First overview on chronic injuries in sport climbing: proposal for a change in reporting of injuries in climbing

Abstract

BackgroundClimbing as a youth sport is growing fast. This is mostly due to indoor walls for training attracting youngsters. With hard training from young ages it is vital to be able to pinpoint training regimes to avoid injuries in athletes. Furthermore, it is vital to know what injuries are most common in the sport to be able to prevent them. Such an overview on injuries does not exist to date. The aim of this overview is to summon the injuries described in published research and to extract the most common.MethodTwo literature searches were conducted in PubMed, on 11 August 2013 and 19 August 2015.ResultThe searches gave 1409 titles. All titles were carefully examined for the possible finding of descriptions of climbing-related chronic injuries. This led to the reading of 96 abstracts and then to a final inclusion of 47 papers of which 17 described chronic climbing-related injuries. We found descriptions of 45 chronic injuries in those 17 papers.DiscussionOwing to methodological differences, lack of reporting strategies and non-use of control groups in the included papers, it is not possible to conclude on which groups of climbers are more prone to injuries or to state which injuries are the most prevalent among climbers.

No pain no gain: a survey of use of healthcare and reasons not to seek healthcare by Norwegian climbers with chronic injuries

“…The findings in the present study of 57% of the respondents having sustained a chronic injury in the past 6 months extend findings from previous studies 9 10 22–24. The proportion of climbers reporting an injury in the present study is probably overestimated due to the self-selection of respondents.…”

“…All self-treatment is insecure,28 and the risk of maltreatment is more likely as diagnostics are more often wrong 15. Injuries to the fingers are the most common injury and also the most difficult to diagnose correctly 22 27. The present findings demonstrate that respondents with a finger injury are least likely to use health professionals to help treating their injuries.…”

“…Although previous studies on climbing injuries have revealed that chronic injuries are more prevalent than acute injuries,7 20 the literature on chronic climbing injuries has been limited with a focus on a single diagnosis based on a limited number of subjects 21 22. Recently, more studies have focused on the epidemiology of climbing injuries 10 11 23–25.…”

Lean and mean? Associations of level of performance, chronic injuries and BMI in sport climbing

“…In Lion et al the beginners (performance level of French grade 6a+ and less) are the reference group. As seen in previous studies, grouping climbers in terms of performance in the previous year, this group is likely to have sustained few climbing-related finger injuries compared with the other climbers 12–14. Finger injuries are more common in the higher levels of performance 8 14.…”

“…Research on climbing injuries reveals that chronic injuries are more prevalent than acute injuries 8 12. Still, research on chronic injuries in climbing has for the most part been focusing on single diagnosis or using only a few subjects for assessments 13…”