Date: May 2nd, 2016
Shoulder Care for Climbers
This week, in our fourth mini episode of Ask Kris, we decided to talk about shoulder care for climbers – one of my favorite topics. A lot of climbers have shoulder issues, and we discuss what to do after you have a shoulder injury and how to prevent them from happening at all.
- Most common shoulder issues for climbers
- When to see a doctor
- What exercises you should do for injury prevention
- What exercises you should avoid when you have an injury
- More about Neely’s experience with shoulder surgery
Train Your Shoulders with Kris’s Programs
All of the programs that Kris wrote for trainingbeta.com have a focus on shoulder stability, strength, and injury prevention.
If you want 3 complete workouts every week to get you stronger and help you stay injury free, check out our bouldering training program or our route training program.
- More about Kris
- Train with Kris one-on-one or online
- Train bouldering or route climbing using one of Kris’s programs on TrainingBeta
- Kris’s 6-Week Power Endurance Program
Freebie Shoulder Workout
Here’s a shoulder workout from our Bouldering Strength and Power Program for you. There’s a lot more where that came from!
Shoulder Exercise Videos
- Dumbbell Shoulder Presses (with Jonny Hork as our model)
- I’s, Y’s, & T’s (with Alex Honnold as our model)
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Transcript
Neely Quinn: Welcome to the Training Beta podcast, where I talk with climbers and trainers about how we can get a little better at our favorite sport. I’m your host, Neely Quinn, and I haven’t talked to you guys in a little while. I haven’t gotten an episode out in a couple weeks and that’s because I was on vacation for a week, like, my first real vacation in – I think since 2010. I didn’t touch emails or podcasts or anything. We went to Vegas and climbed moderate climbs that were beautiful and amazing. We’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas and we’ve never climbed climbs this good there. We did a lot of moderates, where we could do the climb first or second try and it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for years. It was awesome.
I’m back now, though, and this episode is actually #4 of the ‘Ask Kris’ series. The ‘Ask Kris’ series is with Kris Peters, so every week-ish I’m talking for about 15 minutes with our trainer, our main trainer, over here at Training Beta, Kris Peters, who has written a lot of our programs. He also does one-on-one training with people in person and online. If you’re interested in training with him or checking out any of our programs, you can go to www.trainingbeta.com and there’s a ‘training programs’ tab and there’s a ‘personal training’ tab and all of the information is right there for you.
This time, we’re talking about shoulders. So many of us have shoulder issues, including myself, but also I think it’s really important that people know how to avoid having shoulder issues. That’s kind of what we talked about. I’m just going to get right into the interview. Here’s Kris – enjoy!
Neely Quinn: Alright. Welcome back to the show, Kris. Thanks for being with me today.
Kris Peters: Hey! How’s it going?
Neely Quinn: Going great. Today we’re going to talk about shoulders and we’re going to talk about what kinds of shoulder issues you see with people and how to prevent shoulder injuries. Let’s just get started with: what kinds of shoulder injuries do you typically see with people?
Kris Peters: Most of the time, most climbers are suffering from some sort of labrum, AC joint, or rotator cuff injury. For the most part, it’s usually the labrum. A lot of climbers I meet, they start with pain in the front of their shoulder. Any type of pushing usually hurts so usually – I’ve been fortunate enough to never train someone and have them blow out their shoulder. Most of the time if I find that they are suffering from any of these injuries, I have a routine that I usually have climbers to do try to strengthen that.
For the most part, you hear about a lot of labrum tears and a lot of it starts, too, with just a minor pain in the shoulders and a lot of climbers suffer from this because you’re always pulling. You have what’s called the ‘rounded look’ so, with all my climbers, I try and open them up, working on their posture and pulling their shoulders back. All of that forward rotation is going to put a lot of stress on that AC joint and really a lot of stress on those minor, minor muscles in your shoulders because all of those muscles in there – the rotator cuff – they’re all smaller muscle groups. It’s really hard to strengthen those without specific movements that a lot of climbers either don’t know about or it’s too boring or they just kind of forget to do it. I think almost every climber I work with, I’m like, “Let’s do the band work. When’s the last time you did this?” and I think Neely, you can attest to this, it’s like you kinda forget about it. I think one session we did, you remembered how hard that was and you kinda saw how important it was to stay on top of that.
Neely Quinn: Yeah, I do remember one workout that we had where, it wasn’t with bands, but you had me doing rotator cuff stuff lying on my side with really light dumbbells. The thing that you did differently that my physical therapists have not done, is you had me go to exhaustion. It was so freaking hard to lift two-pound dumbbells 20 times on each arm. The difference between that and 10 times was what made all the difference, but anyway, we can go into that a little bit more.
I want to just clarify one thing, because you said ‘the rounded look’ and I want to just make sure that people understand what that is. It’s so common with climbers, where – can you just describe it a little bit more?
Kris Peters: So, if you grab a climber, usually their shoulders are kinda rotated forward. They kind of have this lean forward in their posture, so a lot of times when they sit down/if a climber’s sitting down, it’s really hard for them to sit up straight and have that good posture. They have this ‘lean’ look, where literally, you can walk up to a climber and pull back on their shoulders and you can watch how much range of motion you can pull backwards on them. That’s just because their lats are super – because climbers, again, our lats, biceps, all of that’s really dominant so it’s just pulling you forward in this rounded motion. A lot of climbers, they don’t work on opening up their chest or working on the mid-back, where it can really help opening up an entire area. Most climbers, if you just sit next to a climber, you can just sit down and see them hunch forward. It’s literally just bad posture, is what it looks like. If a climber can’t sit up straight and pull their back back, that’s usually the way you can determine if they have very rounded shoulders.
Neely Quinn: It’s funny, this reminds me – for New Year’s resolutions I remember putting on Facebook, “My New Year’s resolution is to be able to sit up straight when I sit down.” My dad commented and was like, “What? Why don’t you just sit up straight?” and I was like, “I just can’t!”
Kris Peters: It’s hard! We climbers, you guys climb for such a long time, you’re just doing that and those muscles become so dominant and the other muscles are so weak and underdeveloped, it’s like you literally have to try to sit up straight with good posture. It’s not an easy thing.
Neely Quinn: Yeah. Okay, so a lot of people have shoulder pain and I know you’re not a doctor and we can go pretty superficially here, but people don’t know when to see a doctor. They don’t know how serious is too serious and how much pain they should be having. What are your just basic thoughts on that?
Kris Peters: I mean, anytime I work with someone and they experience any type of pain, I usually try to figure out how much pain are they in. I try to determine the area of the injury, but for most times, like – my girlfriend is a PA. She sees shoulder injuries all the time. A lot of people are like, “Oh, it hurt here but I just kept going and kept going” and they blow it out and need surgery. I’d say, based off how extensive a shoulder surgery is, and if any of you climbers have ever had it before you know it’s the worst, if you start to feel pain in your shoulders as a climber, I would highly recommend you get it looked at right away. Even if it’s just something minor, where you just need rehab or physical therapy. You just don’t want to mess with any type of shoulder injuries as a climber because of how much stress you’re putting on that shoulder/that part of your body. I would just say, if there’s ever a moment where you feel discomfort in it, if pushing hurts, if holding a plank hurts, anything like that, get it looked at just to be safe rather than sorry. A doctor can tell you way more than what I can, based off of my different assessments.
I’ll have people do external rotation exercises, where they’ll externally try to rotate their arm and I’ll put pressure on their hand, so that pressure – based off if they’re feeling any type of pain in those movements – I’ll usually say, “Okay, there might be something wrong with, like, your rotator cuff or labrum. Go get it checked out.”
Neely Quinn: Okay, and having had a lot of experience with shoulders, unfortunately, myself, I will put my two cents in here and say that if you do go to a doctor, go to an orthopedic doctor who specializes in shoulders and ask around for the best shoulder doctor in your city, or even outside of your city. I travelled two hours to see my doctor every time…
Kris Peters: Cornerstone Orthopedics in Denver is really good. For any of you Colorado people out there, Cornerstone Orthopedics are really great shoulder doctors.
Neely Quinn: Also, the Steadman Clinic in Vail. Another thing is, I think it seems that a lot of people have biceps tendon issues and that’s the front of the shoulder, right?
Kris Peters: Yes.
Neely Quinn: And that’s what’s causing a lot of the pain with the pushing exercises?
Kris Peters: Yes, and also too, if you start to do any type of lock-offs and that starts to hurt a lot when your arm is locked-off in that flexed position, when you come out of it and let go, you might feel a lot of pain in your bicep or in your shoulder. That’s also a good sign that that biceps tendon is not in a good place.
Neely Quinn: Okay, and the biceps tendon, for people who don’t know anatomy – and I had no idea before, but – it connects from your bicep, from the bottom of your bicep, up into the labrum and that’s often what causes the labrum tears. That’s why, in my surgery, they took my biceps tendon off of my labrum and put it onto my arm so it would stop tugging on it. That’s what they’ll do for you. Also, it’s common to have bone spurs that are also affecting that biceps tendon. There can be all kinds of things going on.
The last thing I want to say is, the stronger my shoulder has gotten, my other shoulder is giving me problems now. The stronger it’s gotten, thanks in part to Kris, the better it feels. Let’s talk about how you have clients strengthen their shoulders.
Kris Peters: I do a lot of, like we said, you talked a lot about the dumbbell work on your side, band work, and then really just strengthening the shoulder area and then doing a lot of posterior work. A routine that a lot of my clients have is a rehab routine, and I’ve seen a lot of climbers do this before. You grab a rubber band and do internal rotations, external rotations, and elevated external rotations. Again, that’s all focusing on those rotator cuff areas, those minor muscle groups in your shoulders that don’t get worked on just by doing a shoulder press or a lat pulldown. You have to specifically do movements to hit those exercises and I think – I worked with some pro-athletes in college where they’re doing 200-300 external rotations every single day. That’s how much these athletes are working on keeping those shoulders healthy. Basketball players, football players, and for climbers, again, the same thing can apply.
You guys can work/you guys can do your band work every single day. You can obviously start off smaller but you know, using a lighter band, you can get to the point where you’re doing that before every workout, after every workout, and like Neely said, it’s supposed to burn. You have to look at these little muscles groups as like, “Okay, I want to train it like I would my core. I want to get stronger,” so when your core is burning, you know you’re doing a good job. Same thing that Neely was saying, it was hurting so much to do two pounds. It was working that part of the muscle or that part of her body, to strengthen it. If I just have her do 10 reps and she’s moving through it like it’s nothing, then we’re not really doing anything so I need to make sure that she is physically being challenged in these movements. The same goes for all you guys. Make sure it is a challenging band or a challenging weight, where you can still complete all 20 reps but it’s burning at the end.
Then, the I’s Y’s and T’s is a big one because that does open up your chest. It opens up your shoulders and it takes away from all the tension pulling you forward. Also, foam rolling your lats is just going to help, again, relieve all that tension. Usually I do not do any pressing movements with anyone with shoulder pain. I think Neely, that’s kind of where you’ve been. You know, if you’re feeling any shoulder pain or whatever, that pressing is too much force and stress on those joints. You want to try and keep it lateral raises, frontal raises, reverse flyes – those are going to be your best bets to try and strengthen the shoulders until any type of pressing movement doesn’t hurt.
Neely Quinn: Okay, I want to back up for a second because I don’t know that people know what an internal rotation and external rotation is. Can you just describe that?
Kris Peters: Sure. Internal rotation, so what you’re going to do is you’re going to take a band and you’re going to tie it around a fixed anchor point, like a bar or a railing…
Neely Quinn: Or a doorknob.
Kris Peters: Or a doorknob, and you want that fixed point to be kind of in a line with your elbow, into your body. If you bring your elbow into your body and you bend your elbow at 90°, this is your starting point. You want the band to be in your hand and you want it to be perfectly straight with that anchor point. The internal rotation is your arm is pulled out from your body with your elbows in, and you pull the band into your belly button. That is your internal rotation.
For external, you want the band coming across your belly so it’s pulling away from you and your arm is pulled into your stomach at a 90° bend. You’re going to externally rotate it away from your body but keeping your elbow by your side. So a lot of times, you’ll see people externally rotate but their elbow comes off their body and their arm kind of goes straight. You want to keep that 90° bend for the entire motion for the external and internal rotation.
For elevated external rotation, your elbow is just going to be lifted up by your side, parallel with your shoulder, still with that 90° bend. The band is pulling away from your body and you’re going to externally rotate backwards, keeping that arm/that elbow parallel with your shoulder and 90° bend in the arm. Is that a good explanation?
Neely Quinn: Yeah. Really nice work, there, actually.
Kris Peters: Oh, thank you Neely Quinn: So, if you could be a little bit more specific in our last couple minutes, can you go through, like, how many reps, how many sets, of each of these and how long it should take? Kris Peters: Sure, I mean, any type of band work, usually, I just stick to between 20-25 reps per arm, three sets. The rest period for the arm that is not working is while the other arm is working, so if Neely does 20 external rotations on the right arm then 20 on the left, she goes right back to the right. That was her rest for her right arm. It should only take about 5-6 minutes if you’re moving quick. Again, I usually do three sets, sets of 20, and there’s no time to rest because while one arm’s working the other arm is already resting, and you can just go straight into the other arm once you’ve completed a full set. I’ll usually do the recovery work at the end of a workout. That’s just how I like to do it. Some people like to do it before the workout to kind of get their shoulders loose and warmed-up. You can totally do that. That’s how I would structure that. For I’s Y’s and T’s, I usually have a higher rep count for that. I’m not trying to give you 50 pounds in your hands for I’s Y’s and T’s. For most of my clients, even my stronger guys, they’re using 8-10 pounds max. They’re doing 15 reps for each letter. Once you’ve completed all 15 reps for each I usually have them rest for about one minute and then they go back in. They do anywhere between 3-5 sets. Same thing applies for the reverse flyes, lateral raises, frontal raises – between 12-15 reps because, again, I’m just going more for, like – I want lighter weight because I’m not trying to put heavy, heavy weights in climbers’ arms. I promise you that will help strengthen those shoulders. Again, put a little size on them just a little bit to make sure we have strong shoulders. Yep, so that’s kinda how I would structure, in a quick scenario, a shoulder routine. Neely Quinn: Okay, so it should take about how long total? Kris Peters: Probably 20-25 minutes, you know? If you’re resting for one minute in between, yeah, between 20-25. Neely Quinn: Okay, and we could do this every day but what’s a minimum? Kris Peters: I would say you can do the band work everyday. Weight-specific work maybe two days a week, three days max. I would just go – some of my clients do their I’s Y’s and T’s Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you know? It really all depends on how, again we’ve talked about all this before, how does your body respond to the workout? If you’re really sore you kinda wait for that soreness to go away and then you do it again. So…yeah. Neely Quinn: So maybe not doing them on rest days? Kris Peters: Exactly. I would say, for most times, clients are doing twice a week of shoulder work with weights and almost 3-5 days a week of band work. Neely Quinn: Alright, and just some parting thoughts here from the girl who had surgery. Know that, most of the time when you go to the doctor and they tell you that you do have a shoulder issue, they’re going to send you, unless it’s heinous, they’re going to send you to PT for six weeks and then they’re going to maybe do surgery after that if that doesn’t work. Just know that PT is their first go-to anyway so maybe give it that amount of time unless it hurts a lot before you go. Kris Peters: If it hurts a lot, if you’re in a lot of pain, I would highly suggest an MRI. If you’re in a lot of pain I would just be like, “Tell your doctor you want an MRI.” Get that looked at and you can obviously go to therapy after that but just see if there’s any structural damage before you try waiting 6-7 weeks, you know? The sooner you can get that stuff taken care of, the better. Neely Quinn: Yeah. Surgery is great. Okay, I think that’s it. Any parting thoughts on this? Kris Peters: Um…no. I just thank everyone so much for listening and we love feedback so feel free to email me at kris@trainingbeta.com if you have any questions about anything we talk about. Also, we want to know what you guys want to hear about so please send us any type of topics that you would love for us to go more indepth about. Again, thank you guys so much. It’s been really great. Good, good stuff. Neely Quinn: Alright. Thanks, Kris! Kris Peters: Thanks, Neely! Neely Quinn: Yep, see you! Neely Quinn: Alright, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Kris. If you want to do his training programs, we have very affordable training programs that you can do online on your own that he’s created, where you get really efficient workouts about three and sometimes four times a week. For route climbers or for boulderers, we have subscription programs where it’s about $15 a month and you get those three workouts every week. They’re unique so you’re not doing the same thing all the time. He includes shoulder workouts and recovery and prevention in every single one of his programs. Those are at www.trainingbeta.com and there’s the ‘training programs’ tab. If you want to work one-on-one with him, you can go to the ‘personal training’ tab and there you will find all of that information. Just a few other things about shoulders since I’ve had so much experience with shoulders, unfortunately. Seth, my husband, had two shoulder surgeries, one on each shoulder within the last year. I had my left one done a year and a half ago. I just want to stress that, even if your shoulders are great right now, and especially if you’re a new climber and you think that this is never going to happen to you, which that’s exactly how I thought [laughs]. I thought that my shoulders were great up until the moment it was injured. It happened to be a long-standing injury that I didn’t even know that I had. Please, please, please do your shoulder exercises. Do those pushing exercises. Do the rotator cuff exercises, and we have some of those videos on the site that we actually made with Kris. We have the I’s Y’s and T’s, we have some other – we have the shoulder press on there so you can understand what those are. Definitely, definitely do that but also know that if you do have shoulder pain and an injury, yes, it’s really good to get a doctor’s point of view on these things. Yes, yes, yes, for sure, but also acupuncture, dry needling, and really, really intense massage have helped me immensely. After my surgery I still had a ton of pain and I don’t think that I would have been in this good of a place with my surgical shoulder if I hadn’t had that kind of work done. I talk about this on a blog post that I wrote on Training Beta, about my one-year shoulder surgery update. You can see exactly what kinds of work I did but definitely use those body workers because it does make a difference. Anyway, like I said, I could go on and on about this. If you have any questions about shoulders, you can email me at neely@trainingbeta.com and I guess that’s it for today. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll talk to you next week. [music]
