Page 13 - 2022 AMA Summer

REDUCING THE
RISK OF INJURY
FOR CLIMBERS AND
MOUNTAINEERS
TREATING COMMON
MOUNTAINEERING INJURIES
By Tim Pigott
In 2019, Mountain Rescue in the UK responded to 2761 call outs involving 2155 rescue team deployments, to
assist 2011 people. A common myth is most incidents involve those with less experience, however, the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland (MRCS) report found 62% of incidents occurred to those classed as ‘experienced’ compared to 38% who were ‘inexperienced’ and of these 14% of rescue incidents were attributed to human error (Knott, 2011). Most mountaineering incidents involve hill walkers and on hill paths, and most climbers are injured on climbs of lesser technical difficulty. So, what are the risks and how do you reduce your risk of becoming injured or requiring rescue in the first place?
WHAT IS THE RISK?
Mountaineering
1.18 injuries per 1000 days; 5% of injuries resulted from rock climbing and 44% from hiking. (McIntosh et al. 2007)
Trail Running
Trail running injury incidence ranges from 0.7 injuries per 1000 hours to 61.2 injuries per 1000 hours (Viljoen C. 2021), although
the higher rate reported also included skin injuries such as blisters in their reporting.
Climbing
Indoor climbing reports around 0.02 injuries per 1000 hours. Most injuries are non-traumatic in nature with 50% involving the finger, with pulley injuries being around 60% of all finger injuries and of these 33-44% of injuries are overuse (Jones and Johnson 2016).
In terms of factors which can increase your risk of injury when out running, climbing or mountaineering the most common are:
• Neglecting a warmup
• Not using a specialised training plan • High impact forces
• Double training days
• Higher risk-taking attitudes
• Physical occupations on top of training • Age, years of experience, higher skill / difficulty level, high CIS (climbing
intensity score) and lead climbing
SO, WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS?
Warm up
Warm up sufficiently before your training session. In terms of running or climbing
thismayinvolve10-20minutes of gradually working through a series of exercises to establish good mobility and muscle activation. For the climbers my colleagues at Lattice have a range of videos you can follow to warm up either at the gym or crag. For any runners I have a range of routines you can follow on my website.
Gradual progressive training
Injuries happen when the tissues are pushed beyond their tolerance levels. So, to avoid an injury in the mountains we need to be aware of what the demands will be, then work backwards from there. How long will you be out for? Is it a 5 hour hike or a 48
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