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Abstract

International Journal of Exercise Science 9(2): 168-174, 2016. The complexity of movement of a rock climber’s center of mass during an ascent has been described as geometric entropy (GE). It has been proposed that lower geometric entropy could represent more fluid and economical movement during climbing. The purpose of the present study was to measure GE during rock climbing ascents under a lead condition (LD), where the climber connects a safety rope to several intermediate anchors during the ascent and under a top-rope condition (TR), where the safety rope is always anchored above the climber. Six experienced rock climbers volunteered to participate in the study. Each participant ascended a route on natural rock outdoors under three conditions. The first ascent was performed in a top-rope condition as an accommodation trial. The two remaining ascents were performed as LD and top-rope (TR2) in random order. Each LD and TR2 ascent was recorded via digital video at 30 Hz. A single point at the back center of each climber’s waist harness was manually digitized from the video images at 6 Hz and interpreted as the climber’s center of mass (CM). The displacement of CM was expressed as the line of motion (LM). Geometric Entropy (GE) was calculated as GE = ln((2∙LM)/CH)), where CH was the value of the convex hull about the LM. A within subjects, repeated measures ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc testing was utilized to test for differences among ascent conditions with significance set at P <0.05. Mean (±s.d) values for LM and GE were 81.5±11.3 m vs 77.6±7.3 m and 1.021±0.133 vs 0.924±0.062 for LD and TR2 respectively. There were no significant differences for LM and GE between ascent conditions. It was concluded that LM and GE do not vary between LD and TR ascent conditions.

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