Do Climbers Risk Osteoarthritis
Probably one of the biggest concerns climbers have is the health of their joints. More specifically, risking osteoarthritis. In brief, it’s wear and tear making you feel pain and stiffness around your joints. While most seniors develop a form of it, climbers become worried about it coming on early from repeatedly using their joints to grab rocks.
So, should you be worried?
No, you don’t increase the risk of getting osteoarthritis by climbing. Despite the myths and horror stories, plenty of studies highlight there is no increased risk between non-climbers and climbers. In fact, science leans the other way and suggests climbing encourages joint health.
For example, one 2006 measured climbing intensity, frequency, and styles as well as took radiographs between climbers and non-climbers. They did this to examine the long-term mechanical stress placed on the metacarpal bones. After testing, it found climbers do not have an elevated risk of osteoarthritis.
Great news! So, if science can’t find a link between climbing and osteoarthritis, what’s all the fuss about?
The rumors didn’t pluck from thin air, the assumption mostly came from:
- Self Diagnosis.
It’s not unusual for your fingers to inflame and feel sore from climbing. While the symptoms can be similar, it’s not necessarily osteoarthritis. For example, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is common among climbers. - Overtraining.
If your body tells you it’s exhausted, take a break! Climbers who push their bodies too far put too much pressure on their tendons and ligaments. If you do this enough, it can introduce osteoarthritis. - Under-Experienced.
Beginners have minimal form knowledge, so if they go straight to the complex climbs, they risk climbing with the wrong technique. When you repeatedly climb with poor technique, you can accelerate wear and tear in your joints and bring osteoarthritis early.
What Joints Does Climbing Put Tension On?
Depending on style, different climbers experience tension in different places. However, the most common places are the metacarpals (fingers), wrists, knees, elbows, and shoulders. These joints go through the most abuse when climbing, so it’s expected for them to feel the most wear and tear.
- Metacarpals and Phalanges:
The most frequently injured. Our fingers are essential when gripping and balancing – we’d be useless without them! The problem is they’re so tiny, compared to our body weight, that when we rest on them they endure massive amounts of stress. - Wrist Joints:
Too many slopers and underclings can put pressure on your wrist joints. Because of this, climbers commonly get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (tingling, numbness, and pain in your hand and fingers) from repeatedly using their wrist flexors to grip rocks. - Knees:
Techniques like the drop-knee, or the mantle rely on your knee extensor muscles to carry your body weight from a semi-squat position. While this is optimal for climbing, it can strain your knees. Small dosages are fairly healthy, but too much can rapidly erode the cartilage. - Elbows:
Many grips require climbers to hold the rocks using muscles that originate from the elbow. Some of the grips aren’t necessarily ideal either, for example, lots of tension is built in the elbow when climbers chicken-wing. Elbow pains are fairly common, in fact funnily enough, it has its own name: Climber’s Elbow! - Shoulders:
Very rarely will your arms be below your head. For the majority of the climb, you use your shoulders to reach for rocks above your head. This movement is supported by your rotator cuff – responsible for letting us raise and rotate our arms. When overtrained, we can irritate the fibers, leading to pain and limited mobility.
How To Keep Your Joints Healthy When Climbing
Science doesn’t show a correlation between climbing and osteoarthritis. But, the fact that bouldering/ climbing puts tension on your joints is undeniable. As a result, it’s imperative to ensure longevity when climbing. Here’s our tips:
- Stay Close To The Mountain/Wall
Keep your hips as close to the mountain/ wall as you can. Through this, you let a proportion of your body weight rest against the wall – rather than on your joints. The more vertical the climb is, the greater challenge you’ll find it. Nonetheless, it reduces the pressure on your joints – predominantly your knees and ankles (unless you’re climbing an overhang!) - Minimize Close Grips
The more your fingers crimp, the greater pressure they’re under. We recommend strengthening your open-hand grip so you’re less reliant on crimping. While sometimes a full crimp is unavoidable, an open/half crimp is ideal. As well as good climbing practice, it reduces the tension your tendons and ligaments are under. - Be Mindful Of Your Bodyweight
A key climbing skill is the ability to shift your body weight. Not only will it save energy during a climb, but it can reduce the force pushing down on your joints. For example, leaning your body towards your straight left arm, rather than your right elbow that’s flexed. However, ensure you distribute it evenly throughout the climb – or you risk feeling extremely sore on one side, and not the other! - Learn The Basics
The most common way people get joint problems from climbing is through improper technique. Remember, climbing won’t cause osteoarthritis, but repeatedly using the wrong form will. If you’re a beginner, stick with V0-V2 climbs for your first few sessions. Not only will it make you a more skilled climber, but it ensures you have enough strength in your tendons and ligaments to take on harder climbs.
Can Climbing Help Osteoarthritis
Let’s flip the script, it sounds like the complete opposite of what you may initially think, but is there any truth to this?
Research has shown that light climbing can actually help resist against osteoarthritis. While too much tension is known to trigger joint-related health issues, moderate climbing can put a healthy amount of stress on your joints which builds bone density and strengthens the joints.
This isn’t to say climbing is a medicine for osteoarthritis. In fact, we don’t recommend climbing if you already have osteoarthritis. Instead, climbing can help mitigate osteoarthritis in the future by keeping your joints loose and mobile.
So, why does climbing help osteoarthritis:
- Osteoarthritis is wear and tear on the joint. However, you can also trigger it by a lack of exercise, especially by causing the atrophy of the joint. Since climbing is a full-body workout, it ensures the majority of your joints undertake a healthy amount of stress to keep resilient.
- Basic climbing increases the flexibility, mobility, and strength around our joints. As a result, you’re less likely to feel aches and pains around the surrounding muscles and bones.
The same 2009 study wanted to find the factors influencing osteological changes in the hands and fingers of rock climbers. Through numerous tests and data collecting they found there was a difference between climbers and non-climbers of osteoarthritis (OA) appearing. Interestingly it was the non-climbers who had a higher incidence of OA (44% compared to 82% had evidence of OA development).
In the sense that moderate climbing helps protect your joints from osteoarthritis, it can be argued that bouldering is the better choice than rock climbing, in this context. It’s a softer workout, so the stress it puts on your joints is better balanced.
What Are The Long Term Effects Of Rock Climbing
Putting osteoarthritis to the side, what are some health drawbacks climbers should look out for?
Everyone experiences different health problems after climbing long term. Some individuals won’t have any at all! However, for those that do, they all arise from doing repeated movements that overtrain your body. The long-term effects are commonly joint-related, poor posture, or torn muscle fiber from overuse.
Yes, climbers can have a high-impact fall or explosive movement which results in a sudden injury; but, we’re mainly focusing on the injuries that creep up on you.
Specific Long-Term Injuries Include:
| Tennis Elbow | When climbers repeatedly train, without sufficient rest, they overuse their wrist extensors and overload their tendons. Over time, this can make micro-tears which leads to pain/ burning sensation outside the joint and in the forearm. |
| Climbers Hunch | Climbers can frequently find themselves in a hunched position – on the climb or resting on the ground. This mostly occurs when your core is fatigued and/ or your lats have been overly contracted. This can cause posture problems, such as your back locking. |
| Synovitis and Capsulitis | The stress climbing puts on your fingers can cause them to swell and inflame – to look like fish fingers! This shouldn’t necessarily alarm you. Only when you overtrain do your fingers start losing mobility and feel tight. |
| Rotator Cuff Tears | When we repeatedly reach for rocks overhead (99% of the time), we can get tiny tears in our shoulder’s rotator cuffs, which can worsen through extreme pressure during the end ranges of motion. This will bring pain to the shoulder and limit mobility. |
| Carpal Tunnel Syndrome | When you flex your wrist, to grab rocks, your median nerve is compressed and squeezed. Without sufficient rest, this can lead to CT syndrome which brings numbness and pain in your hands and fingers |
| Golf Elbow | Golf Elbow is similar to Tennis elbow, only your inner elbow will feel inflamed, rather than the outer. This is because it comes from overloading your wrist flexors. Nonetheless, you’ll feel the same pain/ burning sensation. |
| Meniscal Tears | This is damage to the cartilage in your knee. While all climbing puts you at risk, techniques such as high-stepping, heel hooking, drop-knees, and planting/twisting put you at a higher risk. Credit: Source. |
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