What counter-muscle strength training do you do to help prevent or treat climbing related injuries?

I've been climbing around 2 years, and only recently my shoulders have been tweaked (front-upper area) - likely from going to the bouldering gym 2-3 days/week for the past couple of months. Talking to another climber at the Southern Sun the other evening (MP.com beer night) - he suggested push-ups and vertical-presses (not sure what the correct term is where you bench press but push the weight above your head while sitting or standing).

Until recently, I hadn't paid attention to strength training - and was instead focusing on improving technique. Though obviously I need to change that now... so I'm curious as to what other all-around counter-weight exercises are recommended for climbing.

I do a 15 minute Pilates workout 3 times a week to help strengthen the core and stretch out my body. The routine also targets the antagonistics, and support muscles (rotator cuff). My wife Lauri's book Pilates for the Outdoor Athlete is an excellent resource for climbers looking for muscle balancing exercises, as well as a quick workout that will strengthen your core. It is a great book and her Pilates for Climbers routines are excellent.

I used to use weights for training antagonistics, but I like my current routine better. It is fast and more effective at warming me up. Also watch the lateral raises, as they tend to really hammer your upper traps if you don't use good form.

Also it sounds like you are probably suffering from a small rotator cuff tear, I would get some therabands and start doing the rotator cuff excercises religiously. Those small muscles can shut your climbing down if you do not take care of them. Good Luck!

push-ups and dips...lots of 'em on a daily basis. Reverse wrist curls work pretty well too.
If you do "Vertical-Presses", be careful...it's easy to injure yourself if you technique isn't "perfect".
To reduce the chance of injury be sure you do them as "Arnold-Presses" it will reduce the chance of injury to your shoulders...:Arnold-Presses" are done in a sitting position, but start with you palms facing you - then as you raise your arms rotate your palms outward so you finish with them facing away from your body.

Thanks Kevin and James! I'll be looking into your suggestions, including Lauri's book - I had considered yoga but Pilates could be really beneficial. -Kateri

I suffered with elbow tendinitis for years and really had to limit training and had to cut many days at the crag short. It was pretty dispiriting and I came pretty close to just giving up climbing a number of times. About five years ago I started doing antagonist muscle exercises seriously, even though I had "known" for years before that they were supposed to be good for preventing problems like tendinitis. I wish I had started way earlier -- they have saved climbing for me.

I never used to be able to boulder, or up the training volume. Multi-day climbing trips were a frustrating balancing act. I'm now able to boulder, train hard three days per week and am finally seeing improvements after a very long (like ten years) plateau.

What exercises? At the did the following, and it made a huge difference:

1. Triceps extensions (either with the gym equipment where you put a v-bar or rope on the cable and straighten your arms with your elbows at your waist or with a free weight and your elbow pointing up to the ceiling).

2. Bench press with free weights.

3. Military or "Arnold Presses" as described above.

4. Reverse wrist curls.

Just like with any exercise routine you have to change it up -- doing the above for five years would be incredibly boring and wouldn't necessarily continue to provide benefit. Lately, thanks to the training program at my local gym, I've been using gymnastics rings to do:

1. Push-ups (you put the rings very close to the ground)

2. "Archers" which are like push ups, but as you lower yourself you extend one arm out the side and then as you push up you gradually bring it back in.

3. Dips.

The rings are strenuous, so don't try them until your injuries are healed, but they are great for shoulder stabilization and core strength.

I can also vouch for the value of Pilates as my wife and have been doing a one hour class once per week for the last year and a half. Again, you have to switch it up, because no matter how a hard a routine is, it'll get easy if you keep doing it, so we've changed levels and recently tried a different instructor and that has made it hard (i.e. beneficial) again. I'll have to pick up Kevin's wife's book.

Best of luck getting and staying healthy! It takes some trial-and-error to find what works for you, but it's worth it.

I would agree with pilates being a great way to strengthen the core - which helps immensely in applying climbing technique, and it's also low impact. But something is to be said for weight training which has the added benefit of strengthening bones (weight-bearing exercises), but can lead to repetitive motion injuries if you don't watch form and switch up exercises.

I definitely try to do triceps, but I find dips to be hard on my shoulders (I make sure not to go below parallel, but it still hurts) - plus I can't do unassisted dips as my triceps are weak. It's sad, I have these big biceps (great for climbing straight in hand cracks), but my triceps are puny - probably why I can't hold on to crimpers very well at my waist level while climbing. I usually do tricep extensions and those dips where you keep your feet on the ground on the edge of a bench. I also do bench press with free weights for chest and reverse wrist curls too. Push ups on the big stability ball are also great for both core and chest.

Good luck! I don't have the same pain as you in the shoulders but I have had them give out while bouldering (I've had them both momentarily dislocated while playing soccer) - but I do get pain in my shoulders when doing some tricep exercises - so be careful.

If you ever want to go climbing - shoot me an email - I'd love to actually climb with other women!

Pilates is a great routine for core strengthening... but, will it really counter-balance the issues in your shoulders? Maybe, but doesn't sound as likely. If I had to guess, I'd guess core strength isn't your issue. Call it a personal hunch. Then again, Kevin's talking about 45 minutes a week.

Maybe it's a genuine shoulder strength (but not muscle mass) issue, or futhermore, a muscle imbalance with pecs/front of the shoulder for a strong back. Massage might help, if you've not had any lately?

Curious... are you stretching before you climb? If not, maybe try some shoulder and pec stretches before your next few sessions... just brainstorming here. If you find that helps, yoga with the right instructor (which is kinda key) will not only help with the flexibility/limberness/posture, but also has the value-added benefit of de-stressing ones mind (!)... I never got that source of relaxation from my short exposure to Pilates, but others might.

-A

I've had awesome success with Pilates and Yoga. While Pilates typically is "core" focused, performing a good routine has the benefit of diverting training time to "balancing" exercises, rather then doing more climbing, which is the cause of the problem to begin with. Often, when presented with the choice of whether to use the alloted time to climb vs. train opposing muscles, stretch, etc., we often tend to choose climbing at the long-term detriment of our overall climbing ability.

If you want a really great yoga routine that is power and tricep/chest focused, and avoids all the renew-age guruism, check out the Power-Yoga (Ashtanga yoga) book by Beryl Bender-Berch. It has a great routine that you can cycle through that will leave you burning.

Another option is to check out the Thera-Band website for the exercises that focus on the rotator cuff. These are great for helping to prevent blown-out shoulders.

Hope this helps!! Happy climbing!!

Kateri,

Many people have given you some great ideas (although I do believe you should be doing lower body strength training as well--wait until you strain a hamstring on a heel hook or sprain an MCL during a drop knee to wonder why I recommend this).

However, many of the recommendations here work just fine for healthy shoulder joints and musculature; BUT-- I would suspect by the location of your pain that you have either a rotator cuff issue or bicipital tendonitis. Pain is commonly felt in the front of the shoulder with RC injuries and with BT. A doctor would need to determine which problem you have. They are often associated to boot--i.e. BT can result due to RC damage.

Most people I see doing rotator cuff exercises on their own with no original instruction from a health care provider or educated trainer do them incorrectly--sometimes profoundly incorrectly. If you don't want this problem to become worse, it would probably be worth your time to visit your doctor and get some instruction from him/her on what you need to do and/or visit a physical therapist once or twice.

If you do, indeed, have RC injuries right now, I would DEFINITELY AVOID doing things suggested like push ups, shoulder presses, front or side raises, dips, and many yoga poses, esp. ones like downward dog. THESE WILL ONLY MAKE YOUR PROBLEMS WORSE until you have sufficiently recovered your shoulder stabilizer strength.

Also, someone suggested stretching before you climb. I definitely DISAGREE--especially if you have a rotator cuff injury!!! First of all, stretching injured tendons will serve to make your problems WORSE by further de-stabilizing your joint and damaging your connective tissue. Secondly, I never recommend people stretch before climbing (or any other performance activity) anyway--the majority of the literature coming out in the last 5+ years shows strong evidence that people suffer profound DECREASES IN POWER AND STRENGTH when they stretch prior to physical activities. Stretching healthy tissue should be reserved for post-activity periods.

Don't get rutted in thinking rotator cuff injuries just "go away"; like a bad nightmare, they come back again and again w/out treatment. Good luck.

Couldn't add anything useful, except to be careful.

Case in point: My right shoulder blade is currently loose (due to climbing, weird story), and inhibiting my right arm's strength. Since not climbing has never been an option for me, I've been trying to compensate for my injury with my left arm, which has, naturally, led to a fun new pain in that shoulder as well.

If I had taken the time to heal in September and fore-go the rest of the climbing season last fall, I'm pretty sure I would have been fine by now. However, I thought I could just put less pressure/force/weight on my right arm and use my left arm instead...and now I've really got a problem on my hands...shoulders...arms...haha

This is just to say, be careful not to over-do things, thinking you aren't really injured that badly, as I had presumed. Physical therapy may be a good option if you're recommended to it, because they can help you develop your strength and you'll have consistent advice from a professional.

Thanks to everyone for your input. I'm taking a couple weeks off from the bouldering gym and will see a doctor. When the timing is right I'll be working on yoga/pilates/counter-muscle strengthening/PT - whatever it takes. I really didn't anticipate shoulder issues since my arms have always been kinda beefy for a woman my size, I'm not overweight, and I've been climbing consistently rather than just throwing myself gung-ho into bouldering. Perhaps this is a good time to focus on leggy sports like hiking & snowshoeing (which my dogs will appreciate). -Kateri

Hi NjC and Richard,

Yes, whenever I make statements like these, it's very, very difficult for people to accept since for so long we have been told and believed that stretching prevents injury and makes for a good "warm up" somehow. But, unfortunately, flexibility science is one of the least researched topics in the exercise science realm; therefore, as more studies are finally getting funded and carried out, the evidence has begun confounding such long held beliefs! (which, apparently, were based on virtually nothing all these years--since they probably originated long before research into stretching even began!)

However, many individual studies + a recent meta-analysis now strongly point to the following evidence:

1) Static stretching does zero to prepare a body for physical activity--it is NOT a warm up

2) Static stretching prior to physical activities that involve muscular strength and/or power outputs actually DECREASES performance

3) Static ranges of motion do not appear to correlate with an individual's dynamic flexibility, although the relationship (or lack of) is not well understood

4) Static stretching does not appear to prevent injury in most sports

This is not to say static stretching is useless or unnecessary. I still do it myself and recommend it, but I only do it after aerobic activities when my muscles are very warm but I have already cooled down (i.e. heart rate is resting).

Athletes tend to see the best performance when they engage in a dynamic, multi-planar warm up that progresses in intensity and which includes dynamic stretching only, not static stretching. (Endurance athletes who perform in primarily single planes of movement [like runners, cyclists, and swimmers] may not typically need to warm up in the same kinds of drills used by athletes in more complex and multi-dimensional movements).

Yes, I'd love a reference to some of these studies, too.

Also, I find myself confused with the terminology, ie, how would you define static vs. dynamic multi-planar stretching, and Richard, your differentiation between light and heavy stretching.

If stretching does not promote increased flexibility, what does? And why is it people who stretch often can demonstrate much more flexibility than those who do not.

And why am I able to relieve little muscle aches by gently stretching? Again, when I stretch out the tight spots after a light warm up, I feel less pain and more fluid in my movements, whatever they may be.

It's an interesting topic and I appreciate the responses!

Those clarifications are helpful, but also new thinking for me (which translates into I'm interested but need to learn a little more and apply it to my situation). Some dynamic or light stretching movements were actually passed on to me recently as a pre-climbing routine. Stretching for pain or tight muscles does make sense as an different objective.

To the person who posted and deleted the post: You may have re-thought the how or what of the thoughts posted, and I respect that, but there were a couple concepts thrown out I had wanted to google and didn't take the time to write them down.

If anyone has other thoughts, opinions, references, or specific pre-climb routines, I'd love to hear about them!

Sorry for the delete, thought the post was a bit on the negative side and I saw that EoG had clarified her position.

I believe the research that is being spoken of is in regards to the activation of your spindle fiber reflex, also called your golgi reflex. This is a biofeedback mechanism that keeps you from straining a muscle, when it gets stretched to a certain point the spindle fiber causes a muscular contraction to counter the stretch.

Research has been shown that the activation of this spindle fiber can effect intra muscular coordination or recruitment, and hence power. BUT the research that I have read is specific to the glutials and hamstrings and the effect on your ability to do squats.

Honestly, my feeling is that coming onto a climbing forum and saying that stretching decreases power is a BIG oversimplification. Have you seen any research on stretching specific to climbers? Or how about static stretching effecting isometric contractions of forearm flexors?

Let's face it, if we can stretch to help warm up our joints and possibly avoid injury (hamstring pull, etc.) then it is a worthwile endevor. Climbing is not a strength based sport, it is a movement based sport. I would go as far as to say that decreasing the recruitment in any muscles but the forearm flexors, could actually HELP performance in most people because it could also lead to an increase in blood flow which high recruitment hinders.

Although I think this thread is now getting a bit off topic, for interested parties, here is a news release of the 2004 meta-analysis performed by Dr. Ian Shrier in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/507154/. I find the meta-analysis a nice tool to use because they try to pick as many high quality, peer-reviewed research studies as possible and analyze the data in a more aggregate way. If you want to see more studies on this, you can find the references within the meta-analysis, and do further searches on Google for similar articles.

With regard to stretching's effects on injury, here is a nice excerpt that goes very much into detail about this topic: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/medicine/bmj/sportsmedici>>>>>.

Another look at one of the largest studies on stretching and injury outcomes (which used a sample size of 2000 army recruits) is here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=12>>>>>

The thing to understand about how injuries are usually sustained and why stretching (esp. acute stretching) may possibly be of little relevance is

1) Stretching creates a muscle-tendon unit that is more compliant. A more compliant muscle means that it will elongate sooner with less force applied. However, greater compliance is not necessarily related to a tissue's ability to withstand injury.

2) Most injuries are not sustained in extreme ranges of motion. In fact, most injuries happen within completely normal ranges of motion during situtions when the muscle is undergoing eccentric contraction. Stretching or not stretching seems, therefore, to be of little relevance in what "creates" injury.

Aerili,
I find it interesting that you took that position based on the research you provided. Maybe we are saying the same thing, but to me ROM stretching is still stretching, and it was listed in one of the articles as believed to decrease the risk of injury. Also working a joint through its ROM helps in the release of synovial fluid does it not? So are you saying that ROM stretching does not have a positive effect or do you not consider this stretching?

As I said, the effect of deep static stretching decreasing your recruitment is not something I disagree with. Also when I was studying Kinesiology ( 15 years ago) the spindle reflex was believed to be tied to the golgi reflex. Sounds like maybe research has seperated their functions? I do have degrees in both Biology and Chemistry and have read many texts related to climbing performance, so I am not ignorant in regards to this subject, but do not claim to be an expert by any means.

As for decreased recruitment helping climbing performance, I will say it again...Decreasing a muscles recruitment can actually HELP climbing performance. In most route climbing maximal recruitment take a backseat role to power endurance and vascularity. When you increase a muscles ability ro recruit it's fibers you also increase the propensity for complete capilary contraction from this highly recruited state. As psychological factors also come into play, the ability to "crush" a hold can make you pumped much faster than if you hold with minimal effort. This is why people who spend a large ammount of time bouldering often get spanked on routes that technically should be very easy for them.

As for your argument that "Kinetics drives Kinematics" this is quite obvious another oversimplification. In this one dimentional world, the strongest climbers would be the best climbers, which is obviously not the case. I can also tell you from personal experience that I have seen increases in my climbing ability when I have decreased my focus on climbing strength. I obviously do not think this holds true all the time, but climbing is primarily a technical sport. OK enough for getting off topic! I can be relatively sure that this is not a matter we will ever see eye to eye with.

Pilates BTW is primarily focused on active ROM, and as such I feel it is an excellent tool for warming up.