UKC

I watch a lot of bouldering videos on YouTube. The difficulty and intensity of this type of climbing comes across but maybe not so much the prolonged effort and commitment needed to climb a really hard boulder problem.

 Recently I watched one of a professional sending Lucid Dreaming at Bishop. Boulderers are always looking at their fingertips to assess damage so it was no surprise to see this climber closely examining his. What surprised me ( or maybe not! ) was how swollen and misshapen his finger joints were. I looked him up. He is only in his mid 30's

As someone who runs a lot of long distances I am constantly weighing up the pros and cons of the effect of excessive exercise on joints...re. old age. despite how much you love doing something you want to have good mobility when you are older too.

so the question is....what will a professional boulderers fingers be like when they are old? 

A recent article.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/injuries/finger_care_for_climbers-14850

I don’t think this is exclusive to boulderers.  Years ago I was having a chat with a very famous climber from back in the day (who did mainly trad but some bouldering too).  Each of his fingers was the size of a mini banana, like you might find in a kids lunch box.  

I asked him if his fingers got tired and his skin hurt, like mine did and he said ‘no, they don’t hurt at all’.  I didn’t ask what they were like when not climbing.

A decade or so later, my fingers are ‘thicker’ than they used to be.  They are stiff and don’t bend through the same range that they used to.   The joints used to swell and hurt, especially after long bouldering sessions, and especially climbing indoors.  But in recent years, I’ve been consistent with the finger care and that has not been an issue.

From what I’ve read, all of the climbing and finger training stiffens the fingers.  This makes them stronger but reduces mobility.

I do wonder, if I stopped climbing, would they change back to how they were?

Stronger than average? 

Some things to bear in mind, but there's no hard answer as. 

Everyone ages differently

If you continue with the activities you seem to get less problems

And what's the impact and damage done compared to that of doing nothing and sitting on your bakside?

Will read. 

Timely article as I was wondering this myself yesterday after a Moonboard session.

Fingers on one hand aching. Not those on my dominant left hand.

what a sinister post

I agree that it is best to 'use it or lose it'. But my question is more about extreme use. Ie. a professional boulderer rather than someone who does it for a hobby. 

Wrecked I reckon.

As a rule, anything extreme on the body isn't great for actual longevity. 

You don't need to be a professional boulderer to wreck your fingers - there's plenty of hobbyist sport climbers and boulderers with pretty distorted finger joints.

My partner can get nowhere near straightening her fingers in her 40s and is no doubt going to have issues with them in old age.

At the same time, there are plenty of people who have done lots of intense finger training for years and hasn't caused these problems.

I think people who tend to climb in a very static style do more damage than those who are more dynamic, and obviously people who don't take care of stretching and mobility will do more damage than those who do. 

So if you want your fingers to be in good shape in old age do the stretches and antagonist exercises, monitor your climbing style and how your fingers are doing (backing off a bit if required), and consider doing other activities that could counteract the loss of mobility (probably in trade off with the strength gains) - playing musical instruments for example.

Thanks to all for replies.

 I have to say that as an older climber now I find the intensity of bouldering hard on my body. All that trad climbing I did as a youngster was nowhere near the intensity of going to the bouldering gym for a couple of hours now.  But then again my body was different then.

'Moderation in all things' as they say.

Also a good case for periodisation. We climbers need to back off hard-climbing regularly throughout the year to allow recovery. Regular climbers also need to build prehab & compensatory training in to their plan. 

Is this a way of saying 'go to the pub'?

Works for me.  That and 45 years of being too lazy to keep up any kind of training regime for more than a month.