Fingers are pretty important to us.  At some point, all of us will have a tweak, twinge, or injury, and we'll need to know how to deal with that.  In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Lisa Erikson and we dive deep into the methods behind dealing with finger injuries.  We talk taping, acupressure rings, voodoo floss, ultrasound, self-diagnosis, and more.  

You can learn more about Dr. Lisa or contact her about an injury at: www.lifesportchiro.com

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This week, those of you who are Patrons get an episode of the exclusive "We Scream Like Eagles" podcast, in which Lisa tells us her top tips on how to avoid finger injuries - some things we should all be doing in the first place.  Not a Patron yet?  You can become one and support the podcast for as little as $1 per month by clicking below!

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kris Hampton  00:32

What's up everybody? I'm your host Kris Hampton. Welcome to Episode 51 of the Power Company Podcast brought to you by Powercompanyclimbing.com. It's been a crazy busy week here in Lander, Wyoming. We just wrapped up the 24th International Climbers Festival and it was wildly successful. So huge thanks and congratulations to everyone who was involved in organizing and making the festival happen. It just gets better and better every year that I've been involved and I think this was my 9th... 9th or 10th. So great job you guys. While here, while the festival is going on, I moderated a training panel at the Lander Bake Shop that included Neely Quinn, Steve Bechtel, Arno Ilgner and Eric Horst, kind of a who's who of American training right now. And, and it was great. We packed place and had great conversation. So big thanks to you guys for showing up and coming out for that. And I was really happy to meet so many people who are excited about the podcast. So thank you guys for saying something. I did record the event and I'll have that out soon. I'm also going to share it with Eric and Neely for their podcasts, so you'll be hearing that if you didn't get to make it. You know, during this week, I kind of ran around like crazy and interviewed a bunch of people that I really have been wanting to talk to. I talked to Savannah Buick and you guys will hear that coming soon. I think it's a really important conversation about eating disorders. And with Shelma Jun, I just talked with her this morning. She runs Hey Flash Foxy and The Women's Climbing Festival and and I've been a little conflicted and confused and didn't really understand this feminist movement in climbing and Shelma was really nice enough to sit down and break it down for me and, and and and Shelma's a friend, so we've had some really great conversation about it so I appreciate that. And I talked some more with Arno Ilgner, more about the mental training that he does, and more aspects of it with Hazel Findlay about her take on mental training. I think she's got a really, really great relatable way of putting things and I had a lot of fun talking to her. And then what Tommy Caldwell, we talked about belief and partnership, and how that all comes together in your climbing. So you guys got some great things coming up soon, some great episodes. And, you know, you turn out for those. You show up, you make it happen. We we've reached our goal for 2017, 100 reviews on Apple podcast. I appreciate that. I know they don't make it easy on you. I know it's a pain in the ass, but you guys do it anyway. So thank you. Before we get this thing going, I do have one bit of news that I have to give you that I'm not super stoked to give you but the Midwest Training For Climbing Conference in Milwaukee this summer has been cancelled. So you will not be able to see us out there. However, Nate and I do have a few other dates around the Midwest that we're still going to honor in the upper Midwest. And if you're in the in the area, if you're at a gym in the upper Midwest, and you want to see us, please let your gym know. Contact us, we'll reach out to them, whatever, we'd love to come and see you guys. So hit me up. Today's guest is Dr. Lisa Erikson, who is the author of Climbing Injuries Solved. And I reached out to Lisa because I get tons of questions from people who may have finger injuries or who want to know how to treat their own finger injuries and and I just don't feel really comfortable giving much advice there. I can give really basic advice but I'd feel better if I pointed people in a good direction. And particularly after talking with Lisa, I really appreciate the direction that she takes it, the approach she takes to dealing with finger injuries and talking with people and she she's a climber so she gets it. And Lisa also gave me her top tips for preventing finger injuries, what you can do before you have an injury, to just make sure that you don't get them. I think that that should be our goal as climbers to begin with, not to just constantly be rehabbing our fingers and she gave those to me for the for the patrons. So the patrons will be getting that extra podcast this month, the the We Scream Like Eagles Podcast and you can find out more about that at patreon.com/powercompanypodcast for as little as $1 a month, you can get more episodes. So alright, let's talk to Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  05:23

First off research is really far behind what we notice in the clinical setting. So if your tape job feels like it's helping, most likely it is and in 10 or 15 years, the research will support what you've already found in your own testing.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  05:34

And when I had Daniel and Courtney Woods as climbing patients and I'd see all their injuries and not really understand them as well, because that's when I was running and skiing and that type of thing. So then I started to come to their events with them. I started out with USA Climbing for the medical tent, and really seeing these crazy drop knees and amazing heel hooks, and then really looking at the medical research behind it and how exactly it moves, because we have very little education training on that in the medical realm. We look at joints moving on one angle and not rotation and putting these powerful torques through them and that makes it really fun and interesting, because it's not dull and boring, like everything else.

Kris Hampton  06:28

When you, when you were encountering that stuff, you know, and meeting Daniel and Courtney and seeing all these movements that that your training hadn't really prepared you for, was there research that had been done already, that you could go look at or did you kind of sort of conduct it on your own?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  06:48

So that's where I just went straight to the research. I started going to see CU, umm University of Colorado, and going through their library of all the research. And the research, a lot of it's not primarily on climbers per se. I was looking in baseball, and I was looking at soccer, and I, was all these other sports that have these torques put in the joints. But of course, it's nothing like climbing. So then you start taking the anatomy of a finger and comparing and comparing it with the anatomy of the knee and saying, you know, really trying to understand the torques to research with knees and how that applies to fingers. So it's really taking it and applying it in a different way, which is fun. It keeps the brain going.

Kris Hampton  07:24

Yeah, for sure. So can we get into fingers a little bit? You know, I think that's, you know, a concern and most climbers at some point are going to have some sort of finger injury, whether it's a, you know, a bad finger injury, or just something minor. And I think a lot of people don't know how to say, Okay, this is something I should just climb through, or this is something that I really need to go have looked at. So if we can dig into fingers a bit, that'd be great.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  07:58

Absolutely. So the biggest issue with fingers that I see is someone that has, they hear a pop or snap, and they have instant weakness, and it swells. And then they take maybe two or three weeks off of it, and they start trying to pull hard on it again.

Kris Hampton  08:12

Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  08:12

So if you see a finger that has definitely changed its size, or its color because of your injury, or if if all of a sudden it's telling you it cannot be loaded because of pain, obviously listening to that. But but then there's the whole level of climbers, the whole group that that if they felt an injury, they take a month or two off, and now they're trying to get back into climbing, and their finger is hurting them just as much as the day that they injured it.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  08:36

Even though it didn't feel like a major injury. So for those guys, they also need to come in and have someone look at it and see exactly what's going on. And that's tough, seeing a medical provider because they're going to look at it and say you injured it climbing, so just stop climbing. And if you don't notice it at your desk job or if you don't notice it during your other activities, that should solve the problem. Justd stop climbing. So it's important to keep after your doctor and make sure that they know that you not only want to keep doing what you love, but you really want to get to the bottom of what is the true injury so that you can do specific climbing moves. Say I can climb open hand and all of this because it's a pulley tendon I injured and not not doing like crimps on it because it is like an A2 pulley. So we can go back and forth on what exactly it is and what you feel climbing, so, so really diagnosing or observing what you're feeling climbing and keeping a little chart of it. So when you go in to talk to them, you can say what exactly you're feeling or what you're not feeling. And I would really show them positions of this hurts and that doesn't and that way they can really get into diagnose and they may have to send you to hand specialist to be able to do that or a specific orthopedic doctor.

Kris Hampton  08:37

Right.

Kris Hampton  09:46

Sure, sure. Now if someone does hear a pop or you know like you just mentioned, it swells up or discolors would you suggest going and seeing someone right away or take time off and see what happens?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  10:02

Well, that is the tricky question. I've had a few people that had heard a pop and it's it swelled up and they took time off and it was, that was the correct thing to do. I've also had other people that took a few weeks off after they heard a pop thinking it was a pulley tendon and it was actually the back of the joints on the back of the finger. They actually pulled a bit of the bone off with an extensor tendon and so those ones don't really heal on their own unless we go in and do the right thing to it. So so it really is a swelling thing and a strength thing. Does it feel stable? In what positions does it bother you? And also where the tenderness is.  If the tenderness is right over a pulley tendon, you're very, I'm very comfortable saying just take time off and let it heal. But if if if you press in there and it doesn't hurt and the pain is more coming from the joint line or on the back of the joint than that is something I recommend having looked at,

Kris Hampton  10:53

Okay. And I know a lot of people are, and myself included, have healed, so to speak, finger injuries by continuing to climb. Jst doing easy things that don't aggravate it, you know, of like you said, observe what's happening, avoid anything that's hurting the finger. Is that something you recommend? To continue climbing something easy for the sake of blood flow? Or what's your general protocol there?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  11:22

And for and for mental well being as well. Very few patients have I told you need to stop climbing and you need to take a bunch of time off.

Kris Hampton  11:29

 Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  11:29

Last year, I had three patients with avulsions of the bone.

Kris Hampton  11:33

Yeah. And that's when it pulls a little piece of bone off right?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  11:35

Yep, it pulls a chunk of the bone off. I've seen a few bone spurs, where the tendon is tugging so much over time that the bone actually starts to grow a little bump on it. So I saw two of those last year. And their hand surgeon would say you need to stop climbing, you're having degenerative changes to your hand and I'd say keep going. Enjoy it. Don't worry about it and if it becomes a problem, we'll deal with it then. 

Kris Hampton  11:58

Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  11:58

And then there's the majority of the rest of the climbers which are pulley tendons, which I'd say is about 50% of what we see here in office, and then the remainder are tendinitis, tendinosis of the flexor tendons.

Kris Hampton  12:11

 Sure. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  12:12

And that usually coincides with an unhappy pulley at the same time if it's been chronic. So for those guys, I say you can totally keep climbing, but we need to watch what aggravates the hand. 

Kris Hampton  12:21

Yep.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  12:21

 And if you are deciding to keep climbing, you definitely need to be doing all your homework to heal it and untangle at the same time. Which is this balance of how much climbing am I doing injuring it and how much homecare am I doing to improve it at the same time? We want it, we want to keep making progressive steps in the right direction. And sometimes the home care is going to make it worse. It's going to make it more inflamed for a period of time and that's where we back off the climbing a little bit. But just looking to see what the finger can handle and say it's a pulley injury, if you're climbing open hand the whole time and you're doing pinches or you are a crack climber, you should not have that much tension on the pulley. It can heal while you climb hard through it. 

Kris Hampton  13:00

Right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  13:00

Whereas other people, if you have flexor tendonitis, or tendonosis, where that tendon is has, has a ton of inflammatory degenerative changes, we need to pay a little more attention to it because a crimp will bother it just as much as an open hand. And so that's where it is really watching your footing and making sure if you can use really good feet and be very light on your hand, you're okay to keep climbing. So I would stay off overhangs and I would stay off anything that you really loading that sucker, where you are pulling hard.

Kris Hampton  13:27

 Right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  13:28

Try and try to stay on stuff where you're very comfortable with your feet and you're using them as much as you can. Where you are not trying to explosively or dynamically throw to something that that finger or that hand cannot handle at that time.

Kris Hampton  13:39

Gotcha. Now I'm I'm extremely guilty, and I know a lot of climbers are

Dr. Lisa Erikson  13:42

We all are, yes.

Kris Hampton  13:44

Of saying it's fine. I don't need to go to a doctor. They're just gonna tell me what I already know. You know, I say that all the time. In fact, I've said it this week because of this wrist thing I have going on. And if a climber, who are, generally speaking, of the same ilk that I am, of "I don't need to go see a doctor", if they're having an issue with their finger, how can they tell the difference between that tendinitis tendinosis or a pulley injury? Because you said they're they're pretty similar. One often involves, you know, the tendonitis often involves an angry pulley. Is there a way for them to tell the difference and know that okay, I should go see someone?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  14:27

That's a very good question. So for an angry pulley, it would hurt just on that pulley itself. It'd be very pinpoint tender only over the pulley itself. 

Kris Hampton  14:35

Gotcha.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  14:36

I've noticed... so so these recommendations are going off of me ultrasounding people. 

Kris Hampton  14:40

Okay.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  14:41

 I really thought I knew what I was talking about till I got the ultrasound and then it really humbled me because I realized that there are so many different things going on underneath the service that I can only guess at poking on the finger. So we can we can give them homework and give them modifications and really try to make these changes, but there really is just a trial and error system if they're at home try ingto self guess all this stuff. So if it's tender over a large area, say from from the middle knuckle all the way up into the palm, on that, so it feels like a pulley, but it is like two inches long, that's more likely to be a flexor tendonitis or tendonosis. 

Kris Hampton  15:16

Gotcha.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  15:16

 Versus if it's just very pinpoint. So for them, if they're able to climb and that pinpoint area doesn't get worse and it continues to, I guess my point is I want it to continue to improve, not just stay bad.

Kris Hampton  15:29

 Yep.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  15:30

 And then also with with specific pinpoint tenderness, it could be so many different things. So say on the underside of your finger, it could be a pulley. It could also be a little nodule, a little bump of scar tissue, which is what I had in my finger. And I thought it was a pulley because I didn't have my ultrasound. I thought I had pulled up a bit of bone and with those

Kris Hampton  15:49

And it's showing up just like a pinpoint the same as a pulley

Dr. Lisa Erikson  15:52

 Pinpoint tenderness, the same but a little node, a little bump in there. And since I do muscle work all the time in my hands, I can feel those little tender bumps where some people cannot because most climbers have very calloused, very desensitized fingertips. So they pay to go to someone have them poke and see if they can feel something like that. So with a little nodule, you do not want to tape over the top of it, because you're grinding that nodule, that little bump into the tissues below it. So I've seen climbers that have taped it, self diagnosing that it was a pulley tendon injury, and it's actually been one of the nodules, and they have grinded that against all their flexor tendons causing a lot of damage. And then just last month, I saw my very first nodule between the flexor tendons. You have two of them run that run out to your distal finger, one on the crimps, and one that mostly bends all your fingertips and it was actually between the two of those. And so that's the first time I've seen one of those. So it changes the whole treatment plan. So for that person or with anyone that has a pulley injury or anything wrong with a tendon, I always say work to unweight it by working further up into the forearm. Whatever muscle is tugging on those tendons or loading them if if it's tight, that's going to create issues downstream, and the issues are arise when you're sleeping and when you're in the car. When you're not climbing, those tendons should not be tugged on. So if they're constantly being loaded, even when you're not climbing, they don't have a chance to heal, and as they get more inflamed, the tendons take up more space, there's more inflammation. And so I've had a few cases of clicking finger, where it clicks when you bend it, and we've actually been able to keep it from clicking by working up and up in the forearm with acupuncture and massage and I didn't even touch out in the finger. And so I like to play mad scientist. So I say let's look here and see if that changes it. And so I'm very pinpoint as for I work in this area and then and then test it see what it feels like. That didn't change it? Well, that wasn't the problem. Let's work in this other area. Try this technique. And oh it did all the sudden change it? Well, that most likely was the cause. So every time you come in, we do that type of thing to really pinpoint what the cause is.

Kris Hampton  17:52

Right, right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  17:53

 Sometimes there's a few different causes, a few different types of loading it as to why it won't heal. And with a lot of climbers, it's the worry stone phenomenon where you guys go in and you're constantly rubbing on it. Does it feel better today? Oh it is still sore.

Kris Hampton  18:04

Right, right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  18:06

Can I crimp really hard on it today? Let's test it on the hangboard? Is it, is my pulley still unhappy three days after I injured it? Am I okay to climb? Probably not. Give it some more time to rest. At least two weeks of rest on a pulley. You can still open hand while we wait on it but definitely try not to crimp on that sucker and leave it be.

Kris Hampton  18:25

Yep. You mentioned taping in there. I know there's a lot of debate about whether tape actually helps or how much it helps and you know different ways to tape. What are your suggestions in that realm? If you think you have a pulley injury, or you've gone to see someone and you know that it's a pulley injury, how should you be taping to help support?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  18:46

Yeah, so first off research is really far behind what we notice what we notice in a clinical setting, and also what you notice at your gym. So if your tape job feels like it's helping, most likely it is and in 10 or 15 years, the research will support what you've already found in your own testing. So with that said, whatever feels like it's helping, do it. Research shows H taping to be the most effective for unloading the whole mechanism of the whole flexor tendon the whole way down the finger. But a lot of the climbers I've had climbing and me myself, it doesn't feel like it's doing anything, and I don't like it. So even though research says that it works, I don't really trust that research. And there's there's always errors in research and maybe I'm just taping it with the wrong type of tape or maybe they use a different type of tape and in the research they don't say exactly what brand of tape they use, so it's hard to tell. But my favorite is just the basic climbers' tape. Just around, around. I love the Swiss style, the Swiss style of circular taping and I may not tape over your unhappy pulley. I may tape right next to it. So if you have any tender sore nodular things I will tape not over them, because that will exacerbate them, but I'll tape above or below them to unload it. And if you tape further down the finger in different segments that will also unload that one particular pulley. So it's like climbing, if one cam pops, it's not a big deal. But if they all pop, you have a problem. So the more you put in there, the more it unloads that one structure. And we can't unload up into the palm, but we can unload down on the fingers. So just yeah, so circular is my favorite. There's some brands that work better than others. But if you if it sticks, and you're happy with it, and it feels like it's supporting, that's good. And it definitely loses its its, its load capacity, after an hour or so of climbing. It stretches out about 15%, 

Kris Hampton  20:31

Right right. It starts to loosen up.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  20:32

It does. So you definitely want to tape in a way that you don't lose mobility and you don't lose your your blood flow but you definitely want to keep reapplying or put another extra circle over it so that there's more tape to absorb the load. So I'll usually go around 2,3,4 times, and just use a tiny strip, maybe half the size of my pinky, and try not to put too much tape on, but the more times you tape down the finger the more it unloads it.

Kris Hampton  20:53

Right, right, I'm glad you said that, that you don't necessarily trust the research, even as a doctor that, that you also listen to anecdotal evidence, you know. This feels like it's helping so, you know, maybe it is. Angie Payne is a good friend of mine and I know you've worked with Angie in the past and climbing with Angie once years ago, she had her fingers taped, and I asked her about it, you know. Do you feel like it's helping? Does it, you know, seem to make a difference? And her response was, well, I sort of believe that it does. And it also reminds me, you know, if I grab a small hold, that tapes there, I can feel it and, and I can remind myself not to crimp really hard. You know, it's just not worth it to, to do that. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  21:43

That's a good point.

Kris Hampton  21:43

And that's why I'm wearing this, this brace on my wrist right now. I can I can keep it off, but it reminds me not to do too much with it right now, you know. So I think that's important as well, just to give yourself that reminder. We all tend to go into this mode where we're, we have intention of not trying really hard, then we get excited about a problem.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  22:05

Lose control

Kris Hampton  22:06

 And we just go for it, you know, and then we're like that was really stupid.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  22:09

Yep, yep. So it was just learning little, little tasks, or little tricks of, I can still do what I want to do, but I need to hold that joint in a protected safe position. If it's one finger, I'm gonna make sure to back it up with a bunch more fingers. Watch... what is the safest way to load this thing that I feel like I myself am more more secure that I'm not going to injure it? That's your you listening to your body as for what's safe and what's unsafe. And same thing with your with your wrist brace, not only is it providing compression, and giving more feedback, so that also counts as brain training, having it on there.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  22:43

It tells your brain what angle it's at, that provides a little bit of compression and we've learned that that turns the brain on to allow the muscles of the forearm to actually work for your wrist. And we also notice with chronic injuries, the brain starts to not connect to them anymore. They don't get as much blood flow as they should. They may not be the same temperature as, and I'm pulling that from totally different research about disconnecting the brain from these spots, or from these regions, but it's just not as connected as it could be and that could be why we keep getting these repetitive injuries. So So we've been learning with tape and with vibration, and with braces, and even Icy Hot and Tiger Balm, there's research just to now support why those things work. Whereas before we thought, Oh, it's just hearsay. You put tape on, it doesn't do anything. But now we're starting to show research for why people are performing better, their joints are moving better. They're having control of that knee wobbling all over the place without even thinking about it because the tape or the brace is giving feedback to the brain as for how to move it with the correct motion pattern and I find that fascinating.

Kris Hampton  22:43

Sure.

Kris Hampton  23:43

Yeah. And I think that seems you know, just in looking in a cursory way, because I'm not a researcher, I'm not a doctor, but looking at the way research seems to work, it seems to almost always be in that pattern where athletes who really care about their performance find a way to make it work and then research comes behind it and says, Okay, now we understand it. This is why it's working.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  24:09

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's how I, so I'm super interested in this brand called RockTape. They spend a lot of money on research. So I bought my ultrasound device, very expensive to me, to help them with their research. They said we're looking for doctors come help us with our research. And by the time I got it, I've mostly been spending it doing something totally different with joints. But it's very interesting because they bought the ultrasounds to put the, first they put the kinesio tape on the skin and then they look to see how are the muscles functioning with this ultrasound device, kind of just like us on mothers with with a with a fetus in the womb. Looking at it, you can actually see the muscles gliding, and so they look at it and see when I put this RockTape on, how did the muscles glide, or just it's just a brand of kinesio tape. When I put the kinesio tape on the skin, how do these muscles glide or do they hold tight? And so we asked them to do certain motions and we watched to see what the muscle does. Does it just shake like a bowl full of jelly, or a bowl full of jello, which is a muscle that is inhibited that refuses to contract and relax? So that would be a climber that their forearms are so tight that they're pumping out because  their forearms will elongate and they won't contract. 

Kris Hampton  25:14

Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  25:14

So that's an example there and we're, I'm, I was watching these climbers, tapping on their forearms at one of the World Cups. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,

Kris Hampton  25:22

Yep yep. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  25:22

And then I saw the research that shows that if you get in with your foam roller, or and you start doing 10 to 12 compressions on a muscle, it activates that muscle and now that muscle can contract and relax and actually work. So that's a good prep for climbing.

Kris Hampton  25:36

Gotcha.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  25:36

 Versus afterwards, a long controlled, slow deep tissue work is not conducive for before climbing. But the research shows it allows that muscle to elongate out and it's perfect for after climbing. And we think all of this is actually brain training. Actually getting that brain to tell the muscle it's okay to do our particular task, which is fascinating, because it does work locally, but it also has this this whole brain involvement as well.

Kris Hampton  26:03

So can you tell me exactly how kinesio tape works? I know a lot of people, you know, I didn't believe it at first, when I first saw it. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. I can't imagine why that would work. And then the first time I used it, it was almost immediate increased range of motion and, and I couldn't believe it. And I still don't know exactly how it works. I've heard a lot of theories. You know, is there science starting to back that up why it works now?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  26:32

So they've done research on it, and we can see how it works but we're still learning the mechanisms of how it works. So I just wrote an article for Mountain Project, and there was a bunch of climbers very unhappy about kinesio, just like you said, but you're on the other side of the fence. Their side was it doesn't work. It's hocus pocus. How does it work? So you could post this online so that people can, I'm too lazy to write anything else. But there's a there are a few theories and research on why it works and it's through all these different mechanisms. So a lot of people expect kinesio tape to work in the same way that our basic climbers athletic tape works,

Dr. Lisa Erikson  27:10

It does not do remotely the same thing.

Kris Hampton  27:10

Right.

Kris Hampton  27:11

Which is how I looked at it initially and made no sense.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  27:13

Right, right. Which, which is why you look at it and say, Well, I'm taping my finger with it, but that is it, that's not going to unload my pulley. And they're absolutely right. Kinesio tape does not act remotely like climbers tape. Instead, it provides a slow controlled compression and so that's more of swelling control and that's more of a joint that is all stretched out, that's hyper mobile, we can go in and lock it down a little bit by by using the kinesio tape. Now if you fall, like say your bouldering and you fall and you missed the pad and you have kinesio tape on, you're still going to sprain your ankle. It's not going to support and stabilize like basic athletic tape or climbers tape will, but it works more in the fact of brain training, of having that tape on the skin. It gives so much feedback to the body through position sensors, hairs, vibration sensors, as for where that joint or that tissue is in space. It gives so much feedback that the brain now unlocks that muscle and allows it to work. So it works through this thing called the muscle spindle on this thing called the Golgi tendon organ. And the muscle spindle is what tells the muscle what tone it should be. "Protect, protect, guard, guard" in the case of an injury. And when when we start doing all this work, we effect the Golgi tendon organ, which is like the circuit breaker and it tells the muscle spindle to relax. So with the vibration tools or the kinesio tape or your foam rolling, somehow that Golgi tendon organ is now telling the muscle spindle, it's okay. You can relax. There's no danger here. We're resetting you to where we are in space right now and not to that memory of your past injury that has now gone and we're starting from scratch.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  27:55

So it's helping you reset and send positive signals to the nervous system.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  28:55

Yes, yes. And one example would be a squat test. So you put tape on a knee on someone who, when they're squatting, their knee is not tracking symmetrically. It's wiggling left and right. So the first time you put the tape on the knee and you say please do another squat, the knee does exact same thing. Boop boop all over the place.

Kris Hampton  29:12

 Yep. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  29:12

And then we say okay, keep doing a few more squats, a few more squats. And that knee starts to learn from the tape on the skin. It has so much feedback that all of a sudden they can do a much better squat and then a perfect squat with no effort on your or my part, not a brain thing. Now it's more of a perhaps a spinal cord thing. Maybe it's more of a reflexive response to motion. The brain doesn't have to stay involved. Another study that I love on kinesio tape is when you have it on your booboo, your brain is more quiet. It's not telling that area what to do all the time. So so when they study, the scan of the brain is quiet when they have the tape on the injury versus when the tape is off of the injury, the brain is going crazy as for that spot on the body, which is fascinating. So now you can climb and you can actually focus on "Where are your hands?" and "What's your breathing pattern?" and "What are you going to do next? What's your motion pattern?" versus "What is my knee feel like?" and "How tight do those muscles need to be to support it?" and "Is this heel hook going to hurt me like my last heel hook?". Doesn't have to think about that anymore. It's just, it's all automated.

Kris Hampton  30:21

Yeah, that's great. I had, I had never thought of it in that respect before. But but you know, it's not all, a lot of people sort of believe that we can just, you focus your mind where you want to you know. But that's not really the truth, the brain and the body in general, is trying to protect itself. I mean, that's our, that's our main goal, as organisms is to continue living and do it in a healthy way. So the brain is focusing a lot of its energy toward an injury if it's there.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  30:54

Unless you're in danger, and then you just get a huge

Kris Hampton  30:56

Exactly

Dr. Lisa Erikson  30:57

 Plume of chemicals and then you can do that, that 80th pull up you couldn't do or do my first pull up I couldn't do, whereas you if you're just in a safe environment, that nothing's gonna happen, you cannot recruit those muscles as you can in a danger setting.

Kris Hampton  31:11

Right. Yeah and in that danger setting your brain just shutting that governor down and saying, "Do whatever you have to to survive". But if you're out climbing and trying your project, that's that's good to know that if you put the kinesio tape on an injury, your brain can put a little more focus elsewhere.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  31:32

Yes, yeah, the region feels more secure. It has more swelling control, and there's a lot more feedback as for what, what position that joint should be in. And we're also thinking that kinesiotape also acts like like an extra muscle to stabilize and decompress the tissues below it. One extra tidbit I found from the RockTape company is their research has shown that compressing, whenever you put kinesio tape over an injury, it compresses, but the skin stays the same thickness, which is interesting, and it will actually compress the muscle further down. So we can use it to act like a pulley, which is what I love doing on people that have elbow tendonitis. I'll wrap it around the elbow, and it actually acts like a pulley to unload that elbow so it can heal faster. So there's a few different techniques for you. So when you see a bunch of tape on people, they may be trying a bunch a bunch of different techniques to use it.

Kris Hampton  31:34

 Sure.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  32:25

 But there's also been some research on the kinesiotape, I hope I'm not boring you, going on and on about kinesiotape.

Kris Hampton  32:29

No, not at all. Not at all. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  32:31

But another one of the research studies was they they wanted to tape, they start with the butt muscle, how can we tape the butt muscle to get more contraction, make it fire quicker, stronger. So they tried different stretching techniques and then their placebo was the band aid effect. They taped straight across. And what they found with the research study was it doesn't matter how much tape tension you pull, or what direction you pull, that muscle would fire more on how much of the tape was over the skin.

Kris Hampton  32:59

Oh really

Dr. Lisa Erikson  32:59

 So the placebo was the whole butt was covered with tape and it fired the best. So perhaps maybe that's where the arm sleeves and the compression wear comes in is that it's putting so much compression on there, that that's giving so much stimulus that that works the best.

Kris Hampton  33:14

That's really interesting. So the the tape, according to that research is really just, you know, it's not that the tape is doing anything special, it's that it's just sending signals

Dr. Lisa Erikson  33:27

Mmmmhmmm

Kris Hampton  33:27

 And our brain just reads it as this is protection.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  33:31

Mmmhmmm. Or I'm not quite sure how it's reading it

Kris Hampton  33:34

 Right. 

Kris Hampton  33:34

Right right

Dr. Lisa Erikson  33:34

But its getting so much feedback, that all of a sudden it has so much more awareness of where that joint is in space. So I, in my office, when people, to go to a totally different region and apply this, what we just discussed, on an ankle, I see a lot of people that have sprained an ankle. They come in saying I keep respraining it and when I step up onto a curb or I step off of a curb, I don't know where my foot is in space. I can't control it.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  33:34

And that's because there's so many different joints in the ankle, that the the position sensors are in the tendons. They're not in the joints, versus your elbow there, there really are very few joints in the elbow, so as you bend it, your elbow knows where it is in space because of the joint itself. So on the ankle, it's in the tendons and  when you sprain it, you stretch out those tendons, so those position sensors are further apart than they used to be. And all of a sudden your ankle doesn't know where it is in space. So that's where the tape comes in really handy there is to give it a bunch of extra feedback so now it can relearn what it has last.

Kris Hampton  34:33

Gotcha. Oh, that's really interesting. I had never... I didn't know why it worked. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  34:38

It's fascinating.

Kris Hampton  34:39

 I knew it worked because I put it on and when I had some shoulder issues years ago, I put it on and almost immediately the pain is gone. The range of motion is increased and I could climb all day pain free. You know, so so I knew there was something happening.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  34:56

That was on your shoulder you said?

Kris Hampton  34:57

 Yep.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  34:58

 Ah interesting. Okay. Yeah. I've noticed with mine, because I have shoulder issues, if I put the tape on it, I know where neutral is. And when I started to stretch the tape, I know where that danger unsafe area is where my shoulder always gets pinched internally and all of a sudden it goes weak. So by taping myself up and learning where the where the safe zones are, where my shoulder is functioning happily, all of a sudden, I can start teaching other climbers, here's where safe is, I don't want you to have your arm over your your hand overhead and your shoulder extended.

Kris Hampton  35:27

 Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  35:27

That's an unsafe area, or having you be in a in a mantle position and your shoulders punched forward and way up by your ear. That's also an unsafe position. So the tape will also teach you as you start to go into those unsafe positions, you'll stretch it and just like your brace on your wrist, it'll remind you, "Do I really want to be loading it in this fashion? Is this safe for me? Is there a safer way to load it instead of this positioning?". So they really come in beneficial in that way.

Kris Hampton  35:54

Yeah, and I think that's exactly how it was working. You know, in, in Red River Gorge, which is where I grew up and learn to climb, 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  36:00

Awesome

Kris Hampton  36:01

The, the style is sort of, you get pumped, you get tired, but you just keep going and you keep latching holds and latching holds and latching holds and, and when that happens, you definitely get your shoulder, you know, out of engagement. You're just extending, and letting all of your weight fall onto that joint over and over and over. And, and the tape would keep me engaged, you know. I wouldn't go into that mode where I was just flinging my arm up and latching something, you know. So I would stay engaged, and it just felt like a safer place to be. And I climbed just as hard or harder, so there was no, you know, by not going into that mode didn't affect my climbing necessarily.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  36:50

It's so interesting. I love testing this stuff so we can we can see what we notice at home and then see does it work? Sp so I find these little things that work with me and then to some of my my patients, I recommend it to them and say, "This isn't supported by research, but it's helped me and you may test it out. And then let me know positive negative feedback if it works." Because in the climbing realm, we have very few research studies and very few docs that know a lot about this stuff. So it's up to us to learn all this. And primarily everything that I know, I've had athletes go out and test things, like David Graham, such a brilliant mind. He loves research, he loves to test. He's one of the first to start bringing me all these research papers. "Read this one. Read that one. Read this one." 

Kris Hampton  37:31

Haha right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  37:31

And I'd ask him, "Hey, Dave, what do you like better, H taping or circular taping? What do you like better, icing or contrast baths? Try this. Try that. " And we really learn what works best for... of course, it's a case by case. And of course, it depends on your body itself as for where you are. But it's very fascinating to see, when I take that situation and try to apply to somebody else and it doesn't work in that fashion. There's no research to support it. But when I figure out the exact things, perhaps we can get another research study going and I bet one's already going on those topics that when it comes out, I'll have found it. Yeah, it's very fascinating to see how that works.

Kris Hampton  38:06

Cool. Very cool. So to bring this back to fingers a little bit, is there a way to use kinesiotape to improve the you know, the way tendons are moving in the hand or in the forearm? 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  38:18

Absolutely. 

Kris Hampton  38:19

If they're feeling crunchy, for lack of a better term.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  38:23

Absolutely. Yeah, I love the crunchy. Yeah, I always ask people, "Does that feel crunchy in there?". So we want to, first, you have to understand how the fingers work. And the fingers are primarily tendons, and it works all the way up in the forearm, or that's where the contractual tug moves the fingers.

Kris Hampton  38:38

Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  38:38

So in order to affect the fingers, we can tape that finger itself. So if it's swollen, we can go in there and do a gentle spiral kinesiotape up the finger. So say it's the same as a circular climbers tape, but lighter. And we start from all the way down at the joint, and we go all the way up to the next joint. And so that will at least compress that and give us feedback as for what's going on in that injured area. Say it's a pulley, or you have tendinitis and then the real bang for the buck is working up in the forearm. And so putting tape over the muscle that is tugging on that exact finger. So you have to know what muscle it is, what tendon it is, then you can go research where does that muscle run and then we can kinesiotape up and over that muscle. And so that will give feedback all the way down into the finger and unweight it so it heals faster.

Kris Hampton  39:24

Right. Same same situation we were talking about that it's sending signals to the brain to to help out. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  39:32

Right. Yeah, it tells that muscle, "Why are you contracted all the time? You don't need to be pumped out of your mind two days after climbing or right before I get on the wall. You need to be nice and soft and supple and loose." A muscle should feel like ahi tuna or uncooked steak. It shouldn't feel like a twangy guitar string or cooked pork chop or just so hard the whole forearm feels like a bone. So if that's the case, going in and rolling on it, using like a Thumper or personal massager on or even kinesiotape to help teach that muscle to be loose.

Kris Hampton  40:04

Gotcha, gotcha. And then what about, you know, you mentioned that you would use kinesio tape and wrap it up the joint in the finger. What about using something like... gosh, the name just slipped my mind....like a voodoo floss on the finger.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  40:24

Yeah, so a voodoo floss is compressive, but it is more of a, it's a super stretchy band. But it is not as, well, one, it doesn't stick to the skin like kinesio tape does. 

Kris Hampton  40:37

Right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  40:37

 And two, I'd be afraid about it being well, also breathable, because the kinesio tape we are leaving on for a period of time. The voodoo floss is like a rubber and so I would not want them to get any type of...

Kris Hampton  40:48

And it's on there just for a short time and running through range of motion.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  40:53

Yes. 

Kris Hampton  40:53

Is that something you've used or experimented with?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  40:56

Yeah, I've used it and and so my understanding of how it works and what I tell my patients and the reason why I use it is because the skin is adhered to the muscle, or the fascia, which is the covering over the muscle, is adhered and we want things freely gliding. So in in situations of long term inflammation, or long term loading of that region, and we get a lot of a lot of hot, puffy, leftover swelling from it, everything tends to become adhered. And so when it all adheres together and sticks together, then we need to go in and break it up. And there's a ton of different techniques to break it up. There is Graston Technique. There's flossing, there's myofascial release, there is good old fashioned massage, there is spooning or gua sha, or there's all these different methods of loosening it up. But voodoo flossing is one that the CrossFit region designed to break stuff up. So yeah, you wrap it very aggressively, and then you bend and move the joint. And what that does is it anchors down the skin so the skin can't move and then you're gliding the muscle under the skin and you're ripping up any adhesions or scar tissue, or that stuck together. And I've seen a lot of people that say that this is all brain training and it does nothing truthfully to the tissue below. And I tell them you come in my office and you see this all adhered and dimpled, like someone's butt that they squeeze it and it's just dimples everywhere and then we Graston for a couple weeks and all of a sudden they squeeze and those dimples are gone. I've been busting, busting my ass too haha, to rip that, hold that tissue and try to break all those those cross adhesions together. And in having worked on triathletes before climbers, their skin, true professional triathletes they get several massages. They may get up to two massages a week. I mean, they're very aggressive with their self care. They foam roll every single night, they do stretches every single day, they do drills to to perfect their technique every single day. And their skin is rubbery, and I can pull it right off their body. I've never seen anything like it before. And I'm starting to notice that perhaps that is the new normal, or that's the normal that we were all like back when we were kids and now we're just adhered and stuck together. And we're held together by scar tissue, and things that are stiff and need to be made more flexible. So I really push people that they don't believe that to go feel on someone who's done a lot of that work because they have a totally different tissue tension than the rest of us.

Kris Hampton  43:19

Right. Interesting. And things like acupressure rings for your fingers. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  43:24

Yeah

Kris Hampton  43:25

Do similar types of things I imagine, as far as breaking up that adhesion?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  43:32

Well in my, so I have not seen any research on this, so I'm just going to go off my clinical understanding of different applications of the other therapies that I've used. 

Kris Hampton  43:40

Okay 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  43:41

The acupressure ring, I don't use it for acupressure bcause I don't understand that realm. I'm much more of a mechanical focused person.

Kris Hampton  43:47

Right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  43:48

But we can use it like a squeegee and roll it up and down the finger with pressure towards the hearts and I can actually see the swelling come out of that finger. And then you can see the little dimples that it creates as it squeezes what we call interstitial fluid out of those spaces. So it acts like like a squeegee in the shower of getting all of that fluid off of the walls of the shower. So pretty similar. So I use the acupressure ring to get fluid out of the finger, which is good because if we squeeze all of the old fluid, all of the old nutritionless, inflammational fluid that's been there for a while, and we allow new fresh fluid and nutrients and oxygen to come back to that tissue. So that's a good thing. As for holding the tissue and trying to break up scar tissue with it, I think that's beneficial, but we do need to know how to do it. So holding that finger either in flexion or into extension and using the finger ring, north south east west kind of cross directional to break up any little adhesions in there. And you may, I see them a lot in climbers on the back of the finger and a few on the underside and I also see a bunch on the sides or where the pulley tendon attaches on the bone. But yes and you can use it on the underside but I want you guys to be very cautious as to how hard you're pushing because you can flame nodules or inflame the pulley, and it's hard for those things to heal if there is  an inflammational stew that's sitting there, and we're constantly cross friction and rubbing on where all the tension is when we need to be working more upstream on unweighting that tension, which is up in the forearm, loosening up the muscles that's tugging on that tendon, which is causing the pain you're feeling.

Kris Hampton  45:21

Right, right. And that sort of leads me into my next thought that, you know, climbers are getting much, much better at self care. I think there's been this you know, this zeitgeist of sort that's happening, that climbers are just paying more attention to it. You know, at Hueco this year, I saw tons of people with foam rollers and lacrosse balls and 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  45:42

Excellent!

Kris Hampton  45:42

You know and rolling out every night and every morning, and it was really nice to see. With all these modalities of, you know, fixing your your minor injuries, are there some of them that can do harm if using incorrectly and how careful should we be about that? For instance, if you know, is there a situation in which voodoo flossing could make the problem worse? And not just voodoo flossing, but but all of these things.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  46:14

Yes, yeah. So use these tools, but I would say, with a grain of salt. Test it out. See how it feels. Don't just go super all out at once with them and see how your body responds. Some people get way into it way too quickly and it is like working out. So if you work very deeply into your forearms, and you're sore from it, you need to give it a few days to rest, and then come back in a few days and work on it again. So for someone that's going way too aggressively, and there's also this this idea, I believe, from CrossFit that when we work on ourselves, pain is good and the more you rip and shred and grind, the more you're helping yourself. And that seems very counterintuitive to doing a lot of massage and office and muscle work. There is this boundary between if I push too hard, your body almost creates a reflex to protect you and it tightens up and it fights me and I'm not making any good. I'm just teaching your body to protect itself more. So we need to back off and really see what load your body relaxes into it and we can actually get that muscle belly to relax. So we're holding these spots and we're waiting for does it feel like it's melting? Does it feel like that muscle just twitched and let go? Is it  a hurt-so -good phenomenon? Or do I feel like I'm gonna pass out and it doesn't feel like it's doing anything?

Kris Hampton  47:29

 Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  47:29

And that's where the real genius behind muscle work comes, which I'm still learning. I've been doing it for years and I'm still learning what is causing you this one spot in your back to bother you. It could be coming from all the way up on front on the pec or it could be coming from your postural stabilizers in your mid back. And so if the spot you're working on doesn't seem to be loosening up and letting go, chances are it is reacting to somewhere nearby or somewhere else or a weakness or a muscle imbalance pattern or a muscle you can't get to turn on. Like in the case of my shoulder, I couldn't get my lat to turn on in my back. So if I could get my lats to turn on, all of a sudden I could do a pull up. And so I was just up at the Seattle Bouldering Project this last weekend, they had a big a big shindig, and there was a PT there. And I can't work on myself. I can't feel what's going on. So I said Hey, would you mind having a look. And I showed him what was going on and he just dug everywhere and poked everywhere. And he said it's actually coming from the other side. You can't engage your left lat because your right one's tight, and it's actually pressing, all your ribs are popping out on the left side and that is grinding on your muscles and turning them off. And so I can work as hard as I want on the left side and those knots keep coming back. So if you can't figure out where it's coming from, which there's a lot of people that are really well trained in how to do that. If you can't figure it out, go find someone that can and a well seasoned massage therapists is very, very good at reading muscles and delving through the different the different scenarios they've seen as for figuring out where it's coming from. Even though they're not climbers, they're very good at knowing muscles and where those patterns arise.

Kris Hampton  48:59

Yep, Yeah, I agree with that, for sure. I had a massage therapist in Cincinnati that I went to fairly often with the Garage Body and.... Body and Massage, I think is what it was called. And

Dr. Lisa Erikson  49:12

 I like it. 

Kris Hampton  49:13

And she was great. And I could work on these knots I was getting with lacrosse balls and foam rollers, you know, ad nauseum. I could, I could work on them forever and they would just keep coming back and keep coming back. And in just a few minutes of working in the area with her, they'd be gone. You know, so I think that having someone who knows how to, you know, feel around, poke around and find out where the actual problems coming from makes a big difference.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  49:47

Especially when all these muscles overlap in one area. 

Kris Hampton  49:50

Right

Dr. Lisa Erikson  49:50

Say behind the shoulder blade, you have ribs back there. You have...

Kris Hampton  49:52

Yeah, and it's all connected. You know, your body's not, you know, none of the parts of your body work in isolation. It all works together so

Dr. Lisa Erikson  50:03

Fascinating. One of the one of the research studies that I heard of, I think it was two years ago now, if you lose the flexibility of your big toe, you no longer have control of your low back. You don't have nearly as much core stability as you would if your big toe was flexible. So we're starting to realize all these regions really do interplay. And also with patients that are climbers that keep getting finger hand issues, we start to notice that maybe there's a torso issue, maybe we can't control our upper quadrant stabilizers of our abs, or maybe our pec is too tight and our shoulder is not sitting correctly, or maybe we have something further further down the line into the torso, that's an issue. Fascinating. And then lastly, my last bit of research, I promise, is that the fascia over the top of the muscle will actually transfer force. So I've seen quite a few climbers this year, that have neck issues that have arisen, and it's because they're cheating with their neck to stabilize their shoulder or stabilize their fingers.

Kris Hampton  51:01

 Okay

Dr. Lisa Erikson  51:01

Yeah. So research shows that 40% of the load of one muscle can be transferred to a totally different region through fascia. So there is quite a bit of cheating. I'm guilty of it, too. I pull down and if I don't have the strength, I will tuck my chin. Total cheating.

Kris Hampton  51:15

Yeah, I think we all do when in a performance...in a performance spot, you know, we're we're gonna do whatever we can to make the move instead of staying focused on am I in the correct position or in a safe position. So I think that's why training is important. You know, we train in, and we practice in safer positions. And that's why kinesio tape and things like that could add to, you know, add to that, and that it's teaching your brain these better positions. It's teaching you how to stay in these better positions, giving you cues and then when you're in a performance mode, maybe you can more easily automatically go into those better positions, instead of just defaulting over to whatever feels the strongest.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  52:03

Yes, yes, yes. First, you're unconsciously very bad at it. And then you consciously realize, I cannot control this, this shoulder joint of mine, or I'm very bad at my elbow positioning and then you start to work on it, but you're very bad at it. And then finally, you have it and unconsciously you're in control of it. And that's the final phase and it takes time to get there. So

Kris Hampton  52:24

It's a long process

Dr. Lisa Erikson  52:25

That tape helps. But also all of your drills and all of your training so that when you're finally in that, that final goal mode, you're able to do it and actually focus on what you're doing and your body just runs like a machine, as we're all working so hard to be.

Kris Hampton  52:38

Yep. Cool. Any other thoughts you have on hands and fingers? I know we've kind of gone all over the place here, which is great. Any other thoughts you have on hands or fingers that you've been noticing or experimenting with or excited about?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  52:55

Man? That's a very good question. Oh, so the majority of things that I've seen in the hands and fingers that have been very shocking to me this year have been, as I said, those, those avulsions of bone on the backside of the finger. And they're usually noticed when you're doing like a crimp or the few that I've seen have been a sidepull crimp, very  aggressive and they heard a pop. And my whole focus this year is on how not to get in that situation. How did that happen in the first place? 

Kris Hampton  53:23

Right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  53:23

 How is that tendon....so so what's happening is it the tendon is tugging so hard that the bone is actually weaker than the tendon, the bone just breaks. And that's very fascinating, because all the climbing research, as of the past what 2015 Laurent Vigouroux out of France, his research, I believe it's called "Estimation of Strength of the Muscles of the Hand and the Fingers", showed that we are very, very weak on the back of our forearm versus the average Joe on the corner. 

Kris Hampton  53:52

Right. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  53:52

So I believe, just by observation, we spend all this time clenching and in crimps and in in this position, even when we sleep that we're in a fist and our wrist is bent. And that is just chronically loading the tendons on the backside of our fingers. So perhaps that's where that is coming from, is if we can unweight, so loosen up, the muscles on the back and then start strengthening them and then try to change our sleeping positions and the things that are provoking it, so trying not to sleep with a bent wrist and fingers all curled up, that that will hopefully help to start changing the these at these incidences that I'm seeing in my office.

Kris Hampton  54:29

Gotcha. And is that is that alleviated at all by doing, you know extensor work for your fingers?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  54:38

The strength issue is. But yeah, so not only are they weaker in extension, but so like like a duckbill quacking and then our fingertips spreading from each other can like a bomb going off, but also into the back of the wrist and the sides of the wrist. So one of my favorite exercises is shown to me by Will Anglin down at Earth Treks in Golden, is just holding on to a chalk brush at the end, one of the really long ones, and lifting it off the ground and lowering it like you're doing a handshake, strengthening up those muscles on the on the inside of the wrist, and then flipping it over your shoulder as if you're throwing salt over your shoulder, and then doing the opposing action and trying to strengthen those up. So we're missing a bunch of those stabilizers. So I spend most of my time in the office teaching people about their injuries, and then really delving into how to unweight them. And so if we can strengthen up all the muscles and and change the loading on the tendons on the back of the hands, perhaps we'll have a bunch more structural stability, and that we'll have more strength out of the hands, but we'll have much less injury in our pulley. And the injuries that we keep having, some of the researchers are saying maybe that's happening, because we don't have this structural stability. So it's like you're driving a Jeep, I see a lot of crazy Jeeps on the road here driving way too fast. 

Kris Hampton  55:50

Haha yeah

Dr. Lisa Erikson  55:50

It looks like the sway bars are disconnected. I know they haven't upgraded the brakes, 

Kris Hampton  55:54

Right.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  55:54

And I just wonder about the stability, if they come into a car accident or a quick stop situation? Are they gonna have a bunch of body roll? Is it going to stop in a in a perfect position? Same thing with the hand, when you're pulling on the rock. Do we have enough hand strength, even into the palm of our hand at the big mound of the thumb and in all the muscles on the pinky side? Is that strong enough to keep our hand in a stable position as we're pulling really hard or does our hand is collapse into an uncontrolled, unstable, unhelpful position and is that causing us to have more pulley injuries as a populace? And we're doing more research on that but there's not there's not enough researchers. Bless their hearts. They're working really hard. But there's just not enough answers to the questions we have. And as we answer each question, we have a lot more questions, which makes it very exciting. I spent all day just wondering about things in my mind and hoping next time I go to see you to do more research, that answer will be there. Then it comes down to its research, so who knows if they were to redo the study, or have someone else redo the study if it would be the same. But hopefully it would be and it just comes back to if you notice something is working, keep with it. And if you notice that your self care technique is making it worse, have someone look at it. And if you notice that your taping job makes it feel better, makes it feel more stable, you're able to use that finger, you're able to use that shoulder better, your elbow hurts less, by all means keep doing it. And if it's something new that I haven't mentioned in my book, or that I haven't mentioned on this podcast, reach out and tell me about it so that I can share it with the populace or test it myself because I'm always learning new stuff. And that's exciting part of this is as learning and sharing info. Because of all the other sports that I've worked with runners, triathletes, tennis players, and cyclists, they knew all the self care stuff. And then when I started getting involved with climbing, I saw there was this very real hole of well, how do I prep for climbing? What's what's my injury prevention? Well I do hangboarding. What else you do? Well, I do rice bucket. That that's really cool, actually but that's it? There is nothing else you do? There's so much more we could do and it's important to add those in so we're well rounded. So not only can we climb and not get injured, but we can also get to the climb without getting injured and carry all the heavy stuff back and do it well into our 70s and 80s.

Kris Hampton  58:10

Yep, you're gonna climb harder, you're gonna be able to climb more and I think that's that's what we all want, ultimately, you know.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  58:17

Keep climbing after injuries versus just stopping. I've met too many people that stopped because they think this injury is them getting old and it's just they haven't done their self care. They're adding up. It's just like a car that you haven't changed the oil, you haven't aligned it. No wonder why it's squeaking and crying. Why would the body be any different and why do we expect it to be different?

Kris Hampton  58:35

And we spent so much time and money taking care of our vehicles, but then we don't do the same with our bodies, so. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  58:40

Yes. I'm sorry, body, I need to take better care of you. We all do.

Kris Hampton  58:45

 Well, I really appreciate your, your way of taking the research and then putting it in common sense terms so that we can understand it, you know, because I'm not a, I'm not a research oriented person at all. I have a really hard time reading it. I'll force myself to do it but it's a lot easier when there are people out there like you who are who can take it, put it into terms that we can all understand and actionable terms and hand it to us. So I really appreciate that.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  59:15

You're welcome. Maybe I'll highlight some stuff and mail it up to you and say hey, check this out. You should share this with the world. 

Kris Hampton  59:20

Yeah. Bring it up to me. We'll go climbing.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  59:22

I would love that. I'm looking forward to it. Labor Day. I'll be up.

Kris Hampton  59:26

Thanks for sitting down with me Lisa. I really, really appreciate it and where can where can people find you online or otherwise?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  59:32

Absolutely. I have a bunch of videos on YouTube. Dr. Lisa Erikson. My website is climbinginjuriessolved.com. I have all my videos, a bunch of self care, advice panels and tutorials and how to booklets and then my book Climbing Injuries Solved is at bunch of different places. REI just picked it up. I'm very excited. 

Kris Hampton  59:52

Awesome. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  59:53

And so yeah, you can also get it off of Amazon and my distributor is Wolverine Publishing.

Kris Hampton  59:59

Awesome. Very cool. And if they want to see you if they're in Colorado, if they're in the Boulder area and they want to see you, how do they go about that?

Dr. Lisa Erikson  1:00:06

 Yeah, they can even see me online. I have Skype options in my web. So if you click on my climbinginjuriessolved.com website, there's a link to my Boulder clinic and that clinic is called Lifesport Chiropractic. And if you just type in lifesportchiro.com, there's a link. And if you're abroad, or I've spoken with people in Brazil and in Canada, you can just do online Skype with me and send me your your films or send me your MRIs or you can just point to it and talk to me online. And I do all kinds of medical coaching as well. Or they can come in the office I'm honored. But I had a guy drive from Hueco. So if you drive all the way from Hueco, just Skype me first. Don't drive all the way. I'm honored but that's a long way to go. Yeah, a lot of this, a lot of these ideas I can teach you over the internet, you don't have to drive.

Kris Hampton  1:00:48

Cool. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And I know that people listening appreciate it, too.

Dr. Lisa Erikson  1:00:53

So it's been a pleasure. My goal is to educate as many as possible and learn some new things along the way.

Kris Hampton  1:00:57

Well, I hope I can help with that. 

Dr. Lisa Erikson  1:00:58

Yeah, we're all learning. Thanks for having me. 

Kris Hampton  1:01:04

You know, incidentally, enough. A few weeks before I went saw Lisa, I had slammed pretty hard at the skate park and I thought that I had broken my hand or broken my wrist...well I wondered if I had. I hoped that I hadn't, of course. But when I went to see Lisa, I had a brace on my wrist and she she wanted to take a look at it and just wanted to, you know, she was genuinely excited about getting to see what the injury was and, and she didn't think it was broken. And she gave me some acupuncture and manipulated the joint a little bit and when I left there, it felt much, much better. And more than anything, she gave me confidence that it was going to improve on its own and and now now it's great now back to climbing. And it's not 100% yet, but it's it's getting there. And I appreciate the way that she approach that situation, you know. She could have very well ignored it and I wouldn't thought twice. And like I mentioned before, if you want to hear Lisa's tips for how best to avoid finger injuries, you can do that by becoming a patron of the podcast. You get extra episodes, you get some other perks as well, for as little as $1 a month and you can do that at patreon.com/powercompanypodcast. Currently, we've got around 140 some patrons over there. And I appreciate you guys, you guys are the core of this thing. So thank you a ton. And like Lisa told you there you can and you should look her up, you can find her book at on Amazon. You can find it at REI. You can get it from her website climbinginjuriessolved.com. I will also have a link on The Power Company site on this blog post straight to the book. So you can go there and frankly, that will net us a little bit of money and won't cost you any more. We get a small percentage. And I appreciate that you guys do that. You can also reach out to her at her Boulder clinic for an E visit or a diagnostic ultrasound of your pulley or your finger. Or you know, she can offer all sorts of things. She's got a great human approach to this. You can find her at lifesportchiro.com. I'll also have links to that in the show notes on the website. So you guys should reach out to Lisa if you think you might have injured a finger. Please do. And you know one more time you guys thanks for those 100 reviews. I appreciate that hugely. That means a lot to me. And we've got a lot of things going on here. We hope to see you guys out in the upper Midwest this summer. We've got our climbing mindfulness journals are at the printer. You guys will be hearing more about those soon, so be on the lookout. This thing is just growing, thanks to you guys. You know where to find us. Powercompanyclimbing.com You can find us on the Facebooks. You can find us on the Instagrams. You can find us on that damned website Pinterest that's an addiction to so many people around this country and I don't even understand it but I'm glad that it is dammit. But you will not find us on the Twitters because we don't tweet. We scream like eagles.