Shoulder Impingement and Medial Epicondylitis, Resources
Jan 10, 2021 8:59:21 GMT -7
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Post by Josh Beckner on Jan 10, 2021 8:59:21 GMT -7
This post is for folks that have struggled with Impingement and Epicondylitis, and for that matter, general muscle imbalances that have resulted in similar injuries. I've read every thread/post on this forum relating to shoulder and elbow problems and feel that there's a number of resources that haven't been brought up. Hopefully this helps.
First, here's a little background on my issues (if you don't care about my issues, skip ahead to the resources for injury prehab/rehab in the last couple paragraphs).
Over the past 20+ years I've struggled with shoulder and elbow injuries, thought he later has been less of a problem. During my first few years my problems were mostly due to poor 'training' (i.e. a 'protocol' of just trying to crank hard as often as possible; it was the 90's, so I'm using that as my excuse). And my mobility routine was misdirected and misused at best. After my shoulder shut me down over and over again, I got some professional help and got shut down less. That was the late 90's and early 2000s.
Then I became a mountain guide (2003) and the combo of climbing a lot and belaying even more (often with double 10.5-11mm ropes in a Reverso, ouch!) made my shoulder and sometimes my elbow, aggravated again. I should also add that most of the hard climbing I did was crack climbing, which is especially hard on shoulders! For many of those years, at least up to around 2015, I wasn't diligent enough to keep on top of prehab or rehab and still got shut down from personal climbing frequently. At that point I was under the impression that rest was an important part of the formula so my rehab was slooow and usually incomplete.
During the past 2.5 years I've been following a periodized training plan straight out of the RCTM for about 3/4 of each year and have taken training a lot more seriously. Since I'm now 43, I've focused a lot of my energy on injury prevention. And since the injury section of the RCTM isn't quite detailed enough for my issues, I've done some homework and found the resources listed below. My shoulders and elbows have been relatively healthy since.
As an example, during this past training cycle I added a pull up protocol to my workouts (Horst's 5X5, not recommended). The pull ups jacked up my shoulder and likely my elbow (thought the elbow could've been from PE training). But instead of taking time off from climbing and winging it with some general antagonist exercises, I used the resources listed below and my injuries resolved in a few days.
These days there're so many resources on climbing injuries. Unfortunately, many of them are lacking in one way or another. And some are just garbage. I've sifted through many of them and feel that I've found the ones that are the most respected, evidence based, and are consistent with each other. My wife, a climber, guide, and a few months from becoming a Physical Therapist, has helped me vet them as well. Here they be...
1) Dr. Jared Vagy's website, theclimbingdoctor.com. By far the best of the best. For $20 you get all his injury prehab/rehab videos, and it's worth every penny! All his vids are easy to follow and give the climber great tools to self diagnose the most common climbing injuries, which is often the hardest part. I've found videos way more user friendly than books, which usually only have 1-2 photos per exercise/stretch.
Here's a sample of his vids: theclimbingdoctor.com/rock-rehab-sample-videos/
2) Make or Break, Dave MacLeod. Great for many common injuries though it lacks some detail for certain injuries. His youtube channel is pretty damn good too, though like most coaches, he focuses more on training than prehab/rehab. I really appreciate that he's upfront about what current research supports (evidence based protocols/interventions) and what he's had success with as a coach(anecdotal evidence).
3) Power Company podcasts, specifically the interviews with the foremost experts in the field of climbing injuries (specifically the coaches, PTs, docs, like Dr Vagy, Dr Nelson, E. Lopez, though I don't recommend Lopez's interview on HBing, her evidence on that subject is weak at best). Don't expect anything prescriptive for your injuries from this podcast, but it's always nice to learn about the science behind all the protocols and theories out there. And it's nice to know what doesn't have evidence. And since it's in a podcast format, it's easy to learn about such things while traveling, doing dishes, etc.
4) One move too Many, Schoffl et al. This book needs mention largely because Dr. Schoffl is widely considered one of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of climbing injuries. I won't list his accolades but from what I've seen, his research is referenced by other coaches and authors more than anyone else in the world (referenced 3x in RCTM for finger injuries). It seems that he's a great researcher but maybe not such a great author. Unfortunately, his book is full of typos (his name is even misspelled on the cover!), miss-named exercises/stretches (the pec stretch ain't no pec stretch), descriptions of exercises that are impossible to follow, and a number of other issues. Part of the problem may have come from the book being translated to English? Who knows. It's an okay reference when the above resources leave you wanting more data points, but in my opinion, this first edition is not useful or accurate enough on its own, especially for shoulder and elbow issues. Finger injuries may be well addressed in this book, but I can't comment on that as I've been lucky enough to have healthy fingers.
Hope that's helpful. I'd love to hear if anyone else has recommendations- Hosrt's publications? Climbing Injuries Solved? Others?
That was pretty long winded for a forum post. But I know that many folks have suffered through similar injury prone journeys as I have, so hopefully this will help put an end to that part of the journey for at least some one.
First, here's a little background on my issues (if you don't care about my issues, skip ahead to the resources for injury prehab/rehab in the last couple paragraphs).
Over the past 20+ years I've struggled with shoulder and elbow injuries, thought he later has been less of a problem. During my first few years my problems were mostly due to poor 'training' (i.e. a 'protocol' of just trying to crank hard as often as possible; it was the 90's, so I'm using that as my excuse). And my mobility routine was misdirected and misused at best. After my shoulder shut me down over and over again, I got some professional help and got shut down less. That was the late 90's and early 2000s.
Then I became a mountain guide (2003) and the combo of climbing a lot and belaying even more (often with double 10.5-11mm ropes in a Reverso, ouch!) made my shoulder and sometimes my elbow, aggravated again. I should also add that most of the hard climbing I did was crack climbing, which is especially hard on shoulders! For many of those years, at least up to around 2015, I wasn't diligent enough to keep on top of prehab or rehab and still got shut down from personal climbing frequently. At that point I was under the impression that rest was an important part of the formula so my rehab was slooow and usually incomplete.
During the past 2.5 years I've been following a periodized training plan straight out of the RCTM for about 3/4 of each year and have taken training a lot more seriously. Since I'm now 43, I've focused a lot of my energy on injury prevention. And since the injury section of the RCTM isn't quite detailed enough for my issues, I've done some homework and found the resources listed below. My shoulders and elbows have been relatively healthy since.
As an example, during this past training cycle I added a pull up protocol to my workouts (Horst's 5X5, not recommended). The pull ups jacked up my shoulder and likely my elbow (thought the elbow could've been from PE training). But instead of taking time off from climbing and winging it with some general antagonist exercises, I used the resources listed below and my injuries resolved in a few days.
These days there're so many resources on climbing injuries. Unfortunately, many of them are lacking in one way or another. And some are just garbage. I've sifted through many of them and feel that I've found the ones that are the most respected, evidence based, and are consistent with each other. My wife, a climber, guide, and a few months from becoming a Physical Therapist, has helped me vet them as well. Here they be...
1) Dr. Jared Vagy's website, theclimbingdoctor.com. By far the best of the best. For $20 you get all his injury prehab/rehab videos, and it's worth every penny! All his vids are easy to follow and give the climber great tools to self diagnose the most common climbing injuries, which is often the hardest part. I've found videos way more user friendly than books, which usually only have 1-2 photos per exercise/stretch.
Here's a sample of his vids: theclimbingdoctor.com/rock-rehab-sample-videos/
2) Make or Break, Dave MacLeod. Great for many common injuries though it lacks some detail for certain injuries. His youtube channel is pretty damn good too, though like most coaches, he focuses more on training than prehab/rehab. I really appreciate that he's upfront about what current research supports (evidence based protocols/interventions) and what he's had success with as a coach(anecdotal evidence).
3) Power Company podcasts, specifically the interviews with the foremost experts in the field of climbing injuries (specifically the coaches, PTs, docs, like Dr Vagy, Dr Nelson, E. Lopez, though I don't recommend Lopez's interview on HBing, her evidence on that subject is weak at best). Don't expect anything prescriptive for your injuries from this podcast, but it's always nice to learn about the science behind all the protocols and theories out there. And it's nice to know what doesn't have evidence. And since it's in a podcast format, it's easy to learn about such things while traveling, doing dishes, etc.
4) One move too Many, Schoffl et al. This book needs mention largely because Dr. Schoffl is widely considered one of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of climbing injuries. I won't list his accolades but from what I've seen, his research is referenced by other coaches and authors more than anyone else in the world (referenced 3x in RCTM for finger injuries). It seems that he's a great researcher but maybe not such a great author. Unfortunately, his book is full of typos (his name is even misspelled on the cover!), miss-named exercises/stretches (the pec stretch ain't no pec stretch), descriptions of exercises that are impossible to follow, and a number of other issues. Part of the problem may have come from the book being translated to English? Who knows. It's an okay reference when the above resources leave you wanting more data points, but in my opinion, this first edition is not useful or accurate enough on its own, especially for shoulder and elbow issues. Finger injuries may be well addressed in this book, but I can't comment on that as I've been lucky enough to have healthy fingers.
Hope that's helpful. I'd love to hear if anyone else has recommendations- Hosrt's publications? Climbing Injuries Solved? Others?
That was pretty long winded for a forum post. But I know that many folks have suffered through similar injury prone journeys as I have, so hopefully this will help put an end to that part of the journey for at least some one.
