Rock climbing is a popular fitness activity as it provides a full body workout that challenges all aspects of your fitness, including strength and flexibility. However, it is possible to get severely injured during rock climbing. Here are some tips on injury prevention and recovery for rock climbers.
Warm-up before you start
Before you start the most intense part of your climb, it can be a good idea to warm-up with some dynamic stretches and light movement to get the blood flowing. It is important to do a rock climbing specific warm-up as the rotational nature of the sport makes it a different style of movement from many walking and running styles of sports such as basketball and soccer. Rock climbing warm-ups also focus on the fingers in order to improve grip during climbs.
Wear protective gear
Many rock climbers are frustrated by the way that protective gear can limit peripheral vision, in the case of helmets, or limit movement through joints, in the case or elbow and knee pads. But it is still very important to wear this gear, as it can prevent serious head injuries from rock fall and strains and dislocations to ligaments during falls and drops. If you find that your gear is impeding your comfort, it can be worth asking for advice from a rocking climb gym or a specialist physiotherapist, as they can often provide modern lightweight, protective gear.
Rest (and get treated) when you have minor injuries
When you get injured it's important to get the injury looked at and practice any of the exercises that the physio recommends. Often when you drop and hang from a rock, this can either place sudden, extra pressure on the wrist, shoulder and elbow joints. Equally, if you drop and land, this extra impact on the feet and ankles can trigger swelling, and if the landing is asymmetric, it can stretch some ligaments. If these injuries are not treated and extra work put into strengthening these joints, it can increase the risk of having a more severe injury after a future fall or drop.
Seek help for severe injuries
It can be very important to make sure that you have a communication device if you are climbing in a national park or remote location, in case you need to be evacuated so that you don't need to walk back on an injured ankle or foot. It can also be a good idea to have some snap-activated cold packs so that you can place a pack on injured areas to manage swelling on a severe injury in the short term while waiting for help.
Using some simple precautions during your climb and visiting a physio can help prevent injuries and make sure you can recover as quickly as possible from any injuries you do get.
Share25 July 2016
Hello, my name is Catherine and this is my blog all about health and medical topics. I was inspired to start this blog by my husband who works in a hospital. He isn't a doctor, he works in a lab testing blood samples. However, he is extremely interested in medicine. When his grandma got sick, he quickly established what might be wrong and got her all the help she needed. Sometimes is the evening, we sit and read textbooks and talk about medicine. It sounds insane but we both really like it. I decided to start this blog to show off some of what I have learnt.