Make or Break: Don't Let Climbing Injuries Dictate Your Success

Absolutely wonderful book. I'm in my forties and have accumulated a variety of injuries over 25 years of climbing; my fingers, elbows and now shoulders have all been hurt at one point or another. A year ago I had bad medial epicondylitis in my right elbow. It was so bad I couldn't climb. I was depressed. Then I found Dave's videos about eccentric exercises for elbow injuries and did them. Within two months I was climbing again and within six months I was back as strong as ever.I've developed a nagging shoulder pain over the last few months that I know I have to fix. I've been hurt enough to know that I can't ignore it. This book showed me how much I've been doing wrong - posture, underdeveloped opposing muscles, poor form - and I've been working on all of it. Like Dave says, rehab is dreadfully boring. But it works! I'm already seeing improvement and based on my experience with medial epicondylitis I expect full recovery.If you're a climber you're going to get injured. When you're young you can recover more quickly and your body can mask injuries a bit better but you're accumulating damage that will come to haunt you. When you're old like me all those injuries will come up and say, "Hi!" Get this book!

Great climbing book to purchase if you seek to prevent injury, or the knowledge to work through a current one. This book gives great detail on why just taking a few weeks off from an injury is not good enough. Fixing the route cause is more important. An example is golfers elbow. This is usually caused by locking off too much. By practicing and focusing on more dynamic moves, and incorporating stretches and eccentric lifts in this book; you can prevent reoccurrence. Taking time off will work until you start climbing again, at which time the issue will reoccur.

Comprehensive and sensible information for staying healthy in the sport of climbing -- or other sports for that matter.

This book was requested by two rock climbers and they love it. The content is very helpful, and they have referred to it frequently.

A brilliant book from the leading voice in leading a rationally approached lifestyle in climbing. Immediately implementable eminently sensible instructions for a more mindful climbing life. Deeply grateful for this book.

I have consulted this book several times so far. It is very long winded and could have used better editing, but ALAS! it it what it is. It has excellent information, some of which you may be able time find on the net, but other great info for what to do or diagnose some injuries (but is certainly NO replacement for a doctor.I wish it had more guidelines or tips for how to train smarter, but there is very little info on that.

Had high hopes for this book and it totally delivered. While not a comprehensive work on any single injury, this gives a great roadmap to physiology and outlines a careful, scientific approach to both injury prevention, diagnosis, and rehabilitation. With all of the "armchair science" floating around in the climbing world, this is a necessary and sobering alternative to the body of (mostly anecdotal) information extant both in the gym and on the web.Maybe the most valuable part of the book was how Macleod outlines the conflicts of interest & common miscommunications between the patient and doctor. I've always been hesitant to seek medical opinion for this reason (I don't want to just be told, "Rest it for another X months and RICE it"), but feel confident about countering the (often justified) assumptions that the doctor may have about me going in to the appointment.Get it. Totally worth the money.

My biggest complaint is the book binding. After about 5 minutes of reading, the book basically split in two halves. As far as the content, I've only read the chapter on elbows, but it seems like a thoughtful analysis of the subject and mostly aligns with advice from other sources. I would recommend this book to any climber as a starting point for addressing any climbing related injury.

This book is great. I have been climbing for about 4 years, but I've missed about 1 and a half years due to injury. I was getting tired of repeatedly injuring myself and thinking of packing it in. This book has changed all that, and completely reframed my thinking. The main focus of this book is on education about your body while you climb, and how to do it more safely to prevent injury. I climb way safer and better because of this book. No injuries since reading it, and it is well organised so you can dip in and out of it again and again. Vital reading if you plan to climb long term.

A must have for all climbers or any fitness fanatics who are prone to injuries

This is probably the best book that I have bought since taking up climbing a couple of years ago. Having been quite lucky only sustaining mild injuries I decided to buy this book to learn more about the body and how it works for climbing. It has helped me to adapt and diversify my training schedule to help improve my climbing whilst reducing the risk of injury! It is also great for learning to identify different injuries, when you should stop, slow down and what you should do to recover. I highly recommend this book!

There is an unbelievable wealth of information contained in this book. Useful both as an instructional tool for preventing and for diagnosing and rehabilitating injuries, and also as a reference guide for (seemingly) every climbing injury imaginable. Written clearly but intelligently; thoroughly researched and fully referenced. An empowering book that hands us as climbers the tools and knowledge to keep ourselves fit and climbing. This is honestly a gift; buy it, read it, share its insights with everyone you know

I bought this book for my daughter, who is a keen climber. She read the book cover to cover in a few days. My daughter said it was a great book that would not only help her to aviod injury as a climber, but would also help her in her work as a Red Cross Firstaider.