Best Hangboards In 2022

How We Chose Our Selection Of Hangboards

Our process for selecting the hangboards on our list combined the personal experience of our product review team members with copious feedback from a wide range of other rock climbing experts. In addition we spent long hours sifting through customer and third party professional reviews to try and formulate a critical consensus that we could use as a kind of sounding board and informational resource when questions or issues arose that produced contradictory views within our team. Finally, while we’re always on the lookout for outstanding values the relative paucity of hangboards on the market and the often handmade (or at least limited run) nature of the production process means that there really aren’t any high quality $15 hangboards out there. Most hovered around the $100 (+/-) price point.

Features To Look For In Hangboards

Even experience rock climbers aren’t necessarily up to speed on what to look for in the best hangboards. So below we’ll take a look at the features you’ll want and things you’ll need to keep in mind while shopping for this type of climbing gear.

Material - When it comes to materials hangboards tend to be fashioned from either wood, polyurethane or polyester resin. Each material comes with its own list of pros and cons and each has its fair share of champions and detractors. Therefore it’s hard to say that one is quantifiably “better” because different climbers have different needs.

That said, wood hangboards are often some of the most skin-friendly hangboards. But the smooth, low friction nature of their surface can make them devilishly difficult to get hold of. Some will say that’s good, as it forces you to develop an iron grip. Others say it imposes a needless burden on the training process. Wood boards are often slightly more expensive too and may not have the variety of pockets and hold options you’ll get with other boards.

Polyurethane and polyester resin hangboards are often indistinguishable. Polyurethane may have a slight upper hand simply because it is not as prone to chipping if you slip with the screwdriver during the mounting process. Other than that there’s not a lot of difference. Both provide a wealth of holds, pockets and edges with some providing a variety of surface textures as well. Which is something you don’t really see with wood.

Holds - Jugs, slopers, pinches, pockets, edges and crimps are all types of holds that will (or at least should) be present on most hangboards. Just because one hangboard has more holds than another doesn’t make it necessarily better, however. The best hangboards will offer an intelligent progression of hold types. This will allow you to build the strength you need in a systematic way, just as a bodybuilder would add muscle mass by exploiting the weight room in a systematic manner.

Ideally what you want to see is a board that offers 2, 3 and 4 finger pockets that let you work your way up and down the scale. Some boards will even offer 1 finger pockets to help you train for those moments when there really is no other option. Experienced hangboarders typically like to warm up with slopers (large holds that require your entire hand) and jugs (handlebar type holds you’ll often find on beginner routes), so even an advanced rock climbing hangboard should those options if possible. Pinches (holds where you pinch from both sides) are also good for improving forearm strength. More on these below.

Edges - Edges are a staple of the hangboard and are a major factor in determining if the hangboard you have your sights on is worth the investment. Edges are where climbs are made or unmade in the real world so you need to be able to both practice your edging techniques and build the muscles necessary to make the most of the edges you encounter. We would advise looking for a hangboard that offers a minimum of 3 edge depths ranging from a relatively comfy 1 inch to a nail-scraping 1/4 inch. Focusing hard on your edge training is going to pay handsome dividends when climbing.

Pockets - Pockets per se, or at least natural formations that resemble them, are not something you’re terribly likely to encounter in the real world of rock climbing. As a climbing training device however, they’re mandatory. Pockets enable you to isolate 2, 3 or 4 fingers on the board and build strength within those fingers. And the importance of finger strength simply can’t be overstated. As is the case with edges a hundred pockets are not as important to training as a climbing hangboard that features a logical progression of pockets from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. When it comes to pocket training just remember that you should do so in what might seem like a counterintuitive way. That is, you start with more fingers and gradually work your way down to fewer as your finger strength grows.

Slopers - Slopers are mainly used to help you warm up and to work on your overall hand strength. They might take the form of large rounded objects with gentle grooving in them or might just be a large rounded object that’s more or less smooth. A good hangboard should include at least one pair of slopers.

Jugs - As we mentioned above jugs are large handlebar-like shapes that are also used for warming up both hands and forearms. They are sometimes used to execute a series of pullups to get your entire upper body into the swing of things before you start focusing on pockets etc. Not every rock climbing training board has them and not every board needs them. If you have a pull up bar already it will serve more or less the same purpose.

Pinches - Having pinches on your hanging board is considered more of a luxury than a necessity since the type of muscle training they provide is not necessarily going to be all that useful on the rock face. Still, if you’re into indoor rock walls you’ll likely encounter pinch-type features more often and in that case you may indeed want a rock climbing hangboard that with at least one set of pinches.

Difficulty - While it might not be blazingly apparent there is actually quite a range of difficulty within the best hangboards. The things that make one board an expert hangboard and another a hangboard for beginners is often extremely subtle and can have to do with the depth of the edges, the texture of the material used to create the rock climbing training board and the definition of the pockets etc.

There is also a fairly lively debate about whether or not new rock climbers actually benefit from this type of training. Plenty of people take it as a given than any form or training that helps you develop muscles you’re going to use on the climbing wall (whether rock or plywood) is good training. And there’s a certain amount of common sense logic to that argument. On the other hand there are those who contend that newbies should stick to climbing so they can develop a real world sense of what’s involved and hone their overall approach to climbing before they get into pumping finger iron.

It’s hard to say who’s right in this case as both sides have valid arguments. But if we had to come down on one side or the other we’d probably opt for the ‘any training is good training’ school of thought. After all any strength you build on the hanging board is only going to make it easier for your to acclimate yourself to the overall experience.

Mounting - Finally we come to the practical aspects of actually mounting a climbing hangboard in your house or apartment. Certainly, if you own the place where you live it will make it much easier for you to be able to attach something like this to the wall. Whereas if you rent there’s a pretty good chance your landlord is going to be pissed if he sees you’ve created large, deep mounting holes in the wall above one of the doorways. As such, you’ll either have to seek permission first and court rejection, or just install it and pay the piper later.

All that said, most of the best rock climbing fingerboards come with all the hardware you’ll need to hang them as well as fairly detailed instructions on how to do so.