CWA Blog Archive-Keep Your Climbing Teams Injury Free

Keep Your Climbing Teams Injury Free

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This article gathers expert advice on preventing injuries in youth climbing teams, opening with a resonant line from the author's older sister, Sarah Gladish: you can't grow as an athlete if you're spending your focus on healing. Gladish, a yoga instructor and dance teacher who has worked with youth dance teams for over a decade, has seen heartbreak from injured teenagers unable to perform to their standards, framing the universal desire to stay healthy and the specific question of how to teach youth climbers to avoid injury. The core expertise comes from Mandie Majerus, a physical therapist and longtime climber who helped world-class youth climber Drew Ruana rehabilitate an injury and get stronger. Majerus identifies the central problem: she sees a lot of repetition and overuse injuries, and it's a lot about volume regulation. Her key recommendation is teaching and fostering proper body positioning, having good form rather than compensating and only using smaller muscles like the fingers. She observes that youth climbers can often do many pull-ups and have strong arms but aren't necessarily as well-rounded as they should be, a muscular imbalance that invites injury. On warmups, both Gladish and Majerus advocate simple movements like cat-cow to take care of the spine. The throughline is that youth climbing injuries are largely preventable through volume regulation, proper form, and thoughtful warmups rather than being inevitable consequences of hard training. The experts' combined message is that young climbers often have impressive raw strength, lots of pull-ups, strong fingers, but lack the well-rounded conditioning and proper body mechanics that protect them, and that overuse from too much volume is a leading culprit. For coaches, the practical guidance is to regulate training volume, teach proper body positioning so kids don't overload small muscles, and build in simple mobility warmups, keeping young athletes healthy enough to keep developing rather than sidelined by preventable injuries.

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This piece gathers expert advice on preventing youth climbing injuries. Physical therapist Mandie Majerus identifies overuse and volume as key culprits, recommending volume regulation and proper body positioning over compensating with small muscles like the fingers. Young climbers often have raw strength but lack well-rounded conditioning, making many injuries preventable.