I have no injury but fell and broke my leg.

All the injuries I worked, shoulders, fingers and son on. I have no pain and climbing was coming along nicely until.

Yes, I took a practice fall and the gear popped and I hit a ledge. I broke right fibula. A clean break and it was high enough. I did not need a caste. I physiotherapied right away and became ambulatory. What took longest are internal injuries; hematoma and stiff back and range of motion.

I ended up with sizable balls of hematoma in my right button and shin. Ligament injury in my shin and swelling prevented good blood circulation. Long story short, I was climbing in 3 weeks with broken leg. What I found with broken fibula was that it got stronger and bonded soon enough. It was not strong enough to absorb shocks. Jumps from top of bouldering did not sit well.

I became ambulatory in days but whole recovery took ten weeks. I am still working on range of motion. Good news is that I become more conservative and safe. I am working on balance more as result.

For a change, I will be working with other climbers injuries. Yay

New Chapter

Having experimented and gone wrong ways many times, I feel I have a clue. I will write about various typical injuries and what I had to do to remedy....

Wow

First off, I am free of injuries first time in a long while. I have many happy news to share..

Improvements in techniques and better foot work and whole a lot of fixing bad habits... They resulted in pain free climbing plus I feel I will be breaking into next grade. I am going to Yosemite with friends after a long while because I could not think of facing these injuries.

My left side came back. Knees are doing really well. Fingers are free of pain or swelling. Toes are doing great. And the left shoulder is happy.

Again, a lot of my injuries are from bad habits and it is hard to kick them off.

Whenever I had time, I am always standing on one foot and doing balance acts writing alphabets or whatever is fun. I try not to sit too long and try to move about. It helps me recycle lower back, pelvis and knee.

Always find neutral lower back using muscles. Much of my issues are from sitting around too long.

Recycling toes and using smaller toes in climbing with proper shoe fit did wonders. Also doing opposition toe exercises keeps them pain free.

Regarding fingers, also recycle them. Use smaller fingers and use thumbs every chance you get. Using your thumb separates you from 90% of climbers..

My shoulder, yes, I had two orthopedists go head to head and see who comes on top. One, they are not perfect and one especially was sloppy. Good education. I thought of going under knife to remedy the shoulder dislocation. It turns out it is not the cause of the impingement. I need to exercise and improve my shoulder curvature and lots of opposition muscle training to compensate climbing.

So, I decided to live with a small tear in anterior labrum of the left shoulder and start building back muscles gradually with good balance. So far, touch wood but it has been great.

So psyched.

Shoulder update

My shoulder is doing better. I am still seeking medical help. No surgery yet. I learned much about how doctors are and my condition. American doctors do not have time for patients. Well, given that is the fact, I am studying as much and using them to get educated. Here is how it goes. I go and see 4 doctors and that would be equal to 4 times 15 minutes. It is equal to 60 minutes of consulting and education time. Perhaps that is little over the top. I am definitely seeing 2nd doctor. First one was holier than thou. He was well balanced and experienced except he decided to give me cortisone shot. I don't know if it did much good.

The diagnosis is anterior labrum tear, possible SLAP. MRI normal does not give much. Even MRI with contrast does not give. Only sure is to cut and insert a camera. It is normal and typical to make the repair; shaving loose pieces and sewing torn pieces possibly with anchors. However, during the recovery, you can't move bicep as it will re-tear sewn labrum. That could last 3 to 4 weeks. Then 3 months to recovery. So it boils down to doctors with good sewing skill and good full recovery records.

My left shoulder is getting better just by strength training with small muscles around shoulders. I wear 2 pound weight belts around wrists. That did it. It needs to be small weight as anything heavier will engage larger muscles like bicept or tricept. It took me awhile to figure this out. I figured if muscles hold things better instead having the arm hang by ligaments. Shoulder instability is not physical condition per say but sort of quasi pain awareness. Only problem is that it brings atrophy as you don't want to use that shoulder.

Shoulder Impingement - Part 1

Going back to Evan deSzoeke article, it is well said.

A more experienced climber will have a better understanding of ways to position their body and feet to minimize the use of their arms. This will improve endurance due to the arms's natural tendency to fatigue faster than the trunk and legs. The primary upper extremity muscles used for more technical climbing include wrist extensors and flexors, elbow flexors (including brachioradialis, biceps brachii, and brachialis), posterior deltoid, latissimus dorsi, and scapular stabilizers.

I may be looking at either subacromial impingement or labral tears or both. Check out shoulder injuries of his article. Argh, figure 1 look just like the move I made.

Shoulder Impingement

Yes, it happened. It is different from what I thought. I had a bad ski accident a few years ago and dislocated my left shoulder. This impingement happened as a result of instable/unstable shoulder. Shoulder is the most wonderous joint of your body. It is held in space perfectly balanced to provide amazing degree of freedom.

I thought it is like normal shoulder pain I know. Now I know shoulder impingement is result of over-use and inflamed tendons and such. It is more like random pain here and there as the nerve gets pinched. It feels like burning, hot, upper arm, in the elbow, in the fingers. It is strange kind of pain where you can't pin point.

I did V5 and dyno on left hand reaching overhead. I put my weight on that shoulder after wide gaston. Well, it felt weird and I sat nursing it.

That night, I have this pain in the socket and elbow. I had shoulder pain before but this is different. It is like hot wire running through my arm. Shortening this story, after a visit to an orthopedic doctor and two shots of cortisone on my left shoulder. They give these shots as a way to prevent further nerve damage. There are two basic problems. One, those shots hurt for two days, just mild pain but present. Two, the shoulder is doing its own thing to settle back. On the third day, it feels good. I am doing rehab exercises.

Climbing wise, I know is that I am doing something wrong. I put too much stresses on same joints in same fashion repeatedly. The big question is how to recycle things; hands, feet, arms and shoulders. My trouble is I keep the same grips instead of switching and using different positions including getting used to utilize as little force as possible.

Spread tension; body tension but it means positioning one's body to reduce stress on feet and hands same way over and over again.

Rehabilitation! I am doing scapular stabilization first and doing no weight ROM exercises. ROM stands for Range Of Movement. Without using weight, one needs to stretch these tiny muscles and maintain or increase ROM. Once, I am warmed up and I am exercising general opposing muscles.

One thing one needs to be careful with is to exercise these shoulder muscles, one needs not to exceed 2 or 3 pounds weight. It is better to do free weight than elastic.

Despite of opposing muscle training, I neglected pectoral muscles and MD Peter Re of the Sports Medicine, the good doctor mentioned about my shoulder curvature. I suppose it tightens and makes you prone to shoulder problems. I remember pain around scapula, aka shoulder blade a few weeks ago. Listening to one's pain is an art.

Check this gem of Climbing.com article by Griffith.

Be well.

Line and Flag Exercises from Self Coach Climber

I have a small number of friends getting into exercises and training from the book; Self Coach Climber, aka SCC. I have been doing the same side traverse and it helped me break into consistent onsights of V3+. I am working to perfect the line and flag exercises. Here is my response to a friend.

So, I did 6 of line and 6 of flag exercises. It felt awkward. I had to backstep more aggressively and different muscles are sore; deltoid, lat and scapula; mostly upper shoulder. This explains why I could not do them before because I started doing shoulder recovery exercises only about a month ago and my shoulder muscles are getting stronger. I just could not rely on my unstable left shoulder.

It means there are different muscle groups I need to develop. We are supposed to pivot but with these small footholds, we can't. I had to do many more foot adjustments to make it happen.

Like my success with the same side traverse exercise, I was forcing my pivoting without good awareness of where my COG is and I had my hand not adjusting to pivoting. This caused two problems; back ache and hand pain. You need to grab holds differently from normal climbing routine. Like Gaston or layback, or just don't wrap your fingers.

What is important is if you can produce high quality moves. Quantity does not matter so much at the beginning. Don't think it is a failure if you could not finish the whole wall. Just do what you can do with sections of the wall.

Massage - Accelerated Rest

I freeze my hands from time to time when I have injured fingers. Dave McCleod calls it freeze therapy. It works marvelously except 30 minutes of finger in ice bucket is a kind of hard. See his video

I have been massaging my hands, forearms and feet. The result is amazing. It takes stiffness out and increases range of motion. It feels amazing especially after a good night sleep.

You need to use oil. Nothing special just vegetable oil. Dry massage does not work.

I like to have a towel and a pail of warm water. Search self massage in YouTube. Basically you warm the part by rubbing, working it with a combination of thumb, side of your hand or a stick. You work any soreness out. The session should last good amount of time. Wash yourself and wipe off excessive oil. Having oil on you is not all that bad as your skin seems to absorb it.

Toe pain and prevention

Revisited: Be gentle with your toes and massage and stretch your toes especially big one every day.

I was having toe problems until I saw Adam Ondra's climbing video. I realized how I was killing my big toe. Everybody climbs with their favorite digit; big toe. I don't know how long but using big toe is drilled into me. After climbing sessions, my big toes are hurting. So much so I would have hot flash in my feet when nerves get blocked. So I must be doing something wrong. I was looking for a solution because my foot techniques wont' improve with pain.

So back to what Adam does, he looks sloppy. He does not use big toe unless he has to. In fact, he frictions where I would use my bt, big toe. It is interesting to watch his videos just his feet. Fascinating.

So, I did what he does. Use metatasal, that is, use parts of your foot not the first two digits of your toes. How do you do this? With care! Use rest of your foot instead of just the same big toe.

Cool sites; rehab and injury

I have no upper body problems at the moment but I am beginning to have lower body problems; hip, knee and foot. I am using lower body to initiate moves and am straining them without proper stretches or techinques.

I have tender spots around the hip.

Tensor fasciae latae or IT band related issues by sportsinjuryclinic

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

IT BAND

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/front/knee/irunnersknee.html

stretching/standing_outer_hip_stretch.php

stretching/outer_hip_stretch.php

Lower back pain

Revisited: This turned out to be a muscle inbalance. Iliopoas are tight. I started doing squats and lunges to strengthen glutes. Iliopoas are muscles in your front pelvis. They get tight from lifting legs and twisting. That solves my problem and I don't have back ache any longer.

I won't say it is a pain. It is rather dull pressure in the back. As you climb overhang, your hyper extension of the back causes. I found a French site with great stretches I was describing in the previous article.

http://www.kinescalade.com/patho/lombalgie.php

Translated from definition section

The word simply defined back pain pain in the lumbar region. That is to say, the bottom of the spine. Localization of the lumbar region of low back pain are many climbers, both in the type of pain in their causes. From the surface to depth, the different structures that can generate back pain are: • the muscles of the lumbar region, which may spasm, or because of the effort, either to protect the underlying structures, · intervertebral ligaments, which may suffer a prolonged stretch, · joints which can be worn when one speaks of osteoarthritis, · intervertebral discs, which can also be worn, crushed, or submit an overhang or a hernia, · meninges, envelopes the spinal cord, which may undergo various stresses (tensions , pressures).

You can use Google translate and it does adequate job. There are videos of stretches. It is great.

Grab holds gently and softly. Don't pull it down like an idiot.

The increased rest is working. I have less problems with fingers and I am fully rested. I am eager to climb.

I realize I need to go back to the basics every so often to test habits and assumptions.

For example, silent feet does not mean I place them silently and stare at it like an idiot. It means I place weight and feel and move off. Glue hand does not mean I grab a hold and think it is done. It means I place my hand the way I imagined and holding it the same way instead of shifting it after placing weight. Yesterday I realized when pieces of skin under my fingers shift under pressure. I was shifting my hand holds and stressing my skin to a breaking point. Subtle difference is how it plays out. First off, I am busy powering through without body awareness otherwise. Second, I am stressing my body through unnecessary peak stresses with poor hold contacts.

Back to the basics, I don't know how many times I am making these round-trips but the rock can wait.

I am doing some supplemental exercises; recruitment and strengthening of forearm, shoulder muscles and stretches of deeper core muscles. I complement them with opposing muscles training. This is to have muscle balance with stability.

Rest is training!

Revisited: In French, there is a lot more instructions about these types of information as it turns out. I was speaking with a good French climber. He climbs 8b and V10 and trad hard climb in his town of Serre Chavalier. He said it takes 3 years for tendon and ligament be stronger enough to get beyond V6 or 7. My answer to that is freeze theraphy every rest day and it is working out nicely. My fingers feel wholesome and not run out.

I increased the rest to two days that I am climbing more intensely. I don't have real expectations where I will go with this as long as I don't have chronic injuries.

I do this routines according to SCC, aka Self Coached Climber.

Fingers are doing good. I load them carefully and generally don't load statically and excessively. Every time I load my hand, I flick my wrist and stretch hand to flush. I give Adam Ondra the credit for this little amazing trick. Left shoulder and elbow are doing better with stabilization exercises. I should do little flush trick on them as well.

I am afraid to push my fingers too much. But instead of exclusively pulling on fingers, I engage forearm and upper arm into the hand hold. It could mean I don't keep my arm dead straight but at an angle.

But most of improvements and injury preventions come from foot work. I have enormous trouble where I need lots of shoulder stability and strength. With stronger core, it is surprising that I can make moves I was not able to make in the past.

I feel I need to be patient at the moment. I need to wait for the rest of deeper muscles to develop with techniques. I need good positive motivation like "with good approach and training, I made some hard moves and sustained climbing and it felt good instead of obsessing and getting discouraged."

The Self Coached Climber - The Bible for climbing so far. I hope someone betters it.

I ordered it and finally received it. Starting reading it, most of time, climbing is something I do not read about. I hate reading books on how to in sports.

In the past, I bought sports get-stronger recipe books and pick them up and down. This one is pretty readable as Dave Mcleod said. I have books I would give away because they just don't do it for me; giving me incremental approach.

It is almost like learning alphabets, learning how things fit and giving me understanding of directions and approaches I need to take.

Great climbing injury web site

I stumbled onto it.

Upper Extremity Injuries in Rock Climbers

Why do my articles repeat themselves?

Why do I revisit same injuries as they are new? Well, they are new.

You change one thing. It is different. Change amount of climbing from weekend to a few days at a time. Change to higher grade. Change your habits and try new techniques that you have not mastered.

Two things affect injuries drastically; angle and amount of climbing. Injuries are reactions. They flare up again and again. I call them weakest links. Elbow problem now is not exactly the same as elbow problem of the past. In the past, wear and tear of multiple days of climbing lower grade, weakest link fails first. My current elbow problem is muscle inbalance resulting in excessive stress on the weakest link.

This is the reason Dave Mcleod promotes deep learning instead of taking quick recipes. There are few reasons why this approach causes injuries.

Elbow and Shoulder

Injuries tell you about what you are doing wrong. Like most people, I rely on pull strength. My elbow and shoulder injuries are from muscle inbalance and past injuries.

I over train pull muscles with poor techniques; foot works and hand use.

Answers are training of opposing muscles. Check out the article by Ali Rainey. Ali has a bunch more articles in the web site. She really has a system worked out. Basically in climbing, one tends to over train pull muscles and you injure yourself. In order to avoid, one needs to train opposing muscles. For every action, there is reaction. Injury is a reaction. More comprehensive exercises are found in this article.

Have you seen climbers whose shoulders are warped forward? It is because muscles are tightening and pulling them forward. The answer is simple push-ups or press-ups in England.

Second answer is massages. There are several massages of various affected places. I found out these massages; self massages. It loosens and warms and breaks down and promotes circulation. End result is just as good as Dave's freeze therapy. But little I did is already helping me.





I have a tender shoulder. Techically, it is an unstable shoulder. I have injured and dislocated in ski accident and since then, my shoulder joint is loose; stretched tendons. You need to do certain exercises to stabilize. Lie on your side and keep your elbow on your waist. You can keep a towel under it. Use 2-3 pounds weight. Lift it without lifting elbow; basic rotation. Do 10+. It is like fanning movement. Rotate your wrist and do some more. Then rotate wrist once again in different orientation and do some more. Just keep doing these light movements. This warms up and makes all your shoulder muscles work together. If you use heavier weight, your muscle inbalance will continue and your shoulder will be unstable.

Lazy Method Revisited

Are you making progress?

If there is one hard lesson I learned, don't rush into hard training. You get beaten and the body blues sets in.

Be gentle and nourishing. Take it slow and enjoy more with less. Not enjoy less with more. I see beginners headlong into V1 and V2 and getting discouraged. I see climbers making same mistakes and powering through eventually hurting themselves. You need to learn to crawl before running. As far as vertical world is concerned, you can't even make a few steps.

Keeping yourself motivated no matter what level you climb is the name of the game and FUN.

Proper rests are golden. It is easy to train without a break, a proper break.

Putting them together, warm up properly, train gradually, be gentle. Enjoy yourself. Motivate yourself. Cool off properly. Eat well. Rest well. Don't go back without proper rest.

That keeps you injury free and stronger and happier.


Ben Moon sayz; A little and often. Be patient and let it happen. It is no good if you are not happy.Just climb, climb and climb

Francoise Legrand sayz; Not too fast, not too slow. Sometimes fast sometimes slow. I will do mental tatoos of these words...

Elbow and Shoulder

It started suddenly; tiny and bothersome dull soreness in my elbow and shoulder. I was expecting them. Result of overtraining? Not. Read on.

I read one article by Nicos and then a few more by Dave Mcleod. More I read, there were many things I am doing wrong; my techineques rotten techniques. I did not know how stretch to the elbow! There are two different ligament tears; Golfer's elbow and Tennis elbow. Or they are called tendinosis and tendinitis better known as golfer's elbow and tennis elbow; dull persisting pain or sharp temporary pain. Stretching your elbow is actually stretching your pronator part of your forearm; twist your arm so your thumb points downward, keep twisting, grab it your hand with your other hand, and gently twist more with your other hand. Pronator is top portion of your forearm. Stretching it will stretch elements of your elbow.

How do you prevent? It is said climbing statically generates higher peak stress than dynamic climbing. Dynamic climbing is not the same as dynamos. Dynamic climbing can be described as dead pointing. You have a path and you make moves and letting go at the same time. Here are what pros have to say. Lynn Hill mentions dynamic release or simultaneous releases. She makes a move through releases not catches. Others elaborated in making a habit of stretching your hand after each move and shaking tension out. Some mention letting go high stress point; hand or foot holds to lower stress situation. Keep your hand hold with least amount of force. Instead of crimping, use friction. Instead of using hands at all, let forearm do the work. Bigger, the better.

Let's decipher this hand hold least force business. If you look at your forearm, bottom part is bigger and meatier than top part. If you cock your wrist, you engage the top part and it does not last long. If you relax your wrist, you engage bottom part and it lasts longer. If you don't engage wrist, there is no tension in either parts of your forearm. If you don't engage forearm or wrist, you engage your skeletal structure and shoulder muscle. You can rest and linger. But you can't swing on your shoulder as your shoulder will become unstable. Your next bet is to engage without cocking your wrist. Best yet, you should build "micro shakes" between each move to shake tension and stress out.

One needs to exercise pronator muscles and strengthen forearm. The forearm is just as complicated. Pronator is a set of muscles enabling you to rotate your arm as you have it extended in front and twist your hand. One exercise is to grab a stick and rotate it slowly from side to vertical. Then resist its falling back to side.

Rest Oriented Training

So, for the time, my mantra is to have fun and get stronger and improve endurance. It has been super fun with good warm-up, stretches and cool off. I think I am building a routine course that keeps me injury free and flexible with good amount of power. My training is to see how far I can go from "rest oriented training with intensity exercises."

I did develop some sore or pain spots; deep back muscle rushing into exercise without deep stretch, tenderness of big toe from improper foot work. I am learning new stretches. I treat my toes and feet just like hands; stretching each digit and ankle stretch.

My training at the moment consists of; learning new techniques, body tension exercises and bouldering.

The same technique is not same given angle of the rock. I am working on techniques; center of gravity awareness, instinctive climbing style, and precise foot works. Learning new tricks is not easy as I have bad habits. Bad habits are; sagging, hanging on arms without proper feet, over grip, pulling instead of pushing, and bent arms.

I am doing various exercises; limited iron cross, calisthenics and v-up.

But actual climbing is the best exercises. I like to use slopers and big holds to toughen soft tissues and to increase power and to bring techniques.

I think I need to do ; touching every holds with feet and climbing without pulling. I have been sharing some of these with other climbers.