Page 14 - 2022 AMA Summer

GUESTWRITER
hour mountaineering climb? How much kit will you carry? What is the weight of your pack? If rock climbing, what types of holds or moves will you need to use? Will it involve dynos? Will it involve repetition of a particular unfamiliar move? What surfaces will you be on? Easy ground or rough technical ground? These, and many more, are all standard planning questions but too often not given enough consideration in the preparation for a trip to the mountains. Once you have done a ‘needs analysis’ for your trip you can then set yourself ‘process goals’ which are interim goals to help you prepare for the main event. This might involve gradually increasing the weight of your pack, the duration of time on feet, the loads on your tendons, etc.
When it comes to tendons, finger pulleys, and other connective tissues, it is important to note that these respond more slowly to training stimuli and thus can take weeks to slowly adapt. Sudden increases in training ahead of a climbing trip can then result in a pulley or tendon injury 2-3 weeks down the line. Plan for a long gradual build up to the required loads and intensity you will experience on your goal adventure.
Figure 1 (below) shows a steady progressive build that was then interrupted by a week of no training, you can see how it then took two weeks to rebuild to the same level achieved prior to the week off. If you have some enforced down time
(sickness / work / family) make sure you rebuild slowly.
When we exercise, we push our bodies close to the limit, then have a period of recovery to let the tissues adapt. But if we’ve previously sustained an injury and maybe had some enforced rest, our tissue tolerance levels may have decreased. Therefore, it is important to determine if you have the capacity to undertake the activities you are aiming for. As part of your planning, it is therefore necessary to assess yourself. With my athletes I use a simple screening tool (Figure 2 opposite page) to identify strengths and weaknesses. While these numbers are not age or gender specific, it does help identify areas you may need to address within your own training programme. For climbing the team at Lattice have their self-assessment protocol you can use.
REST AND RECOVERY
Often you will hear the phrase ‘overuse injury’ or ‘over training injury’, however in reality it is more the case that the injury has been sustained due to lack of recovery. This can be due to inadequate rest between hard training sessions (too many hard sessions close together), poor sleep, poor nutrition and high stress. An acute injury might involve forces which go beyond the tissue’s tolerance levels causing the envelope of function to temporarily drop, thus the training program needs to gradually rebuild it back up again.
TOTAL LOAD
So far we’ve focussed just on the sport / activity specific loads but we also need to consider the ‘total load’ which includes activities outside of your sport. These can be both physical loads from work or other hobbies, as well as psychological and emotional loads. Stress is stress, whether that is stress from a hard training session or stress from personal life factors. Numerous studies have shown that injury rates go up during periods of psycholog- ical stress such as exams. So, if your life outside of sport is particularly stressful you may need to reduce the intensity and/ or duration of your sporting loads.
DECISION MAKING AND RISK ATTITUDE
Being physically active can also influence your risk perception, and thus, you should pause to concentrate on the task at hand as error rates may increase during physical activity (Raue et al. 2018). Risk, its appreciation and management, is therefore an important consideration when enjoying activities in the mountains. To take part in these activities safely, it is crucial to understand what these risks are and how they might be mitigated or reduced. Decision making is often impaired when we are tired and hungry, while the belief that most injuries happen on the descent is not supported by the statistics, we want to consider how we can keep the mind sharp. This might be nutrition planning, such as ensuring you have enough food with you including fast acting carbohydrates or a caffeine
14 / ARMY MOUNTAINEER