Jumping down safely from a bouldering wall was one of the first things I looked up when I started the sport. As an older climber, I was concerned about the risk of injury and wanted to know the best way to land when jumping down from a bouldering problem at the gym.
The best way to land when jumping down from a bouldering problem is to do what is called a soft fall. As soon as your feet make contact with the mat, allow your knees to bend, and then either push yourself backwards to roll onto your bottom and back, or allow yourself to fall on your side, hips first and then shoulders against the mat. The backward or sideways roll should absorb most of the force of impact.
In a gym environment, you will be falling on thick mats. It is easy to think that this is enough to prevent getting hurt, but even with mats, improper landings can result in immediate or long-term injury. There is a lot of downward force impacting the ankles, knees and spine. The damage will build up over time.
How to Land Safely When Jumping Down from a Bouldering Wall
Jumping down repeatedly will cause damage to the body, and it is good practice to avoid doing this. However, if a problem does not provide a down-climb route, you may have no option but to jump down when done.
Descend as far as you can before jumping. A good rule of thumb is to avoid jumping down from any higher than you can jump up.
When you do jump down, land flat-footed, feet shoulder-width apart, with knees slightly bent. As soon as your feet touch the mat, allow your knees to continue bending – to absorb some of the force – then keep on with the downward trend by collapsing. Either collapse onto your bottom and back, or loosely to your side, landing on your hips and shoulders, to absorb more of the force. Keep your chin tucked into your chest to help prevent whiplash. Resist breaking the fall with your arms.
The collapsing part is important. Unless you are jumping down from a very low height, don’t plan on staying on your feet. If you try to stay on your feet when you land, as your chest comes down you can smack your chin on your knees, risking a cut tongue or chipped teeth. Landing hard on your feet also increases the risk of ankle and knee injury.
Be careful to keep your head and spine from hitting against holds and other hard surfaces.
Any joint pain upon landing indicates an injury. Follow up with a therapist or health care provider for advice or treatment.
The Best Alternative to Jumping down from the Wall
As previously mentioned, repeatedly jumping down, even if using proper landing techniques, will eventually lead to joint damage. Tactics such as collapsing and rolling will absorb some of the force, but not all of it.
Down-climbing is the best alternative to jumping. If your problem is a difficult one and no down-climb route is provided, traverse over to an easier problem and work your way as far down as possible before jumping.
Apart from saving your joints, down-climbing comes with several benefits:
- It provides great practice for improving your footwork. Climbing down strengthens awareness of foot placement, and you will discover new ways to use footholds.
- Down-climbing improves endurance and doubles your time on the wall.
- It makes you better prepared for the unexpected, adding to your toolkit of emergency skills.
- Down-climbing uses different muscles than climbing up, providing a more thorough workout.
- It reduces the risk of jumping-down injuries such as a twisted ankle or a sprained wrist.
- Down-climbing is good preparation for transitioning to outdoor bouldering.
Is down-climbing new to you? Do some practice on easy VB or V0 problems during your pre-session warmup.
Some gyms have their boulder problems topping off at a second floor, so that you can just walk off. Nice.
What NOT to Do If You Fall from the Wall
Don’t break your fall with your arms, elbows or shoulders. These are very susceptible to strains, fractures and breaks, the type of injuries that take a long, frustrating time to heal. Using your arms to catch yourself is a reflex that takes a lot of practice to overcome. One way to control this reflex is to wrap your arms around your chest during the fall.
For the same reason, don’t try to grab at a handhold to stop yourself. Grabbing a handhold while falling is a good way to pull a muscle or wrench a shoulder.
Don’t have the arms and legs rigid and straight. When flexed, these joints are in a better position to absorb impact.
Don’t tense up. Falling loose and easy, like children do, minimizes the risk of injury. Peter Beal, in his book Bouldering, has two suggestions for those unexpected falls that set you up for a bad landing. One option is to let yourself go loose and limp; the other is to tuck into a ball. In both options, he advises to keep the body relaxed.
Don’t use your hands and wrists to adjust your position as you roll. Instead, use your elbows and forearms. Larger joints are a much better option than smaller joints in absorbing impact.
Like other skills used in bouldering, safe falling techniques should be learned and practiced. See if your bouldering gym offers classes on this. Follow up with regular practice. Start with very low heights.
What Is the Highest One Can Jump Without Getting Hurt?
Up to a point, a lot depends on how well you are trained to redirect the forces of impact. However, there are heights that should never be attempted, and there are heights that can be done but will cause damage to joints and cartilage over time.
You should never jump down from a highball problem. A highball problem is anything over 15 to 20 feet. Even with crash mats, the impact of a fall from this height can cause serious damage. Thanks to the acceleration of gravity, the longer the fall, the higher the velocity at impact, and the higher the velocity at impact, the greater the risk of catastrophic injury. Therefore, jumping from highball problems is a definite no-no even in well-padded gyms.
For jumps lower than highball but higher than 8 feet, to minimize the risk of injury, use the soft fall technique described previously: collapse onto your back or side as soon as you land. Stay loose, and spread the force of impact over larger body areas like the torso, hips or buttocks, rather than on small joints like ankles and wrists. You may be able to land without acute injury from these heights, but joint damage will be accumulating with every landing.
So what is the highest one can jump without getting hurt, either immediately or over time? To help prevent immediate, acute injuries, and to prevent future issues such as hip replacements and arthritis, limit your jumping down height to no higher than what you can jump up.
On a last note, always be mindful about the gym crash pads giving you a false sense of security. With a bad landing, it is more than possible to get hurt from any height on any surface. It is also very problematic if the landing area is cluttered with items such as chalk bags, shoes and water bottles (or people).
Also, gyms will select their mats for return on investment, that is to say, for longevity of the mat. This is not necessarily what is best for the client.
Related Questions
Is indoor bouldering dangerous? Most bouldering gyms have wall-to-wall mats in their climbing area, making indoor bouldering much safer than outdoor bouldering with its uneven, rocky landings and limited mat placement. However, the current bouldering gym trend is to make walls that are much too high for safety (1). To lower your risk of serious injury, select problems that offer the desired level of challenge without the excessive height. Height in itself offers no training benefit, so the extra risk is not warranted.
How common are injuries while indoor bouldering? The combined acute injury rate for traditional rope climbing and bouldering in a gym environment is 0.02 injuries per 1000 hours of sport performance (2). In comparison, crossfit has 3.1 injuries per 1000 hours of performance (3), and a rather demanding type of Yoga has 1.18 injuries per 1000 hours (4). In bouldering, injuries tend to happen when the climber falls onto the mat (2). These injuries tend to be sprains and dislocations. Another study backs this claim, stating that the most common injuries in indoor bouldering are fall-related (5). Two strategies found to decrease injury were taping the wrists prior to bouldering, and regular weight training (6).
References
- http://www.theboulderingbook.com/2015/03/bouldering-and-its-physical-impacts.html
- https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(13)00087-2/fulltext#s0100
- https://www.strengthandconditioningresearch.com/2014/07/08/injury-strength-sports/
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268395277_A_Survey_of_Musculoskeletal_Injury_among_Ashtanga_Vinyasa_Yoga_Practitioners
- https://www.thebmc.co.uk/experts-release-climbing-injury-stats
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26009554