Why is the Lattice Triple Rung the best hangboard?
The Lattice Triple Rung isn’t like other hangboards: its comfort is unparalleled. But more importantly, it is the best hangboard on the market for accurate finger strength assessment with its reliability and validity detailed in peer-reviewed academic research.
The Triple Rung provides maximum comfort
Large radius edge
When the Triple Rung was released in 2020, it had the largest edge radius of any board on the market.
This makes the edge very comfortable to train on, especially in a drag position. In fact, this is the most common feedback we get from our customers!
“Your 20mm edge is a gift to the climbing training world” – Jan, Webshop Review 2020
No pocket design
Pocketed hangboards have fixed width, dictating your hand position, disadvantaging anyone for whom this width isn’t ideal. It’s unlikely that the width of the pockets is the exact width where you feel strongest!
The Triple Rung is designed without pockets. Instead, it utilises a continuous edge, meaning climbers can choose their arm position and hang at whichever width feels most comfortable.
The Tripe Rung is also wider than the average hangboard; not only does this make it more inclusive, it also enables variety in your hanging position (for example, wide pull-ups on the 45mm edge).
Multiple edges (but keep it simple!)
We focus on the 20mm edge as it is the edge used most commonly for testing, however, the Lattice Triple Rung also includes a 10mm edge and a 45mm edge.
These edges utilise the same large-radius and extruded design as the 20mm edge, giving them all the same advantages.
Now, I know what you’re thinking… three edges doesn’t sound like many compared to other hangboards with pockets-galore!
However, for most people, that’s all you need!
A large edge for warming-up and pull-ups (45mm), a good max hang edge (20mm) and a micro edge (10mm). If you want to train pockets, you don’t need a pocket… just hang off fewer fingers!
Becoming familiar with an edge raises your awareness of how conditions and skin affect your performance. Training consistently on the same edge, only varying the number of fingers you’re hanging off or the shape of your hand, is going to generate more useful, reliable results compared to switching pockets (at different fixed widths, with different textures and a variety of other changeable factors).
The Triple Rung provides accurate testing
However, comfort wasn’t the primary design focus for the Triple Rung. Tom Randall was looking to develop an edge that facilitated accurate finger flexor strength testing.
Lattice has the world’s biggest dataset for finger strength; and the Triple Rung is the hangboard that that data set is built upon.
In all our assessments, we compare your results to the results of others. Different hangboards give different advantages and disadvantages. So for the most accurate results, always test on a Triple Rung.
Our dataset is unrivalled and we’ve promised to keep the core data free to access.
How does the Triple Rung do this?
Good data comes, in part, from controlling all variables, bar the one being tested.
The major uncontrolled variable in hangboarding is the amount of friction generated by the skin.
By designing an edge that limited methods for increasing friction, we reduced the variability in skin friction from person-to-person and created a more controlled testing setting that generates more reliable, comparable results.
Large radius edge reduces biomechanical advantage
Typically, those blessed with a high-degree of finger pulp can catch and fold their skin on the sharp edges of other hangboards. This increases the friction between the fingers and the hangboard, making the hang easier, as the force taken by the forearm flexor is reduced.
As a result, they would often score higher on the Lattice finger strength tests.
As the Triple Rung has a large radius edge (50% of the depth), you aren’t able to increase friction in this way. This reduces the biomechanical advantage high skin pulp offers and more accurately measures finger strength.
No pocket design
In pockets, it is possible to ‘nest’ your fingers: when climbers nestle their index finger into the side of the pocket, generating additional friction and redirecting force to the shoulders, again reducing the force taken by the forearm.
Final Thoughts
It’s important to note, there is no single hangboard that is going to be the best for everyone. We’re not claiming to have made it.
But we do believe that our product is the best on the market for accurate testing and training. It’s informed by current science and extensive development and testing by our products team. It’s even had its reliability and validity detailed in peer-reviewed academic research, which you can read here: the reliability and validity of a method for the assessment of sport rock climber’s isometric finger strength.
Not sure if this is the place for my question:
I’m wondering which board or training method is best for training crack climbing from green camalot down to as small as your pinkie will fit. Based on the idea of training that best simulates the holds you expect to use I’m thinking maybe hanging and moving on various thin cracks. Perhaps keeping a record of what you could do at the start and seeing where you might get some improvement.
What do you guys do?
Hi Adlai, exactly, you are best off trying to replicate the crack size, and spending time on replicas using these size jams! This would be the best way to build familiarity at first. If you were going to be doing any finger boarding to try and translate finger strength into these jams, I’d be looking at pocket work. Thanks, Macy