Pro Climbers and Hangboards: How Honnold, Ondra and Others Train

---

Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold is probably the most famous climber alive, known for free soloing El Capitan's Freerider route (5.13a) in 2017. What a lot of people don't realize is how seriously he trains on a hangboard.

Honnold's Training Approach

For the Freerider solo preparation, Honnold used the Beastmaker app's built-in workouts for about two months. These are repeater-style protocols: 7 seconds on, 3 seconds off, cycling through different grips and hold types.

He's been open about the difficulty: "I'm like embarrassingly weak on the Beastmaker. Two months ago I couldn't do the 6C [V5] workout, which is the very easiest one. I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"

By the time he soloed Freerider, he had progressed to completing the 7B (V7-equivalent) workout. His sessions included half crimp, open hand, three-finger open, and two-finger pocket positions, all at bodyweight with no additional load.

"It was important for sure. Otherwise I would have been slowly feeling weaker and weaker while I was here in the Valley. And the Boulder Problem crux does have small holds that you have to pull on."

What We Learn from Honnold

Honnold's approach shows that even elite climbers who spend most of their time on rock still benefit from dedicated finger training. He doesn't use fancy protocols or add weight. He follows a structured repeater program, trains every other day, and lets the consistency do the work. Simple, effective, and sustainable.

---

Adam Ondra

Adam Ondra is arguably the strongest sport climber in history. He's sent 5.15c multiple times, climbed V16, and won World Championships in both bouldering and lead climbing in the same year. His training approach is famously comprehensive and intense.

Ondra's Relationship with Hangboarding

Ondra's take on hangboarding is nuanced. In interviews with TrainingBeta and La Sportiva, he's described his philosophy as "I don't go training, I go climbing." He believes climbing on a spray wall is one of the most effective training tools available.

But that doesn't mean he avoids the hangboard entirely. Ondra uses fingerboard training as part of his overall program, particularly for maintaining finger strength during periods when he's focused on other aspects of climbing. In his book and various interviews, he advocates working on weaknesses over everything else, and when finger strength is the weakness, the hangboard comes into play.

Ondra trains up to six days a week, sometimes with multiple sessions per day. His program includes specific bouldering drills, campus board work, and targeted strength exercises alongside climbing. The hangboard is one tool in a very large toolbox rather than the centerpiece of his training.

What We Learn from Ondra

Ondra's approach reminds us that hangboarding works best as part of a complete training picture. For someone climbing at the highest levels with daily access to world-class facilities, the spray wall and climbing itself provide much of the finger stimulus needed. The hangboard fills specific gaps. For the rest of us, who don't climb six days a week on perfectly set problems, the hangboard often plays a bigger role in maintaining and building finger strength.

---

Dave MacLeod

Dave MacLeod is a Scottish climber, coach, and author who has become one of the most influential voices in climbing training. He's climbed 9a (5.14d), bouldered V14, and done groundbreaking traditional climbing. He also has a PhD in nutrition, which gives his training advice a research-grounded perspective that's hard to find elsewhere.

MacLeod's Hangboard Philosophy

MacLeod is a passionate advocate for hangboard training and has produced some of the most detailed, practical content on the topic in climbing. His 25-minute "How to Hangboard" video is considered essential viewing in the climbing training community, covering everything from exercise selection to warm-up protocols to intensity adjustment.

His key points:

• Frequency matters. MacLeod has said that two days per week of hangboarding is the minimum to make any gains. He personally trained on a fingerboard six days a week during a pivotal period in his career, and the results were dramatic.
• Progressive overload is everything. MacLeod emphasizes that you need to track your training and progressively increase the difficulty, whether that's through smaller edges, added weight, or longer hang times. Random sessions don't produce results.
• The board itself should serve training. MacLeod helped design the Edge hangboard, and his design philosophy focused on creating a board with precisely the holds needed for effective training: nothing extra, nothing missing.

What We Learn from MacLeod

MacLeod is living proof that dedicated hangboard training can transform your climbing. His emphasis on frequency and progressive overload aligns with what the research shows, and his willingness to share his exact training details makes his approach one of the most replicable for regular climbers.

---

Emil Abrahamsson and the Abrahangs Protocol

Emil Abrahamsson is a Swedish pro climber and YouTube creator who, along with his brother Felix, developed a hangboard protocol that exploded in popularity after his 2021 video about it. The protocol, now known as "Abrahangs," took the climbing world by storm and has since been studied in published research.

The Science Behind Abrahangs

The protocol is based on Keith Baar's 2017 research paper "Minimizing Injury and Maximising Return to Play" (PMC5371618). Baar's study found that engineered ligament tissue became "refractory" (stopped responding to new stimulus) after about 10 minutes of loading, and needed at least 6 hours of rest before it would respond again. The implication: short, sub-maximal loading sessions done twice daily could be more effective for tendon adaptation than longer, harder sessions done less frequently.

The Abrahangs Protocol

The core concept is twice a day, every day, with at least 6 hours between sessions. Each session uses "no-hangs": your feet stay on the ground, and you load your fingers at roughly 70 to 80% of the weight that would lift you off the floor. Sub-maximal effort, not maximum intensity.

Emil's actual session structure:

• 3 sets of 10 seconds half crimp on a 14mm edge (50 seconds rest between sets)
• 3 sets of 10 seconds three-finger drag on a large edge
• 2 sets of 10 seconds pocket work (middle and ring fingers)
• 2 sets of 10 seconds pocket work (index and middle fingers)

Total hanging time per session: roughly 1 minute and 40 seconds. The entire session takes under 10 minutes.

The Results

The Debate

Hooper's Beta published a detailed follow-up in 2023 examining the protocol. The key takeaway: the gains appear to be real, but the exact mechanism is debated. Baar's original research was conducted on lab-grown tissue (in-vitro), not living human tendons, so how directly the findings translate to actual finger training is still being studied. A 2024 published research paper (PMC11576708) on the "Abrahangs" in actual climbers found that while the protocol produced measurable improvements, the collagen synthesis explanation remains unconfirmed.

The climbing community's general take: the protocol works for many people, especially as a complement to regular climbing, but it's not a magic bullet and the science behind why it works is still catching up to the results.

What We Learn from Abrahamsson

Abrahangs showed the climbing world that more isn't always better when it comes to intensity. The idea of short, frequent, sub-maximal sessions challenged the conventional wisdom of heavy max hangs. Even if the exact collagen synthesis mechanism is debated, the protocol's emphasis on consistency and frequency over raw intensity has influenced how many climbers approach finger training.

---

Eric Horst

Eric Horst is a climbing coach, author, and researcher who has been one of the most prolific voices in climbing training for over three decades. His books Training for Climbing and Conditioning for Climbers are foundational texts in the field. He co-designed the Trango Rock Prodigy Training Center and has developed multiple hangboard protocols used by thousands of climbers.

Horst's Training Protocols

Horst's most well-known hangboard contribution is the "7-53" protocol for maximum finger strength development:

• 7-second hangs at near-maximum intensity
• 53 seconds of rest between hangs
• 3 to 5 sets per grip position

The logic behind the specific timing: 7 seconds is long enough to recruit maximum motor units and create a meaningful strength stimulus, while 53 seconds of rest allows near-complete recovery of the phosphocreatine energy system, letting you maintain high intensity across multiple sets. The total session stays short and focused.

Horst also developed the "Hangboard Moving Hangs" protocol for endurance training and has published extensively on the research supporting low-volume, maximum-weight hangboard training over high-volume repeater approaches. His review of studies on grip strength protocols concludes that max-weight, low-rep approaches are most effective for pure strength development, while repeaters excel at building strength endurance.

What We Learn from Horst

Horst brings a research-based rigor to hangboard training that's rare in climbing coaching. His protocols are clearly structured, well-documented, and backed by published science. For climbers who want a systematic, evidence-based approach to finger strength, Horst's work is the gold standard.

What All These Climbers Have in Common

Despite their different approaches, these five climbers share some core principles:

1. Consistency over intensity. Every single one of them trains regularly, whether that's every other day (Honnold), six days a week (MacLeod), or twice daily (Abrahamsson). None of them train sporadically.
2. Structured programming. Nobody is randomly gripping edges. They all follow specific protocols with defined sets, reps, rest periods, and progression.
3. Progressive overload. Whether it's moving to smaller edges, adding weight, or increasing duration, the training gets harder over time.
4. Hangboarding as one part of the picture. Even MacLeod, the biggest hangboard advocate on this list, combines it with climbing, bouldering, and other training. The hangboard is a tool, not the entire program.
5. Honesty about what works for them. Honnold admits he's "embarrassingly weak" on the Beastmaker. Ondra says he'd rather climb than hang. They're all honest about their approaches, which makes their advice more trustworthy.

The hangboard you choose matters less than how you use it. But if the best climbers in the world all find value in dedicated finger training, that tells you something about how effective hangboarding is at building real finger strength for climbing. For a deeper dive into everything from choosing a board to structuring your training, see our complete hangboard guide.

For training protocols inspired by these pros, check out our hangboard training guide. And if you're looking for a board to train on, our best hangboards roundup covers the boards these climbers actually use, plus options at The Hangboard for every level.

Frequently Asked Questions