[french erick]

Anyone on here managed to climb for a few years without any?
Just popped one of my ring finger pulleys yesterday... training will get another throwback. Hadn't injured myself in years. Was expecting to get something in the first few months of a proper training regime, not six months in. I am still trying to understand how I got there and whilst I stopped believing in the well known "nae luck" but cannot find why !

[petejh]

God I wish there was a little dashboard light that blinked red warning of impending injury. Until this year I hadn't suffered too badly, a couple of tweaks here and there. This year has been the shittest ever. All I can think - and I know this is already the received wisdom - is that injuries are strongly correlated to overall health, stress levels, hydration and cumulative load prior to 'the trigger'. All these seem to 'lower the bar' beyond which injury is likely to bite. Fine in hindsight - but it seems it's very hard to judge just how low the bar is at any point in time..

[french erick]

I am quiet puzzled still, been on hols a while. I know #2 nipper is being delivered in the next week or so but not too stressed about it.
I warmed up fairly well (could have been a bit more thorough I'm sure but), was just trying to find projects. Tried the move 3 times. First time round it felt desperate. Stopped, thought and came with a sequence that was duff (so did not try really hard). Had another go at the whole problem after finding the correct sequence (in isolation) and it just popped.
Trying really hard to "understand"...since I obviously did something wrong.
Inflammation not too bad. Gonna go to a physio asap.

Will see if I can train cracks only for a couple of months? Not sure yet about how it'll impact on jamming. Thankfully no fingerlock cracks on homewall There's also lots of core stuff I should work on 

Anyone out there successfully broke their cycle? I need a success story.

[french erick]

God I wish there was a little dashboard light that blinked red warning of impending injury.

It would be so good
Why are we so bad at judging these things...case of deluding ourselves ?

[tomtom]

Sometimes you just pull harder than you mean to and... Twang...

[Stubbs]

Has your training schedule involved sufficient rest/easy weeks?

[saltbeef]

Has your training schedule involved sufficient rest/easy weeks?

does not compute

ah, I see the problem

[duncan]

Writing about the same subject, Stu Littlefair recommended “if you want to avoid mistakes, talk to a man who's made them all”. I’m your man.

At some point you're almost certainly going to get injured if you're trying remotely hard. So congratulations!

It's common for there to be no definitive identifiable reason why it happens but, on reflection, there are sometimes clues. These vary from person to person so, to some degree, you have to become an 'expert patient'.

There is considerable evidence that anxiety and low mood predisposes to pain and injury. The mechanism is unclear but involves many factors perhaps including elevated cortisol. Cortisol tests might represent Pete's dashboard light in the future if a strong link is demonstrated. In the meantime, look after yourself. People living in shitty environments or who have greater life stresses, like migrants, are more prone to aches and pains above and beyond other covariants like poverty and socioeconomic status. Stress and anxiety seems to be the important factor. It's certainly an important factor for me. So if you're having a tough time, ease back on the training.

Social pressures can be a factor, a little competition is fun and motivational but I've learned the hard way that I train better and I'm less likely to overdo things when I'm on my own. If I'm climbing with someone better, younger, or more female I have to be particularly careful! Don't know if this applies to you but it's worth considering.

Age is an important. Don't get older but, if you can't avoid this, don't be in your early-mid 20s when suddenly you are no longer completely invulnerable. Especially don't be in your mid-late 30s. Performance starts to deteriorate then so you have to train harder or start training or try harder to maintain performance. At the same time you're becoming more injury-prone but have not yet worked out strategies to work around this. Lots of climbers get injured repeatedly and give up, adopting some face-saving activity like surfing, cycling, running a business, becoming a parent, or - if really desperate - fell-running. This is when self-assessment is particularly important.

The biggest physical risk factor for me is lack of sufficient recovery time, this is very age-related. Two days a week on plastic is now my limit. The other is lack of training variety. I have to mix things up, either climbing variety or by including some non-climbing training. This is usually dressed up as 'working the antagonists' or some such notion. I think the main thing is to do something else. Other factors that seem to apply to me: dehydration, lack of sleep, and not stopping soon enough if training strength or power.

At the end of it though, some people are more injury-prone than others and often it's just a case of 'shit happens'.

[mrjonathanr]

At the end of it though, some people are more injury-prone than others and often it's just a case of 'shit happens'.

[french erick]

Cheers Duncan.
Interesting stuff. I'll be working on my core strength in the meantime.
It does seem like I'm stuffed anyways: I'm a migrant, in my mid 30s, young parent. On the +, I almost always train alone

[erm, sam]

I recently read somewhere that the best time for a short rest is just when you feel you are going well. I try to bear this in mind in terms of not getting carried away by suddenly trying a new harder rep or set or what have you when I am feeling invincible during a good session.
I have been injured for part of each year for as long as I can remember but am trying very hard to apply the above and so far seem to be improving and training harder without getting injured, though it does need some discipline.

[Rocksteady]

the best time for a short rest is just when you feel you are going well.

This is something I intend to totally follow from now on. Looking back, all my injuries (and I seem to rack up minor ones like part-pulley tears, mild tennis elbow, shoulder impingement every year) are incurred where I try to push on beyond a high.

First time I got a finger injury was after the first time I climbed a F6c. Second time I got a finger injury was after I first climbed a F7a and started trying F7a+. This year I've screwed up my shoulders after a period early in the year where I made great gains doing board training.

Lesson learned - for me, it's back off and have a rest when I achieve a season high.

[erm, sam]

I don't think it needs to be a massive rest, just a couple of easier sessions or a 4 day break instead of the usual 2 just helps to keep on top of the injuries.

One other thing I have been doing differently is to try to use a wave type progession rather than a linear progression, so instead of trying to match or beat each workout, after a PB type workout I will ease back for a session, just a bit, and then go back to the PB in the session after and then in the next session try to push beyond. It depends a bit on how I'm feeling, but it means the are small mini breaks or eases in the normal training progression.

It can be frustrating going slowly but I have made much more progression in my fingerboarding than I have ever managed before.

[Sasquatch]

That's one of the nice things about periodization as well, it forces you to change up and switch focus, and often right when you're peaking at one thing, so you don't over do it.  It can be hard to change when you're doing well, but it seems to keep injuries at bay as well as improving long term performance.

[Fultonius]

Up until I fucked my knee, I had suffered from regular injuries - tweaked (but never fully torn) pullies, flexor unit strains )seems to be my most recurrent one), should subluxation followed by impingement, neck tweak that resulted in my rotator cuff "turning off".

Since fucking my knee (4 years ago) I've tweaked one pip joint by getting it stuck in a pocket (sounded like someone snapping a chicken joint  ) and ... that's about it!

I put it down to rarely climbing indoors and not really training very much. On the downside, my bouldering shitness level is largely unchanged    I thought I'd started to rip it up the other day when I got a F7B+ on about my 5th go. Got home to find it's only 7A+ ho hum.

[Schnell]

The most recent episode of the enormocast is on the topic of injuries and prevention. Some of it is a bit simple (what are pulleys etc) but I found it interested. On the topic of why injuries suddenly happen, it had some interesting stuff about predisposition through climbing style and underlying weaknesses that gradually weaken until something pops.

Loads on there about shoulders: do lots of therabanding, specifically replicating climbing moves with a theraband. i.e. having it above your head rather than side to side. This was a new idea to me.

Fingers: don't crimp to much etc. but also training the finger extensors was mentioned a la 'powerfingers.' Coincidentally I've been doing this for a while trying to rehab a pulley and it hasn't made a noticeable difference.

[Nibile]

Unfortunately my turn to post here...
Last injury yesterday, a crack in my right pinky, hopefully nothing too serious, but an injury nonetheless.
It was a long time since the last one, apart the overuse ones, but those are clear to feel, and if one isn't as stupid as me, also to avoid and prevent. Three hours spent on a single move aren't exactly a good idea, just like going bouldering after a night out, etc.
Anyway, this finger strain came absolutely from nowhere, first move of the first excercise, with usual warm up, usual prehension and load, everything the same. Normal day at work, no stress.
Only one thing was different: as I pulled on the crimp, I felt like a beast. I mean, I felt it was going to be one of those rare sessions. And it was honestly, because I taped it up and finished my homeworks.
So, basically I think that sometimes shit just happens. A micrometric difference in a joint angle, and there you go...