Mobility/Rehab

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.

Stian Christophersen is a physiotherapist, coach, author, and world-class climber. He returns to the podcast to discuss his new book about managing injuries. We talked about whether two days of hard climbing per week is enough to get stronger, the Japanese method for building technique, load management, how to rehab a ruptured pulley, why optimist is important for recovery, training for tweaky holds and moves, growth plate injuries, mindset tips, and much more.

Dr. Amy Frugé (DPT) is a former Martial Arts World Champion, rock climber, and the founder of Converge Physical Therapy. We talked about extremity and finger pain from unusual sources, how to maintain a healthy spine, how emotions and stress affect our pain, psychedelic experiences, the pain, tension, and fear triangle, ways to empty your stress bucket, and much more.

Josh Hadley is a leading flexibility coach in climbing and the face behind the Lattice YouTube Channel. I’ve struggled with stretching routines over the years, and this episode completely changed my flexibility training. In this episode, Josh shares his top 4 stretches for inflexible climbers and introduces key concepts like chasing horizontal, weighted stretching, tempo, contract and relax, reducing friction, best times to stretch, and more. We also covered his recent CARCing experiment and other topics. Enjoy!

Paul Houghoughi (The Climbing Physio) returns for our promised part 2! This was every bit as good as our first episode. In part 2 we focused on how to build bulletproof knees and hamstrings for heel hooks, how to prevent shoulder injuries, how to strengthen and mobilize your neck and back, some of the most common changes to climber’s bodies as we age, and more. Paul also shared helpful advice for folks who feel overwhelmed by the endless possibilities of injury prevention.

Paul Houghoughi (The Climbing Physio) is one of the top physiotherapists in the world for climbing injuries. We talked about how to rehab lumbrical injuries, training with hypermobile fingers, wrist strengthening exercises, causes of synovitis and capsulitis, why stretching your fingers is important, blood work for stiff joints, tennis and golfers elbow, how to decipher different types of elbow pain, Paul’s top advice to not get injured, and much more!

Travis Tameirao is a 33-year-old from Rhode Island. On August 13, 2018, his life changed in a freak accident in the climbing gym. Three years and a dozen surgeries later, Travis miraculously returned to climbing and sent his first V10 and V11. We talked about his accident, getting a full knee replacement, how he made a full recovery, his incredible wife Katie, why he swims four times per week, treating yourself like you have the V17 gene, taking responsibility for your life, the interplay of luck and hard work, and much more.

Jesse Firestone is back on the podcast! We talked about his injury this spring and finding silver linings, why he focused more on weight training than climbing this summer, shifting his priorities to spending more time on projects, biggest lessons from the past three years of coaching, Adam Ondra’s hip flexibility, how to become more flexible through climbing, why visualization is an excellent use of your time, and much more!

Matt Heyliger, DPT is one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve talked to when it comes to climbing-related injuries and rehab. We talked about climbing together in Ten Sleep, how he is currently helping me treat carpal tunnel syndrome, how to achieve long-term health and performance, his skiing injury and the eyeball story, top recommendations for climbers, lessons from living in Spain, and much more.

Dr. Jared Vagy is a physical therapist who specializes in climbing injury rehab and prevention. We talked about freestyle rapping, the most common injuries in rock climbing, how to prevent knee, shoulder, elbow, and finger injuries as climbers, warming up your fingers at the crag, what to do to help your body recover on rest days, and much more.

Dr. Carrie Cooper is a former professional climber and a doctor of physical therapy. We talked about her background in gymnastics and dance, bouldering in the early 2000s, her path to physical therapy, referencing research in climbing, why climbers should think of themselves as athletes, and the most important things we are missing in our physical training.

Craig DeMartino is a rock climber, motivational speaker, and teacher. His life changed in 2002 when he took a 100-foot ground fall. We talked about Craig’s accident and recovery, the decision to amputate his leg, climbing harder than ever after the accident, doing El Cap in a day, dealing with chronic pain, teaching adaptive climbing, and embracing a new normal.

Heth Jennings is a Physical Therapist and Functional Medicine Practitioner who has been studying pain for over 20+ years. We talked about where pain comes from, how the brain uses pain to protect us, why chronic pain isn’t “just in our head”, how to rehab finger and elbow injuries, and other lifestyle interventions that help with recovery.

Mercedes Pollmeier is a climbing coach with a master’s in human movement. We discussed key stretches for climbers, how to warm up for a limit session, whether or not static stretching reduces power, how to improve your flexibility in 6 minutes per day, and “food rules” from her recent book, Peak Nutrition.

Natasha Barnes is a former professional climber, a national powerlifting champion, and a licensed chiropractor who specializes in strength training and rehabilitation for rock climbers. We talked about gaining weight to climb harder, calorie balance, common misconceptions about strength training, on and off seasons, tissue capacity, and rehabbing finger injuries.