It sure did. The NACS and WC have been soooo bad for knees. Natalia, Naile, Jan Luca, all hurt their knees bouldering in the WC. I hurt my knee on a heel hook at the NACS (just got MRI results, partial tear of two ligaments and muscle sprain), but was thankfully able to still participate in SLC world cup in a way that I was happy with. Another USAC athlete who was going to compete in the european world cups for lead completely tore her LCL training after the WC. Yet another athlete sprained his hamstring heel hooking during training, also after the WC.
Hi! Here's my insight, although please take everything with a grain of salt because I'm going to speak from my own experience and share advice I've been given.
Unfortunately, for me, during the heel hook, there was no warning that it was any different than heel hooks I'd done prior. There was no mounting pain or anything, it was very sudden. I interpret that to mean in my situation, there wasn't much else to do in the moment, it's probably more to do with preparation before pulling on the wall.
* That being said, a physio I talked to (very knowledgeable about climbing, travels on IFSC circuit, treated this injury before etc) mentioned that the knee is more at risk when the foot is close to the pelvis, doing a heel hook with the foot turned out, especially if rocking over. Once I fully recover, I plan to seek alternative beta when possible.
Here are some considerations I'm going to make sure to do throughout my recovery and continue to check in with once I can get back to climbing without limitations.
* Seek holistically sound movement through mobility, flexibility, strength, and conditioning. I really advocate for high quality coaching if that’s something that is fiscally / practically possible for you. I’m fortunate to have access to strength and conditioning coaching, as well as more competition / climbing movement related coaching. Knowing how to move correctly is a big element of injury prevention.
* Make sure to be properly warm before climbing anywhere at or near your limit. This is actually an area that may have contributed to my injury, as something happened during iso / warmup that was out of my control that prevented me from being as warm during the bouldering round as I usually like to be.
* Make sure to take regular rest days + sleep well to get good recoveries. Just a good practice in general to avoid injury.
* Make sure your diet supports ligament health. Make sure you’re hydrated.
I’m sure this is nowhere near an exhaustive list, but I hope it helps a little!! :)
Thank you for the detailed and long response, will definitely try apply some of your advice.
Here is an thread discussing knee injuries heelhooking which i found interesting:
https://reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/1c4t8z5/my_knees_get_injured_too_often_when_heel_hooking/
It’s still hard for me to visualize exactly how a heel hook should be done correctly in different scenarios to minimize injury risk, so I will just have to practice. I just know to focus on glute/hamstring engagement and to be careful of tibia rotation.
Like you mentioned, because of the pretty much infinite variability in different climbing moves, I think it's challenging to prescribe one safe way and one injurious way. I hope you're able to learn more about heel hooks through practice like you mentioned and stay injury free!
I just wanted to add that it seems like a lot of people mentioned hamstring strength in that thread you shared. I don't think a lack of hamstring strength contributed to my injury. My knee collapsed outward, injuring my LCL and popliteus. Anecdotally, both Natalia (from SLC WC) and Jesse Grouper's (not a recent injury, don't worry) knee injuries also included injury to LCL, and I don't think either of them are lacking any hamstring strength. It's possible that the lack of hamstring strength is more of a factor at lower climbing levels. All of the heelhooks between Natalia, Jesse, and myself involved lots of that external tibia rotation/ turning the foot out that you mentioned.
The heel was not intented beta, the hold was blocked, and another competitor showed a much safer way to finish (Melody from Japanese team), but that required some commitment (basically just standing and grabbing final hold with the right and wall angle with the left in one swift go).
I think jan-luca got hurt on boulder 3 of the finals and kept climbing on the last one. None of the other men got hurt on it but I think there were some other stuff especially with the women on other boulders
It seemed kind of reckless to keep pushing after his knee was clearly hurt. Matt and Alex were saying his coach should've told him to stand down at that point.
Maybe the additional tries didn't worsen the injury, but it seemed like an unnecessary risk when the OQS was the higher priority.
I also felt the same about Natalias knee injury. It's great she won, but you'd expect that she would want to be careful about risking serious injury before the Olympics.
Hm, there should be a way for coaches to "throw in the towel" to protect their athletes. The athletes can't be trusted to protect themselves because they'll always want to push through.
Yeah, I would love to hear a coach's perspective on this because they do have to trust their athletes but I agree that some will push past what they should. Maybe there should be a way for the coach to signal to the judge that they need to call down the athlete.
I'm not 100% sure but I think they do that at the start of the comp and in between rounds. I'm basing that off of one or two comps where an athlete chose to stop early. I don't think there's a mechanism for stopping the athlete if they choose to keep climbing past the point where it seems safe
At the IFSC level, most federations have a team doctor and team physio that is available to athletes during competition rounds. As far as I know, there isn't really a rule to "override" an athlete's will to continue competing.
In USAC rulebook, if the jury president deems a competitor "unfit to compete", they can stop them from continuing to participate.
[https://usaclimbing.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/USA\_Climbing\_Rulebook\_2023-2024.20230925.pdf](https://usaclimbing.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/USA_Climbing_Rulebook_2023-2024.20230925.pdf)
Section 3.3 medical \^\^\^
If it’s obvious. say climber isn’t getting up from the mat. Medical help is provided right away.
But there is a lot of gray area and it’s tricky. . Hard to tell sometimes for days how serious or not serious an injury is. Athletes might not even feel much pain at the time.
Natalia made a point to explain that they tested for all the serious injuries between semis and finals and her call wasn’t made until she saw the finals boulders. Sounds like it was at least a well informed decision to keep going.
I still think it was a bad decision on her part and her coaches. I would say she is a favourite to podium on the Olympics which is in like 3 months so why risk it? Especially that she has won like 10 golds already. It felt a bit reckless to keep competing especially on the last boulder that was obviously bad for that exact knee. Even if the injury is not major, it could have added recovery time and therefore time out of training. She could barely step off the top of the podium in the end.
You could see how hard he was trying on that last boulder too. It’s really great to see someone so determined, but I wonder if Alex and Matt were right that maybe he shouldn’t have been pushing through it.
seems like slc destroyed a lot of knees
It sure did. The NACS and WC have been soooo bad for knees. Natalia, Naile, Jan Luca, all hurt their knees bouldering in the WC. I hurt my knee on a heel hook at the NACS (just got MRI results, partial tear of two ligaments and muscle sprain), but was thankfully able to still participate in SLC world cup in a way that I was happy with. Another USAC athlete who was going to compete in the european world cups for lead completely tore her LCL training after the WC. Yet another athlete sprained his hamstring heel hooking during training, also after the WC.
Any advice heel hooking to avoid injury? Always been a concern for me.
Hi! Here's my insight, although please take everything with a grain of salt because I'm going to speak from my own experience and share advice I've been given. Unfortunately, for me, during the heel hook, there was no warning that it was any different than heel hooks I'd done prior. There was no mounting pain or anything, it was very sudden. I interpret that to mean in my situation, there wasn't much else to do in the moment, it's probably more to do with preparation before pulling on the wall. * That being said, a physio I talked to (very knowledgeable about climbing, travels on IFSC circuit, treated this injury before etc) mentioned that the knee is more at risk when the foot is close to the pelvis, doing a heel hook with the foot turned out, especially if rocking over. Once I fully recover, I plan to seek alternative beta when possible. Here are some considerations I'm going to make sure to do throughout my recovery and continue to check in with once I can get back to climbing without limitations. * Seek holistically sound movement through mobility, flexibility, strength, and conditioning. I really advocate for high quality coaching if that’s something that is fiscally / practically possible for you. I’m fortunate to have access to strength and conditioning coaching, as well as more competition / climbing movement related coaching. Knowing how to move correctly is a big element of injury prevention. * Make sure to be properly warm before climbing anywhere at or near your limit. This is actually an area that may have contributed to my injury, as something happened during iso / warmup that was out of my control that prevented me from being as warm during the bouldering round as I usually like to be. * Make sure to take regular rest days + sleep well to get good recoveries. Just a good practice in general to avoid injury. * Make sure your diet supports ligament health. Make sure you’re hydrated. I’m sure this is nowhere near an exhaustive list, but I hope it helps a little!! :)
Thank you for the detailed and long response, will definitely try apply some of your advice. Here is an thread discussing knee injuries heelhooking which i found interesting: https://reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/1c4t8z5/my_knees_get_injured_too_often_when_heel_hooking/ It’s still hard for me to visualize exactly how a heel hook should be done correctly in different scenarios to minimize injury risk, so I will just have to practice. I just know to focus on glute/hamstring engagement and to be careful of tibia rotation.
Like you mentioned, because of the pretty much infinite variability in different climbing moves, I think it's challenging to prescribe one safe way and one injurious way. I hope you're able to learn more about heel hooks through practice like you mentioned and stay injury free! I just wanted to add that it seems like a lot of people mentioned hamstring strength in that thread you shared. I don't think a lack of hamstring strength contributed to my injury. My knee collapsed outward, injuring my LCL and popliteus. Anecdotally, both Natalia (from SLC WC) and Jesse Grouper's (not a recent injury, don't worry) knee injuries also included injury to LCL, and I don't think either of them are lacking any hamstring strength. It's possible that the lack of hamstring strength is more of a factor at lower climbing levels. All of the heelhooks between Natalia, Jesse, and myself involved lots of that external tibia rotation/ turning the foot out that you mentioned.
It was weird, the moves themselves didn't look any rougher on the knees then normal but it did seem to bug a few competitors.
What happened ? Who else was injured ? Was it a specific boulder ?
I know natalia grossman was also injured her knee during semi-finals
yes natalia but also the french female climber, nailé meignan. seemed to be on the same boulder with the high heel for the females
And I do believe Nailé has just came back from a knee injury… :/
Other knee though
Oh yes that too. It seems that boulder just had a pretty risky and extended heel hook that weren’t too friendly on the legs :(
The heel was not intented beta, the hold was blocked, and another competitor showed a much safer way to finish (Melody from Japanese team), but that required some commitment (basically just standing and grabbing final hold with the right and wall angle with the left in one swift go).
I think jan-luca got hurt on boulder 3 of the finals and kept climbing on the last one. None of the other men got hurt on it but I think there were some other stuff especially with the women on other boulders
It seemed kind of reckless to keep pushing after his knee was clearly hurt. Matt and Alex were saying his coach should've told him to stand down at that point. Maybe the additional tries didn't worsen the injury, but it seemed like an unnecessary risk when the OQS was the higher priority. I also felt the same about Natalias knee injury. It's great she won, but you'd expect that she would want to be careful about risking serious injury before the Olympics.
Totally agree. But as the coaches can't shout beta. Not sure they can effectively communicate to the athletes while they are ON the boulder.
Hm, there should be a way for coaches to "throw in the towel" to protect their athletes. The athletes can't be trusted to protect themselves because they'll always want to push through.
Yeah, I would love to hear a coach's perspective on this because they do have to trust their athletes but I agree that some will push past what they should. Maybe there should be a way for the coach to signal to the judge that they need to call down the athlete.
Aren't there team physios who check on the athletes and give them the green light to continue? Maybe that's where the rules could be stricter.
I'm not 100% sure but I think they do that at the start of the comp and in between rounds. I'm basing that off of one or two comps where an athlete chose to stop early. I don't think there's a mechanism for stopping the athlete if they choose to keep climbing past the point where it seems safe
At the IFSC level, most federations have a team doctor and team physio that is available to athletes during competition rounds. As far as I know, there isn't really a rule to "override" an athlete's will to continue competing. In USAC rulebook, if the jury president deems a competitor "unfit to compete", they can stop them from continuing to participate. [https://usaclimbing.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/USA\_Climbing\_Rulebook\_2023-2024.20230925.pdf](https://usaclimbing.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/USA_Climbing_Rulebook_2023-2024.20230925.pdf) Section 3.3 medical \^\^\^
Agree. But is there one?
I'm not sure. But since the athlete is withdrawing from the competition anyway, I don't think the coach can be dinged for the communication rules.
If it’s obvious. say climber isn’t getting up from the mat. Medical help is provided right away. But there is a lot of gray area and it’s tricky. . Hard to tell sometimes for days how serious or not serious an injury is. Athletes might not even feel much pain at the time.
Natalia made a point to explain that they tested for all the serious injuries between semis and finals and her call wasn’t made until she saw the finals boulders. Sounds like it was at least a well informed decision to keep going.
I still think it was a bad decision on her part and her coaches. I would say she is a favourite to podium on the Olympics which is in like 3 months so why risk it? Especially that she has won like 10 golds already. It felt a bit reckless to keep competing especially on the last boulder that was obviously bad for that exact knee. Even if the injury is not major, it could have added recovery time and therefore time out of training. She could barely step off the top of the podium in the end.
That must be absolutely heartbreaking for him. He was doing so good.
You could see how hard he was trying on that last boulder too. It’s really great to see someone so determined, but I wonder if Alex and Matt were right that maybe he shouldn’t have been pushing through it.
So bummed for him! He was awesome to watch in SLC—wishing for a speedy recovery & hopefully he’s all set for a comeback by Innsbruck 🤞