Rock Climbing Injuries
Original Editor - Puja Gaikwad[edit | edit source]
Top Contributors - Puja Gaikwad, Kim Jackson and Rucha Gadgil
Introduction[edit | edit source]
Rock climbing has become a professional competitive sport, many folks are being drawn to this sport with a parallel increase within the occurrence of sport-related injuries on both natural rock and artificial walls. Rock climbing is a physically and mentally challenging sport, one that often tests a climber's upper and lower body flexibility, strength, endurance, agility and balance along with mental control. It is a popular sport with the explosion in climbing gyms, bouldering venues and bolted sports routes.
Excessive loading of the upper extremities, contorted positioning of the lower extremities, rockfall, and falling from height create an elevated and diverse injury potential that’s hampering experience level and quantity of participation. Injuries can range from acute traumatic injuries to chronic overuse injuries. Unique sport-specific injuries to the flexor tendon pulley system exist, but the remaining musculoskeletal system is not exempt from injury. Understanding the sport of rock climbing and its injury patterns, treatments, and prevention is important to diagnose, manage, and counsel the rock-climbing athlete.
Risk Factors [edit | edit source]
1. Age
2. Higher skill (difficulty) level
3. high CIS (Climbing Intensity Score)
4. Poor climbing movement pattern:
a. An example of climbing inefficiently with bent elbows. This increases the stress on the biceps.
b. Climbing with elbows in a chicken wing. This puts excessive stress on the shoulder joint and is a result of latissimus dorsi and shoulder internal rotators working too hard
c. Too much wrist flexion and can compress the joint and nerve in the wrist as well as lead to elbow pain.
5. Participating in lead climbing
6. Using inadequate climbing equipment’s
7. Improper Footwear- Shoes that are too tight and small
8. Climbing in bad weather conditions
9. Over-training lead to a number of overuse and traumatic injuries
Prevalence and incidence of injuries[edit | edit source]
Studies that have estimated the prevalence of injuries associated with rock climbing vary between 10% and 81% irrespective of cause, between 10% and 50% for impact injuries, between 28% and 81% for nonimpact acute trauma injuries and between 33% to 44% for chronic overuse injuries.(29)
Mechanism of Injury[edit | edit source]
Climbing above one’s skill level,. The body weight of the climber places a great deal of stress on not only the climber’s fingers, but also their wrists, elbows, and shoulders.
- Inherent within the characteristic of the sport, climbers frequently subject their bodies to repetitive traumatic forces, whether from throwing to succeed in holds (dynoing and deadpointing) or falling from climbs (especially with bouldering), which ends up in either overuse injuries or acute injuries.
- This apparent pattern of overuse injuries could be related to the architecture of climbing walls, climbing styles, training techniques, or relative weakness of specific anatomical structures.
Injuries in rock climbers
climbing-related injuries may be categorized as:
- Impact injury caused by the climber falling onto a climbing surface and/or ground, or an object, such as a rock falling onto the climber.
- Non-impact injury resulting from acute trauma to the body.
- Chronic overuse injury from repetitive climbing.
Resources[edit | edit source]
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