Systems boards overuse and acute injuries (tension, kilter, grasshopper, moon)

I am curious if there is anyone else out there who has sustained an overuse or acute injury they believe is secondary to a system board.  I'm asking because I got an overuse injury early on in my systems board utilization, and I want to avoid other injuries on my systems board, and think maybe the community could benefit from an awareness of what other overuse injuries, and maybe what we could learn from your injury.  

This is not for generating hate towards these system boards.  I think they are a very useful tool when used properly.  But when you have to sit out climbing for a month or more because you over-did it, often kicking yourself for the over-stoke.  

If you could include:

1) the injury (as specific as possible), 

2) the board that was being used (ie tension), and the hold sets (hold set A)

3) the angle it was set at, 

4)  how many days a week were you using the board, how long were your sessions at the time, How intense were the sessions (ie limit vs moderates vs easy), 

5) were you doing any other climbing at the time (ie commercial gym climbing, outdoor climbing, supplemental training, hangboarding, traditional weights, kettlebells, etc) 

My injury was a forearm extensor injury (muscle strain)/hand pain (I felt it on the backside of my forearm, in the muscle belly of the extensors and between my thumb and forefinger) in one arm and radial neuropathy in the other (zingers into my thumb).  I can explain these injuries more if anyone  I was using a tension board (Hold set A) at 33 degrees.  My theory on why I sustained these injuries is because I would put my hand in weird positions to get more out of the holds (ie I was wrapping my thumb on top of the angled holds, I also would cock my wrist back so that I could hold onto these holds easier) in addition, I had never climbed with a lot of power, and when I would pop to the next holds I often would loose body tension as I snatched the hold I was going to, which had that super ugly loose noodle look to it.  Because of how my body would fall away from the wall after snatching the holds, I was really shock loading my hands/fingers/thumb in compromised positions likely.  

Leading up to the injury I was doing 3 sessions a weeks in the 1.5-2 hour range including warm up, and would do 2 limit session per week and one power-endurance session.  I had never climbed on a system board before this and had probably 3 weeks of training on the board leading up to this injury, so certainly had ramped up quickly.  The session that pushed me over the edge was attempting to do 4x4s on my tension board when I had never even done 2 problems back to back on the tension board (this was prescribed by a coach I had hired).  I have a tendency to "just do it" if someone sets up a training program, I sometimes don't listen to my body and will override good judgement to execute a session (this is the over-stoke, and my ego).  At that time, every problem felt 'hard' to me on the tension board (even the 4a, v0s).  I was not doing any other types of climbing at the time (no commercial gym or outdoor climbing and no supplemental training) - I don't have easy access to either where I live, hence the home wall.  

After about a month I was able to climb really slowly on my tension board for very short sessions, and the radial neuropathy took about 2 months to resolve.  

I'm sure everyone else out there is better at doing this training thing without getting injured, but I hope it helps somebody prevent injury.  

So obviously other learning points would be:  shorter sessions, less sessions, less intense sessions, utilizing floor walking problems, recognition when a session was way too intense, learning to quit a session when starting to power down or preferably BEFORE powering down.  If I could go back and do it again, I would have not completed the session prescribed by that coach, but also importantly, limited my first few weeks on the board to two 45 minute sessions after adequate warm up (I need to do more hang boarding and off the wall warm up for the board, because the board really throws you into an intense environment) and then slowly progressed first the intensity, days per week, and volume, and likely would have supplemented with more off the wall training - ie hang boarding, lifting weights, etc.  

I don’t think the details are important (angle, hold set, board brand, etc) it’s the old standard ’too much too fast.’

I tweaked my wrists on the TB2 by doing too much too fast setting a bunch of new problems. Rotating my body around the small pinches seemed to be the issue. Also splitting my fingers apart to ‘claw grip’ the small holds enflamed my knuckles.
The standard running advice is to only add 10% mileage per workout. 

https://www.climbing.com/skills/get-the-most-out-of-your-board-session/

Steve Bechtel: "The number-one side effect of starting training on a spray wall or app-driven wall is injury."

I got climber's elbow from my 40 degree spray wall when I first built it and started using it as my main training tool. Mostly limit bouldering ~3 times a week. It was also my first time climbing at that angle with that volume.

After I started rehabbing it I haven't had any issues. I also cut my sessions short if something is feeling prone to injury.

I actually want to chime in with the reverse: all of my injuries were from gym bouldering, and since switching to predominantly board climbing (around the time of COVID quarantines) I have not had a significant injury. I credit that to:

• Lower overall volume, especially of snatchy moves.
• Generally being a lot stronger and better, which obviously the boards helped with.
• Changing my climbing style to be more static and controlled. This is a function of how I set my home wall—the holds are generally too bad for me to snatch.
• Small/board holds basically don't flex at all, whereas gym holds flex quite a bit. I sincerely think the flexing contributed to a few injuries back in the day.

My theory on why I sustained these injuries is because I would put my hand in weird positions to get more out of the holds (ie I was wrapping my thumb on top of the angled holds, I also would cock my wrist back so that I could hold onto these holds easier) in addition, I had never climbed with a lot of power, and when I would pop to the next holds I often would loose body tension as I snatched the hold I was going to, which had that super ugly loose noodle look to it.

Both of those can be risky as hell. Video yourself and zoom in on what your hands and fingers are doing—twisting and extending are brutal on the finger joints. I am sympathetic to the idea of practicing strange positions and movements to prepare for them, but (1) that needs to be tuned to your current strength, skill, and recovery, and (2) most people suck at basic climbing movements, so you get a lot of mileage out of practicing those rather than focusing on novelties.

But I do agree with Brendan that most of the problem is ramping up too hard, too fast.

Jeff Mac wrote:

I got climber's elbow from my 40 degree spray wall when I first built it and started using it as my main training tool. Mostly limit bouldering ~3 times a week. It was also my first time climbing at that angle with that volume.

After I started rehabbing it I haven't had any issues. I also cut my sessions short if something is feeling prone to injury.

Was it the inside or outside of the elbow? 

Dan Schmidt wrote:

I actually want to chime in with the reverse: all of my injuries were from gym bouldering, and since switching to predominantly board climbing (around the time of COVID quarantines) I have not had a significant injury. I credit that to:

• Lower overall volume, especially of snatchy moves.
• Generally being a lot stronger and better, which obviously the boards helped with.
• Changing my climbing style to be more static and controlled. This is a function of how I set my home wall—the holds are generally too bad for me to snatch.
• Small/board holds basically don't flex at all, whereas gym holds flex quite a bit. I sincerely think the flexing contributed to a few injuries back in the day.

Cool, i agree, its mostly how you use the tools, rather than the tools themself being the problem. Thanks! 

• But I do agree with Brendan that most of the problem is ramping up too hard, too fast.

Between the kilter, moon, and grasshopper, I have had three slightly different shoulder issues. Usually overdoing it on a single full span move each time. I have been lifting much more and that has bolstered my shoulder resilience to the point where I don’t worry too much, but listen when my body says I need to call it on a particular move.

The grasshopper (8x10 format) has a lot of cramped moves close to centerline that tweak out my elbows quickly, still working on how to bolster the joints there though.

2016 moonboard - when you first start climbing on it, most people injure their right hand middle A2 pulley.  Something about the holds are particularly brutal on the right hand middle finger.  I had to take 3 months off and rehab on the hanboard but now feel better.

John, what lifts are you doing

John Clark wrote:

Between the kilter, moon, and grasshopper, I have had three slightly different shoulder issues. Usually overdoing it on a single full span move each time. I have been lifting much more and that has bolstered my shoulder resilience to the point where I don’t worry too much, but listen when my body says I need to call it on a particular move.

I'm bored at the airport so I'll answer this thread, especially because John's is similar to mine. 

I tore a scapula stabilizing muscle on my left side. Docs said this was the serratus anterior. It was at the end of a session, moving far left to latch the finish hold of a moonboard problem. Way too many of those, especially moderate benchmarks, finish with a giant often diagonal move to a jug. More on that later.

I figure the issue was that I was doing lots of hard shouldery boulders at the time, overtraining my strength, and as I got tired, these smaller supportive muscles that work to keep your scapula in place got too slack and couldnt bear the shock of catching and stabilizing a big move where the core is moving around the point of the shoulder.

Takeaways: don't overtrain your strengths, don't do big moves at the end of a session, on a steep wall, normal stuff. 

I think one systems-board specific point may be that many of the problems on these (I've only used moon, kilter, and tension), in order to maximize size and number of moves, often include a big lateral move, often at the beginning or end. If it's at the end, this is likely to make climbers drop a lot of body tension during the move or when they catch the hold, if it's a jug, planning to simply catch it and hold the swing, being much less careful to minimize motion and be efficient. I speculate that this is part of my injury, which is still haunting me 4 years later. 

Taylor Owens wrote:

John, what lifts are you doing

Bench Press, overhead press with dumbbells, pemberly rows, and bent over rows. Seems to help. I also shoulder coil my rope between every route inside and outside.

Kiki N wrote:

I am curious if there is anyone else out there who has sustained an overuse or acute injury they believe is secondary to a system board. 

Kirsten,

I've used a system board for 30 years.  I've never attributed any injury to using it.    

You actually answered your own question with the word "overuse". I have always limited my sessions to once-a-week and kept my progression slow to moderate. Duh.

John Clark wrote:

Between the kilter, moon, and grasshopper, I have had three slightly different shoulder issues. Usually overdoing it on a single full span move each time. I have been lifting much more and that has bolstered my shoulder resilience to the point where I don’t worry too much, but listen when my body says I need to call it on a particular move.

The grasshopper (8x10 format) has a lot of cramped moves close to centerline that tweak out my elbows quickly, still working on how to bolster the joints there though.

Can you tell us more about the specifics to each should issue?

And what position is your elbow in when issues arise? Have you come up with anything to help the elbows? 

John Byrnes wrote:

Kirsten,

I've used a system board for 30 years.  I've never attributed any injury to using it.    

You actually answered your own question with the word "overuse". I have always limited my sessions to once-a-week and kept my progression slow to moderate. Duh.

Yeah, i agree those are obvious things, however i see you live in ft collins, where you likely have access to gyms and outside climbing. I have access to neither on a regular basis so my system board became my outlet for climbing. Im curious if you have recommendations for my specific situation - do you think that one short system board session a week would be enough to provide gains in climbing? I think there are other people in my situation that dont have access to much climbing outside their home wall and im curious what you think. 
and moving is not an option for me with my work at this point in my life. I have considered moving but right now my current job requires a i be in this place with minimal access. 

John Clark wrote:

Bench Press, overhead press with dumbbells, pemberly rows, and bent over rows. Seems to help. I also shoulder coil my rope between every route inside and outside.

Is the shoulder coil of the rope to keep your shoulder muscles warmed up and engaged? I have never thought of doing shoulder stuff between climbs - i like this idea. 

Doing limit board sessions more than a couple times a week is brutal on the body, as demonstrated by this thread and others.

But if it's all you have, then it's worth thinking about how you can use the tool in different ways. 

One exercise i've been doing lately on my home wall is "grounded ARCing." You keep your feet on the ground, but weight on your hands, and traverse back and forth. The goal is to get that light-pump feeling from climbing a long route a bit below your flash grade. Go for 15 minutes to as long as you want. Keep a realistic climbing pace, maybe 4 seconds per hold. If it's too easy, move your feet closer to the wall. If you get pumped, step back and rest on a jug.

It's a nice workout that can be combined with strength or yoga or cardio and you can even do it by itself on a busy day: you don't get sweaty so you don't even need to change clothes or even really warm up. It's a way to add some low-impact volume to the week. i added a ton of holds in that mid-chest to head-high region to make this more interesting.

Kiki N wrote:

Can you tell us more about the specifics to each should issue?

And what position is your elbow in when issues arise? Have you come up with anything to help the elbows? 

The big span bump of this going the opposite direction really got me. Too big to keep the joint really well engaged. The things i have done to get tweaked on the moon were similar but left hand pinch right hand bump out to a flat edge, similar size span. The elbows usually get tweaked from compression close to centerline with a bent elbow. Just an unstable position that I’m npt sure how to strengthen yet

Kiki N wrote:

Yeah, i agree those are obvious things, however i see you live in ft collins, where you likely have access to gyms and outside climbing. I have access to neither on a regular basis so my system board became my outlet for climbing.

Yes, I have other outlets but I also generously insert rest days and cross training into my schedule.  Always remember that "you only get stronger when you are resting".   Also, others have recommended antagonistic training; it's very important to avoid injury.

Im curious if you have recommendations for my specific situation - do you think that one short system board session a week would be enough to provide gains in climbing? 

Yes.  I assume you are using it for power and perhaps power-endurance, both of which require at least two rest days afterwards.  One suggestion: perhaps add a weight belt to increase intensity instead of going to a smaller hold?  

I think there are other people in my situation that dont have access to much climbing outside their home wall and im curious what you think.
and moving is not an option for me with my work at this point in my life. I have considered moving but right now my current job requires a i be in this place with minimal access. 

Well, I have a home wall and I use it regularly.    The system board is one section of it.   But from the sounds of it, I'd recommend changing your routine to include more "cross-training" and less climbing per week.  Getting injured, especially finger/elbow/ injuries, never improves your climbing.   And developing another athletic interest can help your overall condition and metal outlook.

I built a 2016 MB in my attic.  Got serve synovitis from it.  Was climbing 2x3 times a week on it when this happened.   Have not been able to do a work on it since then.  Even a 1hr session 1x a week will make it more prone to flaring up again.  So back to just gym climbing like before...