Kilter Board Training for Beginners

The Kilter Board can be a great training tool for climbing. Videos of professionals climbing on training boards are all over social media. If you’re unfamiliar with the Kilter Board, it’s one of the training boards that have similar looking, but different holds up and down the whole wall. The Kilter Board is universally the same, with the only variety being that you have the ability to change the steepness. The outline of each hold lights up to indicate each route that is created by users all over the world through an app on your phone.

The Kilter Board is not to be mistaken for the Moon Board or the Tension Board. All three were built with the same concept, but have slightly different hold types and orientations. The Kilter Board has slightly bigger hand-holds than the Moon and Tension boards, and is known for forcing climbers to make big, jumping moves!

You might be wondering how the Kilter Board can positively affect your training anymore than your typical gym climbing. The best part about training on a Kilter Board is that the Kilter Board never gets reset. You can project a particular route for years, and it’ll always be accessible as long as you continue to have access to a Kilter Board. Utilizing the Kilter Board in your training can assist with these three important parts of climbing, power, core, and finger strength.

Power

It’s obvious that power is an extremely important part of climbing, for bouldering and roped climbing. The routes that are set on the Kilter Board are intentionally extremely powerful. If you’ve watched videos of climbers board climbing before, you might have noticed how many times these climbers cut feet while board climbing. It’s possible to gain power from your regular gym bouldering, but since the Kitler Board has the capability to shift from 0 degrees to 40 degrees of overhang. This way you can progress on the same problem, making it steeper, more difficult, and more powerful. If power is what’s holding you back from your climbing goals, think about incorporating the Kilter Board into your climbing routine.

Core

Another super important skill to excel in climbing is core strength. You can do as much core training off the wall as you want, but in the end, core work on the wall is going to be much more beneficial for your climbing because it is sport specific. Having core strength is great, but you must know how to use it. Training on the Kilter Board is one of the best ways to work on core and overall body tension because of your ability to change the overhang of the board. A steeper terrain will force you to engage body tension, and with more practice, you will be able to use body tension on flatter surfaces as a result. As the overhang becomes more dramatic, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep your feet on the wall. That’s core tension!

Finger Strength

Hangboarding will always be the best tool for strengthening your fingers directly if you’re trying to get your crimp on, but Kilter Board training can also have a huge benefit on finger strength and contact strength. When you hangboard, you can directly target and fatigue the fingers with static hangs. The Kilter Board has a large variety of crimps in its hold gallery, ranging from juggy crimps to heinously tiny crimps. Due to the nature of Kilter Board routes requiring a lot of body tension and power, your fingers will benefit from dynamic moves to crimps, requiring a lot more finger strength than just hanging from that hold.

Time to use the Kilter Board!

Use the Kilter Board in replacement of a power-focused training session, or in the place of a hard bouldering session. Kilter Board sessions are supposed to be hard on your body, so make sure you are resting on days before and after the session.

If it’s power, core, finger strength, or a combination of the three holding you back from your climbing goals, think about incorporating the Kilter Board into your climbing routine.