UKC

Hey Climbers!

I'm currently doing a University project in Nottingham Trent University on injuries related to the climbing/bouldering sport, and I need your help!

If any of you guys can spare 10 mins to fill out this google form survey on climbing then that would be amazing! The survey is aimed at all levels of climbers! So people who have just started have as much of an impact as the professionals!

https://forms.gle/6TxsSvQ5CwNb9yAR8

If you have any friends or relatives that partake in the sport, than please share this post or send them the link! Thank you for your time!

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

Disappointing as the survey seems focussed on 'muscle injury' (presumably including tendons) and in particular 'recovery products', when most climbers I know mainly use physio, rest and exercises  (which are not even covered) to aid recovery.

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

I struggled to answer any of the questions in a meaningful way I’m afraid.  A few issues:

- on the first page doing competition climbing is not necessarily a measure of experience so beware conflating the two.

- is there a reason you are only interested in injuries sustained indoors rather than when climbing outdoors?

- asking what injuries you sustain and on what regularity is a bit odd.  I’ve tweaked most of the muscles I can think of in some way or another to varying degrees of severity along with the usual finger tendons, elbow gripes, sprained ankles and back strains.  Have you thought of just asking people to think of the last injury they had, or the last serious injury, at least that way the questions would be answerable?  

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

seven exclamation marks!

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:  I found this a difficult survey to complete.  I am a bit confused by breaks - does resting between attempts on a problem count?  Also, are you properly separating muscle soreness from injuries?  Your shorter recovery times dont really fit with genuine injury?

In reply to wbo2:

Thank you for your feedback, I can see from your perspective where the confusion is and will rectify the question to be more specific. In terms of the 'breaks question' itself, it is based on resting your body. When I spoke to some people they find that they attempt a route and then find or asses a new route whilst resting their fingers/hands/forearms etc. Its can be a grey area in general as people rest for different reasons so I will look onto this further with my investigation. Thank you again for your feedback!

In reply to Offwidth:

Sorry to hear that you find the survey disappointing, I have tweaked the survey from the constructive feedback given to me in this thread. The reason for targeting muscle injury and recovery products, is because my initial research found a trend where people in sport such as climbing commonly suffer from muscle aches and injuries, as a result from the nature of each sport using similar muscle groups. I personally have suffered the same (only muscle ache) when I took part in bouldering to get more of an idea. The purpose of this survey is to get a more general idea from people such as you and understand if there is a common trend between the initial research and the current view of the topic. Thank you for your feedback!

In reply to yeti:

Please may you further explain the meaning of this comment? I interpret the fact that you are having problems progressing through the survey. Most questions require an answer, and an exclamation mark will appear if you don't answer these types of questions. You can find these marked with a red asterisk Hope this helps!

In reply to Aly:

Thank you for your feedback! On your first point, when I collate and asses the results I will make sure that they will not be conflating. For your second point, I have changed the wording of the questions to be clearer so that they include both indoor and outdoor. That was my fault and I apologise. For the third point, due to the nature of the sport I wanted to find out the most popular areas of the body that people commonly suffer minor muscle aches or injuries like tennis elbow, I know some people initially think they have pulled a muscle badly before realising that they caused a proper injury to their muscle groups. I will be conducting focus groups at my local climbing gym so more specific and detailed questions such as  'what was the last serious injury you had from climbing?' can be answered in more detail. Again thank you for your feedback!

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

Forgive me if I've read this wrong, but does this mean you are not an active climber?  Not trying to discourage you, but I think this might explain why the questions do not make a lot of sense, and I suspect it will be difficult for you to extract any meaningful conclusions from the data.  Climbing is quite a unique sport in the way it is executed.  In the nicest possible way, have you thought about focussing your research on a sport that you have a bit more experience in as you may get better results that way.  I really hope this doesn't come across as dismissive or elitist as I'm not trying to be!

Edit - we cross posted there so thanks for replying to my first post, which has addressed some of the points above too.

In reply to Aly:

Honestly no offence taken, as I can see you are trying to help and I really appreciate that! I have been bouldering on/off for 2 years treating it as a casual sport to keep me fit whilst I’m at university. However my knowledge of bouldering is limit due to this. You are right in what you are saying, the nature of the sport is unique and so a general survey like this can only show me so much! And the collective feedback from users of this forum suggest to me that climbers what to emphasize on their points relating to muscle fatigue in sessions. Thus I will be conducting focus groups and interviews with climbers more experienced than me to broaden my understanding. So if anyone here wants to help me carry this further than I would really appreciate it! 

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

You don't accept emails so how do we help?

In reply to Offwidth:

So sorry for the inconvenience, I am new to the forum and have managed to change my profile settings to allow emails. Please email me with any queries you may have!

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

Shall I bother doing this one or, is it going to wind me up like all the others ? 

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

I did my best to answer your survey. Don't be surprised that the forums here can be grumpy and dismissive at times, and well done for trying out your survey on the various UKC tribes (and there are several). You've taken on board some of the thoughtful criticisms of the survey's design and questions and that's good. Others have said correctly (in my opinion) that muscle injury is a complex issue, and the longer  (or more intensively) someone has climbed, the more other conditions affect it, and the definition in your initial post of climbing injuries is a bigger can of worms than the issues targeted by your questions. If you have not already sourced it, Dave McLeod's book would give you a good overview of the field and provide links to other sources. 

https://www.davemacleod.com/shop/makeorbreak

Good luck with your studies.

Dave

In reply to full stottie:

Hi Dave,

Thank you so much for your feedback and recommendation of the book! I will see if my university library has it and if not I will get them to order it for me. I will look further into what you mentioned and I feel the comments and criticism in this forum are really insightful to how people perceive this topic.

In reply to NTU Climbing Survey:

Hey Climbers!

Hope you are all well! I just want to say thank you to everyone who has filled out the survey and given me feedback in this thread! I have now stopped receiving responses to carry the project forward. I understand the nature of the wording in the survey was generic, however that was done so that it can be translated across to all level of climbers. I have personally learnt a lot from this experience and will take in the suggestions given. Thank you!