that project. That psych
is going to help you train, too.
Keep training and if you send it, obviously you are getting stronger.
I never hurt myself on a hangboard. You are not pulling; you are not doing anything dynamic. You
are just hanging. As long as you don't wrap those thumbs around your fingers, you will
more or less going to be perfectly fine.
So I wouldn't be too concerned about the injury aspect of the hangboard.
If I am feeling really sluggish, I will go workout first and do some cardio first, cause
it's nothing do with your body really. It's your heart rate. You want to get your heart
rate up.
Once your heart rate is up, you are good to go.
Before you climb, just kind of like pull your fingers back a little bit, you know; shake
them up; warm them up; get some blood in there. Yeah exactly, nothing is worse than stiff
joints; nothing is worse than stiff fingers.
Use those long sticks, just kind of like getting your shoulder dislocated. Get your shoulders
warm up because your shoulders are really important for climbing.
So up a little, perfect yes.
Right, bring it down just a tiny bit. You don't need to really, there you go, perfect,
right there. That's good.
Based on what Peter said, I started my training routine with 10-second hang, 10-second rest,
2 sets, 3 cycles on the top rung.
On day 9, I can already feel the difference. Some of the holds that I generally try to
avoid, today when I try to climb on those holds, those holds actually feel a lot easier.
As I continued to train, on day 11 I decided to move to the middle rung with 5-second hang,
10-second rest, 2 sets, and 3 cycles, and then I slowly increased the hang time to 6
seconds, 7 seconds, 8 seconds, and eventually 9 seconds.
Thirty days flew by really fast and it's time for the final test.
For the first 1-inch rung, my hang time increases to 46 seconds, which is a nice 53% improvement.
For the three-fourth of an inch rung, my hang time increases to 35 seconds, which is a whooping
289% improvement, and for the half-an-inch rung, I am now able to hang for 4 seconds,
which technically is an infinite percent of improvement.
The 30-day challenge is over but I plan to continue hangboard training regularly and
I think this is the biggest thing I got from this challenge.
I learned a lot and my fingers become a lot stronger than I can have ever imagined prior
to the 30-day challenge.
It's amazing.
Thanks for watching, guys.
If you guys want to make your fingers stronger as I did, make sure to click the link in the
video description below and use promo code GEEKCLIMBER to get 20% off for your first
Royal Edge hangboard purchase.
Remember, this promo code is only going to be valid for 30 days, so make sure to get it while it's
still valid.
I am not sponsored and this promo code is exclusively for you.
And yes, they ship internationally.
I will post longer and more detailed videos about my journey throughout these 30 days
on my Facebook page.
If you are interested to watch the videos, check out the video description to follow
me on Facebook.
And as always, make sure to like and subscribe.
See you in the next video.