Skin Care & Finger Injury Prevention for Climbers
Climbing is very hard on the hands, to say the least. In fact, finger injuries are among one of the most common for climbers. Whether it’s a skin issue, or something more serious (such as a pulley injury), there are tools we can use to prevent and rehabilitate these injuries.
Photo: Key things I need during the training season.
Skin Care
Above: Flappers (ripping calluses) on my hands due to improper skin care after a long session training for sport climbing.
Lately, I’ve been pretty on top of my skin care. I make sure to set aside time every day or every other day to file off thick calluses and cut off dead skin. This becomes more necessary as you climb more days in a row, because your skin doesn’t have as much time to heal.
Applying a climbing-specific salve on your hands (such as JTree or Climb-On) after your session will help skin heal quicker.
Finger Injury Prevention
Photo: KT Tape on my fingers after two A2 pulley injuries.
While I wouldn’t recommend KT Tape on the hands if you decide to continue training (It comes off too easily while climbing), I would suggest using climbing tape, as it is meant to be worn on the hands. However, KT Tape is excellent for taping other injuries (such as the shoulder or knee).
You can find different taping techniques online, but I’ll often just wrap it around my finger(s) such that it can provide a brace for the injury.
Tape is also handy because you can use it to tape up flappers! (If you so insist on climbing after you get one.)
Acupressure rings are convient, inexpensive tools to increase blood flow in the fingers and break up scar tissue. You can buy one here.
This last one is something that I personally like to use, although I’m not sure how common it is amongst other climbers:
If I’m suffering from a really bad injury (typically pulley), I’ll apply a heavy coat of this to the injured area & wrap it up before I go to sleep. It works.
Written by Claire Bukowski.
