Sport Climbing Performance Testing: Strength, Power, and the Limits of Current Research

Testing Sport Climbers: Useful Signals, Weak Foundations, and the Problem With Grade Validation

A critical review of Sport climbing performance determinants and functional testing methods: A systematic review

Climbing, in this case sport climbing, continues to search for legitimacy through testing numbers, which I acknowledge myself.

Force plates, hang tests, power slaps, critical angles. All of it wrapped in the hope that if we can just find the right test, we will finally be able to explain climbing performance or, better, predict someone’s redpoint grade potential.

This article examines what current research suggests about sport climbing performance testing, where that research falls short, and how strength, endurance, and power tests should be interpreted in practice.

The recent systematic review by Faggian and colleagues attempts to do exactly that by identifying the physical determinants of sport climbing performance and consolidating them into an evidence based testing battery. On the surface, this is a reasonable and necessary goal. In practice, however, the conclusions rest on a very shallow scientific base, and the paper should be read with caution, especially by coaches, clinicians, and athletes who are tempted to treat its proposed test battery as authoritative.

This is not a dismissal of the review. It does a solid job summarizing the best available data in climbing. The issue is that the best available data in climbing is still limited, methodologically inconsistent, and physiologically underdeveloped.

What the Paper Gets Right

The review identifies several trends that most experienced practitioners already recognize. Tests that are specific (use similar contraction types, times under tension, body position, etc.) to climbing tend to outperform general fitness tests (bench press, hand grip strength, deadlift, etc.). Finger strength (peak force), finger endurance (continuous force endurance), and fatigue resistance (repeater-style endurance) consistently show stronger associations with performance than whole body aerobic capacity or generic strength measures. Relative measures, such as force or endurance normalized to body mass (strength / weight ratios) also outperform absolute (total force regardless of body mass) values. Generic tests like treadmill VO₂max, bench press strength, or sit and reach flexibility provide little useful information about climbing performance, and we shouldn’t be surprised by that.

None of this is controversial. These findings align with decades of applied observation and basic physiology. The problem is not what the paper identifies, but how confidently those findings are framed given the quality and depth of the underlying evidence.

The Core Limitation: A Weak Evidence Base

This paper is a systematic review, not a meta analysis. That distinction matters.

The authors are summarizing a collection of heterogeneous, underpowered, and largely cross sectional studies. Many of these studies use different testing protocols, fail to report reliability, confound strength with endurance or technique, rely on small samples skewed toward male lead climbers, and treat self-reported redpoint or on sight grade as the standard outcome.

A review can only be as strong as the studies it includes. In climbing, that foundation is still poorly developed. As a result, when the paper proposes an evidence based functional sport climbing test battery, it is important to understand what that phrase actually means in this context. It is evidence based relative to a field that has not yet produced sophisticated mechanistic studies. That is a low bar, even if it is currently the best one available.

Power: A Conceptual and Physiological Problem

One of the clearest examples of the limitations in the literature is how the review treats muscular power.

The authors conclude that climbing-specific power tests, particularly the power slap or arm jump, can discriminate climbing level. Statistically, that may be true within the included studies. Physiologically, however, the concept of power in climbing remains poorly defined.

Very few studies actually measure velocity. Most power outcomes are inferred from displacement, such as slap height, rather than from true force velocity relationships. Nearly all climbing power assessments involve pulling movements, with essentially no evaluation of pressing, pushing, or lower body power transfer outside of speed climbing. Even within pulling tasks, rate of force development is inconsistently defined and often unreliable, particularly at short (100-200ms)  time windows.

In other sports, power is not inferred from a single task. It is measured across loads as a force velocity relationship, often incorporating both concentric and eccentric components. Climbing research has barely entered that conversation. Calling slap height power is convenient, but it is not a complete physiological description of how force is produced, transferred, or expressed off, or on the wall.

Finger Strength: Isolation Versus Whole Body Loading

Another major issue that the review does not meaningfully resolve is the distinction between isolated finger flexor testing and whole body force transfer into an edge.

Most climbing-specific strength tests fall somewhere along a continuum. On one end are seated or braced finger maximal voluntary contractions (overcoming-style isometrics) that heavily isolate the finger flexors. On the other end are hanging or weighted hang tests (yielding-style isometrics) that require whole body loading and force transfer. Between these extremes are rope anchored or electronic plate based tests that impose mixed constraints.

These tests are often treated as interchangeable. Physiologically, they are not.

They represent different contraction intents and control demands. I typically differentiate these as overcoming isometrics and yielding isometrics. Overcoming isometrics involve attempting to produce force against an immovable resistance, emphasizing maximal neural drive and local tissue stress. Yielding isometrics involve resisting an external load, often body mass, while maintaining position. These require whole body stiffness regulation, load sharing across joints, proximal contribution, and force modulation over a fixed time.

Both approaches have value, but they test different physiological properties. The climbing literature has not yet done the work to clearly disentangle these differences. The review acknowledges heterogeneity but stops short of providing a framework for interpreting what these tests are actually measuring.

The Bigger Problem: Grade Validation as the End Goal

Perhaps the most important critique of this review is philosophical rather than methodological.

Climbing research remains unusually fixated on validating tests against redpoint or on sight grade. Nearly every outcome in the review is framed in terms of how well it correlates with climbing performance, which is rarely tested because it’s hard to study.

This is not how testing works in most sports.

In sprinting, we do not validate squat strength by asking whether it predicts a 100 meter time. In weightlifting, we do not validate VO₂max by asking whether it predicts snatch total. In team sports, we do not expect force plate metrics to directly predict sporting statistics.

Instead, tests are used as benchmarks of individual physiology. They help describe strengths, weaknesses, and adaptations, not directly explain competitive outcomes.

Climbing continues to chase grade correlation largely because grades are convenient, and it’s the end goal of climbing performance. They are not mechanistically clean. Grades embed technique, tactics, style familiarity, psychological tolerance, opportunity, access, and route setting bias. Trying to collapse all of that into a single physiological test is fundamentally flawed.

What This Paper Should Be Used For

Despite these criticisms, the review still has value if it is used appropriately.

It should be read as a catalog of what has been studied so far, a map of where evidence is thin, a reminder that specificity matters, and a warning against over reliance on generic fitness testing. It should not be treated as a definitive testing framework, a comprehensive physiological model, or a validated performance prediction tool.

The proposed test battery is best viewed as provisional scaffolding rather than a finished structure.

The Suggested Testing Battery (Context, Not Prescription)

At the end of the review, the authors do propose a Functional Sport Climbing Test Battery, with versions for advanced facilities and for more basic settings. It is worth outlining this battery, not because it should be adopted wholesale, but because it reflects where the field currently believes useful signal exists.

For cardiorespiratory endurance, the authors favor climbing specific protocols, which I agree with. These include incremental treadwall tests using changes in wall angle or climbing speed, and standardized climbing circuits performed at a fixed pace (time on and between holds) until failure. Outcomes such as time to failure, peak angle, peak climbing velocity (measured as distance and time), and submaximal heart rate or oxygen uptake are emphasized over traditional VO₂max testing.

For muscular strength, the battery centers on maximal finger flexor force measured with the arm extended overhead, typically using a climbing specific force transducer, force plate, or electronic scale. Results are normalized to body mass. Handgrip dynamometry is included only as a secondary option, primarily for lower level or female climbers, which is weird, and even then with limited confidence.

Muscular endurance is assessed through climbing specific finger endurance tests. These include continuous hangs to failure, intermittent work rest protocols, and measures such as force time integral or critical force of the finger flexors. The emphasis is on fatigue resistance rather than isolated capacity.

For muscular power, the proposed battery includes the power slap or arm jump test, where slap height is used as the primary outcome. For speed climbers, lower body power assessments such as the countermovement jump are suggested. Isometric rate of force development tests are included cautiously and mainly for advanced or elite athletes.

Flexibility is assessed using the Rock Over Climbing Test, with scores normalized to body height. The authors acknowledge that this test reflects a combination of mobility and strength rather than flexibility alone.

Balance testing is excluded due to insufficient evidence.

Taken together, this battery reflects the current consensus within a limited literature: finger strength, finger endurance, and climbing specific fatigue resistance appear to matter most. At the same time, the battery inherits all of the limitations of the studies it is based on. It does not resolve fundamental questions about contraction type, force transfer, or how these metrics should be interpreted across different climbers.

As such, this testing battery is best used as a menu of options rather than a checklist. Its value lies in benchmarking individual physiology and tracking adaptation over time, not in predicting grades or defining performance.

The Path Forward

I believe that if climbing wants to move beyond descriptive correlations, future research needs to shift toward mechanistic studies. That means proper force velocity profiling, clearer differentiation between contraction types, standardized fatigue state testing, and benchmarks that track adaptation rather than grade.

Until then, testing should be used to understand athletes, not to explain climbing grades.

Testing is simply not climbing. And climbing performance is not reducible to a test score.

Reference

Faggian S, Borasio N, Vecchiato M, Gatterer H, Burtscher M, Battista F, Brunner H, Quinto G, Duregon F, Ermolao A, Neunhaeuserer D.
Sport climbing performance determinants and functional testing methods: A systematic review.
Journal of Sport and Health Science. 2025;14:100974.
doi:10.1016/j.jshs.2024.100974