Move to Power Phase with Finger Still Healing?

[tsh]

I've read topics on here related to hangboarding to rehab an injury, which have helped me a lot, and now I have a question about my specific situation.



At the start of March (5 or 6 weeks ago) I developed pain at the base of my ring finger. It was most notably painful to palpate and press on it. Climbing on it or loading it didn't really hurt much as I recall, but was mildly painful at times, especially if I loaded it immediately after palpating it. So I'm not sure if it was an A2 pulley strain or some other kind of localized inflammation. It was bad enough that I felt I needed some time off. I rested a week until there was no sign of pain, and then started a strength phase to try to rehab the finger, starting out with much less resistance. Despite frequent temporary recurrence of the pain by palpation, the strength phase went really well. I progressed quickly and by the 9th hangboard workout, I made personal bests in 5 of 6 grips. The only grip I didn't make it to 100% on was the closed crimp which I avoided pushing out of caution.

So now here I am, stronger than ever in a sense, but still a little worried about the pain. I sport climbed yesterday. There wasn't any pain while climbing but after each burn the pain by palpation was back as bad as ever, but only temporarily which I think is a good sign. I suspect I could keep doing repeaters on the hangboard or sport climbing and the finger would eventually heal, but with the outdoor season approaching my preference would be to try to do a power phase so that I could reap those benefits. Seems risky to me but sometimes I tend to be too conservative.



Would a power phase be a bad idea at this point?  Has anybody on here been in a similar situation? I'd appreciate any advice.

[kader]

I am in the same situation with the same injury. I think training RP caused the inflammation. Massaging the palm with a golf ball somehow helped. I am not sure what the issue is but it might be the tendon/muscle being overtight. Or maybe a classic pulley strain.

I moved to the power phase carefully two weeks ago and i ve done great with my first workouts but underperformed a little bit my fourth campus workout yesterday. Campusing is ok, in my opinion but you neef to be careful with limit boulder

[willblack]

I go ahead and continue on to the power phase with a partially rehabbed finger injury, but I don't campus and I don't closed crimp with my injured hand while limit bouldering, which is easy for me because I rarely closed crimp in general.

[tsh]

Thanks, I’m glad you guys have had some success with the power phase despite a not-fully-healed finger. I think I’ll proceed with caution and see how it goes. And I definitely intend to avoid closed crimping on boulders. I just read an article that suggests campusing with 3 finger open hand grip when still recovering from injury since it allows the fingers to remain more extended than open-handed with pinky on, putting less load on the pulleys. I might give that a try with basic ladders first. Kader, was your campusing setback due to the injury?

One other thing I noticed from my last climbing session was that the injury seemed less irritated after burns that I H-taped for. Perhaps it’s a pulley strain after all…

[kader]

I don't know yet... it might just be because i only had one day off from the previous training session. The injury did bother me while campusing though, although it did not really hurt. I used my pinky by the way