Does being taller make climbing easier? Answering this question with data!

I'm a tall climber and there are definitely routes on which I feel the advantage, and some where I don't. No matter what I'm on though, there is a sizeable chance I'm going to hear an unsolicited comment about my body from a complete stranger. I nearly always have a good attitude about it; sometimes if I'm taking myself a little too seriously I can feel a little worked up. At the end of the day I'm just some dude trying to enjoy myself touching rocks or plastic, the only competitor is myself. I'm trying not to sound like "oh poor me I'm so tall and handsome" I just try to keep other people's appearances and physical attributes out of my mouth.

Li Huwrote:

Until people evolve looking and weighing like beanpoles with the strength of body builders, it’s going to be this way.

Overall, I think it’s weight more than height that has the advantage. Shorter people tend to weigh less, and, in general, have an inherent advantage over taller people.

I’ll give tall people the advantage when they’re as I’ve described above.

Perhaps this a different conversation, but weight (and height) are irrelevant without factoring in strength. I could weigh 80 pounds but if I’m also as weak as a beanpole then I’m not going to climb very hard. Matt Fultz is a prime example of someone who is heavy, comparatively, but has also climbed more hard boulders than nearly everyone. This is also likely due to the nature of bouldering vs sport climbing. It seems the focus in this thread so far has been predominantly focused on sport climbing, which I find ironic. 

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

Perhaps this a different conversation, but weight (and height) are irrelevant without factoring in strength. I could weigh 80 pounds but if I’m also as weak as a beanpole then I’m not going to climb very hard. Matt Fultz is a prime example of someone who is heavy, comparatively, but has also climbed more hard boulders than nearly everyone. This is also likely due to the nature of bouldering vs sport climbing. It seems the focus in this thread so far has been predominantly focused on sport climbing, which I find ironic. 

I did mention strength.

Just thought I’d mention that Matt Fultz and all the other people here quoted as being tall for climbers are within the bounds of average height and weight. Just saying…

Li Huwrote:

Just thought I’d mention that Matt Fultz and all the other people here quoted as being tall for climbers are within the bounds of average height and weight. Just saying…

I’m not sure we’ve actually established what the average height for a climber is, therefore “tall for climbers” is inapplicable in this scenario. However, we have already established that worldwide average male height is 5ft 7.5in and average height for an American is 5ft 9in. Matt Fultz, and most others mentioned as “tall”, are over these thresholds. Unless you’re Dutch, 5’11” and up is above average. Just sayin…

Tal Mwrote:

If your question is "does being taller help you move upwards on technical, steep terrain?" then the way to answer that isn't a poorly constructed survey (what "scientists" did you talk to? Good lord.) It's to get a random assortment of un-done climbs, on a random assortment of rock types and climbing styles, and to then get a random distribution of climbers and have them rank them by difficulty in some way and use that to tease out which body types do best on which styles of rock. But even then, that won't account for a climber's experience on different rock types prior to the test, so you'd have to actually just use non-climbers. But that also won't account for overall body compositions and athletic background, innate sense of movement and body awareness, propensity to put out, etc. 

This is a great insight. Grades are not an immutable quality of the rock, they're assigned by the particular humans who have climbed the rock. So "height" and "grade climbed" are not independent variables: the grade, to some extent, incorporates elements of height because the FA , guidebook author, and MP voters all have their own heights, and bring their perspective to assigning the grade. This confounds any survey data: you can't just look at grade v. climber height because climber height is baked into the grade.

Here's a proposed study design that might cut through this dynamic:

Set up an LED board with the same hold in every hole (maybe a down-pulling flat edge; something that doesn't require any technique). Then set a series of, say, 5 problems. Each problem should be generally the same movement pattern to isolate height as the key variable. The problems should be set in order of reachiness. Problem 1 should be very scrunchy, problem 3 should be a "normal" spacing, problem 5 should be wildly morpho. Then have a population of experienced climbers try each problem and, this is the key, assign grades to each problem. 

I would hypothesize that the short climbers would assign easier grades to the scrunchy problem and harder grades to the reachy problem, relative to average, and vice versa for tall climbers.

But would short climbers assign generally harder grades across the board as compared to taller climbers? Or the opposite?

We'd have to do the experiment to find out!

you can argue about height making things harder all day long (obviously the jury is out here) but one thing that DOES suck for shorties is ground up granite slabs bolted by 6' dudes reaching high with the drill. nothing like standing at a great stance unable to reach a bolt that was obviously drilled (and then clipped) from where you are comfortably hanging out, and then having to do the crux moves, while clipping, with a decent fall below you

Nkane 1wrote:

This is a great insight. Grades are not an immutable quality of the rock, they're assigned by the particular humans who have climbed the rock. 

IMO this is the crux of the matter, not comparing climbers of different heights. The grading systems, particularly the Sierra Decimal System and the V-scale are overly simplistic. Years ago I mentioned a par system, like in golf, which is more objective. My own B-system for bouldering admittedly was too objective and lumped too many problems into too few categories. However, current grading structures are too entrenched and used by 35 million climbers worldwide. So the sport will continue to be categorized by hierarchies of numbers or letters. And tall vs short will continue to bubble to the surface. 

John Gillwrote:

IMO this is the crux of the matter, not comparing climbers of different heights. The grading systems, particularly the Sierra Decimal System and the V-scale are overly simplistic. Years ago I mentioned a par system, like in golf, which is more objective. My own B-system for bouldering admittedly was too objective and lumped too many problems into too few categories. However, current grading structures are too entrenched and used by 35 million climbers worldwide. So the sport will continue to be categorized by hierarchies of numbers or letters. And tall vs short will continue to bubble to the surface. 

Could we develop an ELO system for climbing?

Nkane 1wrote:

This is a great insight. Grades are not an immutable quality of the rock, they're assigned by the particular humans who have climbed the rock. So "height" and "grade climbed" are not independent variables: the grade, to some extent, incorporates elements of height because the FA , guidebook author, and MP voters all have their own heights, and bring their perspective to assigning the grade. This confounds any survey data: you can't just look at grade v. climber height because climber height is baked into the grade.

Here's a proposed study design that might cut through this dynamic:

Set up an LED board with the same hold in every hole (maybe a down-pulling flat edge; something that doesn't require any technique). Then set a series of, say, 5 problems. Each problem should be generally the same movement pattern to isolate height as the key variable. The problems should be set in order of reachiness. Problem 1 should be very scrunchy, problem 3 should be a "normal" spacing, problem 5 should be wildly morpho. Then have a population of experienced climbers try each problem and, this is the key, assign grades to each problem. 

I would hypothesize that the short climbers would assign easier grades to the scrunchy problem and harder grades to the reachy problem, relative to average, and vice versa for tall climbers.

But would short climbers assign generally harder grades across the board as compared to taller climbers? Or the opposite?

We'd have to do the experiment to find out!

I like the idea, but I’m not sure I fully understand how this would solve the question of if climbing is easier for the taller people. Universally accepted difficulties/grades would still need to be assigned for reference otherwise it would be presumed that taller people grade “scrunchy“ climbs harder and shorter people grade the “reachy” problems harder, thus the number of perceived hard climbs would the same for both tall and short participants, no?

I think my idea would test several different hypotheses:

1. That climbing is easier for taller people. If this were true, then taller people would assign easier grades to all 5 problems, as compared to average and short people. And short people would assign harder grades to all of the problems.

2. That climbing scrunchy problems is easier for short climbers and harder for tall climbers. If this were true, then shorter climbers would assign easier grades to the scrunchy problems, as compared to tall and average people.

3. That climbing reachy problems is easier for tall people and harder for short people. If this were true, you'd see the inverse of 2.

4. That height doesn't matter much for mid-range heights (5'4"-6'2", maybe?) but that very short people and very tall people have unique challenges or advantages. It would take a pretty healthy sample size, but you might see a height below which people find the scrunchy problem very easy, and a height above which some people find it impossible. Same with the morpho problem: there may be a minimum viable height to span the holds, but someone who's 6'6" would find it trivial. 

5. That wingspan matters as much or more than height. Any of the above tests could be run looking at wingspan or ape index. with a big enough sample, maybe you could draw some conclusions!

Nkane 1wrote:

I think my idea would test several different hypotheses:

1. That climbing is easier for taller people. If this were true, then taller people would assign easier grades to all 5 problems, as compared to average and short people. And short people would assign harder grades to all of the problems.

I see what you mean now. Though, you’d still be relying on all climbers agreeing on what a certain grades feels like to them. For example, a V10 climber has zero idea how to differentiate between a V2 and V3. Maybe give each climb an effort level rating to eliminate any bias of V-grades?

5. That wingspan matters as much or more than height. Any of the above tests could be run looking at wingspan or ape index. with a big enough sample, maybe you could draw some conclusions!

Depending on the set, great mobility and superior specific strengths may prove wingspan also does not much of a factor as a small/tall climber may be able to “cheat” the beta due to hyper-flexible hips or great lock off strength. I agree though, that a sample of a large group of varying size and strength climbers could yield a decent result to extrapolate. 

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

I’m not sure we’ve actually established what the average height for a climber is, therefore “tall for climbers” is inapplicable in this scenario. However, we have already established that worldwide average male height is 5ft 7.5in and average height for an American is 5ft 9in. Matt Fultz, and most others mentioned as “tall”, are over these thresholds. Unless you’re Dutch, 5’11” and up is above average. Just sayin…

Netherland’s men are close to 6’1” on average.
In the USA, it depends upon ethnicity and race. 5’11” is pretty close to average for European descent?

But you bring up a good point, if 5’7.5” is average worldwide male height, average height seems to be the average male Climbers height as well? Although standing at 5’7” Alex Megos is 3” shorter than average for a German? So, if we’re not splitting hairs, agreed that average male height may be considered the average climber’s height?

As I recall, Czech are also pretty tall people, and in Adam Ondra’s generation, he may also be average?

Regardless, 5’10” +/- 3% is a reasonable range for average height, and that covers 5’7” to 6’1”, although society seems to make a big deal over 6% height differences?

If height helped climbers, the average height for the best in the world would be above average, instead they are shorter than average. Anecdotal tales of elite climbers don't affect this fact. The only real question to be asked is, what are other factors that are controllable and gear training accordingly.

Someone go get a local youtuber. Three climbers, one short, one average, one tall. They set the same route three times with distances/hold sized relative to their own body dimensions, and try each others sets. I'd love to see how the hold sizes vs finger size and reaches vs body length pan out.

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

Where have you established what the average height for the “best in the world” is? If we take the average height of a male worldwide, at 5’7.5”, then nearly all of the elite are at, or above average height…

This isn’t accurate, because we’d need to look individually where these climbers originated from.

But that said, it’s approximately correct that the average climber height is the average height.

All the tall people mentioned here are average height for their respective demographic.

Martin Beckwrote:

Someone go get a local youtuber. Three climbers, one short, one average, one tall. They set the same route three times with distances/hold sized relative to their own body dimensions, and try each others sets. I'd love to see how the hold sizes vs finger size and reaches vs body length pan out.

This seems like something that a YouTuber would have already done.

I’d guess it would be inconclusive?

Li Huwrote:

This isn’t accurate, because we’d need to look individually where these climbers originated from.

It just depends on how you wish to extrapolate. I can agree that looking at each climber’s country would be more accurate, but that doesn’t mean that using the worldwide average, as I suggested, is not accurate lol 

I would still guess that, of the top 10 climbers in each discipline, the majority are still at or above their country of origin’s average male height. 

All the tall people mentioned here are average height for their respective demographic.

Who do you think “all the tall people are mentioning”, that are average for their demographic, are? In the last 3 pages the tall climbers I can find that have been mentioned are Webb, Sharma, Fultz, Lightner, Potter, Glassberg (all of which are above both the actual American average of 5’9” and your made up average of 5’11”) Ondra (above the average Czech height) and Hojer (above Germany’s average height). Verhoeven is the only one I found mentioned as “tall” who is less than average, due to being Dutch. 

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

Who do you think “all the tall people are mentioning”, that are average for their demographic, are? In the last 3 pages the tall climbers I can find that have been mentioned are Webb, Sharma, Fultz, Lightner, Potter, Glassberg (all of which are above both the actual American average of 5’9” and your made up average of 5’11”) Ondra (above the average Czech height) and Hojer (above Germany’s average height). Verhoeven is the only one I found mentioned as “tall” who is less than average, due to being Dutch. 

Your numbers are too vague:

“According to available data, the average height of a US male by ethnicity is: Non-Hispanic White: 5 feet 9.8 inches, Non-Hispanic Black: 5 feet 9.1 inches, Hispanic: 5 feet 6.7 inches, and Asian: 5 feet 6.8 inches. “

That’s for all age groups. I’d guess that group under 30 would average closer to 5’11”? You may find a way to see if you can find the exact numbers?

All my “data” is sort of anecdotal, but I haven’t seen any significant advantage from being taller except with beginners.

Li Huwrote:

Your numbers are too vague:

Didn’t you just post something alluding to the average height being a range from 5’7” to 6’1” but somehow my numbers too vague? The way I see it is that each climber has a specific’s height (not vague) and each country has a calculated average male height (arguably vague, though each countries average height was determined in the same manner). Each climber mentioned has a height above their countries average. I’m not sure how being more specific would sway the results in your favor.

Vague or not your stance that “all the tall people mentioned here are average height for their respective demographic” seems to wrong regardless of how it’s measured or how specific you want to get. Every one of those climbers mentioned is above the average height for even the tallest demographic. Meaning even if you got more specific it would only seemingly only bring the average height 

“According to available data, the average height of a US male by ethnicity is: Non-Hispanic White: 5 feet 9.8 inches, Non-Hispanic Black: 5 feet 9.1 inches, Hispanic: 5 feet 6.7 inches, and Asian: 5 feet 6.8 inches. “

Lol this would only support my point regarding the average height for American males as the average would be lowered by these numbers and all climbers mentioned are still over your 5ft 9.8 in threshold referenced. Not too mention, if we try to differentiate between every single ethnicity people have the data won’t be even be realistically measurable anymore. Additionally, are we assuming that for a mixed American male we average the heights of each of their mixed ethnicities? What about those that are 25% of multiple different ethnicities? What about people of African descent who currently reside in France or England, do we categorize them with the French, English, or African nation? Seems a little ridiculous to try and be this specific when it’s not going to significantly change any part of this discussion.

That’s for all age groups. I’d guess that group under 30 would average closer to 5’11”? You may find a way to see if you can find the exact numbers?

I have no idea what this is in reference too, nor where you keep seeing 5’11” as an average for an American male. 

All my “data” is sort of anecdotal, but I haven’t seen any significant advantage from being taller except with beginners.

Which is a fine and fair point, and I actually agree with to an extent, but also irrelevant to the discussion/argument you keep trying to engage with me. 

My point is that your arguments that being taller is an advantage is not necessarily true are validated by the simple fact that average male height ranges from 5’7” to 6’1 or so.

Height doesn’t appear to have a significant advantage.

Being lighter with the same strength is a significant advantage. That’s pretty quantifiable.

Pete Nelsonwrote:

Hey Trinidad...way to go after trying to figure out an answer to your question! And welcome to the life of a scientist where everybody kicks things off by telling you that you're doing it wrong. No doubt there are a number of ways to improve your survey--you've gotten a few good suggestions and a lot of criticism. If you haven't fled by now and are still game to try to understand the role that height might play in climbing performance, here are a few suggestions. 

Rephrase your question as, "do taller climbers climb harder grades?" Note that this skirts the issue of whether it is height that actually makes you a better climber. There are a host of explanations for why taller climbers might climb harder, some borderline (taller people enjoy social benefits that may make them more confident) and some more plausible (they can reach past marginal hold to gain better ones), but evidence that taller climbers climb harder grades is comparatively easy to find while testing indirect effects (social benies) or mechanistic ones (reaching better holds) gets complex really fast.

To help control for the many factors that likely affect climbing performance, try to address some of these in your survey: gender, experience, climbing style, and performance consistency seem both important and somewhat tractable to me. Obviously, ask for their height...and consider asking for arm span and body weight. In other words, ask your respondents how they self-identify, how many years they've been climbing, and what grade they currently redpoint after a couple days' effort. I'd constrain the latter by requesting a single pitch sport climb where factors like risk or endurance are less important. It's probably worth including an opportunity at the end for respondents to report on other factors they think you should know--hopefully the crusher who's just coming back from a debilitating injury and climbing 2 number grades easier than her usual max will explain. Bouldering isn't climbing, so...

By limiting the answers (eg excluding long, scary trad), you're controlling for some of the variables, but you're also asking about others (eg experience) that may also affect performance and have to be considered. Start by plotting your data like the Lattice folks did in the example below...but put the explanatory variable on the x-axis and the response variable on the y-axis--the OPPOSITE of what Lattice boy did. Sheesh. 

A simple statistical model will test for an effect of all of these (height, gender, experience) and identify how much of the variance in climbing performance is explained by each. With a little data, you might be able to say that taller cllimbers do (or don't) climb harder grades though it's more likely that even a simple survey will show that the real answer is "it's complicated." If you get some numbers, send me a PM and I'll help you run some basic stats. In any case, it should be a fun thing to try. Good luck!

Wow Peter! Thank you so much for this! I expected some criticism when I made this, and I've obviously received it! I hoped that that criticism would come with useful advice, which some of it did - and most of it did not. Oh well, such is life! It's really refreshing to see your comment since, while I expected the criticism and try not to take it personally, it still stings a little. 

Your advice is brilliant! I'm actually doing a lot of it already. I've tried to control for climbing experience, climbing style, and performance consistency. The performance consistency one was the trickiest to word, and that's the big one I got help from friends on. Unfortunately I didn't control for gender, which I've lamented earlier. I don't know why I didn't think of it. It's just about the biggest elephant in the room! I think the way I controlled for climbing style isn't the best either. Obviously trad and sport are different, as you said, and it would have been better to limit it to only one and perhaps ask a question about preferred hold type instead. Idk, I'd have to do some thinking if I reconstructed the survey. You make great points in your second paragraph too!

I'll definitely PM you when I get all the data organized. I've got another friend who's really good at analyzing data who's also offered to help, which is good because I'm decidedly NOT good at analyzing data! 

I APPRECIATE YOU!!!