ATHLETIC PROFILING

Targeted training to your physiology

"What gets measured gets monitored"

The massive issue that climbers have is the tendency to overtrain - raise your hand if you've had or know somebody who's had a finger injury. Everybody. Why? Overuse.

Using a device like the Tindeq Progressor, we can precisley determine max force, rate of force development, critical force, all in a range of movements. This allows us to be extremely precise in terms of the training intensities, and critically, the volume.

Getting those parameters precise to your physiology means that we can train more efficiently; better results with reduced risk of injury.

Click the link to book a consultation or to have a complimentary chat with our in-house Exercise Physiologist. Read on for more information on the Psyched Athletic Profile.

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PSYCHED ATHLETIC PROFILE

What we assess and why

Traditionally, climbing performance has been divided into 3 areas: Mental, Tactical/technical, and Physical. The Psyched Athletic Profile looks at your physical capacity, and discovers any underlying areas of improvement.

MAXIMUM FORCE

Increasing your maximum strength in the major movements (vertical and horizontal pulling, compression, finger flexion, hip hinging) has been shown to be deterministic for performance.

The only validated prophylaxis to injury, is strength training. By improving the capacity (strength and endurance) of your muscle and connective tissue, you are more resilient to injury. Fewer injuries means more time on the rock.

The Psyched Athletic Profile measures your maximum force in these movements to determine any limiting factors, then builds a strength training prescription from that assessment, which is specific to your physiology.

CONTACT STRENGTH

Contact strength is a measure of how much and how quickly you can apply force to a hold, as a percentage of your maximum force. This is also known as the Rate of Force Development (RFD). The more of your maximum force you can apply in a short time epoch (200ms), the better your performance is likely to be.

By measuring your RFD in conjunction with your maximum force, we are able to calculate your contact strength and Impulse (area under the force-time graph). This gives us valuable information on how you should focus your training; either contracting maximally, contracting rapidly, or both.

CRITICAL FORCE & W'

Critical force (power/velocity) has been used in many sports to identify a person's upper limit of endurance that is sustainable. The intensities that can be performed above this threshold are termed W'.

Recent scientific literature has shown that a model of both of these attributes can explain as much as 66% of climbing ability. With CF accounting more for route climbing, and W' for bouldering.

This assessment requires an all out effort over 4min pulling on an edge 7:3sec to determine these variables. It's brutal.

The outcome is an evidence based metric that allows you to ball park your capacity against the grade you are aiming for, and give you a prescription that is precisely tailored to your individual physiology.

FLEXIBILITY

An often times overlooked and underappreciated aspect of climbing performance.

Research out of the UK has demonstrated that flexibility, specifically at the hip, is one of the determining factors to climbing performance. The capacity to high step, or match foot to hand, is invaluable when, for example, performing technical face climbing or bridging.

The Psyched Athletic Profile uses scientifically validated flexibility assessments, scaled to your body size, to guide an exercise prescription.