The Difficulty of Recovery How I'm Dealing with Recovery of a A3 Pulley Injury and How It Helps an Athletes Mentality Towards a Sport. By: Ben Smith Recovery is a hard time that all athletes must deal with at sometime in their career. About two weeks ago I ruptured my A3 pulley while working on a V5 climb with plenty of crimps. I'm not going to act like this was absolutely crazy to me, since I had already had a growth plate injury from a week prior. My fingers are weak and I know that. My coaches knew an injury like this was bound to happen soon and were already preparing a plan to help keep my fingers safe. I never gave them the chance to give me this plan because I just wanted to climb. I did a good warm-up like I always do. Its usually about 30 minutes consisting of 30 push-ups, 30 pull-ups, a good long passive mobility session, and finally finish up with about 10 mins of board training before I hop on the wall. Once I get out to ...