Performance

Key Take Aways

✅ What is super interesting about these results is that todays female advanced and elite rec climbers (non professional) look very similar to the 1990s World Cup level competitors (Watts et al, 1993)

✅ In other words, in a matter of 25+ years, the sport has evolved so much that what you can find in any climbing gym across the world (female V7-9 climbers), have similar abilities to yesteryear’s very small and elite population of female World Cup climbers

Population

Advanced and elite female climbers

Summary
Climbing literature is very male-centric and youth-centric, meaning much of what we know about climbing is centered around males and youth. Sadly very little is known about the female climber

Earlier research published in 1993, 2000, and 2001 looked at female anthropometric data, but given the rise in popularity of the sport, increased numbers of climbing gyms, improved training methods, etc, it is very likely that female anthropometric data has changed

In other words, female climbers have evolved just like the sport, but to what extent?

A study in 2020 re-visited what characterizes a female climber in todays sport, at the advanced and elite rec climber level

The usual suspects made an appearance, finger strength and upper body power along with low % body fat differentiated advanced rec climbers (V4-6) from elite rec climbers (V7-9)

Advanced and Elite climbers had no differences in:

➡️Height
➡️Body mass
➡️BMI
➡️Forearm length
➡️Arm volume
➡️Front to wall span
➡️Ape index

In other words, none of these measures were able to differentiate a female from being an advanced climber from an elite climber

CItation

Giles D, Barnes K, Taylor N, Chidley C, Chidley J, Mitchell J, Torr O, Gibson-Smith E, Espana-Romero V. Anthropometry and performance characteristics of recreational advanced to elite female rock climbers. J. Sports Sci. 2020, 39, 48–56

Link

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32808569/