Head and neck injuries with Asana gym mats?
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Hello, |
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So you admit that you fell awkwardly/unexpectedly/ from high up and you think this is the mats fault? I watched a guy give himself an open tib/fib fracture on 16 inches of super soft mat. It's the fall, not the mat. |
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The problem is that the mat is so stiff if you don't fall perfectly the force of the fall is not dispersed away from your body. You absolutely must tuck and roll, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect that from every fall. With the softer matts the force was absorbed. So a fall that landed perfectly on the feet (which I did) would have been ok on a softer mat because it would have absorbed the energy. But instead the stiffer mat sent the force back into my neck. I wonder if anyone found these get softer with use? Doesn't seem like they will due to the material type. |
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Bouldering is about climbing only as high as you are willing to fall. I love lowball boulders outside for that reason. Even in the gym, I will not allow myself to get into awkward positions up high. |
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NEWSFLASH! |
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Way to jump all over the OP everyone. Instead of doing that take a second to consider that every gym has a legal duty to provide safe reliable equipment to its users. The onus is not entirely on the climber here. |
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Peter Beal wrote:Way to jump all over the OP everyone. Instead of doing that take a second to consider that every gym has a legal duty to provide safe reliable equipment to its users. The onus is not entirely on the climber here. I hate to say it but with the explosion of bouldering gyms and an almost total lack of real science regarding optimal landing zone construction, wall heights, setting protocols etc, there is a real risk of a major lawsuit down the road, the kind of lawsuit that could get rid of tall bouldering walls for good. Waivers do not cut it in absolving a gym of responsibility here. BarbJ, I would talk with your gym about their flooring choice. Often newer installs are stiffer and for example, the Boulder Rock Club, when they installed their new flooring which I think was Asana BTW, put up signs warning climbers that the floor was new and to use caution for the first few weeks. The floor eventually did break in and it's reasonable to fall off it now. I wrote on this topic last year BTW theboulderingbook.com/2015/…To me it sounds like the gym was making every effort to provide a safe and reliable environment by installing new state of the art floors. Are you suggesting that users have no obligation to judge the firmness of the flooring they walk across to get the the boulder problem, no obligation to judge the problem's height and no obligation to consider their own competence at both climbing and falling? Or that somehow the gym's responsibilities overshadow all of the climber's obligations mentioned above? Is that even climbing any more? |
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Peter Beal wrote:Way to jump all over the OP everyone. Instead of doing that take a second to consider that every gym has a legal duty to provide safe reliable equipment to its users. The onus is not entirely on the climber here. I hate to say it but with the explosion of bouldering gyms and an almost total lack of real science regarding optimal landing zone construction, wall heights, setting protocols etc, there is a real risk of a major lawsuit down the road, the kind of lawsuit that could get rid of tall bouldering walls for good. Waivers do not cut it in absolving a gym of responsibility here. BarbJ, I would talk with your gym about their flooring choice. Often newer installs are stiffer and for example, the Boulder Rock Club, when they installed their new flooring which I think was Asana BTW, put up signs warning climbers that the floor was new and to use caution for the first few weeks. The floor eventually did break in and it's reasonable to fall off it now. I wrote on this topic last year BTW theboulderingbook.com/2015/…Holy shit that article is right on. I just saw a gym transition from overhanging bouldering that was safe and you could circuits on to exactly the wall you are describing, and myself and a bunch of the other older climbers have stopped bouldering as a result. While most of the comments in favor of the new tall bouldering wall are full of male bravado as you describe, some setters believe the progressively setting more difficult moves makes for better training routes, but their point is ridiculous when no one wants to try the last move for fear of an out of control fall up high. About six months ago I saw some nasty stuff. A 10 year old climbed to the top, released, and tried to soften his fall with an arm. This ended in a double compound fracture on his right arm (yes you could see the bone broken into three pieces, it was absolutely amazing). Here is another piece of insight to this padding/high ball problem: Friction. The gym put in a new and soft pad, but the cover is made out of rubber and has tons of friction, so it doesn't matter how soft the pad is, the friction on the top of the pad can give you a compound fracture! BarbJ, My wife has had similar problems with what you describe, and, well, she had to stop bouldering at our gym because of it. It's a shitty solution but one made out of self preservation. |
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So get a belay and climb roped routes. |
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I hate too tall bouldering walls myself. |
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Over the last 15 years of bouldering in the gym I have seen for better or worse, the evolution of taller problems and changes in padding. The first gym I went to had 1-2' of rounded pea gravel on the floor. I still think this was the best media and is superior to pads as it would conform to your body when landing from an awkward fall and dissipate energy well. That being said, it was hard to clean and stored a lot of loose chalk. |
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I'm fairly certain I climb at the same gym. Some of the new Asana pads are extremely stiff, but the ones that haven seen more use have broken in rather nice. I find these to be a safer choice than the previous pads used as they were too soft and wore out rather fast. I took falls off the last move of the same problem at least 2 dozen times last Friday onto one of the more firm pads. It wasn't until I landed in between the over lap from new to old pad that I slightly twisted my ankle. I should have taken more care to groom my landing zone. |
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Just for a little counterpoint, I believe the ruptured ACL injury came from landing on padding that was too soft. |
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Also Mark, I completely agree with you regarding climber responsibility. I just think there's a limit to how far that can go in a man-made setting especially one that is used to introduce climbers to the sport. |
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@ Pete 1+ for more science! Given that more and more people are joining this sport it seems like a good study or 2 identifying which attributes of padding correlate with injuries would be timely. |
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Dan, as an author of a book on bouldering I agree completely on the problem of explaining via text! The key factor that I try to explain to clients or in workshops is never try to stick the landing. Always crumple and land on broad surfaces of your body such as your butt, hips, etc. Rolling can work too but is too hard to predict in many irregular falling situations. |
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Mark E Dixon wrote:NEWSFLASH! Climbing is dangerous. I wonder if the DAV has studied soft vs hard bouldering floors. Bear? Maybe take your own pad to supplement theirs? Or be more careful?the DAV says to use a rope and a grigri in squamish we simply put some honey under the pebble we want to pull on eventually some bear wanders by ... when that happens we go for the send ... and land on the bear if we fall bears make great pads, being all soft and fuzzy ... just make sure not to land in the honey as youll become bear food ;) |
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Oh mark, just flaring up the crowd with your HUGE ego. People go the gym to climb risk free and perhaps push the limits with the idea that there is massive pad beneath them. |
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People go the gym to climb risk free and perhaps push the limits with the idea that there is massive pad beneath them.
Here within lies the problem. With bouldering you need to know your comfort zones, ability and have risk assessment skills. Part of the risk is the landing zone. Acting surprised when you take a bad fall onto a hard mat and get hurt is being deficient in at least on of those skills. |
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Getting mad at the gyms, the setters AND the pads at gyms definitely qualifies as first world problems and even fits into the category of the pussification of the US. |