http://www.processphysiotherapy.co.uk/

Process Physiotherapy, Preston (2025)

01/10/2025

4 different hands - 1 hold.

What can you see?

What would that mean for these climbers and their injury risk?

Do they have an existing injury?

What’s normal?

What causes all these differences?

Guess which hand is mine 🙃

1 - top left
2 - top right
3 - bottom left
4 - bottom right

16/08/2025

This week I had the absolute pleasure of spending time at work with .They were a student (technically) until halfway through when their accreditation arrived 🥳

So they weren’t wanting to work with me for anything other than personal development. Note to potential employers that’s a VERY good sign. Give them a job, you will not regret it!

That’s been the same with all of them. Often waiting for a placement to finish before spending their holiday gaining different experiences. 👏

I’ve had 6 students come and visit this year. Climbing physio seems to have become quite popular. I think that’s cool. Let’s raise the bar together and extend our knowledge together👨‍🎓

They have all been brilliant. Inquisitive, interested, motivated, full of knowledge and ideas.

Understandably none of them think they are bringing anything to the table as they are still students, or newly qualified.

But they could not be more wrong. I learn so much from them because they are open minded and enquiring. They have a brain full of knowledge that I have forgotten and no biases (yet). They ask’Why?’

All the time……… 😆

But it’s great because they make me think why and justify my practice.

Antonia thought I was aspirational 😳 but she was just as aspirational to me with her knowledge, enthusiasm and a reminder of just how cool it is to have a job where you can genuinely positively affect lives. It can be easy to forget that sometimes.

Honest discussions about self-imposed pressures, work/life balance, career hopes, life choices. I’ve had so many conversations that have helped me reframe my practice and take a look at my choices too. They bring just as much to the table. They just don’t value what they have - yet.

It’s such a great thing to do. If you’ve been hesitant to do it as a physio I would really encourage you to give it a go.

Yes, everytime I do it I miscalculate how much admin time I’ll lose and end up brain tired. I had to have two ‘power naps’ at the crag yesterday 🙈 But it’s so so worth it for what we can give them, the field AND what they give us. And I don’t just mean chocolate and nice cards 😊

Thanks you will smash it!

05/06/2025

THE DANGER OF STOPPING

In March I took part in some research, at Lancaster University, into body composition, bone mass and health. It’s actually a bit more involved than that and looks like an excellent bit of research to further our knowledge about long term health.

What I got out of it was a DXA scan, full bloods and a carotid artery ultra sound. Essentially a pretty good insight into my current state of health and predicted future health.

The ability to discuss the numbers with a Dr of Physiology was also fantastic.

One thing it revealed (along with a ‘wonky’ spinous process in the 3rd pic and a slight scoliosis in the 1st pic) was that the femoral neck on my left side had significantly less bone density than the right. If the YA number is less than -1 it is suboptimal. Now this doesn’t mean my leg is going to fall off. Or that I will get osteoporosis. But I did wonder why?

In my early 20’s I got injured at work and had to have an ACL op on my left side.

I was very well looked after mostly. But I was told to stop fell/mountain running, as it would forever be too risky. I was more of a runner than a climber then and this was devastating news. I did stop running and felt that the leg was vulnerable and fragile.

Our supposition is that as the skeleton continues to add density up to your early 30’s being ‘off’ my left leg (which I was for about a decade) led to it having less bone density as it took less load.

This is the true physical cost of telling people to stop their activities when they don’t need to. Long term negative health impacts.

There’s also the mental health cost. I’ve had two patients cry in appointments this week as they were so worried they will not be able to continue being in the climbing community or achieving what they want to.

Rehab and knowledge is a LOT better than it was 25 yrs ago. But I still see a lot of patients who have been told by health professionals that the solution to their injury/pain is to stop.

Find someone who knows your activity and helps you adapt, not stop.

01/04/2025

I am really pleased, and proud, to have had my ‘Injury Prevention for Coaches and Instructors’ one day workshop accepted by as part of their CPD programme.

Nothing halts progress quicker than an injury.

Staying injury free is the key to progression.

This practical based course will weave injury prevention principles into your current way of working to improve the consistency, enjoyment and results for you and your clients.

Not major changes, not boring warming up exercises, but practical, relevant, adaptations to what you already do that are easy to apply to youth, adult and older climbers.

The aim is to build resilient, self-aware, intelligent athletes.

It’s going on a climbing wall tour around the UK this year.

There are more dates in the pipeline but if you would like one nearer you please get in touch.

You can find full details of what is covered by following the link in the bio.

I’d really appreciate this being shared/passed on 🙏🏼 help me get the message out there.

18/03/2025

Falling off boulders, and landing, is very much a skill.
Much more than we realise or give credit to.

It also requires strength 🦵, coordination 🤸‍♂️,and confidence 💁🏻‍♀️!

Falling through the air and landing well demands that your body does what it needs to do without you really thinking about it.

It’s scary, and it’s consequential. It’s not that hard to land badly or awkwardly and cause an injury.

🤔 And yet.....we rarely practise boulder falls in an intentional way. We don’t often talk about it as a skill, build up progressively, or consider making our bodies stronger and more robust for landing.
physio and I have teamed up to provide a one of a kind workshop, dedicated to bouldering falls!
We’ll look at landing technique for controlled and uncontrolled falls, how to build confidence, reduce injury risk, and build strong and robust bodies.

This workshop will be suitable for a whole range of climbers, whether you are at the lower or upper grade range, climb more indoors or outdoors, or have been climbing for 1 year or 10+ years.

Join me and Andy McVitie on Sunday 6th April
Boulder UK, Preston
£65pp

11/02/2025

I was very fortunate to be asked along to the .manchester event last week just before the BLCC’s.

It’s amazing to see what and (and others of course) have made here. Something really special.

We got told to expect it to be BIG but we were still knocked back by just how big it is. I know the clue is in the title but it really is BIG.

What was best about it was seeing so many people I knew. For me climbing is really about community and the shared experiences. It was brilliant to catch up with the Manchester crowd, many I’ve not seen for years and many others from the climbing industry. It was like a who’s who of climbing.

I also had two really nice unexpected catch ups. The kind of ones where you wonder why it’s been so long since you last saw them as they’re such nice people.

It was really nice to finally meet from . We’ve exchanged messages a couple of times and I really respect what he’s achieved, his approach to training, climbing and his climbing style. He’s what I picture in my head when I’m trying to climb with good technique.

So obviously when he said hi I felt a bit overwhelmed and blathered on all about myself, as I was afraid of running out of things to say. Totally unnecessary, as it turns out he’s a really nice guy, so sorry for going on all about me Buster.

It’s amazing to see the journey climbing has been on during the 31 years I’ve been climbing. From dusty, dirty, small walls to centres like this. Amazing!

I only took a couple of photos and didn’t do half the climbing I expected to as I was so busy chatting and climbing. When I did climb it was well set and with amazing holds.

I did take a photo of one of the best cakes I’ve ever eaten (Biscoff Cookie Pie) and am really looking forward to seeing what Executive Chef cooks up at the centres. The food game has also improved massively over the years 🤤

Thanks for the invite and I’ll be back soon!

08/03/2024

First visit to Unit 34 today.

Lovely wall, nice angles, good hold selection, great setting with a variety of ‘strong’ problems and subtle body position based problems.

AND they’ve revealed plans for work in the main hall and the existing bouldering/training areas over Summer. There’s also training kit and gym equipment going in the unit.

We’re really very lucky to have these facilities 🙏🏼

04/03/2024

I’ve been meaning to post about this for ages - the pic is from September ‘23. Pockets 🕳️ and lumbricals 🪱

The excellent podcast with gave me the poke I needed to type it up.

Amongst the vast amount of helpful and interesting info they chatted about (all climbers need to listen to it) were the lumbrical 🪱 muscles and why we see so many of them getting injured now.

I saw three in one day last week 😮

I agree with Huffy, it’s the change we’re seeing in setting style and hold types and the internal muscles of the hands not yet being robust enough to deal with these new demands.

BUT it’s also what we see in this picture 👀

A problem made entirely of open pockets with small, slippy, dual tex, feet. It’s a lot for our weak 🪱 muscles to deal with in one go. Especially if you have a foot pop.

This is NOT a criticism of setters. Some people may recognise the wall in the pic. I love the setting at this place. Setters everywhere do tend to set entire problems with pockets.

It’s the job of setters to provide us with a variety of physical and mental challenges, which can hit our weaknesses, or play to our strengths.

It’s our job to decide if we’re up to the task of climbing them. If pockets are a weakness then maybe come back when you’ve built robust pocket strength and technique.

When I saw this I went and warmed up on some pockets. I had warmed up really well off the wall. I fully recruited my fingers. I’d done quite a few problems by then. But I hadn’t used any pockets. Using my hands in this way would be totally different to what I’d been doing. Prime injury territory.

If you come across a hold type you’ve not warmed up on (or a heel hook) go and spend 5 minutes recruiting. You’ll reduce your injury risk and increase your chances of success.

It’s a win win for intra session recruitment 🥇

Now if only there was some sort of finger training product that targeted the internal muscles of the hand 🤔

03/03/2024

Had an absolute blast today

Running the unlevel edge gender neutral finger strength competition.

So great to see all the psyched climbers and to spend the day with and

Pics are of the crowd for finals, the finalists out for presentation and a close up of that described as the WTF! Boulder. There’s always a surprise at Plywood Masters 😆

It looks like it’s going to be an amazing finale. If you can’t be here get on the live stream with the amazing scans from

20/02/2024

I had a great time at .ww this weekend.
A really well organised and executed comp.
Well done .gpayne 👏

Congrats to everyone who took part. There was a whole lot of try hard going on 💪🏻

I gave some prizes and raised some money for by getting a £1 donation to test your finger strength on the unlevel edge. It was super busy and great to get such good feedback on how it feels to use.

A new overhead record was set with pulling over 100kgs 😮

The best bit about the day for me was seeing the now adults I have known for over a decade and, in some cases used to coach, still climbing, competing, coaching themselves and organising national competitions 🤩

There’s nothing better than helping to make climbers for life 😊
gpayne

📸 pic 1 from the multi talented - strong and can take a good photo. I’ve heard he’s pretty good at maths too!

10/02/2024

I'll be at Eden Rock Carlisle on the 24th of February for a day of testing and profiling.

The quickest way to lose gains is to get injured. Injury prevention is performance enhancing, if you get the right information and know what is right to do for you as an individual.

If you want to know you're robust enough for a challenge you have planned, what you should devote your limited time to working on, or have recurring niggles/injuries that you'd like to sort out once and for all, then the Upper Body MOT is for you.

If you'd like to know your physical strengths and weaknesses, in relation to climbing performance, then the Performance Testing will fit nicely.

There is also the option to combine the two at a discount.

For each of these the results will be individualised and put into context for you using my unique combination of Physiotherapy and coaching knowledge and a written report provided with guidance and advice.

Click here for more info: https://www.processphysiotherapy.co.uk/general-7

Or here to book: https://www.processphysiotherapy.co.uk/services

Just select 24/02/24.

19/01/2024

Random post alert!

When we were on the way home from our trip I realised the 3 bags (which felt quite heavy) actually weighed less than me.

Then I thought how cool is it that we can hang all that weight from the fingers of one hand.

This isn’t a post about yielding/overcoming/isometric/eccentric stuff. It’s just about how amazing and adaptable our bodies are.

I can hop all that weight repeatedly on one leg, jump high, fall from up high etc etc etc.

Your body is amazing! Look after it. Don’t ask it to do too much, too soon. Don’t surprise it with rapid changes. If it’s complaining at you, listen. It’s the only one you’ve got.

Process Physiotherapy

01/10/2025

16/08/2025

05/06/2025

01/04/2025

18/03/2025

11/02/2025

08/03/2024

04/03/2024

03/03/2024

20/02/2024

10/02/2024

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