BMI and Climbing

Comments 11

1. 

   Matt 2 years ago

   Interesting dataset. I can’t help wondering if body fat percentage vs climbing grade would have a stronger correlation.

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2. 

   Kasey 3 years ago

   Looking across individuals is interesting. Looking within would be more so, though much harder to get that data. After dropping 15 pounds in 4 months (2 BMI pts…wt from long covid and two pregnancies), my climbing has rapidly improved to a place where I recently flashed my red point.

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3. 

   Andreas 3 years ago

   Hi, Do you have an updated plot of this data now that you have had many more people tested? Best, Andreas

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   1. 

      Tom Randall 3 years ago

      Yes we do! We've got some of the data on this being reported over the next few months (watch out on social media or our blog for this).

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      1. 

         Zack 3 years ago

         Thanks Tom! Look forward to this data! As a climber with a bmi of 30 but with a 31in waist, curious to see how the data plays out.

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4. 

   Steven 4 years ago

   It seem to me to use "max grade climbed in the preceding 2 years" may not be the ideal thing to use, since presumably some boulders might not be impacted as much by BMI as others. It seems to me that slabs would be not nearly as impacted in comparison to overhang, for example.

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5. 

   dominic 6 years ago

   I'd love to get technique tips from the outliers. I think it would be very interesting to see what helps them climb with extra weight, if you know who they are please look into it.

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6. 

   Tom 8 years ago

   Hello, I looked up this page after listening to the trainingbeta interview and was made aware by my partner that there may be some confusion in the interpretation of the data with regard to inter and intra individual variability? It may be correct that low bmi does not translate to better individual climbing performance but that does not seem to be an assumption that can be made with the data (inter individual) that was presented..? Having said that I agree though that an emphasis on maintaining a healthy bmi and body weight is important in our supervision of young athletes.

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   1. 

      Remus Knowles 8 years ago

      Hi Tom, as you say it is important to note that the analysis presented above is inter-individual, and as you say correlations between an individuals bodyweight and climbing performance are not explored. In my opinion, the main message is that maintaining a consistently low BMI does not appear to be an indicator of climbing performance.

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7. 

   Byron Hempel 8 years ago

   For us silly Americans, on the Routes vs BMI graph, what does the x axis correlate to in the YDS? I.e. a grade of 10 = what grade in YDS?

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   1. 

      Remus Knowles 8 years ago

      Hi Bryon, the x-axis is a straight map of french sport grades to numbers. 7a = 7, 7a+ = 8, 7b = 9, ... Looking at a grade conversion chart, 7 ~= 11d, 8 ~= 12a, 9 ~= 12b etc. Boulder grades are just the numerical part of the V grade. i.e. V5 = 5, V6 = 6 etc. Thanks Remus

      Reply