It seems every time someone asks a question about training, or attempts to have a meaningful discussion, it doesn’t take long for some moron to chime in with “I train my biceps by lifting a beer up to my fat face.” Insecure and below average climbers love to bash those of us with enough self respect to seek improvement. Someone once said: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” I believe this applies to climbing as well as it does anything else in life. I cannot understand the attitude of someone who would spend every weekend out on the rock, but not be at least mildly interested in getting better.

Mike, thanks for all the time, effort, and research. I read it, I'm inspired to use it to develop my own training regiment. I was a distance runner myself, and a wrestler as well, combined with avid weight-lifting for almost a decade before I ever became a "regular" climber. When climbing began, everything else seemed to... end. Bad idea, really.

just one question. im planning on building a campus board. what angle is your campus board at and do you like it that way? if you could, how would you change it?

One thing though. By the tone in your article and by looking at your program it seems like you are climbing to train better, not the other way around.

That is could you put a link to work-out sheets that is easier to read.

My board is 15 degrees off of the vertical. Metolious recommends that angle, and I've always liked it. The only thing I would change would be to come up with some way to take weight off while you campus so that you can transition into doing three and two-finger moves. I have not come up with a good way to do this, though. I think it would also be cool to have a set of rungs that was essentially six identical hangboards stacked on top of each other, but that would be expensive!

My board is 15 degrees off of the vertical. Metolious recommends that angle, and I've always liked it. The only thing I would change would be to come up with some way to take weight off while you campus so that you can transition into doing three and two-finger moves. I have not come up with a good way to do this, though.

The purpose of the hangboard is to train your forearms, and body builders have long understood that the best way to train a muscle is to isolate it. These other tools do the exact opposite by attempting to train all the various muscle groups involved in climbing movement at once, making it virtually impossible to ensure that any one muscle is stressed until failure.

The other thought is that there's been some excellent research done by a Dr. William Kraemer (was at Penn State, not sure where he is now) that shows exercising at a very high intensity (whole body movements done at a pace that jacks your heart rate to the max) generates a response similar to taking hormones. It's referred to as the neuroendocrine response. Now, body builders don't need that effect since they are already taking steroids. But for mortals with a fear of needles, it's a path to hypertrophy. Plus you get the aerobic conditioning for free, so it's a two-fer.

So in short, there could be real benefits to either doing grip training as whole body movements, or to wrap grip training into a larger interval training, where instead of resting between grip reps, you are doing something else.

Just food for thought, since you seem to be a thinking kind of guy.

thanks mike

really great article

The purpose of the hangboard is to train your forearms, and body builders have long understood that the best way to train a muscle is to isolate it.

I’m quite skeptical that the exercises that go along with these tools even cause hypertrophy. The number and duration of the repetitions, and the load put on the muscle seem more in line with Power Endurance exercises than hypertrophy. The only way to ensure hypertrophy is to load the muscle until failure quickly (not as a result of a pump).

The purpose of the hangboard is to train your forearms, and body builders have long understood that the best way to train a muscle is to isolate it.

I did squat for the first time in years two days ago. I also played around with the o-lifts. It was really fun, didn't really feel worked till I bent over a couple hours later and couldn't stand up.