Injury on Last HB Day

[DA]

This is my first cycle and I was about to finish my 10th HB session last night. After I finished my warm up I noticed a small twinge of pain on my right middle finger. 

I scrapped the Beginner HB session and opted to do repeaters on jugs and sloper campus rungs. No further injury. I've been icing and doing super light massage work to pinpoint the pain.


Its definitely not a pulley injury and most likely just a small tweak of the ligament. I could easily climb around/through this with a good tape job and avoiding heinous crimps - BUT - I just sunk more than a month into hangboarding and I know that the power phase is super important and also very intense.

Here are my options - Let me know which one you recommend or one I may have missed:

1. Tape up, perform the campus workouts very carefully and remain conservative. Avoid crimpy limit bouldering.
2. Avoid campusing, focus on limit bouldering for the entire power phase.
3. Scrap the entire program, climb light and build a solid ARC base and restart from strength phase when I'm 100%.


I have a trip to Red Rock Canyon in 3 weeks to boulder for a few days. I'm leaning towards the selective limit bouldering version of the power phase, having fun on the trip (utilizing much more discipline and selective climbing) and then starting from scratch when I return. 

Thanks.

[MarkAnderson]

DA,

Your reaction to the initial tweak was really good and shows great maturity. I probably would have kept HBing and made it worse

It's hard to say without really knowing the severity of the injury, but your description makes it sound relatively minor. If it is indeed a minor tweak, I would start with option 2, taping appropriately, and see how it goes. If crimping is what caused the tweak, I would be very careful with crimping (make sure you warm up well before any crimping, build up to more difficult crimps gradually, etc.). Keep in mind once your fingers are warm you are unlikely to feel a minor tweak, even if the tissue is inflamed, so take it easy the first couple sessions and see how your finger feels after the session is over and you have cooled down, how it feels the day after, etc.

You may find in a week or two there is no pain, and if that happens, then you can EASE into some LIGHT campusing and see how the finger reacts to it. It's not the end of the world if you can't campus. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[DA]

I assume it was crimping because my last problem in my little warm up routine was loaded with small crimps and polished feet. I tend to stay away from really greasy foot holds in the gym (for this reason, they're always causing injuries) but I gave it a quick go. I did not feel any pain after getting spit off. So no - it was not a traumatic injury - but just enough extra blood in the finger to understand that my body is telling me something.

I'm going to tape up and get some blood flow to it tomorrow with some volume climbing below my level and give it a test run. If it feels good, I'll begin my Power Phase on Tuesday. If I feel any discomfort, I will campus on the sloper rungs as an alternative plan. I'm not sure if it will be a perfect replacement but it will at least keep me climbing and help me prepare for the trip.

I'm thinking this is a good time to attack weaknesses in my limit bouldering by focusing on big, burley slopers with a lot of compression involved.

I'll post an update next week.