Andy McVittie

NOW ONLY £20 WHEN ORDERED VIA MY WEBSITE AND £10 FOR THE EBOOK. Rock climbing spares no part of the body from the risk of injury. It is a tough sport and an injury is guaranteed to hold you back and spoil your enjoyment. This book provides an up-to-date, easy-to-understand, flexible, framework for self-rehabilitation of some of the most common climbing injuries. You will be lead through all the stages of rehab, learning about yourself in order to manage your own rehabilitation. It will help you listen to your body, translate what it is telling you and adapt your own treatment. This is the key to successful rehab. Each injury is broken down into stages, with guidance given on where your treatment entry point is, how to know you’re ready to progress to the next stage, how to continue to climb with the injury and what likely caused it in the first place. What’s new? This is the first book to provide a return-to-sport protocol and to give you the ability to truly understand and self-manage your own rehab. You will finish your rehab more knowledgeable and capable than before your injury. This protects you against the original cause of the injury so you can now push on to a new level. The sport science principles learned can be taken forward and used in your training and any future injuries. The Self-Rehabbed Climber covers these common injuries: • A2 Flexor Pulley Sprain • Golfer’s elbow • Sub-Acromial pain (previously known as impingement) • Long-Head of Bicep • Rotator Cuff related pain • Wrist injury (TFCC) • Mid-back/postural pain • Hamstring/adductor injury from heel hookingGolfer’s elbow • Sub-Acromial pain (previously known as impingement) All the exercises are described, illustrated with colour photographs and supported with online videos where necessary.

The most ergonomic fingerboard in the world AND it can help you get stronger, quicker, than a flat edge. Due to popular demand it is now available as a 20mm double sided edge for benchmarking and taking to the crag for recruitment work that targets the muscles of the hand and forearm more effectively than a flat edge. The original 40mm is still available and perfect for active pulls, rehab and getting seriously STRONG! It also comes with coupons for a £10 ebook copy of The Self Rehabbed Climber and £15 off a Physio assessment with me. £25 of coupons for a £30 fingerboard. Bargain! Biomechanics and strength and conditioning principles combine to enable you to produce around 25% more force than a flat edge. More force (weight) = more stimulation to increase strength. It loads the fingers more evenly than a flat edge. Middle and ring fingers don’t get overloaded. Index and pinky fingers finally get the load they need to get stronger, without contorting your hand into weird positions. The unlevel edge also reduces your chance of overuse injury when performing high intensity repetitive exercises like max hangs. The angles your fingers, hand and wrist are held in spreads the load more evenly. The strength it develops will carry through to the more acute angles used when we climb/train. Build strength safely and then use it to develop your complex and small hold coordination. Click ‘shop now’ for much more info and to purchase. #trainingforclimbing #climbingtraining #fingerboard #hangboard #hangboarding #fingerboarding #unleveledge #gymclimbing #fingerstrength #fingerstrengthtraining #fingerinjury #fingerrehab #bouldering #sportclimbing

🍻 𝗧𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗗𝗔𝗬 19 𝗠𝗔𝗬 • 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗦𝗢𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 🍻 What’s the Boulder U.K. Community Social all about? 👀 Never been to one? We asked some of our customers & former guest speakers to sum it up … good climbing, good psyche, good beer & a good craic 🙌 Next Tuesday we’re super psyched to welcome 𝗧𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝗠𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹 as our guest speaker. A total climbing legend, over 50 years of adventures in climbing, from all over the world 🌍👊 🧗 Social climbing: 6pm–8pm 🎤 Talk at Hopworks: from 8:30pm 🍕 Food, beers + community vibes all evening See you there 🙌 #bukcommunity #wherethestronggetstronger @process.physio @tenzing @voomnutrition @rab.equipment.uk @climbersagainstcancerofficial

Just a quick one to show how everything can be a learning opportunity - if you look at it the right way. Yes all my skin is falling off after a couple of weeks not climbing due to injury. It’ll come back when I get back on it. But look at the pattern 👀 I’ve spent a lot of time on Spanish limestone the last few months. Endurance routes with decent holds. You can see I’ve not been crimping much. Look where the skin has built up, it’s not the tips. I need to consider that when I get back onto UK limestone this Summer, which is by nature more small edge bias. I am probably not prepped to go hard on this kind of territory, despite feeling like I was going well before my wrist injury. Don’t mistake that feeling of going well on one type of route as meaning you will be able to translate that over. But as I’ve just had a TFCC injury on the right wrist I am really interested in what seems to be a back 3 dominance. Both index fingers have little to no callouses. A point I am going to look address in my rehab and when I get back on the wall. #alwayslearning

Injury forces choices. Push harder in other areas? Adapt and train around it? Or step back and breathe for a bit? This time, I chose the step back. Walks, runs, rest. No guilt. I recognised that I had no motivation to adapt and push. So I didn’t fight it. 2 or 3 weeks out isn’t going to affect my multi-decade climbing career much. Don’t stress! Today the motivation returned on its own and I found myself in the gym — light 1×20 work, wrist‑friendly grips, moving well without forcing anything. Wrist wraps and cable pulls to avoid overloading the injury and pronation. Fat grips and parallettes placed back to avoid extension and ulna deviation. There’s always a way forward. Sometimes it’s adapting and continuing - make sure you talk to someone who can advise you well around your injury. Sometimes it’s patience - don’t feel guilty about taking a break.

Season 6 bonus episode with Andy McVittie is out now! 🎙️ Please show some love to @process.physio ! Andy is a climbing PT and this is his second time on the podcast. This time, he’s here with new research to talk about why youth climbers are maybe overdoing it with the climbing training, what early arthritis looks like, and the surprising dangers of outdoor climbing when it comes to competition climbers. You can find the episode on Youtube, or any other platform you listen to podcasts on! Links to the website/YT are linked in the bio. ⬆️ #competitionclimbing #climbingpt #climbinginjury #youthclimbing

⛰️🎤 𝗥𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 — 𝟱𝟬+ 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Don’t miss our next 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 on 19 May — this one’s set to be special 👀 We’re psyched to welcome Boulder U.K. regular Tony Mitchell for an evening of stories & insight from over five decades in climbing. Tony was at the forefront of UK climbing in the late 80s & early 90s, combining elite performance with a low public profile. He made the first ascent of Traverse of the Gods at Craig y Longridge (1989), climbed early repeats of Bat Route & Cry Freedom at Malham (both given 8b+ at the time), & established Yorkshire’s first 8c, True North, in 1993. Alongside this, he repeated numerous other hard routes across Yorkshire — all while working full-time as a GP & raising five children with his partner Emma. This is climbing history, lived — & told first-hand 🙌 ⸻ 🗓️ Tuesday 19 May 🧗 Social climb: 6:30pm – 8:00pm 🍻 Food, drink & talk: from 8:30pm at Hopworks Brew Co 👉 Free for members 👉 Normal entry for non-members 👉 No booking needed — just turn up ⸻ 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴? 👀👇 #bukcommunity #wherethestronggetstronger BUK community socials are supported by @process.physio @tenzing @voomnutrition with raffle raising funds for @climbersagainstcancerofficial

I was delighted to be asked to deliver a couple of workshops at the @gb_climbing youth camp at @eicaratho last week. It’s great to see how far the organisation has come recently. Success has to stand on a supportive structure that has clarity and direction across all the levels of comp climbing. We’re getting there 👏 I had a morning with the athletes looking at pre session prep. They didn’t like my suggestion of calling it ‘pre-formance’ 😆 I’m on a mission to try and re frame warming up from being mindless repetition of the same exercises to prevent injury. If you focus on what prep you need to do to perform well in that session you will cover the injury prevention. The first rule of Injury Prevention Club is to not talk about Injury Prevention Club. I don’t think they got the cultural reference 🤣 Putting time and effort into something you won’t know has benefitted you (how do you know the injuries you missed?) is a big ask. Individualise your sessions and base it on what you’re about to do. A board session prep should be different than a route prep. That’s what proofs you against injury AND helps you perform better. Can you do one armers without warming up? Then why are you spending 10 mins at the start of your session doing 3x30 external rotations with a yellow band? That’s too low level. Get hanging and pulling. Have objective benchmarks so you can assess what’s appropriate for you today and how that fits with your plan. I was really taken by how aware they were of themselves and their approaches to training. Compared to a couple of years ago they are way ahead of the game. We are making big steps forwards. My next post will be about a session I did with the parents/caregivers on information sharing and athlete welfare. I managed to spend a bit of time with @luciecoopsclimbs on the wall and bump into @roxyclimber too. I had a great day 😊

It’s amazing how you can forget what’s on your doorstep. We’re very, very, lucky to have the Lake District so close. But we don’t tend to go there much over Winter. Great weather, great bread and cake @more_bakery great coffee and savoury snacks @chestersbytheriver (outrageous bhajis) and the climbing is flipping brilliant too. Two days of bouldering on volcanic tuff = happy soul but no skin left…… We’ve got a sport climbing trip next week, but once that’s over we’ll be getting lots of local trad and bouldering in. Can’t wait 😊

I had the great pleasure of taking a strong, young, indoor boulderer for their first outdoor session yesterday. This handhold drew my attention as they were spending a lot of time trying to make it feel more comfortable. I’d been on it and thought it was a lovely hold. They were reluctant to pull on it as it felt very unfamiliar, uncomfortable and as if something in their hand was going to go ‘twang’. We become what we do. Indoors holds tend to be more regular and even. Split finger positions are rare. For your hand to feel robust in these positions it has to have spent some time in those positions. If you come across something that feels new/unusual don’t avoid it; explore it. But don’t just assume you will be able to use it because of the grade. We had lots of learning together yesterday and they were a tiny amount away from V6 on their first ever outdoor session. First time on Boulder mats, uneven landings, spotting, sit starts, weirdly shaped rock, standing on holds that are smaller than bolt holes. So much to deal with and they did fantastically well. But all of that new stuff also adds to your injury risk. If you’re getting outside for the first time now the weather is (hopefully) changing I’ve yourself time and space to explore and enjoy. Don’t chase the grades until you’re comfortable and safe. Further thoughts: why are there no sit-starts indoors anymore? Why does no one spot indoors anymore? Those are both blanket statements to prompt conversation, i’m aware some do.

Full video now on my you tube channel. If you like it please share 🙏 Link in bio and stories/highlights for a one click way to find it. Warming up does prevent injury. But it’s very hard to appreciate benefits you never see. How do you know about the injuries you didn’t get? I work with people in the real world where they don’t always have the time, knowledge or discipline to perform a benchmarked off the wall warm up. These ideas can get you warmed up well, improve your skills AND enable you to stay on the wall with your friends. This video gives you some ideas of how to think about what to do (which only takes seconds) and then some suggested drills and ideas which will warm you up AND improve your climbing skills. If you start doing this I bet your friends start to copy you. Adapt to what your aim is for the day, but apply the principles: Start easy Take small steps Finish your warm up trying as hard as your project level Get some fall practice in

This post was inspired by a patient who is neurodiverse and really struggles with organisation and routine. Tweaks and injuries were just not responding to rehab. This was due to them being exhausted most of the time and eating on the go with fast food, when they remembered to eat; which wasn’t often. This picture of their food drawer was one of the biggest ‘YES!’ moments I’ve had in recent times. Over a few weeks we had built new structures. We removed barriers and made making higher quality decisions easier. Research shows that much of our decision making is not about willpower. It’s about structure. The right structure (such as a kitchen drawer full of food that is full of quick to prepare food that is way better than take away) leads to more positive habits as it becomes easy. It’s about reducing friction, not trying harder. Ease of choice builds consistency and with consistency comes improvement, in rehab and training. You won’t heal, or get stronger, if you don’t have consistent, sustainable, habits around the basics. The basics are getting enough sleep and energy in to support what you want to do. If you’re struggling with this it’s not because you’re too weak willed. It’s because you don’t have the structures. Think about what gets in the way of good quality sleep and nutrition and what you can practically do to improve this. It can be as simple as having a repeating online food order that guarantees you will have easy to prep, supportive, food choices in your kitchen drawer. Get the basics in place before you start training@and if you’re struggling find a physio/trainer who can help you with lifestyle factors, not just sets and reps.