Pole injury prevention
The five most common injuries — and the small habits that prevent them.
6 min read
Pole is not a dangerous sport but it is an asymmetric one. You climb on one side. You invert on one side. You compete and showcase only on your good side. Over time, that creates predictable patterns of injury. Most are preventable.
Here is what to watch for and how to dodge it.
1. Shoulder impingement
The most common pole injury, by miles. Caused by climbing and inverting with shrugged shoulders — the upper trap takes the load instead of the lat.
Prevention: shoulder mobility before every session (4 minutes is enough), pull your shoulders down and back before any climb, and never train tired. Tired shoulders shrug.
2. Pole-elbow (medial epicondylitis)
A grip-aid problem. Gripping too hard for too long irritates the inside of the elbow.
Prevention: grip with the right aid, take a full rest day, and if you feel it building, drop pole for a week and focus on conditioning instead.
3. Skin bruising (especially insteps)
Not an injury, but uncomfortable enough that beginners quit over it. Caused by climbing with the wrong foot placement.
Prevention: wear arch-covering socks for climbs in the first month, ice afterwards, and trust that it goes away around week four.
4. Wrist strain
Hand grips that bend the wrist backwards (twisted grip, cup grip) load the wrist in ways the wrist isn't always ready for.
Prevention: build wrist mobility at home (we like easy wrist circles before every session), strengthen the forearms, and learn each grip slowly with a senior instructor before going to load.
5. Hip pinch
Splits work and certain pose-based moves can pinch the hip joint.
Prevention: get a hip mobility flow into your warmup, never stretch cold, and if a stretch feels like pinching rather than lengthening, stop.
When to rest
A sharp pain that wasn't there before: rest. Pain that gets worse during the warm-up: rest. Pain that wakes you up in the night: rest and see a physio. Pole-specific physios exist in every major UK city.
The polers who train for a decade are the ones who took a week off when their shoulder grumbled. The ones who didn't are the ones with rotator cuff surgery. Cost-benefit on this is not close.
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