Caution: Side Effects May Include…

start swimming. it provides the core strength to compliment climbing, plus the cross training helps keep you healthy and injury free.

i was getting regular elbow strains until i started swimming regularly. now i never get them.

speaking of which… off to the pool…

Ok, not to beat the drum too much, but YOGA is a fantastic sport to alternate with climbing. I may not be the most addicted crazy-strong freaky obsessed climber in the world, but I do, actually, get the same emotional response out of attaining a new, difficult pose as I do figuring out the crux sequence on a hard climb. I often have “Holy crap! Did you SEE what I just DID!?!” moments in yoga just like in climbing. It’s a great strength-building exercise, it helps prevent injuries, it’s more mentally engaging than just lifting weights (ugh) and great for cold winter evenings. Yogis have a tight-knit community just like climbers, and you get to watch half-nekked beautiful people glistening with sweat and wrapping themselves into pretzl shapes.

Sorry to hear about the injury starting up again. The suggestions listed so far are good but the most useful ones, like Eddie’s, regard weightlifting. Tendinitis in my unprofessional opinion is the result of chronic excessive muscle tension in the affected area and muscle imbalance, both of which are typically found in climbers. Keyboarding on a computer just makes things worse. I would definitely recommend a good sports massage/chiropractic regimen to begin with, followed by targeted stretching and opposition exercises.

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I agree with Kate that Yoga is the way to go. My fingers have not been doing well in 2009 and I started going to Yoga classes again. It’s a good way to help build core and your antagonists as well as a sweet way to push your mental limits.

Also as I wrote recently I have been running a lot. It helped keep my mind off up coming trips since I set a distance goal and went for it. Perhaps if it is to cold to run you could cross country ski? Also I have read about the benefits of skate skiing, which might be more viable in WI.

I believe every climber at some point in their climbing career will go through a serious injury. Perhaps some will be catastrophic, and others will be fairly mild. I’m lucky enough to have gone through it early in my climbing. I broke my foot on Germ Free Adolescence, and I took a year off from climbing even though I could come back within a few months. I completely disassociated myself with the climbing community and most things climbing related.

So how did I get through this period of life? I found something which stimulated me mentally. In part the pursuit of climbing is attractive because in its own way is mentally challenging. They don’t call them problems for no reason, I enjoy the process of solving them. In fact I enjoy it so much, that during my time off, I pursued mathematics instead of climbing, and it fulfilled me much the same way climbing has. Except I don’t get ripped from doing mathematics.

When I was ready to return to climbing, I came back with a vigor I hadn’t experienced before, and my levels of psyche and passion were off the charts. In fact, I found the commonalities between climbing and mathematics are quite deep, and the same approach can be taken to both. As climbers, we sometimes forget to focus on the mental stimulation, and solely push the physical boundaries. Injuries are the universe’s way of telling us to balance our lives a bit.

-S

go back to college. read entirely too much, write too much, end up in enormous amounts of debt all in the name of learning. spend all night in the library or binge drink and play frisbee. seems to have worked for me…though i’ve never been seriously injured…

After my back and knee injuries I did my PT every day, along with hiking and regular exercise. I also looked into things I had an interest in but didn’t pursue, which led me to writing more (although with finger injuries that could be a problem). An occasional beer or some rum also helped;)

I went under the knife for a blown disc between L5 an S1 (April 24, 08) I had not actually climbed a route until this January 09. And I’m still struggling to recover any level of fitness or flexibility.

But the biggest issue for me was mental.

When I thought that I may never climb again (mind you I was never that good, I hit a 5.10a in Lander on top-rope…once) I was devastated. I had built relationships and community within climbing that I didn’t have ready substitutes for in other areas of my life. I was forced to ask myself, “Who am I, if I never climb again? And what the heck will I do for fun?” I do know that I am more than just what I can climb. I am learning to take joy in just being able to get “out there”, doing something outside with friends. But being unable to climb (or do almost anything) really forced me to look at what is important. I was pretty angry at the “Big Climber in the Sky” for taking away the one thing I thought I really enjoyed, and I wondered why He would be so cruel. Maybe the real cruelty would have been for me to pursue climbing to the detriment of other areas of my life. Maybe I needed to stop growing as a climber so I could grow as a person. And maybe (for most people) climbing injuries are just that, injuries. But for me, it was a chance to walk a different trail…one that I may not have chosen for myself were it otherwise.

The take-home? Love God, serve others. Places and pastimes(like climbing) just provide a venue to practice that in. Climbing is still important to me, hopefully it will continue to be part of my life – but that’s it…just a part of my life, not the whole. I am now learning to deal with my physical abilities as they are, make improvements where possible, and accept that “It is, what it is”. Acceptance was a huge key for me in allowing myself to explore what else might be out there.