[cha1n]

Do people find they get injured more on their weaker hand?

I'm right handed and my left hand has always felt a bit weak compared to my right. The fingers even look and feel slightly thinner with less soft tissue on them.

I've been logging my injuries since 2011 and I've had 11 A2 injuries in my left hand (mainly ring finger) and only two injuries on my right hand.

I've started adding notes along with injury details and I'm almost always pulling on crimps when tired and dehydrated, I've usually also been a little ill around the time of injury.  I hope this time I learn from my mistakes.

[Muenchener]

I haven't noticed a particular left-right imbalance, but I do wonder why it's nearly always the ring finger

[cha1n]

Personally, I think I rotate my wrist so that the pinky side of my hand is rotated into the wall more than the thumb side. Not sure if that makes sense but the result is that I load the back three more.

Could account for why the ring gets injured more but doesn't explain why the pinky escapes without injury!

[lagerstarfish]

I figured it some sort of voodoo shit that the wife was doing to make sure I remember that I'm not a free agent

[Paul B]

Wow, thats a fair few A2s. Have you had any other tweaks or are you lumping everything in under A2?

I seem to remember you had quite a while climbing in Font; any injuries during this time?

Any split between training injuries and climbing injuries?

Like you, dehydration, tiredness and illness all contribute (lack of warm-up being another culprit, vast change of intensity etc.). I can usally retrospectively spot the cause of an injury, I just need to learn not to get there in the first place. I'm fairly sure that being scared of the above makes me shy away from trying hard / consistently / persistently and it's getting a bit frustrating.

[Matt002]

I have done A2 ring finger twice once on each hand, both times trying to warm up on easy stuff outdoors when it was as freezing or blowing a gale.  I go jogging with layers on as part of my warm up on days like this now.
I cant generate much force at all with pinky, so maybe thats why injury there is rare compared to ring finger which can generate some force but is mechanically less capable compared to front 2.

[Schnell]

I've seen it claimed that ring fingers get injured more because they're not supported on both sides by relatively long, strong fingers, unlike the middle. Obviously doesn't always apply cos I've had loads of middle finger a2 tweaks but only once on the ring finger.

[cha1n]

Yeh, a few of them are re-injuries of the same finger spread across the year. 2011 and 2012 were particularly bad but after that I stopped full crimping almost altogether.

I was injured before I went to Font, so I was mainly climbing slopey problems there - no shortage of those.

All of my injuries have been crimping indoors apart from one which was crimpy limestone in very cold (not warmed up properly) conditions.

My injury sustained last night was not from full crimps at least but I was half-crimping when I unexpectedly lost my footing in a horizontal roof. So hard to just let go in those situations.

[cha1n]

I injured myself before Font in La Pedriza. Pulling hard on crimps. Not full crimping but pulling quite hard on a hand I hadn't crimped in much for a while.

[thekettle]

I think pinkies often escape injury because they generally drag or half-crimp, being too short relative to the other fingers to get into a full on crimp very often. It's also the first finger to be sidelined for pockets and short edges (for me at least). It might be worth getting close-up photo/video footage at the wall to see what shapes your fingers are making when you bear down on each hand if you suspect one is doing something unhelpful. I've not experienced a higher rate of 'weaker hand' problems, but my tweaks definitely correlate to illness, dehydration and back-to back crimpy days (insufficient rest!) too.

[JJP]

I also seem to get more injuries on my weaker left side - the left side seems to move and pull slightly differently.  It is usually my middle finger that gets injured and dont recall ever having a significant ring finger injury.  I have always assumed this is because the middle finger is longest and so bunches up most when half crimping or crimping.

[Pebblespanker]

I get similar though not A2s, I seem to have a tweaky collateral issue that recurs every now (5-6 times at least now) and then but always the same side of my left hand ring finger. I've tried with good results to concentrate hard on keeping good solid form and not allowing my arms/hands to change position on maximum hangs to minimise injury - not always easy to do when struggling to hang on doing maximals! The comment around weak hand moving position to try and stay on rings a large bell too - it was the realisation I was doing this that propmted the focus on attempting to always maintain good form, especially when doing weighted hangs. If I see my hand shape has changed during a set I usually stop the set and accept I am a weak punter rather than risk a tweak squeezing out one last rep. Most recent injury was obtained bouldering not on the board, so progress of a sort.

The left ring is also my most gnarly looking finger... slight permanent bend to it 

[Muenchener]

I've had collateral issues a couple of times too, through not being careful enough about the direction of pull on monos.