Portable Habgboard Benefits: Increasing strength, warm-up and more

After shoes, harness, quickdraws, chalk bag, and rope, a portable hangboard might be the most important item on any climber’s gear list. Owning one won’t save your life (like a rope or harness), but it will protect you from injuries. Additionally, proper use of a portable hangboard will allow you to fully utilize every trip to the crag and, if necessary, train anywhere.

Three ways a portable hangboard will make you a better climber

Proper Warm-up

We can notice that more and more people are adding a portable hangboard to their basic climbing gear at the crag. The reason is simple: when working on a route that is your project, you don’t want to waste precious skin warming up on easier routes in the area, but you still can’t start without warming up.

A portable hangboard not only allows you to properly prepare your fingers but also provides everything needed to warm up your back, shoulders, and fingers. Scapular pull-ups, one-arm hangs, pull-ups on large holds, and even some progressions to the front lever (or just lifting your legs to engage your core): With a portable hangboard (and an exercise band), you can do everything needed to be ready to climb without having to climb. If you want to avoid injuries and achieve peak performance, these are key elements of a specific warm-up.

Improving Performance

As mentioned, a portable hangboard enables an effective warm-up in a skin-friendly way. This means not “using up” the limited climbing opportunities during a single trip, which in turn means you can really give your all and put full effort into your project. However, this is not the only way a portable hangboard improves performance.

Hard climbing requires lower temperatures and relatively long rests between attempts. This is a problem because you can’t rest for long in the cold without freezing. Bringing a hangboard to the crag solves this problem, allowing you to quickly and effectively warm up after a long rest.

Even if you don’t want to give up pleasant warm-up routes just to maximize your attempts, a portable hangboard is useful because it allows you to engage your hands on holds that cannot be achieved by climbing on easy terrain. If, for example, your project includes tricky two-finger holds, but all the warm-up routes consisted mainly of big holds, a few sets of two-finger hangs will ensure you are ready to try when you tie in on the harder route.

Training Versatility

We’ve all been in a situation where our carefully worked-out strength progress is at risk due to a lack of training opportunities. Holidays, a business trip to a city without a climbing gym, long holidays: sometimes there is simply no suitable infrastructure for climbing-specific training and regular pull-ups don’t provide enough stimulus. Having a portable hangboard solves this problem, allowing you to transform any conventional gym into a climbing gym. Just hang the board on a pull-up bar or use it with suspended weights!

Even if you don’t have access to a gym, a bar, or any weight, a portable hangboard can be used to maintain finger strength with a piece of webbing looped over your feet, a branch, or any fixed point.

Considering all this, one question remains – which portable hangboard to add to your gear?

The best hangboards (portable or full-size) are made of wood and have rounded holds. Additionally, a good portable hangboard should provide at least a large edge, a small edge, and a full grip. Finally, a portable board should – of course – be portable, so the best boards of this type should not weigh much or take up much space. The ability to grip it as a pinch is an additional advantage.

At whiteoak.pl, you will find three different portable hangboards of varying sizes and applications. Check which one will work best for you!