Preventing Injuries.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook about her tendon pulley woes and it reminded me that I haven't been injured in a while. I think getting older and having more patience is partly to blame, but I'd also like to think my supplemental antagonistic training has contributed to me staying off the DL. Last year I would periodically get a numb pain in my right bicep when squeezing hard while bouldering in the gym or in Squamish, but I haven't felt that pain in ages. Regardless, the opportunity arose for me to see a physiotherapist in Kamloops, who is also an avid climber. Though I wasn't experiencing any pain, she did notice that my right rotator cuff was significantly weaker than my left. She gave me a couple of exercises and stretches to do, and I added them into my routine. Luckily, when it is slow at the station, I am able to work out instead of just sitting and wasting time on Facebook/Reddit or writing useless blog posts. Every exercise you see here was developed by someone with knowledge of exercise physiology and I take no credit for them.

Scapular setting in order get rid of that "climbers hunch." The band is girth hitched to my shoulder and I'm resisting against it to pull my shoulder back. In addition, I'm getting 2 birds stoned at once by doing an external rotation to help strengthen my rotator cuff.

 These pulldowns are a great shoulder warm up and also help with posture as well. I often bring my exercise band to the crag and use it to warm up before climbing.

When I lose focus and end up overtraining, I would often get elbow pain (medial epicondylitis most likely). When this happens I always remember to rest, and really hit the reverse wrist curls and elbow pronators. We naturally tend to supinate our elbows when climbing, especially if you're doing a lot of pullups in your training.



I use a piece of doweling with two 2.5lb weights on each side, cheaper than buying a small sledgehammer!

PISTOL SQUATS!!!!!
OMG, this has to be the single best (and only) leg exercise that is relevant to climbing....right??? Not sure if its the best, but I do assisted pistol squats, works my open hand strength too ;)
2 sets of 5.

Some of the best advice I was ever given when I began climbing was to hold on to holds as lightly as possible in order to prevent over-gripping. Along with this advice I figured that while warming up, if you have to crimp a hold, then the hold is too small for your warmup and you should pick a route with bigger holds.
Cheers,
-PatWC