Review of the Climbro Smart Hangboard

  

Versión en español

It's more than one year now that I received the Climbro smart hangboard for its review. So fortunate that the climbing researchers Michael Michailov, Jiri Balas and their team contacted me with that intention!

Just in case you don't keep up with it, this is a smart board with integrated force sensors under its edges for both purposes: Performance Evaluation and Training.

Thanks to a mobile application, you are provided with personal training plans prior assessments of your finger strength and endurance.

Therefore, I have been trying it and training on it for 8 months now and this is my *review:

1. The team behind it includes 2 well-respected climbing scientists Michail Michailov and Jiří Baláš.

2. After an initial test battery and the subsequent diagnosis, you can either let the app suggest you some training plans or choose single workouts each day to improve some particular ability. My favorites: "Low Endurance" & "Maximal Strength".

 

3. Checking the force applied in real time in the mobile app can potencially help to control your training (👉it doesn’t replace your coach!).
 

Other useful applications:

 •Monitoring strength gains from baseline and fatigue: understanding ensuing biomechanical changes in fingers, elbows...;
• Assessing asymmetries (fingers, upper-body limb);
• Optimizing your grip technique;
• Quantifying recovery and reconditioning after injury:

4. Currently, both the proposed workouts and training plans are pretty closed. By now, you can just adjust intensity ± 10%. Aspects like this are the most open to criticism, and I (and others) have pestered the authors enough that they’re planning features enabling individualization of each protocol!

5. Force sensors are THE tool for one-arm standing pulls, but beginners will need some time to adapt and learn the technique. It’s worthwhile, though.

6.  I love the “Free testing” feature: You design and perform a test, then you can export the results in Excel format for later analysis.

 7. The 8 skin-friendly, large radius edges are a nice open grip training platform, but also make the smaller edges (20 mm, 13 mm) harder.

8. Measurement is solved: using multiple force gauges means forgetting about torque and friction. This has caused headaches to so many who, after spending lots of money & time manufacturing a homemade device (one gauge force+ one edge), realize that it hardly complies with the validity and reliability requirements.

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More info here. Use the code EVALOPEZ for a 10% discount. You can order it here.

*My review intends to be honest & unbiased, but you should know that: 

a) initially I received Climbro for free in exchange for my suggestions,
b) then I started collaborating,
c) now I get a %profit when someone use my EVALOPEZ code.