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Ankles and Elbows

• January 2012
• Hi Steph Climb Training

Hi Steph!
First, I love your blog–you’re awesome! I admire you as both an athlete and a vegan. I’ve been climbing [indoor] since January (I live in Louisiana and there are no rocks anywhere) and I have been vegan since March. I found your blog searching for other vegan climbers… 🙂

Unfortunately, courtesy of an overly enthusiastic dismount from a bouldering problem I completed in the gym last night, I am dealing with a pretty serious ankle sprain. I heard it pop when I landed on the crash pad… it makes me wince just thinking about it. There are no fractures according to the X-rays, but I’m not out of the woods yet. There could be some major damage to some ligaments or tendons. I have to be patient and see how it goes over the next few days. I’ve been following RICE and I have a set of crutches to keep the weight off my injury.

I hope to return to activity as soon as possible, but I understand I must be smart about it. I am leaving for a 3-week trip to Central America in a month, so it is really important that am careful and take care of this properly. I know it might be awhile before I should return to bouldering, but would all climbing be something I should avoid? I have another climbing option, its a four sided natural face tower with auto-belay. It would seem that this would be a better option for my ankle than bouldering, but I’m not really sure when I will be able to return to that safely either.

Knowing this, I am primarily concerned about losing all of the great strength and fitness I’ve built up. I was wondering if you have any suggestions for exercises/activities I can do to maintain what I’ve got to the best of my ability. I’m now climbing routes at the V2 level.

Thank you so much!
Emily

Hello Steph,
Love what you do and I love watching your videos.  I needed some advice.  I’m 33 and I have been climbing for about 6 months now.  I trained hard doing strength building exercises like push up, pull ups and core exercises and cardio.  I took to climbing pretty good advancing up to 5.9 routes.  I thought I was having some tendinitis in my elbows and stopped working out and climbing  for about 2 to 3 weeks.  The pain went away but as soon as I started to climb I was in severe pain again.  I decided to see a Dr. and he said I had torn a muscle in my arm and it had caused some kind of minor nerve damage.  Good news is he said I should heal within about 3 to 4 weeks if I lay off it and go to physical therapy.  My question for you is what type of strength training, stretching and nutrition program would you recommend to make sure I’m not hurting my body? 
 
Ive found my calling in climbing to me its more than exercises or a hobby. As silly as it sounds its like Ive found my place.  Ive learned so much about myself and meet some of the best people Ive ever known in the climbing community.  I want to train right and know that I have many years of climbing ahead of me.  By the way I was the guy who asked about a good time to visit Moab on your facebook page.  I live in Georgia but once a year I head out to the West Coast and Moab looks awesome in your pictures so I figured I would check it off the list.  I was in Colorado 2011 and Montana in 2010 on backpacking trips.  Thanks in advance for any recommendations you have.  Be safe and keep inspiring!

Thank you,
Jon

Hi Emily and Jon,
Sorry that you got injured–it’s never any fun 🙁 Joints seem to be if not fragile, then at least complicated, and like any intricate machine, they can be trouble when they get tweaked. In my experience with these types of strains and injuries, the exact problem is sometimes difficult to diagnose exactly even by a doctor. If they tell you it’s a strain, minor muscle tear, etc., basically you can assume that it’s going to get better on its own in a few to several weeks. If you do activity that doesn’t feel destructive, it is probably not injuring it further. Ankle pops and sprains/strains are something I’ve had frequently, and doing the aggressive RICE is really worthwhile. I’ve also taped my ankle really thoroughly, almost like a small cast, and left the tape on for several days at a time when needing to do activities, and that seems to work well with minor ankle problems while allowing you to keep doing things.

For elbows, you can’t really tape and go. I think in this case, you’ll need to be pretty patient at first and also take into consideration that the problems came up when starting into gym climbing at a pretty accelerated rate. You’ll need to dial that back a little, because this is a guaranteed cause of overuse injury. Since you like training, a good idea is to think about opposing muscle groups to climbing muscles. Reverse curls with a dumbbell bar, pushups and military presses can keep things balanced out. Doing downward dog yoga stretches or even just holding your hands out spread open with your wrists flexed a little can stretch out your forearms and all those little muscles you don’t normally notice until they get tweaked.

When you get injured and can’t do your normal activities, think about other things you can do that won’t hurt the offending body part. Swimming is amazing for fitness, and seems to be really good for climbing too (I think because it strengthens shoulders and core). Stretching, yoga, and core exercises can be hard to make time for in normal, busy life and can have very good results during some downtime from climbing.

Usually you end up healing faster than you expected 🙂
Good luck!
Steph