Performance
Key Differentiators between Top and Bottom Ranked International Climbers (Augste et al, 2021)
Key Take Aways
Male climbers Take Away Message:
✅ Slab climbing, although not a significant portion of World Cup events for men, was a differentiator between top and bottom ranked male climbers.
✅ Training on slab and improving on slab could make the difference from making a cut to the semifinals or finals for male climbers
Female climbers Take Away Message:
✅ Top ranked female climbers differentiated themselves by being more successful at routes that required more finger and arm strength
✅ Training for female climbers should be directed towards improving finger and arm strength. Tackling those overhang routes or roof routes may be the difference in making a cut to the semifinals or finals for female climbers
Population
Elite International Climbers
Summary
The Augste study (2021) also compared higher ranked climbers (1-20) to lower ranked climbers (20+)
When doing so, we can see the differences in how successful a higher ranked climber vs a lower ranked climber is with regards to the same boulder problem set
👉Male climbers differentiators:
There were less slab problems set for males (5%) compared to females (9%) but females were more successful at slab problems than their male counterparts.
Higher ranked male climbers were significantly better at slab than lower ranked climbers. While this seems consistent with rankings, it gives us insight as to why higher ranked climbers got to be higher ranked
👉Female climbers differentiators:
Top ranked female climbers were more successful at dyno, volume, and crimp routes than bottom ranked climbers
Top ranked and bottom ranked female climbers were equally successful on slab
This indicates that key differentiators between top and bottom ranked climbers for females were finger and arm strength
CItation
Augste, C., Sponar, P., and Winkler, M. (2021). Athletes' performance in different boulder types at international bouldering competitions. Int. J. Perform. Anal. Sport. 21, 409–420
Link
https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/92521/file/92521.pdf