During a typical evening bouldering session at any climbing gym in the country one will find many people sitting on the ground around a boulder while a climber attempts to throw themselves up their latest plastic project. Many climbers find this scene absolutely irresponsible and reckless; people should be spotting each other when bouldering! Well, in modern gyms it seems they shouldn’t.

The Climbing Wall Association has put out an excellent article on the effectiveness of spotting within bouldering areas. They conclude that in facilities that offer sufficient padding, spotting is unnecessary and can actually hamper the effectiveness of the padding leading to more injuries than would otherwise occur.

In order to examine spotting in its proper context, we must first understand its purpose. When asked, our industry experts unanimously defined spotting as a means to protect a climber’s head and neck from impact with the ground/floor. “Spotting is for the purpose of protecting the head and neck area. In 25 years of operating climbing gyms I have never seen a head injury in a gym while bouldering. For the life of me I cannot figure out why you would need to spot anyone with 12 inches of foam as the landing surface. Spotting will never eliminate broken ankles and wrists. It is not designed for that,” said Rich Johnston of Vertical World in Seattle.

Utilizing this definition and context, we can infer that spotting in an indoor bouldering environment is not primarily intended to prevent ankle and wrist injury (two of the most common indoor bouldering injuries).

With the exception of specific circumstances, systematically spotting boulderers is not recommended in facilities properly equipped with new generation bouldering flooring systems that offer bouldering gymnastic falling technique orientation and instruction for the following reasons:

1. Bouldering onlookers crowded in close proximity to a climberʼs landing zone may cause pinning resulting in deactivation of the flooring systemʼs ability to properly absorb the impact force of a falling climber.
2. The presence of a spotter introduces the possibility of a collision with a hard foreign object, which is one of the leading causes of injuries in bouldering areas.
3. Spotters who are not properly trained (similarly to gymnastics coaches & martial arts instructors) may potentially cause more harm than protection to a falling boulderer. From Climbing Bouldering Techniques (excerpted from The Art of Falling – bouldering orientation video).

Though its primary purpose is to mitigate head, neck, and spinal injury (which are less likely in an indoor setting), there are some instances where spotting may be appropriate for alternate purposes. Timy Fairfield of Futurist Flooring Systems says, “It is advisable that specific circumstances requiring spotting should be considered before attempting every boulder problem to determine if having a spotter is preferable. Bouldering participants should identify potentially dangerous moves that could result in joint locking, over rotation or inversion in the event of a fall before spotting or attempting a boulder problem. Potentially dangerous moves that could result in joint locking, overrotation and possible inversion of the climber in the event of a fall include:

1. Horizontal Roof Climbing
2. Overhead foot placements
3. High heel hooks/heel hooks on in-cut holds
4. Foot cams/toe cams between 2 holds”

“In most climbing gyms, there is not a spotting program that goes far enough in teaching how to spot a climber adequately. There are only a few situations in a bouldering area, such as a steep cave that is low to the ground, where someone can safely spot someone. Once a climber is higher on wall, it’s safer for the spotter to stay out of the way, unless they are very skilled at spotting. It’s a lot more than just catching someone coming off the wall. It’s a matter of redirecting them to land on a safe part of the body” said, Mike Palmer of Cascade Specialty.

Possible topics covered in a spotting orientation may include, but are not limited to climber preference for a spotter, flooring type, fall zones, technique, awareness of the climber, awareness of difficult moves on the boulder problem, height of climber, and pitch of the route. Proper orientations should leave the climber with knowledge of why to spot, when to spot, and how to spot properly. If orientations do not achieve this, the opportunities for injury may be larger than if the orientation were omitted altogether. Most gym managers will weigh the facility design, flooring, time/staff commitments, efficiency, customer perception, and implications when considering the implementation of a spotting orientation. While the omission of orientation can be permissible for spotting, it does not apply in top rope or lead climbing scenarios. In our experience, the many considerations involved in spotting orientations implementation frequently result in their omission based on the risks versus the benefits. Even when spotting is used in the correct context, there are many effects to consider. Can the climber’s momentum injure the prospective spotter, adding to facility liability?

Aaron Stevens from Climb Iowa weighs in: “In an indoor climbing facility, I think it is FAR more important to talk about how to fall properly than how to spot. People don’t really spot even when you take the time to tell them about it. Most bouldering accidents can be reduced from a falling demonstration rather than a spotting demonstration. In my opinion, by teaching and telling people about spotting you are increasing the likelihood that someone will get injured. By teaching proper falling techniques, you are decreasing that risk.”

Alternatives If you choose not to introduce spotting to new climbers, then what should be implemented in its place, if anything? The near unanimous recommendation from our panel is to introduce proper falling technique.

Mike Palmer of Cascade Specialty advocates for mandatory falling education for new climbers: “On the practice of an orientation in the bouldering area, I think it should include falling instruction. This will also reduce injuries, and hopefully shield gyms from some liability. I also think spotting is very overrated. There are very few people qualified to spot properly. Letting a novice spot someone is dangerous to the climber and the spotter. The effort would be better spent on falling education. Why not require it like a belay test?”

The CWA concludes:
Per our industry experts, the practice of spotting in indoor bouldering areas should be reserved for special cases in which spotting may be favored over climber ground falls. Given the brief nature of most facility orientations, it could be inferred that these special cases may not fall into the scope of mandatory orientations. This leads us to two possible methods of addressing this topic:

1. Implement a robust spotting orientation that addresses all of the purposes, considerations, and special cases involved in spotting.
2. Omit spotting orientations from facilities on the grounds that spotting may not be necessary except under special circumstances.

When implementing any new process, the CWA encourages gym owners to understand the purpose, commitments, and implications of such processes. If implementing a spotting program, facilities should ensure that the orientation meets its intended purpose: minimizing injury and facility liability.

If omitting spotting orientations, facilities could choose to include bouldering orientation language covering falling technique. This was the most popular recommendation from industry experts for the purposes of minimizing liability (not adding a second person to a potential fall situation) and addressing the most common types of indoor bouldering injuries (ankle and wrist).

Read the full article at the Climbing Wall Association.

Originally posted at Athletic Business Journal

Research suggests that an estimated 9 million people enjoy some form of rock climbing each year. As a result of the increased number, researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Research Institute at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital conducted a study specific to the sport and its injuries. The study found that there was a 63 percent increase in the number of patients seen in the nation’s emergency rooms between 1990 and 2007. That translates to an estimated 40,282 individuals between the ages of 2 and 74 were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for climbing-related injuries.

They found that ankle and foot fractures, sprains and strains were among the most common types of climbing-related injuries, and the majority of them resulted from falls of 20 feet or more. Although this particular study did not include injuries that occurred to participants while mountain climbing or hiking, results did extend beyond the scope of fitness and recreation facilities to include walls at child-care centers, schools, amusement parks, campgrounds and other locations.

Climbing injuries are a given, says Bill Zimmerman, executive director of the Boulder, Colo.-based Climbing Wall Association, and they’re most often the result of “pilot error” — an individual making a mistake. Significant differences exist between indoor and outdoor climbing environments and their levels of risk, but indoor facility owners still can “control what they can control,” Zimmerman adds, through practical risk-management procedures such as employee orientation, instruction and assessment. “What’s incumbent upon you, as an operator of a climbing wall, is to make sure that your staff is trained and experienced in climbing techniques and procedures — and that your employees stay up to date with those techniques and procedures,” he says. “Somebody will spend $1 million on a climbing wall and won’t spend $10,000 or $20,000 on training and development for their staff. That’s my frustration with this whole business.”

All major full-service climbing wall manufacturers provide training for facility employees, as do most local climbing gyms, Zimmerman says. If budgets are tight, managers should consider sending only one employee to a training session, and that individual then can educate other staff members.

As climbing continues its ascent among recreation activities — nearly five million people climbed indoors in 2008, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association — staff and user education will take on even greater importance. “Initially, rock climbing was a sport for risk takers and adrenaline junkies, and now it’s much more mainstream,” says Lara McKenzie, senior author of the injury study, which was published in the September online issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “So the demographics have shifted, and recreational climbers may be younger and more inexperienced.”

Zimmerman suggests that greater oversight of a climbing structure is especially necessary in facilities such as health clubs, YMCAs, and college and municipal recreation centers — places in which climbing is “incidental” to other operations. “Who knows what kind of resources are allocated to that big climbing wall in the lobby?” he asks. “Who knows if there is a full-time staff member responsible for it?”

While not de-emphasizing the importance of the latest injury study, Zimmerman remains skeptical of research that paints climbing with a broad brush. “The fact of the matter is that climbing is pretty innocuous, and generalizations made about climbing are going to be somewhat specious,” he says.

“This kind of study is a good surveillance tool,” McKenzie maintains. “It lets us know what types of injuries are occurring, who is being hurt and what they were doing when they got hurt. And it gives us a nice jumping off point to open up the discussion. Now that we’ve identified the types of injuries, we might be able to look more closely at what we can do to prevent them.”