[Nike Air]

What's people's experience with getting back on a particular route or boulder that badly injured them?

How long did you wait to get over the bad relationship with a climb?

I've asked a few folk at the crag because I think it's an interesting subject.

[Fiend]

Injured physically, or injured the ego / soul / mentally??

[andy popp]

Isn't the typical advice that you have to jump right back in the saddle, injuries permitting. My own experience involved leaving it a really, really long time.

I'm thinking of Barriers, which I foolishly tried very soon after it had been done (foolishly because I was barely even an E3 leader). I came off - big surprise - went round the arete, and completely spannered myself on the big sloping ledge. It definitely shook me up and I studiously avoided the route thereafter, even though I virtually lived at the Roaches.

I only tried it again many years later and after moving away, certainly more than ten years later, and the effects still lingered. I didn't fall off the second time, but there was a lot of upping and downing before I could commit, suggesting leaving it hadn't been very effective.

There were other routes I didn't get back on after injuring myself , such Unfamiliar, which I broke my ankle on, but typically the reason wasn't psychological but more that I simply didn't get round to them for whatever reason.

[Oldmanmatt]

Isn't the typical advice that you have to jump right back in the saddle, injuries permitting. My own experience involved leaving it a really, really long time.

I'm thinking of Barriers, which I foolishly tried very soon after it had been done (foolishly because I was barely even an E3 leader). I came off - big surprise - went round the arete, and completely spannered myself on the big sloping ledge. It definitely shook me up and I studiously avoided the route thereafter, even though I virtually lived at the Roaches.

I only tried it again many years later and after moving away, certainly more than ten years later, and the effects still lingered. I didn't fall off the second time, but there was a lot of upping and downing before I could commit, suggesting leaving it hadn't been very effective.

There were other routes I didn't get back on after injuring myself , such Unfamiliar, which I broke my ankle on, but typically the reason wasn't psychological but more that I simply didn't get round to them for whatever reason.

That sounds unnecessarily self deprecating.

You went back, you did it, you didn’t fall, but it was still scary and some moves needed thinking about/testing, before you committed.

Which was probably true both before your fall and on any subsequent attempts, regardless of the time elapsed.

At a guess, there would have been as much and probably more “upping and downing” had you rushed back as soon as you were sufficiently healed.
You could possibly even call not going back, a very long “downing”.

Not at all convinced forcing yourself into hugely stressful situations, under some perceived need to “make yourself  whole the hard way” is really the best route to personal progress.

Going off, working your way back in, without breaking yourself again. Identifying weaknesses or areas where you might improve your approach. Training and rehabilitation, not pig headed macho gusto on ‘roids.

Why treat the mental injury any differently to the physical?

And, sometimes, the injury is too great to recover fully. You lose your leg, your leg is gone, no amount of stretching or massage is brining it back. You just have to find a way to live around the loss.

[Paul B]

I think it very much depends on how it's hurt you as that's going to not only dictate how long the recovery period is but also what you may have to do to address the issue.

Dalliance has hurt me the last two seasons I've tried it. Both issues were shoulder girdle related (I can't remember who it was on Urgent at the time but they said "it sounded like Velcro tearing"  ) and looking back I don't think I did enough between the incidents to try and mitigate it happening again.

Possibly slightly OT:
I'm in the position these days that being off from sport due to injury isn't something I'm keen on so I'm far more likely to just let it go and move on. This is obviously a poor path for performance but it's far better for my day to day sanity (N.B. for climbers who end up in a very dark place when injured).

Previously I had little stress at work so I was quite happy to pile it on with trying hard/training/redpointing. These days work can leave me quite stressed and there's not a lot of room for anything additional (without it firmly tipping me over the edge; sorry to anyone on the receiving end!). As an example after a particularly stressful month I went to Riglos and could barely function on a relatively easy but spaced out pitch; it took almost the entire week to decompress before I could climb somewhat normally. This may be why I'll be going for a bike ride this afternoon (and can't find the enthusiasm to venture out climbing)!

Lattice would probably suggest I go back to working in a climbing wall  .

[SA Chris]

D Mac would suggest owning one.

[Wil]

Previously I had little stress at work so I was quite happy to pile it on with trying hard/training/redpointing. These days work can leave me quite stressed and there's not a lot of room for anything additional (without it firmly tipping me over the edge; sorry to anyone on the receiving end!).

This is true for me, although it took a long time for me to recognise it. I'd always felt that climbing allowed me to decompress, but residual stress from other things leaked into my climbing a lot more than I'd realised. It was brought home to me after I got signed off work for a few weeks with stress (from a job I thankfully left shortly after). Week one felt strange, a lot of guilt at leaving colleagues in the lurch and a feeling that I wasn't allowed to enjoy myself if I was "off sick". Cortisol levels must have dropped a lot by week 2 and I had a storming week sport climbing, doing projects that I'd abandoned in a couple of goes, retro-flashing other stuff with confidence and even getting my hardest Peak District flash on a sport route.

Back on the original topic: The only route I've seriously spooned myself on I've not returned to, mainly because it's not that good and I'd done it before anyway. It took me quite a while before I revisited the scene of the accident though, and it brought it more clearly in focus how lucky I'd been, the landing was a lot worse than I'd imagined, a jumble of boulders rather than the soft grass I'd incorrectly remembered (head injury).

I think getting back on the horse can be a good idea, but if the stress level is too much then it risks making things worse. Finding a way to reintroduce yourself to the same place but with an acceptable amount of stress to rebuild positive feelings is the way to go.

I was trying a sport route yesterday, one that I really felt should be a done deal that session, good sequences, done in overlapping halves etc. It's certainly at my current fitness limit, having not climbed anything that hard in a similar style for quite a while, but nothing desperate.

I had normal redpoint anxiety, but I didn't get the route done because every time I reached the crucial section I suddenly climbed badly, forgot the sequence, lunged for the good hold instead of climbing to it and so on. The reason was pretty simple: In a previous session a belayer dropped me when I fell off that move. It was fine, just a bigger than expected fall on a steep route, but I went far enough that I genuinely thought I was going to deck, but laughed it off at the time. I hadn't really thought about it until driving back last night and being a bit annoyed at not getting it done, but that was definitely the key factor, and simply forcing the issue didn't work!

[andy popp]

Isn't the typical advice that you have to jump right back in the saddle, injuries permitting. My own experience involved leaving it a really, really long time.

That sounds unnecessarily self deprecating.

My tongue was pretty firmly in my cheek. Clearly my strategy (which wasn't a strategy at all, just a by-product of avoiding the route) did little to lessen the psychological effects and was thus a bit of a jokey recommendation. At the same time, I certainly wouldn't always recommend gung ho leaping back into the fray.

In any case, I now wonder if Jordan was thinking of a completely different kind of injury.

[cheque]

I hurt my finger pretty badly on Brad’s Arête at Stanton Moor once. It was a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back type injury that wasn’t anything to do with the problem itself but doing it after my finger was better (and I’d gone most of the way to fixing the problem that caused it) felt good.

My worst trad fall, although the only injury I had from it was rope burn, was on Dead Banana Crack at Stoney. I inverted, fell most of the way down the route and thought I was about to hit the ground headfirst. It’s probably affected all my climbing ever since really and I avoided Stoney completely for a very long time afterwards but reading this thread makes me think I should get back on it- the causes of the fall were badly placed gear and an inexperienced/ overconfident belayer and I don’t have either of those problems any more so it would probably do me a lot of good to climb it uneventfully.

The route I really fucked myself up on (or more accurately in the process of lowering off after doing it) is in another country so it’s not very easy to go back to in more ways than one. I sometimes feel like I’m revisiting it when I climb routes that are even superficially similar to be honest and even finding I could visit the crag virtually via Google Streetview was quite traumatic!

[seankenny]

Previously I had little stress at work so I was quite happy to pile it on with trying hard/training/redpointing. These days work can leave me quite stressed and there's not a lot of room for anything additional (without it firmly tipping me over the edge; sorry to anyone on the receiving end!).

This is true for me, although it took a long time for me to recognise it. I'd always felt that climbing allowed me to decompress, but residual stress from other things leaked into my climbing a lot more than I'd realised.

This has definitely been my experience in the past from work-related stress. After Dad died in the pandemic last year I fully expected my first day out climbing at Portland to involve me slumping on the fourth bolt of the warm up, having a good cry. In fact quite the opposite! It felt the most natural thing in the world and like I'd woken up again. (I did have a slightly weepy moment but it was whilst I was having lunch, nothing to do with the climbing.) I went on to have lots of fun days out climbing but I was quite clear with myself that trad was totally off the table for 2020. I was also fairly picky about who I went climbing with, partly to avoid the kind of situation Wil describes but also because I wasn't up to dealing with people I didn't know well.

This year I've been trad climbing and climbed with new people. It's a cliche but time is a healer.

[mark20]

I always think "if you ain't psyched for it, you ain't gonna do it", and don't force myself to do anything now. It's just fucking grim getting halfway up something without being committed to it.
I had a bad fall with the rope around my leg a few years ago that gave me quite nasty rope burn around leg, concussion and whiplash. I knew I still wanted to do the route but just had to wait out a couple of seasons until the psyche properly returned. I analysed why the rope went around my leg, how I can avoid it, etc and came to the conclusion that the fall I took was probably the worst case scenario. So when I went back, having done a few things and going quite well, I went up and took a test fall from slightly lower (with the rope not around my leg) just to build a bit of confidence. That gave me a real boost and I did it OK later that day.
I think I'd stuggle to rationalise something a bit more random though, a foothold scrittling away, belayer dropping me, etc

[remus]

I think there's a distinction between getting injured because of poor luck in what would normally be a fairly safe situation and getting injured on something that is genuinely dangerous. In the former case I think there's a lot of value in working out what went wrong, what you can do to fix it and then getting straight back on it so that you aren't left with a lingering memory of the bad outcome.

On stuff that's genuinely dangerous I think Mark's on the money with making sure you're psyched for it again before you go for it.

[Oldmanmatt]

D Mac would suggest owning one.

No.

Don’t.

People.

Aaaaarrgghhh!

[Nike Air]

Sorry been off celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary.
That was great reading thanks. My angle on it was injuring a finger on a particular route this May. Whilst it seems better my mind just doesn't seem to want to contemplate it and I can't seem to override that. Thats possibly a good thing no doubt and was mentioned that probably can't be forced.
I never considered life stresses a factor in hurdling the injury fence. Naomi's dad passed away recently and that's been full on too.

[Yossarian]

The main topic here is really interesting, but I'm also really glad / received to read Paul and Sean's thoughts.

I went to Cheddar nearly a year ago after training pretty hard but also having endured some absolutely shitty life stuff. Combined with climbing with a great old friend who unfortunately I tend to mentally go to shit with. Cue climbing for about 10 minutes before I have a complete meltdown and then spend the rest of the weekend moping / actively considering selling all my gear / wondering what the fucking point is. I went to try some 7s and ended up getting completely freaked out on some (quite polished) low 6s.

I remember Mr Barrows discussing work stress re climbing performance, and I've since realised that you can't just expect to turn up somewhere and start crushing if your brain is in a state. Ditto driving for hours (as is generally typical living in the SE) and hanging to switch on rapidly.

On a separate note Jordan - if you remember a 9 year old girl (with a slightly porky dad) at Anston Stones last December getting generally quite syked (sic) by what you and Naomi were climbing, that was us.

[TobyD]

What's people's experience with getting back on a particular route or boulder that badly injured them?

How long did you wait to get over the bad relationship with a climb?

I've asked a few folk at the crag because I think it's an interesting subject.

Appetite at Malham nearly killed me,  I did it again as soon as I could bear to go back to the crag, and found it mentally challenging but cathartic.  I've also found getting back on routes where I've injured a finger surprisingly difficult,  but that it has made me reassess my tactics and sequence on the route and this can be beneficial in the end. 

[Doylo]

When it’s Liquid Ambar it’s a mental hurdle worth overcoming 

[Nike Air]

The main topic here is really interesting, but I'm also really glad / received to read Paul and Sean's thoughts.

I went to Cheddar nearly a year ago after training pretty hard but also having endured some absolutely shitty life stuff. Combined with climbing with a great old friend who unfortunately I tend to mentally go to shit with. Cue climbing for about 10 minutes before I have a complete meltdown and then spend the rest of the weekend moping / actively considering selling all my gear / wondering what the fucking point is. I went to try some 7s and ended up getting completely freaked out on some (quite polished) low 6s.

I remember Mr Barrows discussing work stress re climbing performance, and I've since realised that you can't just expect to turn up somewhere and start crushing if your brain is in a state. Ditto driving for hours (as is generally typical living in the SE) and hanging to switch on rapidly.

On a separate note Jordan - if you remember a 9 year old girl (with a slightly porky dad) at Anston Stones last December getting generally quite syked (sic) by what you and Naomi were climbing, that was us.

Definitely interested to hear all the angles.
Off course I have a personal reason for asking but everyone else's reasoning is something worth implementing.
I've gone back to trad routes that have broken an ankle but this time with better tactics.
I'm more thinking of a particular move or hold that has acutely injured you.
I did a knee ligament at malham once and I've never dared go back on that route. I know the mistake I made to torque the knee badly but still I'm aware that it could all go horribly wrong again.
Doylo is in the know. It was a move on liquid ambar that did it. I feel fit enough to get back on but I don't seem to have faith that it won't do it again.
I've been thinking about it and I think the solution is replicate the move on a board and easy my mind back in.

Over the years I'd had about 10+ pulley injuries, I'd gone 9 years without one so I'd forgotten the mental side of them.

It turns out folks stories and advise is much more interesting than my own.

Ps. Yossarian I remember that day well! She was so cute and seemed to love climbing/life so much..!