Climbing pegboards might be the training option you need – offering immense training value for very little space and price.
So today, we’re looking at some of the best options on the market for their features, pros and cons, and who they’re best for.
Best Climbing Peg Boards
- Best Overall Peg Board: Rogue Peg Board
- Best Budget Peg Board: Yes4All Peg Climbing Board
- Best Peg Board for Beginners: Titan Fitness Peg Board
- Best Advanced Peg Board: TRENDBOX Climbing Holds
- Best Custom Engraved Peg Board: Plyobox Warehouse Climbing Pegboard
- Best Hang Board: Yes4All Wooden Hang Board
Best Overall Peg Board: Rogue Peg Board
The Rogue Peg Board sets the tone with excellent fundamentals – durability, stability, integrity, and quality design ideas.
- Great fundamentals with excellent durability
- Enormous size for greater training effect and challenge
- Excellent options for different woods and accessories
- Requires a large amount of space
- One of the most expensive products on this list
The Rogue Peg Board is the best choice on the market for most people most of the time because it does the most things most well.
As a result, Rogue’s climbing pegboard takes our top spot for all-around quality, consideration, and value for money.
The Rogue Peg Board is an excellent choice with deep peg holes, a single and durable piece of wood, and an enormous 35-hole design covering 8 feet.
This makes the holes relatively wide-spaced, while the whole board is a great challenge for even the most well-developed trainees.
The Rogue Peg Board also come with a shorter configuration. Depending on pricing, you can purchase the board in either maple or pine.
Maple boards are more expensive but provide the internal integrity (and beautiful finish) that distinguish them. They also include washers to prevent scuffing and offer a great total aesthetic compared to the cheaper option.
The only real problem is the clearance required to fully use an 8-foot pegboard. This is more than most homes can offer internally and may require external mounting otherwise – no small feat!
Final Verdict
The Rogue Peg Board sets the tone with excellent fundamentals – durability, stability, integrity, and quality design ideas.
Of course, the length helps, but the trade-off with height and clearance can be a real killer for some home gyms – especially anything in a garage or basement!
Best Budget Peg Board: Yes4All Peg Climbing Board
An excellent peg board for small spaces and tight budgets.
- Small and doesn't require much wall-space
- Cheap and cost-effective for tighter budgets
- Support peg is a great addition to help beginners
- Shallow holes
- Small size does mean repeated trips up the pegboard for a single set
The Yes4All Peg Climbing Board is a basic option that can be used in small spaces to get a peg board workout.
It’s a small product with fewer holes than the Rogue Peg Board and others. Still, it comes at a great price – costing less than almost any other upper body training solution.
This also includes a support peg that screws into the holes, allowing for additional support from a resistance band or other assistance.
These don’t come with the peg board but do expand what it can do, especially if you’re struggling with peg boards as a beginner.
This peg board has 9 holes with a long design, which will be enough for basic training, but you will need to climb the board repeatedly for longer sets.
The trade-off is that you can use this pegboard in smaller spaces as you will need less overhead clearance during use.
The major drawback to this product is that the holes themselves are quite shallow, making each peg tentative.
This requires – but develops – a lot of technical demand to make sure you’re staying safe with this product. This is the downside of a board that is only 1.5″ thick, leading to some awkwardness on the climb up.
Final Verdict
This is a good choice for a climbing peg board on a budget but does show some of those cost-cuts in the depth of the wood itself.
It can be an excellent choice for small spaces and tight budgets but definitely lacks the total quality and training simplicity of the Rogue Peg Board.
Best Peg Board for Beginners: Titan Fitness Peg Board
A great option for beginners looking for a serviceable but inexpensive pegboard. It fits in the middle of the field but offers elite quality.
- Great fundamentals for the price
- Excellent overall design with well-placed mounting screw guides
- Exceptional durability & sturdiness
- Dowel pegs are a little soft and tend to wear too quickly
- Some quality assurance issues have been noted (e.g., parts not in box), albeit infrequently
The Titan Fitness Peg Board is a great full-size economy choice with a solid 4-hole mounting system and a great all-rounder profile.
It’s a single piece of wood that is excellent for durability but is less versatile than some multi-part products on our list – which are popular for advanced trainees.
The fundamentals on the Titan Peg Board are great, with a deep bore on each hole and plenty of wood quality. The weight of 21lbs is a little high compared to some but reflects the quality of the wood, and the bolts themselves are surprisingly sturdy compared to the size.
Once you’ve located the upper 2 bolts, you’ll find that the product is very sturdy to the wall already before adding the further 2 bottom bolts.
The only real complaints seen about this product are the wearing out of pegs, which results from relatively soft wood, and lack of hard-wearing finish.
This can be a problem if you’re hammering this product – and aftermarket pegs may be necessary after a lot of use. However, these are perhaps the trade-off of a great all-around product at a great price!
Final Verdict
This is a great product for beginners looking for a serviceable but inexpensive pegboard.
It offers all the most important features without the sheer length of the rogue option or the challenge of some more advanced multi-panel products. It’s a great choice that fits in the middle of the field but offers elite quality.
Best Advanced Peg Board: TRENDBOX Climbing Holds
The TRENDBOX's modular design lets you introduce lateral movement and offers a great 3-piece advanced quality pegboard with a huge stability boost due to the added mounting screws in each panel!
- Multi-panel modular design offers more training options
- Lateral movement can seriously improve training options
- More screws per hole than any other product on this list
- Great quality with a 4th-panel option and modular height and width for space-saving solutions
- More expensive than some options on this list
- Does require multiple pieces of wood
- May require more commitment of more space to get the best results from this product
The opposite of the Titan fitness Peg Board, the TRENDBOX climbing holds set offers an extended climbing pegboard with 23 total holes and an enormous 4-foot span.
This makes it a great choice for building more strength and endurance for climbing.
The added sections also mean you can add lateral movement to your peg board challenge with offset boards to offer advanced training options.
You can also position these boards sideways if you’re looking for maximal lateral movement. They’re still as tall as a typical pegboard, even with all the focus on lateral movement.
You’ll get 3 standard pegs for this board, which is great for advanced training and extra longevity in case of a single peg break. It’s fastened with lug screws like most of the products on this review, with no secondary mounting bracket included.
These are well made but do require good wall quality and appropriate space.
This is the main trade-off: the extra space demand is commensurate with the height, so you may need extra distance, and it’s more expensive than some options on the market.
TRENDBOX also offer a 4-panel, 30-hole version if you’re looking for even more climbing pegboard options and a better total training option – with more cost and more space demands.
Final Verdict
The TRENDBOX option is amazing for its modular design.
It lets you introduce lateral movement to take your training to the next level or offers a great 3-piece advanced quality pegboard with a huge stability boost due to the added mounting screws in each panel!
Best Custom Engraved Peg Board: Plyobox Warehouse Climbing Pegboard
This is a great choice if you're looking for the basics of a pegboard with a bit of personal flavor and character. This can be a great way to personalize your whole home gym with a single purchase.
- Engraving options to personalize your peg board
- Great overall design with standard configuration and 23 holes
- May not have the best mounting screw placement (can be added to)
- Requires secondary buying for the hardware
- Only 2 dowel pegs – less than others on the market
The Plyobox Warehouse Climbing Pegboard is an excellent choice for adding some personality to a long-lasting item.
With a complete laser engraving option, you can get your own message laser-cut onto the product to remind yourself of the words you need when the fatigue starts adding up!
The overall design is similar to the Titan Fitness Peg Board with a 4-ft span in a single piece of wood, with 23 holes.
This makes it a great foundation to work from. It comes with the same single piece of wood, providing some extra stability and internal strength to add durability and longevity.
One of the only things we’d like to see from this product is the added near-center guides for the lugs seen on other products. The outer edge choice here does put less wood between the lug and the direction of force, leading to a little rapid degradation and more “peeling” risk on the top screws.
This product is also missing hardware, which means purchasing those 5″ lugs separately. However, it includes the 2 dowel pegs, as you might expect.
Final Verdict
This is a great choice if you’re looking for the basics of a peg board with a bit of personal flavor and character.
This can be a great way to personalize your whole home gym with a single purchase, though it requires a little aftermarket support to get the most from this product.
You may spend more on 5″ screws and extra dowel pegs. Still, it may be worthwhile for a good set of fundamentals with a touch of personality that’s rare for home gym equipment.
Best Hang Board: Yes4All Wooden Hang Board
This simple but powerful product does exactly what you want from a hang board at a great price. It mounts on a number of screws for extra security and easy installation and use.
- Excellent way to develop strength in the forearms
- Easy to install and use
- Great value for the quality of the item you're getting
- Tons of hold-variety for static and dynamic grip training
- Doesn't offer the same upper back and bicep development of a peg board
- Does require mounting by itself – maybe with a backboard, depending on your walls
Hang boards are like peg boards but without the pegs. Instead, they offer a wide range of grips and training options for climbing and other forms of grip sport, with a focus on movement and a varying depth of grip to strengthen the fingers and forearms.
Depending on your goals and needs, this is a great choice either with or instead of a pegboard.
It’s a choice that can completely revolutionize training for grip strength and bodyweight training – building up an area that most people neglect over time.
Whatever your goals, the Yes4All hang board is a great choice for small spaces and offers all the variety and range you want from a hang board.
Holds vary by width (for more or fewer fingers), depth (for more or less challenge), and can be moved through to provide a dynamic grip training option.
Final Verdict
This simple but powerful product does exactly what you want from a hang board at a great price.
It’s an economy product for the classic design of hang board and mounts on a number of screws for extra security and easy installation and use.
How We Chose the Best Climbing Peg Boards
There are a lot of good peg boards on the market nowadays. Trust us – we know. We looked at them all to pick our best list.
Narrowing it down was no easy feat. To help us rank the options, we used the criteria in the Buying Guide section below – including:
- Materials
- Mounting Mechanism
- Dowels
- Dimensions
- Number of Holes
- Weight Capacity
Why You Should Trust Us
At Home Gym Boss we pride ourselves on being impartial and only recommend products we would use ourselves.
Sometimes it is impossible to try all the different products, so we do our research by talking to athletes, strength coaches & personal trainers, reading user reviews, checking product manuals, assessing overall brand quality and reputation, and checking the current prices.
Benefits of Climbing Peg Boards
Climbing Pegboards are a great training option that opens up many dynamic upper body exercises for beginners and intermediates.
It’s a more difficult alternative to a pull-up that lets you scale your development and produce excellent strength gains with a combination of single-arm, isometric, and concentric training.
You can expect a lot of bicep, lat, and shoulder development when using a pegboard for training.
However, these also come with some other benefits, either downstream from the basic design or practical benefits around the home gym!
Training options and variety
The main benefit of the climbing pegboard is that it’s a very singular piece of training equipment that opens up a wide range of challenging but productive exercises.
In addition, pegboard climbs are among the best ways to develop strength and control in the upper body as an intermediate.
This kind of training fits the gap between good pull-ups and some of the more advanced challenges from bodyweight training.
These are specifically useful in developing for climbing (of course), gymnastics, grappling sports (like judo, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu), and others.
The specific type of training and wide range of options make a pegboard great value for these pursuits and just build more muscle and strength.
Better development in the upper body
Improving on the pegboard is one of the best ways to build strength and stability in the upper body – especially the muscles of the upper back and the arms.
This includes forearm strength, bicep strength (both isometrically and concentrically), and the almost-one-arm chin-up it replicates.
These movements all add up to provide a huge stepping stone from basic bodyweight training (e.g., pull-ups) into more powerful training options.
Pegboards are a great accessory exercise to build a more muscular back and arms, both in the sheer muscle and the control you have over it.
Specific strength training
The pegboard is one of the very few ways that you can take specific strengthening home – especially for climbing, grappling, and gymnastics.
It’s a surprisingly low-demand option for the variety of training options it opens up. It is far easier than the other alternatives – such as rope climbs, a homemade climbing wall, or gymnastic equipment (other than rings, e.g.).
This makes the pegboard a singularly useful choice for improving a wide range of training options for different sport-specific strengthening at home.
For example, you can get an immense amount of value out of a squat rack with a simple pull-up bar, weights, and a pegboard.
This makes it one of the best early purchases to build a great all-around home gym.
Practicality: it just needs a decent wall
The pegboard is a very simple and effective piece of equipment without any real downsides. It’s a very small footprint and only requires a wall that is big enough and strong enough to hold it.
Unlike other equipment, it doesn’t take up any real space.
This makes the pegboard one of the best choices for a small home gym where it really maximizes on value for space.
Longevity and investment assurance of being useful
A pegboard also has the distinct benefit of lasting forever. While the pegs may need replacing with time, a high-quality pegboard will last for decades, and it’s not uncommon to pass them down in the family.
The pegboard is hewn from a single piece of wood and finished well with good lacquer and brackets is a one-time purchase. This item will likely outlive your squat rack half the time, making it an excellent investment at a great price.
Best Peg Board Buying Guide
Materials
A pegboard is a simple item, but that means the value of the construction materials is doubled. The only thing that can really go wrong is damage to the wood or damage to the mounting bracket of the product.
Better products are hewn from a single piece of wood and have high-density wood sources.
These may even be pre-prepared to improve internal strength. Aside from that, you just want to get a good solid wood with a good varnished finish, so you’re not scratching the top layer off with a peg.
Mounting mechanism (and included or sold separately)
Mounting mechanisms are absolutely essential to getting the best climbing pegboard for your money.
They’re going to be holding all of your weight and are the closest thing to a “moving part” you will find.
Mounting mechanisms that focus on greater stability against the wall and reduced movement during use are key. These both keep you safe and reduce the risk of needing to replace the peg board.
Extra fastenings, well-regarded craftsmanship, and high-quality machining are all incredibly important for a climbing pegboard.
It’s also important to note that some products won’t include a great mounting option – or any. Products with included, and especially high-quality, mounting brackets will be a huge bonus and a way to save money.
Dowels (and included or sold separately)
The dowel pegs included with a product are important – they’re the main “wear and tear” target and typically get worn down fast.
This means that having them included de facto is a great choice, more of them are better, and higher quality really matters.
If possible, look for finished wood and more pegs, as these will save you from having to buy more.
However, some items do not come with them, and in that case, you want to look for high-density hard-wood pegs with a good hard-wearing finish, if possible!
Dimensions
All things being equal, a larger climbing pegboard is better for the extra training options it can bring to your home gym. First, however, you need to make sure that this fits the space in your home, your budget, and the realistic weight-bearing of your walls.
The dimensions are a give-and-take with these practical factors, but bigger is better for climbing pegboards.
The only exceptions are when this comes at a cost to the mounting brackets and the actual peg slots or handles – which are about personal preference.
If you can get a larger pegboard that fits your home gym, is an acceptable higher cost, and doesn’t suffer on peg-holes, go big.
Number of holes
More holes and more intuitive spacing are excellent choices for improving the quality of pegboard you get. More holes – without compromising on strength – means a better product.
The option to progress along the whole distance, rather than just reps or weight, is a great way to get more from a climbing pegboard.
This lets you tailor the training experience to your own goals and provides more versatility. This is almost always a good thing.
It does trade-off against strength in some products and can be a problem if the depth of the peg-holes is too shallow.
Ensure that the pegboard’s fundamentals (i.e., the quality of wood and depth of holes) are good before worrying about the number of holes.
Weight capacity
The climbing pegboard weight rating is a key factor for getting the best product. It typically signals the strength and longevity of the board.
It also speaks to the quality and durability of the pegs, the brackets, and other essential factors for quality and value.
Make sure that you check the strength and weight capacity of the pegboard, the brackets, and the pegs themselves if they’re listed separately.
This is an important way to gauge the strength of all the parts and make sure you’re putting your money into something that can stand the test of time.
Climbing Peg Board FAQs
What is a climbing pegboard?
A climbing pegboard is a training device used to build strength in the upper body – both pulling and isometric strength.
This makes the pegboard an excellent choice for rockface and bouldering climbers and other trainees from bodybuilding to CrossFit to gymnastics.
The climbing board is also a great alternative to other forms of bodyweight training – it’s a more convenient alternative to a rope climb for a home gym, for example.
In addition, it’s a great and compact way to mount a climbing training solution on your walls, without needing 30ft of overhead clearance!
What muscles does a peg board work?
The climbing peg board will primarily work the upper back muscles and the biceps.
The time spent loading a bent arm on the peg is a huge bicep and lat training stimulus, while the moving portion is a single-arm chin-up with light support from the other arm.
This makes the peg board – like the legless rope climb – a great intermediate bodyweight training option. It will also develop grip strength and core strength, but less directly.
Best Climbing Peg Boards Recap
- Best Overall Peg Board: Rogue Peg Board
- Best Budget Peg Board: Yes4All Peg Climbing Board
- Best Peg Board for Beginners: Titan Fitness Peg Board
- Best Advanced Peg Board: TRENDBOX Climbing Holds
- Best Custom Engraved Peg Board: Plyobox Warehouse Climbing Pegboard
- Best Hang Board: Yes4All Wooden Hang Board
Related Resources
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- Strength Goals – How to do 10 Pull-Ups
- Best Budget Home Gym Equipment
- Cable Crossover Alternatives You Can Do At Home
- DIY Garage Gym: The Ultimate Guide
- Cost Breakdown of a Garage Gym
Conclusion
Climbing Pegboards are a great training option that opens up many dynamic upper body exercises for beginners and intermediates.
You can expect a lot of bicep, lat, and shoulder development when using a pegboard for training. However, these also come with some other benefits, either downstream from the basic design or practical benefits around the home gym!
