Whenever we push ourselves harder during our climbing sessions it is more likely to get injured. Unfortunately, climbing is considered to be one of the most extreme sports, due to the height of the wall and the complexity of the moves that involve the whole body. So the question “I can’t move my hands after climbing, what should I do?” It happened to all of us so don’t worry and keep reading.
Your hands are the main tools for your climbing sessions, so you are most likely going to injure them rather than any other part of your body. Many types of injuries can cause pain in your hands, but often it can be muscle sores or a strain on the tendon. We will describe to you every possibility and you will have to decide what can be the cause of your case.
Every injury is different but that related to hands is a bit different because you don’t have muscles directly in your hands but your forearm has tendons connected to the fingers. So the real muscles that are pulling your fingers are in the forearms.
If you literally “can’t move my hands after climbing” then you should immediately consult your case with a specialist like a neurologist or an orthopedist and they will lead to the diagnostics to learn more about your injury, then you will be able to start the proper process of healing depending on your actual case, but for now, let’s focus on something a bit less dangerous.
The strain on the tendon after climbing
As we said earlier it’s one of the most common types of injury that’s why there is a lot of information to solve your problem. The easy way to diagnose your injury can bethink about how long that injury lasts, if it lasts more than 3 days that means that you can have a strain on the tendon. Maybe you did it earlier this day or yesterday, then wait until 3rd day and see if you can see any improvements.
Remember that if your pain is almost unbearable then you should consult your case with a specialist like an orthopedist to check if your bones are fine, and the doctor can send you to x-ray when he will suspect that your bone structure was injured. Maybe he will send you to the ultrasound diagnostic to check if your muscles and tendons are in good condition.
Anyway, it’s good to consult every injury with a specialist just to make sure you are fine so don’t worry about it too much. Don’t be afraid and call your local health clinic! That will let you get back to climbing way faster.
The strain on the tendon needs a bit longer time to heal than you could expect. The pain should disappear after about a 1 month to 3 months period, that’s why it’s important to consult if you have a suspicion that it can be the cause of your pain.
Muscle sores after climbing
Muscles if not used for some time will give you pain when you will start to use them again. Let’s take for example mountain hiking, if you didn’t do this previously then you will probably get muscle sores on your legs the next day. The same goes for your hands.
You can easily check if you have simply muscle sores after climbing, just think if the pain in your hands has appeared during the climbing or slightly after that, or maybe you noticed it the next day. If the pain appeared the next day then it is most likely to be muscle sores due to your intensive workout.
Soreness should disappear after 4 or 5 days after the day of the workout so you can take a little bigger break between climbing sessions and you will be totally fine, Muscle sores are a normal thing for everyone so there is no need to be scared.
In summary – I can’t move my hands after climbing
There can be many reasons for your pain or the immobility of your hands, but when only you know the exact story with details, like a specific move that you did and now you have that problem. As we described above you can check for yourself if you have one of those cases, but if that’s not relevant to your case you should immediately consult with your local orthopedist or the neurologist.
They will guide you on what you should do and what not, also with some diagnostics to learn more about your injury for the further healing process. For the future, you should learn how to prevent those injuries and for that, we have a special article, so if you are tired of injuries during your climbing session then we highly recommend our new article “Bouldering – How do you get down safely?“
