Chronic injury

Key Take Aways

✅ Most climbers surveyed have a chronic foot injury

✅ The longer you climb, the greater the chance of injury

✅ This is the first or one of the first articles attempting to quantify chronic foot injuries and serves a a base to build on

Population

Male and female climbers

Summary

Rare study on chronic foot injuries

Do you have a chronic foot injury due to climbing? You aren’t alone

A study in 2022, the first of its kind, identified the most frequent chronic foot injuries in sport climbing

53 participants (32 male, 21 female) completed a survey and underwent a physical examination

Results
70% had foot injury/ foot alteration
45% had foot pain during climbing

Top injuries
➡️ Claw toes: curling of the toes
➡️ 1st toe bursitis: irritation and/or inflammation in toe bursas
➡️ Hallux Limitus: limited range of motion in the big toe
➡️ Hallux Valgus: commonly called bunions

👉 Equally as important as identifying chronic foot injuries, the study showed that the longer you have been climbing, the greater the chance of injury, a finding that 2 other studies also confirmed

CItation

Cobos-Moreno P, Astasio-Picado Á, Gómez-Martín B. Epidemiological Study of Foot Injuries in the Practice of Sport Climbing. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr 3;19(7):4302

Link

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8998933/pdf/ijerph-19-04302.pdf