Maintaining Pulley Tendon Health While Board Climbing

F r i t z wrote:

Significant gains, very pleased with the plan, no injuries either during or after the cycle. I spent seven hours a week training, plus my normal mtb race training. 

My main rationale for the board was gestational in nature ;-)

Thanks for the reply, and congratulations! That's (x3) the big reason I got a board as well :) 

Noah Betz wrote:

I’ll preface this post with a few things: I really like Power Company and am generally a fan of their work, my training age was not super mature when this happened, (had been climbing off and on for ~4 years, but not consistently across that time), and I don’t blame Power Company or the plan for the injury. I was the one that personally chose to follow the plan without alterations, therefore I consider myself responsible for the outcome.

The pulley rupture that I described in my post above I can pretty concretely ascribe to following the Climb 5.12 (Boulders Only) plan from Power Company without accounting for my personal volume tolerance. I think that the base of the plan is generally good, but I found that the volume + intensity was drastically more than I could recover from even with adequate nutrition and rest. I’ve had friends following PC plans (some the exact same one) give similar feedback, minus the full rupture, but still injured to some degree. 

In hindsight, I should have been able to identify that the intensity and volume were both far too high for where I was training-age wise, however I will say that part of the appeal to a plan like that is that I don’t feel like I should have to drastically alter the content and pacing of sessions right out the gate. Particularly with a 5.12 training plan, where it’s very likely that someone who’s only been climbing a handful of years, perhaps even sub-year, would be looking to follow the plan. 

If I were to try the plan again, I would substantially alter it. I would entirely cut out the max hang sessions, remove a portion of the technique drills (and likely drop an entire workout A), and have a deload week every 3 weeks tops. 

I now tend to look at climbing training from the perspective of “Do the least amount possible to get results”, and with hindsight I find the PC plans to pretty much be the antithesis of that philosophy. I won’t outright say I don’t recommend the plans, but I will say be extremely cautious with the volume + intensity from the onset. Unless you’re extremely adapted to training, do an initial block with far less intensity and volume and adjust after that. 

Thanks for the detailed review and cautionary lens. Hope you are/have recovered nicely!

rock climbing wrote:

“You are too old for board climbing. Just accept your age and climbing limitations” Dr. Goat

FWIW when I ruptured my right ring A4 I felt no pain or soreness in it whatsoever leading up to the injury. If there's a reliable warning sign for impending pully tears I'm not aware of it (although I'd love to learn). You might be disappointed to hear that my injury was immediately preceded by an increase in board climbing. I'm back to board climbing now and stronger than ever but I had to lose some weight first. That might be specific to me though as I'm 6'4".

I've found the single hardest part of training for climbing to be achieving progressive overload without injuring my fingers. I find the appeal of coaching plans to be having the coach's experience in threading that needle although as other commenters have established that is not a panacea.

Congrats by the way. My first is on the way as well. I'd love a home board but I settled for being walking distance from the gym. I will have plenty of opportunities to continue to shred my pullies in pursuit of 5.12 into the future.

Jacob Miller wrote:

 I'd love a home board but I settled for being walking distance from the gym. 

A home board is a huge time saver. Plus you may be able to watch the kid while using it.

Update on my rehab because this thread got bumped:

- I took sixteen days off the board.
- During that time I did eight sessions of rehab recruitment pulls for the purpose of tissue remodeling (20mm unlevel, 70% max on the Tindeq, 3 sets of 5on5off).
- I also increased my protein intake to 0.8g of protein per pound of bodyweight.
- I performed daily trigger point massage on the A4 with a massage gun, credit card or Armaid at tightest setting (favorite).
- I ramped back up with two short gym sessions (150' of sub-limit roped terrain).
- I maintained my trail race training protocol and weight lifting regimen.

Since then, I've had two successful short sessions on the Mini (15 and 20 V-points on 6A+ and 6B terrain). I felt good about knowing when to cut those sessions off. Things seem to be on the mend.

Thanks for the feedback so far. The turning point was when I realized that I was in fact injured and needed to do something about it, despite still seemingly being able to climb.

If anyone else has helpful strategies for injury prevention specific to board climbing, I'm all ears!

Don't give too many tries in succession. Having proper rests in between goes will result in a higher quality session. Have a timer running while you train that beeps every three minutes. This will give you a sense of time passing. For me this is immensely helpful. I typically wait at least one beep before giving another attempt, depending on the problem sometimes longer. Every four or five tries take a longer break (listen to your body here).

Take a slightly longer break after finishing your warm up problems before beginning your actual session.

A fair amount of time should be spent repeating hard problems you have dialed/dialing them rather than working new ones. These provide good stimulus at lower risk of injury.

Don't overdo it even if you feel good, very long sessions will fatigue your fingers and body in a way that takes a long time to recover (unless you know you'll have to take a break during which you can't climb anyways).

Unrelated to tendons: Listen to music or just relax during breaks. I found that reading a book, newspaper or scrolling on the phone often distracted me and prevented me from having a good session. Now I just try to relax my mind and put the phone away.

Avoid stupid jump moves (not sure how many there are on the mini). Let go instead of forcing a move/latching a hold if there's a chance you'll injure yourself. It's just a crappy problem on plastic at the end of the day.

Pino Pepino wrote:

Unrelated to tendons: Listen to music or just relax during breaks. I found that reading a book, newspaper or scrolling on the phone often distracted me and prevented me from having a good session. Now I just try to relax my mind and put the phone away.

All good info, thanks. I've been setting a timer for five minutes and doing short yoga sequences in between attempts.  

F r i t z wrote:

All good info, thanks. I've been setting a timer for five minutes and doing short yoga sequences in between attempts.  

That's more dedication than I can muster ;)