Shoulders, shoulders, shoulders…

More and more climbers are dealing with chronic shoulder pain.  This isn’t something we should be looking to simply grit our teeth and climb through.  That’s a quick way to end up on the couch recovering from an expensive and painful shoulder surgery.

Instead, ALL climbers should be incorporating shoulder mobility and injury prevention work into their routine.

To highlight the importance of shoulder mobility and how it can affect your climbing, here’s an article from The Climbing Doctor blog by doctor of physical therapy student Chris Zipser.  It in, Chris discusses the anatomical reasons why climbing is hard on our shoulders and then gives you some mobility exercises to help you keep your shoulders happy and healthy.

Climbers need adequate mobility in all areas of the shoulder to climb efficiently. The thoracic spine, scapula and glenohumeral joint all contribute to overall shoulder mobility. A study by Schoffl et al1 found that while finger injuries account for about 52% of rock climbing injuries, shoulder injuries have been on the rise from 5% (1998-2001) to 17.2% (2009-2012). The increase in shoulder injuries highlights the importance of addressing the shoulder region within a climbing injury prevention program.

How to Improve Shoulder Mobility:

Working on shoulder mobility is low impact and can easily be added to any climbers training routine.  Here are the exercises Chris recommends:

  • Thoracic spine extensions
  • Serratus Foam Roll Exercise
  • Overhead reaches against a wall

Click through below to read more about shoulder mobility and these exercises.  Chris also includes videos for each exercises so you can be sure you are doing them properly!

More from Dr. Jared Vagy:

If you like what you see here from Dr. Vagy, be sure to check out the Injury Prevention Guide he wrote for us.  It is full of detailed information and practical advice about how to prevent all kinds of climbing injuries.

More from Dr. Chris Zipser:

If you like the advice here from Dr. Zipser, be sure to check out his new website Climb Pain Free. It’s filled with useful information about how you can be proactive in preventing climbing injuries and keep climbing.

Full Article: How Shoulder Mobility Affects Your Climbing

climbing training programs

(photo courtesy of theclimbingdoctor.com)

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One Comment

  1. Andrew Lefton August 3, 2017 at 4:29 pm - Reply

    After I had an injury to my clavicle my entire shoulder got messed up. I dealt with pain for around 10 years and then finally got into a stretching routine. I would really suggest anyone with a shoulder injury to start some sort of stretching routine. It completely helped with my pain. A few of my favorites for my shoulder were cross arm stretches, wall angles, doorway stretches, and broomstick stretches.
    Heres a little more info on what I did to fix my chronic pain, and videos of how to do the stretches: https://goo.gl/H4b7Ve

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