Coming Back from a Year of Injury9 November 2014, 4:00 pmI have not posted on this blog for over a year, the reason why? Injury. Again…
Last Autumn I was the strongest I had ever been. I trained 4 times a week and all I focussed on was training and getting stronger. I watched my diet, rested well and did very intense short sessions on the board followed by campussing steep boulder problems on good holds. By the end of November I was warming up on climbs that just a month a go had been long term projects.
Then in December I tore my A2 pulley by warming up on a crimpy 7B after a week off (idiot!) and since then it has been a real struggle to get back to being able to crimp at all without pain.
Finger Rehab This Summer I had planned a trip with my friend Chris Clarke to Magic Wood but my finger was still injured. In the end we decided to go for it anyway. At the start font 7A with crimps felt hard and I began to question whether a month long bouldering trip was a good idea. Luckily Magic Wood turned out to be one of the best places to recover from an injury. With an ice cold river running alongside the boulders there was always an opportunity to easily ice my fingers after a climb and this really helped.
Last Day in Magic Wood After a couple of weeks I had improved and had done a good amount of climbs up to font 7C all of which were amazing boulders which I was happy with.
Intermezzo 7C I then had a look at ‘Foxy Lady’ a shouldery, short font 8A on crimps. Surprisingly this felt ok and wasn’t too tweaky, after a few sessions I managed to get it done and this was my first 8A in over a year!
Since returning home in September I have started a part time job at the Climbing Works which I am enjoying and next year I plan to do a masters at Manchester University. Although I had managed to climb much better in Switzerland than I had expected I still felt like my finger wasn’t fixed and I had no power at all.
In the last few weeks I have finally found my strength returning and feel I can finally start to look at climbs I want to do again. Recent days at Raven Tor and on the board have been really good and although i’m probably at 80% strength it feels great to finally be able to try hard again!
I now hope to train well over the Autumn/Winter as well as getting out on the limestone while it is still dry and most of all avoid injury at all cost!
Source: George Carmichael