UKC

http://latticetraining.com/2017/08/10/height-in-climbing/

Dubious graph again there from Lattice.

"In short, the taller you are the less strong and fit you need to be!"

What do you think? Is there truth in it or is it complete BS? What difficulties do short climbers have that tall people have less of, and vice versa. Based on my height I conclude that this study is indeed correct...

Pinch of salt here people. Discuss.

tall people weigh more, so need to be stronger!

Obviously short climbers have fewer handhold options to choose from, but equally they can often bunch up more to use different footholds.

Shorter climbers possibly have an advantage on many groove and chimney routes, however on slabs I’d say being taller is generally an advantage, although of course there are plenty of exceptions.

However with the range of skills in climbing being so diverse physical make up probably has far less of an effect than in most other sports, with greater scope for mental attributes to overpower physical shortcomings.

Sorry, that's over my head.

T. (6'4")

The upshot is that taller climbers have more foot options.

Though when I see taller climbers trying to keep high feet on the steep or have no choice but to crimp hard on a tiny edge, I do wince a little. All that weight on anatomy that is sized relatively closely regardless of height must amount to quite a difference in stresses. 

I wonder if there's a pattern to the style of routes short/tall climbers tend towards. Or if anyone has noticed a significantly higher percentage of taller/shorter climbers completing particular routes. Not that it's of any use to the individual climber, but interesting nonetheless...

I haven't read the article yet and will do, but from my own experience, being 6'4, I find I have to put in a lot of effort to maintain the strength needed to overcome the extra weight (12.5 stone during a good phase) associated with my height. Also, being tall, with long legs, I have always struggled with steeper routes and roof / overhang climbing. Fortunately, I'm very stubborn, bloody minded, pedantic and have worked very hard to get reasonably good at steeper climbing, e.g The Promenade at Swanage.

Regarding the Lattice board I don't understand the logic behind the assessments and analysis. I had an assessment about a year ago just after a trip to the Gorge du Loup in France where I onsighted a number of 7a+'s  and 7b's and redpointed numerous 7c's and a 7c+ in a week, one of my best trips ever. That part of France is not known for soft grades.

The lattice assessment outcome was that I should be onsighting 6c ish and redpointing 7a ish. Apparently there is a lot of data from many climbers who have done the assessment and from my strength / endurance analysis, that is the grades it suggests. However, it could be that a lot of climbers taking the assessment are much stronger than the grades they are climbing and perhaps not realising their potential and could be underperforming on actual routes.

Edit: Have read the article now and think that it is a bit dubious. Again, from my own experience, I don't agree with it. But hey, statistics never lie do they?

That's interesting. I'm assuming that resulted in highlighting areas that most benefited your climbing improvement? Of course that becomes more catered to your personal strengths and weaknesses which may or may not be related to your physiology.

I guess the most useful thing about these statistics and studies is that it places a benchmark and expectation of strengths and weaknesses to base their initial coaching focuses on. Or a metric to suggest where your strengths/weaknesses may be compared to other climbers with different strengths/weaknesses climbing the same grade, ultimately allowing you to become a better all rounded climber.

I am incorrect in thinking that as a taller climber, the fact your scores on the lattice assessment predict grades a lot lower than your actual ability, support the data presented in the article?

!As you can see there’s a clear negative correlation here!

A very very weak negative correlation - one that is so weak the main conclusion should be "we can't draw any conclusions from this"

I think removing one very short outlier and one very taller outlier gives you a better picture - SFA

It’s a bit of an odd graph. 

Once you have pre selected very good climbers of equal standard, you find that the short ones can do more moves than the tall ones. This seems totally intuitive. Even us tall guys acknowledge our reach advantage, and tall climbers will need fewer moves on many routes. 

The question is, is it harder for tall climbers to reach 8a, because it’s harder for them to get similar strength to weight ratio. The fact that only 3 of the 26 climbers sampled were over 6 foot tall suggests that maybe it is. 

One other point, I think very tall, or very small, climbers have far more grade variation depending on route than average sized climbers, so may be easier to tick one 8a, while still failing on 7bs

A pretty dubious and forced interpretation. Notice, at slightly under 6ft, there's a huge variation in "strength", and only counting in three supposedly "weak" people over 185cm (just under 6ft 1) versus three relatively "strong" people over 170cm provides any sort of correlation. A lot of hype for this lattice board, but "research" like this is unlikely to convince many... 
 

I like climbing. I don't like research. 

To me that graph screams "Make the data fit the hypothesis". I can appreciate that it may be hard to get a good sized sample of 8a climbers and to be honest it wouldn't shock me if there was a relationship there but that is pretty weak.

If we are making assumptions on small samples I'd wager that if you balance it all out taller climbers may fair worse in tests relying on fitness but probably don't do much worse of tests of finger power. (N=Me)

correlation (even weak) doesn't mean causation.

Exactly - it could simply be that lattice boarding is harder for the very tall (hard to use straight arms)? 

It's a bit difficult to measure climbing prowess with such reductive mono-dimensional tests.

Anyway the freakishly tall don't need to pull as many moves as the short of statue to get to the top. Maybe they should plot moves*height (as a measure of distance travelled) and maybe things would make more sense? (I've patented this idea so hands off!)...

Also the total range of height on there is less than 4", now I suspect that you could probably find more than 4" of variation in lots of anatomical measurements (no sniggering at the back). 

Check again - nearer 11" than 4"

I am reminded of Dave McLeod's phrase:

The lucky short ones

Is the lattice thing the same for climbers of different sizes (ie. Is it adjustable to be scaled up or down for climbers of different heights or are short climbers doing the moves more stretched out and tall climbers more bunched up)?

And that graph looks like it only gives very weak evidence for anything.

Assuming the data is unbiased and the test is fair, the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient is -0.50 which gives a p value of 0.044 for a one-tailed test. This suggests some significance for the results if the test is fair/useful (which, I agree with others, is not very likely).

Assuming* we mean stronger relarive to weight, then it ties up with my experience. Taller partners that I can hang on smaller holds than, do more chin ups then, do more stretched out moves then, and (I think) have better technique than, climb about as hard as me. (*The study does no. of  moves so does assume this. For endurance rather than strength/power.)

It also just makes sense - the further apart you move the holds the stronger you need to be able to do the move. (Obviously some moves bunch you up and so suit shorter people, but that's far less common than a move just being a bit easier because its closer.)

All that said, shorter climbers are more likely to be (genetically) stronger relative to their weight.

It tallies up with theory and experience. I think they're fine drawing provisional conclusions while they wait on more data. It would be misguided to suggest it tells them nothing, as you suggest.

If you eliminate the outliers you get a correlation of ~ -0.3 which is pretty weak.  I think I'd be more cautious than, "clear negative correlation", when putting this in the public domain myself, especially considering the inherent bias of the test.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of the correlation but even without that it seems like it would make total sense.

If you take two climbers with exactly the same strength to weight ratio (eg. they can both do the same number of pull ups on a 20mm edge), but they're different heights I think the taller one could climb harder - at least most of the time. Essentially they'd have a bigger choice of options when doing moves. They'd be able to reach past moves the shorter climber could not. Of course occasionally there are bunched moves that are harder for the tall but I think they're less common than the general advantage of reach.

So if you wanted the two climbers to climb the same grade without changing their heights then you'd have to lower the strength to weight ratio of the taller climber a tad.

Of course these are only two factors (strength and height) and in climbing there are many, many other factors that come into play. So it's no surprise the data is all over the place.

In the real world the best climbers tend to be fairly short. But it's not their height that gives them an advantage. It's the fact that shorter people tend to have better strength to weight ratios than taller people and this generally trumps reach most of the time.

That has been updated a smidgeon! 

But surely the point is that shorter climbers should have a better power to weight ratio.

Yet another awful use of statistical methods by the Lattice team. Seriously, guys, please stop this nonsense.

Is that tall climbers with long heavy legs and short weak arms or tall climbers with great long strong arms and spindly little legs?

Hilarious

I don't have a problem with speculation on 'what makes a harder climber' but we are apt to forget that ... a harder climber is not necessarily a better climber, or a happier one

Its like looking from afar at the lives of the rich; money would always be useful - we say, but there are many other elements which add up to a 'rich' and rewarding life experience, in or out of climbing

It's not adjustable as such but it's kind of designed so you can choose whatever length of move suits you - it's like lots of joined together "X"s and you can grip anywhere on each X, so a shorter climber might grip near the top right of a given X and a taller one grips somewhere on the bottom left of X that's one up and to the right.

See the guys taking his assessment here  youtube.com/watch?v=BYQ2obENqtg& (note: example of one of the trainer's climbing at the start, he grips in the centre of the Xs, if you did this your height may affect whethe stretched out or bunched up, but you don't have too)

I think given that it lines up with common sense/theory and their experience as coaches it's reasonable to cite it as evidence in support of claim that shorter climbers are typically stronger/fitter (relative to weight) than tallers climers (at the same grade).

As others have said, it's easier to be strong for your weight if you're short, and some moves are easier for shorter climbers.

ps are you the very tall chap who climbs at Ratho?

If so, it would be really interesting to see how you measure up against your climbing partners (of similar grade) in terms of basic strength/fitness type tests. Chin ups, hanging on small edges, core stuff etc

This is an interesting analysis of the top 1000 sport climbers at 8a.nu, according to height: https://acrophobiawars.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/does-size-matter-in-climbin...

Good climbers are shorter than the average.

Fun graphs.

I think it should be mentioned that the graphs shown by Lattice are likely not a proper graphical representation of the whole sample range as they mentioned they had access to 8nu statistics as well which equates to a much wider sample range. Though perhaps it doesn't really make a difference and not logical to make a correlation on such a wide spread of results from climbers under the same parameters...

correction

Hard climbers are shorter than the average

Not sure about that. It must depend on feet as well. If the board went on indefinitely then, if the same footholds are used, the average length of the moves will be the same for everyone and tall climbers will be more bunched up and short ones more stretched out.

But the two words are effectively interchangeable; good climbers are the ones who can climb hard.

Disagree. Plenty of red pointers around who are no good onsight.

As a shorter climber I need more strength and stamina as I'm often doing more moves than my taller climbing partners. 

Yes.

I am naturally weak compared with partners who climb similar grades, but I seem to have naturally better endurance. I assume this is to do with the fast/slow twitch muscle thing. 

Height it obviously an advantage on specific moves but clearly is not an overall advantage (otherwise the best climbers would generally be tall, but they're not).

It would be quite interesting to do this lattice test thing.

Eh? Good redpointers redpoint hard. Good onsighters onsight hard. 

I assert that good climbers exist at all grades.

By making good synonymous with hard you imply that good climbers only exist in the cat which climb above a certain grade. Would you care to inform us what this is ?

The better (more good) at climbing someone is, the harder (generally measured by higher/harder grades) they will climb. I would have thought this was obvious or pretty much a definition.

Thats quite a change of tack - and v acceptable; better and harder express relative values, good and hard are absolutes

I've absolutely no idea what you are trying to get at. You complained that I said that "good" and "hard" were synonymous in climbing, but don't have the same problem with "better" and "harder"?

Not to mention the weight of the chip on your shoulder........

I know, I often feel jealous of shorter climbers as they get so much more climbing in than me.

Sounds like a pointless philosophical musing irrelevant to the conversation. The whole point with Lattice and any statistical data for training is to facilitate you to be able to climb higher grades, or your current grades more efficiently. Hard and good are relative terms and thus irrelevant to a grade someone can climb surely?

So going back to the topic - I'm sure Lattice are already doing this, but the only real useful outcome of all these statistic is the ability to gauge isolated exercises that constitute the required skills of a climber at a certain grade and to assess an individual in comparison with other climbers of similar parameters - be that physiology, strength etc.

So for example, if I am climbing V8 boulders and have the ambition to climb V10 they would be able to compare me to other climbers of the same height that are actually climbing V10 and make a comparison of isolated exercises such as finger strength, stamina, maximum power and so on. I don't know the methods which they use to assess these criteria, but it probably wouldn't matter as to spacings of holds as you would never really use the data of a tall person's strengths to compare a short person's strengths - that would be a bit pointless. I see these just as a whimsical view of typical strengths and weaknesses that a given climber may have with a given physiology. Again, it may give trainers a basis in which to suspect weaknesses to focus on due to trends, but these are obviously reviewed through an assessment process.

As a shorter climber I need more strength and stamina as I'm often doing more moves than my taller climbing partners.

Without having a dig, I wonder how true that is:

- 2 climbers of equal mass should need to do the same amount of work to raise themselves a given distance. Now a taller climber may do fewer moves but covers the same distance; so the effort required should be similar assuming no shortage of holds. (I've never heard a short bricky whinge about lanky blokes having it easy on ladders).

- Where there is a limited choice of holds then reach gives you more options, but comes at a cost; longer limbs weigh more, offer worse leverage than short limbs and stand you further off the wall so it isn't a one way street. I suspect that the biggest advantage a tall climber has is the ability to spend more time operating in the easier to train middle ground of your range of motion. (I'd suspect doing 10 squats at 80% range of motion is easier than 8 at 100% for most people for instance). 

I suspect the relationship between strength /fitness and height is probably as influenced by the measurement system as the climber. 

On overhangs a tall person's hands and feet are going to be a greater horizontal distance from the climber's centre of mass. Therefore the moments created will be bigger. Being taller isn't going to gain you much more strength to compensate for this, so I would expect a biomechanical disadvantage on overhangs for a taller climber.

That assumes you're only moving up, what about routes and problems with a traverse. A shorter person would have to make more moves to reach the same point than a taller one would. More moves means more strength is required. And even in straight up problems, I'd need to get the majority of my mass higher to get the last hold. 

Poor analogy but... I'm clearly stronger than my 4 year old however he has to put in a load more effort to reach the top of the door frame than I do. 

I don't think it's that simple. If the climber is modelled as a rigid plank with the centre of mass at its midpoint and pivoting about the toes, then the force needed from the fingers will be half bodyweight however long the plank (simple moments). Short legs ( higher speed index) should help, but otherwise any advantage must come from the difficulty of maintaining rigidity, in other words core strength. Do smaller climbers have advantages with generating core strength?

That might just be the weakest correlation I've ever seen classified as some sort of evidence. What is the r-value? What happens to the r-value when you remove 1 or 2 outliers? Does it just end up being 0?!

Besides the very poor correlation, the list of variables not taken into account in this study is probably insane but off the top of my head some would include:

1) body weight.

3) ape index.

4) specialisation - some 8a climbers will be slab specialists, some roof specialists, some sloper specialists, crimp specialists, dyno specialists... And every one of these will have different advantages and disadvantages when it comes to moves on a specific board.

5) length of time since the climber last actually climbed 8a (are they in shape when they did this test?).

6) psychology - according to the article, the people supervising the test already believe taller participants will fail earlier and their body language and verbal language will certainly influence those doing the test. I.e. the study is in no way blind.

7) Not all 8a's are equal, some of the climbers will have climbed testpiece 8a to prove their mettle, some will have climbed Kalymnos 8a to massage their egos... that's a big difference in difficulty right there!

It's an interesting study but I'd have to say that I don't believe it proves anything as it stands.

If you are looking for a strong correlation, I think you would be more likely to find it by some kind of comparison between climber height and angle of wall that they can climb their hardest grades on.

It occurs to me that the tall outliers might have climbed a single 8a with a massive reach at the crux just to be able to say that they have ticked the grade. I'm pretty sure that, at 6'4.5", I could find such a tick for myself without really having to climb harder than 7c (and at your height probably about 7a .

As a very tall 'lanky' climber overall it's definitely in my favour overall, but it definitely has it's downsides. I was trying a couple of routes last night that had low delicate starts and I can barely start them. I can't keep my center of gravity low enough to stop myself just pinging off. Same happens with routes where you have to get quite bunched. You just stick out to far!

can't be much more pointless than the proposed investigation; the terms used in conjunction with the test subjects give strong implication that a good climber climbs 8a - what does that make everyone else ?

"Do smaller climbers have advantages with generating core strength?"

Yes, smaller leverage implies weaker muscles suffice. And because muscle strength depends on the muscle crosssection while the mass depends also on the muscle length, it is easier for shorter climbers to be light and have good body tension. This is why elite gymnastic athletes tend to be short.

And presumably better strength to weight ratio generally?

Makes perfect sense. Eric Horst and many others use well researched gymnastic training concepts and ideas many of which are transferable to climbing. This scientific approach to climbing training is very understudied, which is what is great about what Lattice are starting to do. I for one, am looking forward to how their methods and ideas develop.

I wonder whether smaller climbers (and women in particular) have an advantage because they have smaller hands (and feet) so that the holds are effectively bigger; if your hands are halved in size, a one joint hold will become two joints and a two finger pocket will become four fingers.

l worked out r=~0.55 and someone else reckoned r=~ 0.3 without a couple of outliers.

Yes. Short climbers are good at strength to weight ratio challenges like long overhanging routes. Tall climbers are good at not so overhanging routes where the weight is on the feet (and reachy moves can be done without having to do 1-arm front levers).

Depends on the hold type. edges and finger pockets vs slopers and big pinches.

And let's not get into crack-climbing

I seem to remember the dwarves from the Lord of the Rings being strong, particularly John Rhys Davies. ( He was also in Raiders of the Lost Ark but let's not get distracted from the proper topic)

I'm 6'7" and a smidgeon (7' wingspan) any suggestions for a good 6c/8a

Yeah I think it's cool the way they approach it.

Another thing I remember them finding out was that women tended to need less finger strength than men for a given grade. The reason was women tend to have better hip mobility than men so they can get more weight over their feet thus don't need to weight their fingers and arms as much.

Coud it be a less and easier moves for a given route thing? 

I can tell you've also heard the trainingbeta podcast :P

---

For other curious minds...here is a bit more of an in depth discussion with Tom Randall and Ollie Torr on their Lattice concepts and findings, very interesting and worth a listen.

https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/tom-ollie/?portfolioCats=72

I'm 6'4, my weight varies anywhere between 14 stone to 16 stone. It once reached 18 stone but that was  a one off when I was drinking heavily and eating Rubbish. I've always struggled to keep my weight down though.  When I was climbing most regurlarly, I found working out in the gym definately helped my climbing. I tend to bulk up easily from working out which pushed my weight up but the extra strength made up for it

This looks like a better bit of research:

http://rockandice.com/climbing-news/the-height-of-injustice-is-being-tall-a...

Interesting article though it's actually looking at a completely different question: whether height affects max performance. Lattice were saying shorter folk need to be stronger to climb the same grade as taller people.

Also the author seems to want to say that height makes no difference when the line for sport climbing is clearly going down from the shorter climbers to the taller. He argues that it's only one letter grade but that's averaged out over many climbs and climbers.

I still think looking at the top performers is a pretty good indicator of which height is best and there the shorter climbers seem to occupy a significant and obvious majority.

I'm 6'5 and have climbed for over 30 years so I've had a lot of time to dwell on this! My view is that the optimum height for a climber is around 5'10.  Tall climbers have leverage working against them (think about powerful lock off moves) and will usually have the disadvantage of bigger feet and longer fingers. Crack climbing is harder where hands and feet are all in line, too.  Mantelshelves aren't much fun either. So tall climbers do have to be stronger to compensate. Dave McLeod is right, being tall is generally a hindrance and tall climbers do tend to have a ponderous style of moving.   (see his mistakes climbers make book)

However being tall didn't seem to worry Ron Fawcett or Dean Potter so perhaps tall climbers just need to get stronger and make fewer excuses! 

Or some guy called Ondra who is 6ft. I heard he's alright...

Yep good point.

It is about trends and generalistaions, not individual data points.

Not that 6ft is particularly tall anyway........

Of course it would be silly to make over arching generalisations but watching the moonboard competition was quite telling recently. Climbers has set each other problems to climb. When it came to the problem that Rustam Gelmanov had set, who stands at the stout height of 1.67m, everyone was skipping holds on the problem he had set, and watching him trying to span the large gaps that other taller climbers had set looked like an impossible feat. So again, it goes back to typified strengths that taller or smaller climbers may have and the different types of climbs they are beneficial on. 

That said, though Ondra may be an anomaly in this whole discussion, he has downgraded many long term project of other world class climbers who are significantly shorter than he is...part of this discussion is down to height of climbers - all interesting stuff to discuss. If a climb is easier for the taller climber (which is very difficult to deduce due to the multifaceted skill nature of the sport), should it be completed by climbers of other heights to really be able to judge it's difficulty...? Anyway I'm straying on the further territory here.