Authors: Ryan Kunkler, Marcus Lawrence, Anna Edler, Casey Webb, Jacob Manning
Mentors: Marcus Lawrence
Insitution: Southern Utah University
Climbing is now an Olympic sport and thus the demand for understanding performance predictors to train with evidence has grown enormously. Previous climbing research has highlighted that finger strength and shoulder strength are important predictors of performance between lower level and higher level climbers. However, no study has examined the rate of force development in the upper body, and lower body strength also has not be assessed in climbing literature. PURPOSE: To determine if relationships exist between dominant and non-dominant finger RFD compared to dominant and non-dominant finger and shoulder strength as well as lower body strength. METHODS: Twenty subjects (n=8 female and n=12 male; age: 24.7±7.5 yrs; height: 177.6±7.8 cm; mass: 76.0±14.9 kg; IRCRA Sport Grade: 14.1±6.7; n=11 beginner/intermediate, n=9 advanced) completed this study. During a single session, following a standardized 3-5 min. warm-up all participants dominant and non-dominant finger strength and RFD (using a Tindeq dynamometer load cell attached via static rope to a 20mm edge) as well as shoulder strength (using the same Tindeq load cell with a static rope and olympic ring), and lower-body compound strength (isometric mid-thigh pull using G-strength dynamometer load cell attached to a straight bar with a static rope) were assessed. Three trials were done on each measurement with 1 min. between trials and 3-5 min. between tests. Pearson correlational analyses were done to determine correlation coefficients (r), with significance set at p<0.05. RESULTS: Both dominant and non-dominant RFD resulted in significant (p<0.05) large to very large positive relationships with dominant finger strength (r = 0.897 and 0.721, respectively), non-dominant finger strength (r = 0.913 and 0.757), dominant shoulder strength (r = 0.670 and 0.709), on-dominant shoulder strength (r = 0.724 and 0.744), and lower body compound strength (r = 0.645 and 0.653). CONCLUSION: Dominant and non-dominant RFD is positively related to upper and lower body strength in recreational to advanced climbers. Therefore, training finger RFD and lower body strength should be consider as important as developing finger and shoulder strength in recreational to advanced climbers.