Study: Rock Climbing May Be Fun but It's Not
FitFitness
16 July 98
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trying to increase your fitness
by rock climbing would be an uphill battle.
Even on specialized indoor equipment that allows long
climbs, climbing is not as effective as treadmill running,
according to a new study. Climbers instead do more of
a sprint - short power bursts followed by rest.
``If they sustain the climb for long enough, they are able
to sustain an aerobic training effect, but sustaining that
energy output might be difficult,'' said Phillip B. Watts, a
professor of exercise physiology at Northern Michigan
University, Marquette.
Watts examined two measures of aerobic output - how
fast the heart beats and how much oxygen the
exerciser uses. In the experiment, 16 experienced
climbers with an average age of 26 worked out on an
indoor climbing wall that worked like a treadmill,
continuously moving as the subject climbed.
Climbers did five four-minute climbs interspersed with
six-minute rests. They climbed at wall angles ranging
from nearly vertical to slightly overhanging. For
comparison, the exercisers did treadmill runs over the
same time periods at a heart rate equal to what they
did when the wall was nearly vertical.
The results were published in the American College of
Sports Medicine journal Medicine and Science in
Sports and Exercise.
Ay the same heart rate, oxygen use was greater for
running than for climbing, the study found. So climbers
who judge their aerobic energy use by their heart rate
may be misled, Watts said. If they want to climb as
hard as they run, they would have to raise their target
heart rate by five to 10 beats per minute, he said.
Climbers tended to go more slowly when the angle got
sharper, which took some of the edge off the exercise,
the report said. The result was that the climbers held
their oxygen use stable across the different angles.
Nonetheless, the climbers said they felt they were
exercising harder on the tougher inclines. This may be
in part to the greater demands for finger strength on the
grips on the steeper slopes, Watts said.
Handgrip strength weakened on the rougher angles,
and blood lactate - a measure of the accumulated
chemical wastes of exercise - was higher when the
climber was gripping an overhang.
The idea that rock climbing doesn't require a lot of
endurance did not surprise Dave Pegg, a climber and
senior associate editor of Climbing magazine,
Carbondale, Colo.``Rock climbing is very stop-starty,''
he said. ``You spend a lot of time sitting on a belay.''
Pegg said he doesn't get the same out-of-breath
feeling from rock climbing that he does from running.
However, rock climbers look fit. They carry little
bodyfat. A separate study, focusing on elite climbers,
found the competitors ``very lightweight, small people,''
Watts said. Men had only 5 percent bodyfat, and
women averaged 8 percent or 9 percent - ``very low for
females,'' Watts said.
The leanness of climbers may confuse people, said
Dale Goddard, Salt Lake City, a coauthor of
``Performance Rock Climbing,'' considered one of the
basic texts of the sport.
The climbers' leanness is not necessarily from
endurance, but simply because the sport favors the thin
and muscular, Goddard said. Anything that is not
muscle or bone is waste weight that has to be carried
up the climbing wall, so heavier people tend not to
make the grade, he said.
``Most people, when they are climbing, feel it is
strength-oriented because it is very demanding of
upper-body strength,'' Goddard said. ``We are not
used to supporting our weight on our arms and
fingers.''
