EP 284: Four PTs — The Case for Taking a Break, Heel Hooking Injuries, & Off-the-Wall Strength Training

Dr. Jared Vagy returns to the podcast and is joined by three physical therapy students and graduates, Sarah Kremer, Dawson Freeze, and Michael Larson. We talked about three recent articles covering the benefits of seasonality for maximizing climbing performance, rehabbing and preventing common knee injuries while heel hooking, and off-the-wall strength training for climbers. See the show notes for the full articles here.

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Show Notes:

thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/four-pts

Nuggets:

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:04:16) – Overview

(00:07:52) – Sarah’s topic (the case for taking a break)

(00:10:24) – What Sarah’s research process looked like

(00:11:22) – Surprises in Sarah’s research process

(00:12:35) – Recommendations on when to take time off

(00:15:48) – How to sustain stoke

(00:18:04) – How climbing ability solidifies over time

(00:20:56) – If Sarah did a follow-up study

(00:28:38) – Dawson’s topic (heel hooking and knee injuries)

(00:33:22) – Common heel hook injuries

(00:35:20) – Go to hip mobility exercises

(00:39:00) – Heel hooking warm-ups

(00:41:01) – Surprises in Dawson's research

(00:43:27) – If Dawson did a follow-up study

(00:49:28) – Michael's topic (off the wall strength training)

(00:52:10) – How often should climbers weight train

(00:55:34) – At what point are you strong enough

(01:02:59) – Comparing athletes

(01:09:47) – Stability-focused exercises

(01:19:18) – Value in taking time off

(01:21:19) – Jared's final thoughts