Mobility for Climbers and Surfers

What is mobility?

Mobility is access to range. Not just flexibility, but control in and out of the positions to fully own them. This looks different for different sports. Surfing requires a large amout of spinal mobility - extension for paddling prone, flexion for sitting on the board waiting between waves, and rotation for snappy turns. Rock climbing requires less spinal movement but more extreme and constantly varying positions of the shoulders and hips. 

Mobility Climbing Context

Climbing Mobility

In climbing, mobility can help to not only increase reaching distance and step height, but also to make climbing more efficient and to reduce injury. One common example is seen when flexibility of the lower body is improved and the result is that the hips can get closer into the wall and strain is reduced on fingers and shoulders. The pictures above demonstrate the extreme positions of climbing especially for the hips and shoulders and the importance of being able to move these joints to acheive the higher feet or awkward body position to appropriately transfer weight when moving from one hold to the next. 

Elite climbers have been found to have increased hip mobility compared to recreational climbers.1,3 This has been measured via tests like the sit and reach, stand and reach, straddle sit, and straddle stand. These tests measure hip joint range of motion as well as muscle length that might limit motion like the hamstrings.

Mobility Surfing Context

Surfing Mobility

Mobility is also key in a sport like surfing that requires a large amount of rotational control and frequent posture changes in and out of extreme body positions. Movement in surfing, like climbing is reliant on mobility of the shoulders, hips, spine, and ankles. Surfing requires an especially large amount of spinal mobility - rotation during turns as well as tolerance of prolonged cervical and thoracic extension during paddling. Because of this, studies have found that elite surfers have more thoracic mobility than non surfers.2 But what if a limitation is present in this range? There are ways to assess and improve it. 

Testing And Intervention

1. Have a starting point either from problem areas on a general whole body screen like SFMA or from experience in sport, maybe placing high heel hooks has always been challenging or paddling becomes painful for the shoulders after a while.

2. Perform local exams based on these problem areas to have a starting point. To document progress, consider taking a picture or using a level app on your phone for a numerical reading.

Climbing

• Slab and smearing: ankle wall test or dorsiflexion measurement

• High step: Hip flexion measurement, Draper wall test or tall box step up

• Drop knee: Thomas test, Elys test, and seated hip internal rotation measurement

• Hips in to wall and heel hooks: seated hip external rotation measurement

• Abduction for stemming: straddle test seated or standing

Surfing

• Paddling: thoracic extension/rotation test such as lumbar lock, cervical spine extension measurement, shoulder flexion measurement

• Pop up/take off: thoracic extension test such as lumbar lock, hip flexion measurement, ankle wall test or dorsiflexion measurement

• Turns/snaps: thoracic extension/rotation test such as lumbar lock, seated hip internal rotation measurement

• Compression and pigdog: hip flexion measurement, ankle wall test or dorsiflexion measurement

3. Choose a few interventions to work on the mobility issue you found. This may fit nicely into a warmup routine you already do prior to your respective sport.

*If you cannot find any joint range of motion deficits or muscle length restrictions, the range may be already accessible but it may be more an issue of motor control that requires training to get into and out of the position well. Skip to step 4.

Some intervention examples:

• Spine

  • Thoracic extension on foam roll

  • Worlds greatest stretch 

• Upper extremity muscle length

  • Foam roll vertical with pec stretch or wall pec stretch 

  • Lat pullover

• Lower extremity muscle length

  • Adductor stretch hip hinges

  • Cossacks

  • Couch stretch

• Ankle mobility

  • Knee over toe ankle rocks 

• Hip mobility

  • Deep squat hip opener

  • Pigeon 

  • Butterfly/frogger 

  • 90/90 shin boxes

4. Motor control exercises are about turning passive mobility into usable movement capacity.

A lot of people can be stretched into positions they cannot actually control. Surfers, climbers, and rotational athletes especially need the ability to actively access, stabilize, and produce force at end ranges, not just reach them. This requires not just flexibility, but joint awareness, active control, and coordination.

Some examples of motor control drills:

• Controlled Articulated Rotations (CARs)

• End range isometrics like Progressive Angular Isometric Loading (PAILs) and Regressive Angular Isometric Loading (RAILs)

• Closed chain joint articulation like scapular pullups or pushups

• Reactive stabilization drills like single leg balance work

References

1. Draga P, Ozimek M, Krawczyk M, et al. Importance and Diagnosis of Flexibility Preparation of Male Sport Climbers. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(7):2512. Published 2020 Apr 7. doi:10.3390/ijerph17072512

2. Furness J, Climstein M, Sheppard JM, Abbott A, Hing W. Clinical methods to quantify trunk mobility in an elite male surfing population. Phys Ther Sport. 2016;19:28-35. doi:10.1016/j.ptsp.2015.09.003

3. Grant S, Hynes V, Whittaker A, et al. Anthropometric, strength, endurance, and flexibility characteristics of elite and recreational climbers. J Sports Sci 1996;14:301–9.