Weak Fingers? Check Out Our Favorite Hangboards, Field-Tested.

Wood hangboards are the best: versatile, smooth, and they force you to use pure finger strength—which, after all, is the point. 

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(Photo: Boris Zec/Getty)

I was up in the Flatirons, Colorado, recently with my buddy Andy, belaying him on the legendary sport route Slave to the Rhythm (a nod to the Grace Jones album). We chatted between burns about the route’s history, including how the first ascensionist, Dan Michael, gave all the extruded cobbles funny names—e.g., “the Skinhead”—and nailed a piece of wood to a tree to warm up on. Back in 1987, this was visionary stuff: Previously, we had this bizarre idea that you should just show up to your project and give a burn while your muscles were still “fresh,” and so barely warmed up properly.

In that benighted era, training and logistics lagged well behind physical strength; at-home hangboards were sharp, tweaky, and rudimentary; and “portable hangboards” were, apparently, strips of wood nailed to trees.

We’ve come a long way into today’s world of doorjamb-mounters, sculpted resin hangboards, and wooden apparati. For my money, the wood hangboards are the best: versatile and smooth, they’re ideal both to warm up on and at the session’s end, when skin is thin. And they force you, by relying less on friction, to use pure finger strength—which, after all, is the point.

There are lots of wooden options. The four below are my favorites, both at the crag and in the gym/home during training cycles.

Beastmaker 1000 Series

This is the kindler, gentler hangboard from the UK-based wooden holds and hangboard maker Beastmaker, with the 2000 having gained a cult following among training cognoscenti for its sloping monodoigts and one-arm deadhang/pull-up benchmark “middle edge.” The 1000 has no monos—which, frankly, with sausage-sized, tweak-prone middle fingers I don’t miss—but instead a series of slots/pockets from four fingers down to two, and from “very deep” (~40 mm) to “small” (10 mm), as well two handlebar jugs and two pairs of slopers. The 1000 Series brushes clean with little effort and has a grippy, tight-grained texture, making it a go-to for volume sessions including drills like repeaters.

Pros

• Rounded pocket shapes are kind on sore joints and trashed skin, as well as “open” enough to allow for full and half crimping
• Jugs are of a comfortable size and perfect width for pull-up and lower-out workouts
• Amazing texture

Cons

• The 20-degree slopers are plenty usable, but the 35-degree slopers may be too aggressive on dry-skin days (wet your hands with a spray bottle first)
• You can “cheat” by pressing your fingers against the sides of the relatively tight slots to increase holding power

Buy for $139 on Backcountry

Metolius Climbing Nano Rings

The aptly named Nano Rings are so small it’s ingenious how many grips—eight, from 40 mm down to 10 mm—Metolius has loaded into such a small package, one roughly the size of two protein bars. This has made them a go-to for crags with long approaches, where I’m paring down my pack to the minimum, such as on a local Flatirons project with a one-hour, 1,000-foot-vertical-gain approach. Usually I just “make the rounds,” starting with the jugs and working my way down the crimp ladder till I can recruit on the 10 mm slimpers. The wood is cool and soft on the skin, and the Rings are so thin (1.6”) that you can full-squeeze/pinch the crimps to warm up your drag.

Pros

• Extremely compact (5” x 3”), light (7.7 oz), and portable, but still has six edges in 5 mm increments from 25 mm to 10 mm, plus a 40 mm full-hand and 40 mm fingertip jug
• Smooth, friendly texture that holds chalk well
• Affordable

Cons

• Holds can only be used in one orientation—the “incut” one (though there are sloping 10 mm edges inside the cutouts)
• Website says “body weight only,” meaning no weighted pull-ups

Buy for $30 on REI

Tension Climbing The Block (aka Tension Blocks)

When Tension Blocks came out in 2019, they were so novel I didn’t understand them—did you hang them from a tree branch and do pull-ups/deadhangs for a cliffside warm-up? Clip a draw to the keeper loop and stand on it, to pull against the crimps and fire up your digits? Use them to lift weights off the floor to do “max hangs,” or perhaps lat pulls on a cable machine? Well, it turns out, all of the above, which is what makes these little (4”x6”) chunks of wood so cool. I’ve had mine for a few years, and one lives at the cliff for warming up or I use a pair for max hangs. There are crimps from 20 mm to 6 mm, pinch possibilities, a 25 mm bidoigt, and a 25 mm monodoigt—i.e., plenty of versatility.

Pros

• You can flip the keeper loop, varying the angle of attack to make the holds either “incut” or “sloping”
• Smooth texture and big, rounded radius on crimps makes for comfortable recruitment
• Portable and versatile

Cons

• Monodoigt could be deeper, to avoid risk of tweakage (or just make another bidoigt!)
• Wood is soft, so care must be taken with storage, transport, etc. to avoid dings and splinters

Buy for $57 on Tension

Tension Climbing Whetstone

As with Beastmaker, Tension also sells multiple tiers of hangboards: the advanced/elite Grindstone and the friendlier Whetstone, which has two ergonomic jugs with bumps to displace weight, big (40 mm) bidoigts and edges, mid-sized crimps (25 and 30 mm), benchmark 20 mm edges (the gold standard for weighted/max hangs), and a 40 mm “one-arm” slot/edge right in the middle. My local training facility The Campus has a row of alternating Whetstones and Grindstones; the two boards complement each other well, giving you a range of holds from 40 mm down to 8 mm. Both boards are also near-frictionless, making you train with power and focus. Read our full review of the Whetstone here.

Pros

• The deep two-finger pockets and ergo-bump jugs are kind on the tendons, even when doing weighted lower-outs and pull-ups on the jugs
• Mid-sized edges are well-milled, with a broad radius that lets you push max hangs—failure is gradual, not sudden
• Lots of holds in a compact package—jack-of-all-trades space-saver

Cons

• One-arm progression is limited by the jump from the 40 mm central slot down to the 30 mm edges (i.e., there’s no 35 mm option)
• Minimal overhang between rows means you can “cheat” your thumb on the lower row while dangling from the upper edges

Buy for $171 on Tension