Elbow pain limiting your climbing?? Here's how to find some relief!
One of the most common injuries among climbers is elbow pain. Why is this?
As you know, climbing is a grip dominant sport, and often times climbers spend an innumerable amount of time training their grip strength, on top of all the climbing they do. This creates two problems.
1. Over- use. Often training too much too soon, upping the training load at a pace that the body isn’t used to and can’t recover from.
2. You aren’t training the antagonist (opposite) extensor muscles of the forearm, and develop an imbalance in the lower arm.
One or both of these factors can cause irritation of the tendons and is likely the source of your pain. AKA: Tendonitis.
Tendonitis is a painful condition that occurs in and around tendons, as a response to the overuse of the area. As it relates to climbing, most climbers who develop tendonitis will experience pain on the inside of their elbow (as this is where all the flexor muscles attach) or perhaps in the shoulder, fingers, or wrists.
Let’s break down the anatomy to give you a better understanding of the mechanics at work.
A muscle tendon is a type of connective tissue that crosses over joints, attaching your muscles to your bones. As the muscle contracts and creates power, it pulls on the tendon to move the joint.
Recent research on tendonitis revealed that there is less inflammation at the injured site than previously thought. The pain associated with tendonitis is due to degrading tissue that is becoming less elastic, weakened and torn.
With this in mind, the traditional approach of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), corticosteroid injections, icing, and complete rest may not be as effective as once assumed.
So what should you be doing?? We want to increase circulation, regain elasticity, improve stability and decrease inflammation.
Exercises to increase strength and stability in the affected joint.
Stretching and myofascial release.
Heat therapy
A shift in focus to other aspects relating to climbing, adding variation to the training load, that doesn’t trigger pain, instead of a dead stop rest from all activity. We want to get as much pain-free movement as possible, getting you back as soon and as strong as possible.
In sports like climbing where repetition is un-avoidable, we are always going to be at risk of tendinitis appearing and re-appearing. If your pain isn’t going away or constantly coming and going, consider hiring a trainer (like myself!) to manage your training load, getting a Functional Range Assessment to see if there might be other factors coming into play, or going to a physical therapist to get your specific instance checked out!
Catching your symptoms early on and not climbing through pain could turn your injury into only a few days of rest and active recovery instead of a prolonged period of time without climbing!
Check out these videos for some exercises I have found helpful in preventing the onset of symptoms.
See you on the wall!
Klare