I had the opportunity to pick Eva Lopez’s brain on her thoughts on preventing climbing injury. Eva has an amazing wealth of knowledge on training for climbing and preventing injury. She hosts an information packed blog at: http://en-eva-lopez.blogspot.com/

Check out the interview below. It is an extremely detailed look ant preventing injury. Enjoy:

Please introduce yourself and your experience with climbing and training

My name is Eva, I have been a climber since 1990, when I attended a rock climbing class in my hometown (Toledo, Spain), and I have been in love with this sport from the very first move.

I began climbing just as I started my Sports Science studies; this made my two passions, climbing and training, complement each other from the beginning. Two years ago I finished my Ph.D. Thesis, on the topic of finger strength training. I have climbed 8c+, and in my role as coach I have helped others’ realizations, like Andrea Cartas winning the Spanish climbing cup, Pablo Barbero onsighting 8b+, Luis Alfonso Félix redpointing 9a+ and Nacho Sánchez bouldering up to 8C. It’s been 8 years since I switched from being a physical education teacher to pursuing my current interests: climbing hard routes, training and conveying what I learn through workshops, clinics and publishing in different media.

What do you do to make sure that you climb without having any injuries

First of all it’s worth noting that we can significantly reduce the incidence and severity of our injuries, especially in beginners, where a few basic rules are enough, but fully avoiding injury is just about impossible. Mainly because we can’t expect to stay error-free in the long run, and injury is often the result of serious mistakes in periodization or in the choice of loads, but also of the accumulation of smaller errors. And then there are those factors that we can’t either predict or act upon.

This said, there are actually some guidelines that I follow, based in what the scientific literature has to say, and that seem to be beneficial:

1. Sport level. At higher levels, or when the goals are more “ambitious”, the risk of injury is increased because we approach the mechanical limits of the tissues and also because the absolute loads tend to be higher. On the other hand, at lower levels we know that injuries are often associated to insufficient physical and technical preparation, and to the limited adaptation of the relevant soft tissues, mostly at the fingers; stronger athletes get the same kind of injuries but due to different causes or at different times, plus a set of lesions particular to them. For example, given that injuries among beginners tend to have their roots on a deficit of adaptation or a training program that is not well suited to their rock climbing needs, for this group I prioritize long endurance (ARC) and technique. In advanced climbers many injuries stem from overuse, so the focus is on finding the optimal (not the highest) load, learning to control that load, and managing motivation; they alternate concentrated loading cycles with more progressive ones, that either prepare or serve as recuperation from the former. I have also observed that, while beginners suffer their injuries while rock climbing, experts tend to hurt themselves while training, which brings us to the next point.