Injuries in Bouldering: A Prospective Study

Abstract

Bouldering outdoors has an increased risk of injury to the fingers. Preventative measures appear largely ineffective in reducing the number of injuries in both cohorts.

A Critical Review of the Incidence and Risk Factors for Finger Injuries in Rock Climbing

“…Incidence proportion refers to the probability of an athlete sustaining at least one injury and is calculated by the number of injured athletes divided by the number of athletes at risk (13). In their systematic review Woollings, McKay and Emery (36) injuries/100 participants/year for outdoor and indoor bouldering respectively (11). Our search of the literature failed to find any additional primary studies.…”

“…Studies that have estimated the reported prevalence of injuries associated with rock climbing vary between 10% and 81% irrespective of cause; between 10% and 50% for impact injuries (9,11,17,37); between 28% and 81% for non-impact acute trauma injuries (9,11,18); and between 33% to 44% for chronic overuse injuries (1,9,37,38). Variance is likely to be 6 associated with differences in the nature, operational level of performance, frequency of performance and duration of activity between climbing disciplines.…”

Risk and Lifestyle Sports: The Case of Bouldering

“…Activities such as bouldering are, of course, not without their dangers (Josephsen et al, 2007;Woolings et al, 2015). From a legal perspective, the courts have previously considered whether those who put themselves deliberately at risk should be able to seek compensation.…”

“…A typical safety measure is the use of a specialised portable pad in order to reduce the prevalence and extent of injuries from falls, which is placed underneath the area the climber is working in. Occasionally, a spotter is used who stands below the climber with arms at the ready to redirect the climber if they fall onto the mat, a technique that helps to prevent direct blows to the climber's head or back, thus maximising the chances of (though not necessarily guaranteeing) a safe landing (Josephsen et al, 2007). It is an accident that occurred whilst bouldering at an activity centre that is the focal point of Maylin, but before discussing the case itself we turn to some remarks about risk and lifestyle sport more generally.…”

The UIAA Medical Commission Injury Classification for Mountaineering and Climbing Sports

“…In the past 20 years several studies (pro-and retrospectively) were conducted to evaluate the injury and fatality risk of rock [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] , ice 19,20 and mountain climbing [16][17][18][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] . Injury incidence was reported per 1000 hours of sport-specific performance, expedition days, summit attempts or other.…”