During the Climbing World Championship in Munich in 2005 a study was done with the objective to evaluate the injury risk associated with indoor rock climbing competition.
All injuries reported to medical personnel at the 2005 World Championships in Climbing were recorded and analyzed.

Four hundred forty-three climbers (273 men, 170 women) from 55 countries participated in 3 separate disciplines totaling 520 climbing days. Only 4 of 18 acute medical problems that were treated were significant injuries, resulting in an injury rate of 3.1 per 1000 hours.

Assuming 3.1 injuries per 1000 hours and 4 hours per day of climbing, this would translate to 12.4 injuries per 1000 days of exposure in competition climbing.

This is similar to the risk of many outdoor activities (eg, hiking, mountain biking, kayaking) but smaller than some competitive outdoor sports (eg, adventure racing has much higher injury rates).17,18.

In comparison with the German “standard sport activity”, soccer, a higher injury risk was found in male senior national soccer players in competition (30.3 per 1000 hours) and training (6.5 per 1000 hours).

Conclusions: Indoor rock climbing competition has a low injury risk and a very good safety profile.The full report can be found here

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