But if you know what you’re doing and take appropriate safety measures, the risks in climbing can be substantially minimised, leaving you to enjoy a fun, challenging, inspirational sport with a great community and in the most breathtaking destinations. In this article, The Adventure Junkies will walk you through some simple steps on how to stay safe while climbing.

SAFETY CHECKS

Before you set off on a climb, a climber and belayer should always – always – do a round of safety checks. Even the most experienced climbers have suffered injuries that could have been prevented with a simple check. Lynn Hill, who famously freed The Nose of El Capitan, Yosemite Valley, once took a giant 70ft fall from the top of a climb because she had been distracted while preparing, and had failed to complete her safety knot.

SAFETY KNOT

Properly tying into the rope is vital. Climbers use different kinds of knots, but the figure-8 with a stopper knot is the most common. The knot must pass through the tie-in points on the harness, usually through both the leg loop and the waist loop. Check the harness instructions to ensure you are doing this correctly, and check the knot is properly tied before casting off.

HARNESSES AND BELAY DEVICE

Are the harnesses of the climber(s) and belayer sitting above the hips, tightened, with all appropriate loops double backed? Is the belay device – usually an ATC or a grigri – threading the rope in the correct way (check instructions to be sure), and attached to the harness with a locking carabiner? Is the carabiner locked?

You should always check that everything is properly set up by tugging the rope, as if it were catching a fall, and seeing if the belay device catches the rope and keeps it from running freely.

ROPE AND PROTECTION

Make sure it is the right rope for this type of climb, and check the sheath to make sure it is undamaged. Flake the rope at the bottom of the climb to ensure there are no knots in it, which could get snagged in the belay device at a critical, and potentially dangerous, moment. If there is a chance that the rope is not long enough, put a knot in the end of it to keep the end from unexpectedly running through the belay device, dropping the climber in the process.

Finally, check that the lead climber has everything they need for the route. If it’s a sport climb, ensure they have enough quickdraws (usually three more than the number of bolts, including two for the anchor, and one extra, just in case). If it is a traditionally-protected route, ensure they have enough protective gear, such as cams and wires.

HELMETS

Many climbers don’t wear helmets on well-traveled routes, assuming that the chances of rockfall are minimal. But how stupid would it be to own a helmet, and sustain a serious head-injury while climbing because you had chosen not to use it. Be safe – wear a helmet, no matter what type of climbing you are doing.

AVOID THE DROP ZONE

Have a look at the route, and ensure that the belayer is out of the line of fire, or can easily step out of the line of fire. A lead climber can accidently dislodge a loose rock at anytime, putting the belayer at risk of getting hit.

DESCENT

Many accidents have occurred while lowering climbers from the top of a route. One common mistake is if the climber believes he will be lowered to the ground, but the belayer believes the climber will rappel. If the climber is taken off belay and leans back, expecting to be lowered, then they will fall to the ground. Know and agree on how to descend. Repeat it before the climber starts climbing, to ensure there is no miscommunication.

Sometimes climbers have to walk off the top of a route. If so, be sure to know the descent route. Many climbers have spent cold, hungry and wet nights pinned to a wall after getting lost on the descent and not being properly prepared.

COMMUNICATE CLEARLY

Accidents can happen due to poor communication, such as the previous example about confusion over how to descend. Miscommunication has also lead to belayers taking their lead climbers off belay before they have finished the climb.

Know your calls, and shout them clearly. “Take” means the belayer should take in rope slack. “Slack” means to give more rope slack. “Secure” or “off-belay” means the climber has anchored to the wall and can be taken off belay. If there are other people around you, use names to avoid confusion that could lead to a potentially fatal scenario.

For multi-pitch climbs, or routes where the climber will rappel down, “secure” or “off-belay” are extremely important calls, as they indicate to the belayer that they can remove the rope from the belay device. But the belayer should be absolutely certain that the climber is secure before doing this. Misheard calls can lead to the climber being taken off belay while they are still climbing, essentially turning the climber into a free-soloist, carrying a rope, and facing a potentially fatal accident if they fell.

Various calls are used, so make sure both the climber and belayer agree to have consistent calls, and consistent responses. Have a plan for communicating if you can’t hear each other. (Very windy routes, for example, can sometimes make it impossible to hear). Three tugs on the rope is a common way for a climber to tell a belayer that they are securely anchored and can be taken off belay.

PAY ATTENTION

Distracted belaying can be a major cause of accidents. Resist the urge to socialise, converse, text, or tie your shoelaces as you belay. Watch the climber at all times. Don’t give too much slack when the climber is above a ledge, or too little slack that could lead to a hard catch, and slam the climber into the rock-face.

Make sure you know about z-clipping and back-clipping, or climbing with the rope behind your leg. If the lead climber does any of these things, the belayer should tell them immediately.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

Ignorance can be a recipe for disaster. Arming yourself with knowledge is one of the best ways to assess and avoid risks, and gaining knowledge through climbing courses, or through solid mentors and real experience, is a great way to learn under safe supervision. Showing up at a crag with gear and no idea what to do is asking for trouble.

KNOW YOUR CLIMB

You can minimise risk by knowing the climb and everything you need for it. If it’s a long multi-pitch route, you may want to take a topo map of the route that you can refer to as you climb higher. The approach and descent information, especially for alpine climbs, should be well-known before setting out. Check the forecast to make sure that the chances of getting caught in a thunderstorm are slim.

Risks have been amplified by climbers getting on the wrong route, going off-route while halfway up a climb, having the wrong gear or not enough gear, or not knowing how to get down.

KNOW YOURSELF AND YOUR PARTNER

Overconfidence is a major cause of accidents. Know your own abilities and don’t overreach. If you want to climb El Cap in Yosemite, it is probably best to try something smaller first to hone your multi-pitch skills and, depending on how you want to climb, your aid and hauling skills.

A climber’s partnership with a belayer is sacrosanct. Numerous accidents have occurred from people climbing with strangers. If you don’t know who you’re climbing with, don’t be afraid to ask them to demonstrate to you that they know what they’re doing. Give them a rope and a belay device, and ask them to show you their belaying skills.

MORE TIPS TO MINIMISE RISK

If you are climbing a big wall, ensure you have enough gear to descend if you need to from anywhere on the climb. Basic first aid kits and headlamps are also essentials for long climbs.

Carry a cellphone, or a satellite GPS distress-signal device such as a Spot or InReach, in case of emergency. Also, tell someone where you are going, so they know where you were headed if disaster struck and you didn’t come home when you were supposed to.

The post How To Stay Safe While Climbing appeared first on The Adventure Junkies.

 If you look after your body, then you can expect to be hanging off vertiginous walls well into your old age; hardcore climbers in their 60s are still scaling Yosemite’s El Capitan in a day.

TYPICAL CLIMBING INJURIES

FINGERS

The strain that climbers put on their fingers is intense, and popping or straining a finger pulley is one of the most frequent climber injuries. A pulley is a band of fibers that act as a small sheath, which holds the tendons to the bone. There are five pulleys in each finger, with the A2 pulley – located between the palm and the first knuckle – being the most commonly injured one. A certain sign of a pulley injury is hearing the pulley pop, literally, while pulling super hard, probably on a small crimp. If you can’t pull on a fingery hold without pain in your digits, you’ve probably hurt a finger pulley and should immediately cease climbing to allow the damage to heal.

ELBOWS

The tendons in your forearms connect the muscle to the bone, and run all the way from the base of the elbow to your fingertips. All that aggressive pulling puts tremendous pressure on the tendons, particularly at the base of the elbow. Tendons do not strengthen as quickly as muscles, and injuries can occur when a weaker tendon cannot support a stronger muscle.

Tennis Elbow (lateral epicondylosis) is the term commonly applied to tendon pain on the outside of your elbow, while Golfer’s Elbow (medial epicondylosis) – more common among climbers – refers to tendon pain on the inside of the elbow.

There are mainly two types of injury. Tendonitis is when the tendon becomes swollen and painful, often from an act of intense and sudden overloading. Tendonosis is a chronic pain that is caused by the degeneration of tendon fibers from repeated strain over a long period of time. This results in a dull ache during use, rather than the acute pain of tendonitis. In both cases, the long-term treatment is to build balanced tendon strength.

SHOULDERS

Shoulders bear the brunt of the body weight while climbing overhanging routes. The most common climber injury in the shoulder is to the rotator cuff, the collection of tendons and muscles that surround the ball and socket of the shoulder joint. Climbing means a lot of pulling, and very little pushing. This imbalance can nudge the ball and shoulder socket off center, which can lead to injury. Rotator cuff injuries can manifest in a number of ways, including a sharp pain in the front, top, or back of the shoulder joint, or pain simply by trying to raise an arm. Climbers can train antagonist muscles to address muscle imbalances.

INJURY PREVENTION TIPS

TIP #1: TRAIN ANTAGONIST MUSCLES

 As stated, climbers pull a ton and do very little pushing. A lot of the resulting imbalances are what makes climbers susceptible to injury, and these can be mitigated by strengthening antagonist muscle groups. Such exercises should be done to a degree that your muscles feel the strain, thereby making them stronger, but avoiding any sharp pain.

FINGERS, HANDS AND WRISTS

To counter the pulling on small holds, climbers should do exercises that extend the fingers upwards. For example, using the Metolius Grip Saver from this list of best gifts for climbers is a great way to pull fingers upwards against resistance. Developed by a doctor, the Grip Saver also works the antagonist muscles for the hand and forearm.

ELBOWS

Building up the tendon strength on the inside and outside of the elbow will go far towards preventing Tennis or Golfer’s Elbow, as well as rehabilitating them after they happen. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use a handle with a weight at one end.

 For Tennis Elbow, start with the handle in a vertical position with the weight at the top and your hand at the bottom, as if holding a ski pole. Turning your thumb towards you, slowly lower the weight 90 degrees to a horizontal position over five seconds. Use your other hand to lift the handle back to the starting point, so that you’re only working the tendon, and not the muscle.

For Golfer’s Elbow, do the same action, but rotate the handle 90 degrees in the other direction, turning your thumb away from you.

 Another Golfer’s Elbow exercise is to hold a weight curled up in your hand, and slowly release it over five seconds. Again, allow your other hand to lift the weight back to the starting position. The hand should be positioned palm-up under the weight with the thumb alongside the fingers.

SHOULDERS

Exercises that focus on extending the shoulder muscles up and away from the body counters the pulling action that climbing demands. There are a number of ways to do this, but the simplest is to lie face down, and lift your arms and shoulders above your head. Try and lead with the arms, rather than the elbow, and concentrate on engaging the shoulders. A similar exercise is to stand facing a wall, extending your straight arms up above and behind your head for 10 to 30 seconds.

 Other antagonist muscle exercises include push-ups and tricep dips.

TIP #2: IMPROVE YOUR TECHNIQUE

Poor climbing habits can exacerbate the chances of injury. There are a number of ways to improve technique, including:

1. Engage your shoulder muscles, rather than hanging off your bones, which puts undue stress on shoulder tissues.

2. Use open hand crimping, where possible. Closed hand crimping drastically increases the pressure on your joints, including your A2 pulley.

3. Climb with straight arms and low elbows, where possible. Bent arms, or chicken winging, puts a lot of stress on shoulder tendons, while high elbows can strain the tricep muscle.

4. Engage your core, and climb with your legs. Both will take weight off your more injury-prone fingers, arms, and shoulders.

TIP #3: DON’T DO TOO MUCH, TOO QUICKLY

Trying an explosive move that is a thousand times harder than anything you’ve ever done before is a sure path to injury. You’re basically stressing your muscles in a much more strenuous way than they’ve ever been used, which could lead to blowing a pulley, or tearing a tendon. Like all sports, the best way to improve without injuring yourself is to build performance in small increments. Similarly, it is also common to re-injure yourself by coming back from injury, and climbing like you’re just as strong as before the injury.

TIP #4: WARM UP PROPERLY

This is related to the previous point. Arriving at a crag and immediately jumping on your project is asking for trouble. Your body is cold, and not at all ready for maximum performance. Warming up properly goes some way towards injury prevention. The walk-in to the crag is often enough to get the blood warm, but dynamic stretches (stretching with movement) can greatly increase blood-flow and flexibility. Try some windmills and leg lunges. Finally, start on a couple of easy routes and then graduate to a moderate or two, before attempting your hardest route of the day.

TIP #5: POST-CLIMBING STATIC STRETCHING AND YOGA

Tight muscles after a day of climbing at your limit? Chronic tightness makes muscles weaker and more injury-prone, but static stretching and massage can loosen them. There are a number of static stretches that climbers should do, with the upper body usually the tightest, in particular the forearms. Hold stretches for about 20 to 30 seconds. But don’t neglect the lower body, either. Climbers’ calf and hip muscles are notoriously tight from standing on tiny dimples all day, or from stemming up vertical corners. Stretches should be done at the end of the day, rather than before a climb. Research suggests that static stretching before climbing might decrease power performance.

Yoga is also a popular and great way to stretch, loosening muscles and increasing flexibility. There are a lot of great poses that offer static stretches, as well as more powerful poses to increase strength.

TIP #6: REST AND RECOVER

Going for it and not giving your body enough time to recover can lead to chronic injuries. Often climbers need up to 48 hours to fully recover from a challenging session. If you’re sore or fatigued, take a day off. Or two!

The post How To Avoid Climbing Injuries appeared first on The Adventure Junkies.