Effectiveness of taping fingers for avoiding overuse injury

Hi everyone,

First time post to the training forum. I have been scared for a long time to use my fingers heavily, i.e. crimpy routes at the gym 5.10+ or harder, pulling hard on crimps outside, hangboarding, moonboarding, campusing, bouldering, etc because I have constantly heard about the risk of overuse injury. Since I like trad and crack climbing the best, this has not been an issue. But as I am starting to get into more sport climbing, and starting to overcrimp on some slab climbs, I think it is worth the question.

I learned from one of my partners that it can prevent overuse injury to tape the index and middle fingers between the first and second knuckles. I have tried it, but I am not sure it was hard enough crimping to make a difference. I have also heard from others that this is more often done after the injury has happened. Many think it is just placebo and won't do anything.

Does this do any good to prevent overuse injury, and is it the silver bullet I think it is? If not, are there any other tricks?

Best,

Sam

Band aid, temporary help.

You will get uniformed opinions. But no one who has experience counseling athletes about injury prevention and/or who or has the educational background to do this would post on MP. This is not the place to go for accurate, useful information.

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That is shocking to hear, because I would consider this to be fundamental to anyone being willing to pulling hard on their fingers, whether they have injuries or not. So I am confident that MP members have more knowledge and experience than I do on this.

Effective or not, what is your downside?  No tape, you probably blow up… with tape, you might blow up.  

Agreed, I see no downside, I will definitely do it. The question comes down to whether I should continue to live in fear of hangboarding, or should consider this a silver bullet and gradually start yarding hard in fingers.

Also, is there similar taping that can be done to prevent other overuse injuries, like shoulders, ACL, rotator cuff, etc?

Sam Lawrence wrote:

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That is shocking to hear, because I would consider this to be fundamental to anyone being willing to pulling hard on their fingers, whether they have injuries or not. So I am confident that MP members have more knowledge and experience than I do on this.

More experience than you, yes, that's true. Knowledge? No, Uninformed opinions, yes, there'll be lots and actually that will be all there'll be. There are people who could help you, and there are good sources of information. But not MP.  

Russ Walling wrote:

Effective or not, what is your downside?  No tape, you probably blow up… with tape, you might blow up.  

I don’t know. If you tape badly/wrongly, you could isolate some tendons, and make it harder to distribute/transfer load.

I personally do not think that taping for injury prevention is a good idea. It would be better to gradually strengthen them in a controlled progressive loading fashion (some kind of hangboard protocol).
 

The OP mentioned gym 10+ routes. The gyms have been really moving away from tweaky pockets and small crimps on routes in these grades, so I don’t see this being a huge issue, and it doesn’t sound like OP has had a lot of finger injuries already, sounds more like a fear of something theoretical, and an actual problem. 

https://www.hoopersbeta.com/library/climbers-deserve-the-truth-about-taping-the-actual-evidence

At least he tries to do some research and is trained on the subject.

Personal opinion for someone that has had a couple finger injuries. No tape during controlled loading activities like hangboarding as to make the tissues adapt to load, then tape when doing more unpredictable dynamic movements on system boards and outside.

Also, what makes you think you need to tape?  Are your fingers sore around the A2-A4?  Then sounds like rest and some rehab training would be a lot better than tape. 

I have a long history with finger/pulley injuries, so I'll give you my $.02..

I tape when my fingers feel tweaky or weird. The times I have blown a pulley, there has been some build-up to the event, i.e. it didn't just happen out of the blue.  If you listen to your body and pay close attention to the way your fingers feel, you should be able to push yourself on crimpy routes without fear of injury.  Sometimes, it just happens, but you will never know unless you put yourself out there.  If you notice that your fingers are feeling swollen or your pulley(s) hurt, dial things back and climb easier stuff for a couple weeks.  Warming up well is way, way more important than any amount of tape.

Even though I do occasionally tape, I don't think it actually works by supporting the tissues or allowing you to exert more force through your fingers.  I think it's more of a placebo effect, in the sense that tape reminds you that your pulleys need support, and that you need to be careful/mindful of them.  Tape isn't going to make a difference by taking any significant load off your pulleys.  Wrapped around the outside of your squishy finger, it sits too far from the actual tissue that needs support, and it's flexible and it stretches too much.  

TLDR: tape works if you're already injured by reminding you to be a little more careful 

WF WF51 wrote:

More experience than you, yes, that's true. Knowledge? No, Uninformed opinions, yes, there'll be lots and actually that will be all there'll be. There are people who could help you, and there are good sources of information. But not MP.  

What a cynical view!  There are plenty of issues with any internet forum, but sites likes these are also loaded with useful, actionable information.  Real knowledge and informed opinions.

Lena chita wrote:

It doesn’t sound like OP has had a lot of finger injuries already, sounds more like a fear of something theoretical, and an actual problem. 

Exactly! I don't even know what could potentially happen and what could cause it. And from what I am reading, it is not helpful in this scenario, so I should probably continue to avoid hangboarding and pulling hard.

A recent article I read is blowing up the conventional wisdom of "only hangboard if you're advanced". You should start hangboarding so you strengthen your fingers in a controlled environment before going out and really trying hard on rock. I also don't think tape is a good option unless you're already tweaky, unless of course you want to be dependent on the tape forever. 

Sam Lawrence wrote:

Exactly! I don't even know what could potentially happen and what could cause it. And from what I am reading, it is not helpful in this scenario, so I should probably continue to avoid hangboarding and pulling hard.

I don’t think this is the advice you are getting here..

Is it important to you to push yourself and advance grades or strength, or do you feel completely satisfied with the stuff you’re climbing now?

Sam Lawrence wrote:

Exactly! I don't even know what could potentially happen and what could cause it. And from what I am reading, it is not helpful in this scenario, so I should probably continue to avoid hangboarding and pulling hard.

seems to me actually like you should start hangboarding, so you can start to build up strength in your fingers in a controlled setting, so that when you're out climbing you don't injure yourself and have a better understanding of what you're capable of. hoopers beta does a good job of explaining all this stuff if you take the time to watch through the videos, highly recommend: 

https://www.hoopersbeta.com/library/hold-hangboard-introductory-routine?rq=hangboarding

Jason Kim wrote:

I don’t think this is the advice you are getting here..

Is it important to you to push yourself and advance grades or strength, or do you feel completely satisfied with the stuff you’re climbing now?

If I could be completely sure that by only climbing slab and crack, and crimps 10a and below, and avoiding hangboarding and bouldering I could avoid overuse injury, I would do it! The problem is, even slab and crack eventually require pulling hard on fingers and shoulders at higher grades. 

I would also say that hang boarding is the way to injury prevention.  In my experience, if I am hang boarding routinely my fingers generally don’t hurt.  When I am not hang boarding routinely, they tend to get tweaked.  I can’t say why or how, but what people above said pretty much fits my speculation.

The only thing I’d add is that I also thing having taxed fingers from hangboarding reduces my likelihood to be able to hit a max effort during bouldering anyways, so maybe I just don’t pull as hard while I have hang boarding in my routine?

Sam Lawrence wrote:

Exactly! I don't even know what could potentially happen and what could cause it. And from what I am reading, it is not helpful in this scenario, so I should probably continue to avoid hangboarding and pulling hard.

That’s not at all what I said!  I said that hangboard offers a way to strengthen your fingers in a controlled and gradual way.

Overuse injuries are exactly that, OVERUSE. If you are climbing 5+ Days a week, and trying hard tweaky moves every single time, you could get overuse injuries. If you go from not hangboarding ever into an advanced hangboard protocol that you decide to do more frequently than the protocol recommends, you could get an overuse injury. But your fingers are not going to explode if you start a beginner hangboard protocol.

And you SHOULD try harder routes, and Boulder some, if you want to improve. The way to minimize finger injury is NOT to avoid those things, but to be mindful of what you do. If there is a tweaky hold, and you are lunging for it, maybe don’t go it 20 times on the same day. Maybe figure out a way to do the move in a more precise way, so you are not overloading your fingers repeatedly and abruptly. Basically don’t go zero to 100. Take one small step at a time in your progression of difficulty. 

I have used tape on injured fingers (minor pulley strains and one slightly more major) and I tape so that the finger cannot enter a hyperextended condition. this is to prevent me from accidentally crimping with that finger. I use it for only a month or so and I work the finger back up to the load I was at. that has helped me avoid injury reoccurrence. I do not expect/intend the tape to provide actual load carrying capacity for the pulley. 

Here is my anecdotal experience: I popped a pully moving dynamically off a crimp on a boulder problem after an intense roped session.  Went to physio who is a (strong) boulderer.  He gave me exercises and showed me Figure 8 taping.  When I climb something crimpy and feel iffy about it I tape, but usually H Taping as I am lazy.

Love the extreme cynicism followed by multiple helpful responses.

Human bodies can adapt to all kinds of crazy things if loaded and dosed appropriately. Adapting is one of the main things we do. Of course, it takes years and years to develop fingers that will withstand the forces we want to place on them climbing. Please, for the love of god, start that now!! Don't completely avoid hangboarding or crimping!! even if you think you want to climb trad cracks forever, someday you will need to crimp something very hard to stay safe, and blowing out a tendon in that moment won't be fun. 

Of course, "loaded and dosed appropriately" is doing a ton of work in that first sentence. "Over-use injury" is just code for, you didn't load and dose appropriately and ramped up too fast. Be very cautious and ramp up extremely slowly, pay attention to your body, what everyone else said, etc. Hangboarding is much easier to control than route climbing, so is typically better for building resilience and strength slowly, as is necessary. Many people who say it's dangerous just jumped in trying too hard, too fast. Keep your feet on the ground for instance.