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Finger swelling from crimping? 3-Aug-2005 At 1:02:33 PM julian

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Just to clarify:

A) I have climbed extensively in the mountains over the last 14 years and crimped incessantly. I am not good at following my own advice; do you know someone I can see?!

B) You can’t avoid crimping in Nowra or the Grampians either, or on most any route or problem anywhere, particularly if you are at your limit. My advice was to not to overdo it; avoid it where possible. I would suggest that you would get enough practice/training doing it when you have to, climbing or training. I crimp during a normal training session as well. The people I see coming through my clinic that crimp excessively often end up with elbow pathologies or blown pullies. I ruptured an A3 and A4 in one foul swoop last month whilst crimping during training.

C) Necessity does not govern injury rates. You may need to crimp in the mountains more, but that does not preclude you from injury. If you did a study on climbers that spend most of their time in the mountains versus somewhere else less crimpy, I think you would find more elbow and acute tendon pathologies in your hometown than mine for the singular reason you mention: more crimps.

D) Training specifically will generate success faster. Not everything can be done with an open hand. The physics and biomechanics of crimping means that when you need power on a small hold, there is no option. It does not mean that, because you trained your crimping, you are less likely to blow a pulley; just that you will be stronger on a given hold. Good climbers bust pullies because they have fewer physiologic and cerebral handbrakes, train excessively at times, spend more hours climbing, bla bla bla, and for all the other reasons that your average climber will also do a pullie. I note a very astute post by CJ outlining a good few of them.

E) I have seen the reactive athritis you mention a number of times. The most successful therapy is theraputic laser. And ease up on the crimping; hyper extension of the distal phalanx can be very aggravating, as you may have felt. Glucosamine may also be of significant benefit. Give me a call if you want to have a chat about it.

I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.

Kind regards,

Julian