HÄNG · Training guide

How your plan is built

Your plan isn't a random workout generator. Every session is chosen from a small set of training building blocks — filtered by your goal, your facilities and your experience, then arranged across your week using the same principles strong climbers and coaches rely on. Here's the thinking behind it.

Where to start

If you're climbing below about 6a, the best training is simply climbing. More time on the wall, more variety of movement, and more mileage will move you forward faster than any structured strength work — and it lets your fingers and tendons toughen up gradually.

Structured energy-system and finger-strength training starts to pay off once you're consolidating around 6a with a couple of seasons behind you. That's where a plan like this earns its keep.

Three pillars, climbing first

A plan is built from three pillars, in order of priority:

Climbing — the weekly schedule. This is the heart of the plan and everything else is dosed around it.
Other sports — optional cross-training, woven onto easy days so it supports climbing rather than blunting it.
Nutrition — optional calorie and protein estimates to track against, never a prescription.

The qualities we train

Climbing performance comes down to a handful of trainable qualities. A good block touches the ones your goal needs — without trying to train everything maximally at once.

Aerobic base

The engine underneath everything — how long you can keep climbing before the pump sets in.

How ARC and easy continuous climbing, several grades below your limit, long and low-intensity. It makes the hard work actually transfer.

Power-endurance

Resisting and recovering from the pump on sustained, near-limit climbing.

How 4×4s, linked boulder circuits and lead burns near your grade, with generous rest between sets.

Strength-endurance

Holding hard positions repeatedly — the grip stamina a long crux demands.

How Repeaters and boulder circuits: short, repeated efforts that mimic the grab-hold-release rhythm of climbing.

Max finger strength

The single biggest physical differentiator between grades — raw pulling force in the fingers.

How Limit bouldering, board sessions and, once you're ready, hangboard max-hangs. Gated by experience, never rushed.

Power & contact

Generating force fast — dynamic moves, hard single moves, snatching the next hold.

How Limit bouldering with intent and explosive board work. Campus-style work only for advanced, healthy fingers.

Technique & skill

The cheapest grades there are, and the foundation strength is built on.

How Movement drills, quiet feet, efficient resting, and projecting — present in every block at every level.

Fingers first — and stay healthy

Finger strength is the biggest physical lever in climbing — and the easiest way to get hurt. Tendons and pulleys adapt much more slowly than muscle, and many finger injuries arrive with no warning at all.

Because of that, hard hangboard training is held back until you've been climbing for roughly two years and are physically mature. If you're earlier in your climbing, your plan deliberately keeps you on volume and technique and leaves the hangboard out — that isn't caution for its own sake, it's the faster route that also keeps your fingers intact.

Whatever your level: warm up your fingers thoroughly before loading them, and back off at the first hint of joint or tendon pain.

How your week fits together

Hard and easy days alternate. Adaptation happens between sessions, not during them. Stacking hard days just digs a hole.

At most two truly hard finger days a week. Never back-to-back, never three in a week. Fingers and tendons recover far slower than muscle — this is the line between getting strong and getting injured.

At least one full rest day. Every non-training day is genuine rest. That's where you actually get stronger.

Only sessions you can actually do. Your facilities hard-filter the menu. No rope wall means no lead burns; no board means no board sessions. The closest feasible session substitutes.

Your available days drive the layout. Train two days a week or six — the plan fits the highest-value work into the time you have, rather than squeezing a full week into fewer days.

Training other sports around climbing

Climbing comes first. If you're tired before a hard climbing session, drop the conditioning, not the climbing.

Keep it easy most of the time. Conversational Zone-2 aerobic work supports recovery. Hard intervals compete with hard climbing and belong in an off-season base, not near a peak.

Separate the stress. Don't stack cardio before a hard finger day. Put it after climbing or in a separate session, ideally on a different day.

Modality matters. Running mostly taxes legs, cycling is low-impact, swimming loads shoulders and forearms, and yoga/mobility is recovery-only. The plan places each differently.

Back off when peaking. Conditioning tapers down in Peak/Taper so you arrive fresh for your goal.

Cycles & progression

Real progress is built in nested cycles — touch a quality once and nothing happens; load it, recover, and repeat a little harder, and it adapts.

The week

Microcycle

One week. Touch several qualities and vary the intensity day to day — hard, easy, rest.

The block

4-week mesocycle

Three weeks of building load, then a deload week that cuts volume so your body absorbs the work.

The season

12-week macrocycle

Three blocks chained together, each a step harder, with a quick reassessment every four weeks.

Training for a trip or an event

When you're working toward a date, the plan switches from year-round building to a peaking block: build the engine, sharpen it, then taper — cut the volume while keeping the intensity — so you arrive on your trip fresh and strong rather than tired. The closer the date, the more the block is shaped around it.

Estimates, not prescriptions

Calorie, macro, and load figures are estimates to track against, not medical or dietary advice. Treat the grades, loads and calorie figures as a starting point to track against and adjust — your own logbook always beats the model.