How Shoulder Mobility Affects Your Climbing

Do you have pain between your shoulder blades after climbing?
Do you have trouble reaching your arms fully overhead?
Do you find yourself slouching with your shoulders rotated inward?

You might have poor shoulder mobility.

The areas that generally limit shoulder mobility in climbers are:

The thoracic spine (mid-back)
The scapula (shoulder blade)
The glenohumeral (shoulder joint)

There are many regions in and around the shoulder that affect your mobility. Various muscles can limit your overhead mobility, poor mobility of the joints can restrict motion at the shoulder, and areas away from the shoulder, like the thoracic spine, can alter your shoulder mechanics and become a source of limitation. Climbers need to be aware of all of these areas, and if they are a source of shoulder pain or decreased range of motion. The thoracic spine, scapula and glenohumeral joint are all bony structures that can affect overall shoulder mobility. Climbing often requires our shoulders to reach high, far, and sometimes awkwardly for holds. When you can’t reach the next move due to limitations you’re either going to compensate with movement in other areas of your body, figure out different beta, or simply not send the climb.

A study by Schoffl et al (1) found that while finger injuries account for about 52% of rock climbing injuries, shoulder injuries have been on the rise from 5% (1998-2001) to 17.2% (2009-2012). Another study (2) reported a 33% incidence of rotator cuff tendonitis or impingement in a group of recreational rock climbers. Beeler et al (3) analyzed the prevalence of pain and degenerative changes in the shoulder joints after high level rock climbing of at least 25 years. They found the lifetime prevalence of shoulder pain in rock climbers to be 77%! The high frequency of shoulder injuries highlights the importance of addressing the shoulder region within a climbing injury prevention and/or rehabilitation program.

Remember, shoulder mobility is just one aspect to consider. Of course, if a limitation is causing pain or affecting your climbing, then it must be addressed. However, from an injury prevention standpoint there are a multitude of factors that should also be considered: shoulder tendon capacity, shoulder strength, load management, volume management, fatigue levels, and nutrition are just a few that come to mind. Preventing injury is nuanced and needs to be personalized to the individual climber and their needs to be effective.

The Thoracic Spine (Mid-back)

The thoracic spine has a direct impact on shoulder mobility. Excessive kyphosis (or rounding) that cannot be reversed will greatly limit overhead mobility and affect your resting shoulder position. Try maintaining a slouched posture and reach both arms overhead, notice what happens to your reaching ability. Being able to fully extend or straighten this section of your spine is not only crucial for full shoulder mobility, but necessary to get our body as close to the wall as possible. Addressing stiffness in the thoracic spine can help offload structures within your shoulder, and potentially even reduce pain associated with reaching. Integrating thoracic mobility exercises into a mobility/warm up routine is low hanging fruit because the exercises are incredibly simple and easy to perform.

The Scapula (Shoulder Blade)

When the arm is raised overhead, the scapula should rotate upward. This upward rotation allows for a full range of shoulder motion. In some cases, limited scapular upward rotation may contribute to a subacromial pain syndrome (or pain in the front of the shoulder.) There are many structures within this area that might be irritated due to inadequate scapular upward rotation. Many climbers may have heard or be familiar with the term “shoulder impingement”. It’s important to understand that “impingement” just describes a mechanism of injury, and is not truly a diagnosis.

One of the primary muscles that creates this motion is the serratus anterior. If the serratus anterior muscle is weak or under utilized, the scapula won’t fully rotate upward. Strengthening the serratus anterior muscle will assist in the upward rotation movement of your scapula and may help reduce pain and improve shoulder mobility.

The Glenohumeral (Shoulder Joint)

It is important to improve mobility at the glenohumeral (shoulder) joint. The repetitive activity of only climbing may overdevelop the muscles in the front of the shoulders. This can lead to the muscles becoming short and stiff and cause the shoulder to rotate inward. This inward rotation makes it harder to rotate the shoulders outward into external rotation, which is necessary for vertical face climbing. A warm up routine that activates the external rotators and mobilizes the internal rotators can improve your mobility at the glenohumeral joint before you jump on the wall.

Photo of the shoulders internally rotated (left) and externally rotated to neutral (right)

Okay…..so what do you expect me to do about it?

Thoracic Spine Extensions on Ball

Lie on a soft medicine ball directly on your mid-back. Be sure you’re not arching at your low back by engaging your core. This stretch can be progressed by raising your arms overhead.

Serratus Press on Foam Roller

This drill promotes scapular mobility when raising arms overhead and scapular control when lowering the arms down. The key to this exercise is to keep pressing the forearms into the foam roller throughout the movement. Allow your shoulder blade to move freely and you should feel muscle activation in the front of your shoulder blade.

Overhead Reaches Against a Wall

This drill helps warm up your shoulders by activating your external rotators and creating a dynamic stretch on the internal rotators. It also is a good drill to promote shoulder external rotation control with overhead reaching. Be sure to maintain full external rotation as you reach overhead.

References

Schoffl V, Popp D, Kupper T, Schoffl I. Injury trends in rock climbers: evaluation of a case series of 911 injuries between 2009 and 2012. Wilderness Environ Med. 2015;26(1) 62-67
Rooks MD. Rock climbing injuries. Sports Med. 1997;23:261–270
Beeler S, Pastor T, Fritz B, Filli L, Schweizer A, Wieser K. Impact of 30 years' high-level rock climbing on the shoulder: an magnetic resonance imaging study of 31 climbers. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2021 Sep;30(9):2022-2031. doi: 10.1016/j.jse.2020.12.017. Epub 2021 Feb 3. PMID: 33545338.

Picture:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chiropractic-lower-trapezius-dr-alexander-jimenez