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So finger strength is just sort of maxed out and that's not how you're going to be able to

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differentiate between athletes. I'm getting patients coming to me saying, oh well of course

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you know I can't boulder how I used to because I'm in my 30s now and I'm like what? Why? You know

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what happens in your 30s? Whereas you're still you know really young in your prime. So if you're

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expecting your period and it's late that is something that you should give some consideration

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to. Yeah there was a definite spike. Nothing interferes with improvement more than injury.

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You need consistency. So it's fine to step away a little early and finish feeling fresh.

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Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your host Jinni and I'm

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excited to introduce my guest Andy McVittie. Andy is a climbing PT from Process Physiotherapy. He's

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been climbing for over 30 years, has coached in the past, and over time has noticed climbing injuries

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change as the style of climbing has evolved in the competition scene. In this episode we'll debunk

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some training and PT myths, talk about the differences between male and female climbers,

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and the types of injuries they face, and we'll hear about why he thinks fingers are strong enough.

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I hope you enjoy this episode with Andy.

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Real quick I'm excited to announce my new sponsor helping make this podcast episode possible,

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Mad Rock Climbing. I got fitted with their brand new line of high performance shoes,

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the D2.1s. They just came out December 6th but you might notice a few of your favorite

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GOM climbers are already wearing them like Oscar Baudran from Team Canada and also me.

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This is the first time I've gotten to wear their shoes for an extended period of time and I'm

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actually super impressed with the grip of their in-house rubber and of course the famous drone

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for 10% off your entire Mad Rock order. Info will be in the description. Back to the show.

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How are you doing today? Excited for the holidays?

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Yeah, yeah. All set already. Got everybody's presents.

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Nice.

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One of those, I think I've had a good year this year for presents. We'll see.

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Yeah, presents stress me out so.

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Exactly. Yeah, it's just such a relief when you finally see that thing and you just like,

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ah, that's the thing. That'll do it.

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I can't do like a presents under pressure. If I see something in the moment, I want to get it for

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someone, but then if there's that deadline, it just, it goes out the window. I like don't,

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I can't do it.

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Yeah, presents under pressure. I like that. You can feel the stress exuding from that.

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Yeah.

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And then just like nothing good pops out to you.

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No, no, definitely not. And what about yourself? What do you do for the holidays?

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Um, not much really. I mean, I don't really celebrate any holidays just because it's like

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a lot of effort. And like, again, the whole presents under pressure thing, I just.

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I'm loving so many people now. I think one of the nice things about the climbing community is

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there's a lot of sort of intergenerational sort of mixing that goes on. So I spend a fair bit of

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time with people that are younger than my children, whatever that kind of thing. And people are just

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making such different choices nowadays. I mean, it may be a climbing thing as well. Climbing attracts

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a certain kind of person, doesn't it? But it's just, yeah, people are just like, no, that doesn't

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make me happy. So I'm not going to do that.

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Yeah.

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It's so refreshing.

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Yeah. I've noticed a lot of climbers just end up going climbing on Christmas or like climbing

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outside or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's even, yeah, career choices that kind of,

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well, not even career. They just, I want a job that's not too harsh, that gives me the income

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so I can go and climb or do the things that bring me pleasure. And I'm not lying awake in bed at

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night worrying about work. It's like, wow.

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I mean, as someone who's unemployed, yeah, that is what it's like.

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Okay. Yeah.

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Okay. So yeah, getting into the climbing stuff and I guess the culture and community,

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how did you get into climbing and then coaching and then eventually becoming a PT?

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Yeah. Yeah. It's been, yeah, I suppose when I look back a little bit of a journey, a bit longer than

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I thought. Yeah. So it's like 31 years of climbing now, I think.

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Oh, wow.

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Yeah. I know. Yeah.

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Congrats.

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Yeah. But also makes me think, oh, wow, maybe I'm older than I think I am.

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But yeah, I got into it. It was an activity at school that we did on a school trip where you

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went away into the countryside and did various things. They have these, the residential,

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they're called quite common in the UK. We'll go away for a week with the school and yeah,

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you do lots of different adventurous kind of activities. Tried climbing and I can still

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remember it now. I wouldn't be able to pick the climb or anything. I know which crag and

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or not heavy it was, but I can still remember. Yeah, it's totally like, wow, this is the thing

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for me. But I was quite young then, didn't know anybody else who climbed, didn't really,

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wasn't able to get into it. And so really it was when I got to university and they had a

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mountaineering club and it was like, oh right, there's my way in. It's all there for me.

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Yeah, so climbed recreationally, but I was actually, when I left university, I joined the

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police was my first career. Oh wow. Well, what was your degree, I guess? I guess I kind of assumed

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that your degree was going to be in physiotherapy. Yeah, but the first one basically was sports

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coaching, sports science. So I've always had that kind of within me. At that time, I was considering

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joining the armed services, the REF, and so it didn't matter what degree I did. They just said,

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pick a degree that you're interested in. So I thought, yeah, cool, sports science, coaching,

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that sounds good. So I did that. Then decided not to join the armed forces, went into the police

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and continued to climb through that time. And then had a career change, became an outdoor instructor.

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And this is back really before coaching was a thing. It was instruction, safety instruction,

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that kind of thing. Coaching wasn't really around. You mean in general or just for climbing?

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For climbing, yeah, for climbing. All the other sports for climbing, they're still quite resistant

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to it. It would be like, well, that's not how we do it in climbing. That's frowned upon,

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but like training, people used to train in secret because you didn't know what they were doing.

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You didn't want to admit that you were training to get better. It may just be a British thing.

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You know, there's people at school who claim that they never do any revision or homework,

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but they get poor marks in all the exams. Yeah, a bit like that, but nobody could admit that they

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trained. I wanted to give a little bit extra and Neil Gresham was the first person to start up with

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like an actual coaching qualification. So I went down to London where he was at the time and spent

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the week there and got some basic coaching input from him. Then I moved to Spain and was working

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on performance at climbing holidays where people would want to improve their grade. So they would

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come on a one week, two week holiday and get coached basically to improve and sort of covered

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everything. I came back from Spain then. I ended up working in climbing balls while I finally

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retrained again as a physiotherapist. That's when I did get my physiotherapy degree and continued

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there. That sort of grew, ended up starting a competition squad there and helping run that.

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Then eventually going off self-employed, myself and my coaching partner at the time early,

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formed a competition squad. Now, although physiotherapy is my main part of it,

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I've been coaching for nearly 16 years. I still have a couple of people that I coach. That's more

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just interesting, fun, psych rather than being on the ground of competition coaching.

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So you no longer have a competition squad?

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No, no, no, not anymore. Once the climbing physiotherapy grew, I've been in physio for

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a while, but only full-time climbing physio for the last three years. That was never going to be

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a thing a few years ago. You couldn't support yourself. There weren't enough climbers around.

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There wasn't the attitude as well that you would go and see a physio for an injury. Again, I think

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things potentially changed. That used to once be a badge of honor as to how many injuries you had,

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but you were still climbing.

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Right. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess that still is kind of a thing.

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It is. Yeah, it is. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, the climbing physio has come about. The usual,

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the usual, most physiotherapists who climb will treat friends and help friends, that kind of thing,

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advise or what have you. And then that just grew.

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When you started out with sports science back in the day, did you do other sports or what?

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Yeah, so rugby to a reasonably okay level, played for the county. We did well at university as well

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at rugby. We got through to high level national competitions and running actually. I don't do

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that so much nowadays, but long distance running. I was a sprinter when I was young, but then get

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ultra mountain marathon. Oh really?

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Yes, I ended up with that. That takes quite a lot of time, quite a lot of energy.

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And that's come to the conclusion that I couldn't keep us going.

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Yeah, I only learned about ultra marathons like probably within the past few months. I couldn't

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believe it at first. I didn't know it was a real thing that people could actually do.

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Yeah, it's amazing. The human body is just fantastic. When I think actually having just

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said all that of all the different things I've done with my body and that it's adapted to,

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it wasn't like any of these I was like super gifted at. And now that have I done them to an

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amazingly high level, but it's like if you give it the time and the space and the correct information

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to work with, your body will do most things. Absolutely amazing. It's a fantastic, fantastic

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bit of kit. Yeah, so yeah, you mentioned that you've

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been climbing for a long time. You kind of touched on like the evolution you've seen over the years.

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How does that kind of affect the injuries that you've seen people come in with?

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Yeah, so originally treating friends, that type of thing, often like at the crag where

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something would happen, somebody would come over holding their finger, compared by that,

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this has just happened, but what do you think this is? And it was predominantly fingers.

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People would worry, I think, about fingers. Fingers would cause them enormous pain.

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Fingers would cause them enough anxiety that they wanted to reach out for some help.

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Whereas if they fell off and badly sprained their ankle, they would just be like, well,

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that just happens. It will get better. It will be okay. Or shoulders, similarly. Elbows,

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that type of thing. People just certainly used to, still do to an extent, just not

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seek treatment for it, just tough up and get on with it. But fingers was always the most commonly,

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and that's backed up from research back then, not about people accessing help or treatment,

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but which parts of you injured over that, whatever. Yeah, fingers, definitely the majority,

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I would suggest, the things that you'd see. Now it's everything, which is really nice,

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because if you just saw fingers all the time, as interesting and as great as it is working with

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climbers, and every finger injury is a bit different, yeah, I think I'd be a little bit bored

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if it was just fingers all the time. Okay, yeah. And so I guess, specifically in the competition

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scene, they don't really set crimpy, fingery stuff too often. I mean, that's definitely part of it,

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but I don't think the limiting factors, people's finger strength a lot of the times when it comes

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to competition climbing. So yeah, do you feel like you see other stuff in the competition space?

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Yeah, absolutely. And it has been an interesting and very rapid evolution within the competition

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space, definitely. And yes, you're right, athletes this generation have just got to the point where

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you can't really make a hole small enough for them not to be able to crimp it. They're using bolt holes,

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aren't they? They're using screw holes. They're using the side of volumes to dig into it with the

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fingernails and that type of thing. So finger strength is just sort of maxed out, and that's

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not how you're going to be able to differentiate between athletes. That combined with what became

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the fantastic sort of visual spectacle of the 2020, 2021 Olympics, the way to differentiate

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athletes became about that uncertainty of movement, didn't it? The ability to read a problem,

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get it right first time, have the movement literacy and the confidence in the competition

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scenario to be able to go for these low percentage moves and pull them off, as opposed to how hard

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can you hold? Then you have the big colorful holds, big dynamic moves, all this type of thing

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that look spectacular and drew the crowd. And it worked, didn't it? Because climbing absolutely

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exploded after that and obviously is now included, hopefully long-term in the Olympics.

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But it's that type of movement, much greater peak loads. If you're jumping to something

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and actually going for it, hitting it with one hand, whereas often in the past you would still

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have the other hand on, so there's much more stability through the body. A lot more rotational

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forces, both sort of intentional and unintentional. You've got the 360 moves now that everybody likes

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to see, that kind of thing. But even just hitting something, when you look at what happens in

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Yan Yur and whatever, and the Cobra kick that she really almost kicks us up in the back of her own

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head, doesn't she, when she's doing that? The ranges that the body is tested through. A lot

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more single arm work, which then upsets wrists as well, because you're having to control through

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the wrist. Just a great difference in the movement patterns. There was a narrative review rather than

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a true research project done in 2020, 2021. Looking at that, I'm predicting that was

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Chris Lutter, who's a orthopedic surgeon who works with Volker Schoffel. I don't know if you've ever

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heard of him. He's like the... has been for ages. Super keen climber, German orthopedic surgeon,

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runs a surgery that specializes in outdoor related incidents, accidents and surgery.

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They looked at the movement patterns, the changes, and they predicted actually what we're now seeing

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three or four years later, because obviously what is in the Olympics then feeds through into local

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competition and local setting in climbing walls, because everybody wants to have a go at that type

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of thing. Much more shoulders is the biggest change, really. A lot more shoulders. The other

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one, pushing as well. Never used to push. Now there's all of this going on in some real

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positions that when you get your biomechanical head on and you look at what somebody's doing,

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and I'm going like, oh man, how could you hit? Yeah, some of the push moves are definitely pretty

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extreme. Yeah, yeah. I've chatted with people before about in competition, youth competition,

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you get some feedback, often from slightly unhappy parents of the third child. But my child got

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injured on that problem. It was dangerous. Why have you set it? They set it on the other. Often

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there will be something underlying why they ended up getting injured on that. They might have had a

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shoulder injury and that push move then injured them. But I really believe that setters set a

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challenge. As long as it's not overtly dangerous, which I've never seen, it's up to the athlete

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to decide whether they accept that challenge or not. That's part of being a competitive,

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high-level athlete. You have to be aware of yourself. Is that for me? I have to have that

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discipline, that talk within for youth, coach, climber, caregiver. How should I be doing this

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competition? That type of thing and injuries that come out of competition are not the root setters

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for. There's really no move that you've seen set in competition locally or in the IFSC where you're

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like, oh, I really don't want to see that again or you think it's a little too far. I can't bring one

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to mind. No. What I often say is I certainly see things that I think like, wow, how are they able

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to do that? If I even attempted to do that, that would injure me. But so would playing a game of

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professional soccer. That would injure me. I'm not trained in that way at all. What's the injury rate

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in IFSC competition? I guess I don't know. Actually, in the competitions itself, yeah,

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good point. Sorry if that's kind of why I'm here. It's not that high. There is always

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likely to be a higher injury rate in competition than in practice. But yeah, but it's not off the

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scale. I can't think of a problem or a route where it's been like, oh, athlete A has been injured.

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Next one, oh, athlete B has been injured on that problem and can't continue or is noticeably now

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limping after doing it or holding their feet and that being a common thing on a particular problem.

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Interesting. Okay. Oh man, I wish I had thought of, tried to look through some old comps and see if

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there was anything that was super dangerous. I guess the only thing that comes to mind most

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recently is maybe the Salt Lake World Cup where there was a jump onto a dual-text slide onto a

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little chip thing. I feel like I maybe remember an injury or two there. But also like Natalia was

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already kind of injured. So yeah, my memory's a little foggy. Okay. Yeah. And that potentially

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then is the, you know, route setters have got to set for what they, you know, for fully fit athletes.

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They can't start accounting for, oh, somebody might have this or somebody might have that.

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And then it's up to the athlete, whether they accept that challenge that their setters have

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set. And sometimes that will feel unfair because sometimes you will have something that limits you

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and you might not be able to do that. But that's, again, that's part of being an athleteism,

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unfortunately, but you're not going to be a hundred percent all the time. Okay. Kind of a

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surprising take to hear from a PT. That's interesting. I wasn't expecting that. I don't

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think we're, as a whole, you know, particularly in sports, physio, I don't think we're very,

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you know, we're trying to help people become robust and strong and to be able to do these

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amazing things with their body. And if you're like, oh, oh, I don't think you should or, oh,

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crap, no, we better be super, yeah, they're not going to get there, are they? Yeah, that's true.

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Obviously not if they've just been injured, you know, if they've got an acute new injury,

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you're not going to say, oh, we're going to ignore that and just put it on. But, you know, rehab is

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finished when they're able to do those kind of things with no anxiety. That's a huge factor,

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especially in competitive athletes. And, you know, there's, again, a fair bit of research showing

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that a lot of people who, I'm going to rough figures here, but about 90% of people following

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a moderate level injury, you know, something that's taking you out of the sport for a while,

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about 90% of people will regain all their physical abilities that they had before that.

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But only about 60, I think it's about 64, 65% of people actually make it back to the same level

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that they were before. And that, they believe, is anxiety around that injury, recurrence, and

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yeah, that type of thing. So it's amazing that the high level athletes do. Well, I guess they have to.

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Which is interesting in itself, isn't it? Yeah, their drive and, yeah, is that a good thing?

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That they have to, you know? Yeah, we know from lots of other sports, don't we, that people are,

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okay, we're just going to give you an injection to get through this game. No, that type of thing.

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That's the trade-off of pro athletes. I mean, yeah, I think that's a really good way to

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look at it, that like anything can kind of be overcome. Is there any move that you see that

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really just, it just like kind of scares you? I just want to know. It's just something I really

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want to know. I don't think so, no, because they're all so amazingly prepared. Like for example,

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when they get around these curve balls that happen every so often, like when suddenly like

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cracks start appearing, you know? Oh gosh, when there was, I don't know if you saw this one, but

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there was like a kind of jump into like a crack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen that set in

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local final balls, you know, that kind of thing. And you could look at that and think like,

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wow, that's a bit, yeah. But again, it's there and it's for people to choose whether they

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do it or not. And yeah, but they adapted within a handful of months. They'd become like masterful

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crack climbers. You know, they're just so adaptive and so amazing at what they do. And now with all

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the incredibly dynamic movements and the timing and the coordination and such that goes on,

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I think they can just see. And they also know what their bodies can do. They're quite a lot more

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aware, I feel, than say your standard climber of, you know, can I do that? No, I'm going to have to

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adapt it and try and, which is why you see them trying to work around things sometimes, isn't it?

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Because they almost don't want to do the version of it that they may be kind of getting funneled

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or forced into doing for whatever reason it might be. And sometimes that's just, yeah, it might feel

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like I've not got the ability to do that. Yeah, but no doubt, yeah, sorry, I haven't seen anything

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that I can think of at the minute that makes me, I'm sure someone somewhere will be able to come up

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with something or find something, send me a clip and I'll send you a video back of me going,

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oh, but yeah, because I couldn't, my shoulder, for example, could probably not deal with a lot of the

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moots and things, the giant leaps and stuff that they do. Yeah, but there's can. Yeah, I mean, I

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guess speaking of shoulders, so this is kind of like a, this is a personal thing for me. My shoulders

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have just been messed up for like years now. I can't even really like hang on one arm without

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pain at this point right now. And I see so many comp climbers landing like one arm dinos where

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they're just like flying back, hanging on one arm. And I desperately wish I could like rehab myself

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to get to that point again. How, I mean, they make it look so easy too. It's not even the

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like they're putting any strength into it. It just kind of looks like they're hanging off of it.

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Yeah. And I just, how do I get to that point where my shoulder isn't messed up so I can do that?

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So if we were both to break down what they're doing and also to look at what kind of a plan might look

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like for somebody. Yeah. And that's quite common. And that's also an example of people give quite

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often. They'll say, I can climb, but I can't hang one hand. And I really don't like the thought of

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going for a dynamic move and having to hit it. So it's something that they come across quite often.

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And really for me, why it looks effortless for them is because they're relaxed when they do it.

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So they're not already full of tension and movement. This is what we've said before about

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the difference with anxiety and why people don't get back to where they were going or where they

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previously were. Their timing is impeccable. And by that, I mean, as they hit the hold,

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it's at that dead point. This is where the term comes from, isn't it? Where they're not moving up,

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they're not moving down. They have that time and space to hold it. So the peak loads

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are shooting up there. Whereas perhaps when myself and yourself grab one of these holes,

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yeah, we'd sort of snatching for it. We've not got it quite so well. And there's a great big

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shock that comes through. We don't know how to control our body, like the scorpion kick,

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cobra kick, whatever you might want to call it, whatever. That's all about absorbing that energy

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and then bringing it back in, in a way that doesn't pull you off the wall. But I probably

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wouldn't do that. I'd just try and grab on as I could. And my solution to coming off would be to

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hold on harder rather than relaxing into it. So there's a look at the actual mechanics of what

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goes on and that needs to be understood. But then it's finding what the issue is with the shoulder,

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obviously, and there can be numerous things. It may be structural, there might be a joint issue

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going on. I could take a stab and if this is something that's been going on for quite some

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time, your words have messed up for years, which I would also address the use of the language there

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and say, come on, it's made, yeah. It turns so negative on yourself. I'm sure they're not,

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you know, that you're still able to do things with them. They're functional. And I find a lot

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of this, you address that underlying issue. So we might have a rotator cuff injury from a long time

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ago. And let's say for argument's sake, that was from trying to do a dyno and a Matt classic,

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oh, I've wrenched my shoulder. It didn't really like that kind of thing. There's a lot of muscles

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that insert into the shoulder and they all work in wonderful coordination to create movement and

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also to hold the ball and the socket nice and stable in the joint. If through injury, some of

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that is a bit totally non-technical turn out of whack. Yeah. That coordination has been affected.

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Things are not working how they should. So climbing on it is actually causing irritation.

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The body's great at protecting itself. Yeah. It will dial down the ability of a muscle to

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output force in order to protect itself. What the body's not so great at doing is bringing that

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muscle back into full use. The nervous system will kind of check in with the shoulder and go,

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is it okay? Yeah. Okay is good enough. It doesn't know you would really like to do a one-armed dyno.

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Yeah. It's like, are we under threat? No. Okay, then we're just going to leave the shoulder

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how it is. And you can correct that through strengthening. You can get your external

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rotation working, correct the shoulder. What's often missing at the end is that bringing it back

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into coordination in sport specific movements and patterns essentially. And that does two things.

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One is it tells the nervous system, we need this shoulder to work in this way, make that happen.

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Yeah. Bring everything back. And it also builds your confidence at the same time. So your movement

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patterns are natural and relaxed and how they should be, which gives you more head space with

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programming and such that rather than worrying about your shoulder. So often what gets missed,

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even if somebody's strengthened or healed, you're treated the underlying issue is that last part of

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bringing it back into a sport specific kind of environment, if you like. And that's where this

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further down the rehab you are, the more it should look like training, basically. Yeah.

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There could be drills, technique drills, strength drills, warm up recruitment work to do.

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I guess the hard part is kind of like when it comes to these more extreme moves where

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you're landing on one arm or you're like landing this intense move where you just get a lot of

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load, it's kind of hard to build up to it. It kind of seems like it's zero or a hundred in terms of

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like if you're going to land it or if you're going to be able to hold it or something like that.

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Yeah. And people don't, you might warm up, you might have climbed quite a bit in the session

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already on climbs of a different character, a different nature to them. And then you suddenly,

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you know, pew moves into this problem that maybe you've not looked at properly and you're like,

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oh wow, okay, big day, no. Or you may have chosen it to go to. Do warm that up. Yeah. You can

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go to find a bar, fingerboard with big jugs on it, that type of thing. Stand on a chair,

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drop your feet off the chair in a really nice controlled way. There's a thing I had called

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foot up catches, which if anybody's listening to this who's worked with me, we'll probably know.

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And it's a way of gradually shot loading either fingers, wrists, shoulders. So you go under a bar

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or a fingerboard, pull on it with feet on the floor. If you take roughly, because this is done

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by feel, half of your body weight through your arms and then you're going to be able to do a

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round and then pick your feet up off the floor quickly. You've just shot loaded in effect,

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your system with 50% of your body weight. That's a nice starting point and you can progress in

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there, depending on what your level is. I get people doing this, you know, single arm, sometimes

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single arm on an edge, sometimes on the bar. There's work you can do on a TRX, you know,

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rings where you're dynamically pulling yourself from catching yourself on the rings as you fall

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backwards, that type of thing, but done with feet on the floor, leaning backwards, you pick the angle,

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you pick how big the move is, all done by feel. There's jump and catching a bar that feels nice,

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scared. Jump and catch a bar and swing. Jump and catch the bar, swing, then come into a pull-up.

326
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Yeah, all this, it's just creating lots of, you know, you've got that, the move started to coordinate,

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catch, then swing through, then bring it under control and turn into a pull because that's what

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we do in climbing. So there's that, that's off the wall and then there's getting on the wall.

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If you're getting things like, yeah, on spray walls, symmetrical boards, that kind of thing,

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drills to be, it's a technique. You can't expect to just go, all right, I'm here, that hole's there,

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I've not really done much of this. Yeah, suddenly I'm going to be able to do like Yanja does it.

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You know, she does it how she does it because she's done it thousands of times.

333
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Yeah, actually, yeah, that makes sense. I didn't think about warming up in that way, but yeah,

334
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I should probably start doing that a little bit more.

335
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Yeah, or even partway through a session. I often see people, so pockets are quite an injury seam

336
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at the moment and an open-handed work and people will warm up. They might be pulling on edges,

337
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you know, other, and that kind of thing, warming up going through, but they've not pulled on pockets

338
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and they'll get halfway through a session and setters do have a bit of a habit of, it's like

339
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they find a pocket in the holes they're working with and then they go and they'll create a line

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of pockets. I don't know if it's just a UK thing. Yeah, they do. There's just like a theme, isn't

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there suddenly? And it's like, oh yeah. It's never just one.

342
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No, no, it's a bit of them. And so you'll go from, yeah, okay, you're quite warmed up,

343
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but not for pockets, which is a totally different mode coming through the fingers.

344
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And then suddenly you're expecting to be pulling quite hard on pockets. Yeah, go find the

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fingerboard, go do some hanging, you know, three finger, two finger, that kind of thing,

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warm it up, then go back and crush. Don't just jump on it.

347
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Yeah. And I guess I kind of wanted to touch on something that you had mentioned

348
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before we were doing this interview where you said that you think fingers are strong enough.

349
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Yeah. Yeah. There is now the ability to measure how hard somebody is pulling on a hold while

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they're doing the problem. We've got the gadgets now, technology, things that used to cost

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thousands now cost hundreds or less. It turned out, yeah, I was doing a

352
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workshop with some coaches a while ago and quite a while ago, he'd made something himself,

353
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like a good few years ago to see, he was actually using it for feats to see the

354
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weighting that was going on within his feet and it would get a live readback on a little screen.

355
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:11,280
Oh, interesting. This is like, you know, he's made it himself from some computer bits and all this kind of

356
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whereas now, yeah, you can get, you know, the force gauges that you can attach into a hold

357
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and look at and read. And what we see is that what people are able to, you know,

358
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these kind of feats of strength where somebody might be taking the middle bottom rung on the

359
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Beastmaker 2000, body weight, lock off, holding other, you know, weights in the hand and that

360
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kind of thing. So able to, you know, 70, 80, 90 kilos through one arm and not hitting anywhere

361
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near that when we're actually climbing. And so you definitely need to train

362
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beyond what you're going to experience in performance. Yeah, because if you've only

363
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trained to this level and performances at this level, your tissues are going to struggle with

364
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that and you will get injured. But yeah, so we definitely need to be a little stronger than we

365
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need to be. But as these are still just about the most commonly injured part of our body, then maybe

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we could afford them a little more space and not hammer them quite so hard and look at other

367
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aspects. It's also quite easy for everybody to think, I fell off. What feedback have I got? Well,

368
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my hands came off. If my hands were stronger, I would be able to stay on. And so we go down a

369
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line of only strum the fingers as opposed to thinking maybe it was my hip position. Maybe,

370
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yeah, I was hanging out at the hips and that pulled me off the wall. Did my foot slip, you know,

371
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whatever it might be, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we just go towards

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the fingers. I mean, I think people are going to want to know like a number of like,

373
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once I hit this, I can stop training my fingers. Oh my gosh. Right. No, that's a terrible question.

374
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No, no, I don't have a number in mind. So this is like, you know, deadlifting.

375
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We know this is beneficial for climbing, great overall body strength, exercise, we'll get triple

376
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extension, all of this kind of stuff that feeds into your, have to help your climbing. But where

377
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do you stop? Is a body weight deadlift okay? Do you need one and a half times? Do you need two times?

378
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Do you need two times? It's all quite individual and relative. And so, yeah, I'm not going to be

379
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able to say. But I would suggest for most people, you know, if you can hang body weight off a 20

380
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mil edge on one arm, yeah, you know, you're probably good. And the interesting thing then from that,

381
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and I say that a 20 mil edge, that won't necessarily relate to you being able to hold a 6 mil edge.

382
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:21,760
That's different. That's recruitment. That's contact strength. That's coordination of the

383
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:29,040
strength to be able to get in on a little edge. So you then train on a bigger edge, but then

384
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:36,480
climb and use small edges to gain the ability to use small edges. There's a lot more timing

385
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:43,280
and coordination involved on small edges as opposed to just the strength. So yeah, even within that,

386
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:49,040
it's always good. Yeah. Lots of gray areas, no straight answers. Sorry. Yeah, there's a lot of

387
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:54,720
nuance. I just know, yeah, I feel like people would want me to ask. So yeah, for sure. I've got to

388
00:40:54,720 --> 00:41:03,600
cover that. So back to the World Cup circuit real quick. I was thinking about some of the,

389
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:11,840
I guess, like PT things we see on World Cup climbers. I know in like commentary, people

390
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:19,440
have mentioned seeing like KT tape or those like metal stickers that some athletes wear. I still

391
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:24,720
don't really know what those are for. Or just like wearing ice packs all over their body or cupping

392
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:31,280
or stuff like that. Any of those, like, do you have thoughts on any of those things? If they're

393
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:39,520
helpful or not? Many thoughts. So please excuse this brief intermission, but if you're interested

394
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:44,880
in deleted scenes from this episode where he debunks another PT myth concerning push-pull

395
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:50,640
muscle imbalance and what training should look like for comp climbers, do consider helping support

396
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:56,800
this podcast on Patreon. Some other perks include a membership pin shipped to you after two months,

397
00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:02,640
prioritize guest questions or the ability to submit video questions and more to come. The

398
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:07,760
proceeds go back into the podcast to help me break even and they help me improve the experience of

399
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:12,640
the guests. If you'd like to help out non-monetarily, liking, commenting, and sharing

400
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:19,280
helps a great deal as well. Back to the show. We have to differentiate in some ways. It's a bit

401
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:26,240
like that when people try and follow the training plan of a World Cup climate. Yeah, it's not going

402
00:42:26,240 --> 00:42:32,720
to be suitable for them. And because they're, as well as pushing themselves super hard, probably

403
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:41,840
to a level beyond what most of us can, they're also after marginal gains. These marginal gains

404
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:49,440
are super important. So they will do things in their training. They will use things to give them

405
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:58,400
an extra 1% because they're already doing all the basics really well. They're getting enough sleep.

406
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:07,120
They're eating a good diet. They are not drinking too much alcohol. They've got that discipline. All

407
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:14,480
those foundational building blocks are there. And so if they've got an injury, they're already doing

408
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:20,080
all the things that I normally try and encourage most people to do actually. The biggest impact

409
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:28,560
you could have on your injury is not to be using KT tape or an ice pack. It's to make sure you get

410
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:32,720
enough calories and protein so your body can rebuild itself. It's to make sure you sleep so

411
00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:37,840
your body can rebuild itself. It's to make sure you stay off things that will affect your body's

412
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:48,080
ability to rebuild itself. So KT tape is an interesting one. It provides no support whatsoever

413
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:57,600
to a joint. You can stretch it. We're talking about how much force, how much pressure that

414
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:02,560
all these athletes are dealing with and these huge peak loads and that kind of thing. A bit

415
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:07,760
of stretchy bandage is not going to hold that shoulder together if their shoulders and liniments

416
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:18,160
and such aren't able to. But also interestingly, neither really does rigid tape. A PC might run

417
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:24,480
on a sports field and quickly tape somebody's ankle up and put that free rolls and tape around

418
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:30,640
it and build this almost like cast around the ankle. That provides support for about 20 minutes

419
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:36,800
and then it also then starts to slacken off because the forces are so huge that are going

420
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:44,880
through the body. What it does, they believe, is it draws the nervous system's attention to that area.

421
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:51,840
The nervous system is aware something funky is going on there. Let's give it a little

422
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:59,440
bit more attention. That's at the subconscious level. So essentially more brain computing power

423
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:05,280
is going towards looking after that ankle or shoulder now than it otherwise would have been.

424
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:14,560
That they believe has a positive effect. It doesn't matter what colour it is. It would appear,

425
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:20,640
it doesn't matter what pattern it's put on and that type of thing. Is it going to

426
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:28,080
physically protect that joint? No. Can it have a positive effect that means a re-injury or a

427
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:37,440
worsening of the injury that may otherwise have happened won't? Probably, yeah. There's no very

428
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:42,400
rare side effects to it. Sometimes some people are allergic to the glue in it, but that's easily

429
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:51,920
tested out. As long as they don't believe, oh, I can just carry on using my shoulder however I want

430
00:45:51,920 --> 00:46:04,560
now, then yeah, no side effects. All good. Ice, yeah, as an acute treatment is good.

431
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:09,600
Professional athletes would likely use that slightly differently than we would. They're

432
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:16,720
potentially using that as a way of numbing the signals that their body is trying to give their

433
00:46:16,720 --> 00:46:23,360
brain to say, hey, maybe you shouldn't be running around on this ankle. But they've got a game to

434
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,520
get through or they've got a competition to get through and that kind of thing and they'll deal

435
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:33,360
with it later. That's their decision-making process, not necessarily for us when we actually need to be

436
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:41,440
able to show up for work on Monday, that kind of thing. Yeah, different decisions for different

437
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:52,080
people really and all these, except for cupping, which I believe from having looked at literature,

438
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,480
et cetera, et cetera, can't find anything that says it actually does anything whatsoever. It's

439
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:02,000
just bruising yourself and I'm not sure why people would do that. I think it's a good thing

440
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:12,160
why people would do that. Okay. Okay. But there we go. Does it have a placebo effect? Yeah,

441
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:19,280
yeah, maybe. Is that correct to be having that placebo effect? As in, is it giving somebody some

442
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:23,920
false confidence that they otherwise shouldn't have? That would be bad. Is it making somebody

443
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:29,600
feel able to do something that they otherwise would have felt, oh no, I don't think I can do this?

444
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:37,120
And if that's appropriate, then that's okay. Sports teams and pro athletes will use massage

445
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:47,840
a lot. It doesn't do physiologically as much as most people think. Yes, it can move fluid and

446
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:55,120
blood around a bit and that type of thing, but not hugely, but does it make you feel an awful lot

447
00:47:55,120 --> 00:48:02,160
better? Yeah. Does it feel nice? Yeah, yeah. Is that priceless sometimes? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

448
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:08,720
I'm an advocate for it. One of the places where I work, they have a sports massage there and I will

449
00:48:08,720 --> 00:48:16,320
say, yeah, okay, yeah, go get that. Go make that feel nice. Yeah, that can be priceless because

450
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:21,280
then somebody feels like, oh, I can use this. I want to use it. This is okay. I was shying away

451
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:26,240
from it before. And so for pro athletes, yeah, in sports teams and things, they will have

452
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:32,720
full-time employed masseurs, won't they? Yeah. Yeah, because it can make the difference between

453
00:48:32,720 --> 00:48:39,520
them feeling like they don't want to play that day to be in like the camp. And what about the

454
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:46,960
medal stickers? I never got a clear answer listening to the commentary on what it is

455
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:55,600
or what it's supposed to do. Yeah, I don't know is the only answer. I have heard and seen and thought,

456
00:48:55,600 --> 00:49:05,600
hmm, right. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. Maybe I got to ask a Japan... Yeah, yeah. I have seen from

457
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:14,560
a patient in a previous role I had, it was a neurological physiotherapist for quite some time,

458
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:25,600
and she used to buy these little metal stickers that she would have one on the nape of her neck

459
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:30,400
at the back there. And I forget where she had the other one. And they would last sort of like two

460
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:36,800
or three months. And it was some traditional medicine thing from, yeah, Asian country.

461
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:41,200
This is all swirling around in the back of my head now. I can't quite exactly remember where.

462
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:47,840
They were quite expensive, but she swore by them and they didn't appear to be having any side effects.

463
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:51,840
Yeah. No, in terms of, right, I'm going to make a note,

464
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:58,960
metal stickers. I'm going to find out. So yeah, I guess the moral of the story is kind of like

465
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:07,200
for the average person, just the basics are very important. But then when we're watching

466
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:12,640
what people are doing on the big screen or in competitions and we're kind of seeing them do

467
00:50:14,720 --> 00:50:19,600
it's not necessarily something that you should be doing. They're just doing it because they really

468
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:26,560
need to at that moment. Yeah, yeah. And if you've got a sore shoulder as well, don't think, oh,

469
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:31,840
they've got a sore shoulder and they're doing that. That's likely the thing that will help me.

470
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:36,960
Yeah. Because yeah, as I say, they will have all the basics done. They will have been doing all the

471
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:44,000
basics for years. Yeah. And you're likely still going to climb after work, finishing late,

472
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:49,600
rushing down a hurried meal on your way home. Yeah. Getting back home, getting self-sorted

473
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:53,760
the next day, not getting enough sleep, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of that.

474
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:59,520
Okay. That's a good thing to keep in mind. So that kind of leads me into, I guess, like other

475
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:06,080
PT myths that you have. Right. Do you want to go into some of those? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I love

476
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:16,160
talking about that. I don't mind talking, but education, I think is really powerful and really

477
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:24,240
important. And my big one at the moment is about aging. And I'm getting patients coming to me saying,

478
00:51:24,240 --> 00:51:31,120
oh, well, of course, I can't boulder how I used to because I'm in my thirties now. And I'm like,

479
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:39,280
what? Why? What happens in your thirties? You're still really young in your prime.

480
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:47,520
Yeah. And now I'm aware, yes, aging happens and it affects everybody differently. So these are

481
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:57,280
generalized statements, but there's quite some information that gets rehashed quite often is this

482
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:05,440
that you start losing muscle mass from when you're in your thirties. And so you're in a decline,

483
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:11,840
you've peaked. That's it. You're done for. It's all downhill from here. And those are in themselves.

484
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:18,560
There are studies done on the general population, the vast majority of whom don't meet the health

485
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:25,680
recommendations for that, the cardio, strength, this and the other. So already by being active

486
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:35,200
people, we're way ahead of the game. Yeah. And yes, that does start to happen, but it's not a genetic

487
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:44,320
thing or a physiological thing. It's thought now to be a lifestyle thing. So what happens in your

488
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:51,040
twenties, people tend to have more spare time in order to do things that they wish to do. And they

489
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:57,200
often happen to be physical as you get into your thirties. And again, this is generalized to the

490
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:02,400
general population. There are many people who won't do these things, but this is, say, for the

491
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:11,280
general population. They tend to find a partner, have a family of some sort, get a proper job,

492
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:18,080
a career that comes with stress and that type of thing. A commute probably rather than just working

493
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:22,880
in the bar that was just down the street because that's all you needed to do at that time. And all

494
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:30,080
that eats into your time and your energy reserves. And so it's small behavior changes where instead

495
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:38,240
of being active three times a week, you're now only active twice a week. That's the difference

496
00:53:38,240 --> 00:53:43,520
that starts to happen. And then you get into your forties and your fifties and maybe responsibility

497
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:48,640
at work is getting on. Maybe now your children are teenagers and they're taking up quite a

498
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:57,280
lot of your time, shall we say. Then you can get into your fifties. I nearly am now. And I'm spending

499
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:06,400
quite a bit of time looking after my parents now, which I don't begrudge. But life gets more

500
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:12,880
complicated. Often the older you get as well. But it's been shown many times as well that you can

501
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:18,800
keep what you've got really quite easily. That it isn't an inevitable decline.

502
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:26,880
And it's not so much about aging, I suppose, but the story that you said,

503
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:32,320
these have been, our shoulders have been annoying me for ages. People will be like, I've got sore

504
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:40,240
knees. When I go walking in the mountains, my knees are really sore. So I should not go walking

505
00:54:40,240 --> 00:54:47,680
in the mountains anymore rather than let's get those legs strong enough and robust enough.

506
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:53,920
And certainly in the UK, that is often, not always, but often a story that people will go and see their

507
00:54:53,920 --> 00:55:02,160
doctor and say, it hurts when I do this. And it's almost kind of a joke response is that, well,

508
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:10,240
stop doing that then and then it won't hurt. And that's the solution. So people's activities

509
00:55:10,240 --> 00:55:18,720
and such that get taken away from them and their opportunities to be active. And it's not both

510
00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:24,720
from the aging point of view and the rehab point of view is just, yeah, there's pretty much always

511
00:55:24,720 --> 00:55:31,040
solution that we shouldn't stop fence. Do you feel like that's even the case in the comp scene?

512
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:35,920
Because I mean, we definitely see these are really high level athletes. They're definitely

513
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:41,680
very active and probably, well, I guess you can't say that they all have access to like a

514
00:55:42,240 --> 00:55:48,160
good like doctor or PT or something like that. But a lot of them definitely do have access,

515
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:53,920
but they still, I don't know, once they hit around the 30 mark or even like late 20s,

516
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:57,920
they're kind of starting to think about like, oh, I probably can't do this for much longer.

517
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:07,520
Yeah. And so why do those people, sometimes it's mental burnout, competition is stressful,

518
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:13,680
the travel, the time it takes you away from your family and maybe in your late 20s, 30s or whatever,

519
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:17,680
again, looking at this general population thing, maybe you've got a family now and you're not

520
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:22,320
enjoying being away from them. Whereas when you were young and single, it was super exciting to

521
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:28,000
go travel in the world and that kind of thing. But now you're fed up of the 10th year of just being

522
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:33,440
in a hotel for 48 hours, doing the competition and going back home and lots of, yeah, that type of

523
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:40,080
thing. Or yeah, the physical side of things, but what they put themselves through is greatly

524
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:46,560
different to what we put ourselves through. The amount of training, the amount of volume,

525
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:55,520
they truly are pushing their body to the end of its limits. And so yeah, that can take its toll,

526
00:56:55,520 --> 00:57:03,440
both physically and mentally. Then there are the sort of the outliers, aren't they? The people that

527
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:10,400
are competing for years and years. I know one of the guys who's set in the UK, Dave Barons, I think

528
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:16,640
he was on the World Cup circuit for something silly, like 18 years or something like that.

529
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:23,280
Yeah, anyway, yeah, there are people that can keep doing it. They absolutely love it and the body

530
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:29,200
holds up. Every sport has these people that just seem to be good. But then if you look at who's

531
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:36,560
performing really well outdoors, then there's still lots of people in their 30s and their 40s.

532
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:42,320
But you know, Sean is not doing too badly at the moment, is he? To me, just observationally,

533
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:49,920
it seems like outdoors, you can kind of keep doing that forever, pretty much. Yeah, you hear some

534
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:56,800
incredible feats outdoors from people who are much older, and it seems to work fine. And the

535
00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:05,760
competition scene, it just doesn't seem as easy to still be competitive once you're past a certain

536
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:14,800
age, and more so in bouldering compared to lead as well. Yeah, and there can be numerous reasons.

537
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:23,920
Yes, I don't feel actually it's going to be the genetic sort of like, oh, you are now 30.

538
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:31,680
I feel it's more the cumulation of what you've potentially been doing for the last 20 years

539
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:37,440
and the effect that has on the body and the mind and your psyche, your determination.

540
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:41,280
Lots of people, when you hear sports, people talk about retiring and they say,

541
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:47,520
I just knew it was the right time for me to go. I was still performing okay and that kind of thing,

542
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:55,040
but I'm just like, I've not got the psyche to do this anymore. And it is really tough. It must be

543
00:58:55,040 --> 00:59:02,640
really, really hard competing the stress. And I'm sure they love it in equal measure, but everything

544
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:09,120
that goes on and everything I have to do. So yeah, who's probably the oldest? Jakob Schubert?

545
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:15,360
Apologies in advance to him if he's not the oldest, and I just called him out for being old,

546
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:21,600
because he's not old, but he's maybe old compared to his contemporaries.

547
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:25,280
Definitely up there. I mean like, Jai and Cam obviously.

548
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:32,480
Yeah, yeah. Still absolutely, but yeah, I was absolutely smashing it. Yeah, and just seems to

549
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:41,360
have been around forever. I can remember watching them when things sort of found their way onto the

550
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:48,560
internet and you could be watching some grainy footage of a competition from somewhere. Yeah,

551
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:58,480
yeah, amazing. But I think maybe we're not, it's only been structured and seen as a career

552
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:04,720
in some ways. We're a relatively short time, hasn't it? I think there's still really very few

553
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:13,120
professional climbers who earn their money. I mean, do any of them earn their money just from

554
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:22,640
the competition scene? Likely. No, no, yeah. Not a chance, I would have thought. Yeah, the competition,

555
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:31,280
the money's not that unprimely and such, is it? It's all about influence and such. But yeah,

556
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:38,720
but it's just not being there as a long-term career that people might do. So it would be

557
01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:42,880
interesting to see, I think we're going to really have to say, well, maybe let's wait another five,

558
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:47,840
10 years before we can start seeing what happens to people, what are the patterns that are forming,

559
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:56,000
go for competitions, what is the average age for leaving and the reasons why. Yeah, true.

560
01:00:56,000 --> 01:01:00,960
And then the true reasons why, because many people in their retire will announce they're retiring for

561
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:05,920
this reason, that reason, or actually there might be a reason behind it seems.

562
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:12,960
Is there, because I feel like I've heard of it before, but like any research about like

563
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:18,400
power or like speed in particular in aging, because I feel like you can keep the strength,

564
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:26,480
but maybe like the recruitment is not so fast. Certainly there's a link to that and aging.

565
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:37,760
There's a fair body of evidence that says that's kind of the first thing to start going. But we

566
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:45,600
also know, and this is how competitors keep going in different sports. And what I expect to start

567
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:54,640
seeing in climbing is your tactics get better, your mindset gets better, you're able to, if it's a

568
01:01:54,640 --> 01:02:00,240
team sport or what have you, or even in individual, but you're able to read the game better and be

569
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:04,960
where you need to be before the other players have figured out what's going on. So although you might

570
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:12,800
not be as fast, you're still in the right places at the right times. Now for something like climbing,

571
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:18,880
yeah, and as you say, particularly bouldering. I think that's a really interesting question.

572
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:27,040
I know we hold on to what we have a lot better than people think. Again, going back to what I

573
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:34,080
was saying about aging, it's not just this that will happen at this age. Yeah, I don't know of any

574
01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:40,320
actual studies relating that to, because most of the power type sports and that type of thing that

575
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:48,240
we think of and the research within that will also be lower limb based. Which can be quite

576
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:53,120
different. That's another one I'm going to make a note of. Come back with any information and I'll

577
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:58,800
put it in the description and people can follow up on that. Do you want to go into, I know you had

578
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:02,960
mentioned a couple of other myths. I also know that I just want to keep an eye on the time.

579
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:10,160
Yeah, I guess if we're going to look at one other myth, it would be that that injury that happened

580
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:19,040
to you that night was caused that night. There's been some recent research now coming into climates,

581
01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:25,920
good quality. There's a lot that's not great quality, but some really good stuff. It's a bit

582
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:31,600
of a shame because we've got as a relatively new sport that's getting new research into it. We've

583
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:36,800
got the opportunity to learn from all of the mistakes that other sports have made. And not

584
01:03:36,800 --> 01:03:42,320
necessarily mistakes, but just almost like admin errors where they don't define a variable

585
01:03:43,520 --> 01:03:49,360
accurately. Anybody else who's doing some research in that area, you can compare the results.

586
01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:55,760
It'd be nice to think we'd do that, but we're not doing. We're getting lots of research that might

587
01:03:55,760 --> 01:04:00,880
all be in the same area, but when you try and compare them, you can't. It's apples and pears,

588
01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:06,240
basically. You can't do these comparisons. But where we do have some really good results,

589
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:13,680
some really good research is into the fact that, and this staggered me, is that up to 94%

590
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:23,440
of injuries in climbing are chronic injuries, not acute. So that overuse, overload, under recovery,

591
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:29,600
whatever else you might want to think of it as. So pulley injuries being the most common,

592
01:04:29,600 --> 01:04:35,120
that people think, I was trying that problem, I didn't warm up properly, I tried it too many

593
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:43,120
times that night. It was that move. Actually, unless there was a whole break, a foot pop,

594
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:50,640
and an opening of the hand under unexpected shot load, the pulleys should be able to deal with

595
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:56,320
us pulling on them as hard as we can. If the pulley's in good order, it should be able to

596
01:04:56,320 --> 01:05:02,880
deal with pretty much whatever we throw at it. There is often, when you look back and talk to

597
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:08,240
somebody about the six to eight weeks previously, they'll be like, oh yeah, I have been pushing it

598
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:13,280
hard. I've been training, got Tripp coming up, got this project, whatever. Yeah, they'll have

599
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:19,440
stepped something up or vice versa. Yeah, I've kept my training and everything the same, but life's

600
01:05:19,440 --> 01:05:24,640
got really busy at work, big project on at work, or got some family stress going on at the moment,

601
01:05:24,640 --> 01:05:35,120
and that kind of thing. Yeah, 94% of injuries in climbing are overuse based, including a lot of

602
01:05:35,120 --> 01:05:42,800
the ones that we think aren't. It really is about just keeping an eye. I encourage people I work

603
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:49,200
with to have a weekly check-in with themselves. I don't mean like have a word with yourself,

604
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:55,280
so it's off out, but just a quick top to toe. Maybe that too. Yeah, if I have you a good idea.

605
01:05:55,280 --> 01:06:00,800
A quick top to toe is like, how am I feeling? It's like, all right, yeah, yeah, you're a bit

606
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:04,000
of a niggle in my life. You'll pop out in your training diary, make a note on your phone or

607
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:14,400
something. Next week when you have your check-in, that's still there. Third week, ah, it's still

608
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:21,520
there. I need to give this some attention, because what often happens with injuries is

609
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:29,440
with the benefit of hindsight, people will go, oh, that's what it was. Yeah, I saw that.

610
01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:34,560
I did have a little bit of, I remember last week, it was just a bit sore after I was climbing.

611
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:39,600
A lot of the time, injuries don't shout that they're coming. They don't send you a

612
01:06:39,600 --> 01:06:45,520
letter. They don't say, I will be arriving. They don't shout at you to say, this is going to happen.

613
01:06:45,520 --> 01:06:52,240
It's a whisper. It's a very small whisper. Yeah, and we miss the signs because of that. It's really

614
01:06:52,240 --> 01:06:59,440
easy too. So just this little check-in every week is five minutes of just what bits are a bit sore.

615
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:04,720
Yeah, and bits do get sore, but if it's only sore for a week and then it goes,

616
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:11,360
that happens, doesn't it? We get niggles. But if it's hanging around for a while, then it's

617
01:07:11,360 --> 01:07:15,680
like it's being an injury and it needs cooking up. Well, thank you for sharing those myths.

618
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:22,720
Hopefully we can spread the word. But yeah, you mentioned that you want to go into some of

619
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:29,360
the current research out there between male and female climbers. Yeah, I'm definitely really

620
01:07:29,360 --> 01:07:33,600
interested in that as well. So yeah, what are some of the issues that they did research on?

621
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:39,680
Yeah, and this is one of the areas where, although I said before that in some ways climbing isn't

622
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:44,080
doing itself any favours in the research world because everybody's researching it, but we're all

623
01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:54,160
doing it separately and it's not comparable. But there are some people, one unfortunate enough to

624
01:07:54,720 --> 01:08:03,520
know and call a friend, Gudmund Grunhaug, who's from Norway. He's a full-time researcher in climbers

625
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:10,640
and absolutely fantastic that we've got people like that looking into it. He does a lot of

626
01:08:10,640 --> 01:08:14,960
qualitative research or a lot of kind of like questionnaires to people, that type of thing,

627
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:19,920
asking about injury and this or that. And then within that, he's able to differentiate, he's able

628
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:27,840
to get the message out there and to get comparisons between male and female or just do female specific

629
01:08:27,840 --> 01:08:35,280
research. And I'm aware that the terms are a little interchangeable, men, women, female, male,

630
01:08:35,280 --> 01:08:43,440
that type of thing, which can be quite rightly a sensitive issue. Now, my sort of rule for this is

631
01:08:43,440 --> 01:08:49,280
I use the language that's been decided on within the research paper. They have decided how they're

632
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:54,720
going to categorise people within that and within research. Again, I stick with that.

633
01:08:54,720 --> 01:09:00,640
So, yeah, two really, really good papers that he's done. One in particular was,

634
01:09:02,320 --> 01:09:12,000
it was called, the main title is called Painfully Ignorant. And it was a female only. And looking at

635
01:09:14,400 --> 01:09:23,360
elite IFSC competitors, asking them about their injury history, how often they get injured.

636
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:31,600
And then there was almost an incidental question within it around eating. And I've made a couple

637
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:38,720
of notes to make sure I'll get the numbers right. 32% of those questions, I think there was a couple

638
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:46,160
of hundred who answered the questionnaire, felt that they had disordered eating of some sort.

639
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:47,680
It's a lot.

640
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:53,840
Yeah. And that's people who are prepared to admit it, although it was an anonymous questionnaire.

641
01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:54,400
True.

642
01:09:54,400 --> 01:09:59,920
And people who are aware enough themselves that they have that, that aren't in denial,

643
01:09:59,920 --> 01:10:05,760
that aren't even aware that what they're doing is it might be some form of disordered eating.

644
01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:16,000
And that doubled the people within disordered eating. It doubled your

645
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:23,360
chance of injury. Yeah. If that makes sense. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that you,

646
01:10:24,880 --> 01:10:28,960
it's one of those statistical things within research. It's not actually that hugely

647
01:10:28,960 --> 01:10:33,440
significant. It's like saying something is doubled, but it's gone from one to two.

648
01:10:33,440 --> 01:10:33,920
Sure.

649
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:38,400
Yeah. It's not huge numbers wise and that kind of thing. So it's not necessarily,

650
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:46,800
yeah, a huge correlation there. But I thought, yeah, really, really interesting. So that one,

651
01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:54,880
I was just talking about, about the IFSC climbers was called top of the podium at what cost.

652
01:10:54,880 --> 01:10:59,840
And the second one is painfully ignorant. And that was looking at the impact of gender

653
01:10:59,840 --> 01:11:06,080
and training on injury in climbing. Looking at the fact that we all climb at the same time,

654
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:13,680
looking at the fact that we all climb the same routes. Yeah. And are there any significant

655
01:11:13,680 --> 01:11:20,800
differences between injury rates, injury types between the genders? And again, that showed

656
01:11:20,800 --> 01:11:27,200
shoulders a different population. So this wasn't IFSC climbers again. Yeah. This was like general

657
01:11:27,200 --> 01:11:34,640
climbers. But again, yeah, shoulders came out top for women, whereas for men, it was still

658
01:11:34,640 --> 01:11:38,560
significantly fingers. And then-

659
01:11:38,560 --> 01:11:42,240
Do you mean like just in terms of injury rates or-

660
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:50,640
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Precisely. Yeah. So for women, shoulders, 35% of them reported a shoulder injury

661
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:58,640
and for men, it was 21%. So a big difference there. Whereas for men, fingers is 43%. And

662
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:08,160
for women, it's 33%. So the shoulders and fingers, that's 35% for shoulders and 33% for fingers,

663
01:12:08,160 --> 01:12:15,200
very close. But it's the first time we've seen this, all previous research has just been fingers,

664
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:20,640
fingers, fingers, fingers, fingers. And then just suddenly, since this is 2024, this peak,

665
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:26,560
since this change in setting that we were talking about earlier, we're now getting shoulders. And

666
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:34,160
an increase in knees, their ankles, that type of thing that's well from falling more. Yeah,

667
01:12:34,160 --> 01:12:39,920
it comes back to what we were saying before really about movement, different movement patterns,

668
01:12:39,920 --> 01:12:46,240
rotational forces, higher peak loads, bigger moves, jumps, more one-armed stuff, that kind of

669
01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:59,840
thing. And although there are female problems and routes, male problems and routes, in general

670
01:12:59,840 --> 01:13:07,600
training, everybody climbs the same stuff. So these IFSC climbers, when they go to Innsbruck

671
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:12,080
to train, it's not, these are the women's routes, these are the men's routes. And then that feeds

672
01:13:12,080 --> 01:13:21,680
in, not only has there been this change, and as we know, generally speaking, men have more muscle

673
01:13:21,680 --> 01:13:29,360
mass, yeah, more of that up top. Whereas it's the other way around, generally speaking, for females.

674
01:13:29,360 --> 01:13:34,720
So potentially their shoulders could be a little bit more susceptible anyway, just genetically.

675
01:13:34,720 --> 01:13:42,080
But when you're training, you're training on generic routes that everybody, and the vast majority

676
01:13:42,080 --> 01:13:50,640
of setters are men. And so there will be likely a slight reach, you are more likely to be shorter

677
01:13:50,640 --> 01:13:56,640
as a female, you're more likely to be taller as a mate, than not. Nobody's doing it on purpose,

678
01:13:56,640 --> 01:14:04,240
but maybe more thought might need to be given. Have you ever, have you ever been to a climber

679
01:14:04,240 --> 01:14:12,320
that followed or seen Kimbrough climbs? I have. Yeah. Not too familiar though.

680
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:18,240
Right. He's the philosophy professor who's also like super keen climber,

681
01:14:19,280 --> 01:14:24,640
guidebook writer, that kind of thing, real climbing activist. But I think he's also quite tall.

682
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:32,320
But his whole thing is about personal grades, is that you cannot for a minute say that like,

683
01:14:32,320 --> 01:14:38,720
you know, some boulder problem that's famous for having a great big span on it is going to be the

684
01:14:38,720 --> 01:14:43,040
same grade for somebody who's five foot tall than it is for somebody who's six foot tall.

685
01:14:43,040 --> 01:14:48,480
And so why are we, yeah, a slight digression for what we're talking about here in comp climbing,

686
01:14:48,480 --> 01:14:53,920
but it's, yeah, it's really interesting, yeah. Really interesting way of looking at things.

687
01:14:53,920 --> 01:15:01,840
Interestingly though, in both of those studies, females were not getting injured more than

688
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:10,240
men. Just differently. Yeah, just differently. And it didn't appear to be of a greater severity either.

689
01:15:11,120 --> 01:15:15,440
Based on those results, like what do you take away from that? Like, what do you think is the

690
01:15:15,440 --> 01:15:25,200
learning there? Well, as I sort of suggested, and it is only a suggestion, perhaps the, you know,

691
01:15:25,200 --> 01:15:32,160
you know, the generalized genetic makeup, female versus male, might make females more susceptible

692
01:15:32,160 --> 01:15:38,160
to this type of thing with the modern style of setting. Is the modern style of setting going to

693
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:43,280
change? There's no sign of that happening. So people are going to have to adapt and so

694
01:15:43,280 --> 01:15:48,160
strength, more strength and conditioning work for the shoulders. But we also doubt,

695
01:15:48,160 --> 01:15:56,640
well, I was going to say probably not at the elite level, but maybe the facilities are often not there

696
01:15:56,640 --> 01:16:02,800
for female athletes. The spaces where you go to strengthen and condition, you know, train and that

697
01:16:02,800 --> 01:16:09,440
kind of thing, are not very welcome often for female athletes and that type of thing. So there's

698
01:16:09,440 --> 01:16:14,960
historical barriers there and that might be what we're seeing now. So in football, for example,

699
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:21,680
they feel that in soccer, a lot of the knee injuries that are happening to the professional

700
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:29,760
women's soccer players, like loans of them, you know, there's absolutely loads of them. And

701
01:16:30,800 --> 01:16:36,880
there's various things they're looking at, one of which is as they were growing, they didn't have

702
01:16:36,880 --> 01:16:45,200
access to strength and conditioning. So whereas the boys at the end of a training session might be

703
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:50,800
encouraged or would go off to the gym and do some strength work and that kind of thing, it wasn't

704
01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:57,920
when these girls, these now women were girls like 15 years ago, society just wasn't thinking, oh,

705
01:16:57,920 --> 01:17:04,800
we need to get them in the gym. So as the boys grew into men and went through puberty whilst doing

706
01:17:04,800 --> 01:17:10,720
weights, they grew that kind of a body, their body responded to that and they missed out on that.

707
01:17:11,840 --> 01:17:19,520
And one level below the women's soccer elite, they've got the nutrition advice, they've got

708
01:17:19,520 --> 01:17:23,280
the weight training, they've got the strength and conditioning experts, they've got all that.

709
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:28,080
You go a level below that because the money's not really in the game, it's there in the top level,

710
01:17:28,080 --> 01:17:33,360
not below. They don't have the strength and conditioning. So when these players come up

711
01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:40,640
through the ranics, they don't get that kind of input until the very top. And it'd be interesting,

712
01:17:40,640 --> 01:17:52,880
I think that there's facilities now, but there are societal norms, expectations, just, yeah,

713
01:17:52,880 --> 01:17:59,600
behaviours that decide about encouraging women to get into strength and conditioning.

714
01:17:59,600 --> 01:18:05,280
Good to keep in mind. I also definitely wanted to touch on this. This was like one of the

715
01:18:05,280 --> 01:18:12,160
discord questions that had come in as well. Have you seen any research out there about

716
01:18:12,160 --> 01:18:16,080
how a female athlete's menstrual cycle affects their strength and injury rate?

717
01:18:16,080 --> 01:18:23,040
It's going to be another grey area, it depends, answer from me. What we do have now, I'll probably

718
01:18:23,040 --> 01:18:31,440
provide a few links to what I feel are good quality resources on this that are also easy

719
01:18:31,440 --> 01:18:37,680
to follow. So people are out there doing the research, some super professional, amazing

720
01:18:37,680 --> 01:18:44,320
researchers who are also putting it into practice, but then putting it out on insta. So it's nice,

721
01:18:44,320 --> 01:18:48,880
easy, yeah, it's not going to be sending people dense research papers and that type of thing.

722
01:18:48,880 --> 01:18:59,920
And the answer does seem to be, it depends. You can't foresee that your cycle will definitely

723
01:18:59,920 --> 01:19:07,600
do this. It may change from month to month in how it affects you. The length of cycle, etc.,

724
01:19:08,400 --> 01:19:13,520
may change from month to month, so you may not be able to plan. It's all so irregular

725
01:19:13,520 --> 01:19:20,720
that it's incredibly hard to figure out. But you certainly can't say as a population,

726
01:19:20,720 --> 01:19:25,840
this is what will happen to you through your cycle. It's incredibly individual, same as when

727
01:19:25,840 --> 01:19:32,720
it comes to menopause and post-menopause, very menopause, hugely individual experience.

728
01:19:32,720 --> 01:19:38,560
And so it's about tracking for you. So yeah, track your cycle. There are

729
01:19:38,560 --> 01:19:44,720
there's apps out there and Sequence is a climbing training app that I like. I have no

730
01:19:45,520 --> 01:19:51,200
affiliation with them at the moment. But within that, they're the first one I've seen. It's

731
01:19:51,200 --> 01:19:56,640
actually built in a menstrual cycle tracker into a climbing training app. Yeah, I think it's great,

732
01:19:56,640 --> 01:20:02,640
especially as it's run by two guys, I hope they don't mind me saying, yeah, the computer nerd

733
01:20:02,640 --> 01:20:08,800
guys. So brilliant that this message is getting out there enough that people are thinking this is

734
01:20:08,800 --> 01:20:16,000
needed. And so to see if there is a general pattern that follows for you. And yes, then

735
01:20:16,000 --> 01:20:23,600
there is some basis of thinking that you may feel less confident at certain points. You may be

736
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:29,440
better off doing some strength training at a certain point. And so you may be able to

737
01:20:29,440 --> 01:20:36,640
do some strength training at a certain point or some physical and some aerobic fitness training

738
01:20:36,640 --> 01:20:42,320
at some point, or you might need more carbs at a certain point, this type of thing. But it's not

739
01:20:42,320 --> 01:20:49,680
written in stone. And I say to people, imagine if you know that every Friday is a really busy

740
01:20:49,680 --> 01:20:54,400
day at work. Yeah. And you could never be able to go and climb it after all you finish too late to

741
01:20:54,400 --> 01:21:02,320
go climbing, for example. But if you don't have your stuff in your car for after work, yeah,

742
01:21:02,320 --> 01:21:08,080
who knows? Like every so often a Friday might not be busy. And then you just miss out, don't you,

743
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:15,200
if you've not prepared for the fact that it might not be. And so it's more about checking in with

744
01:21:15,200 --> 01:21:25,280
how you are at that time on that day and responding to that and not feeling bad about doing that,

745
01:21:25,280 --> 01:21:30,800
if that makes sense. If you've got to change your plans around something or whatever, that's fine.

746
01:21:30,800 --> 01:21:34,400
That's what your body's telling you. If that's what your body needs to do that day, then

747
01:21:34,960 --> 01:21:39,840
that's what needs to happen. Yeah. I mean, I guess in terms of like the injury risk,

748
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:50,080
was there like a certain, I don't know, time? So yeah, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that's still muddy,

749
01:21:50,080 --> 01:21:56,000
partly because a lot of the research hasn't been of great quality and the reason to great deal of

750
01:21:56,000 --> 01:22:02,560
it, it's coming through now. One of the best ones I've seen was done by the women's at the

751
01:22:02,560 --> 01:22:09,760
soccer, the football association in the UK, where they looked at from youth football all the way

752
01:22:09,760 --> 01:22:18,000
through to the women's premier league. And there's like many, many hundreds of female footballers

753
01:22:19,040 --> 01:22:24,400
and tracked blah, blah, blah, that they sat and looked at the injury rates. There wasn't really a

754
01:22:24,400 --> 01:22:32,960
hugely clear pattern apart from when they were late for their period. So if you're expecting your

755
01:22:32,960 --> 01:22:39,760
period and it's late, that is definitely, but that's a big word to use in research. That is

756
01:22:39,760 --> 01:22:45,600
something that you should give some consideration to. Yeah. There was a definite spike. Yeah. At

757
01:22:45,600 --> 01:22:54,880
that point, more than anything else. Yeah. That was the one thing that really came out of that.

758
01:22:54,880 --> 01:23:05,280
But this idea, I know people like Lattice, they're sort of like messaging when this first started

759
01:23:05,280 --> 01:23:09,040
becoming like, oh gosh, we need to look at this. This is a thing. How can we have overlooked this?

760
01:23:09,040 --> 01:23:18,000
51% of the population is female. A lot of women climb. What are we doing? And so the big messages

761
01:23:18,000 --> 01:23:23,760
that were coming out was almost like, you will feel this in week one. You will feel this in week

762
01:23:23,760 --> 01:23:30,160
two. You will feel this in week three. And as we've learned more and they've learned,

763
01:23:30,160 --> 01:23:37,200
they're messaging now, Liz, and they've got some good output and it's on their websites and their

764
01:23:37,200 --> 01:23:45,360
social media. You can go and have a look and it will be like, this may be what's going to happen

765
01:23:45,360 --> 01:23:51,200
or this might be how you feel or it's likely that you may feel like this at this time. Yeah. And

766
01:23:51,200 --> 01:23:57,360
that kind of thing. But yeah, again, their advice is track. Find out what happens with you because

767
01:23:57,360 --> 01:24:06,080
not everybody's different. And then don't plan for, but don't expect that to happen every month.

768
01:24:06,080 --> 01:24:14,320
Yeah, I think that's a pretty pivotal part of it. But with those watches that track your vitals and

769
01:24:14,320 --> 01:24:21,920
stuff like that, or if it tracks your sleep, I think sometimes it will tell you that you slept

770
01:24:21,920 --> 01:24:31,840
poorly. And so then you go about your day acting like you. Yeah. Yeah. And so then I just had to

771
01:24:31,840 --> 01:24:37,600
stop doing that because I was like, okay, maybe I did sleep poorly, but then it telling me that I

772
01:24:37,600 --> 01:24:42,160
slept poorly just makes me feel even worse. So it's not really helping. And there's been,

773
01:24:43,680 --> 01:24:48,160
yes, yeah, absolutely. And that's definitely seems to be a thing, doesn't it? We get told

774
01:24:48,160 --> 01:24:53,360
this objective information and we're like, oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So therefore this is how I'm

775
01:24:53,360 --> 01:24:59,680
going to be today. But yeah, the information side of things can be fantastic. There's also some

776
01:24:59,680 --> 01:25:09,360
research I found as an aside once looking at, so athletes who were really well-educated and knew

777
01:25:09,360 --> 01:25:16,320
that they needed a certain duvet or a certain room temperature and a certain mattress type in order

778
01:25:16,320 --> 01:25:21,360
to get their best night's sleep in order to perform up. And these are those marginal gains that these

779
01:25:21,360 --> 01:25:26,080
teams and athletes and stuff go for. What happens if they don't get that because they're in a

780
01:25:26,080 --> 01:25:32,480
competition in some country they've never been to and they've not been able to arrange that.

781
01:25:32,480 --> 01:25:38,080
And the teams that don't either know that or don't have the ability to have that. So they just get in

782
01:25:38,080 --> 01:25:44,400
on doing it. They don't mind, but these other teams can fall to pieces because they've not got

783
01:25:44,960 --> 01:25:49,600
all of these things that they feel they need or that should happen. And without that, then I'm

784
01:25:49,600 --> 01:25:55,200
not going to be able to do this. Yeah. There's an awful lot of auto-regulation of checking in with

785
01:25:55,200 --> 01:26:03,200
yourself. And it's hard, but you've got to learn to do it. Yeah. I was just thinking, because also

786
01:26:03,200 --> 01:26:08,720
part of the question they mentioned when Yanya said that she had won most of her medals while

787
01:26:08,720 --> 01:26:15,200
on her period. So it's kind of like, I guess sometimes you just need to ignore it and

788
01:26:16,160 --> 01:26:21,600
maybe it'll be fine. Well, what choice did she have? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, if that's when it's

789
01:26:21,600 --> 01:26:27,440
scheduled. But going back to what we were saying before, sometimes, yes, the setting is going to

790
01:26:27,440 --> 01:26:33,200
be unfair for somebody at some point because they've got an injury or something happening.

791
01:26:34,400 --> 01:26:39,600
Yeah, they can't schedule competitions around all the individual athletes, period, can they?

792
01:26:40,480 --> 01:26:44,720
And so it's, yeah, somebody, yeah, I suppose when you look at it,

793
01:26:44,720 --> 01:26:52,160
within all those competitors that come out at an IFSC, yeah, many, well, maybe not many of them,

794
01:26:52,160 --> 01:26:59,920
but yeah, a few of them have got to be on a period at that point. Yeah. And yeah, I once gave a talk

795
01:26:59,920 --> 01:27:06,880
basically on the menstrual cycle and the menopause, which was obviously attended by women

796
01:27:06,880 --> 01:27:13,760
and no other men. And yeah, I started by saying, the irony is not lost on me. I'm a middle-aged,

797
01:27:13,760 --> 01:27:17,680
middle-class white man who's going to stand here in front of a room of women and tell them what

798
01:27:17,680 --> 01:27:24,880
their experience should be. I am purely talking from the research and the papers and that kind of

799
01:27:24,880 --> 01:27:31,200
put, it's kind of nice that the overwhelming, what seems to be coming from that now is, yes,

800
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:36,480
we have this information, but that's not your destiny. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

801
01:27:36,480 --> 01:27:43,520
Okay. Well, I guess we can just go into the discord questions then. I think that was a good place to

802
01:27:44,640 --> 01:27:48,080
end things off there. There were still so many other things I wanted to ask, but

803
01:27:48,640 --> 01:27:53,840
you know, maybe another time in the future. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, going into a couple of

804
01:27:53,840 --> 01:27:59,840
discord questions, the first one, most people seem to talk about PIP injuries. Do you have any

805
01:27:59,840 --> 01:28:07,280
advice for dealing with a dip issues, I guess, DIP issues in particular, synovitis or capsulitis?

806
01:28:08,080 --> 01:28:15,360
Right. Okay. Yeah. The first, I suppose, whether it be dip, PIP, but if we talk synovitis,

807
01:28:15,360 --> 01:28:20,400
capsulitis, it's a little bit semantics as to, you know, which is it, that kind of thing.

808
01:28:20,400 --> 01:28:30,320
It's an overuse of that joint in a certain way. You are not going to win unless you give it some

809
01:28:30,320 --> 01:28:42,320
space. And it is a process that is going on. It's like a negative cycle, I suppose, really of

810
01:28:43,040 --> 01:28:49,920
irritation, sensitivity. The body's response to that actually sets it up for being more reasonable

811
01:28:49,920 --> 01:28:55,840
and more easily set off the next time with this inflammatory process that's going on within the

812
01:28:55,840 --> 01:29:03,600
finger. And so, yeah, obviously usually crimping and such like is the thing that does it. This is

813
01:29:03,600 --> 01:29:11,760
one that it's all the interventions in the world of penguin fingers or, you know, this and the other,

814
01:29:12,640 --> 01:29:19,200
which has its place, it's a good thing, isn't going to do it. It is the basics. It is, you know,

815
01:29:19,200 --> 01:29:24,880
listening, finding what it's able to do because I'm a big believer in, you know, let's kind of keep

816
01:29:24,880 --> 01:29:32,240
climbing. I sometimes, how some people are aware of themselves enough to monitor their own crimping,

817
01:29:32,800 --> 01:29:38,960
you know, and reduce that and start climbing open-handed. I find if somebody's quite new to

818
01:29:38,960 --> 01:29:46,160
climbing and we go to crimp for a reason is it is stable. It's not necessarily the strongest hold,

819
01:29:46,160 --> 01:29:51,680
but it's stable. You can move around a crimp, yeah, and we're on it and we feel like we're

820
01:29:51,680 --> 01:29:57,360
not going to slip off it, whereas like open-hand stuff and slopers. So asking somebody to go

821
01:29:57,360 --> 01:30:02,080
open-handed if they've not got a great deal of movement experience in climbing can feel

822
01:30:02,080 --> 01:30:05,920
just like starting all over again and it can be really hard for them to manage.

823
01:30:06,960 --> 01:30:14,480
So sometimes I actually just, I call it anti-crimp taping. I had to say, get some cheek tape,

824
01:30:14,480 --> 01:30:19,600
wind it down the finger, wind it back up the finger again, or most likely the middle finger

825
01:30:19,600 --> 01:30:24,800
will be, yeah, literally to stop you from being able to bend the finger because of the bulk of

826
01:30:24,800 --> 01:30:30,640
the tape. It doesn't provide any support. It doesn't do anything magic. It just stops you.

827
01:30:31,120 --> 01:30:39,440
In an open position, the forces on the finger are distracted. It's when we come up into 90 degrees,

828
01:30:39,440 --> 01:30:46,320
90 degrees most often for this type of issue. Yeah. And the bones then are pushing against

829
01:30:46,320 --> 01:30:51,440
each other. It becomes compressive and it's those compressive forces normally from crimping that

830
01:30:51,440 --> 01:30:56,560
sets it off. So you can continue to climb, but you just got to really back off.

831
01:30:56,560 --> 01:30:57,680
That's hard to hear.

832
01:30:57,680 --> 01:31:02,640
It is. It is. But there's loads that you can do. Look at all the open-handed climbing that

833
01:31:02,640 --> 01:31:06,960
there is now. This is what we're talking about, the change in style. It's not all about crimping.

834
01:31:06,960 --> 01:31:14,880
And it's a bit like the picture I use of people. It's that oil tanker that you put the brakes on

835
01:31:14,880 --> 01:31:21,360
and it takes a long time to stop. Then you've got to put it in reverse and it takes a while

836
01:31:21,360 --> 01:31:28,400
to get going for reverse. And then it comes out. Yeah, it's quite a slow process. But with

837
01:31:29,440 --> 01:31:36,400
the right approach to it, you are able to keep people climbing, keep people in climbing,

838
01:31:36,400 --> 01:31:40,240
which I think is super important because for most of us climbing becomes,

839
01:31:41,600 --> 01:31:46,960
we'll quite say everything, but it becomes super important in our lives. It's your social

840
01:31:46,960 --> 01:31:52,720
interaction. It's your escape maybe from family stress, work stress, where you can just,

841
01:31:52,720 --> 01:31:57,040
you could either go and be sociable and chat to everyone, or you can put your headphones on and

842
01:31:57,040 --> 01:32:01,920
just have some lovely time to yourself, that kind of thing. It's engaging. It's physical challenge.

843
01:32:01,920 --> 01:32:07,280
It's a mental challenge. It's people's mental health space. So the last thing I say to people

844
01:32:07,280 --> 01:32:15,200
is stop climbing. Yeah, personally, I had it really bad a year or two ago because I was climbing at

845
01:32:15,200 --> 01:32:20,880
a gym that just crimps all the time and everything was always crimpy. Sounds great. I want to go.

846
01:32:22,320 --> 01:32:29,680
Yeah, it wasn't super interesting, but I'm doing a little bit less crimping now, more just open

847
01:32:29,680 --> 01:32:35,200
headed stuff. It's not always crimps and it's improved a lot. There's active things that we

848
01:32:35,200 --> 01:32:41,040
can do. It isn't just about taking away. There's strength in the rest of the chain, shoulder, elbow,

849
01:32:41,040 --> 01:32:46,000
wrist, that kind of thing, working on the muscles within the hand that formed the control and

850
01:32:46,000 --> 01:32:51,840
foundation for the fingers, that type of thing. So yeah, it's not just a passive treatment.

851
01:32:52,720 --> 01:32:58,320
Well, I also have these things. It's kind of like penguin fingers, but you can also put it in the

852
01:32:58,320 --> 01:33:07,360
microwave. I love heat on my fingers. If my fingers are cold, it hurts so bad.

853
01:33:07,360 --> 01:33:15,520
Right. Interestingly, there's as many research papers saying that heat is better than ice as

854
01:33:15,520 --> 01:33:21,360
there is the other way around. When you look at that, they've both been heavily researched.

855
01:33:21,360 --> 01:33:25,680
There's just as many London on one side, they're the other. Neither with big margins. It's like,

856
01:33:25,680 --> 01:33:31,600
we think heat is a bit better than coal. Kind of draws you to the conclusion that they're both

857
01:33:31,600 --> 01:33:36,240
as good as each other. They both end up in the same place just through different mechanisms.

858
01:33:36,960 --> 01:33:44,160
They provide pain relief through the novel stimulus that they give to the nervous system,

859
01:33:45,280 --> 01:33:50,640
similar to when you rub something that's sore. Yeah. And it can kind of stop it hurting a little

860
01:33:50,640 --> 01:33:57,040
bit. It's that kind of effect. They both do that. And they both encourage fluid exchange,

861
01:33:57,040 --> 01:34:02,640
which is good for healing, but through different methods. So it's very much kind of personality

862
01:34:02,640 --> 01:34:07,840
led. Some people really want to stick an ice pack on it and feel like they're hammering it down and

863
01:34:07,840 --> 01:34:12,080
they're beating it into submission. And they're like, yeah, that can be, I'm with you. I'd like

864
01:34:12,080 --> 01:34:18,480
a nice hot water bottle. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah, it feels nice. Okay. Yeah. Let's

865
01:34:18,480 --> 01:34:25,120
just do one last discord question. This one is from Erica. She asks, how should an experienced

866
01:34:25,120 --> 01:34:29,840
climber start integrating more training into their routine? For me, it can feel overwhelming

867
01:34:29,840 --> 01:34:34,080
and directionless because there's so many options and I don't know what's best or most needed to

868
01:34:34,080 --> 01:34:42,080
improve my climbing. And so I guess doing it in a safe way and yeah, preventing injury. Right. Okay.

869
01:34:42,080 --> 01:34:47,360
Yeah. Because that costs you, yeah, whatever your goals, wherever you're trying to improve,

870
01:34:47,360 --> 01:34:52,640
what are your weaknesses, that type of thing. But yeah, you are at your starting point,

871
01:34:52,640 --> 01:35:00,240
if that makes sense. If you are at a load that you are happy with and your body is dealing with,

872
01:35:00,800 --> 01:35:06,640
then you can start increasing that load and you're much better off doing that in a way that is going

873
01:35:06,640 --> 01:35:12,160
to be consistent for you. As we're recording this, obviously it's coming towards the end of 2024,

874
01:35:12,160 --> 01:35:18,560
New Year's resolutions. Everybody goes, wow, I'm going to train eight times a day. I'm going to

875
01:35:18,560 --> 01:35:22,160
do this and that. I'll do that. Yeah. And two weeks later, the wheels have come off and we're

876
01:35:22,160 --> 01:35:28,400
not managing it. And we get peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs are not good. Yeah. Not doing

877
01:35:28,400 --> 01:35:32,640
very much. And then you've got trip coming up and going mad at it for two weeks. Not good.

878
01:35:34,400 --> 01:35:41,600
What we need is slow, gradual improvement, small, small steps that over the course of a year,

879
01:35:41,600 --> 01:35:48,800
add up to quite a big change. It's something like, I think with compound interest, if you improved

880
01:35:48,800 --> 01:35:56,080
something by 1% a week, which is not a lot, by the end of the year, it adds up to something like 60

881
01:35:56,080 --> 01:36:02,560
or 70%. And if you could improve, and it doesn't work in this linear fashion, but if you could

882
01:36:02,560 --> 01:36:07,600
improve your climbing by 70% in a year, that's amazing, isn't it? And you've only got to improve

883
01:36:07,600 --> 01:36:13,520
things by 1% a week in order to do that. So gains do not come quickly. They are hard won,

884
01:36:14,560 --> 01:36:23,760
but that's fine. If we take this small step approach and track what you do, it doesn't

885
01:36:23,760 --> 01:36:29,520
have to be a hugely detailed training diary. One that I quite like for people that are just starting

886
01:36:30,240 --> 01:36:36,640
is to write how long the session was, say two hours at the climbing jib and how hard they

887
01:36:36,640 --> 01:36:42,160
tried, say eight out of 10. It also starts getting you thinking about how hard you're trying.

888
01:36:42,160 --> 01:36:46,800
If every session you go to says eight out of 10, eight out of 10, eight out of 10, eight out of 10,

889
01:36:46,800 --> 01:36:56,320
there's something going wrong with your training. You need some variety. So you times two hours

890
01:36:56,320 --> 01:37:01,760
by the eight out of 10, you've got 16 punts. This is not my system that I came up with,

891
01:37:01,760 --> 01:37:09,040
it's been around for a while. It's arbitrary units. They don't mean anything. It's just 16 load

892
01:37:09,040 --> 01:37:13,280
points if you want to look at it like that. And then add that up over the week. So if you do three

893
01:37:13,280 --> 01:37:19,520
of those sessions, you've got 48 load points in a week. So what you don't want to do next week

894
01:37:19,520 --> 01:37:28,400
is increase that to 70 load points. You want to make that up to maybe 53, 55 load points,

895
01:37:28,400 --> 01:37:35,040
just a small little increase. These rules are often around 10% a week, that kind of thing.

896
01:37:35,040 --> 01:37:41,840
Not too bad. But if you went 10% a week every week for the next year, that would end up being,

897
01:37:41,840 --> 01:37:46,320
when you start, you can maybe take some bigger steps, but you're always better

898
01:37:48,320 --> 01:37:55,920
under training by 10% than over training by 1%. So it's small steps. Trap what you're doing in

899
01:37:55,920 --> 01:38:01,440
some way that works for you. Some people love a spreadsheet and love numbers and that kind of

900
01:38:01,440 --> 01:38:06,800
thing. That totally does my head in. I can't do that. I'm much more of the, yeah, write down in

901
01:38:06,800 --> 01:38:13,520
a notebook. Yeah, that's it. Don't overthink it too much. Don't be like, well, it was a two-hour

902
01:38:13,520 --> 01:38:19,360
session, but actually I was only climbing for half of that because I was resting for the other half

903
01:38:19,360 --> 01:38:26,080
of that. Don't overcomplicate it. It matters too much. If you have had a big long route session

904
01:38:26,080 --> 01:38:31,520
and actually you did spend, you met some friends, had a coffee halfway through, met some other

905
01:38:31,520 --> 01:38:35,840
friends, went for some cake, you know, all that, I don't like that. Then maybe change it. But if

906
01:38:35,840 --> 01:38:41,360
it's just a normal session, then just keep it as it is. Don't overthink it, but trap what you're

907
01:38:41,360 --> 01:38:48,560
doing and increase things by less than you probably think. Great advice. So any New Year's

908
01:38:48,560 --> 01:38:53,440
resolutions for you? Ed, but you know what, I'd actually said this to someone earlier today.

909
01:38:55,040 --> 01:39:00,880
I'd step in away from the whole New Year's resolutions. The time to start making changes

910
01:39:00,880 --> 01:39:05,520
is now, not some arbitrary date in the future and that kind of thing. You don't get any extra

911
01:39:05,520 --> 01:39:12,960
motivation because it's January the 1st, but it's actually to make sure I under train this year

912
01:39:12,960 --> 01:39:21,520
rather than over train. Physios and coaches need physios and coaches because we are human

913
01:39:21,520 --> 01:39:29,040
and we do the things that we tell everybody else not to do. This year I went hard at it trying to

914
01:39:29,040 --> 01:39:33,920
perform three times a week, despite talking with my partner at the start and saying,

915
01:39:33,920 --> 01:39:39,840
we've got the chance to go climbing outdoors three times a week. We mustn't try and red point three

916
01:39:39,840 --> 01:39:45,440
times a week. That would be a really silly thing to do. Within two months, we were red pointing

917
01:39:45,440 --> 01:39:50,960
three times a week. Absolutely loving it. Having some successes, ticking lots of things. It's all

918
01:39:50,960 --> 01:39:58,160
going well and then it all didn't go well. Injury or? And the camp burn out basically. Yeah,

919
01:39:58,160 --> 01:40:04,160
yeah. Just like I am absolutely knackered. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

920
01:40:04,160 --> 01:40:10,240
So thankfully no, not injury. And so this year I am going to, yeah, and I'm going to under train

921
01:40:10,240 --> 01:40:15,920
by 10%, not over train by 1%. Take your own advice. Okay. That'd be good, wouldn't it? Yeah.

922
01:40:15,920 --> 01:40:20,320
Okay. Well, I think that's all the questions I had. Thank you so much for joining me.

923
01:40:20,320 --> 01:40:23,680
No problem. Any last words that you want to get out there?

924
01:40:24,560 --> 01:40:30,880
I don't know. It is just, yeah, if you want to improve at climbing, then injury is the one thing

925
01:40:30,880 --> 01:40:35,920
that is guaranteed to stop that improvement. Yeah. Nothing interferes with improvement more

926
01:40:35,920 --> 01:40:42,960
than injury. You need consistency. So it's fine to step away a little early and finish feeling fresh.

927
01:40:42,960 --> 01:40:46,160
Perfect. Want to let people know where they can find you?

928
01:40:47,360 --> 01:40:54,320
Yeah. Yeah. It's process physiotherapy or one word.co.uk is my website and I'm on Instagram

929
01:40:54,320 --> 01:41:02,160
at process.physio are the two main places that you'll find me. Perfect. Yeah. I'll leave those

930
01:41:02,160 --> 01:41:07,120
links below. Lovely. Thank you. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It was amazing to talk to you.

931
01:41:07,120 --> 01:41:12,480
Yeah, no problem. No problem. So thanks. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast.

932
01:41:12,480 --> 01:41:18,560
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise you are a super fake climber. If you're

933
01:41:18,560 --> 01:41:24,000
listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can continue the

934
01:41:24,000 --> 01:41:38,560
discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description. Thanks again for listening.