Is Knuckle Cracking Bad for Climbers' Fingers? | Viewer Questions
Hooper’s Beta Ep. 60
Viewer Question Ep. 8
Intro
The viewer question series continues! Episode 8 continues to answer some of the great questions we receive on the channel. Have a specific question or something you’re interesting in asking? Ask! We will get back to it ASAP and may even include it in these series if we think everyone on the internet should see it!
In this weeks video we talk about hangboarding, cracking your knuckles, training while sore, and more! Thanks for watching.
Questions
Viewer: Yevgeniy M
Question: Really nice intro to hangboarding video, appreciate your content as always! I know this is aimed at beginner climbers, so I am curious to hear your thoughts about when it is appropriate to start hangboarding? I know that Eva Lopez (whose protocol you reference) recommends 2-3 years of climbing before beginning her program. What's your opinion as a climber/PT?
Video in Reference: Intro to Hangboarding - Climbing Replacement Routine (BEST HANGBOARD PROGRAM EVER!?)
Answer: Great question and it honestly, sadly, it really depends. One of the fears of starting a max hang or general hangboard protocol too early is that adding weight to a crimp grip adds strain and stress to our joints and pulleys. This can set you up for an injury to a pulley or can cause joint inflammation/synovitis which can cause long stoppages in climbing. But let's change our perspective. What if you have climbed for 4 years and somehow managed to never crimp and then all of the sudden shifted and did a bunch of crimping. Honestly, you're not any better off. The key here, if you picked up on it, is how you introduce crimping to your climbing. Going from no crimping at all to crimping everything is terrible, but easing your way into it is what will allow your tissue to adapt to these changes. I've seen people who have only climbed for 1 year develop joint synovitis and they never hangboarded, BUT, they got really good really quick and part of that progression was doing a ton of crimping with their climbing. Same problem; too much too quickly. MODERATION is the key here. Too much too quickly is going to lead to an injury whether you're seasoned or newer. Moderating the amount of crimping and working your way up to it is better. So, if you can start with just some super simple training and moderate how much of it you can do, you can start this process earlier. Say, for example, some recruitment pulls in a crimp position rather than a full hangboard routine. The problem is most people don't start light enough because they get super stoked and they end up causing an injury. The research done with climbing is still progressing, but unfortunately there is no definitive timeline out that that says exactly when you should start a hangboard routine. I will say, I am more in the 6-12 month camp if you can do it SAFELY. But really, you don’t need to start a hangboard program earlier than that because you need to learn the skill and technique of climbing and focus on that. What’s the TL;DR (too long didn’t read) version? There is no set, specific timeline. If you want to start hangboarding, you need to moderate the overall load you are placing on your tissue. Start low, start slow, and be safe.
Question: Hello Dr Hooper! I tried doing some tendon gliding but my right middle finger couldn't bend all the way and touch the top of my palm (top row) due to synovitis. Should I be trying to to push it down using my other hand to get a full ROM?
Video in Reference: I Use Anatomy to Make a 10-Minute Warm-Up for Climbers Who HATE Warming Up
Answer: This is a great question! I wouldn't start with overpressure. If this is new for you, give your joint a chance to loosen and improve it's ROM with simple range of motion work through tendon gliding. If the joint doesn't demonstrate progress in a few days to a week, there may be other more specific interventions such as joint distractions to improve the joint space that should be applied to help loosen the joint up and then you may begin working on the overpressure. If the joint mobility feels like a serious enough issue, I would recommend seeing a specialist who can show you some tools to improve it!
Viewer: Cara
Question: Does cracking your knuckles have any effect on hardworking climbing fingers? Is it creating more trauma to the extra sensitive joints, or the action doesn’t affect the fingers in the same way?
Video in Reference: Why are my finger joints swollen and what can I do about it?! - Hooper's Beta Ep. 12
Answer: Cracking your knuckles is simply expanding the joint space far enough for that individual joint to cause a cavitation. This is a harmless activity when there is strength to support the joint. Research has helped debunk the age old thought that cracking your knuckles causes arthritis. Cracking your joints is only harmful if you are continually doing it to a mobile joint that doesn’t have enough strength from the surrounding muscles. Let’s break this down: We look at a balanced body as having good mobility AND stability. Cracking your knuckles increases mobility. Too much mobility and not enough stability causes issues. If there’s balance and you have good mobility and stability, that’s not an issue. With the hands? We are constantly working them so we typically have good stability, so cracking the knuckles to improve mobility is balanced out.
Let’s look at another example: if you have neck pain due to weak cervical paraspinals / stabilizer muscles and you continually crack your neck which may result in increasing the joint space, you aren't really solving the problem even though cracking it feels good, you're just masking the problem. Your problem is too much mobility and not enough stability, but your answer is to mobilize the segment further. So to circle back to your question, for the hands it shouldn't be a problem unless you have instability of the joint or some other issue.
Viewer: Henry O'Donnell
Question: Hey hoops! I was wondering... Should you train even if you are feeling sore? Is it better to push through the muscle soreness, or wait until recovered in order to train at maximum effort.
Video in Reference: Rock Climbers: Should you feel PUMPED when TRAINING? (Yes, but...)
Answer: It's definitely better to wait until you have recovered to continue your training. The main reason being that training on injured or not fully recovered tissue will limit your ability to produce max effort or force. If you cannot produce a high enough level of effort or force, you’re not training your muscles under the correct conditions to promote proper tissue adaptations. This causes your training to be ineffective, think of tires just spinning in mud. It may also lead to overuse injuries as you aren’t fully resting the tissue before applying strain and stress to it again. If you are sore and want to train, you can try other body parts or just train mobility, of course, but don't forget the most undervalued component of training: rest.
Viewer: Michele Riggio
Question: How the hell have you 4000 subscribers?
Video in Reference: all videos
Answer: Well, I mean we are almost at 5000 now. But I don’t know! Common internet. Algorithms and shares and likes and stuff. We can do this. Do it for Indiana Maveric Jones! The more followers we have, the more often we can afford to pay him to make superstar appearances!
Or maybe if I just say hot words like google… youtube…. Pixel… nest…. Maybe then we can infiltrate the algorithms.
Viewer: Jarrod Balicki
Question: Very interesting video! I have personally been dealing with a collateral joint/ligament injury (in both the middle joints, middle fingers) for the last 2 years or so. I've done almost every form of rehab I can think of. In the video, you use the Farmers Crimp for tendon/pulley injuries, do you think that this rehab could be applied to a collateral ligament injury?
Video in Reference: Why your FINGER INJURY WON'T HEAL and HOW TO FIX IT -- Hint: Pain is good
Answer: Before we get to your specific question, I have to address the fact that in your question you state the injury has lasted for 2 years. When an injury lasts that long, my immediate response is two fold. 1) does pain science apply to this case (check out our pain science video!) and 2) what is the individual doing to constantly re-aggravate the injury? You may need to do a deeper look into your activities of daily living, work, climbing style, etc. because if you’re constantly re-aggravating the injury, that’s the first step in your recovery process.
To directly answer your question, however, since the collateral ligament protects moreso against varus or valgus forces (bending the finger left or right) it is mainly put under force in those scenarios. Farmer crimps should not be placing your joints under that type of stress, so no, it won’t likely be a part of your rehab process.
Viewer: charles fourcade
Question: Hi, it is great to see such content on "Pain science" and progressive load for recovery. A good supplement to the video on A2 Pulley Injuries, which I unfortunately have at the moment... :(. First real injury over more than 10 years of climbing... I have a question/clarification regarding the pain level protocol and monitoring: How should the pain level be monitored? During the load and timed after the load is clearly stated, but how do we let our body tell us? Meaning should we touch/move/apply some sort of pressure to the sensitive part or just without any touch/movement/pressure? Eg. for fingers and A2 pulleys. Thanks !
Video in Reference: Why your FINGER INJURY WON'T HEAL and HOW TO FIX IT -- Hint: Pain is good
Answer:Awesome! Yeah after the A2 video we felt we needed a follow up on that to help bridge the gap even better. Sorry to hear about your injury though, that's a bummer.
Good question regarding the proper pain protocol and how to monitor the symptoms. The question at hand here really is do you just pay attention to how it feels under force? Or do you also move it around and poke and prod at it for more information. The foundation will absolutely be just how it feels when the tissue is under force, i.e. farmer crimps, and how that force is causing your body to react. So pay the most attention to how your body feels when you are placing load on it. If it's not causing any pain it's great, if it is, listen to it and see how it unfolds during and after the force application. If it starts to go into those yellow areas such as having a longer duration of symptoms, more than 3/10 pain, etc, pain) then I think it's OK to supplement with movement to assess how it is doing. Don’t immediately respond just by poking and prodding at it. This can give you a false alarm as you are adding a completely different type of pressure to the system that may provoke different symptoms. If you are getting into the “red” zones, so to speak where your symptoms last for more than a minute, etc, it’s OK to then include poking and prodding. If you are more sensitive after your farmer crimps with poking and prodding than you were before you started, you have plenty of information to say that you did too much
Disclaimer:
As always, exercises are to be performed assuming your own risk and should not be done if you feel you are at risk for injury. See a medical professional if you have concerns before starting new exercises.
Written and Presented by Jason Hooper, PT, DPT, OCS, SCS, CAFS
IG: @hoopersbetaofficial
Filming and Editing by Emile Modesitt
www.emilemodesitt.com
IG: @emile166
