Injury Magnet? Recovery and You.
We can rebuild your body to do exactly what you need it to do without the consequences of re-injury or repetitive strain. But you need to put some elbow grease in-
Read along to learn more about healing your body and preventing future injuries!
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Your body is your own invention. What does that mean? It’s formed itself based on the tasks you ask of it. Constantly rebuilding itself and reinforcing itself to suit your needs, your body is a living machine that replaces all soft tissues (muscle, tendon, and ligaments) every 4 years and your bones every 8 years! This means that we need to take a look at your habits and your diet to ensure your body stays at optimum for a lifetime!
We are not all the same.
Because you have a different lifestyle than your friends, with different nutrition, habits, and ways of paying for your shoes and your chalk, you are truly starting from a different self-care spot than your climbing partner. If you run long distances, it has modified it’s muscles and responses to your activities to make you better at what you do without it having to work so hard. Same thing if you are a desk jockey, working 8 hours a day at the desk, and then you decide you want to climb after work and start going at it feverishly just like you might do with your spread sheets. Your body is now formed to your desk work. Rehabbing your body so you can become active without risk is needed so you aren’t pushed into the injury box.
Some of you are tall, some short, but though we all have the same internal structures, they are of different health, strength, and design. Some climbers have stronger tendons and thicker muscles, others are just starting out and these structures have yet to reach their optimum thickness. Patience my dear newbies and self-care is needed by you all to reinforce and rebuild your bodies into climbing machines...
A Pep Talk: Letting go of the magnet.
Pumping you up while you heal is prime healing mojo. Keeping positive, believing in the plan, oh and following a plan, will get you back to that wall healthier and stronger than ever... It’s why it is the basis of this book, to teach you about yourself and the steps of our process, and more importantly why we are at each step. It’s to allow you to begin working on your weaknesses (which might have led to your injury in the first place) and not accidentally conspiring against yourself. This allows you the benefits of less management. It’s more cost effective. And you are that cool dude who is in control and everyone else will be impressed with your control which the rest of us lack. Think of all the gym membership dues and gas monies you will have saved being able to climb efficiently and effectively without injury for all these years to come.
Ok, pep talk over... For now. What to do while you heal? I broke my foot, actually the exact summer before I was the youngest leadwoman finisher, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was super bummed. Didn’t even allow myself to drink wine because it put me on the pity train. I decided that if it weren’t for that time to refocus, I would have not ever made it to that next level. Without seeing what I wanted, how I’d lost it, and where the holes were in my training, I’d have never made it through 100 miles of cycling followed by 106 miles of running in the same week that next year. I wanted it, and bad. I had prepped, I had worked those rainy days, and this my friend is nothing more than a perfect opportunity to focus on the things that we’d rather ignore until a rainy day. It’s here. Time to get out the rubber gloves because it’s time to clear out those closets, remove the dust from under the rugs, and it’s time to get you to optimum. Beginning at those little things that add up.
This leads me to my next question...What do you want? Is it to finally have that finger stop talking to you? Is it to be able to keep up with your buddies this spring in Waco? Are you beginning to train for a dream tower or a multi-pitch dream route that you have to ensure you don’t get injured prior to? Lets make a list:
Planning.
Begins with knowing where you are, and working your weaknesses to get where you want to go (which obviously is up). Let us write as a team in your log book what you currently are working on and what has been a key player in the past few injuries so we can problem solve these issues for the future.
Write with me... "My Biggest Weaknesses".... Ok- A few leading questions to get you going...
1. What muscles have cramped or talked to you in the last 2-3 months?
2. What regions are you more likely to strain/fatigue?
3. What regions have you had a major injury on in the past?
4. What regions have your doctor, massage therapist, or chiropractor pointed out as being too tight?
Now we are talking!
Statistically, these are the most likely causes and the basis of most chronic injuries in my office. Let us begin with fixing these up to keep you from getting future injuries. Remember- Losses in range of motion and missing muscle recruitment patterns usually happen way before your injury. Do you follow?
It's very important to understand that these symptoms precede an injury in most cases. They are what injuries are made of. Removing them removes abnormal wear and tear and restores normal functions that without, you are an injury magnet. If we fix this, we restore you back to playtime with little to no injury risks. Check all these, if there is still a knot, a sore spot, or they don’t feel “perfect” they are in your shooting range while we heal up your injury. With this said, accidents do happen (those which we cannot avoid) but if we work on the risks we can mitigate, we are beginning to learn how to maintain your health at optimum!
Did you enjoy this excerpt from Dr. Lisa's Book Climbing Injuries Solved? You can purchase this book through this link
