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.

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.

Nursing shoulder injury

You can have shoulder dislocation or shoulder separation. They are two different things. You overuse your shoulder and put weight over time. You will tear soft tissues; tendon and ligament and this is called shoulder dislocation.

In my case, I had a bad ski fall and took a severe impact on the left shoulder. I use a shoulder brace and slept on the good side. I made sure I had full range of motion. Later you start getting back full motions, the more difficult it gets.

After this injury, whenever I load my shoulder or overuse, it tends to hurt. So, I do these exercises to keep pain away.

Modern medicine changes its procedure and have a patient sit up within 24 hours of an open heart surgery.

However, I learned hard way that your shoulder is complicated and requires active rehabilitation to recover. You need a rehab to stabilize.



See this simple video just using nothing but a rubber band. Here is another video with good explanation by Expert Village. Here is another video. The gentlest one is this video.

You should do these exercises to both sides.

Shoulder Injuries and Prevention

"The secret is preventative exercise. You may have honed the prime movers of the shoulder – your lats, deltoids, traps, triceps, biceps and pects in prime time at the wall. But you likely ignored strengthening a group of four muscles called the rotator cuff. The rotator cuff muscles are the core stabilizers of the shoulder. "

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=119