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# A connected wall for biomechanical speed climbing analysis

Violaine Cahouet, Xavier Hugues, Arthur Thepault, Franck Quaine

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## To cite this version:

Violaine Cahouet, Xavier Hugues, Arthur Thepault, Franck Quaine. A connected wall for biomechanical speed climbing analysis. Sports Physics 2024 Conference, Dec 2024, Rennes, France. hal-04885996

HAL Id: hal-04885996

https://hal.science/hal-04885996v1

Submitted on 14 Jan 2025

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# A connected wall for biomechanical speed climbing analysis

Cahouët Violaine, Hugues X., Thépault A. & Quaine F.

Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GIPSA-lab, 38000 Grenoble, France

violaine.cahouet@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

Climbing is a growing activity, crowned Olympic sport at Tokyo 2020. Especially, speed climbing has been performed as a single discipline at the Olympic Games of Paris in 2024. This sport involves climbing as fast as possible a standardized 15-metres route on a wall with a 5° slight overhang, belayed by an automatic device. The world record is regularly broken. Evaluating and improving their performance is a daily challenge for the climbers and their coaches. In this context, knowledge of the forces produced on the supports during start-up and ascent is essential information.

In support to the 2024 Olympic Games, Priority Research Program projet “PerfAnalytics” focused on speed climbing analysis, bringing together researchers and coaches to optimize athletes’ preparation. It has made it possible to develop a connected speed climbing wall, unique in the world, in collaboration with French team coaches at the FFME center in Voiron. The aim of this study is to present this connected climbing wall and its usefulness to high level competitors performance evaluation and training design.

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Connected speed climbing wall (Voiron, France) and typical example of 3D measured forces during a hand-foot grip.

A devoted route of the speed climbing wall of the Voiron French team training center was designed to fit each hold with 6-axis strain gauge sensors (Sensix ®) and set a forceplate (Kisler ®) under the starting pad. It allows to measure ground reaction force and holds support forces (1000Hz), synchronized with the timing system, while keeping similar aspect as classical routes.

This device has been used to evaluate and compare different international high-level competitor performances focusing on vertical and antero-posterior forces intensity during the start and the ascent. Vertical impulse can also be evaluated in order to identify speed-loss areas during ascent.

Furthermore, the estimation of muscular power permits to accurately quantify route demand level in order to better design future training charge.

This study was partly funded by the ANR PPR STHP 2020 (PerfAnalytics, ANR 20-STHP-0003).