Climbing Injury Study

Hi all,
I'm doing a study on the prevention of chronic elbow and shoulder pain using antagonist muscle training in rock climbers. Below is a link to a very quick 10 question survey. It would be awesome if you would take one or two minutes to complete it by going to:

surveymonkey.com/s/P5792CQ

Thanks a ton!

Bart Paull
IFMGA/UIAGM licensed mountain guide
MD Candidate, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Class of 2013

Great idea and I'm very interested in your results.

It might be easier for us to be able to list what injuries we haven't had...

Also, I noticed that nowhere in the list did it ask if the injury prevention actually worked.

Thanks for the comments. You can't determine from this type of study what works in preventing pain and what doesn't work. To do that, you need to follow two groups of people without pain, have one group do exercises and one group not, and watch the outcomes. You can only determine if doing exercises is associated with a reduced prevalence of elbow or shoulder pain from a survey study like this. I am just trying to determine whether doing or not doing various exercises in broad terms is associated with elbow and shoulder pain, and because of that the questions do not need to be ultra-specific. In the future I may design a more detailed study, this is really just a pilot study.

If your university offers a sampling class in its statistics department I would really recommend taking it, or checking if that department has a consultation program. Either would be helpful and would kick your study up a notch (eg address convenience sample issues, making sure your study population lines up a bit more with your target population, addresses potential measurement errors)

Hi John,
I think I fixed #4. Thanks for your help!

Bart

Completed.

But, I answered in the "other" box for half of them, and submitted, it then gave me a "question requires an answer" message for those. Basically you have to check one of the boxes even if you answer in the "other", there is no box to check for the "other" field

I have to agree with SMR especially regarding the "shoulder rotation" question. What does that mean? It is totally non-specific and therefore I am not sure how you can glean any useful information from it. Shoulders "rotate" 180 degrees (or more) in multiple planes but.....

Also, you make an assumption that everyone who does push-ups is only doing them to prevent shoulder or elbow pain (not true). Actually push ups can cause shoulder pain, and I'm not sure why they're classified as strictly preventive or failed prevention. Just some food for thought.

Anyway I took your survey and good luck.

I think there is value in trying to understand shoulder health so investigating this question is worthy.
I deleted my other comment, b/c most of the critiques were taken.
As a long-time suffer of shoulder injuries the "rehab" exercises if done incorrectly can screw you up more. EX:
Push-ups on the floor are pain-inducers for me, but I have found that doing them on rings or TRX allows a much more natural shoulder rotation and has improved my shoulder strength.
Shoulder presses- I have experimented with variations on this and have to be so careful. Again with a bar, I have pain. If dumbbells I can carefully do a few reps slowly with perfect form.
Band exercises- I have regime of about 4 exercises I really like and the funny thing is none of these are the typical rotator cuff series. They are bilateral movements that allow me to focus on scapular retraction. I actually spent 4 months doing band exercises for external rotation and they didn't work.
Again, I think there is a ton of value in investigating this topics. Thank you.
PS- Fortunately I don't have many elbow injuries.

Interesting human subjects research. What's your IRB approval number?

If you're going to do more research once you're done with this pilot, I encourage you to find out what survey software is available through your university and make use of it (i.e. Qualtrics).

Scott O wrote:Interesting human subjects research. What's your IRB approval number?

Are you sure it's not IRB exempt?

Linnaeus wrote: Are you sure it's not IRB exempt?

This study would probably qualify for exemption, but would still require a formal exemption. I always include that the study was reviewed and exempted at the start of a survey. If nothing else, it's a good heads up that he should think about going through the exemption process if he hopes to present the results anywhere.