Climbing

Climbing is a fascinating sport for two reasons. One, the shear physical capabilities of what climbers can do with their bodies and Second, the adventures that climbing can unlock.

Climbing health

Climbing is primarily thought of as an anerobic activity of strength and power, and while this is true it varies depending on the type of climbing you are doing. Bouldering is very much about strength and power as climbers tackle the hardest sequence of moves relatively close to the ground, making it more of an anaerobic activity. As you enter sport and big wall climbing, endurance and aerobic fitness become increasingly more important. Rock climbing is reported to burn between 500-900 calories an hour, but please remember to account for breaks or determine actual time on the wall.

Climbing increases strength through the full range of motion of most joints in our body. From a healthcare standpoint it is helpful to build strength and stability throughout the bodies full range of motion. Aspects of the sport that requires you to jam your feet into small shoes, put extreme loads on your fingers and shoulders in awkward positions is not as beneficial to the body. That said I do not mean to deter you from climbing, so remember to adequately care for your joints and be aware of any restrictions in the joint before you put large load through it to avoid injury.

Common injuries with rock climbing

Two of the most common rock climbing injuries are:

• Finger injuries

• Shoulder injuries

Finger injuries

There are many ways you can injure your finger rockclimbing, but here we will look at 3 of the most common.

• Flexor tendon Pulley injury

• Lumbrical strain

• Collateral ligament strain

Flexor tendon pulley injury

The most likely pulley to be injured is the A2 Pulley of the middle or ring finger. The A2 pulley is located on the palm side of your hand near the middle of the finger by the joint. Think of the pulley as a small sheath the tendon goes through to keep it next to the bone rather than sticking out like a piano wire. The more you load your fingers the more tension you put on the tendon running through the pulley. More tension means more friction which can lead to an injury where the tendon breaks through the pulley. If this happens you may hear a pop.

Fun fact: Biomechanically a crimp position puts 3-4 times more force through the pulley than that acting on the fingertips.

Avoid injury

• you can use tape to take some of the load off the pulley, but if you are feeling pain in this area of the finger it is best to let it rest, or you may be looking at a 2-3 month healing time and 4-6 month off climbing.

Lumbrical Strain

There are small muscles in your hand called lumbricals that originate from the tendon of the muscles that flex your fingers. These small muscles are pulled in different ways when using pocket holds due to the fact that some of your fingers are extended and the others are flexed into a fist. This increases the chance of injury to these muscles. An injury will result in pain deep in the middle of your hand.

Fun fact: Flexing the remaining fingers when using a pocket hold increases your flexion strength of the fingers in the pocket by 50% due to crossbridging of the lumbrical fibers. This is also why this is a common injury site.

Colateral ligament sprain

Colateral ligaments of the finger are the ligaments that are located on either side of the joints in your fingers and prevent your finger from bending sideways. These injuries are common in crack climbing because during finger jams you will stick your hand into the crack and then load those fingers downward relying on the collateral ligaments of your fingers.

Chiropractic Care

If you suffer a finger injury climbing, chiropractic care can help you develop a rehabilitation strategy to maintain range of motion and safely increase strength in your finger to get you back climbing as soon as possible.

Shoulder injuries

The most common shoulder injury in climbing is an injury to the rotator cuff. This could be do to many different causes but is most likely tied to an imbalance of musculature leading to a poor scapular (shoulder blade) position.

When most people think of climbing they think of pulling themselves up like a chin up. This is true to some extent and requires a lot of latismus dorsi strength. what is also true is that climbers use a tremendous amount of compression force between their two arms or legs to stay on the wall. In the upper body this could be though of as a chest fly exercise. Now I realized I have over simplified the muscles involved but bear with me. The lats come from the back and attach to the front of the arm right by the shoulder. over active, shortened or tight lat muscles can therefore pull your shoulders forward. Pectoralis major and minor (the muscles of your chest can pull your shoulders in. This accompanied by the strong involvement of the abdomen musculature can result in a climber having a hunched posture with shoulders rolled forward. If this is the case it opens that climber up to potential injuries to the rotator cuff due to stress or impingement.

Chiropractic Care

Chiropractic care is a perfect fit to help correct posture and increase shoulder blade stability. By releasing joint restrictions in the upper back, stretching muscles that tend to role your shoulders forward and strengthen muscle involved in good posture, we can counter act the effect of poor posture. If you want a more in depth description of how you can maintain a better posture in life or climbing please contact us. We would love to help!

Stretches

• Latissmuss dorsi stretches

• Pectoralis Stretches

Strengthen

• T’s, Y’s and I’s

• Push up plus

• Wall angels

Muscles involved

If we were to list all of the muscles involved in climbing we would be going through an extensive anatomy lesson, so instead we will focus on a few comparison exercises and a few muscles involved which you might not have known as well as you believed.

Pull up vs. Chin up

These exercises are both body weight compound pulling exercises, so does it matter if you use a forward grip or backwards grip? The answer is yes. Depending what grip you use determines what muscles are targeted in the exercise.

Both forward and backward grips will use muscles in your back and shoulder girdle, but the arms are where you see the biggest difference. Both exercises will use a muscle called Brachialis, which flexes the arm like a biceps curl regardless of the grip position. Now the biceps brachii (known as biceps) is responsible for the same action but is most effective when your forearm and hand are in a chin up grip. You can test this yourself by flexing your biceps and then try to hold the contraction while turning your hand outward. You will notice your biceps seems less contracted because it is in a lengthened position.

This creates a a training opportunity as you can target your biceps brachii with a chin up grip and your brachialis in a pull up grip.

Seated vs. Standing calf raises

These exercises are both beneficial to climbers, but are they different? The answer is yes. Again depending on the position you will be targeting different musculature.

We will look at the two muscles in the back of your leg that attach to your hear through the Achilies tendon. The gastrocnemius (commonly known as the calf) and soleus. Both muscles act to bend flex the ankle pushing your toes down. The gastrocnemius crosses the knee joint, therefore it is most effective when the knee is straight. The soleus is just deep to the gastronemius and does not cross the knee joint, therefore it is responsible for the same action but can accomplish this action in a situation where the knee is bent.

This creates a training opportunity as you can target your gastrocnemius in standing calf raises and your soleus in seated calf raises.

Finger board training

There are two muscles responsible for flexing the fingers, Flexor digitorum superficialis and flexor digitorum profundus. To maximize strength in our fingers we must train both of these muscles. Flexor digitorum superficialis attaches to the middle bone in the finger bending the finger at the first joint whereas flexor digitorum profundus attaches to the furthest bone in your fingers flexing the finger at the furthest joint. This means when you are training on small finger holds you are targeting flexor digitorum profundus and when you are on larger hold where the ledges passes the furthest joint of your finger you are targeting flexor digitorum superficialis. So if you are looking to increase finger strength dont forget to target both.

It is important to note that the muscles in our body work together to accomplished tasks and you will be hard pressed to fully isolate one muscle. That being said attempting to target specific muscles while training is extremely beneficial if you are trying to build strength.