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Lower extremity injuries - common?

kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
slim wrote:having a belayer that knows what type of catch to provide for different scenarios is pretty important
That might be true for overhanging routes.
But if you're on a less-than-vertical section and your leg hits a horizontal ledge -- then your leg is likely to get injured.

That's regardless of how many special tricks your belayer might know.

Which reminds of another lower-extremity injury (leading a bolted sport route) that I heard of: Broken ankle falling on a short overhang. But on a cliff that's overall less than vertical.

He said his injury was because his partner failed to give a "soft catch". To me that makes no sense. On a less-than-vertical rock, I think you want a "hard catch".

If you feel you need to Lead less-difficult sport on less-than-vertical rock, then you either have to be sure you're not going to fall in a situation where you might hit something protruding.

Or use one of the methods to get the rope anchored above you - (so you can't fall more than a few inches).

. (Belaying techniques are not going to solve this situation).

Ken
kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
Shepido wrote:By got to I meant, I have to be able to climb the lower grades before progressing to higher grades. I.e. I cannot climb that overhanging 11 because I am not that skilled yet.
Yes, but you could do your practicing indoors until you get strong enough to climb outdoor 11s.

Or outdoors using one of the several methods to get the rope above you.

Or you could travel to one of the (few?) outdoor places that have overhanging 5.10 (or 5.9?) routes.

Areas where I live or travel, there are already lots of overhanging 10 and 9 (and 8) routes to develop strength and skills at the walls indoors.

Ken
bearbreeder · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 3,065

To repeat .... You simply dont fall off featured lower angle ledgy moderates

The gear/bolts is to keep you alive, not from getting hurt

Assume yr soloing

Thats all there is to it

;)

Mark E Dixon · · Possunt, nec posse videntur · Joined Nov 2007 · Points: 974
kenr wrote: That might be true for overhanging routes. But if you're on a less-than-vertical section and your leg hits a horizontal ledge -- then your leg is likely to get injured. That's regardless of how many special tricks your belayer might know. Which reminds of another lower-extremity injury (leading a bolted sport route) that I heard of: Broken ankle falling on a short overhang. But on a cliff that's overall less than vertical. He said his injury was because his partner failed to give a "soft catch". To me that makes no sense. On a less-than-vertical rock, I think you want a "hard catch". If you feel you need to Lead less-difficult sport on less-than-vertical rock, then you either have to be sure you're not going to fall in a situation where you might hit something protruding. Or use one of the methods to get the rope anchored above you - (so you can't fall more than a few inches). . (Belaying techniques are not going to solve this situation). Ken
Hitting a ledge is bad, otherwise you are mistaken.

A hard catch is really only useful if the belayer needs to keep the climber off a ledge or other obstacle.
Sometimes, even on low angle routes. EXTRA slack, extra soft catch is called for to allow the climber to clear said obstacle.

Competent belaying tricks are important skills to master.

A hard catch on an overhang is likely to slam the climber into the wall, regardless of the overall angle of the climb.

Falling and belaying techniques on slabs are worth learning, as even difficult overhanging routes will often include lower angled sections.

Finally, toproping can be useful for training but has definite limitations, especially with respect to learning falling techniques.
kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608

Just four days ago I took a half-day lesson in How to Cheat.

That's how seriously I take raising my climbing to higher difficulty without risk of injury falling.

It was about tricks not only for Sport routes -- but my main learning was tricks for how to exploit the presence of bolts and quickdraws - (sometimes called "French free").

Then yesterday I started practicing on my own: cheating indoors.

Some of the cheating methods could be taken as kind of fun. One trick includes a rather creative use of normal sport-climbing gear. Doing it fast requires good teamwork coordination of leader and belayer.

My instructor said he once saw a team at a sport crag just Cheat-climbing route after route. I would have assumed the point of cheating my way up was so that I could then safely practive free-climbing the same route. But these guys skipped that, just moved on to (fast) cheating up the next route.

Ken

kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
bearbreeder wrote:The gear/bolts is to keep you alive, not from getting hurt.

Yes - well put.

bearbreeder wrote:Assume yr soloing
So if I'm not seeing a sure way to make the move (on less-than-vertical rock with something to hit), than I have to down-climb to the last bolt.

Because down-climbing is what I do when I'm soloing.
bearbreeder · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 3,065

Downclimb to the last bolt or piece of GOOD gear ...

If you take the whipper on a low angle moderate yr playing russian roulette with tweaking an ankle

;)

Anonymous · · Unknown Hometown · Joined unknown · Points: 0
aikibujin wrote: Where is this "statistics" that you want us to look at? This is one of the most repeated cliché in the outdoor world without any actual data to back it up. It is probably true that more people get injured car accidents than in climbing. But at the same time, there are many times more drivers than climbers. In order to say one thing is riskier than the other, you need to look at the ratio between the number of injuries and the total number of people engaged in that activity. I'll give you some actual statistics to look at. Source: utahavalanchecenter.org/blo… Unfortunately they don't have any numbers for rock climbing. But if we assume rock climbing is as dangerous as running a marathon (sarcasm of course), rock climbing is still more dangerous than if you drive 1 hour a day, which is just about my daily commute to work. I basically have to be a trucker or a cab driver (drive 8 hours per day) to make driving more dangerous than running a marathon. You would have to ride a motorcycle 8 hours per day to get close to the risk of "alpine mountaineering". It is also worth noting that if you're 20, there's a one-in-a-million chance that you will die if you get out of bed. So my suggestion is to stay in bed for the whole year.
There is no way to even estimate how many hours per day people spend doing these different activities. So any chart like this is really BS / guessing. Where are they pulling these numbers for how many hours per year people spend base jumping??? Not like there is a magic registry that logs every time someone jumps off a cliff. For something that is illegal in alot of areas I would assume most people who do it don't go post that they did it.
Shepido · · CO · Joined Aug 2014 · Points: 50

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll just progress slowly, and try and lead things that I can only be sure I won't fall on. As a total gumby new to the sport, I think far too much of the "just go for it" attitude that people have climbing the harder grades has permeated down to people climbing the lower grades.

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Sport Climbing
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