Climbers are always injured, right?

It’s a running joke within the climbing community that climbers are always nursing a tweak or two. A dodgy finger, a stiff shoulder, whatever it may be, they’re regarded as part of the passion. Like wearing chalky trousers on the tube or owning a pair of Scarpas that could clear a room, you just need to accept it and move on.

Well, not quite. An injury-free climbing career is possible, all it takes is a little expertise…

In a quest to rid London’s climbers of injuries for good, we’ve teamed up with world-renowned physio Cristiano Costa to highlight five common climbing injuries and the steps that you can take to prevent them.

To find out more about Cris and how you can work with him to become a stronger, healthier climber, head to the bottom of this article. For now, here are five common climbing injuries and how you can prevent them…

Of course it’s worth us saying that this is not a comprehensive list of all possible climbing-related injuries, and the aim of this article isn’t to replace any health care consultation or diagnostic tool for current and/or future injuries. If you have any concerns, see a healthcare professional.

Fingers

Climbing puts a unique level of stress and load on our fingers. They have to cope with different hold shapes and sizes, different angles, textures, while also handling both static and dynamic loading.

Unsurprisingly then, they’re one of the most common (and most frustrating) injury climbers can pick up. The fingers and hands are also made up of a number of structures that can be injured.

The big two are tendons, which connect our muscle to bones so that we can move them and pulleys, which hold your tendons close to the bone like the eyelets of a fishing rod keeping the line in place. But you can also injure volar plates, joint capsules, hyaline cartilage, and even the individual phalanx in each finger.

With the above in mind, Cris points out that, while pulley injuries are the most common, it’s misguided to assume any finger pain is a damaged pulley.

So, how can we train all of these structures to keep them healthy and injury-free?

Firstly, it’s important to understand that tendons and pulleys don’t receive the same blood flow as muscles during rest. This means that they recover slower after exercise, so you’ll want to provide stimulation during days off from climbing to promote increased blood flow and aid strengthening.

Exercises like hangboarding, weighted hangs, and pinch block training are good examples of adding load in a structured environment. See a physio or trainer for a progressive plan to improve your finger strength and health.

Wrists

Moving up from our fingers, we get to our wrists.

Our wrists need to be resilient to the stress and strains that they take during climbing. They’re regularly tested through their full axis of movement as we progress throughout climbs, with different angles of wall, grip positions, and holds all calling them into action.

The wrist joint is made up by the meeting of a number of bones and, much like fingers, there’s quite a bit that can go wrong there too! Common injuries include fractures, joint dislocations and subluxations (a partial dislocation), ligament damage, and ganglion cysts.

Preventative measures include weighted exercises to improve overall strength, but there are also methods of strapping and taping that can support the joint if necessary.

Elbows

Climbing is primarily a pulling sport and, as you move away from your fingers and wrists, the forces put through other areas of the body tend to be repetitive.

Take the elbow for instance. Throughout a climbing session you’ll probably do hundreds of repetitions of flexion and extension of the elbow joint, without even really knowing it.

This means that, aside from ‘traumatic’ causes (fractures and dislocations from falls), the most common issues for elbows are related to load, frequency, and volume of training and climbing.

The good news is this can be easy to rectify. Things like ‘climbers elbow’ can be solved with a combination or rest and training the opposite movement, pushing.

Press ups, dips, stretches, and avoiding over-training are the best ways to avoid creating or exacerbating elbow injuries.

Shoulders

Unsurprisingly, most climbing injuries are related to your arms. And what connects your arms to your torso?

The shoulder mobile is a very mobile joint but lacks stability, which means it relies on muscles to provide dynamic stability.

Therefore, injuries to the shoulder tend to be traumatic, and come about as a consequence of high velocity, high load, end of mobility range movements. These typically effect tendons, ligaments, and joint capsules.

The best way to avoid these types of injuries is to warm up properly, with Cris saying that a huge number of shoulder injuries come about as a result of quick overloading after an insufficient warm-up.

It’s also important to focus training on the shoulder muscles, with activities like free weights perfect for isolating the muscles around the joint and preparing them for stress in climbing.

Ankle

Finally, we have our ankles.

While the ankle is a stable and strong joint, it has evolved to perform in a neutral walking position in conjunction with the foot.

The problem with climbing is we cram our feet into small shoes, which can limit shock absorption, and then put force through tiny edges that can require us to push through the very tips of our toes. This then puts stress further up the chain towards the ankle, calf, and knee.

The good news? Ankles are resilient joints that are designed to be put under load all day, every day. This means that a good warm up, including things like rowing, cycling, squats, lunges, skipping, and star jumps, should get your ankle joint fired up and ready for climbing.

See a physio before you need one!

So there we have it, five common climbing injuries (or areas that can be injured) and ways to prevent them. Huge thanks to Cristiano Costa for his help putting together this article.

Cris has been working with climbers in London since 2005 and in that time has treated big names like Alex Honnold and Aidan Roberts, and is always keen to get climbers back on the wall.

He’s a climber himself and uses his knowledge of the sport alongside his own professional background to provide climbing-specific exercises and treatments to get you back on the wall, stronger than ever before.

His motto? See a physio before you need one. If you’ve ever spent months off climbing due to an injury, it’s something that we can all agree with.

Cris is quick to emphasise that every injury is unique and, for the best outcome, you should seek the help of a health care professional who is able to achieve a diagnosis and get you started on a tailored rehabilitation program.

To get in touch with Cris, head over to his instagram and drop him a DM. Click here to get to his account.