Rockover Growl 3

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Yesterday was spent down at Rock Over Climbing Wall in Manchester for the third GROWL contest. Reports from the first and second contests can be found here for the October event and here for the December event.

January's contest started off quiet, just a few dozen competitors there for the initial briefing. There was no sign of hanging ball problems today, instead some tricky looking volumes to negotiate. We were impressed to see so many of the climbers going through serious warm up routines - looking after your body like that is a great way to help prevent injuries, especially on a cold winter day.

Early remedial treatment on neck/shoulder muscles

Craig demonstrating his skill

Early arrivals taking time to consider moves and watch others on the problems before it got busy

Total focus and determination on the final move.....

Receiving soft tissue therapy to forearms...tired from climbing, or treating an underlying issue caused by daily postural biomechanics?

The tricky spot prize problem....not many topped out on this one!

Jordan Buys receiving post-contest soft tissue therapy and missing his prize being awarded!! Thankfully Naomi was on hand to collect it for him.

Paul being lifted and dropped by the prize winning ladies.....causing lots of amusement!

Thanks to all of you who came along for a chat about climbing, injury prevention or to have a free treatment. As always at these events, donations are gratefully received and we went away with £15 for Glossop Mountain Rescue Team; we know they will appreciate it.

See you all at the 4th and final GROWL on Saturday 11th February.

Rockover Growl 2

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On Saturday I went over to Rock Over Climbing wall to help out with their second GROWL competition. After the success of the first one, which I blogged about here, I was really looking forward to seeing some interesting route setting, good climbing, and a lot of people having fun.

Lynne and I provided free arm and shoulder massages at the last one, so I knew there would be some demand for us there again. Unfortunately Lynne couldn't be there this time, so it was just me holding the fort. I got there nice and early, watching the first competitors float through the door, from the cold outside to the not every so much warmer inside, filling out their forms and taking in the look of the problems on the walls.
The guys had excelled themselves in terms of routes, and the very obvious amusement was "the Death Star", or, alternatively known as "Simons dangly bits". A hanging sphere of plastic volume between 2 walls. According to Simon, getting onto and across was the easy part of the problem. Excellent.

The "death star"

As more and more climbers came in, I set up the table and talked with a lot of the guys and girls wandering around. The temperature slowly began to rise, and at 11am the competition was kicked off.

As ever, the first hour or so was spent talking to the injured climbers, looking at injuries and giving advice on what to do, and, more often than not, what not to do. Then, as things began to get swinging (as it were) there was an influx of competitors for massage and de-pumps.

The general consensus from the guys I was talking to was that it was a bit harder than last time, but just as enjoyable. I certainly had a good time, and I'm looking forward to trying out a load of the problems on my next visit.

Climbing Comp at Rockover Manchester

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Had a great, if tiring day out at Rockover Climbing wall yesterday. It was their First Birthday bash, and they were celebrating in style. The wall had been closed from Thursday, setting up problems and planning the final part of the competition - which was to go up at the end of the day while the competitors were in isolation.

We arrived early - at about 10 or so, and were astonished to learn that people had already tried to register for the comp - an hour before - it wasn't even going to be open until 11!

The wall looked great, DMM were there with the gear testing rig, Maverick Slacklines were going to be setting up later in the day, food was being prepared and the atmosphere was great. We lugged our stuff upstairs and began setting up - trying not to get in the way of where the slacklines were going to be, and after a short time had got our area prepped and ready to go.

Soon the climbers started arriving, and we had been briefed that it would be pretty quiet for the first hour or so while they all got on with the problems, and then more and more people would wander up.

However, at the beginning of the competition, as the competitiors wandered around looking at the problems, we did get a couple of guys wander up for a pre-climb massage, which was good. There was a box for donations to Oldham Mountain Rescue, so everyone that we treated was encouraged to give a small donation to them. Everyone was very generous and the box was quite heavy at the end of the day. Thanks Everyone!

Soon enough midday came and the air filled with chalk dust as 200 or so climbers launched themselves at the walls around the centre. It was not long until the first few people started trickling in.

Forearms, backs, shoulders, everything that we expected, but also some legs and calves which were hurting from lots of landing on them. The trickle turned into a flow and soon we were going all out, and time flew. I have no idea how long we went for, or how many people we treated, but all of a sudden it was 4pm and the top climbers were going into isolation - so that they could not see the final problems going up on the walls.

I left Lynne up with a small queue of people and made my way down to the "cave" where they were waiting to offer my services.

The isolation "cave"

Again, as expected, it was all forearms and shoulders, getting blood out of the pumped arms, and giving them a bit more life in the fingers. I was expecially careful not to get any lotion on the hands - friction being pretty important for climbers, and lotion really doesn't help all that much with that.

Once the finals had begun in earnest, I wandered back up to the top to help Lynne out, and spent the last few hours splitting my time between upstairs with Lynne and downstairs behind scenes, helping out with the competitors, forearms, cramping legs - and at the end, medial epicondilitis of the elbow. (yes, he was a trainee doctor and knew exactly what he had).

While I was doing that, Lynne was busy helping prepare the band for their evening of drumming and strumming - massaging sore arms and hands - with the drummer proclaiming that he felt like a new man and ready to play after treatment!

At the end of the day we were pretty tired - more tired - I would venture to say - than some of the climbers who we treated. We didn't stick around for the post comp party - having to drive back home in the state we were in was just about fine - but a couple of hours later and it might have been a much more tired version of us that would have to negotiate Manchesters bizarre set of roads around and out of the centre.

We packed all the stuff back down into the car, said our goodbyes, and headed out.
What a day- treated a goodly number of people, raised money for mountain rescue, had an excellent time, and made a load of new friends.

And today is a day of rest - and boy do we need it. I'd forgotten how much event work takes it out of you - doesn't feel like it at the time - I was full of energy and running around for hours on end, but today is the catch up day, chill out time.

Thanks muchly to Tom and Paul who invited us over to help out with the Party, hopefully we can fix something up in the near future where we come to the wall every week treating climbers and helping them get better.

Climbing and Massage

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Why on earth would you want sports massage if you are a climber? Is there ANY relevance at all?
well....

When you exercise your muscles use oxygen, and give out metabolic waste products. For muscles to operate efficiently, they need to contract and relax - a bit like a pump, getting new oxygenated blood in, and getting old blood out and back to the heart and lungs again. Climbing is an interesting one as the muscles are generally contracted for large amounts of time, and not relaxed so much - which means the pump - which works to a point, is not as efficient as it can be.
The tighter the muscle contraction is held, the less oxygenated blood can get in to the muscle to give it nutrients it needs - and the less waste product it can transport out.

This is where your Pump comes from after a hard session - blood which sits in the muscles and doesn't get out - if you don't stretch at the end of a session, and the metabolic waste products are not released from muscles for a while, they can cause cramps, pain, and DOMS - delayed onset muscle soreness. That's the pain you feel up to a couple of days after a hard session.

Massage helps get rid of these issues. It is not only good for helping with circulation - which is a very superficial part of the massage process.
I know some of you will have heard of Duputreyans condition- for those of you who haven't- look here http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=1312 Massage - specifically a technique called Soft Tissue Release (or ART if you are American) can help as a preventative measure against this rather nasty condition.

I know a lot of climbers (myself included) who have had issues with the rotator cuff - a minor issue in saying I have a problem with the rotator cuff is which part of it?! There are from 4 to 12 muscles involved in the rotator cuff - depending on who you talk to. We can help- looking not only at the muscles, but also the fascia surrounding the joint complex.

Once injured, it is somewhat difficult to get it back to the exact working order that it was it previous to the injury. Preventative work may well be the way forward - maintenance massage once or twice a month, working out the kinks in the muscle and fascia through the areas that you use the most, getting an assessment as to how the tissues feel - whether you are working too hard, what feels tense, and what is painful - this self-knowledge will give you more of an idea of your body's overall health.

As a remedial modality, massage can help in rebalancing the muscles in the body. Be it for general posture, assisting in creating more body awareness and general proprioception, or even assisting in gaining greater flexibility. We can help you get better, or just get BETTER.

Back in the day- Mark Twight, Dr Death himself, advocated massage in his book, Extreme Alpinism, saying "deep tissue massage aids recovery. Treat yourself to a massage every 10-15 days. Shun those touchy-feely masseuses. Find someone who can dig, restructure and strip apart bound-up muscle tissue."
And more recently in his writings as director of Gym Jones- "Recovery is 50% of the process of training...Respect recovery... Deep tissue massage focused on restructuring muscle and fascia is a very effective monthly tool."

Eric Horst- writer of "How to climb 5.12", and more recently, "Training for Climbing" has said "Sports massage helps reduce the number of small and generally unfelt spasms that regularly occur in muscles. These spasms may go unchallenged by regular stretching and warm-up and left unchecked, may rob you of co-ordination and induce mechanical resistance and premature fatigue."

And our own Dave McLeod has said in "9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes" - "Consider experimenting with other stress relieving activities such as sports massage, stretching or yoga... don't underestimate the cumulative, long terms effects of poor recovery and management of training stress. It will put a lid on your improvement if you are ignorant of it. Treat your body nicely and it will return the favour."

Perhaps what Mark says is the most important. If you want to improve, if you want to get better, and, perhaps more importantly stay injury free, getting a massage isn't going to be about a relaxing, chillout massage. These are all very well for feeling nice and fluffy, and excellent if you are taking time out.
However, if you are training hard, and not resting enough, your muscles will be bound together with abnormal crosslinked fascia, it is likely that they may not be working efficiently, and your ability to get the maximum amount of power from them is compromised. Those muscles need to be worked on deeply, restructured, and made to be more efficient.

At Global Therapies we are versed in a number of types of massage from the relaxing, soothing "touchy feely" to the deep tissue restructuring, and fascial release side. We have the knowledge, we have the experience.

Sports Massage and Remedial Massage is beginning to become more popular at Climbing centres across the country - The Castle and the Arch down in London, Big Rock in Milton Keynes, The Barn in Devon.

We are proud to be helping climbers around the Manchester and Derbyshire/High Peak area recover more, and become better, harder climbers through recovery, restructuring and injury proofing. Don't wait until you break yourself, get a maintenance massage.