EP 122: Jared Vagy — How to Prevent Knee, Shoulder, Elbow, and Finger Injuries as Climbers

Dr. Jared Vagy is a physical therapist who specializes in climbing injury rehab and prevention. We talked about freestyle rapping, the most common injuries in rock climbing, how to prevent knee, shoulder, elbow, and finger injuries as climbers, warming up your fingers at the crag, what to do to help your body recover on rest days, and much more.

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Show Notes:

thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/jared-vagy

Nuggets:

0:05:00 – J-Rock the hip-hop artist

0:09:58 – Running track in college and getting into climbing

0:11:25 – Getting excited about physical therapy

0:12:24 – Hip-hop parties with grandma, and applying physical therapy to his own climbing

0:14:36 – Becoming “The Climbing Doctor” and writing for DPM

0:17:22 – Overly engaging our shoulders

0:20:56 – Shoulder position for hangboarding

0:23:08 – How has climbing changed, and how climbing injuries have changed

0:26:30 – My (Steven’s) balance of climbing and training

0:28:12 – Balancing training and climbing, and seeing more injuries from training vs. climbing

0:29:33 – Most common climbing injuries (shoulders, elbows, and fingers)

0:31:42 – Exercises for preventing climbing-related knee injuries

0:42:01 – Knee exercises for drop knees

0:47:19 – How to program your knee injury prevention exercises

0:49:04 – Patron question from Tyler: Compound lifts vs. accessory exercises for injury prevention?

0:54:57 – Most common climbing-related shoulder injuries, and why shoulder injuries are difficult to diagnose

0:59:26 – Who to go to if you get a shoulder injury, and what to look for in a physical therapist

1:06:03 – Research on shoulder injuries

1:07:55 – How to prevent climbing-related shoulder injuries

1:11:58 – Resistance Band Rows, how difficult they should feel, and sets and reps

1:16:20 – Pressing exercises for the shoulders, how to fix scapular winging, and flys for elbow pain

1:24:20 – How to prevent finger injuries, hand positions on the hangboard, pockets, and finger lengths

1:29:56 – Torsion on the hangboard, and gaps between fingers

1:34:49 – The rubber band exercise for finger gaps

1:39:26 – Hangboarding as brushing your teeth

1:40:17 – Warming up your fingers for a climbing session

1:45:20 – Grab your finger and shake your elbow

1:48:04 – Warming up to raise the temperature in your hands and fingers

1:50:23 – Warming up with a portable hangboard

1:56:00 – Golfer’s Elbow, and diagnosing other sources of elbow pain

2:04:32 – Patron question from Felix: How do we know when to listen to pain, vs. ignore pain? (Graded Motor Imagery)

2:10:27 – How to diagnose PIP or DIP joint inflammation in the fingers, and recommendations for capsulitis

2:14:45 – Advice for pulley aches

2:16:21 – Patron question from Ana: Thoughts on the long-term effects of bouldering falls?

2:20:55 – Motion is lotion

2:23:07 – Patron question from Shawn: What exercises should we do on rest days to help with recovery? What should we avoid doing on rest days?

2:26:31 – Training and educating other physical therapists, and doing more research on climbers

2:30:32 – Jared’s climbing and rope soloing

2:31:40 – Wrap up