Wolf’s Law

Recently I was made aware of a biological law called Wolff’s law. It basically says the more you use something the bigger it gets, and this is not just limited to muscles where we see it the most, but bones and tendons too. I recently developed a bone bump on my sternum right where the left pec attaches to the sternum, and our hypothesis is that because I favor my right hand when placing trad gear and ice screws, I am locking off with my left hand. This in turn puts strain on the bone there, and it gets bigger.

Do any of you Trad Dads, or Ice clippers have a similar bone buildup?

I wish something got bigger the more I used it.

Matt Himmelsteinwrote:

I wish something got bigger the more I used it.

Some things get bigger in order to be used. This is the opposite of the above law, so must be the law of Flow.

Reed Wolfe Wawrzynekwrote:

Recently I was made aware of a biological law called Wolff’s law. It basically says the more you use something the bigger it gets, and this is not just limited to muscles where we see it the most, but bones and tendons too. I recently developed a bone bump on my sternum right where the left pec attaches to the sternum, and our hypothesis is that because I favor my right hand when placing trad gear and ice screws, I am locking off with my left hand. This in turn puts strain on the bone there, and it gets bigger.

Do any of you Trad Dads, or Ice clippers have a similar bone buildup?

I think it might be hard to attribute change in bone mass entirely to climbing, it could be how you sleep or how you work. Especially when you compare time spent climbing to any other activity you do. It could also be an injury that has healed. All three of my stress fractures have calcium deposits that make my bone feel different than it should. In this situation I got more bone while doing nothing with that limb. 

Like Trevor said, this may be partly a result of climbing, but is likely a culmination of things (or a totally unrelated condition). Most of the time these bone changes are seen from chronic, everyday use. They’re common in patients recovering from strokes or other physical/neurological injury. For example somebody who has an injury to their teeth or jaw on the left side will almost exclusively chew on their right side. After doing this all day and every day, the muscles on the right side of the jaw grow bigger and pull harder, and this can cause skeletal changes to the skull where the muscles attach. 

I have a huge lump on my elbow from work. Swinging hammer and mostly running framing guns. Climbing does not help it but its definatly frrom work as it gets smaller when I take time off from work even if I am climbing.