Work-from-Home Hangboard

Fitting in time to climb around work and busy schedules can be difficult. With limited time, you are forced to pick one or two areas to focus on during a session, or all you have time for is 45 minutes in the gym. In these cases, more times than not, you’ll likely choose to climb rather than hit the weights or hangboard. But, if you want to work on your finger strength to help your climbing, maybe there’s a way to incorporate it into your daily routine.

Since COVID, it’s much more common to work from home full-time or on a hybrid schedule. That is great for finding ways to add mini workouts into your day. One such workout that easily fits in between meetings or during lunch is an at-home hangboard workout. Hangboarding is excellent because you can complete a session in 10 minutes if you wish, or you can choose a more extended variation. If you’re feeling up for it, you could even do rounds of hangs multiple times throughout the day vs. all at once!

Many great hangboards are available if you don’t have one, and some hangboards can be put up in a door frame and taken down between uses. Even better, if you’re handy with tools or have a friend who is into carpentry, see if they can make you an at-home setup. At the minimum, a good hangboard has a large, medium, and small edge. Pockets, slopers, or jugs are additions, but you can still complete a productive workout with three different edge sizes. Once you’ve nailed down your at-home hangboard setup, try the following hangboard workouts!

Work-from-home Hangboarding Routines

1. The Quickie (10 minutes total)

The quickie is a 10-minute hangboard workout that is effective but simple. It follows an every-minute-on-the-minute (EMOM) format. Complete the listed exercise, rest the remainder of the minute, etc. Because of this, it is customizable. You can make it harder by hanging for longer, increasing reps, using smaller edges, etc. You can also make it easier by shortening hang times, decreasing reps, and using more prominent edges.

EMOM

1.    25(s) hang on large edges, 5-10 pull-ups on jugs

2.    20(s) hang on medium edges, 3-5 offset pull-ups jug/medium or small edge (per arm)

3.    20-25(s) hang on small edges

4.    20(s) lock-off on medium edges

5.    30(s) hang slopers, 5-10 pull-ups on good slopers

6.    25(s) hang on large edges, bump to jugs, and 5-10 knee raises

7.    15(s) lock-off small edges

8.    Three off-set pull-ups large edge/small edge (per arm)

9.    15(s) lock off-large edges, bump to pockets or medium edge, and three pull-ups.

10.  Max sloper hang or max L-sit on jugs.

2. The Lunch Break Pump Fest (20 - 30 minutes)

While you could repeat The Quickie twice or thrice for a 30-minute workout, the Lunch Break Bump Fest will aim to work your finger strength and power endurance.

Start by doing three to four 20-30-second hangs that get progressively harder. Ways to make the hangs harder are to decrease the edge's size or start with your feet on the ground to reduce the weight and progress toward pulling your feet entirely off the ground.

Once warm, you'll do a set of 5x5 repeaters. Choose an edge that's moderately challenging to hold, but you can hang it for 5-7 seconds. Once you have selected an edge, hang for 5 seconds, rest for 5 seconds, and repeat five times. Then, rest for 2 to 5  minutes and repeat for three to five rounds, taking a minimum of two minutes of rest between each round.

3. The Mini (5-minute rounds throughout the day)

If you’d rather use the hangboard intermittently throughout the day, this is your workout. Every time you pass by the hangboard or take a break from work, do a set of three or four 30-second hangs (try to make the progressively harder) and do 5-10 pull-ups. Each time you do this during the day, try to vary the edges you hang on and choose different pull-up variations (i.e., sloper pull-ups or offset pull-ups).

If you plan to climb on a day you opt to hangboard at home, cap at three rounds of The Mini to ensure enough energy and strength for a productive climbing session.

If you want to do it, there is no reason why you can’t hangboard during your WFH day. It’s a great way to add training when your schedule is busy and make gains over time. The more you complete the workouts, the sooner you’ll be able to increase the difficulty and see progress. Hopefully, you find these workout options fun and feel comfortable customizing them as needed. If you have any lingering questions, comments, or thoughts, feel free to share them below!