Grades, information-gathering, and leading near your limit as a short/tall/non-"average" climber

To the issue of the wingspan vs height, it is not true based on US data. This is a huge old set, perhaps not representative of the climbing population, but everybody is welcome to examine it here - http://mreed.umtri.umich.edu/mreed/downloads/anthro/ansur/Gordon_1989.pdf

I saved you the trouble by looking up numbers:

Males -
Height is 175.9cm +/- 6.7cm
Wingspan is 182.0cm +/- 8.2cm
Wingspan/Height ratio is 1.035

Females -
Height is 163.1cm +/- 6.4cm
Wingspan is 167.2cm +/- 8cm
Wingspan/Height ratio is  1.025

So - average women are shorter than average men, their reach on average is even less in relation to their heights than men's.

 

John Byrnes wrote:

Whatever.  Obviously you have convinced yourself that tall climbers have an advantage, and clearly nothing I say will change that.    

I really don’t think that this is anyone’s position in this thread. 
If I had to rephrase: sometimes short people are at disadvantage. Sometimes tall people are at disadvantage. If we were to estimate how frequently short people at at disadvantage, relative to taller people, that number would be slightly larger for short people. But it is still a very small number (fraction). The OP was asking, how to not let this small fraction of situations mess with her head, when leading at her limit. Because, when she leads at her limit, every tricky situation that she comes across feels like a reach issue, even though she rationally knows that this is not the case. 

Or, rephrasing another way: if 11a feels like 11a+/- 1 letter grade to an average height climber,  it feels like 11a+/- several letter grades to short AND tall climbers. The shoulders of the bell curve are bigger/thicker for people who are farther away from the physique of an average FA, in either direction. But 5.11a on average is still 5.11a, regardless of the height. It is just the standard deviation that is different. 

Why don't we argue about some other irrelevant shit, like the merits of 1 in 8 twist versus 1 in 9 twist for heavy for caliber bullets in an AR platform?

Seriously, L Kap has shown through her posts that if an idea is in any way different from her own, it isn't worth consideration, so why bother arguing?

So what is your preference in the .223/5.56 for medium thin skinned game, the 70 grain Barnes TSX or the 65 grain Sierra Gameking?  Well, I can tell you there isn't two hairs worth of difference in terminal effectiveness, so shoot whatever is most akrit out of your rifle. But the TSX may have stability issues if you don't have a 1in8 twist barrel.

John Byrnes wrote:

Whatever.  Obviously you have convinced yourself that tall climbers have an advantage, and clearly nothing I say will change that.   

Going to be honest I haven’t been reading this whole thread because it’s a lot. But the question I have is why does this concept seem to upset you so much.  Why does the possibility of shorter climbers having a harder time on a greater number of routes than tall or average climbers threaten you.

I think Lena was the one who said it’s only a comparison if the beta is the same and I think that’s where I find things the hardest. When I pull the exact same moves, but when you’re fully extended it’s much harder to keep tension.  
Then there are certain cases where traditional beta just doesn’t work (the last one I can think of is the knee bar on Super Mario in LRC) and the workaround beta requires you to be much stronger relative to the grade you’re climbing. But again I think this is much rarer than the “same beta made harder” scenario. 
In regards to the arguments on other short climbers who climb hard and my apparent misinterpretation of the constant Lynn Hill comments. I don’t think that “can short people climb hard” was the point of this thread or any discussions of short vs tall climbers. The answer to that is yes. It was as a short person at a personal limit (whether that be 5.10 or 5.15) how do you deal with the mental game of possibly encountering big moves made bigger due to reach. I just don’t see how pointing out short climbers who crush is relevant.

Also I’d like to point out I most often experience this in gyms. Specifically bouldering. I’m mostly a trad climber so I don’t climb hard enough outside where I’m hitting my limit in terms of really anything, height being a factor or not. So take my words with a grain of salt.

John Byrnes has chosen his hill to die on.

But it will be a long, lonely death, as no one is actually attacking it.

It's been interesting watching my son deal with being small (and climbing mostly in the reachy New River Gorge), and then hit puberty and start to get closer to "average height." What was cool was that he eventually got powerful enough, at around 5'0", to overcome most height deficiencies. Now he is 5'4", two inches shorter than I am, but he routinely out-reaches me, both statically and dynamically. Because he is much stronger than I am (he boulders V8, I boulder V5 on a good day), I think it is safe to say that these moves *are* harder for him than they are for me, but he can deal with the difficulty better than I can.

On a side note, one big factor to reach is hip flexibility and hip power. We were recently working on a big dyno together, and he hit it repeatedly, while I would get to the hold, but be flying out away from the wall and so fail to latch it. As much as I tried, I just couldn't keep my butt close enough to the wall to convert my leg push into upward and not outward movement. 

Nkane 1 wrote: John Byrnes has chosen his hill to die on.

But it will be a long, lonely death, as no one is actually attacking it.

Well, someone has to climb it first to get to him. Might be a reach limited move to a knife crimp with glassy feet, nobody wants to dyno.

Leaving aside everything else from every post in the fascinating exchange between John and me, I'm primarily interested in the question of whether John, as a local MP admin, would approve route descriptions or changes in MP having to do with height-dependency. This is a thing that exists, regardless of how you think individual climbers should deal with it, or whether being short or tall has its own advantages. If John won't be a gate-keeper blocking that info, then we're all good in my book.

Anonymous wrote:

I wouldn't be too concerned, L Kap, John is only a Regional Admin for Cayman Brac:

https://www.mountainproject.com/area/106458273/cayman-brac

If you ever climb there, and find the descriptions discriminate against short people, you can get on his case (and or the people who actually submit the content that he then approved.)

Oh! lol. Thanks, Nate, good to know. I assumed he was a regional admin here in Colorado since that's his location. Sounds like he does a conscientious job bolting for various heights on the routes he sets, so at least they'll be safe if they happen to be reachy. 

L Kap wrote: Leaving aside everything else from every post in the fascinating exchange between John and me, I'm primarily interested in the question of whether John, as a local MP admin, would approve route descriptions or changes in MP having to do with height-dependency. This is a thing that exists, regardless of how you think individual climbers should deal with it, or whether being short or tall has its own advantages. If John won't be a gate-keeper blocking that info, then we're all good in my book.

I think area mods only need to approve changes to the route description, but you can freely add a comment on the route, without any mods approving/allowing it. 

(And even for the route descriptions that need approval,  I doubt that John is singlehandedly involved in more than one or two areas that he is local/familiar with).

I think route comments are actually a better place to note things like height-dependency, because it is more of a personal opinion. 

I think as a shorter than average climber most overhanging routes are easier for me.  In general shorter is lighter and smaller hands make the pockets bigger. I may not be a thin guy but at my same dimensions scaled up to be taller the weight would be more. The leverage is less as well.  I think this is true until the moves get reachy.  At this point the climb can quickly transition to where it is now harder for me. This leads to larger variability in grades.  I can easily see the OP's stance that as this variance from the standard height increases the variance of grades experienced on certain climbs. If only people had to grade the climb when they ticked it before they could see the given or consensus grade, we would get something with a large spread and increased accuracy of the average grade.  Unfortunately this would remove the usefulness of the grade in the first place which is to help you pick out climbs you would like to do. Lets face it,  if a climb felt hard for the guide books 5.12a and you go to upgrade it but see the grade was actually downgraded to 5.11d on mountain project you get hesitant to say it is 5.12b. This happens to everyone.  No one wants to feel like they grade soft.  I know areas where 12a's feel harder than 12'c for me based style or reach or endurance factors.  Should we really even care or should we just grade them based on how they feel for us.  I know I have gotten a lot of crap for grading stuff outside of 2 letters from the suggested in the past, but if that is how it feels to me should I care? Just some food for thought. Should anyone really say no way its that hard or no way it is that soft?

Leron, it is really very simple. If the original grade is 12a, and it has been downrated to 11d, but your really feel that it is 12b, then the only obvious choice is to give it a 11c. No?

the schmuck wrote: Leron, it is really very simple. If the original grade is 12a, and it has been downrated to 11d, but your really feel that it is 12b, then the only obvious choice is to give it a 11c. No?

Hah!

Having the grade votes anonymous would reduce the reluctance to vote away from consensus a bit.

And I’m a big fan of graphs, redriverclimbing.com style. 

Leron wrote: I think as a shorter than average climber most overhanging routes are easier for me.  In general shorter is lighter and smaller hands make the pockets bigger. I may not be a thin guy but at my same dimensions scaled up to be taller the weight would be more. The leverage is less as well.  I think this is true until the moves get reachy.  At this point the climb can quickly transition to where it is now harder for me. This leads to larger variability in grades.  I can easily see the OP's stance that as this variance from the standard height increases the variance of grades experienced on certain climbs. If only people had to grade the climb when they ticked it before they could see the given or consensus grade, we would get something with a large spread and increased accuracy of the average grade.  Unfortunately this would remove the usefulness of the grade in the first place which is to help you pick out climbs you would like to do. Lets face it,  if a climb felt hard for the guide books 5.12a and you go to upgrade it but see the grade was actually downgraded to 5.11d on mountain project you get hesitant to say it is 5.12b. This happens to everyone.  No one wants to feel like they grade soft.  I know areas where 12a's feel harder than 12'c for me based style or reach or endurance factors.  Should we really even care or should we just grade them based on how they feel for us.  I know I have gotten a lot of crap for grading stuff outside of 2 letters from the suggested in the past, but if that is how it feels to me should I care? Just some food for thought. Should anyone really say no way its that hard or no way it is that soft?

I was just talking about this with one of my partners earlier today. We were commenting on the extent to which we've internalized the idea that the "real" grade is how it will feel for a typical guy (so around 5'9'' with ≈#2 sized hands). If we experience something significantly different, we tend to hesitate to propose that grade because we think of that as "the grade for me" rather than "the grade."

To take the easy and obvious example, if people voted consensus grades based on their experience on the climb, we should see at least a decent number of votes putting Incredible Hand Crack in the 11 range (there is only one such vote) and some putting Coyne Crack in the 10/11- range (there are only three). Same for any number of climbs with well-attested height-related disparities, like Raubenheimer Special (harder if you're "short") or Erect Direction (easier if you're "short") at the Gunks.

You could make the argument that if people start voting this way, it will mess with the averages. Well, sure, occasionally. But grades are all subjective anyway, right? ;)

John Byrnes wrote: Well, duh.  Last I looked at the CDC data, it was 5'9" (175cm)  for men and 5'4" (162.5cm) for women.  No surprises here.

Yes: less.  You're joking, right?    The difference in wingspan/height ratio between men and women is: 0.01, essentially 100th of a centimeter.   Given the elasticity of an individual human body, this cannot even be measured accurately, so to say their reach is less is absurd.

I believe you are misinterpreting the data.

A woman with measurements matching the above averages would have an ape index of 4.1 cm = 1.6 inches.
A man matching the measurements would have an ape index of 6.1 cm = 2.4 inches, or almost a full inch more.

Not a big difference, but certainly relevant on some climbs.

John Byrnes wrote: That link has some junk at the end I had to delete but I found the report.   Looks quite credible and the sample size is high (~26,000).   I'm quite surprised that the average wingspan is so large and not basically zero.   I couldn't find a section that described how they measured wingspan.  Did you?

Definition of what is considered wingspan is given on page 70 of the report. It is from tip to tip.  I don't feel like putting my words in your mouth, but I believe you are surprised that the ape index is large and not basically zero.
A point of additional surprise should be that the ideal dimensions defined by the "Vitruvian Man" diagram are ruined by the imperfect world - the RATIO of wingspan to height is not equal to 1. Furthermore, that RATIO is larger for men than women.

So, recent ape index measurements between me, my wife & a friend. I am 5'6, with a +1 ape, our friend is 5'6 with a +6 ape, and my wife is 4'11 with a 0 ape. That is a hell of a veriation in a sample of just three. Further, although our friend is only 7 inches taller than my wife, his span is 13 inches wider/longer. 

John Byrnes wrote: Well, duh.  Last I looked at the CDC data, it was 5'9" (175cm)  for men and 5'4" (162.5cm) for women.  No surprises here.

Yes: less.  You're joking, right?    The difference in wingspan/height ratio between men and women is: 0.01, essentially 100th of a centimeter.   Given the elasticity of an individual human body, this cannot even be measured accurately, so to say their reach is less is absurd.

Glad this guy isn’t an admin in a more popular area!

John Byrnes wrote:
 I also addressed the OP's issue early-on in this thread, by saying (I paraphrase) that improving technique, strength and mental abilities will overcome reach problems except in rare cases.

To be honest, this didn't really address my issue. Yes, obviously becoming mentally and physically stronger will allow one to overcome difficulties in climbing. My question was about how to do so in a particular context that is personally relevant to my climbing. To just say that one needs better technique, strength, and mental game is about as helpful as responding to someone who says "I have trouble with crack climbing, and every time I see a crack I mentally shut down" by saying, "You need to improve your crack technique and mental focus." That person knows this, otherwise they wouldn't be asking in the first place. I don't know that you intend it this way, but when you (and others on this thread) make comments like "stop whining" and "look at Margo Hayes," it can read as short-circuiting constructive discussion of the concrete strategies that might actually help improve technique, strength, and mental abilities.

I agree again.   Routes are graded by consensus which means that the grade will be accurate for the average climber with the necessary technique, strength and mental abilities.   This is as it should be because given the normal distribution of human heights & sizes, the grade will be accurate for 7 out of 10 climbers: one standard deviation.  The grade becomes less accurate for climbers outside of that range on both sides of the curve; it could become harder or easier.

You aren't engaging the point that I and others have made that consensus/guidebook grades, for a variety of reasons, tend to be based around average male physiology. (This is clearly attested in the example I gave earlier of the Indian Creek consensus grades here on MP. If women were contributing anywhere close to proportionately to these, and grading based on their own experience, there would be many more votes in the 11 range for IHC and in the 10 range for Coyne.) This means that (isolating the variable of height because it is the most easily measurable) the grade becomes less accurate one standard deviation outside average male height, i.e. at about below 5'6'' and above 6'0''. The difference is that 46% of the US population is below 5'6'', including 78% of US women. By contrast, 9% of the US population is above 6'0''. Roughly, this means that if participation in climbing were equal with respect to gender, the grade will be accurate for about 1 out of 2 climbers (and it will be accurate for men much more often than for women). Personally, I don't think this is as it should be.