Hangboarding is the Ultimate Cross Trainer

Whether you're a baseball player, a musician, or a surgeon, climbing truly is the best cross training in the world. Im just curious when all professional/college/high-school athletic/music programs are going to find out that their players would greatly benefit from the fitness and usable strength gained from climbing? In general, my guitar and drums have improved significantly from the years of hand, wrist, and finger strengthening obtained through climbing. Golf and basketball are easier too, and im better in every way because of climbing. These are sports that I literally gave up because of climbing, so I know the improvements are because of climbing, not just from getting better from playing. 

The only sports I can think of that climbing wouldn't help are soccer and running, not including goalies!

Finishing a slab on a Friday always helps my climbing on the weekend, not sure why, you'd think it would just tire out my forearms.

Uh, climbers generally drop the other stuff. Not exactly what coaches want. It also has higher consequence injuries, at least outside. 

I think it goes both ways, though. Dancers and gymnasts definitely have an edge when they start climbing.

The basic thing climbing does, is the same as dancing, gymnastics, martial arts, etc. General fitness, mobility, flexibility, sure. But an awareness of where your body is in space, and precise movements. Balance, reaction time, and, with climbing, hand strength.

That means it's truly super for old ladies! 

But, at the college climbing gym I used to go to?

Climbing is a wonderful gateway drug to fitness. Any body (literally) can take a shot at it, no matter how couch potato you are. A body you may hate....is suddenly doing something badass. That, is a game changer, and a  very powerful one. 

Best, Helen

cross training is neither

Dunno if I agree with that statement.  To me, it depends what you "primary" sport is. It also depends what you intent to achieve with your cross training.

Say for running, swimming isn't a bad cross-training, because it solicits different muscles groups, has no impact, but still allows to recover from running while making general fitness gains. Running is a pretty good cross-training for a lot of sports which don't involve too much running to begin with, because a jog allows you to speed up recovery (by inc. hr) and improve cardio, which most activities gain from.

My 2 main activities are climbing and running (generally in that order, though this year I have big running objectives and I'm injured from climbing, so that gets harder to tell). I do see it as cross-training, but more in the sense that it makes me a generally fitter person/athlete. I think some running benefits climbing (if one doesn't do much cardio in general, I'm sure a base level of cardio fitness that enables you to not breath hard/have high HR climbing climbing hard helps resistance/power a little). The core you develop climbing might benefit running a bit.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

Whether you're a baseball player, a musician, or a surgeon, climbing truly is the best cross training in the world. Im just curious when all professional/college/high-school athletic/music programs are going to find out that their players would greatly benefit from the fitness and usable strength gained from climbing? In general, my guitar and drums have improved significantly from the years of hand, wrist, and finger strengthening obtained through climbing. Golf and basketball are easier too, and im better in every way because of climbing. These are sports that I literally gave up because of climbing, so I know the improvements are because of climbing, not just from getting better from playing. 

The only sports I can think of that climbing wouldn't help are soccer and running, not including goalies!

Musicians and surgeons need their hands to earn a living, and finger injuries are extremely common in climbing.  Climbing is a lousy way to gain general fitness or strength and there are much better ways to spend your time, if that is the goal.

There is no way a professional athlete is going to risk a finger/hand injury climbing when there are so many safer and more efficient ways to train grip strength, forearm endurance, or balance/body awareness.  

The more I think about this, I would go as far as to say that climbing is one of the WORST possible cross training sports.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

Whether you're a baseball player, a musician, or a surgeon, climbing truly is the best cross training in the world. Im just curious when all professional/college/high-school athletic/music programs are going to find out that their players would greatly benefit from the fitness and usable strength gained from climbing? In general, my guitar and drums have improved significantly from the years of hand, wrist, and finger strengthening obtained through climbing. Golf and basketball are easier too, and im better in every way because of climbing. These are sports that I literally gave up because of climbing, so I know the improvements are because of climbing, not just from getting better from playing. 

The only sports I can think of that climbing wouldn't help are soccer and running, not including goalies!

Correlation is not Causation and you are coming from a sample size of one.  If all you did was play guitar, drums and climb and the rest of the time did absolutely nothing then maybe you could say that.  There are so many factors in our day to day lives we can't say with any certainty that one thing benefited another thing.

My points come from the fact that climbing increases finger, wrist, and hand strength, which almost all other activities relies on. And on the injury tip, I think that's a bad excuse not to climb as part of your training regime for any other sport or activity. Ive steadily gotten stronger and more capable as a climber, and I've never hurt my finger/wrist/hands, but maybe thats because I know when to quit, and I know how long to rest. If you go wild and climb 6 days a week as a pro baseball player, then obviously you're doing it wrong. 

We could all argue forever about whether it is or isn't, but I promise, climbing will be in the vast majority or other sports' cross training regime in another 5 to 10 years. Honestly though, you could boil "climbing as a cross training tool" into one thing... hangboarding. So, maybe I'll re assign the thread title. Thanks for the counter points. 

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

We could all argue forever about whether it is or isn't, but I promise, climbing will be in the vast majority or other sports' cross training regime in another 5 to 10 years. Honestly though, you could boil "climbing as a cross training tool" into one thing... hangboarding. So, maybe I'll re assign the thread title. Thanks for the counter points. 

I think you're overstating this quite a bit. Again, "best/ultimate cross-trainer" doesn't really mean anything. As that depends what gains you're expecting from cross-training, what's the other thing you're training. That makes no more sense than saying "XYZ is the ultimate diet". Saying those things implies that you can come up with a thing that is fundamentally better than all the alternatives, at everything you may wish to accomplish with (cross-training, diet, whatever). People who say those things usually have something to sell to you, or are looking at a good click-bait.

I also think that hangboarding is a bit too specific. There probably aren't that many cases in which you need cross-trainign that is uber-specific (like hangboarding is). I'd argue that pull-up strength, core strength added to it (e.g., just general climbing) is probably going to be more appealing in a lot of cases than just hangboarding.

I use rock climbing as cross training for my dangle boarding. It doesn’t transfer super well. 

Franck Veewrote:

I think you're overstating this quite a bit. Again, "best/ultimate cross-trainer" doesn't really mean anything. As that depends what gains you're expecting from cross-training, what's the other thing you're training. That makes no more sense than saying "XYZ is the ultimate diet". Saying those things implies that you can come up with a thing that is fundamentally better than all the alternatives, at everything you may wish to accomplish with (cross-training, diet, whatever). People who say those things usually have something to sell to you, or are looking at a good click-bait.

I also think that hangboarding is a bit too specific. There probably aren't that many cases in which you need cross-trainign that is uber-specific (like hangboarding is). I'd argue that pull-up strength, core strength added to it (e.g., just general climbing) is probably going to be more appealing in a lot of cases than just hangboarding.

Well, hand/wrist/finger strength applies to all instruments, and basically all sports sans the couple that don't use hands, like running and soccer. So, specific or not, as humans, we specifically use our hand/wrist/finger strength for basically everything we do, including all the major sports, and literally every instrument, not to mention the vast majority of people in an office who use their measly fingers to type all day. 95+% of the population would benefit greatly from increased hand/wrist/finger strength.

Edit to add- i do a lot of finger stretching on top of the hangboarding, so you definitely need to maintain dexterity! And not practicing because your fingers are tired is a terrible excuse.

Anybody who has a degree in and/or in-depth knowledge of exercise physiology, exercise science, kinesiology, or related fields, e.g., professional musicians, care to comment? Someone who has training in logic would be helpful, as well. 

Or should this thread continue on as is?

Trail running /Flatiron scrambling and hangboarding is pretty much all I do anymore besides an occasional outside session and a steady menu of gym climbing. If all I did was outside climb I would be massively out of shape for serious climbing in a month.

Regarding guitar, climbing and hangboarding are terrible for the dexterity required for reasonably proficient playing. Fortunately that’s not a priority for me. :)

Franck Veewrote:

Dunno if I agree with that statement.  To me, it depends what you "primary" sport is. It also depends what you intent to achieve with your cross training.

OP doesn’t even understand what cross training is. Setting aside the debate whether this nubulous “cross training” is of any benefit to an elite athlete, he is suggesting that guitarists and surgeons would benefit from a climbing program, despite the fact that their professions already involve finger and hand strength. The last thing a working musician needs to do is overwork her fingers, which are already strong. Cross training implies some other non sport-specific activity that trains other muscle groups

My wife is a surgeon, and she rarely climbs any more specifically for this reason. She can’t afford to jack up her hands.

Jaggers = Puppy Lovr, this thread is proof. 

Naw if you followed me closely you would realize this is the opposite of what I advocate for. Ice cream and Xbox are my best training tools.

To the point the more I hangboard the less “athletic” my friends have declared me at ultimate/ball sports. Now I’m a thicc boi.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

In general, my guitar and drums have improved significantly from the years of hand, wrist, and finger strengthening obtained through climbing.

Wat? Guitar and climbing use completely different muscles. I thought when I started climbing that it would improve my guitar but it has not been the case.

P Cwrote:

Jaggers = Puppy Lovr, this thread is proof. 

They both have made it a point for everyone to know they "develop", you may be on to something. Of course it could just be a generational similarity?

And quite a few really good musicians I know that dabbled in rock wrestling definitely disagree.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

My points come from the fact that climbing increases finger, wrist, and hand strength, which almost all other activities relies on. And on the injury tip, I think that's a bad excuse not to climb as part of your training regime for any other sport or activity. Ive steadily gotten stronger and more capable as a climber, and I've never hurt my finger/wrist/hands, but maybe thats because I know when to quit, and I know how long to rest. If you go wild and climb 6 days a week as a pro baseball player, then obviously you're doing it wrong. 

We could all argue forever about whether it is or isn't, but I promise, climbing will be in the vast majority or other sports' cross training regime in another 5 to 10 years. Honestly though, you could boil "climbing as a cross training tool" into one thing... hangboarding. So, maybe I'll re assign the thread title. Thanks for the counter points. 

"Finger" and "hand" strength are forearm strength.  Most of the tissue in the hand, except for the thenar muscle group along the thumb side of the hand doesn't contribute much to actual strength.  And even the thenar muscle group is only partially incorporated in thumb or pinching "strength".

M Mwrote:

They both have made it a point for everyone to know they "develop", you may be on to something. Of course it could just be a generational similarity?

And quite a few really good musicians I know that dabbled in rock wrestling definitely disagree.

I think you complain about this at a greater rate than I post about this. Can you even find an example of me doing this in a thread that isn’t explicitly about bolting? Also why not try and ban me, or do you like to complain?