You spend a year in half crimp, watch the number climb, and get spat off a sloper by a climber who can't lift half what you lift. That experience makes people suspect their test is broken. The test is fine. The problem is that strength is stubbornly specific to the position you train it in, and one position is one position.
What "specific" actually means here
Your fingers are pulled by two main flexor tendons that share the work differently depending on what the hand is doing. Crimp positions load the deep tendon at the fingertip heavily. Slopey, open positions shift more work onto the shallower one. Half crimp sits between them and lets both contribute, which is part of why it feels so stable and so trainable. Our post on the grip your hangboard can't train covers that split properly, including the research behind it.
The consequence: you get strong at what you train, in the positions you train it. That is not a defect in your program. It is the mechanism that makes training work at all. It means a single position leaves the rest of the hand roughly where you found it.
The gaps, and who covers them
Every one of these is already argued in full somewhere in this library. Here they are in one line each, with the post that owns the argument.
- The claw. A claw grip takes away the mechanical assist your half crimp quietly relies on, so the deep flexor has to do the job without help. If your open-hand strength feels disconnected from your crimp strength, start at the grip your hangboard can't train, and see the RXE claw protocol for the session version.
- Slopers. A rounded hold changes the job from "hold a position" to "produce force through a wrist that is bent back". Our ball and bucket lifts post covers training sloper strength directly, and the 12-week wrist program covers the joint behind it.
- Pinches. Nothing about half crimp asks your thumb to do anything. Pinch strength is its own line of work: start with key pinch versus block pinch for the distinction, which pinch block when for the tool, and how to train pinch strength for bouldering for methods.
- Thick and rolling grips. A wide handle or a hold that rotates removes the skin friction and the stability a flat edge hands you for free. See why a thicker handle trains a grip your edges miss and thick handles and rolling fat grips.
- The drag. The position you fall into when your half crimp gives out is also a position with its own strength curve, and almost nobody trains it deliberately.
- Finger subsets. Front three and back three load the hand differently from a four-finger half crimp, and the back three in particular exposes a side of the hand most people never load on purpose.
The number is still worth having
None of this is an argument against half crimp, and it isn't an argument for abandoning your test. Half crimp is still the right base: it's repeatable, it loads the fingers hard without the pulley cost of a full crimp, and almost every published benchmark you can measure yourself against was collected in it. You need one position you measure consistently or you have no idea whether anything is working. Our testing post makes that case in detail: half crimp and open crimp produce different results, so pick one and stay on it, forever, if you want your log to mean anything.
Keep the base. Keep the test. What changes is the assumption that the base covers everything downstream of it.
How to pick the slice that matters
You can't train five extra positions. You can usually train one, as a small standing slot alongside your main work. Two rules for choosing it:
- Pick from what shuts you down outside, not from what tests badly. A weak claw number is only interesting if claws appear in your climbing. If your local rock is pocketed limestone, that's the answer. If it's granite slopers, that's a different answer.
- Add it as an accessory, not a second max day. These positions are less stable and less forgiving than a flat edge, and they should run at lower loads with cleaner form. The weird-grip post makes this point specifically about rolling edges and claws, and it generalises.
Then leave it alone long enough to matter. Finger adaptation runs on a slow clock, as our timelines post explains, and a position you dabble in for three weeks is a position you have not trained.
Where the tools fit
If you're covering the base and want to widen it without buying a shelf of gear, our Ultimate No Hang Starter Bundle is three no-hang edges covering the full ergonomic progression: flat Dual Edge, 22VXE variable-axis, and Unlevel Edge, built for equal finger loading and max force output. That covers the edge family. Slopers, pinches, and thick grips are different tools and different posts, linked above.
The bottom line
A big half-crimp lift is a real result. It's also a result in one position, measured on one shape, and the transfer to positions you never load is smaller than the number makes it feel. Keep half crimp as your base and your test. Then look at what actually shuts you down on rock, pick the one position that answers it, and give that position a standing slot for long enough to adapt. The goal was never a bigger number on a 20mm edge. It was a smaller gap between your strong grip and your weak ones.