How to Hangboard with No Weights [Mixed Hangs Guide]

Is this fingerboading in its purest form? In this episode, Dan shows us how to perform two-armed asymmetrical hangs, aka "mixed hangs." They're so flexible and progress-able, you can use them all the way from total-beginner to world-cup-level finger strength. Plus, they offer a number of advantages over traditional symmetrical hangs (whether one-armed or two-armed), including the fact that they don't require any weights or additional equipment!
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⌛ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro & Overview
00:31 Part 1: Advantages
02:44 Part 2: Getting Started
03:43 How do I know what holds to use?
05:32 Some Plausible Hold Combinations Based on Skill Level
06:36 Part 3: Progressing
06:52 Progression Step 1
07:48 Progression Step 2
08:20 Progression Step 3
09:16 Part 4: Recommendations
09:25 Improving Efficiency
10:06 Frequency
10:22 Skin Conservation and Conditioning
11:23 Getting Unstuck
12:21 Remember the Premise
📝 SHOW NOTES
Episode 132
www.hoopersbeta.com/library/t...
⚠️ DISCLAIMER
As always, exercises and rehab programs are to be performed assuming your own risk and should not be done if you feel you are at risk for injury. See a medical professional if you have concerns before starting a new training or recovery program.
#trainclimbsendrepeat #climbingtraining #doctorofphysicaltherapy

[@HoopersBeta]

FAQ + Timestamps below! Q: What if I have weights? Can I add weight to mixed hangs? A: Of course! It’s awesome to not have to add weight, but adding incremental load is often a very useful way to increase intensity. Another benefit of mixed hangs is that you will not need to add as much weight as you would with symmetrical hangs should you choose to do so (I wouldn’t typically advise choosing edges for mixed hangs such that you’re able to one-arm the working hand without assistance). Q: Are mixed hangs better than traditional symmetrical max hangs? A: For the most part I would say that they’re neither better nor worse, though there will be times where one approach will suit your needs better than the other. I would typically lean towards the method that best replicates the grip that you want to prioritize improving, while still allowing a degree of skin comfort and ergonomics (not tweaky). Q: How long should I rest between sets? A: 1-5 minutes. Less will disperse fatigue less completely, and produce a degree of strength endurance, at the cost of sustained maximal effort over the course of the routine (set to set). For most people, 2-3 minutes is a happy compromise of recovery and time efficiency. Q: Should I do mixed hangs before or after climbing? A: Definitely before. There are very few circumstances where I would recommend grip training after climbing. Q: What grip type should I use? A: Assuming you don’t have reason to train a specific grip, I would go with either open hand / chisel, or half crimp. Whichever feels strongest on your edge of choice. 00:00 Intro & Overview 00:31 Part 1: Advantages 02:44 Part 2: Getting Started 03:43 How do I know what holds to use? 05:32 Some Plausible Hold Combinations Based on Skill Level 06:36 Part 3: Progressing 06:52 Progression Step 1 07:48 Progression Step 2 08:20 Progression Step 3 09:16 Part 4: Recommendations 09:25 Improving Efficiency 10:06 Frequency 10:22 Skin Conservation and Conditioning 11:23 Getting Unstuck 12:21 Remember the Premise

[@joshpyburn]

How long should I rest between reps?

[@HoopersBeta]

It’s in the comment! In this case, sets and reps are kinda the same since we’re doing 4-10 second hangs rather than a bunch of short reps. 1 hang = 1 rep = 1 set

[@louiehext2877]

To complete a set, should I use both hands as working hands? I.e one set == two hangs. Or would that count as two sets?

[@HoopersBeta]

It doesn't really matter how you group them since you're targeting a certain amount of time-under-tension (~30s). You can use shorter rests (1 min or more) when switching from one working hand to the other, but most people will want to take longer rests (~3 minutes) between sets on the same working hand.

[@danielbeall7725]

Also, to be clear, we’re shooting for 30s (ish) with each working hand, so 1 min (ish) total. So may be easiest to think of 2 hangs (one per side) as 1 “set”.

[@LazarCir1c]

He trust his chair more than i trust myself

[@HoopersBeta]

Hahahaha that chair is a relic

[@johanneszimmermann3299]

We all above 75 kg had those chairs fail and fold before....

[@danielbeall7725]

I like to live on the edge…

[@clown5911]

Mixed hangs was how I managed to finally hang from 14mm, and the 30 degree sloper on the beastmaker. It brought me from 0 seconds on both to 10 seconds on both.

[@mikemarcus7442]

I’ve been periodically using this technique for about 3 years now. Looking back it’s really clear that the biggest gains in my finger strength were made during these phases.

[@HoopersBeta]

Oh nice! That's awesome to hear. Glad it's had a hugely positive impact for you.

[@paulmason5977]

Great video. Much easier than chucking weight on. My hang board is inside so I end up lugging stuff in. With this I might be able to get any extra session in during the day. Thanks for all the great advice you guys provide 👍

[@AllegraClimbingPsychologist]

I use mixed hangs all the time for my finger warm-ups! Super fast setup!

[@jackbarraclough552]

Love this idea! Could you share a rough breakdown of what you do for your warm ups? Or do you just jump on the hangboard and play around for a few sets?

[@AllegraClimbingPsychologist]

@@jackbarraclough552 I do five seconds starting with the two big ones, then start going for smaller edges with one hand at the time. I think how small you want to go really depends on your level and what kind of climbing you are going to do! I also do it with a friend, so I take a bit of rest while he's doing the same routine.

[@karlderdelinckx]

Lately I’m testing hangtraining with a 1.5m sling and a hold with a 15-20-25 mm edge on. One handed hangs and regulating the tension on the fingers by how far I put my feet. Trains the fingers and the posterior chain of muscles while doing these hangs. You can almost hang flat to the ground while pushing on you’re feet, feels like a climbing scenario…

[@DrStephan]

Played with this yesterday - it highlighted a pretty significant difference in finger and shoulder strength between left and right. I believe this could be a big advantage of this protocol. I was not aware of that doing symmetric hangs.

[@HoopersBeta]

Great feedback! That's very fair. With symmetrical hangs sometimes you don't actually notice the bias you have towards 1 side or another. Thanks for sharing.

[@paulgaras2606]

This is a great idea. My gym has super limited weights so if the bros are squatting there’s few 45s to be had. Will definitely experiment

[@HoopersBeta]

Haha nooo definitely a rough day when the bro's are using up all the 45's. Hope these help solve that problem!

[@uploadsnstuff8902]

Thank you for that kind of quality content.

[@HoopersBeta]

Our pleasure!

[@ivohanza8926]

Awesome video. This guy definitely presents himself as a very intelligent and articulate individual. Thanks for the training tips!!

[@craigbritton1089]

Excellent tutorial: and for crack climbers who have crack machines; especially roof style; having two or three parallel cracks that allow to to always have a good jam while training bad jam sizes is very effective. One can also put finger/ foot edges on the outside ot the crack machines.

[@jibril20facce]

Amazing video. You explain very well the basics of training program and periodization. In progression step 2 you've applied a buffer, not in weight but in hanging time, very interesting.

[@mmlei7540]

I never though tof this, thank you so much!

[@HoopersBeta]

Our pleasure! It's yet another gem / awesome tool to have, as well as another great approach to hangs if you're new, looking to switch it up, etc.

[@TheMerryDwarf]

Ahhhh - a Dan episode. Excellent!!

[@HoopersBeta]

We love Dan.

[@PS-nm8wk]

Cool that you're coming up with this right now, as if you'd known I've been trying it on my own because of a finger injury. Now that I've got official confirmation from you guys, I'll go with this method instead of the tweaky one-arm hangs. Especially the rotating tip was what I needed.

[@HoopersBeta]

It's always nice when we end up having good timing ;) Glad you find this useful! Sorry to hear of the finger injury, though. Hopefully you make a solid recovery soon!

[@PS-nm8wk]

@@HoopersBeta Thanks, it's been getting better!

[@danielengland5143]

Great plan. How much rest between hangs?

[@biedl86]

Awesome advice. Thank you. My upper body is way too strong compared to my fingers. I'm at 10 sec hangs at 15mm with 130% body weight, just not enough to do effective one handed hangs. I guess this will help me progress faster.

[@bluechamp1527]

Great video! There are no weights in my gym, this is super useful :)

[@HoopersBeta]

Nice! Yeah that's the perfect scenario for these hangs :)

[@andrasadam8256]

I'll definitely give this a try, since there are not that many weights at my gym.

[@HoopersBeta]

Hope that it works out!

[@EPrice282]

i've been doing this a lot but for pull ups instead of dead hangs. i.e. one hand in a 30mm slot, the other on a 20mm two-finger pocket and doing ~ 5 pullups. I seem to have gotten some pretty good results, both in pull up and finger strength - but do you see any negatives in this approach compared to the one in the video?

[@HoopersBeta]

Dan discusses that in the recommendations section (“Improving efficiency”) 🤙

[@nurzumspass]

Appreciate the "hands crossed in front of your body" stance he has going on, but his shoulders are not nearly as hunched as they could be, so I'm not sure if I can trust his climbing expertise

[@HoopersBeta]

Excellent point! The lack of Patagonia beanie is also concerning

[@JC50000000]

This is just what I needed thanks! Super informative and well explained. I think there's just one thing missing, sorry if I just didn't hear, but what do you recommend in terms of rest times? Just a ballpark to what I should be looking for. I never know if I should rest for 10 seconds, or 30, or 60, etc

[@HoopersBeta]

Check the pinned comment!

[@JC50000000]

@@HoopersBeta thanks!

[@danielbeall7725]

@@JC50000000 As a guideline, it’s nice to break things down into *roughly* the following:

[@JC50000000]

@@danielbeall7725 cheers mate! that's very helpful. I will definitely try out what works best for me. I'm still new to climbing, started in September last year, around V5 grade, getting closer to V6, so I'm just now getting started with more training instead of just climbing. I have been doing longer hangs for now, around 15 secs, because I'm afraid to get injured, but mostly just trying stuff out without tracking progress. I need to start doing progressive overload as from my previous gym experience, it's definitely the biggest factor in getting stronger!

[@JC50000000]

@@danielbeall7725 Another question if you don't mind me asking, do you have any tips on what kind of grip I should focus on when starting out? open hand, half crimp, full crimp? open hand feels the easiest so I assume that? Or I should do all of them with comfortable weight? How do I know when I should switch? Lots of questions sorry ahah

[@elfriederich]

Liquid or loose chalk for hangboarding? What do u prefer and why?

[@PhdEDEN]

Great vid guys! Can I ask, is there any particular reason for the 30 seconds under tension time? I feel like Ive been brought up on the 50-60 seconds under tension, and I'm wondering if that's perhaps too much

[@HoopersBeta]

Thanks! The recommendation is for ~30 seconds per working hand, so about 60 seconds total. You can certainly work up to more than that, but 30 seconds per hand yields rep/set ranges that are convenient and effective (e.g. 5 sets of 6 seconds).

[@craigbritton1089]

Question about kids and adding weights/ I am not a big fan of kids doing heavy weighted hangs or much campusing ( other hand to dial in dynoing and deadpoints. But I did think it a good idea to do some workouts with about five pounds of weight to stay/ get ahead of the weight gain growing kids have. I would appreciate your professional opinion on that practice. Thanks

[@R3FL3XSN1P3R]

Progressive overload applies to anyone of all ages. Bodies adapt. Progress slowly, avoid maximum effort, it'll be fine

[@craigbritton1089]

@@R3FL3XSN1P3R with kids ( especially as they hit puberty); there are significant issues with growing bone plates; it is not just that of a simple adaptation to progressive overload by muscles/ tendons/ cartilage/ ligaments. Kids growth spurts are usually not incremental on a daily basis; but usually occur over one to three days. That newly stretched structure is much more susceptible to injury.

[@flobosstube]

Hello and thank’s a lot for this video ! Just a question to be sure i understood clearly: I do a total of 30 sec hang in 5-6 sets THEN rest for 3 minutes OR 5-6 sec hang then rest for 3 minutes ? Sorry for that, my english is far from perfect ^^

[@HoopersBeta]

Rest between every set/hang, not after :)

[@tristanschroeder3403]

If doing pull-ups alongside this type of hangboarding, would you recommend doing them before or after the deadhangs? Before: your fingers will warm-up, but also get too tired for good hangs? However after hangs your fingers might be too tired to do enough pull ups? Thoughts? Thanks for all the info I'm excited to try it out!

[@HoopersBeta]

Are you talking about doing pull-ups on a bar or on a hangboard edge? You could do the pull-ups and fingerboarding concurrently (i.e. you do pull-ups on the edges instead of just deadhangs) if you want to get through them as quickly as possible. If you’re wanting to separate your pull-ups and fingerboarding, the fingerboarding should come first; then you can use jugs or a bar for the pull-ups. -Emile

[@tristanschroeder3403]

Hi Emile cheers for the quick response, I see now doing them concurrently definitely makes sense. I was curious about pull-ups on the hangboard using mixed grips, not only to save time (2 birds with 1 stone), but to also benefit from a potentially more climbing specific pull that's mechanically more similar to being on the wall. Do you know if there's any truth in this? If doing these, would you still recommend hanging for 30 sec total per Hand (e.g. Split into 7 sets of 1 pull-up rep roughly 4 seconds long)? Could you then reduce sets by lengthening each rep into max 10 seconds of total pull-up (upwards 5 sec, then downwards 5 sec), to add up to 30 sec total hang time? It would make for a very slow pull-up! potentially a good thing for strength/control? In the end, it might definitely be less complicated to seperate dead hangs and pull-ups haha! But i wonder what your thoughts are anyways, any insight you may have is appreciated :) Cheers, Tristan

[@anatolecadio]

Hello maybe he said it in the video but i didn't find the infos about how many set of 30sec I should do and how long I need to rest between the "mini sets" of like 4sec like in the example

[@HoopersBeta]

30 seconds of hang time per hand is approximately what you want to aim for in one single session. You can do a bit more if you want (potentially up to 60 seconds per hand), but you’re not doing multiple “sets” of 30 seconds. The sets are the individual hangs, and the rest time is discussed in the FAQ (pinned comment - around 2-3 minutes generally). Hope that helps! :)

[@anatolecadio]

@@HoopersBeta thank you very much and thx for these awesome videos

[@jackbarraclough552]

@@HoopersBeta For each set do you rest when switching hands? Or just shake it off after your ~5sec set, switch hands, and then take 2-3min rest?

[@danielbeall7725]

@@jackbarraclough552 depends on how much you’re using the off hand. Typically 0-60s is fine, but experiment and see what works best for you!

[@WyandWombat]

The problem I have with this routine is that my girlfriend will never allow me to build a wicked dirtbag-setup like this at home. I have a clean, small hangboard with a straight 20mm and 30mm edge, a set of weights up to 50kg and a wall mounted pull up bar. So weights it is. Also, rotating towards the working hand is kind of tricky with your typical home setup that has the hangboard mounted over a door frame. I might still give this a go once I hit a plateau with the weights again. Maybe this will be a good transition towards one arm hangs. Still jealous about that overall setup.

[@HoopersBeta]

Yeah Dan's setup is pretty awesome! But thank you for sharing! That's sort of the inverse to what we normally hear but it's true! In this case symmetrical / added weight hangs make sense with the board and setup you're describing.

[@larryseibold4287]

i have a simple 25mm on one side and an 18mm on the other side of the door frame, it works great for mixed hangs, with one hand on each side of the wall, leaning and looking to change the focus (active hand). creativity. keep it simple.

[@gratengelsker7614]

Wont't this caues instability between left and right hand? Or should you do the exact same only mirrored after? So you get a total of 30 second on each hand?

[@HoopersBeta]

You should be doing a similar amount of total work per hand

[@jamesboreson]

It would be great if you guys could release a short video on climbing routines based on goals. Something like "if you are at this level you should climb this often to maintain and and this often to progress." I may be mistaken but i have not seen a video like that from you guys and I am often wondering how often I should be climbing.

[@danielbeall7725]

Far too many variables there I’m afraid. Probably every other day.

[@mattnunes3893]

Why does every skill group end at V10+? Why don't we ever differentiate between V10-12, V13-15, etc.

[@HoopersBeta]

You can certainly use this method far beyond a V10 level! I think that was made quite clear in the video…? Are you referring to the hold combo suggestions?

[@mattnunes3893]

@@HoopersBeta I'm not arguing that it wasn't. I just think we tend to lump V10-V17 climbers into one category for some reason. Why do we differentiate between skill levels below V10 so much more often than above?

[@HoopersBeta]

Again I'm not totally sure what you're referring to in relation to this video? Who is lumping these skill levels together? If you're referring to the fact that the hold suggestions only go up to "V10+", it's because if you're climbing V13 you're more than capable of figuring out a hold combination on your own. Also, the vast majority of climbers watching these videos are not climbing way harder than V10.

[@mattnunes3893]

@@HoopersBeta I'm just speaking from experience. I think the attitude with training suggestions online is often, "if you're climbing X hard you've got it from here". The grip suggestions in the video got me thinking about this. Not really a critique now that I think of it...

[@HoopersBeta]

I see! I'd say that tracks with my experience also. There's little content specifically catered to climbers well above the V10 level. I think that's probably because those climbers don't necessarily need to be watching KZbin videos to improve haha. But I do think it would be interested to do more content about high-level training. In fact, we are working on that, but perhaps I can convince Dan to do a one-off video on the subject in the near-er future :)

[@zacharylaschober]

11:41 "These can be eccentrics" wanted to note as Dan does demonstrate this well following but eccentrics through the arm, the fingers should not be opening under this force. If you notice the grip position changing under load then the intensity is too high, the fatigue is too high, and/or there is some issue with the fingers to consider in this position (does not need to be injury, different finger lengths between hands is a thing).

[@MiguelClimbs]

🚅 🧗✉ 🔁 (train, climb, send, repeat)