Hand Jam Dead Hangs

Question here...

So a few years ago I made a crack-hangboard, which is essentially an adjustable crack that is big enough to hang from with my hands about shoulder-width apart. There's not tons of cracks where I live (Southern Arizona), but I love crack climbing, and I wanted to be able to train, specifically, those "thumb" muscles which jams any bigger than ringlocks (and, obviously, smaller than arm bars) seem to engage. I don't have any sort of rigid training plan that I follow (though, I've slowly been putting something like a "plan" together), and I use the board every now and then when I can't get out to climb real rocks and when my fingers are too trashed to train in "normal" positions (fingerboard/campus).

I pulled the board out today and, after deahanging on tight jams for two sets of two minutes as a warmup, I decided to try out a one-arm hang, since, without adding quite a bit of weight, hanging with two hands wasn't going to do anything but build some low-intensity endurance (there's probably a real term for that, but I don't know what it is). I found that as long as I got myself amped up enough (it's a bit painful), I could easily hang from one jam. My workout was essentially: one-arm deadhang 8-10 sec, switch sides, rest ~1minute, then repeat.

Anyways, I guess I have a couple of questions:

1) What kind of strength/gains, if any, can I expect from 8-10 sec hangs between 1 min intervals?

2) If I were to change either load or duration, which would be most beneficial (I know that's a relative term, so take it as you will). As a side note, load would be favorable, since it takes more than a few seconds to wiggle my hands into the thing (it's made with thin wood, so it flexes).

3) Has anyone else done anything like this? It seems like the perfect way to incorporate more grip/climbing specific training into one's life without risking (finger) tendon injuries, although maybe there's a dark side that I haven't seen yet...

Thanks in advance

As a side note: I used the boar for a few weeks before my Yosemite trip last summer and ended up being nearly onsighting Separate Reality (fell at the lip due to bad beta, after getting my hands "backwards"). So, I think using it probably does something good...

Hey Austin, I built a crack machine in my bedroom. Check it out here. To answer your question more thoroughly you should check out the intro chapters of The Rock Climber's Training Manual.

My advice is to increase load. It sounds like you're in a Max strength regime. The major benefits that you are going to see is Neuro-muscular recruitment. That means that you'll be able to generate more force by getting more muscles to fire together.

One thing you can do is to take less rest and hang multiple times. On a normal hangboard you'd try a 7 sec on and 3 sec rest, which would constitute one rep, then you'd go for 7 reps in a set with 3 min rest.

Hope that helps!