Page 22 - 2009 AMA Winter

PREVENTING CLIMBING INJURIES:
WARMING UP By Andrew Lewis (MHPC) & Rob McAfee (MHPC)
£50
ARTICLE
Far better than knowing how to treat cific task (different for bouldering, leading 2 Gently increase your range of movement
an injury is not getting the injury in the
first place, which often comes down to a good warm-up. Few recreational climbers like to impose too much structure to their climbing, as for many the lack of structure and formality is one of the things that makes climbing so enjoyable. The key is to understand the principles of warming- up and have in mind a very rough structure. You should then use trial and error to develop what works for you and matches the time you are prepared to spend. It’s better to do 5 minutes of quality warm-up than 10 minutes of rubbish! A good warm- up will allow you to perform at a higher level, for longer, with less chance of injury and with reduced subsequent muscle soreness. This article will aim to provide the theory of warm-ups; look out for the specifics of stretching in future editions.
PHYSIOLOGY
There are 6 major reasons for warming-up before any intense activity and they are all linked:
Increase muscle & tendon temperature
By warming the muscles and tendons you will improve their elasticity. The muscle and tendons will be able to absorb more stretching and loading without developing damage.
Increase blood flow
This ensures more blood is available to the muscle which brings more oxygen and glu- cose. It also means that waste products like lactate and carbon dioxide can be quickly removed from the tissues.
Increase muscle length
Increased elasticity coupled with good stretching will increase the length of mus- cles. This effectively means you can lift your foot higher and reach further than when you were ‘cold’.
Increase muscle recruitment
A muscle is made up of many individual fibres and the more fibres working at once, the stronger the muscle force generated. It is thought to be impossible to activate every fibre in a muscle at once but it is certainly possible to increase how many fibres you ‘recruit’ with a good progressive warm-up.
Increase heart and breathing rate
To sustain any kind of physical activity you need to increase breathing rate and heart rate. By gradually increasing both you are able to optimise their function for the spe-
20 ARMY MOUNTAINEER
and top-roping).
Stimulate cooling reactions
Sweating is the bodies way of cooling you down and it is a good thing. The cooling reactions take time to reach a balance of heat generated to heat loss. A warm-up will help to prevent overproduction of sweat.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
As with all areas of physical activity there are things to be aware/wary of. The main problems come from being too vigorous too soon. This will cause increased risk of injury and reduced performance. A warm- up should be gradual and progressive.
Be sure to warm-up before YOU climb, not before your partner climbs. If you spend time warming up then don`t do anything for a while there is a good chance you will end-up colder than when you started. This is because, as mentioned above, your body will try and lose heat by sweating to correct your increased temperature. The sweating reaction is quite inaccurate, when there is sweat on your skin it cannot be taken back in. It has to evaporate and it uses your heat energy to do that, therefore cooling you down. That’s fine if you are continuing to exercise and generate heat. If you are doing nothing you will get colder and reverse the effects of the warm-up and be more injury prone.
Age is also a factor to consider in the warm-up. The older a climber gets the longer they take to warm-up. This is a combination of reduced circulation and decreased general muscle elasticity. For older climbers it means spending more time on the earlier stages of the warm-up. The younger climber can usually afford to spend less time on the earlier stages if nec- essary but should place more emphasis on the latter stages.
Be careful of old/new injuries, you will have to modify your warm-up because of them. Remember that your perfect warm-up will never be the same as anyone else’s.
The Warm-up
We will use the example of an indoor wall as this is where most overuse injuries take place.
The conventional warm-up is in 4 stages:
1 Slightly increase temperature, breathing rate and heart rate.
and mobility.
3 Further increase temperature, breathing rate and heart rate.
4 Sport specific stretching
The best way to warm-up for an activity is to perform that same activity at a very gen- tle pace. So the best way to warm-up for climbing is actually to climb easy!
We will take the example of a Fr6b lead climber training indoors; adjust the grades if needed to fit your level. Warm-ups are flexible and this is just a rough guide to show a good progression.
ROPED CLIMBING
1 Slightly increase temperature, breath- ing rate and heart rate.
To get the body prepared for climbing first tryandfindapanelwith4sand5sona medium sized wall. These will be easy for someone climbing at 6b. To make things as easy as possible to start, top rope the grade 4 twice and the 5 twice back to back without resting then swop with your part- ner. Keep a thin fleece or sweat shirt on at this stage. Depending on the length of the routes that shouldn’t take long and be enough for you to feel a little warmer and your muscles a little looser. Top roping serves the purpose better as leading usual- ly takes more time. The goal is to keep moving at a gentle pace.
2 Gently increase your range of move- ment and mobility.
By doing 4 easy climbs one after the other you will have covered your mobility stage and it will have been specific to climbing because you were actually climbing. Climbing at a grade well within your limit will probably not force you to step high or really stretch your upper body. This is the time to take each major joint in turn and move it a few times through its full range of movement, all nice and gentle. Take some time here to address any problem areas/old injuries trying to gently loosen them off if appropriate. This should only take a couple of minutes.
3 Further increase temperature, breath- ing rate and heart rate.
Now back to the climbing and find a panel witha5andaneasy6aoronethatyou have done a few times before. Climb the 5 once to get you warmed back up then try the 6a twice with as little rest as possible,