Julia Šmigelskis is a Cape Town-based physiotherapist who is specialising in preventing, managing and treating climbing injuries. She is currently busy with her Masters degree at UCT, studying Exercise and Sport Physiotherapy.
Julia is conducting a web-based survey study to gain insight into South African-based climbers’ hand and finger injuries and fingerboard training, especially before, during and after the Covid-19 lockdown period.
Climbing is a fast growing sport in South Africa and as more people climb, we also see a rise in climbing-related injuries. Injury prevention requires a few steps in research before we know that it works. We need to know who gets injured and why they get injured. We also need to introduce possible interventions that could help prevent these injuries in future.
Julia chose to study finger and hand injuries in South African climbers and at the same time look into climbers’ fingerboard training habits. This will build a solid foundation, so future researchers can find out if fingerboard training can be used as an injury prevention tool. We see some claims to this effect online, but to date have no research to back that up.
If you want to take part in this study, you can click on the link below, any climber over the age of 18, who lived in South Africa between the 25th January and 25th July 2020 qualifies. It is NOT a requirement to train with a fingerboard or have an injury to report on.
You will be asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire about your climbing history, injury history in the last year and training routine. It should take you 5-30 minutes of your time, depending on how many questions are relevant to you. All data will be kept anonymous and confidential, there is no risk in partaking in this study and you can change your mind at any time before you submit your answers.
Please contact Julia Šmigelskis if you have any questions!
082 858 4060 or contact@jworfel.co.za
