Preventing a shoulder injury from happening
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I've recently increased my sport/gym climbing level by 3 or 4 grades and am starting to notice that my left shoulder is not always happy. It's almost never in pain, but I want to start right now in correcting the problem so that it doesn't become a bigger problem. |
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Coming off of a rather stellar AC separation, and the subsequent PT, I'm a bit more aware of my shoulders than I used to be. In recovery mode I've been warming up followed by stretch and band work: external and internal rotators, posterior delts and rhomboids before I climb. Scap punches to cool off. Biggest thing that my other broken friends agree on is not climbing on a tired joint. |
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If you're too cheap to buy a resistance band: theclimbingdoctor.com/portf… |
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I once tried to do general injury-prevention strenghtening of my shoulders, following the "antagonist" theory. My own finding is that articulation motions the shoulder joint is rather complicated, and many of those articulations are sometimes used for climbing moves. |
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Climbing.com shoulder rehab
I started following this very basic program about two weeks ago after almost a year of instability and pain in both shoulders. I had been under the impression that general shoulder training with weights would be sufficient, however my pain and mobility actually worsened with traditional dumbbell exercises. It seems a little silly, but I feel much more stable in my shoulders already. Also, no equipment required and very little time commitment. |
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The key is good form. |
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might want to take a look at this orthoinfo.aaos.org/PDFs/Reh… |
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Shoulder motion is very complex. Strengthening the antagonist muscles does very little if you don't correctly use them while climbing. The most prudent way to go about addressing injuries is to find the movement pattern that created the injury, strengthen the muscles that antagonize the movement, learn how to activate them while climbing and then change your movement by modifying your climbing technique. If you haven't watch a video of yourself climbing, then you are missing a major piece of the puzzle. |
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The Climbing Doctor wrote:Wall clocks: theclimbingdoctor.com/portf…That exercise (and others on the website) seems to be cleverly well-designed to target articulations likely for climbing injuries. Thanks for figuring it out, and sharing it here. To me this "wall clock" exercise seems different from the more obvious antagonist exercises we've been told about for lots of years past - (which have served to discredit the antagonist-imbalance paradigm for me and others). So now I have to dig my Thera-band out of storage -- or else think of a clever way to use some dumb-bell exercises to accomplish similar strengthening. What I like about dumb-bells is that my strengthening can be measurable (and thus measurably progressive and incremental). I'm looking to explore some of the other ideas on the ClimbingDoctor.com website. (I don't see why it's necessary to believe in the antagonist-imbalance paradigm in order to benefit from recognizing and using exercises well-designed to be specific for climbing.) Ken |
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I was just wondering whether y'all had a recommendation for a Thermaband Resistance color to for the wall clock exercise. It appears that the exercise is being done with a red band. Also, how much should you be elongating/stretching the band at each position? Doubling the length, or is it based on what you can done? Finally, is there a particular length that the band should be? |
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scienceguy288 wrote:I was just wondering whether y'all had a recommendation for a Thermaband ...I guess in theory you should be able to get the "correct" resistance with any elastic band -- by pre-stretching it so some appropriate length. But that still leaves the usual puzzle I find with the "antagonist imbalance" paradigm: How much strength is enough - (to correct the supposed "imbalance"). One might guess that a Physical Therapist making a careful application of the "antagonist imbalance" paradigm would first measure the strength (in Newtons or pounds) and Range-of-Motion (in angular degrees or centimeters) of the primary ("agonist") muscle(s). Then measure the current Strength and RoM of the opposing "antagonist" muscle(s) ... Then of course tell me what my Goal measurements should be for strength (in Newtons) and RoM (angle). Presumably goal Strength for the antagonist would be some "safe" percentage of the measured Strength of the primary "agonist" muscle(s). I'd hope that I could measure my progress by putting a strain gauge (I do own one) on my exercise elastic. But perhaps I'd need to visit the PT office say once a month for proper accurate measurements. One of the reasons I prefer dumbbell exercise to elastic is to make it easier to measure my progress. Then when my antagonist muscle reached its Goal strength, I could shift my exercise for it from "increase" mode into "maintenance" mode (presumably fewer sessions per week?) Without those measurements, presumably you just keep using the elastic by "feel", keep increasing the resistance to build more antagonist strength forever and ever. Because who could know when you're reached the level which is "safe". I hope I'm missing something here. Ken |
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Im no Doctor, but I find that warming up before cranking v?+ is key. I see a ton of kids who never warm up and after a bit they have injury issues. |