Training after mild finger injury/prolonged rest period

Fate conspired to bring together an international move and a finger injury at the same time. I haven't been able to train/climb for a month.

I've never had problems with fingers before. I had bad elbow tendonitis my first year climbing but got it sorted out. I strained the A2 on my ring finger the last day I climbed. I was leaving behind my gym membership with my relocation so I just bouldered until I couldn't go anymore. Never felt a pop or surge of pain. The next day I had a lump on the underside of the ring finger. Painful to touch and prod but I could still hold, squeeze, lightly load the finger.

The finger swelling went down after 3 days and now after a month off I'm eager to climb again. Any one with similar finger injury experience? I'm in need of advice also about re-starting a training cycle after one month of no climbing. I was in the middle of my third RCTM cycle doing a Power phase when I moved/got hurt.

Should I scrap the cycle and just start over with another Endurance phase? Or some sort of rehab/hybrid to try to make it to the completion of the previous cycle?

I don't think you'll be able to salvage your training cycle. If you feel healed, start over with a new cycle. If not, I would start with a few weeks of rehab hangboarding (as described extensively on the RCTM website/forum) and then, depending on how that goes, decide where to go from there.

Much appreciated.

Is the finger injury described common experience? I always hear people talking about the infamous popping noise.

I had the same thing happen last year. No traumatic incident, just a gradual onset of pain over two days at which point I noticed a pebble like lump in my A2 pulley. I've actually partially torn one on my other hand which definitely popped and this was not at all the same injury.

Unfortunately the lump has never gone away despite trying everything from rest to tendon glides (which really helped) to ultrasound to ice and heat cycles to deep tissue massage. I slowly worked back into my routine after the pain subsided (6 weeks) and have been H-taping the offending digit ever since. Also have started and maintained exercises for my flexors and stretching routines which I would recommend everyone do, injured or not. Your should be able to find resources for all of those treatments and hours upon hours of exercises online. Climbing harder now than before the injury, and pain free, but that pesky lump just will not give in. Good luck working through it! And if anyone stumbles across some new fangled way to break down one of those lumps, let me know!

Monomaniac wrote:I don't think you'll be able to salvage your training cycle. If you feel healed, start over with a new cycle. If not, I would start with a few weeks of rehab hangboarding (as described extensively on the RCTM website/forum) and then, depending on how that goes, decide where to go from there.

Hi Mono. I found some information on the forum ( rockprodigytraining.proboar…)

but can't find anything on the RCTM website. Do you mind providing some links on the RCTM website? I have a similar injury as the OP and have gone through some PT/rest and am trying to get some strength back in the finger. The hangboard has pissed off my finger in the past, so I'm looking for a better way to ease into it.

Thanks

Just thought I'd give a brief update to my personal experience with getting back into shape after a finger injury.

My injury followed a timeline like so:

Nagging finger pain for 1-2 months on my R ring finger. Was climbing and taping during this time. I was doing ice/hot water baths with my finger for 1m/3m respectively during this time. My finger felt fine at first but after doing the weighted finger curls ( ukclimbing.com/articles/pag…) my finger got really pissed off.

I eased off on climbing for 1 mo, mainly trying to do wide cracks and stuff that minimized finger use. At it's worst I would get a sharp pain while grabbing onto something.

For this 1 mo period I switched to just doing ice baths for awhile (to get inflammation down). I also would use this guy 3-4x a day ( amazon.com/DAddario-Varigri…*Version*=1&*entries*=0)

My finger finally felt better and I began some light hangbording. I'm ~135lb so I was taking 20-25lb off and doing 3-4 exercises (deadhangs with different grips) 1-2 reps and doing 7s/5s. I've had a lot of great success with doing this 1x a week, 2x a week if I wasn't able to climb during the weekend. My finger will feel a bit sore after, but I try to not push myself too hard on the hangboard. I've been increasing reps and switched over to 7s/3s as well as taking weight off slowly over time.

Just wanted to give my personal experience for the hangboard really working out.