Average Beta

A training diary from an ordinary adult who climbs twice a week and plateaus often.

Hangboard Numbers, Honestly

March 22, 2026 · 3 min read

I resisted the hangboard for two years because I had read that it was for strong people and that beginners should just climb. Then I noticed that after a year of just climbing I could still only hang the 20 mm edge for about six seconds, and that most of what stopped me on harder problems was not technique but simply holding on. So in January I started a plain max-hang routine and wrote down every number.

The protocol is as boring as it should be: a thorough warm-up, then five hangs of ten seconds on the 20 mm edge with three minutes of rest between them, twice a week after a climbing session rather than on its own day. If I can do all five for ten seconds I add weight with a loop of webbing and a small kettlebell. If I cannot do ten seconds, I take weight off with a pulley rig and a bucket of water, which is undignified but works.

The numbers, for the record, at a bodyweight of about 84 kg:

  • Week 1: bodyweight minus 10 kg, five hangs of ten seconds, forearms screaming.
  • Week 4: bodyweight, five hangs, the last one at eight seconds.
  • Week 8: bodyweight plus 6 kg, all five hangs completed.
  • Week 11, now: bodyweight plus 10 kg, four hangs completed and one at seven seconds.

That is a gain of about 20 kg of effective load in eleven weeks, which sounds impressive until you remember that I started well below bodyweight. On the wall the difference is real but subtle: I can hold a small edge long enough to move my feet, where before I would just drop off. It has not made me send a new grade on its own.

Two things went wrong along the way. In week five I did the hangs before climbing instead of after, climbed badly on tired fingers, and had sore joints for three days. And in week seven I tried a half-crimp with the thumb on top because I had seen it recommended, strained the base of my thumb, and went back to the plain open hand that had been working fine. Numbers are seductive; I am trying to treat them as a slow background project and not the point of the week.