EP 284: Four PTs

October 6, 2025

Dr. Jared Vagy returns to the podcast and is joined by three physical therapy students and graduates, Sarah Kremer, Dawson Freeze, and Michael Larson. We talked about three recent articles covering the benefits of seasonality for maximizing climbing performance, rehabbing and preventing common knee injuries while heel hooking, and off-the-wall strength training for climbers. See the show notes for the full articles here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Nuggets:

00:00:00 – Intro

00:04:16 – Overview

00:07:52 – Sarah’s topic (the case for taking a break)

00:10:24 – What Sarah’s research process looked like

00:11:22 – Surprises in Sarah’s research process

00:12:35 – Recommendations on when to take time off

00:15:48 – How to sustain stoke

00:18:04 – How climbing ability solidifies over time

00:20:56 – If Sarah did a follow-up study

00:28:38 – Dawson’s topic (heel hooking and knee injuries)

00:33:22 – Common heel hook injuries

00:35:20 – Go to hip mobility exercises

00:39:00 – Heel hooking warm-ups

00:41:01 – Surprises in Dawson's research

00:43:27 – If Dawson did a follow-up study

00:49:28 – Michael's topic (off the wall strength training)

00:52:10 – How often should climbers weight train

00:55:34 – At what point are you strong enough

01:02:59 – Comparing athletes

01:09:47 – Stability-focused exercises

01:19:18 – Value in taking time off

01:21:19 – Jared's final thoughts

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EP 283: Adrian Ballinger