Am I too tall? (Or is this a weight question in disguise? Will MP make a pinata of me?)

Spaggett, Gotcha! wrote: 3 kids and wife is too many for 5.12

finally someone has identified the real issue

Stop crying and go train or something. 6 foot aint even tall

Kevin Mokracek wrote: You didn't really climb 5.12, for people over 5'11" that route is 5.10

At 6'3" i can vouch for this. At least thats what I hear regularly .

Weight scales like volume, or length^3

Strength scales as cross-sectional area of your muscles, or length^2

So strength to weight ratio is length^2/length^3, or 1/length.

So as your height goes to zero, your strength to weight info goes to infinity! At least this is how I justify not sending hard myself :P

6'2" and about 185# here.  Have about a +4 ape index and all legs to go with it.  Haven't been able to touch my toes in 20 years.  

The issue I see with being tall, is that a lot of times that means also fairly inflexible/immobile (in a functional sense).  Anything requiring even moderately high feet, especially on vertical to overhanging routes, puts my ass out from the wall and center of gravity with it, requiring a ton of core strength that I would really have to train constantly to be able to make the moves.   Being able to stay as tight/compact as possible seems to be a key in moving into higher grades, and it is just harder when you're all limbs. 
Sure, it's nice to have the wingspan on certain routes; nice to have big hands on certain holds; but it's definitely not always an advantage.  I feel like to be able to really push higher grades as a taller climber, requires additional focus on mobility/flexibility as well as core strength, that seems to come a little easier to my shorter friends.  

Where I really notice the disparity in tall climbers to short climbers is in high level bouldering.  I feel like all the guys really out there pushing that realm are 5'8" or less.  Only person that comes to mind that may be on the taller side is Matt Fultz, but there's probably others.  

Adam Ondra is the obvious plus 6' crusher, who methodically trains everything.   His mobility speaks for itself, and I think it's a direct result of training.  
Another that comes to mind is Dean Potter, and not to take anything away from any of his accomplishments  (and I'm not really familiar with them all), but I feel like a lot of his high level climbs were on cracks where height/size has a different relation to the climbing.  

It completely blows me away what the level of fitness is for elite level athletes, climbers and fighters.  Even when I was seriously training martial arts 6 days a week and getting out to climb a couple days a week as well   I was never more than 50% of the fitness level of a Alex Honold or Jose Aldo..  . 

No matter your size, after enough bouldering with people of all shapes and forms you will see that its close to even as far as sending goes. Maybe not if you include sit down starts, those suck!

I had a 6.5  230lb weight lifter  climbing partner years ago. He was a huge personality to go with the size and strength. Christian would loudly declare that there was No Fking way he was going to be a weeny assed stick person like those good climbers..   He climbed  12 sport despite looking (and acting) like a pro hockey player.. 

I'm 6'8". Let me know as soon as "too tall" works as an excuse in climbing circles, I have a lot of social capital to recoup.

Don't you hate it when people pronounce it "Heith"??

Just responding to follow this, being 6'1"

I am close to the same size as you - 6ft even and weigh ~185.  If you calculate our BMI we get 25.1 - just over the limit to be categorized as "overweight."  I strongly suspect that we have weight issues holding us back much more than height issues :)

Lmao I'd say morpho might make differences at v12+. Or maybe if you were 7'9", 6' is not tall enough to be significant. The reality is you havent put the effort in. So I guess get gud.

bryans wrote:

I'm hoping to hear from people 6 feet and up who send 5-12 and 5-13. All the people I've met who climb those grades are under 6 feet. Just looking for validation or refutation of that, maybe. But honestly I'll drop names of hard Oregon climbers I have seen in person who are nowhere near 6 feet. Alan Watts, Ryan Palo, Gary Rall, Micah Klesick, Mark Deffenbaugh, Tom Scales, Dave Sowerby, Jim Ablao, Aaron Webb, Wil Nazarian, Matt Spohn, Jeff Walker, Jason from WA who put up some 12s at Ozone,  Mikey Shaefer from Fre Solo doing 13s at Trout Creek and Viento and I think he''s maybe under 5-6? I have no list of hard Oregon climbers over 6 feet. (Tim Olson might be 6 foot?) Oregon climbers help me out here.

I'm 6ft and 185 lbs and have climbed a large amount of 12s and several 13s.  I also know a good number of climbers my height and taller who climb the same grades or harder.  I really don't think height has much to do with ability to climb hard or not except in a few rare instances.  My biggest struggle has always been  large hands and fat fingers which make pockets and crimps more difficult.  But the trade off is my large hands are great for pinches and slopers.  The key is to find routes in the style that suits you best. 

Here we go again...

I wasn't asking how i could climb harder. We all know hard sport climbing is all about losing weight and drinking less and getting divorced to get the weekends free. I was more interested in hearing that taller heavier people in general have to try harder than shorter lighter people. Or that there are common technical moves like sit starts and roof pulls and tight corners that are generally harder when tall. If anything look around the crag or gym and test my observation that the best climbers are the shortest ones. I already know I like my beer and food and family life too much to climb 12b. ;)

It’s all the shorties gettin back at you for kicking their butts at basketball.  You’re in a sport where shorter people can compete.  But not me, I’m 5-9 and 185 and climb with the grace of the stay puft marshmallow man.

I’m 5’10’’ and carry a little over 190. I’m not jacked at all, and my legs are stronger than my upper body, but I’m not weak. Don’t know my ape index either.

Technique notwithstanding, it seems that strength to weight ratio is the key. Obviously extra height/length can help get to holds, but if you don’t have the strength in your fingers, hands, etc to get your body up into the next move, you’re beat. I suffer from this affliction right now. My fingers/hands don’t have the strength to hold my weight. So while I can eventually build enough strength to make those moves, dropping 20 pounds would put me in a much better/sustainable place.

I’m ignorant when it comes to professional climbers, but when was the last time there was a climber crushing shit at 225+ pounds? Not saying it doesn’t happen, but aren’t most pro climbers around 150-170 and strong as fuck with approximately zero body fat?

I think the most important physical metric is strength to weight ratio. Think horsepower in cars- 500 horsepower looks a lot different in a Miata than it does in a semi truck.

Edit- Also, since the combination of strength and proper application of leverage/angles is really the sauce, I could see certain moves being a bit more difficult to execute (aka requiring more brute strength) if your length makes it harder to apply the strength at those angles. 

Just FYI, Idaho boy Matt Fultz is 5'11", 165 pounds, and, holey crap, a +6" ape index! He was putting up hard problems pretty young, too, at Swan Falls, Idaho. Super strong! He climbs with power, but precision. Huge fun to watch in comps! He really doesn't fit the stereotype for a climber. More like a lean quarterback, maybe.

And I climb the same boulders! Wahoo!

I have no idea how that gets me points here, but there it is.

Best, Helen

bryans wrote:

I'm hoping to hear from people 6 feet and up who send 5-12 and 5-13. All the people I've met who climb those grades are under 6 feet. Just looking for validation or refutation of that, maybe. But honestly I'll drop names of hard Oregon climbers I have seen in person who are nowhere near 6 feet. Alan Watts, Ryan Palo, Gary Rall, Micah Klesick, Mark Deffenbaugh, Tom Scales, Dave Sowerby, Jim Ablao, Aaron Webb, Wil Nazarian, Matt Spohn, Jeff Walker, Jason from WA who put up some 12s at Ozone,  Mikey Shaefer from Fre Solo doing 13s at Trout Creek and Viento and I think he''s maybe under 5-6? I have no list of hard Oregon climbers over 6 feet. (Tim Olson might be 6 foot?) Oregon climbers help me out here.

6'4" (175-180 lb) and it has not been a major hindrance on my climbing ability pushing harder grades. Get stronger and lose some lbs. Are you following a training program on just rolling into the gym to send ur sick projs?

bryans wrote: I was more interested in hearing that taller heavier people in general have to try harder than shorter lighter people. Or that there are common technical moves like sit starts and roof pulls and tight corners that are generally harder when tall.

Taller climbers have an advantage, perhaps marginal, at least through 5.13, according to Lattice.  

We’ve recently been doing some data analysis work with Jack Turner, a data analyst and computer scientist who’s about to start his PhD. The core of this work has been around improving the mathematical models we use for predicting climbing performance but we’ve seen some other interesting results as a spin-off. In particular, Jack noticed that if you control for climbing ability, height is negatively correlated with many of the tests we use for testing energy systems. In short, the taller you are the less strong and fit you need to be!