Are your fingers strong enough?

Interesting article using a testing technique widely available.
Including norms related to climbing ability.

researchgate.net/publicatio…

Interesting study, though the conclusion isn't really that surprising. Basically they find that you can use a scale to measure finger strength, and that the measurements correlate roughly with climbing ability. Interestingly, one of their volunteers has "self reported redpoint ability" of UIAA XII, which corresponds to 5.15c. I'm guessing Ondra participated? Pretty cool that elite level climbers would be willing to participate in science!

I believe the answer is always no :) But seriously, an interesting study, and a good attempt to establish some "strength benchmarks" that are lacking in climbing training. FYI the edge they use is almost identical to the lower Beastmaker 2000 rung, so you can see for yourself where you fall. 

Well yeah, the ability buckets they're grouping the participants in are a ginormous over 1.5 number grades wide, of course they're correlated! Am I missing something? (I fully admit to have not have fully read the entire article, nor understood all of it!)

Which metolius campus rung does their testing hold correspond to, medium? I have no idea what the radius on the metolius rungs, but there's a picture of a small one midway thru
rockclimberstrainingmanual.…
I think the metolius radius is probably smaller (sharper, easier hold) than their testing hold.

The medium metolius rung is about 1", or 25 mm, and likely more incut than their testing rung (depending on which side you use).

More data

ChrisHau wrote:The medium metolius rung is about 1", or 25 mm, and likely more incut than their testing rung (depending on which side you use).

So, looks like I need some wood, router, and 12mm bit.

Mark E Dixon wrote:More data

Cliffnotes plz! I still don't know wtf I'm reading there =)
So does that mean, to climb 5.16d (UIAA 13, which I don't even see on the table), that you would be expected to be able to 1-arm hang w/ crimp or open grip for 3-5seconds with ~1.25 x body weight?

Nate Reno wrote: So, looks like I need some wood, router, and 12mm bit. Cliffnotes plz! I still don't know wtf I'm reading there =) So does that mean, to climb 5.16d (UIAA 13, which I don't even see on the table), that you would be expected to be able to 1-arm hang w/ crimp or open grip for 3-5seconds with ~1.25 x body weight?

best way is to just buy a metolius rung, chop it in half, and mount it onto french cleats.

slim wrote: best way is to just buy a metolius rung, chop it in half, and mount it onto french cleats.

You still might not end up w/ a radius all that similar to their testing hold though.

Nick Henscheid wrote:Interesting study, though the conclusion isn't really that surprising. Basically they find that you can use a scale to measure finger strength, and that the measurements correlate roughly with climbing ability. Interestingly, one of their volunteers has "self reported redpoint ability" of UIAA XII, which corresponds to 5.15c. I'm guessing Ondra participated? Pretty cool that elite level climbers would be willing to participate in science!

The authors all appear to be Czech, so that might actually be true. This is pretty cool, I'm a pretty big data nerd in my non-climbing life.

EDIT: The authors in the paper describe grouping their participants into "lower grade," "intermediate," "advanced," "elite," and "high elite," with only one participant in the latter category. Pretty sure we know who that is.

Nate Reno wrote: Cliffnotes plz! I still don't know wtf I'm reading there =) So does that mean, to climb 5.16d (UIAA 13, which I don't even see on the table), that you would be expected to be able to 1-arm hang w/ crimp or open grip for 3-5seconds with ~1.25 x body weight?

I'll do my best, but it's not really explained any better in the book.

Handgrip- I don't know how they got this figure.

Open and crimp grip- you are correct.
An example- a male climber at UIAA grade 4 would be expected to hold 43 (open) or 44 (crimp) percent of his body weight on one arm for 3-5 seconds.

III + IV refer to "middle two team" hangs (i.e. middle and ring fingers).

Bent arm hang is full lock off with chin above bar, as long as you can hang.

Finger hangs I believe, is just a maximum hang on same 25 mm edge, as long as possible

HTH

That's a pretty big hold for using a crimp grip.

I think on a less-deep edge hold they would have found a much larger difference between open grip and crimp grip in percentage of body weight supported.

Ken

kenr wrote:That's a pretty big hold for using a crimp grip. I think on a less-deep edge hold they would have found a much larger difference between open grip and crimp grip in percentage of body weight supported. Ken

It's been studied. Crimp seems to plateau around 20-30 mm.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/223…