Climbing or bouldering is a sport that has become increasingly popular in recent years, combining training and entertainment. Every climber knows that regularity is key, but how do you get back to climbing after a long break? Whether it’s due to injury, lack of time, or motivation, a long break in any sport requires you to build up your fitness again.
So how do you get back to climbing after a long break? You need to return to regularity, start with low training intensity and increase it. In climbing, even a break of several months can reduce your climbing skills and fitness, but remember that you are not really starting from the very beginning.
How do you cope with a break in climbing?
Depending on whether you’ve suffered an injury or just lack of time and the desire to take a break from climbing if you’re thinking of returning to climbing you need to get back to regularity and training.
Our body likes movement, and even sedentary work can cause us a lot of problems, so it’s worth counteracting that and practicing various sports. With even a few months break in climbing, we can expect, among other things:
- Problems with our hands, after a long break the skin on our hands has to get used again to this type of exertion and constant contact with the rock or ledge on the wall
- Worse motility coordination, as regular climbing improves our skills in terms of balance or motility coordination
- Worse condition, regular climbing improves the efficiency of your body, a combination of cardio and strength training is a good solution here
- Squeezes are in the parts of the body that are used a lot when climbing, mainly the upper body. However, when climbing at higher levels, we need to train the whole body, both upper and lower body
Climbing is quite an unusual sport, which is quite intensive for our whole body, but it gives much better results than many a gym. Our muscles are developed thanks to the real strength we have, which we have managed to train over time. Unfortunately, it is a sport with quite a few injuries, which can make us have to take a break for a long time.
However, how to get back to climbing after a long break depends mainly on our recovery, time, and intensity of training. Sometimes an injury or a break in climbing gives us positive effects, and we return to this dispute with more enthusiasm.
What are the most common climbing injuries, and how back climbing?
Rock climbing, rope climbing, and bouldering have become increasingly popular in recent years, but we must be aware that it is easy to get injured there. Not only abrasions or skin injuries but also more serious injuries which require rehabilitation and a break from climbing. How to back to climbing after a long break and at what time depends on the type of injury we are dealing with. The most common are:
- Finger and hand injuries, and fingertip abrasions. These are some of the most common injuries, but usually of low severity
- Finger joint contractures. Symptoms of contracture include the inability to straighten fingers, resistance (usually soft) when trying to straighten them, and sometimes pain at the end of the range of possible movement
- Injuries of the wrist and forearm can be caused by repeated overloading of the joint, as well as by, for example, thickening of finger flexor muscle tendons in case of their inflammation or as a symptom of repeated overloading
- Injuries to the shoulder and arm, are areas that are very often subject to injury due to the strain on them when climbing. Sometimes it is enough to jerk hard enough for there to be a problem with a tendon or muscle, which is marked by severe pain and restricted range of movement
- Other possible injuries include limb fractures, etc., most often occurring when you fall off a wall or rock from a great height. Therefore, if you are rock climbing, always remember to have equipment such as a helmet, appropriate shoes, or mattresses to cushion your fall.
Climbing is a sport in which the whole body works and some parts of the body are heavily loaded, which can result in injuries. When an injury occurs it is important to recognize the injury and to treat it appropriately, preferably with a rest from climbing and rehabilitation, in some more severe situations’ surgery may be necessary.
However, how to get back to climbing after a long break depends on the type of injury and the length of the break, and the best way to do this is to exercise regularly and improve your fitness. In this post, in turn, you can read about what are the important rules about safety, whether on bouldering or climbing, that you need to know.
In Summary – How To Get Back To Climbing After A Long Break?
Whatever our reason for taking a break from climbing, whether it’s a lack of motivation and desire or an acquired injury, our recovery can vary. Depending on how long our break from climbing lasted, we need to be patient. To begin with, it’s important to train regularly, initially at a lower intensity, which can be increased over time. As we feel more confident and fit, we can increase the intensity of our workouts.
However, how you get back to climbing after a long break depends not only on the length of your break but also, for example, on any injuries you’ve sustained, of which there are quite a few in climbing. However, it’s worth betting on this interesting sport, because it gives a lot of possibilities to develop our body and mind.
