Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Topic Date User

Lower Back Fun! 21-Jul-2008 At 9:58:57 AM RockHobbit

Message

Okay so this isn't actually an injury sustained on the rock, more of an anti injury! Wait, that makes little sense even to me.....

I was curious if anyone else has a lower back injury and finds climbing with it a little perplexing? Okay so thanks to an incident at work about four years ago (damn pesky performance aircraft!), I compressed three lower lumbar discs. This had all the horrible trimmings of a back injury, barely able to walk, sleep, sit for more than ten minutes sciatic pain worthy of serious pain killers and nine months before I would work at full capacity. According to the surgeon, my injuries would forever kill all the things that I loved to do. Motorbikes, CLIMBING (lets face it, it’s the important one!), skating and bizarrely my archery. His treatment, explorative surgery and monthly Cortisone injections. My response, Jam it Doc! Thankfully a close friend of mine, who conveniently is Personal Trainer in Syd, said the same (the Jam it bit!). Then proceeded to hurt me allot to develop my core strength. Thanks Phil, but you suck.

This is where I get confused. Now the act of climbing would ask a lot of pretty much the entire body and one would think would be quite detrimental to the lower back or a pre-existing medical condition. What with all the wacky positions one finds themselves in on a climb, not to mention physical exertion in these wacky positions. It should not be good for a back injury. But, I'm finding that the more I climb, combined with my daily core strength exercises, if I don't climb once a week at least, I start getting really sore not to mention rather grumpy. The more I climb the less I feel any symptoms or discomfort. But by all accounts I should be experiencing the complete opposite.

It’s more of a curiosity than anything else. I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced the same or could even shed some physiological reasons for it (come on you medical types!)?

Chars!