forearm tendons?

I've climbing for about 8 months and I keep pulling something in my forearms. I think it might be the tendons but not sure. It's not overly painful but now I find that my forearms get pumped a lot quicker when I have this injury. Right now I'm taking the week off so as not to aggravate it more. Is anyone familiar with this? If so, any advice on how to prevent or take care of this injury?

cheers...

If you've only been climbing for 8months it's likely that you are mildly straining the muscle/tendon system... just as you would during any kind of new strength/resistance training. Unless the pain is persistent and or getting worse you're probably simply getting stronger and experiencing the side effects of being a new climber.

The best thing to do would be to treat your climbing sessions like you would weight lifting, by that I mean that you should give your body/arms an adequate amount of time to recover from a climbing session before you jump back on the wall. Climbing does require some strength and if you push yourself too hard, too often...injury will force you to slow down.
Have fun, welcome to climbing
BA

Can you be a little more specific about where your pain is?

Read around in the "injuries" forum to find some good advice. Medial and lateral epicondylitis are pretty common among climbers. You can search epicondylitis on this site to get to some discussions.

In general, tendons grow (and heal) much slower than muscles because they have poor bloodflow compared to muscles. If you have only been climbing for 8 months, it is likely that your muscles have responded to the increased stress of climbing and gotten stronger. Meanwhile, the tendons are likely lagging behind. This can lead to tendonitits. You'll need to do some rehab/training that will strengthen the tendons.

I can't offer any certified medical advice, but I can offer a couple basic suggestions. Recovery time and stretching. Like Brent mentioned, allowing ample recovery time is key to not over straining your muscles and tendons, especially in the beginning stages of becoming a climber. Also, be sure to properly stretch all of your basic muscles, especially your hands, individual fingers, arms, shoulders, etc. Reverse wrist curls with light (3-5 lbs) weights also help prevent tendon injuries. As Rich suggested, consult the 'injuries' forum, and do some basic research to help heal, and hopefully, prevent any further injury. Good luck and keep climbing!

I hear of this type of over use injury primarily when climbing indoors. Especially with hard crimpy bouldering, it is easy to over train for this aspect of climbing. Like the others said it is important to stretch properly for indoor climbing especially if you are going to be doing crimp exercises. A key is to keep your muscles warm and stretched, with winter coming along it becomes more and more important to stretch properly.

The picture above is an example of a great stretch for the inner forearm muscles and tendons, do this stretch before during and after you climb both indoor and outdoor.

Also within a half an hour after any climbing make sure you have eat some sort of protein, I don't have scientific number saying how much but eat protein, it helps your muscle rebuild and you will feel fresher next time you go to climb.

Rich Farnham wrote:Can you be a little more specific about where your pain is? Read around in the "injuries" forum to find some good advice. Medial and lateral epicondylitis are pretty common among climbers. You can search epicondylitis on this site to get to some discussions. In general, tendons grow (and heal) much slower than muscles because they have poor bloodflow compared to muscles. If you have only been climbing for 8 months, it is likely that your muscles have responded to the increased stress of climbing and gotten stronger. Meanwhile, the tendons are likely lagging behind. This can lead to tendonitits. You'll need to do some rehab/training that will strengthen the tendons.

Hey Rich. The pain is around the inner forearm about 3/4 of the way up my forearm from my wrist. The pain mostly occurs when i grip things, even when I do pull ups. Does anyone know if I should be icing or heating it? Thanks everyone for all the advice!

That's classic tennis elbow. Ice and heat will bring blood to the area to speed healing. Reverse forearm curls can help strengthen the area, and wearing forearm straps (available at any sporting goods store) at about the site of pain you are describing or taping that area can help with pain a lot. Don't do pullups off of a fixed bar either, that wrecks your elbows, use rings so you can rotate. I had that same problem, but if you keep training it goes away as your tendons get stronger, give it about another year and you'll be all good.

I'm going to have to totally disagree w/ Evan. MTT said that he's feeling the tenderness 3/4 of the way up his forearm from his wrist. Classic tennis elbow is AT the lateral epicondyle on the elbow.
MTT, the anatomical area you describe as being painful is the dead center of your finger flexor muscles.
You're simply pushing your flexor muscles too hard, too often. You just started climbing and as such the gripping aspect of climbing is a unique stress that your body hasn't had to deal with, it's going to take some time for your hands and forearms (as well as shoulders) to adapt to the stresses of climbing.
Give yourself enough recovery between sessions to keep from heading into overuse territory. And as a piece of unsolicited advice: Please, PLEASE don't do any hand/finger specific strengthening until you've been consistently climbing (by that I mean up to 3-4 days/wk)for at least a couple of years.
It's going to take awhile for you to safely build up to climbing 3-4 days a week and I promise that if you're bouldering a couple of days a week your hands will continue to get stronger, besides you won't learn technique playing around w/ hand strengthening and you'll more than likely end up w/ an injury. At this point your arms are dealing w/ as much as they can handle anyhow as evidenced by the pain your experiencing during gripping.
If you're bummed about not getting to climb as much as you'd like you can save yourself a lot of grief down the road by educating yourself now about things like footwork/technique, how to prevent overuse injuries or simply by learning about all the aspects of climbing and looking forward to what you might like to do down the road.

Good luck and respect the limitations that your body is imposing on you now... it's way better than the alternative, just ask anyone on this site.
cheers, BA

Has anyone had any success using a sleeve for this type of pain? I know rest is the answer, but I'm going on a road trip next week.

My pain is from repetitively working a certain move over and over, and probably not resting properly between attempts.

Chris Horton wrote:Has anyone had any success using a sleeve for this type of pain?

Like a compression sleeve? Or a neoprene soft brace type of thing? Expect 0.00% effectiveness from something like that.

Compression sleeve or taping ideas. Looking for tempoprary fix to get me through a 10 day trip, not going to climb super hard.

I know what I really need is: Rest, yoga/stretching, heat/ice. I'll get as much of that in as I can in the meantime.