Hangboards for Kids

I had to tell my 8yo son's coach that I don't want him to participate with the rest of the team when they do their feet-on campus board workouts. Too much impact on the growth plates, etc. But what about hangboards? There's no impact there--it's all static. The team spends maybe 15 minutes on the hangboard 1x/wk with open crimp grips. With rest and rotations, each person probably only does 2 minutes of it. I know hangboards are generally frowned upon for youth climbers, but I haven't read any research on the detriments of hangboards for youth. It seems to me a little exposure at an early age would be beneficial. Otherwise if they wait until they're 18 to use hangboards, their tendon strength and development may be even more behind their muscular development. Most of his project-level routes are super crimpy. Will small doses of hangboarding help/hurt/not make a difference at a pre-adolescent age?

Why are they hangboarding?  Do they climb v10?  If not, don't hangboard.  And even if they do climb v10, maybe not hangboard. Climb on a steep board or spray wall.  That'll do the job no problem. 

I support your call to keep your kid safe. Probably no one knows the answer because no one wants their kid to be a test dummy. So many kids don’t get to be kids anymore; if they’re gonna work might as well make some money at a real job.

Lattice Board Training, who probably has the most scientific and comprehensive data set on climbing training and injury, definitely don't do campusing and limited if any hang boarding for their youth up to 14 I think.  You could read their website/blogs to get more specific information.  You could also reach out to them as they are a pretty small group and seem pretty friendly and have written articles specific to this topic that they could direct you to.

I don't know specific to youth but in general you want one to two years of steady (multiple times a week) climbing before you start hang boarding.  This is to give a person plenty of time to build up the tendon/ligament strength needed to avoid injury on the hang board.  Also, and maybe more applicable to children, is you just won't need hang boarding that early in your climbing career.  Finger strength is rarely the limiting factor on
Some other points about hang boarding are that you want good hang board technique (engaged shoulders, open grip, static load, etc.) and have a very disciplined routine of progressive resistance increase.  Just hanging on a random hold for some random time isn't going to do anything.  I think even with a coach this would be difficult to execute for a child.

15-min per week done with proper technique seems pretty harmless.  If there is an injury kids heal very quickly and I don't see much if any potential for any long term affects.  Gymnastics starts much earlier than 8 and they stretch and pull on tendons and ligaments all the time with no known long term affects other than improve flexibility.  However, I also don't see much benefit from the routine you describe.  How much time is he actually hanging?  Is he doing strict progressive increase? Is this just to familiarize them with the hang board or to actually see training gains?  

Too me the answer is not make a difference on strength but with a small but definite increase in injury.

Seriously, having an 8 yo train on a campus board? That seems moronic to me. I think you're being completely reasonable by not allowing your kid to participate. I guess I'm not super surprised that a coach would be doing this though, given that the percentage of climbing coaches that actually know what they are doing is more than likely pretty minimal. I'm not trying to be a dick by saying that, just stating what is probably the truth. I played hyper competitive soccer growing up, which meant that I probably had access to better than average coaching. Yet when I look back on it, I realize now as an adult that nearly all of those coaches didn't know what the hell they were doing training wise. I don't see why climbing would be any different except that when I did endless burpess back then the worst consequence was puking as compared to the many and much uglier consequences that could result from a kid training on a hang board or campusing.

And to the gentleman above who wrote that he doesn't foresee any long term consequences because kids "heal quickly", I can ramble off the names of many friends who have lifelong injuries as a result of overtraining as young people (i.e., D1 college athletes who, by the time they began their college careers as sought after, recruited athletes, already had shoulder issues etc. from competitive training regimens as middle school/high school athletes).

Having an 8 year old on a campus board, even with feet on, is just downright stupid. And I'm not even talking about injury risk, although that's definitely stupid on its own; just the idea that an 8 year old needs to be doing strength exercises in order to climb better is so ridiculous. Is the "coach" a 15 year old bouldering bro-brah, or what?

I started hangboarding when I was 12. So far I haven't gotten any injuries. As long as you don't do a full crimp and you slightly bend your elbows (good for your shoulders) you should be fine. If you don't want to hangboard then have him climb on small crimps, that should do the trick.

Similar to what Seth said above, hangboarding can be useful for training proper grip/hang technique on various small holds, such as how to hang from edges with an open-hand grip and engage the shoulders instead of sagging onto the ligaments, etc. If the emphasis is more about instilling proper technique than building strength (short hangs with feet on seems like a safe way to do it), I think this could be worthwhile for kids because this technique carries over to how they use their bodies when they climb. It's harder to supervise and critique such fine points while someone is on a climb, where movement can vary so much and bad habits, like using a full crimp too often, can go unnoticed. Hangboarding seems like a good way to actively teach that stuff.

If only I'd learned to open-hand grip sooner in my life...

I think there is merit to what D-Storm suggested, but I feel like for young kids (probably about 15-16 and under as it pertains to climbing) the benefits of actual climbing far exceed any benefits gained from supplementary exercises like hangboarding or campusing. Learning how to climb well, not just how to be strong, puts kids at such a tremendous advantage as they move forward with their climbing, and has the added advantage of actually being enjoyable. Strength can be focused on and developed more optimally during the later stages of an adolescent's development anyways, so I really don't see much value in hangboard/campus type activities. I suppose if a kid is working a specific problem that they need to use a certain type of grip, and they demonstrate a technical flaw in using the grip, the hangboard could be a controlled way to teach the grip (like D-Storm suggests), but beyond that it seems like a big waste of time, energy, and a kid's fleeting attention span. (Granted, this may be different for the extreme outliers climbing at the top end of the grading scale.)

As a youth coach for 8 years, I dont let my youth under the age of 12 touch the hangboard or campus board (other than explaining it and how to properly grip it). Its true that the weakest link pops with injury, and youth kids have their growth plates at serious risk. My students 12-15 do twice a week hangs for a month (endurance based), then take a full month off from finger strength training. 8 years and no youth injuries *knocks on wood* so far.

To directly answer your question, I believe starting kids with proper form on a pull up bar or jugs for hangboarding is a great start. Stress response in kids can have a strength gain that may be that extra edge in their training that puts them ahead of the pack. When you watch prodigies like Brooke Rabatou train, they usually have a finger specific exercise, whether its on the finger board or campus board. Each case is different, and each WANT from a youth is different. As always, overuse injuries are preventable, so when in doubt, rest, recover, and stretch!