It is the most common finger injury in comp athletes.
And it is one of the only injuries that I would
say needs a proper break from any loading there.
90 % of the time, if you're dealing with a hand
injury, you should go to an OT, not a PT. They're
the ones that know more about it. Yeah. The thing
is, obviously, I specialize in hands and fingers
because that's what I see the most. Yeah, this
might be a bit of a hot take on that. But I would
say that the last one is probably the least dangerous.
climbing as a whole really overestimates the
value of tape. Welcome to another episode of
the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your
host, Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce my
guest for today, Miguel Zevallos. Miguel is a
climbing physical therapist who works closely
with the Method Youth Climbing team in the US
and recently worked his first youth nationals.
In this episode, we'll learn about the danger
of growth plate injuries in youth climbing athletes,
we'll get a glimpse into youth ISO, we'll rank
three of the most dangerous comp moves we've
seen so far, and we'll hear about his own journey
trying to make the Peruvian national team. I
hope you enjoy this episode with Miguel. I'm
excited to announce that my sponsor Mad Rock
Climbing just came out with a brand new pair
of shoes, the Remora Pro. I was so excited to
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can use the discount code NOTREALCLIMBER for
10 % off your entire Mad Rock order. Back to
the show. Yeah, is it like your own practice
or? Yeah, pretty much I work with different gyms.
So that kind of ideal that I have is, I think,
a pretty unique setting. I don't actually have
an actual physical location. I just go to these
different gyms that I have contracts with. And
that's what I that's my full time job, right?
I just go to these different gyms. I go to five
different places and I see clients there. Cool.
Well, let's get into it then. I guess just from
the start, why did you decide to study physical
therapy and what got you into climbing after
that? I think you started climbing afterwards.
Yeah. Yeah. So I was I first started. I guess
like rock climbing in my second year of PT school.
And pretty much like I took a very biomechanical
approach to climbing. It was very like kind of
science nerdy in how I wanted to like climb and
just like see the improvements of things. And
yeah, I just climbed throughout most of my PT
school. It was like a nice way to like relax
and get some physical fitness in. Did not expect
it to become a career whatsoever. And it kind
of sort of planned out that way, which is really
fun. I guess, like, did you do other sports beforehand?
Is that, like, what got you into studying PT
in the first place? Yeah. I did, I guess, like,
high school, like, soccer. And I did a bit of,
like, intramural in college. I did some dance,
like, competitive dance, which is really interesting.
Whoa. What kind of dance? Like, some, like, hip
-hop contemporary type style. Oh, cool. Like,
more like the urban, yeah. It was pretty fun.
So I always did, like, some type of, like, activity
like that. To kind of like keep busy. I was never
super into like traditional weightlifting, you
know, like I gave it a shot so many times in
high school, college and grad school. And like
it always felt like a chore. So finding like
an activity was always a much, much, much better
use of, I guess, my time, if you will. Yeah.
So then in I guess I don't really know like what
they teach in school for physical therapy. Does
it go much into like these finger? injuries that
you would see in climbing or is that something
that you somehow have to figure out on your own
or like apply broader concepts to uh yeah like
i would say we definitely touch on the hand and
like the fingers and stuff like that as like
part of overall anatomy and like physiology stuff
like that but it is very much um i don't want
to say afterthought but it's not nearly as as
detailed as you would in something like like
ot and this is actually um something i i would
say 90 % of the time, if you're dealing with
a hand injury, you should go to an OT, not a
PT. They're the ones that know more about it.
Yeah. The thing is, obviously, I specialize in
hands and fingers because that's what I see the
most of. So I've taken continuing education classes
and stuff like that. But in the actual grad school,
we touch on more the entire body, right? And
more neuro, more cardiac stuff. There's so many
topics to cover. Hands are a very small part.
Whereas I think OTs spend like an entire, at
least a whole class about it. Because it's all
about like fine motor skills and stuff like that.
Usually like stroke patients, stuff like that.
So we do, to make a long story short, yes, we
learn about it. But it is a small part of one
course that we take. Okay. I had actually not
heard of that before. What is an OT, by the way?
Occupational therapist. There's a lot of similarities.
I feel like a lot of people don't know too much
about OTs, but they're pretty much, they do a
lot of the similar things. You'll find them both
working in like hospitals and similar settings,
but they typically take care of more of the hands
-on stuff, like the hands, maybe some wrist stuff.
And then in general, it's more like occupational
based. So like kind of getting you back to doing
your normal activities of daily living and more
just like, yeah, like just daily tasks, right?
As opposed to like PTs tend to be more return
to sport. If you're in that setting, orthopedic
setting. Oh, I see. So then would you still recommend
that for like climbers? So if you have like some
type of like real pulley tear, yeah, for sure.
Because typically that's going to be affecting
more and more things. But the caveat here is
like usually you graduate either PT or OT, whatever
you do, when it's like, especially with a more
traditional insurance -based model, you kind
of graduate when you're cleared to do most of
your things independently. And that certainly
does not include putting your entire body weight
on your fingertips. So typically, right, especially
when you're trying to make your case to insurance
companies, it's like, all right, what can't they
do? And you got to kind of like BS it a little
bit and be like, oh, you know, yeah, they have
some pain in their fingers. And it is kind of
stopping them from doing their normal work activities
if you're typing all the time. all the software
engineers to come see me. It's like, we got to
be like, all right, yeah, let's make sure that
we're trying to justify by something else that
it's stopping you from. Obviously, I'm not doing
really that anymore as I'm at climbing gyms.
I don't really have to justify anything. But
when I was at the more normal PT clinic and saw
climbers there, it was definitely a wrestling
match to get things approved. Oh, my gosh. The
nightmare of American health care system, I guess.
It's not great. If we have international viewers
watching, they'll probably be a little bit shocked
to hear that, I think. You have to run through
a lot of hoops. Yeah. That's an entire episode
on its own, honestly. Like deductibles, co -pays.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. We don't have to get into
that today, thankfully. Okay. So then what kind
of work have you done specifically with comp
climbers? Taking a step back. got into it in
the first place, right? I was actually approached
by my home gym, Method Climbing in New Jersey.
And they are actually a very well -known kind
of competition team. They won nationals in 2023,
I believe. So yeah, very, very good team. And
they actually like the owners approached me saying,
Hey, do you want to, you know, like kind of start
treating some of the people here and, and just
kind of like, you know, continue seeing your
own people. And that kind of started developing
as like my part time gig, in addition to my normal
full time PT clinic job. And I started seeing
a lot more recreational climbers. And as I started
getting more of a relationship with the coaches
there, a lot of the competition. athletes started
seeing me there. Most of the time it was like
in tandem with the coaching. So like I'll do
like a one -off session and be like, hey, these
are my findings. This is what I think they should
avoid. And the coaches really appreciated that,
right? So it was less of getting a client and
then seeing them for weekly visits for X amount
of times. And it was more so like identifying
what the issue is and then giving some of that
feedback to the coaches. Back then it was very
much like... very limited spots. It was, I would
do, Oh yeah, that sucked. It was like seven to
10 PM on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Cause
it was after my normal days. Um, yeah, I'm glad
I'm not doing that. Yeah. That's how that started.
And then it kind of started getting more and
more popular where now I'm at a five different
gyms. So, um, it's really fun. I I've built a
good amount of community now with a lot of the
coaches in the New Jersey, New York city area.
And my name just started kind of getting out
there more and more with a lot of the coaches
and a lot of youth athletes kind of getting referred
to me. And that's kind of my model, especially
when working with youth athletes. I'll try to
make it as independent as possible. So like I'll
see them for a couple visits and all those findings
I'll try to send to the coaches if they allow
that. And then I'll kind of give my general suggestions
of what they should avoid, right? It's less of
a come to this clinic for twice a week for X
amount of weeks. we're always kind of working
on things while not climbing. Unless there's
like some of the growth plate fractures, which
is I'm sure what we'll get into in a bit. Yeah.
And so you work a lot with like the Method Youth
team? Yeah. So that's the one I primarily worked
with because they actually, like I went with
them to Youth Nationals this past year in June.
So that was a really cool experience. June 29th
to like July 3rd or something like that. Yeah.
It's long. Yeah. Oh man. So I have a blog post
about it and it was kind of like talking about,
my whole experience there. And I mean, it's six
days. And if you're like a very good team that
has consistently people in every category making
finals, you're there doing 12, 13 hour shifts,
six days in a row. Oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
and as a PT, do you get to like go into ISO?
Okay. What's like the youth ISO scene? Like,
is it like, is it stressful? Is it, is there
a lot of, you can like feel the energy in the
room? Especially in the semifinals and finals,
everyone is just super nerve -wracking. It's
pretty stressful. But how I got into it, too,
is the coaches got me the L2 certification, so
you need that to get into isolation. By USAC
standards, I'm an L2 coach, but my job primarily
there was to be the in -house PT, if you will.
In ISO, what kind of work do you do there for
the athletes? Yeah. So primarily it was to see
that we had a list every day. We would come up
with a list of like everyone who we think needs
a little bit more of a touch up if they had any
type of tweak. And the coaches knew this already
coming into nationals who is a little banked
up or whatever. Right. So we had a list and whatever
the things pile up as the days kind of continue.
So we had a list every time of these people that
I want to see. We give them like a 20 minute
block as part of their warm up. And like, yeah,
so like as they're still warming up, I'll kind
of see them for like these 20 minute blocks and
do any of my treatments with them, tape them
up. I did a lot of, you know, some sports taping
for just like extra support and just kind of
like break up some tissue and then kind of give
them some like in general on the wall warmups
that they should be doing to prepare. Because
at the end of the day, we, especially for semis
and finals, we don't know what the actual round
looks like. We have to just kind of prepare for
everything. And so if we know that there's like,
an ankle injury, and we don't really want to
be putting all the weight when it's like bent
like this, right? It's like, all right, we need
to be preparing for that as a part of a warmup,
if that actually happens during the comp. So
that's kind of my job, identifying the weak points
of whatever body part that we're working on,
trying to train those as part of a warmup, so
then they're in best shape for their actual comp.
It seems like... I think a lot of sports have
something like this, but climbing is like everyone
there was like, well, this is so cool. The method
just filled up with like their personal PT. And
they were the coaches that were gracious enough
for me to whenever there was downtime, I would
check up on anyone else from any other team.
So that was really cool. I made some cool connections
with the coaches there, but that was like my
primary kind of like be the person that. prepares
people when they are any tweaks i definitely
saw my fair share of like emergency treatments
which was kind of okay yeah like some people
like got injured like you know during the comp
and like wanted and it's between rounds right
so like yeah you know if i had a qualifier and
uh they come out of that banged up like an actual
like oh i think i like actually really injured
something and the semifinals is the next day
that kind of uh identifying how bad the injury
is just to make that call if they need to to
actually like, you know, not compete in the next
round, unfortunately. Hopefully that didn't happen.
Everything that was kind of like banged up, we
were able to at least mitigate the risk so that
they can ultimately try just, but you know, I'd
still say like avoid XYZ if something did happen.
Makes sense. And yeah, just like with the warmups
and ISO, I was just going to say, I really wish
that I had like a PT who could always be there
and like. give me specific moves or like exercises
to do on the wall while warming up so that I
can have like a good, a good comp. I feel like
that would make a huge difference. Warming up
is like so hard when you have an injury in the
back of your head. But yeah, so I think at the
World Cups, I see like a lot of coaches and PTs
kind of like ready at the sidelines with like
ice packs, taping, all that kind of stuff. Is
that kind of like what you're doing there too?
Yeah, we're in ISO. So something like, like,
Cold packs wouldn't really work well, but there's
definitely like kits, right? People, coaches
will certainly bring like kits of like taping
for bracing purposes or whatever. And then they'll
have like a lot of like workout equipment, like
portable boards. There's some like rubber bands,
right? To like warm up the whole body and stuff
like that. So it's more like a workout kit. Method
kind of brings an entire, like a huge suitcase
full of stuff. Yeah, yeah. They kind of pull
up and just like take over an entire corner.
It's really funny. Oh, wow. It's intense. I've
also seen people like get massages or like use
massage guns mid -comp. Like, is that actually
helpful? So it's like the same idea as like de
-pumping. Have you heard of that? No. So that's
another thing that I did a lot when there isn't
an injury per se, but like, especially when it
was that boulder round. I did this a couple of
times where it's like you do three boulders and
then take a break. In that break. To just get
all the blood like rushing out of there and like
heal or get back to normal state quicker. Also
like adrenaline is always going to have increased
blood flow in that area to get more tightened
up. I basically just depump them by doing like
some soft tissue work of the form. And it's not
like treatment from an injury standpoint. It's
just kind of get some more blood flow in a more
efficient way. But if you don't have someone
actually doing that for you, something like a
massage gun works quite well. Oh, really? Okay.
But I would say it's not. It's not going to treat
anything. It's more so like it feels nice. It
kind of mobilizes things, gets blood flow. That's
really what you want. I think, well, speaking
of depumping, I don't know if this is really
depumping, but my biggest pro science thing is
that if I'm feeling pumped, I like to raise my
arms above my head. And then I imagine all the
blood flowing out that's tired. And then I put
my arms down to get new blood in. Does that actually
work? Is that a real thing? That is like without
getting super scientific, that's exactly what's
happening. Okay. You're literally getting like
all the little kind of fatigued buildup in that
area and we're making it more go back down. So
getting out of the extremities. Okay. I will
continue doing that then. Thank you for that.
Yeah. It's like everything like you like flexing
muscle, you're getting the blood flow in there,
right? So like if you're consistently flexing
that. all that blood starts kind of piling up
here. It gets stiffer. It gets less likely for
it to be able to contract in the same way when
it's already full, if that makes sense. So we
want to kind of let new blood kind of get in
there, chill out a little bit, more oxygen. Yes,
that's what it is, more oxygen. So in terms of
treating like youth climbers versus adults, what
are some of the differences you see there? Yeah,
so this is, I think, the biggest thing that I...
talked about in the blog post and when I was
mentioning to other coaches, in my normal day
-to -day, I guess it's not nine to five, right?
It's more like three to nine. But in my normal
work day, I would see like your young adults
is probably the most common age range that I
see. And it's usually going to be fingers, wrists,
and probably shoulders, I'd say, are like the
three most common things I see. Just like when
you think of climbing, those are typically what
you pull the most with. For youth athletes, they
usually start climbing before puberty, and so
their fingers grow with them. And typically their
finger strength is not really an issue. And while
it's still beneficial maybe to start training
to get to that really elite level, I would say
what I got from this was almost every injury
I saw was... more traditionally like total body
work, meaning like I saw a lot of like ankle
stuff, a lot of back stuff, neck injuries, definitely
some shoulders. But ultimately it was those like
big kind of coordination moves where like you
have to like press with everything and like flex
every muscle. And I saw a lot of more like straining
those like pulling muscles as opposed to tweaking
fingers or wrists that are like more joint. that
in adults you don't really train because you
typically grew up doing like more muscle -based
sports, if that makes sense. Like muscle -based
sports as opposed to like joint -based? Yeah,
it's not like you're not using muscles in climbing,
right? It's more so like, you know, soccer, like,
you know, your traditional sports that you do,
like track, whatever, right? Like weightlifting
especially, right? Like I feel like climbers
tend to be against weightlifting a lot of times,
right? I think all of those do a good job of
building like muscle strength. And in general
with kids, they grow up already with like their
tendons and their joints being pretty strong
because they grow with it, right? They're doing
the sport that is very body weight. So they're
not shock loading their system by doing too much
too soon. It's just very body weight based. And
then as they start growing, they start kind of
increasing their strength, filling out a little
bit more. And so the higher risk tends to be
in those like more total body like... um very
hard on the muscles as opposed to hard on like
your fingers or tendons typically it takes a
lot longer to build tendon strength and adults
don't really train fingers ever before climbing
right so that's um yeah i don't see finger pain
nearly as much in the in the youth athlete population
okay that makes sense yeah so you mentioned that
they kind of grow with their fingers um I've
heard a little bit about like growth plate injuries,
but I don't know much about it. I heard that's
like finger related. So is that something you
can get into a bit? Yeah, for sure. So I guess
to give a brief background, like science background
on it, growth plates are in every joint of the
body. So it's not exclusive to fingers, like
your knees, everywhere that you literally grow.
There's plates there that are essentially almost
like an open -ended, not closed off ending of
that bone. So the bone grows from that position,
right? And so those are like how you get bigger,
right? Like every bone in your body gets a little
bit bigger to an extent as you go through puberty.
So with fingers, you have them in these positions
as well, right? And a lot of times... It gets
misdiagnosed as pulley injuries because that's
the way more popular diagnosis in adults. However,
like I mentioned, tendons typically tend to be
really strong on youth athletes because they
grew with it, right? So when you're growing and
these joints are getting larger, the weak point
of that whole part of the muscle or joint area
is that growth plate itself. It's because it's
literally, like I said, it's like an open cap,
right? And so if the bone is growing through
here, to allow it to grow, that part is more
malleable. It's less stiff. And so when you load
it a lot or like do a lot of like, yeah, just
shock loading and high intensity training in
those fingers, in those growth plates, the chance
of injury there is just a lot higher as opposed
to like your flexor tendons or your pulleys,
which are more your traditional muscle tendon
based stuff. So yeah, just kind of doing a little
bit more damage on the growth plate and the joint
area. You can get in the knees as well, right?
A lot of like, a lot of runners. Youth athletes
that are runners will get growth plate injuries
for the knees. Same idea, right? You're shock
loading that part by running, always putting
a lot of bouncing stress into it. So same thing
with kids. How old until that's not really a
concern anymore? Is it when you're done with
puberty? Until you're done growing, yeah. Females,
I think usually it's anywhere from 10, 11 to
maybe 15 or so. Then boys are usually a little
bit later, like 13 to 17 maybe. How often does
this finger growth plate injury come up in comp
athletes? It is the most common finger injury
in comp athletes. So while I don't think it's
the most common injury period for them, when
it's a finger injury, it's the first thing you
want to rule out. And it is one of the only injuries
that I would say needs a proper break from any
loading there. Whereas a lot of pulley stuff,
flexor tendon, or just a lot of other injuries
for the body, um i typically wouldn't suggest
complete break um this is one where you probably
need to take a break and so uh coaches it's so
it's always like on on coach's mind of like oh
okay how is this a growth fracture right and
like the best way to to see that is with an x
-ray okay and like how long of a break does it
take if the damage is like pretty small it could
be anywhere from you know, a couple of weeks
to if it's pretty bad, it could be like, I'd
say two to six weeks on the high end. Okay. And
like, you can still, you know, train grip strength,
but just like really not load, hyper load up
of that joint over there in the fingers. I think
this was my second time seeing a glute fracture
injury. And it was, yeah, just like a youth athlete
from a neighboring gym. And we were working on
a lot of finger stuff. His finger strength itself
was extremely high. So it wasn't really matching
with any of the other like normal protocols that
I would do. And he would really only feel that
discomfort when like at the end of sessions.
So like things to pick up on are like, all right,
like you can do a lot of these things, but when
crimping and doing a lot of it afterwards, it
feels very icky, like feeling like joint pain.
You don't have arthritis when you're a kid, right?
So typically any joint stuff is an immediate
red flag of like, okay, something might be off
there, right? And so the parents were just like
very, um, adamant that it was a pulley injury
and I had to like pull a few teeth to, to get
an x -ray and it was confirmed to be a roughly
fracture. Okay. So he did have to like take some
time off there. He did have to take some time
off, unfortunately, but it was, um, you know,
I think it was, he was off maybe like three weeks
or so. And then, then when he got back into the
normal training, like he was totally fine. The
thing is like he, we had like off sessions like
every other week or so for like six weeks. And
it was like the same of like, oh, I feel really
good. But then I climb again and it feels off.
So it's just like the quicker you try to diagnose
these things, the more you save time, right?
Like those six weeks didn't need to be completely,
you know, used up like that. It could have, we
could have taken a proper break and then build
back up. Because it is, it's a fracture, right?
Like it sounds scary, but it's your, it's a literal
fracture. Yeah, thinking about like taking a
break from climbing. There are a lot of people
in my life who may or may not listen to this
episode who think that I should be like climbing
more through my injuries. And my thought process
is I'm not really in a huge rush or even if I
do have a comp coming up, I'd like rather have
it be like a bit more healed than try to do like
shitty, like half effective training where I
like can't give it my all. Because, like, maybe
I'll re -injure it or, like, make my injury worse.
I guess, like, what's the move? Like, what's
the right move here? I think that's totally fine.
No, I'm not going to be like, no, you have to
keep climbing. No, no, no. I think if you feel
that it's no longer really that fun to be climbing
when you're constantly in a little bit of that
discomfort, like, yeah, why would you continue?
Like, just let things heal properly. I think
my opinion is more so just... especially for
injuries to the finger where there's very little
blood flow. Yeah, and then like, yeah, the science
with that is just like pulleys just don't have
as much blood flow as like muscles, right? Like
tendons and ligaments just have less blood flow
compared to muscles. They just won't heal completely
with just rest, right? So you always have like,
you can take a rest in the beginning because
it's uncomfortable. And then as you get back
into it, just make sure that you're not getting
back to what your normal was. You have to like
load things back up slowly. as opposed to something
like a muscle tear. You can literally tear a
muscle and it's going to hurt, it's going to
suck, but after, I don't know, four weeks or
so, you'll be back to 100%. It won't work that
way with ligaments. Timeline -wise, it takes
longer to heal, but also you could rest it pretty...
You can just take a proper break and then work
your way back and you should be totally fine
with muscle injuries. Yeah, like ligament injuries,
you have to be a lot more delicate with how you
approach it. That's all. It's pretty rare to
tear muscles when climbing, first of all. But
if you do, right, and you like really like feel
that kind of like, like almost like Velcro strap
feeling in that muscle, and there's like a lot
of pain, a lot of swelling, whatever. If you
take it pretty easy and don't really climb on
it for a few weeks, and now it starts getting
less painful and you can do most things at this
point, you're not really restricted in your range
of motion. The chance of it getting back to 100
% is quite high. as opposed to a pulley tear,
where if you just take a complete break and let
it heal like that, it'll have a lot more scar
tissue buildup because it doesn't have a lot
of blood flow. So rest away, but just understand
that for some injuries that are more ligament
-based, you should be doing some type of loading
after an initial break. In general, what's the
recommendation for like... when you can start
like when you can climb on something i guess
like to be clear um anytime i work with someone
my one of my like interview questions or like
consultation questions is like what is your goal
out of this in terms of like i'll have competitive
athletes to say i have a competition in two weeks
i need to just get to the to the finish line
you know and and my approach there is going to
be very different than like okay i have this
thing in three months that i want to be in good
shape for versus like oh i just climb for hobby
for fun and that Yeah, it's going to totally
vary based on what your goals are. But as general
timeline rules, I would say, I guess we can go
by types of injuries. So I would classify like
if it's more muscular based, anywhere from four
to six weeks is pretty normal for you to be back
to 100%. Tendons, depending on the severity of
it, can take... say onto six to eight weeks,
10 weeks plus if it's an actual tear. And then
ligaments can be three months plus if it's a
full tear of ligaments. But like, is that with
like still being able to climb on it a little
bit? If it's a full rupture, you definitely need
to be taking some initial break and then doing
some very light loading and then climbing, I
would say, starts in like the second month or
so. What happens if it is like a comp climber
who has a comp in two weeks? I guess this kind
of goes in a tandem, but this is a fun story.
I was at a competition, Ed Method actually, and
they do like a citizens competition. And there
was a pro climber that came by and got injured
during finals, during like the second to last
boulder. And he needed to just get a zone on
the last one to podium. And I was like the PT
on staff, if you will. Not really. Like I was
just in the crowd, but they always call me when
anything happens. So they made an announcement
and it was like, please come into the isolation
area, Miguel. I was like, okay. So I went in
there and I checked up on him and it was his
knee, right? And so he fell, twisted on his knee.
And I was like, all right, dude, it's like a
tear of like the MCL, like a proper tear. Like
I can move it more than I should be, right? So
I was like, okay, my honest opinion is you do
not climb this fourth boulder. The risk if you
fall into it right now, you could, it's like
a partial tear, let's say. And impossible to
tear the extent, to tell the extent without imaging
exactly. But I'm like, I'm very confident that
it's at least a partial tear. It's not a full
because it's not completely loosed. But if you
fall in it again, chance is quite high for you
to finish ripping that off. So I'd say let's
not do that. You can't really walk on it. And
he's like, okay, but what if I land on just the
good leg on that last one? And I was like, what?
And he's like, yeah, I looked at the boulder
and the first move is very static to the zone.
And then after the zone, you have to jump. But
I won't do that. I just need a zone to get podium.
And I was like blown away at the level of like,
it's very smart, right? It's like he understood
his limitation and what he needs to do to get
to that. And as long as I was like. I said, I
was like, as long as you are very confident in
your self -control to not go for any jumpy move.
And when you do get to zone, you're going to
let go and land on the other side and tuck. I
was like, there's a lot of ifs here, but if you
really want to do that, that's how I would approach
this. So I tipped him up and I was like, that's,
that would be my opinion. Like I would probably
not climb, but if you do want to do that, do
all of these things. And he was like, got it.
He did it. He got the zone and he hopped down
exactly as I, as I said. And I was like, wow.
I respect it. Okay. Nice. Yeah. If your mentality
is like, I need to, to get to this, like it's,
I've worked on it so long. Cause it's, I mean,
if some, some of these, some of these kids, especially
like they, they worked all year for this, right?
Like to, to say you can't go to nationals is,
is very heartbreaking. So as long as you kind
of say all the things that clears like my responsibility
from like, this is what I think. But if you want
to compete. definitely don't do xyz so i i gave
those instructions to him and he followed that
and he was a little older he was i think 17 or
18 so um i think you're able to better make those
calls if you're if you have more experience in
the game um and he did that so he he understand
he he was like jumping on one leg to get to the
boulder oh yeah well i'm glad that he was able
to pull pull out that podium it was it was so
wild to see because With the MCL tear, like you
can toe down pretty good. You just can't do any
type of like drop knees. You can't do any real
like heel hooks or like put all your weight through
it. But you can like use it. You can like use
your glue and like push through it, right? So
I was like, okay, you can do all these things
that are required in that boulder, technically
speaking, up to the zone. And he could have walked
to the boulder then if he wanted to. He wasn't
able to put that much weight on it. Oh, wow.
Okay. Full weight on it. He wasn't able to stand
on that one leg. So it was a bad injury. Wow.
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that one. So, yeah,
going back to the youth injuries, you mentioned
that a lot of the more common injuries you see
now are like full body or like shoulder, back,
neck kind of stuff. How do they go about preventing
these injuries? Like, is there a strength training
that's helpful for preventing these? Yeah. So
that's a big thing I'm trying to push more for.
I think general strength training. The competitive
team, like Matheta, I think is like very good
at doing strength training as part of their curriculum,
if you will. They have like full -on workouts,
right? And they do like just general conditioning.
I believe a lot more teams are incorporating
something like this, especially at the national
level. I was talking to some coaches and just
like in the West Coast, like all over the country,
they're doing more of a push for general strength
training. And just like from me kind of sharing
some of my thoughts. seeing the amount of people
that i saw with ankle injuries with back injuries
um at nationals like happening during the comp
um they were all like yeah we're going to start
implementing like ankle training so that was
kind of cool like i think they saw that and in
real time made the decision for next year to
start doing more ankle training and it's not
to be too complex right it can be like five minutes
of your warm -up to just like work on some like
ankle stability static and dynamic but you know
we're we're we're at a point in competition climbing
where we are we are really testing the limits
of like what's possible so we are always like
trying to um it's very like innovative with the
how three -dimensional it is right and so it's
rarely just like you place a foot and you engage
the foot and you pull in there's a lot of like
slab running across uh like a volume stuff like
that and so you can easily twist ankles if you're
not if you're not training that what does ankle
training look like it could look like anywhere
from if you're trying to build static strength
and just like be able to hold a position like
all your weight on like a small jib versus like
on a volume, just like standing on one leg and
adding different types of load. So like, I personally
like a lot of the around the world, you take
a kettlebell, you stand on one leg, take a kettlebell
with the hands and just pass it around your body,
like in around behind the back and like this.
So you're doing that with with just standing
on one leg. It makes the weight go a lot more
in one direction, meaning the ankle has to like
work those stabilizers. And then as it goes behind,
you're never kind of staying in one position,
right? So I like that a lot for static strength.
And then dynamic, this is where I think would
be really useful for like the more coordination
style is going to be a lot of like single leg
jumps, box jumps, multiple jumps of like doing
like jumping in one direction and then immediately
as soon as you land, jumping to a different direction,
just like more proprioceptive stuff, meaning
your body's ability to know where it's at at
any time. So that's like basically never giving
it time to like. think or like visually see it's
like just like more react right okay how about
this i'll like i'll go over some uh like dangerous
moves that people think are like pretty scary
in comps and get your thoughts on those moves
Sure, yeah, I'll rank them. If you're interested
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to the show. Okay, first one, Downward Dinos.
Two, I was just thinking like the hard mat situation
in Burn, if you watched that World Cup. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Yeah, with like the spin. They tried
to peel it, right? Yeah, and then like the crazy
falls onto the apparently very hard mat. Third
one. Haven't actually, I don't know if this has
actually been said in a World Cup, but I've just
like seen it online. Like the dual techs foot
slide onto a chip. So you like jump onto dual
techs and then like the point is that you're
supposed to like slide off the dual techs onto
a chip. I definitely see that on like a viral
Instagram reel. Have they had that in like a
World Cup? I don't know if they've like specifically
set that. I remember in Salt Lake, they had something
like kind of similar to that, I think. Okay.
Like maybe that was like where, I don't know
if Natalia hurt her knee on that one or if that
was like a different boulder. And then she like
her knee was, I think her knee was already kind
of hurt, but then she still did that move. But
yeah. Yeah, this might be, yeah, this might be
a bit of a hot take on that. But I would say
that the last one is probably the least dangerous
in terms of it's, the most controllable in that
you're you're trying to go for it yeah it's i
think it's the scariest probably you're um you're
you're going into into like a fast kind of like
steak a move that is a lot of like single leg
strength and stability training that you can
do and prepare for that isn't that specific to
that one move like by training single leg ankle
stability dynamic like shock loading like jumping
in different directions right all that stuff
i think you're at a much better chance at hitting
a move like that. I think when it starts becoming
dangerous and not advisable is when you can't
control factors. It's like outside factors, outside
of control, right? So I would say it was the
Matt thing. What was the other one? Downward
Dinos. Downward Dinos. I believe they're banned
in IFSC, right? So they just added it back in
this year. Whoa. Okay. Although the Downward
Dinos have been more like... I don't know if
it was just because they wanted to add in the
lache move. So it's not like you're jumping straight
from something that's higher to lower with your
arms. Oh, it's more so like the curve. Yeah.
Seems like it. They haven't said anything crazier
than that, I think. It just goes a little bit
down with the lache, usually. Okay, I'd probably
go for this one next, the downward dido. I think
you can train your tendons to be a little bit
better at like... dealing with the shock loading.
However, physiologically speaking, you are absolutely
more at risk at the fast eccentric component.
Do you know what concentric versus eccentric
is? No, let's get into that. Concentric is like,
let's say my bicep here, I'm doing this. I'm
using my bicep to bring it closer to me. That's
concentric. Lengthening is eccentric. So muscle
gets longer, but it's still being used, right?
So when you're doing like a jump and grabbing
onto something, you're not just going to have
a full dead stop here. You're going to like slow
the momentum this way. There's just too much
weight at you, right? Because you're falling
on it with momentum. So gravity is also pulling
you down. So you hit it. And the fact that you're
activating all your lats and biceps and fingers
and everything is kind of pulling in at the same
time that you're lengthening it, that is just
more injurious by itself, always. And so I would
say it is 100 % more dangerous to... do a move
like that, like on a camper's board, I think
I would never suggest as part of a training thing
to go all the way up and then jump and down and
catch yourself here on a 20 -mile ledger or something
like that. I think the risk is just much higher
than the reward. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah.
You're really shock loading your fingers while
they're trying to get lengthened. I mean, I think
if you have like a specific project and you want
like bulletproof fingers, sure, we can work it
like very lowly over time. But to 99 % of the
population, the risk is always the reward on
that. You always have to like think about like
athlete risk versus reward. So I'm surprised
that they put that back in. But I think it's
probably the caveat of like if you're doing momentum
with like laches and stuff like that. Yeah, I
think so. And so then the worst one is the burn
hard math situation. Yeah, not even the move
itself, but I wasn't aware that the mats were
significantly harder. I believe, yeah, like some
people were saying that like they tried out like
it's a different type of mat or something, but
it looked like there was a bounce to it. So I
would say we may have to reconsider how good.
those types of mats are well i've heard some
like uh conflicting info about like how hard
mats should be i've heard that like hard mats
can be better because then you're not going to
like risk uh i guess like hurting your ankle
or like uh twisting your ankle when you land
um where like if the mat is too soft like maybe
you'll like land on your feet weird i think if
it's like like a like a mattress soft for sure
like there's a lot more like give but i I don't
think in most commercial gyms, it's like soft
to that point. Also like the type of fall that
you're going to have from setting a move that
is like so wildly like dynamic, you're not going
to be falling on your two feet. You're going
to be on your back at some point, right? And
so that kind of impact. But I don't know, that's
tough, right? Because at the same point, like,
no, that's bad to say. I was going to say like
the worst thing that can happen is like you'll
lose like your air a little bit. I know you can
definitely like pull things by having like a
hard, hard fall like that. So yeah, I think that
stays as number one. The one place that has super,
super soft mat is like Bouldering Project. I
know in Seattle, at least, I don't know about
like all the bouldering projects, but usually
their mats are like super, super soft. Yeah,
I'm not aware of that. So if it's too soft for
sure, it can make it more likely for you to roll
ankles. We got to find the Goldilocks. Yeah,
basically it sounds like there's a lot of...
specifics to what makes something like slightly
more or less injury prone. Right. Do you want
to get into any other hot takes that you have?
Let's see. So I think tape, I use tape a lot.
I like tape a lot as a source, as a resource.
My hot take is that I think climbing as a whole
really overestimates the value of tape and doesn't
understand its uses or limitations as much as
I'd like it to be. And I say that not as like
to blame any coach that uses it. I think it absolutely
works to support some things, right? But when
it starts becoming like, oh, okay, this hurts.
I'm going to tape it and still climb on it. You're
very much masking a bigger problem. So I would
classify use of tape as like really three different
ways. One is going to be the best case scenario
is you use it to. Know that you have an injury
and you've been actively working towards that
injury and it's used as a supportive structure
so that you can still climb while rehabbing that
injury. And any good kind of like PT or coach
should be able to understand that that's what
it's for, right? And I think most coaches do.
I think it's more so let's try to educate a lot
of athletes who see a lot of people in the World
Cup circuit and everywhere just kind of use tape
and think that that's what you should do when
you're injured, right? um so that's like scenario
number one right um i think the what ends up
happening a lot is i have an injury i just pull
the muscle uh or i pull like the most common
ones like you'll see a lot of taping on the finger
right for for like just random tweaks um when
you use it to like oh this hurts when i do it
let me put a tape on and it feels a bit better
and you just continue that it it protects the
pulley a little bit so that it's let um For any
body part, right? But let's use the fingers as
an example. It's protecting it a little bit,
giving it some more support by like 10 % or so.
But if you now have a feedback mechanism of like,
oh, cool, I can do this with less pain now, you're
going to try a little bit harder and the tape
is not going to completely withstand the load
anyway, right? It just gives the... a little
bit more support. But if you like hit that threshold,
let's say you can pull 50, like normally you
can pull 100 pounds on this. But because you're
a little tweaked, now you can only pull 80 pounds
on it. With tape, let's say you can pull 90 pounds
on it. We're making numbers up, right? But let's
say that that's the case, right? And cool. Now
what used to kind of hurt me doesn't really hurt
me until I get to like my max level. But let's
say I'm doing that in a foot slips. And now all
of a sudden, all that weight went into there,
we easily surpassed that 100 pounds and the chance
of re -injury is much higher. And we wouldn't
have that if we had a little bit more of a kind
of real feedback from the hold from what we're
feeling. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah. So
I think a lot of people use it in that way of
like, I have something going on. Let me just
put this on. It'll make you feel a bit better
and then do whatever they're doing at normal
level, which without trying to acknowledge that
they do have something that they should actively
work towards. And then the worst case scenario
is when you use it when there's nothing wrong
as a preventative means. I think it just creates
a really bad dependency on something that is
not doing anything. Okay. I guess a lot of people
would continue taping. I guess I've done it just
because I have been doing it and then I don't
know when I can stop doing it. Like I don't know
when it's healed. And that's like the main question,
right? That's why if you work with a professional
and you kind of have like guidance throughout
this whole time, that question is easy to answer
because they'll know where you're currently at
and what your goal is and how you've been progressing,
right? If you're doing self -rehab and it feels
a lot better, but you've been using tape this
whole time, it kind of gives you a false sense
of security of like how good is the structure
actually, right? And then if you just can kind
of continue using. that support um for x amount
of time after the injury is fully healed you
feel that you can never quite push to the limit
without this and it's just again giving you a
little bit more of a snug fit not take it's not
really taking any load away from it though so
that's all i think um i would always encourage
if there is no pain when you're climbing with
tape um with whatever thing, right? And you've
been doing that for two weeks is like my magic
number. I like two weeks for seeing changes,
right? If you're doing that for two weeks and
you haven't been feeling pain for two weeks,
try climbing without tape. And if the pain starts
coming back, then it never healed properly. And
we should take that seriously. If your cycle
is like, okay, I did this for two weeks and then
I climb without tape and it kind of started hurting
again. And your response to that is, let me just
put some tape on it again. that's what I mean
of like you're consistently masking the problem,
right? And that's the bad part I think about
taping that I think a lot of people tend to fall
into. That makes sense. Okay, I think one of
the other hot takes you had mentioned, you said
most injuries don't require time off the wall
and knowing how to prevent it from worsening
will save you a lot of frustration. So how do
you prevent it from worsening? Yeah, that's difficult
for, right? This is, how do you, so I think the
only things I would say need a complete. time
off the wall is like full tears or ruptures um
whenever you see like deep bruising or changes
in color in whatever whatever structure you're
looking at or if there's any numbness um usually
that's a sign of like some type of nerve irritation
but basically any type um any type of pain that
isn't mechanically driven and what i mean by
that is if you can recreate the pain by doing
something that's mechanically driven if you're
just If you're just having like pain without
doing anything, it's just kind of like a burning
sensation. That's when I'm like, okay, that's
a red flag. We need to take some time off slash
get it checked out, right? But if it's like the
easy example, again, let's say that you pop a
pulley, right? It shouldn't just be in constant
pain. If it is, you probably did some more damage
to like all the surrounding structures. You should
really only have the pain when you're actively
engaging that flutter tendon because that puts
pressure onto that pulley. Does that make sense?
Okay, yeah. And so whenever you deal with more
systemic issues, which is your non -mechanical
based injuries, so like numbness, if you have
a lot of deep bruising, discoloration, all of
that is more blood vessel injuries, stuff like
that. That's when I get it checked out. When
it's purely mechanical, you typically want to
be doing some type of loading for things to heal
properly. Otherwise, there will be a buildup
of scar tissue. So the body is really good at
healing itself, but it heals itself in like a
very short term aspect. If your goal is to continue
climbing at a high level, you oftentimes don't
want to take a complete break and then just kind
of hop back into it because it more often than
not didn't heal quite correctly. And fractures.
I would definitely take a break with fractures.
Okay. Makes sense. Okay. Good to know the differences
between what you should and shouldn't take a
break for. I guess if you aren't taking a break,
how do you know what's too much? I would say
pain, like pain theory that I tell to all my
clients is if you feel that there is pain when
doing a move, that is, I would say, I would classify
it as sharp. So sharp meaning like it kind of
like shoots up or down wherever you're feeling
it or like an immediate zero to 100 pain. That's
red flag. Don't do that move again. We're not
ready for that yet. The body's just telling you,
okay, cool. Let's do something easier or something
not as aggressive. Um, if the pain is more dull,
which is like kind of like creeping up on you
and it gets worse with more reps or longer time
that you're holding that hold, stay up to about
like a three out of 10 is usually my, my benchmark.
Um, if you get more than like a three out of
10 dull achiness, that's another time to step,
take a step away, take a break, try it again.
Um, and if that continues, we know that that's
too much, right? if it stays up to a three or
less and it kind of feels that dull achiness,
but it doesn't get any worse with prolonged time.
In fact, it actually gets a bit better. That's
the sweet spot. You want to feel a little bit
of discomfort, right? You want to feel like you're
trying a little bit. The tissues are clearly
telling you, no, I'm not at 100%, but I need
some of this load to get better. We want to stay
in that like one to three out of 10 discomfort
when we're doing things. Up to a four maybe,
right? But yeah, anything that is like sharp
goes to 100 really quickly or gets worse with
more repetitions where we want to stay away from
those. And then afterwards, if you end a session
and let's say you never got to sharp pain and
never got to over a three out of 10 and you end
the session and it feels sore and that soreness
goes away within a couple hours, you did just
enough. If that lingers until the next day, you
did too much. I see. And there's different injuries
that will, more often than not present as longer
lasting, as in like more acute in the way that
you'll feel an immediate pain when doing something,
something like a pulley tear. You don't need
to, it'll be pretty obvious. Like you do a movement
that'll hurt, right? Whereas something like a
tendonitis issue or a flexor tendinitis, issues
that are more like inflammation of an entire
group. That won't really be as in your face during
a specific move. It'll be more afterwards. And
it's the accumulation of lower loads over time
that will kind of get that achiness that you're
feeling. Those tends to be the more frustrating
ones. It's less obvious to catch on your own,
right? And so working with a professional there
is obviously of value. But my advice stands true
of like, if you did... if you feel a little bit
of achiness afterwards and it goes away in a
couple hours, we did good. Call that a good session.
Let's stay in that pocket. But if you never get
to that pain level, you don't know what you can
do and it'll just start kind of healing slightly
incorrectly. That's all. Thanks for going into
that. Okay. One thing that I thought about with
like youth athletes, I feel like I've talked
to a few youth athletes. Sometimes I ask about
like what injuries they've had. And a lot of
times I just hear like, oh, I've like never had
an injury. Is that like the most important thing,
like not getting injured? Because so many people
I've talked to, it's just like, oh, I've never
been injured. Like, wow, that's nice. Yeah. I
don't know. I have this thought in my mind that
like once you've injured something once, it will
always be just like worse. Like you can rehab
it as much as you want, but it will always be
like worse. Okay. This is another thing that
I kind of like tell a lot of my clients with
like recurring injuries because I think chronic
injuries are like the most – The hardest to deal
with from a provider standpoint, because it's
less of a blank manual of like, okay, if this
and that, right? You have to like look at the
whole kind of history and like your current climbing
volume intensity, what you're doing on the rest
days, all that stuff, right? So I always kind
of go with the side of if you injure something,
if it's a tear and it kind of healed, it's for
the most part fine now, but like it always feels
a little bit off. It probably healed in a way
that it never really got. to that 100%. So it
always got to like 90, 95%. And then your body
got really good at like making up for it, right?
And so my job is we want to be continuing to
progress in climbing most of the time, right?
And so I take a much more kind of movement -based
approach for that end stage rehab, right? you
can only do so much of like the lifting and like
the hangboard stuff. Ultimately, something about
how you're climbing is probably causing this
recurring injury to happen. So I like to be a
little bit more holistic with like, all right,
how are we moving? Are we not taking enough weight
from our feet? And that's why we're consistently
over gripping or something like that, right?
If we're like consistently chicken winging our
shoulders, right? And some parts of our shoulders
are taking more weight than others. We can rehab
things all the time. And if you don't actually
like change what is getting you in that place
in the first place, then it's just going to be
a chronic issue. But I think people think that,
like what you said, if you injured it once, that
thing is just never going to get better again.
I think it's more so why did it happen in the
first place? If it's just like a one -off acute
injury or is it an accumulation of how you're
climbing? And more often than not, it's something
about how you're climbing. Okay. That is something
I will have to think about. Yeah. And it's so
hard to know on your own. And this is not me
pitching my own services. I think I do it myself
as well. I go to an OT when I have something
wrong with myself because it's hard to take away
my own bias. So I think understanding that getting
frustrated is okay. But taking a step back and
being like, why is this happening is going to
be a much better question than, okay, how can
I... How can I just rehab this on its own and
like taking that as a vacuum, right? So yeah,
I think with all the programming that I do, I
always end with doing the hard stuff on the wall,
right? Like if you got injured crimping, we will
absolutely be doing crimping as part of like
your last session. And so all my sessions are
on. climbing gyms so like i have that look like
be able to do all these like movement sessions
in the gyms like that and uh that's for like
all in -person stuff but for all my online programming
very much so as part of the program i'll have
like open climbing and i'll say like i want you
to do a max board session and it's part of your
rehab no okay yeah no that totally makes sense
and yeah i was like thinking back on the injuries
i had i guess like i had a lot of like wrist
issues when i was like first starting and I was
like oh my god like this is never gonna get better
it like keeps re -injuring but then I just like
yeah I haven't really had that since so that
one kind of fixed itself now I just have like
constant shoulder injuries that always come back
up so yeah maybe one day if I fix my climbing
that'll fix itself too yeah or like it's not
just like fixing your climbing doesn't like get
better at climbing it's more so like what are
you doing in terms of like yeah like yeah like
I'm definitely climbing in a way that's messing
it up somehow I kind of figured that out. Another
thing, though, I would say, like, yeah, unfortunately,
like, it's a truth that the older you get, the
longer it takes for things to heal. There's just,
like, blood flow to that area. Like, youth athletes
are just much more malleable. Like, their bodies
can, like, they're like rubber bands, you know?
Like, oh, my God, I've seen so many cases where,
like, there's, like, a, like, I always measure
one side to the other. And, like, one side will
be, like, half of the other side if there's,
like, a really bad injury. And, you know, I see
them once or twice in like a couple of weeks,
they're like back to 100%. It's insane. It's
like, oh, it must be nice. But no, I think when
we're dealing mostly with the adult population
and you get to that 90%, the job isn't done there.
We have to be stronger. So I guess let me share
this too real quick. I popped a pulley like three
years ago. That actually kind of led to me wanting
to do this full time. But yeah, so I pop a pulley
there and I knew that physiologically speaking,
once the ligament is fully torn, it was a full
rupture. It's never going to heal again in terms
of like that pulley is gone. If you take a CT
scan of me, like I do not have that pulley anymore.
However, it is full of just like these kind of
like adhesions that build up in the area. And
overall, your body just gets really good over
time being able to compensate for it. The way
I explain it is, let's say this can pull 100
pounds because of that injury, even though I
did the rehab that I'm supposed to, it can only
ever pull 90 pounds. However, that was when I
was a V5 climber or V6 climber. Since I've gone
up quite a few grades from there, I will now,
instead of pulling 100 pounds here, I pull 120.
But because of, in all my fingers, let's say,
right? But now without 120 pounds on all the
other fingers, this one is only 110. So it's
never quite. what it could be, but 110 is still
better than 100 pounds. That it was perfectly
fine years ago. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay.
So we just need to get to a point where we're
like making up the difference by just in... continuing
to like get stronger and like being past our
normal level so that we don't really notice it
as much. So that's kind of like my philosophy
with it. It's like, it's, it's not a lost cause.
Like I, you know, even, even in the absolute
worst case scenario, which most of the time it
isn't right. Like a rupture of a ligament is
worst case scenario because that won't heal,
but tendons like muscles, all of those heal quite
well. Right. And so knowing that and knowing
that it could heal and even, even if it won't
heal, like. like completely like getting you
to a higher threshold level so that you can tolerate
these loads. I think just, it speaks volume.
I think it's a consistent, you can always consistently
improve. Okay, cool. So now going a bit into
your own climbing, you climb quite a bit, like
quite a lot yourself. You mentioned that you
were training for Peruvian nationals. I am, yeah.
This is my first time ever making this public,
so this is fun. Yeah. What are the eligibility
requirements for that? So I guess I wanted to
throw my hand in there. I competed these last
month in June, early June. Two months ago now,
yeah. um just to kind of see where i was at i
trained maybe like two to three months prior
up to it just so i wasn't completely washed but
um uh yeah i kind of like um first time ever
doing some type of competition like that i went
in and it's basically like the you go you go
into into like whatever building it is and it's
complete isolation right like you're you're kind
of locked in with with all the training equipment
um and then one by one you just get pulled in
uh and the requirement pretty much you just have
to be a citizen of that country Um, so I have
dual citizenship and, and then qualify either,
uh, at some competitions you need like prior
entry for it. For Peru, you, you don't, it's,
I, I don't think most, like, I think in the US
you need to qualify to go to nationals by doing
like ECS and stuff like that. In Peru you don't.
So I was like completely newcomer, just kind
of see what it was about. Um, and, and yeah,
I, I kind of saw what the level was and, um,
I, I don't think I'm too far off. So I'm, I'm,
I'm taking this year to like. Really, really
trained. Nice. Okay. How did you do in June?
I got 18th. Oh yeah, that's not bad. Yeah. So
you need, I think, top eight to make finals.
And once you're in finals, again, every country
is going to have like different policies. I believe
top six make team, I want to say. So I have a
long way to go, but I would say technique wise,
I'm going to... Luckily, the facilities that
I have access to, one, I'm in multiple facilities.
I have five gyms. But just in the U .S. in general,
the facilities are just so much more high tech
than in Peru. It's still very much a new sport
there. So they train a lot on spray boards and
spray walls and stuff like that. And they're
very physically strong. All of them can do one
-arm pull -ups. No problem. But technique -wise,
I would say it's... especially on like slab and
coordination, it's definitely like a step back
on what you would see in like even like a divisionals
or definitely like a nationals level event here.
Like it's not really that comparable. So how
are you training for it? Do you have like a coach
that you work with or are you doing your own
programming? Yeah, I'm a big fan of the barter
system. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense,
yeah. So I have done like trades with like seven
or eight different coaches. Okay. I think I feel
pretty good about writing my own training program,
just like, you know, my understanding of how
things work on my end. But the one -to -one kind
of private coaching is, I think, super valuable
for me. Having someone like pinpoint what I'm
doing wrong and just kind of like coach me through
it is really, really good. So yeah, I currently...
I've worked a lot with a couple coaches in the
area more consistently, but a bunch of times
I'll do one -off sessions for a bunch of people.
What's your training look like or what's the
biggest weakness that you're working on? Physical
strength by far. I thought I was a pretty physical
climber, but they put all their stats in physicality.
It's crazy to see. I would say Kordo and Yeah,
just like coordination moves. I think even where
I'm at right now, I think I'm at a level where
it's good enough to like make the team. Whereas
my physical strength is definitely ways away.
So I want to build up a lot more like just contact
strength, a lot more explosivity and just like
holding on to really bad holds. That's the other
thing. They don't have like the pristine, nice,
like frictiony holds that we have here. So it's
just like. just squeezing really hard on bad
holds. Yeah. So like at the, at the comp, did
they set a lot of like physical stuff that you
couldn't do? Yeah. So like, I'm sure you're aware,
right? Like usually, usually here there's like
one physical boulder and like the other three
are like more technique based, right? Like usually
a slab, a cordo, whatever, right? There they
had three physical boulders, one slab and one
cordo. Oh, there were five. Yeah. Okay, interesting.
Yeah, for the qualifiers. Yeah, I would love
to see videos of that later if you have any footage
of you doing the competition. The only footage
I got was my grandpa taking it, and it's like
a little camcorder. It's really bad, but it's
very nice of him. Well, yeah, best of luck to
you this year. Yeah, it'd be really cool if you
made it in. What's like... Do you have like a
final goal with that? Like make the team go to
like World Cups or how does that work? If I make
team, I can then go to any of the World Cups,
right? So once I do that, I believe there's only
two slots per, like IFSC changed this, so it's
only two slots per country unless you have people
in the top 50, which we don't. So yes, it'll
be two per competition. The thing is Peru doesn't
have a lot of budget. So they'll send like the
top two people to a few of the comps and then
the rest, they'll run out of money and be like,
all right, well, anyone else down the pecking
order, if you want to go, you have to like sponsor
yourself. And that's where I come in, right?
So I think I'm in a lucky spot where I think
I'll definitely take my chance when... Yeah,
I think definitely they wouldn't sponsor any
of the Asia World Cups. So I would want to go
to maybe a couple of the European ones, one of
the Asian ones. I think it would just be super
fun as just like a getaway. When am I ever going
to have a chance to do an event like this and
also just treat it as a vacation while I'm there?
Plus, also, I think it just kind of looks pretty
good from a marketing standpoint, right? That
a climate -specific PT is also a World Cup competitor.
That's kind of cool. that'd be really cool. It'd
be really cool just to like get, like see like
where the other competitors are at and then see
what the level is like. I think it's a really
good experience. It'd be really fun. Um, like
I said, I, I think I, I never thought this would
be nearly as possible. So I, I really only started
training like a few months ago, um, to, yeah,
I think everyone kind of hits a, like a plateau
at certain point. Right. So to me, um, that was
like the, The V8, V9 level is where I kind of
hit the plateau. And so I think trying to like
really push it from here requires a lot of like
dedicated training and things like that. So I'm
excited to see how far I can push it. And if
I can make team, have a really cool experience
at a World Cup, I'll definitely make a lot of
cool content about it. No, that would be really
sick. Yeah. Good luck to you. That'd be awesome.
A dream. It's not going to be until May. So I
have quite a few months to train. No, that's
a good amount of time. Yeah, there's a lot that
you can do in that amount of time. Awesome. Okay,
cool. So let's get into some of the audience
submitted questions. The first one, what advice
would you give to PT students looking to work
with climbers? I've had like three different
cold emails asking me about this. Okay, you can
answer it all here. Yeah, I would say. First
of all, assuming that you're already in PT school
and everything or trying to get into that, understanding
that probably social media is the one thing that
got my name more out there. If you don't really
want to use social media at all, you just have
to work a lot harder for building connections
in that industry in general. It turns out to
be a lot of if you can build connections with
the gyms that you're working at, that helps a
lot. you're gonna make a lot of people like within
that community, like pretty happy with what you're
offering. Also, there's a lot of continuing education
classes that you can take because as I said,
there's not that much focus on fingers and hands
on physical therapy school. So I would definitely
recommend doing like continuing education classes.
Um, there are, there's a lot of great resources
out there. I took a class with Jerry Baggy. Um,
he's known, I believe as a climbing doctor in
Instagram. So he's, uh, he offers like courses
for PTs to take, or actually PT students as well
can take it. And it's basically like PT for climbers
specifically. That's what the course is. Um,
so yeah, I took that course. I took a couple
other stuff that is like more like, like manual
driven, more for hands and wrists, stuff like
that. So I, it required a lot of like deep research
on my end. Because it's not something that gets
taught too much in school. And then really applying
that with the local community in my gym first.
Eventually, social media started getting my name
more out there. And then I kind of grew from
there. But it was a grind. I would say I posted
things on my social media. Started, I believe,
February of 2022. And I didn't see my first client
until I think it was like October of that year.
Wow. Yeah. Social media is a grind. I think we
all know that. It is a grind. It is not so easy.
Okay. So next one, what are the pillars of a
strong climbing warmup? Oh, that's a great question.
Yeah. You can do so many things for a warmup.
I think if I were to classify things, if you
are warming, like getting some blood flow into
your whole body. whether that's cardio, whether
that's like doing something like jumping jacks
or whatever, or just doing some like light pull
-ups, just things to like be at a much lower
level than what you're normally pulling, doing
that. You can do like, just like on the wall,
just like doing a traverse, like that works okay
too. My big gripe is you got to warm up to what
you're going to be climbing that day, especially
if you have a particular project in mind. That's
why I don't like, I don't like. The idea of like,
this is like my one warmup every time I change
up what I want to do based on what I want, what
I want to work on that day. So in my training,
I have a coordination day, a slab day, and a
like two physical strength days. The warmup for
those, for those three classifications are actually
a good bit different. I hit the pillars of like
getting some blood flow in my body. I'm getting
some light movement by doing some like, you know,
I'll do like five pull -ups. I'll do like a couple
of explosive pull -ups, maybe a couple of pushups
just to get some blood flow everywhere. And once
I hit that, that's like kind of the only similarity.
After that, if you're going for a more kind of
like movement -based day, focus a lot more on
like mobility. I like active mobility before
passive. And then if you're going to be doing
a lot of like coordination movements, definitely
you got to be doing some type of like dynamic
pull -up or like some type of like explosive
thing before you get into that project. And then
if you're just going to be like climbing on crimps
all the time, like spend some time on the hangboard.
Right. As long as we're kind of like hitting
things at a lower level from what you're going
to be climbing that day. And if your day is just
like, oh, I just want to climb for fun. Yeah.
Do little light hangboard. Just get some blood
flow there. Some active mobility, some active
stretches. Right. And then just like doing some
regular pull up training, maybe a couple of pushups
just to warm the pressing motions. And don't
neglect the legs. I think that's another big
one. I always include a couple of pistol squats
in my warm -up. A couple of pistol squats. Okay.
I need to warm up into a pistol squat. Yeah.
Do just like sit to stand. I like to have it
like a block. Just like stand and sit down from
there. I guess like what about warm -ups for
like competitors in ISO? I find it so hard to
like warm up in ISO where you don't really have
like a big space and then you have to like be
prepared for anything. That's like, yeah, that's
a hard warm -up for me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's
similar to what I just said, right? Of like,
if you know that you're going to be doing a lot
of like dynamic stuff, you got to make makeups
on this, on the wall. So like I saw this so much
at nationals and the coaches do such a cool job
of this. Like these are, these are people who
are going to be doing V10 plus boulders in a
couple minutes or like in an hour. Right. And
so with. the the things that are available to
them they're like going from from one hold to
a boulder that is like has nothing to do with
it right just like different crosses but just
making like makeups of moves that i think will
get the body moving in the right way it's going
to be super cool so i'd spend um i usually spend
like five minutes on the spray wall if your gym
doesn't have a spray wall um i would just do
like some like light like you know whatever grades
you climb like a greater tube below your flash
level. Climb it at least once very static and
once fast using momentum. Okay, cool. Last question.
This is a little bit general. So I'm trying to
think of how to ask this. Well, so the question
itself is what exercises do you recommend for
injury prevention? Of course, there's a bunch
of different exercises for whatever injury you're
trying to do. So maybe pick like two most common
like comp injuries and what exercises you would
suggest for strengthening those. For specifically
for comp climbers? We could just do climbing
in general. The most common thing I see is fingers.
So I think if you don't do some type of hangboard
or block pickups as part of your warmup, you
absolutely should. My biggest gripe is when you
just warm up on B0 -2s on jugs and then you hop
into a crimpy climb after that. You did not warm
up your fingers at all. Like you're just pulling
on like bucket handles. So that doesn't do anything
to your actually pulleys and flexor tendons.
So yeah, if you don't already do some type of
handboard, let's definitely incorporate that.
There's a cool study that was posted that says
that the most optimal, meaning optimal, they
define as the chance of injuring that tissue
is negligible or with more warmup. it does not
make it more warm, if that makes sense. Like
it's as warm as it can get. That's how they define
optimal. Like the tissue has as much blood flow
as it wants to get, as it can get. And so at
that point to you doing 30 more minutes of climbing,
it's not any more warm. So that's how they define
that. And they said that to get to that point
was between 100 and 120 moves. Whoa, okay. And
like with move, it can be like, yeah, just like
you're on a wall and like, you know, 50 to 60
moves per hand. That's like your optimal warmup,
right? And so I think that just puts them into
perspective of like, we probably don't do enough
of, this is for specifically for pulleys. So
being that pulleys are probably the most common
adult injury that I see. So like 100 to 120 moves
of like crimpy, like smaller edge. I guess. Yeah.
I wouldn't call it like, like super small edge,
but like any where you're like actually like
engaging in. Yeah. Yeah. And so you can do that.
You can, instead of just doing so many moves
like that, you can do a lot on the hangboard,
you know? And, and you know, like if you do like
a seven on three off repeater, how can you classify
seven seconds as like one move? Right. It's,
it's so hard to like, then we're like getting
super like, like picky with this type of stuff.
But I think it just helps to pose a, a bit more
of like a, a, Bigger picture that we more likely
than not don't warm up the actual flexor tendon
enough before we get into our performance part.
So keep that in mind. Just do like a few hangs
on the hangboard or if you're going to be, if
most of your warmup happens on the wall, just
make sure you're intentional about like pulling
in. And you can like pull in and grab, like crimp
a juggy hold, right? Just like you have to be
intentional with it. What about like a, okay,
what's like the most common comp injury? an exercise
you would recommend for that? I think shoulders.
Oh, yes. You're a fan of shoulders? Well, it's
just that my shoulder is always injured. So if
I could, you know, get an exercise for that,
that'd be great. Yeah. Okay. So there's a ton
of like shoulder rotator cuff strengthening stuff.
I think I see a lot of people like do like the
kind of like this stuff with the band or like
external rotation. Those are all good for warming
up those muscles to start firing. But I do think
most of the time, shoulder injuries happen from
dynamic movement or just moves that are more
three -dimensional. And so what I mean by that
is if you're at a Gaston and you're pulling,
you're pulling this way, but gravity is pulling
you down. So there's a lot of forces acting on
the shoulder. And by doing just one move against
resistance, you're just working one axis. one
axis, right? And the shoulder moves in all three
axes. So because it's such a movable joint, like
fingers only bend, right? And extend. The shoulders
can go forward, side, and then rotate, right?
So because of that, it makes warming up the shoulder
a little bit more nuanced and that you shouldn't
just work one move at a time. Does that make
sense? Like one move at a time being like, if
you attach a band here and you go against the
band, that's one axis, right? Right. So what
I would suggest is taking like a band and like
pushing against it. Like if there's like a loop
or something like that, and then adding other
movements. So like you can go up, you can go
to the side, but doing the same type of motion
of external rotation, because that's what you're
using a lot of to keep you on the wall, but in
different positions with movement. Oh, okay.
I like that a lot. And that's a good one for
injury prevention. Okay, perfect. And then going
even a little bit further, like on the wall,
like. Like do some like little jumps to jugs
and just kind of like, or jump to a bar, right?
Just the fact that you're like trying to activate
with zero lag, right? All right. Well, that's
all the questions I had for today then. Thanks
for joining me. Any last minute like thoughts
or words of wisdom you want to get out there?
No, I think, no, this is really fun. I think
just the more on if you want to be. like for
the students or people that want to be in climbing
PT. I think it's a really cool niche that I've
built out for myself. And if that's something
that you want to like follow, like for sure do.
I think we need more climbing specific PTs. I'm
hoping that this becomes a, I think the sport
has grown a lot, but I hope it becomes like an
NCAA sport at some point. And then when that
happens, there's a lot more money in the game.
And then, you know, we can actually. we should
be having a lot more attention to like health
of athletes and and so um hopefully this is the
beginning of something really cool and um i'm
glad that i'm taking part of it hopefully a little
bit awesome okay and where can people find you
uh so on instagram i'm at climbing .rehab and
my website is climbingrehab .com super easy to
remember nice handle i feel like that's that's
a hard one to get yeah right yeah there's a little
dot because i think i'm was taken yeah that makes
sense that was kind of cool yeah okay cool well
awesome thank you again it was amazing to talk
to you awesome thank you so much that was fun
thank you so much for making it to the end of
the podcast don't forget to like and subscribe
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you can continue the discussion on the free competition
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again for listening Thank you.