Beginner HB: More counterweight or reduce grips/reps?

[shelton]

Hi, I want to start hangboarding and tried a session yesterday but felt very weak and was unable to complete much. 6 x 10sec on/5 off and subtracting up to 70lbs was too much for me to start with for almost all grips. At that point it even seems to get hard to manage loading all the counterweight and starts to feel ridiculous. Pinches were by far the worse. I am tall and was even letting my feet dab and it was still difficult to just do the pinch. In full disclosure I was still a little sore from climbing hard outdoors last week.

I am thinking of just picking 5 grips to start with and 5 reps of 7 on/5 off

– Warm-up jug
– IMR deep 3F pocket
– Medium pinch
– Sloper
– MR deep 2F pocket

Or would it be better to load up the counterweight even more and try to complete the beginner routine prescribed in the book?

I feel strong on edges and crimps but struggle on slopers and pinches outdoors. I've been climbing at the NRG and RRG recently but plan to spend the summer at Tensleep and check out some CO places like Rifle.

For reference I onsight about 11- outdoors and 11+ in the gym right now. Note, I also have hyper-mobility in my joints and shoulders with past issues doctors could never quite figure out. I need to be be very conservative with hangboarding.

[tetrault]

The wide pinch may be slightly easier. I have to take significant weight off either one though.

[tedwelser]

Use a bunch of weight off. Use a sling to push down the attachment point if you have a lot of weight on the pulleys. Dont worry about how much just focus on a doable workout.

[hmarcroft]

I agree with Ted, you definitely want to push yourself but only in a controllable manner. With Hangboards you need to take it extra slow to make sure your body gets accustomed to the stress so taking a lot of weight off in order to complete a session(*injury free*) is 100% fine for the sake of long term progress.