How Common Climbing Injuries Steal Your Send: Understanding Pain Through the Lens of the Whole Body

One of the most common misconceptions about pain is that it lives exactly where it shows up. Shoulder pain must be a shoulder problem. Knee pain must be a knee problem. But the body doesn’t work in isolation, it works as an integrated system. And when one link in the chain is compromised, the stress travels.

Recently, a patient came into the clinic with persistent shoulder pain. He was an experienced climber, strong, disciplined, and frustrated. He had rested the shoulder, stretched it, iced it, even modified his training, but nothing seemed to stick. The pain kept returning.

As we dug deeper into his history, an important detail emerged: a wrist injury from a climbing fall several months earlier. At the time, it seemed minor. He wore a brace, backed off a bit, and kept moving. But healing isn’t just about pain going away, it’s about restoring function.

Here’s what happened.

While his wrist was recovering, his body adapted. He unconsciously offloaded the injured joint, changed how he gripped, pulled, and stabilized. Those small compensations altered how force traveled up his arm, into the elbow, the shoulder, and eventually the neck. Over time, the shoulder became the victim of a problem that didn’t start there at all. This is the kinetic chain in action.

I see this pattern constantly, especially in climbers.

The Most Common Climbing Injuries I See

• Wrist/hand injuries to TFCC and ECU

• Elbow tendinopathies 

• Shoulder impingement and rotator cuff overload

• Neck and upper back tension from prolonged gripping and pulling

  
  

Climbing demands extraordinary coordination. When even one joint isn’t doing its job, another will try to pick up the slack. This is why chronic pain rarely responds to quick fixes. A shot, a stretch, or a single adjustment may provide temporary relief, but it doesn’t retrain the system. 

True healing requires restoring the conversation between the brain, the muscles, and the joints. Our approach was simple, but not superficial.

We addressed the damaged soft tissue in the wrist, forearm, and into the shoulder with focused bodywork, improving mobility, circulation, and tissue quality. Then we introduced targeted exercises designed not to “strengthen everything,” but to wake up the right muscles at the right time. Function before force.

As the wrist regained true stability, the shoulder no longer had to compensate. The pain upstream resolved, not because we chased the symptom, but because we respected the system.

Today, he no longer relies on a wrist brace. He’s climbing again. He is strong, confident, and pain free.

This is the future of musculoskeletal care. Not chasing pain, but understanding it. Not silencing symptoms, but restoring balance. When you treat the body as an interconnected whole, healing shifts from chasing symptoms to precisely restoring function.

If you or someone you know is ready to heal a nagging injury, please call or text our office at (424) 413-3734 to make an appointment.