Preventing Rock Climbing Hand & Tendon Injuries: Part 3 - Dynamic Hang Boarding - Bottom Up

How do you hangboard? Are you a long-time rock climber who wants to climb for a lifetime? A beginner climber who wants to train right and train smart to prevent injury? Are you currently side-lined due to a tendon or pulley injury in your hand and want to know how to rehabilitate it? Are you scared by witnessing your friends get sidelined from finger injuries for months or years and you want to do what you can so this doesn’t happen to you?

https://youtu.be/NuPYYDr0MB8

This is a long-awaited Part 3 to our video series about preventing rock climbing finger, pulley, and tendon injuries in the hand. Make sure to watch videos Part 1 & Part 2, if you haven't already, in which Dr. Elle explains why injuries commonly occur in the hand and tendons/pulleys of the hand, how your technique may be contributing to this, and why strengthening your hand, not just your forearm is important for preventing this and rehabilitating injuries here.

In this climbing training video, Dr. Elle addresses a common training error in hang board training - when climbers only hang statically. Climbing is not static and the abrupt movements in climbing are associated with injury, especially when projecting a route or problem, when fatigued, and when under-trained - all of which are common. You need to bridge that gap in your training. Here is a bottom up way to improve your hangboard training to include more dynamic load to your fingers and make them more resilient to injury.

Comment below with any questions and let Dr. Elle know what questions you have. This shelter-in-place is a great opportunity to train weaknesses and correct imbalances in your body to get you climbing healthy for a lifetime.

Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to not miss any of our educational videos.

Tuesday Tune-up: Non-weightbearing Gluteus Medius Conditioning superset

Really want to get your hips strong for walking, hiking, running and any sports that require you to be on one leg? These exercises are for you! Injured and limited in your running abilities? Do these to be ready to hit the ground running? Want to fatigue less easily and be less likely to get injured while running? This superset of gluteus medium non-weightbearing endurance and motor control exercises will get you well on your way. Bonus it will also work on your back stability, strength, conditioning, control, and endurance! Yes!

Be aware, this is not a beginner exercise, but helpful for those looking to take their health to the next level of endurance and more thorough strength. Reach out to Artisan PT for a remote wellness consultation via video or schedule a wellness or physical therapy visit at our Los Angeles office to see what exercises are best for you, at this moment of time.

We are currently doing Tuesday Tune-ups on our Instagram feed and IGTV. Follow us at @artisanphysical to make sure you don’t miss out. As appropriate, we will do our best to also upload to our Artisan Physical Therapy YouTube channel as well. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notifications about new videos on how to live your healthiest life. Don’t miss out.

That’s our goal at Artisan PT: to partner with you to optimize your health for a lifetime.

Thank for reading and watching,

Elle

(owner, doctor of physical therapy, fellow in orthopedic manual PT)

(PS: These hip abduction/abductor exercises are helpful for preventing pain and improving tolerance to running, walking, hiking, skateboarding, soccer, ultimate frisbee, basketball, volleyball, triathlon, mountain biking, yoga, dancing, and anything else you spend time on one leg!)

Arm Strengthening for Climbers: Hand Sloper Strengthening with Rotator Cuff and Scapular Stability

Are you a long-time rock climber who wants to climb for a lifetime? Do you want to train right and train smart to prevent injury? Do you wish your hand strength was better for slopers and other open-handed grips while rock climbing?
In this video, Dr. Bottrell introduces a quick series of exercises that strengthens your hand and forearm in open hand positioning for slopers while simultaneously strengthening and increasing the stability of the rotator cuff and scapular (shoulder blade) muscles and joints. Incorporating exercises such as these present the opportunity for better performance & longevity of climbing of a lifetime, decreased likelihood of injury.

Bear in mind these are general recommendations, and a certain amount of strength and fitness are needed.
Interested in what weighted ball uses in this video? It's the Gymnic Heavymed 2 kg weighted ball for resistance.

Give Swimming a Try!

I was never a "water baby" - that is - I was never a kid that jumped into water whenever I saw it. I only wanted to get wet if I was dirty, sweaty, or super hot. This followed me into adulthood, so choosing swimming as a workout was not something that happened for me. That is until I was forced to. By age twenty I had injured my knee significantly twice. These ACL knee injuries (anterior cruciate ligament) had ended my soccer career prematurely. I had to wait a few months for ACL surgery, but wanted to stay active, so I did early morning walks with arm motions to get a whole body workout and I started swimming. 

I hated swimming. I hated it as I packed my swimsuit & towel, traveled to the pool, dressed, walked onto the pool deck, jumped in, and swam the first lap.  Do you see the trend? I hated it. But by the second lap it wasn't so bad. It was a quick and very intense workout for me. 20 minutes and I felt like jelly afterwards. All without any impact or pain to my knees! The workout was, in fact, so difficult for me that my cheeks tingled afterwards. Anyone else? Probably not. 

Flash forward to over a decade later and swimming is high up there on the things that I really miss about LA. Swimming laps outside midday on a sunny day is one of the most meditative and mind clearing experience I have. I get a whole body, no impact workout to balance out my running, hiking, biking leg workouts with inclusion of arm and abdominal conditioning and my mind gets to wonder through future ideas and possibilities as well as reflecting back on experiences and relationships. Oh and my cheeks don't tingle anymore.

So give swimming a try! 

Want to make sure you're healthy while swimming? Wonder what swim strokes are right for you? Wonder if you're stroke technique could lead to an injury? Wonder how much to do? Necessary stretches and strengthening? Let's chat. (Also possible future blog post topic - what do you think?)

Already swim? Where is your favorite place to swim?

Together - Let's Get Moving.

Liz

Why Does My Foot Hurt in the Morning?

"Why does my arch hurt?" 

"I get a sharp pain in my heel every morning I get out of bed.

"When I've been on my feet too long, the bottom of my foot hurts so bad."

Do you say these things? You may have plantar fasciitis.

The plantar fascia is a ligament that helps support the arch of your foot and gets stretched when you put weight on it and every step you take.

"Itis" is Latin for inflammation, so plantar fasciitis is a diagnosis of inflammation of the plantar fascia. Inflammation takes place when you have an injury and the body is trying to heal. Research is showing that most cases of plantar fasciitis is not an "itis" but is instead an "-osis" which reflects degeneration. This is why rolling on a frozen bottle might not make your symptoms go away.

At Artisan Physical Therapy, your PT will try to figure out a few distinct things in your evaluation - what tissue is injured or irritated and then the why it is injured/irritated/painful. Often both need to be treated the sore tissue needs to be calmed down and then that factors that led to the injury need to be changed and/or alleviated otherwise it will be perpetually irritated.

Common factors that lead to plantar fasciitis or fasciosis include:

• Insufficient arch support - going barefoot, wearing flip flops, or shoes without arch support or very flexible soles
• Tight ankles and calve muscles
• Weak hip (gluteal muscles)
• Excessive body weight
• Increasing activity too quickly (deciding to train for a marathon or get in shape drastically from prior level of activity)
• Weak foot muscles or inappropriate muscle use/activation

Just because you have arch or heel pain, it doesn't mean you have plantar fasciitis. It could be a tendinitis or tendinopathy of a foot or ankle muscle or an issue in the joints of your foot. A quality physical therapy exam will clarify this for you.  As mentioned above knowing which tissue is irritated allows for specific, targeted treatment to get rid of your pain and get you back to pain free walking, running and whatever else you love and need to do.

Think you might have plantar fasciitis? Take the first step towards health and get a PT evaluation to get quality manual therapy to temporarily decrease the pain in your foot and learn exercises to keep it away by learning how to reduce the stress to the plantar fascia and learn what activities to avoid a do instead to allow it to begin healing today.

Let's Get to the Source - and TOGETHER - Let's Get Moving!

Car accident blues

Were you in a auto accident? Rear-ended? T-boned? Don't relinquish control of your health!

One of the biggest mistakes we see people make after automobile accidents is not taking responsibility for their health. Waiting on payment from insurance and settlements before receiving professional medical care to rehabilitate from whip lash, pulled, strained, and sore, achy muscles, joints, and ligaments is common and results in prolonged injuries, negative outcomes, side effects, and chronic pain.

The best thing to do is to receive professional care as soon as possible, and what better, than a physical therapist? Physical therapists are EXPERTS in musculoskeletal movement dysfunction and rehabilitation.

Make sure to rest, limit extremes of body range of motion and speed, let your body recover, and take steps to reduce inflammation in your body. Don't put off take care of your health. It is your livelihood. It is your life. First get the quality, personal, and focused care you need to deal with your motor vehicle accident (MVA).

At Artisan Physical Therapy, you don't get generic treatments such as lying on hot packs, getting electrical stimulation, and ultrasound. Instead you get quality and focused manual therapy specifically suited to your needs to reduce swelling, inflammation, pain, stiffness and tightness so that you can get back to doing what you love and when you want to do it. We give you things to put you in control of how you feel - education on the specifics of what to do and what not to do in your daily activities and active body movements and therapeutic exercises.

It's not uncommon that people through care with Artisan Physical Therapy can learn more than they even knew about their bodies and live healthier lives than they did even BEFORE their car accident.

A Physical Therapist's Back Pain Confessional

Dang it, even therapist's have injuries, so let's talk about it. In our latest video, Dr. Liz Bottrell shares her personal experience with an acute occurrence of low back pain (aka - lumbar spine pain). Learn what happened and what she's doing about it and what you can do when you experience unexpected pain that lingers.

Back pain can come on suddenly and unexpectedly as it did for our physical therapist, limiting the ability to sit and lift and do normal daily activities. Learn how to recover as quickly and as optimally as possible. Note - you may have to change your behavior!