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ticklistjunkie
Jun 27, 2009, 11:46 AM
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Over the past couple of years I've done a lot of training for climbing. Most of my training has followed the guide lines in Eric Horst's training for climbing. I'll start with a month of easy endurance to build a base, then a few weeks of power, followed by 3 to 5 weeks of strength endurance training. After this cycle I'll go on a two week climbing trip. I've had great results in my performance with these cycles.
The problem is that after pushing it on the climbing trips I've been getting finger pulley tendon injuries when I get home. So I'll take time off to heal then start all over. It really sucks to train so hard and then only get a couple good weeks of climbing. So far the three times this has happened over the past few years the injuries have been different pulleys. I'm wondering what the flaw is in my training/climbing or is this just part of pushing past boundaries? Will my fingers heal stronger with proper rest? Should my trips be shorter?
During long trips I never climb more than two days in a row, some time one day on one day off, and after the trips I'll rest 6 to 8 days before climbing again. Any info would be helpful
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chadnsc
Jun 27, 2009, 2:24 PM
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The issue is that you're not taking enough time off.
In Horst's cycle training guidelines it's a 4-3-2-1 cycle
4 weeks of general climbing
3 weeks of hard climbing
2 weeks of endurance climbing
1 week off, no climbing
You're doing
4 weeks of general climbing
4 weeks of hard climbing
4 weeks of endurance climbing
2 weeks of hard climbing
Then you get injured.
12 weeks of no climbing to allow for you tendons to attempt to heal.
I'm going to assume that since you're not taking any type of prolonged recovery time (five days min.) that you're also not giving you tendon injuries enough time to heal. With tendons and pulleys it will take 4-6 weeks to heal a mild strain, 7-10 weeks to heal a major strain, and a minimum of 12 weeks to heal a partial tear.
First off I'd suggest that you give you injured pulleys a chance to fully heal. Then I would modify your training routine to incorporate at least one full week of rest into routine.
Try this routine once you’re injuries are healed up:
4 weeks of general climbing
3 weeks of hard climbing
3 weeks of endurance climbing
1 week off
2 weeks of hard climbing
1 week off
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keithspernak
Jun 27, 2009, 3:19 PM
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Your post brings up a good question that I am wondering. Do the affected fingers come back stronger? I trashed one pulley in early January, rested, rehabbed, then trashed the same finger on the other hand three months later. It has been three months since the second finger was injured. I wouldn't say I "train" for climbing, but I did get out religiously 2 to 3 times a week before hurting myself.
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chadnsc
Jun 27, 2009, 11:17 PM
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No, the affected tendons do not come back stronger after injury. Now this is not to say that after recovery and rehab you tendons cannot become stronger from regular climbing.
In fact the opposite is true and your inured tendon will be weaker and thus requires you to take it easy and not push things too hard. With proper rest and physical therapy it is possible to come back just as strong but it will take time, typically 4-6 weeks after the initial 4-12 week rest and recovery period.
That’s correct, it will normally take an injured tendon 8-18 weeks before it is ready to pull hard again. I think that with their first tendon injury many climbers to not allow enough time for rest / healing and then push themselves too hard after they think they are healed. This premature return to climbing simply creates a weakened tendon or pulley and sets up the climber for future tendon injuries.
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ticklistjunkie
Jun 28, 2009, 12:03 PM
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I do take a week of rest before and after going on a trip. I also give my fingers time to heal fully. I'm going to try shortening my power and enduranc portions of my training cycle. Thanks
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ticklistjunkie
Jun 28, 2009, 12:19 PM
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Thanks for the response. I've not been injuring the same pulleys. I give plenty of time for full recovery. Last summer I took off three months and I just ended seven weeks of no climbing for a very mild A2 ring finger injury. I normally onsight 12a and plan on climbing under 11a for a few weeks. I'm not so concerned about what to do when I have a finger injury. What I'm looking for is How can I train for climbing, push my ability, and lessen my chances of a finger that will require a lot of time off to heal.
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chadnsc
Jun 29, 2009, 12:30 PM
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You're over trainning, rest more durring your trainning cycle.
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sidepull
Jun 29, 2009, 1:26 PM
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One of the main purposes of systematic training (as I see it) is to avoid injury. If your system is consistently creating them then there is a serious flaw in what you are doing. It could be, as Chad suggests, that you aren't resting enough. Honestly, we don't have enough detail about how and what you are climbing to say. It would be wise, at the very least, to keep a training journal and, at the end of each session to take note of what you accomplished and how you feel (eg., does anything hurt, is anything tweaked, were you focusing too much on crimpy problems, etc.).
At the end of the day, you probably train to improve performance. If training is causing injury then you're getting the exact opposite of what you want. Something needs to change.
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bothomsen
Jul 1, 2009, 11:29 PM
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make variations, if you crimp all the time, then you will easely strain those pulleys, try to climb/ train more varied! so you exsample use crimps for 25% of the time and so on with pinch, open hand and slopers.
only crimps will hurt your a2's
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fluxus
Jul 4, 2009, 12:27 AM
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chadnsc wrote: The issue is that you're not taking enough time off. In Horst's cycle training guidelines it's a 4-3-2-1 cycle 4 weeks of general climbing 3 weeks of hard climbing 2 weeks of endurance climbing 1 week off, no climbing You're doing 4 weeks of general climbing 4 weeks of hard climbing 4 weeks of endurance climbing 2 weeks of hard climbing Then you get injured.
Being on a schedule that cycles at 4 week intervals alone will not cause injury. A very common cycle is this:
4 wks endurance
4 wks power
4 wks power endurance
4 -6 weeks performance emphasis
Many climbers handle long periods of significant training loads and don't get injured. As sidepull mentioned the OP has not given enough detail for us to assess what his problems might be.
I want to know how OP is doing his cycles. Is he doing them through climbing or is he using a lot of secondary training methods such as campusing or hang boards? Is his climbing redundant in that its all the same style? Pulley injuries are most common among people who do a lot of crimping or pocket climbing.
In reply to: The problem is that after pushing it on the climbing trips I've been getting finger pulley tendon injuries when I get home.
Is it that you are getting injured after being home for a few weeks OR are you getting injured on your trips and not really dealing with it until you get home?
From the little you have described it does not look like your training load is all that high,and your rests on trips are not out of the ordinary, but you might just be under reporting what you are up to.
Pulley injuries tend to be over use injuries, (its true that you can have a sudden rupture but I think in general they are over use.) they often take a while to develop and as has been pointed out they take a long time to heal. I suspect that you are ignoring some finger pain that you should be responding to right away.
Long periods of rest will not heal a pulley injury. Movement is necessary to heal these things but even easy climbing can be too intense. Consider spending 2 -3 week gently squeezing a washcloth in a bowl of warm water for 15 minutes two times a day. Also Ice down the fingers in question 1 time a day. When you come back to climbing start on a limited diet of juggy 5.8's and avoid ALL small holds.
Also, look at your personal injury history in life, do you have any evidence to suggest that you may have a greater problem? I do run into climbers every now and then who seem to be more injury prone in their fingers and wrists. You could be one of those unfortunate souls.
I would also recommend keeping a climbing journal if you don't already. Its great to have a record of your climbing exploits but for you, you could also use it to note how your fingers feel after each day. This would help you track any trends that you are not aware of.
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climbingnoise
Jul 6, 2009, 12:46 AM
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how do you know when you are developing a general use injury? I never had finger pain before but I was sick for awhile and didnt have a gym membership and so I was climbing on this lava rock brick wall that has all kinds of cool features, small pinches, monos and stuff and have been making up new problems using the smallest holds possible one and two finger crimps and pockets whenever I can (the feet are fairly good) and for the first time since I can remember (been climbing about a year and 3 months) my fingers are feeling strained, but they never hurt after the session, just during the moves and a little while after. I'm wondering how I tell the difference between getting soreness from pulling hard and the beginnings of a tendon strain. So far I haven't had any pulley injuries.
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fluxus
Jul 6, 2009, 7:11 PM
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climbingnoise wrote: . . . and for the first time since I can remember (been climbing about a year and 3 months) my fingers are feeling strained, but they never hurt after the session, just during the moves and a little while after.
You'll need to be a little more specific. For example, what do you mean when you say your fingers are feeling strained? How long is a little while after?
Feeling pain during moves is not a good thing. Where is the pain and what is the nature of the pain?
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climbingnoise
Jul 6, 2009, 7:36 PM
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fluxus wrote: climbingnoise wrote: . . . and for the first time since I can remember (been climbing about a year and 3 months) my fingers are feeling strained, but they never hurt after the session, just during the moves and a little while after. You'll need to be a little more specific. For example, what do you mean when you say your fingers are feeling strained? How long is a little while after? Feeling pain during moves is not a good thing. Where is the pain and what is the nature of the pain?
its hard to say, what parts of your fingers or what components can actually give you pain? Its not the skin, its not bruising. It feels like inside, it is being stretched and that much more force could over extend them? What I can't tell is if I have my left middle finger in a sort of vertical mono undercling half pad and am pulling with my weight moving right and down, as if the mono is a side cling (vertical wall, decent feet), where does .. hmm i dont know how to describe the feeling, its similar to if you picked up a mostly full jug of milk with your ring finger its kind of a dull ache, with a lot of tension being kept to keep the finger from bending back.
On this one move I get my right hand to a decent sloper, then lower my right foot, and bump to a worse sloper that has a more positive surface. and then reach out into an iron cross on a tiny two finger incut gaston quarter pad, and then bring my left out of the mono and into a small two finger gaston nook half pad. By the end of the session the last time I was working on this traverse there might be a little bit of an ache in the fingers for several minutes but nothing by the time I went home.
Felt similar strain being directly under a lefthand two finger sidepull 1/2 pad on a slight overhang and getting my feet up to wrap my hand over the top of this other boulder felt like I might have been pushing it a bit but I held it and then the ache probably didnt last too long after that.
i don't know if this helps? :/
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fluxus
Jul 7, 2009, 1:46 AM
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climbingnoise,
I admit that I find your descriptions a bit hard to follow but I get the gist of it. My thought is that when someone who has been climbing less than two years talks about shallow monos, 1/4 pad and 1/2 pad holds I do get concerned. Its true that having good foot holds can mean less force on the fingers in some instances, but that doesn't stop me from being very uncomfortable with someone so new using such small holds. Honestly, I don't really think training on such small holds is necessary for anyone, even those with a lot of experience. You may not be injured at this point, but you may be racing in that direction.
I think you (meaning all of us) should be pretty conservative when it comes to pain in the joints, tendons and ligaments of the wrist and fingers. If you are feeling this consistently, I suspect you are doing something wrong. Inflammation and tenderness is common in the fingers, esp. after a hard workout, but consistently feeling pain in the fingers during climbing is a concern. Remember that our fingers were not really designed for the kind of abuse we give them in climbing. Being on a 1/4 pad crimper usually means hyper extension of the distal interphalangeal joints of the index, middle and ring finger, which puts a good deal of stress on the joint capsules. How often does that sort of thing happen in usual human movements? Not often at all, so its an unusual stress on a part of the body that is not well suited to it.
As I suggested above there really is no training benefit to using such tiny holds, the flexor digitorum profundus (the muscle that flexes the distal interphalangeal joins) is trained more effectively on a full pad then it is on a 1/4 pad. All you do by going to 1/4 is increase the stress on the joint capsule, but this in tern does not equate to a greater (or more productive) training load on the muscle.
I would suggest using bigger holds and smaller feet.
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climbingnoise
Jul 7, 2009, 7:27 AM
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thanks a lot. yea the sequence I was doing on this wall is contrived, I was trying to make a traverse without using any of the holds I did on the traverse when I first did it. I basically tried to make it as hard as I could. The mono section is something I can do pretty much every time but it is strenuous so I thought it might improve my finger power in the long term. What you said about the partial pad I will take to heart. Thanks.
Today I went to the gym and had no finger pain. There are no mono or strenuous two finger pocket moves. An old issue which is a sort of sharp pain in the wrists that occurs when I get into hard 3s and 4s and 5s emerged, and it sometimes flares up then goes away toward the end of my session but yea that happened today which was a bummer. I think I might try and only do routes or v2 or less for the next 3 weeks. I don't know if that is enough of a break (last time I switched to routes I had no wrist pain because I get pumped in the 5.11 range and dont end up doing moves that are too stenuous on my tendons.)
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