I commented a while ago on the notion that you need to do some passive stretching after doing soft tissue work on the musculature of the shoulder girdle. However I have been remiss in actually following that up with any kind of video or article. Today with a number of individuals in pain, it seems that I can’t neglect this any longer. Stretching daily is important. Regardless of whether or not the muscles have been worked. While countless articles have been written on how stretching does nothing whatsoever for preventing injuries or aiding in rehabilitation I am going to stand in protest of such statements. In my personal experience a good stretching regime done regularly has always helped speed recovery for me, as well as done a lot to decrease any kind of movement limitations and daily pain.

Note of course that I think that stretching should come along side of soft tissue work and effective training that fixes muscle imbalances. However the stretching bit, while profoundly simple is still needed.

I suggest holding most of the stretches for 30s-1min, alternating sides and doing each stretch about three times. The actual time limit can be determined best by the person stretching. Don’t watch the clock, rather breathe into a stretch and use it to open up those stuck tissues.

This one is from the archives.  May 15th, 2012.  Still relevant now.

Soft tissue work at its most basic. This is a quick video that is going up to ensure that the dinos get the information they need so they can quit whining about being sore. If I get a chance I will get a full write up together for this series on stretching and foam rolling. This deserves some high quality video and some actual explanations on what it is that I am doing this for. For the time being, follow the carny. Look for sore and tender points and try and “iron” them out with a roller or a ball. I find that a hard ball works better than a soft one, though some give in it is essential. A lacrosse ball works quite well, and I am quite fond of super bouncy balls.

This post came out of the Irrational Fitness archives, having first been published on July 13th, 2012.  It and a number of other posts seemed worth salvaging from the archives, so here it is.

One of the most common injuries that climbers suffer from [other than perhaps shoulder injuries] that often limits or ends there climbing career is that of finger injuries.  The reality of these injuries is that they can often be rehabbed quickly, and can be completely prevented if one is on top of their own soft tissue prehab.  Our hands are in all reality relatively small and delicate tools, and the force they produce is not a by product of the hands themselves.  Rather, most of the work that a hand can accomplish is powered by the forearm and so it is that this is often the source of much of our hand and finger pain. As the images below demonstrate, the musculature of the forearms is complex, and it is there that we must look to solve the problem of hand pain.

The big thing to understand on this one is the fact that regular soft tissue rehab on the forearms will allow for rapid recovery from training, and greatly decrease the chance of injury. If you are waiting to get on top of this kind of work until after you already hurt then it is going to take a lot more time to get better. I would suggest finding a soft tissue therapist who knows what they are doing to go to town on your forearms. If you lack that, then spend a decent amount of time working out these tight spots, and supplement that with some contrast baths for your hands and forearms.

This post came out of the Irrational Fitness archives, having first been published on May 10, 2010.  It and a number of other posts seemed worth salvaging from the archives, so here it is.

This is finally the long awaited for post on how to start attacking pain in your shoulders, and improve the overall range of motion. This is a compilation of a new video on how to do manual work on your Subscap, as well as the older video that came out last month on how to free up your scapula and get is moving properly again. This time around the article should be really good, as I am now writing it for the second time as I was foolish enough not to make a copy of the last draft that I wrote for this. Yay.

Subscaps

Now one of the major culprits that is extremely hard to get access to would be the Subscap, a nasty muscle that is on the other side of your Scapula. You can’t roll on this one to release the muscles in there so you will be forced to sit down and do some manual therapy. This is once again a big culprit in all kinds of shoulder pain, and this should be your first stop before you even get to work with the ball. After all, if the notion of the work on the ball is to get your scapula moving, we should try and get one of the primary culprits in its immobility to release first. So sit down, get to know your body a bit better and go looking for that tender spot deep in your armpit (essentially).

Scapula Mobility

This second video was released last month and is all about getting mobility back in your scapula, as a lot of the pain we all get in pulling and pressing movements comes from our scapula not moving the way it is supposed to. So following the rule of release and then lengthen we will start off with these fun rehab tools for getting movement back in the scaps. You will need some kind of hard ball (I love using lacrosse balls for this), a stretch band of some kind, and a stick. Take your time in all of the movements, and increase your range of movement slowly, if your shoulders are pretty beat up then this is going to hurt a lot. Breath and relax through the movements, and spend the time that you need to to actually get your mobility back.

Now the last item to look at would be the muscles that are commonly referred to as your rotator cuff muscles. The thing to do here is to simply take the lacrosse ball again, place it on the wall, lean into it, and enjoy the pain. These muscles are going to be tender for sure, and are the last set that I usually attend to. Once all that is finished with, take some time to stretch everything nicely, and then finish off with some contrast showers. This series of work done for a couple days in a row should be able to drastically improve any shoulder pain that you are suffering from overwork. Climbers and acrobats rejoice. You don’t have subacromial bursitis, you have tight muscles from training and climbing a lot. Get them released and see how you feel.

This post came out of the Irrational Fitness archives, having first been published on April 28th, 2012.  I updated it and modified it a little, but on the whole I believe the statements still hold true.

SHOULD WE JUST BE CLIMBING MORE?

Traditionally, the long standing rule for climbers was that the best way to improve at climbing, was simply to climb a lot. That was the solution: climb hard, and frequently.  Sadly, for many of us in countries that experience winter, getting on rock all the time isn’t an option.  As such, the gym climber was born, with its own host of limitations and issues.  Is all we need to be doing more climbing to really push farther forward as climbers?

In the days prior to gym climbing, a 5.12 was hard. In the past decade, an entire new generation of climbers have been able to put in a huge amount of time honing their skills, and as a result have pushed the sport forward. The 5.12 grade range is no longer something reserved only for the worlds most elite climbers, but rather is something that is accessible to more and more people.  Arguably, a focused individual who trains appropriately, should have no issue reaching well into the 13s.

The question that I have struggled with is whether simply more climbing is the best way to move the majority of people further forward in their climbing journey.  I suspect that for many people, it is not the best solution.  Easy access to a space with limited guidance seems to be a breeding ground for inefficient movements, and with an increase in mileage without any kind of focus or planning, a host of injuries have developed that might have been avoidable.  It would seem, that while climbing gyms do allow people to improve their climbing, that the lack of focus or intention to how people use that space largely sets people up more for injury than actual improvement.

The boys have joked that I perhaps have swung too far to the other side, with far less actual climbing in my training for climbing than is at all reasonable.  My only counter to that which I am left with is that I am retired, and now just approach climbing as a great space to harass my friends and eat pie.  However, as a coach, my aim is to give people the gains in strength, flexibility, gripping power, and overall muscular endurance that they need to break into these harder, and far more rewarding climbing grades. However, beyond that, the real goal is to minimize the likelihood of getting injured in training for climbing.  The huge amount of volume that people can now put on their bodies in a climbing gym leaves climbers horribly imbalanced and prone to a host of injuries.  A big part of training for climbing needs to be focused on ensuring balance throughout the body so people are not side lined for entire seasons with nagging injuries.

We have to minimize the likelihood of getting injured in training for climbing.

Intention is everything

I am going to be the first one to say that training should be fun, that we should look forward to it.  However, quite often it is easy to get stuck in the attitude of needing to succeed at climbing a problem in the gym (or for that matter outdoors), regardless of how well we do it.  I think this is one of the great lost opportunities in climbing of all kinds.  I would say a desperate finish of a climb doesn’t teach us anything.  The goal should be to find how to unlock the movement puzzle that a climb offers, and determine how to do it the most efficiently, using the minimal amount of effort required to complete a problem.  Every nuance of footwork and body positioning is a chance to hone our climbing skills.  I think that we would all benefit from a greater degree of intention in our climbing.  If the betterment of a skill, or an improvement in movement quality becomes the goal, our entire approach to how we climb can shift towards one that will let us move far further in the long run.

I certainly don’t have all the answers when it comes to the best methods of training climbers.  I do however think that understanding how effective movement patterns can reduce injury risk, and improve our climbing, can go a long way to lengthening our climbing careers.  If you are interested in what might be limiting your climbing, or what might be keeping you from moving forward, drop me a note or come visit the facility.