Physiological Responses to Indoor Rock-Climbing/Relationship to Maximal Cycle Erg-poster
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise:
July 2003 - Volume 35 - Issue 7 - pp 1225-1231
APPLIED SCIENCES: Physical Fitness and Performance Physiological Responses to Indoor Rock-Climbing and Their Relationship to Maximal Cycle Ergometry WILLIAM SHEEL, A.; SEDDON, NICHOLAS; KNIGHT, ANDREW; MCKENZIE, DONALD C.; R. WARBURTON, DARREN E.
Abstract SHEEL, A. W., N. SEDDON, A. KNIGHT, D. C. MCKENZIE, and D. E. R. WARBURTON. Physiological Responses to Indoor Rock-Climbing and Their Relationship to Maximal Cycle Ergometry. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 35, No. 7, pp. 1225-1231, 2003.
Purpose: To quantify the cardiorespiratory responses to indoor climbing during two increasingly difficult climbs and relate them to whole-body dynamic exercise. It was hypothesized that as climbing difficulty increased, oxygen consumption (VO2) and heart rate would increase, and that climbing would require utilization of a significant fraction of maximal cycling values.
Methods: Elite competitive sport rock climbers (6 male, 3 female) completed two data collection sessions. The first session was completed at an indoor climbing facility, and the second session was an incremental cycle test to exhaustion. During indoor climbing subjects were randomly assigned to climb two routes designated as harder or easier based on their previous best climb. Subjects wore a portable metabolic system, which allowed measurement of oxygenconsumption (VO2), minute ventilation (V E), resiratory exchange ratio (RER), and heart rate. During the second session, maximal values for VO2, VOE, RER, and heart rate ere determined during an incremental cycle test to exhaustion.
Results: Heart rate and VO2, expressed as percent of cycling maximum, were significantly higher during harder climbing compared
with easier climbing. During harder climbing, %HR max was significantly higher than %VO2max (89.6% vs 51.2%), and during easier climbing, %HR max was significantly higher than %VO2max (66.9% vs 45.3%).
Conclusions: With increasing levels of climbing difficulty, there is a rise in both heart rate and VO2. However, there is a disproportional rise in heart rate compared with VO2, which we attribute to the fact that climbing requires the use of intermittent isometric contractions of the arm musculature and the reliance of both anaerobic and aerobic metabolism.
Rock climbing has increased in popularity in the past 15-20 yr. Indoor sport climbing is a subdiscipline of rock climbing where climbers ascend an artificial climbing wall in relative safety. Competitive indoor climbing is performed on an indoor wall with routes that are established by professional route-setters. Despite the increasing number of indoor facilities, widespread popularity of this sport, and the development of local, national, and international competitions, the physiological responses to climbing are not well defined. The act of climbing involves sustained and intermittent isometric forearm muscle contractions (2); however, most previous studies have focused on anthropometry (10), injury (14,16,23), or strength and flexibility (5). Some investigators have attempted toquantify the metabolic cost of indoor rock climbing (2,11,19) and climbing using an indoor vertical treadmill (3,20). To date, no investigations have related the energetics of climbing relative to individual climbing ability. In addition, therelationship between maximal exercise capacity (i.e., maximal cycle exercise) and the metabolic demands of climbing has not been clearly established. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to quantify the cardiorespiratory responses to indoor climbing, during two climbs of differing difficulty, and relate them to maximal exercise capacity. Specifically, we hypothesized that as climbing difficulty increased, oxygen consumption (VO2) and heart rate would increase and that climbing would require utilization of a significant fraction of maximal values obtained during a graded cycle test to exhaustion.