the shizzle > diet, training and injuries
A2 News
cofe:
Thanks Ru. My last one was middle A2, same hand, in early 2016. I made it worse two weeks later by not resting properly initially and then it took a while to recover (followed by secondary injuries; joy), mainly through building up climbing. This injury doesn't feel as bad. I did wrap the finger in tape when I climbed back then, but only so it wasn't possible to crimp: I think DMC recommends this in his book. I'm not convinced you can get tape tight enough to help without affecting blood flow, and therefore recovery. I've read this elsewhere too. Volker recommends the H taping.
I have been doing the cold water (20mins) stuff to encourage blood flow. Feels good.
Ru:
H taping is supposed to be better at taking load off the pulley, but I'm skeptical about its efficacy. Isa Schoeffl did some cadaver studies that showed it works, but cadavers don't have to pump blood through their fingers at the same time. There are also a few underground treatments with good anecdotal reports of efficacy in injury healing but with no human studies to back them up like BPC-157 injections. I've not read enough about them to comment and clearly cannot recommend.
Ged:
Alright Cofe. I seem to get an annual dose of a pulley sprain. Usually from unleashing emergency crimp on something in bad conditions, or just generally overdoing it a bit. I often don't notice anything major at the time, but it's stiff the next day. After lots of mucking around with different things, here's what seems to work for me...
Total rest from climbing for 2.weeks to let it calm down a bit. Icing feels nice at this stage, but don't overdo it. Likewise with ibuprofen. Just be patient and go running. Keep moving it through full range lots, but carefully.
Then start doing the pen rolls (look at the Esther Smith article, rubber band stuff, and very steady climbing with absolutely no crimping whatsoever. I tape up here, purely so that my finger can't bend. No support for tendon, just to stop it crimping. Gradually build up the rubber band work and open hand climbing over 2 or 3 weeks, but mainly, keep being patient and go running. This is the key here. They often start to feel better around this time, so I'll get over excited, climb something too hard, and then quickly make my way back to square 1. Or worse. Be patient. It's only a few weeks.
After 6 weeks, start finger boarding. Really gently at first. Aim is to fix your injury, not get stronger (although there's loads you can do around it, like one arm stuff on big holds etc). I do three finger open, then half crimp. At first this hurts the injury a bit. And it feels weak as hell. Like can't actually hang bodyweight off half crimp. Every other day, a good warm up and then gentle half crimp sets (maybe 5 hangs), and every session it will feel stronger and less painful. I think at this stage you're probably OK to carefully ramp up the bouldering too. Stay open handed until its feeling lots stronger.
Usually 3 weeks of this and I start to feel condmfident using a crimp whilst climbing again. I find 9 or 10 weeks from first doing it to pretty much fully recovered. In the past it's taken months and months due to a combination of overdoing it early on, and then not doing the progressive loading.
Article...
https://eu.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_GB/experience-story?cid=esther-smith-nagging-finger-injuries
cofe:
Cheers Ged. Sounds like I’m already doing a bit too much. Will back off a bit more and the build it back up next year.
Coops_13:
One thing I found really helpful for my latest finger injury that got me back to near full strength, before the latest wrist injury... was progressive loading over sessions.
After various non-climbing rest and rehab, I started with 2-handed hangs with weight taken off by a pulley. I was on a 20mm edge with -45lb to start and every session I'd slowly decrease the weight taken off (increase once bodyweight is passed). Was really good to be able to track progress and was so psyched when I was back to bodyweight hangs. Half-crimp throughout.
I think the starting point will depend on severity of injury
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