UKC

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has any advice on wrist injury rehab/injury recovery time? I hurt my wrist on a sloper three months ago and it has improved a bit, but using an open-hand grip on the injured hand is still painful.

The injury happened when I pulled on a sloper above and to the left of my body. When I pulled, I felt something on the back of my hand on the little finger side tear. The tear wasn't that painful but in the next few days it was painful using an open hand grip with the injured hand. After two weeks rest, the pain only happens open-handed; if I crimp it doesn't hurt.

I think I might have injured the TFCC, but I'm not sure. I've found that I can just avoid using the open-hand with the injured hand which has meant I can keep climbing as much as normal (three times a week on average). I'm not sure if I should continue climbing or if even pain-free clmbing might be delaying the healing process.

Thanks for any advice!

I'm not a medical professional but did accumulate more than my share of injuries from climbing, some of which never really healed. I'd say if it's not well healed after 3 months you need to try doing something different. Some rest would seem like the obvious starting point to me.

jk

The Huberman lab did a podcast on healing, see link for the highlighted notes below. Non-aggravating movement is beneficial to healing.   What that protocol would look like for your specific case I can't say you'll have to do your own research and testing. 

https://podcastnotes.org/huberman-lab/control-pain-heal-faster-with-your-br...

I'm not a Doctor, if its bad get it checked out. 

Not a physio so not medical advice, etc. etc. Anyway:

I had issues with both of my wrists, I think due to spending too much time training and not enough time climbing during lockdown. Likely also having newly strong fingers and core but having not really worked any other part of my body, and then heading out and getting on hard things. I found that I started tweaking my wrists and these got increasingly bad, to the point where I really struggled with not just slopers but any holds that involved the wrist not being straight, as well as slappy/big moves. These sometimes caused a painful 'popping' kind of sensation in the wrist, which a physio later diagnosed as an inflamed bit of soft tissue moving past another; when this happened the wrist would be too painful to climb on further that day, and would take a week or two to stop being painful. I'd then climb again until I reinjured...

I went to see physios who diagnosed different things, but agreed that the key issue seemed to be wrist stability as well as constant reinjury. It got to the point where I was trying an extension of a boulder problem that I'd previously done, and a move that had been trivial in the past (a big throw to a sideways sloper) became the new crux because of how painful and tweaky hitting the hold was. 

I found that strengthening the wrists while simultaneously preventing reinjury was they key; Hooper's Beta (https://www.hoopersbeta.com/library/wrist-stability-training-for-climbing-p...) has some really good exercises, and I came up with a couple on my own that seemed to be good. The most useful for me was getting in a plank position but a) on my knuckles and b) on a boulder pad. This really targets all of the little muscles in the wrist that stabilise it, and you can then make this a lot harder by doing things like plank pull-throughs ( youtube.com/watch?v=aFrXv1bdioY&) so that you're weighting wrists alternately. Months of that once/twice a week mixed in with core work and gradually upping the difficulty worked wonders, to the point where a year on that new crux move is no longer the crux.

Preventing reinjury was a case of getting a pair of knock-off Wrist Widgets (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adjustable-Support-Triangular-Fibrocartilage-Injur...) and using them for any moves that felt like they might be, or actually were, tweaky. I initially just used tape and then strapping tape, which meant shaving my wrists and was generally pretty crap. The branded Wrist Widgets are stupidly expensive for what they are, but knock-off ones are great value. Pretty poor build quality in my experience but nothing that tape/glue couldn't fix.

Hope some of that is useful.

A session with someone like Andy ( https://www.processphysiotherapy.co.uk/ ) would probably diagnose you very quickly. Andy is also very good at keeping you climbing during the rehab. Best money I’ve spent on injuries (multiple times!).

I think I know what you mean. It's happened to me a few times but only mildly and not really an injury but more of a mild discomfort for a few days. Essentially it feels weak and then something feels like it moves at the outside of the wrist where that bobble thing is at the end of the bone. Not really a "pop" but as if something springs back into alignment or something. Experts say that the wrist should be bent slightly when using slopers for maximum strength and leverage. If you bend your wrist (once healed) enough to use your arm too for extra friction it's similar to a gymnast utilising a false grip on the rings. Seems to work for me but maybe only outside on grit perhaps..? It's all about getting the most surface area on the hold and that way you don't have to pull as hard to gain the same traction. Small, light people with dustbin-lid sized hands for their body size tend to fair best on slopers. Hope u recover soon anyway

Yeah another thumbs up for Andy here, he helped me sort my wrist out within a couple of months of steady progression. 

Thanks for your help everyone! some very useful resources

If you are thinking tfcc then you have probably done your googling and know the press up tupe tests. Soft tissue takes 6 weeks ti heal, so judge it after that. Strapping as i am sure you have seen works well for me. I saw a surgeon about mine. She said they can't fix it just strap it. I said "like forever". She said "yes". Andy will give you some exercises that will try to help.