Older and Boulder

In my Goals post from a few weeks back, I mentioned in passing the Golfers Elbow issue I have been suffering from. At the time I didn’t really go into detail, but I think it might be worth talking about some of the history of my injury, the current status, and what I did to get to this point.

I started having elbow problems in around April this year with no real obvious causal factor. I didn’t injure it in a single event, it just sort of started to annoy me, and be a bit painful when climbing and in some other movements. My initial response to this was denial. I really didn’t want to have to stop climbing as I had really rediscovered my love for it, and was making some pretty nice progress. I hoped if I just ignored it, it would go away.

It didn’t, and if anything it started to get worse.

Hello, Dr. Internet!

Next, I turned to a combination of climbing websites, books, and youtube.

Much of the advice/recommendations here was ‘Eccentric Exercises, and lots of them, lots of times a day’. I started this in earnest pretty quickly, but soon realised that 3-4 sets of 15 (6-8 second) reps per side, 3-4 times a day added up to a hell of a lot of time, and it was also starting to give me some trouble in my right wrist.

To try and save time , I tried switching from dumbells to a barbell so I could do the right and left wrists and the same time to make it easier to stick to doing the exercises, but this actually caused me even more problems with the wrist. Clearly, treating this myself was getting me nowhere.

Physio, Phase 1

I eventually decided to try some professional help and sought out a physio. I saw someone local who specialised in sports injuries, and they confirmed the golfers elbow diagnosis.

I won’t go into too much detail about what was involved in that, but there was a lot more eccentric exercises, lots of stretches for the lats, some ‘dry needling’, massage/mobilisation, icing after climbing etc. I did have a little bit of a reduction in pain, about mid way through, but soon went back to being as bad as ever. After about 8 sessions/3 months, we concluded with ‘maybe you could try ShockWave Therapy’.

No Joy, What Next?

I was pretty down about the whole situation by this time, and in my determination to KEEP CLIMBING, decided that maybe I should try and find a physio specialising in climbing injuries. I couldn’t find anyone local to me, but did find a climbing specialist with whom I could do a video consultation.

The first consultation agreed with the golfers elbow diagnosis and came with some recommendations for altering my current climbing schedule, and more importantly, a rehab plan.

For climbing, the plan was to cut down the length of my sessions, but keep the frequency, and to make sure I was avoiding anything that annoyed the elbow. Surprisingly, I was also told to keep going with the high intensity boulders, as long as I was pain free.

For rehab the plan was to forget the high rep, high frequency eccentric exercises, and instead focus on isometric exercises with the aim of progressively loading up the tissue over time.

So I found myself, 3 times a week, in the day after climbing doing 3 sets of 3 reps of locked off Isometic hangs from a pull up bar, and week by week increasing the load.

After 4 weeks, we switched things up a bit by adding in some shoulder exercises (I,Y,T’s with TRX) in between the hangs, and then another 4 weeks later adding more load to the hangs, and a little bit more mobility work.

Progress?

So, 8 weeks later, where am I? Firstly, I still have pain in my elbow, however, I’m much more able to climb pain free than I was before, and feel less held back by the elbow on the wall. I’ve managed to send a few more indoor 6c boulders and my first 6c+ in the last month. I’ve taken part in a couple of round of the SNBL comps, and emerged unscathed. These injuries are apparently characterised by a highly persistent pain even when things are starting to get back to full strength, which seems to be the case here. I can hang in a locked off position for 30 seconds with weight added now, with discomfort, but not pain, and when I started, I was struggling at bodyweight.

Realistically, I think i’m still a few months away from being pain free and back to normal, but, and this is the key bit for me, I feel like things are getting better, and feel, for the first time, like I will get over this. It’s been a lot of work, and no doubt will continue to be so, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

So, do I have a conclusion here? Perhaps! I would advise, strongly, when you get injured, as you surely will at some point, to seek out an appropriate professional. I tried to shortcut the process by diagnosing and treating myself via the internet. It was a waste of time and energy. Secondly, find a professional that knows how to treat people who do your sport. If I could go back to April and follow this advice, the rehab would probably be done by now, and the heartache from not getting better would probably have been avoided altogether. That being said, things are improving, and i’m assured that if i ‘trust the process’ they will continue to do so. Updates to follow!