UKH

I am a short climber (5' 5") and I usually climb with a much taller guy. I have noticed that when we climb indoor (outdoors is a totally different story..) together, I have to work harder, employing all my technique and careful footwork to reach certain handholds while my mate just stretch his arms to reach it. I have come up with the explanation that, as the average person/route setter is taller than me (quite common, especially in UK) the routes are set for a "taller" average. This makes me feel that the same grade route is trickyer for me that for him and, even If I think that as a consequence my technique is better than his, sometimes I do not manage to complete the route just because that one move, while my partner just reaches up and off he goes (infuriating). Consciously I know that being short is no excuse and I just have to work harder on my technique but I am still wondering if my theory is just in my mind as a subconscious excuse or there is some reality to it?

P.S: any tips or tricks on how to improve are most welcome. Thanks!

Not in your mind. A lot of routes will be objectively harder if you can’t reach the holds. Still, you’re taller than Don Whillans was, so there’s no excuse really

Some routes favour the tall, some routes favour the short, just choose more carefully!

Most of the setters in my neck of the woods are midgets but I'd get short shrift if I started complaining that this made things unfair.

You might want to reflect that arguably the hardest sport climber in the UK is only marginally taller than you.

Just an excuse - i use the opposite excuse to you all the time. I am 6 foot 4 and some sit starts i physically cant do. I boulder V7/8 often but yet there are plenty of V3/4/5/6's that i just cant do because i end up a tangle of limbs.

On the contrary though i have flashed a few V8's purely because my height reduced them to a V4 problem.

Personally i don't think being small is an issue, think of the potential power to weight ratio! Plus watching the local youth comps with the kids half my height absolutely cruise everything is fairly telling.

Yes, not an excuse. funny how I don't have the same issue climbing outdoors as I always find something, however small, to get me through.

Indeed, I can see your point. So, I just have to carry on trying my best to, somehow, grab that hold (and not get frustrated by taller people just cruising it)?

Indoors is more demanding in that regard because there are not usually any intermediate holds to make use of.  But this "being taller is an advantage" is only true in a limited number of scenarios.  I used to climb with a guy who was about 5' 5, I'm about 6' but he could reach holds I couldn't because a) he was a better climber and b) he could lock off his smaller body mass easier than I could to get himself into a better position. A large positive "ape factor" is a far more important advantage to have. And the thing is that with height you usually carry additional weight and that is with you on EVERY move so for me that outweighs any height advantage.

I’m 5’6” and have a similar issue sometimes.  

At one of my local walls, the setting is sometimes impossible, where being on the last foothold is so far from the finishing hold (nothing in between) that I just have to move on.  If it’s a jug I can jump but they’re often not.  It can be pretty demoralising when I can’t do a number of climbs in a (bouldering) set that are well below my limit.

They even have a hangboard where I can only reach the lowest holds.

It makes appreciate how hard it is to be a good setter.

There was a podcast where the Lattice guys were talking about height and how it relates to ability - based on their database.  Generally taller climbers have it easier because they can use less moves and therefore be more efficient.  The only situation where shorter climbers were at an advantage was where core mattered, for instance cutting loose on a roof and pulling your feet back up.

Walls are just to make your arms ache, so it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of thing. Lynne Hill is 5ft 1" blah blah.

Years ago at my local wall we let a 12 year old talented junior set a route. He was about 4ft 10". Someone complained to me the following day that it was too reachy. 

The lattice data was extremely misleading - if you look back at the discussion here on that data you will see why.  There was one very tall outlier in their data and without that one outlier there is essentially no statistical correlation between height and grade.

For those that find it hard to get to grip with this idea consider this problem:

If you are 20% taller, you are, on average 20% wider and 20% deeper.  Your key muscles are 20% deeper and 20% thicker giving a cross sectional area increase of 44% but your arms are 20% longer meaning a strength gain overall of 20%.

So you are 20% taller, and 20% stronger - great, what's not to like?  Problem is you are 72% heavier and you are 20% longer so all those core muscles needs to be bigger to resist the 100% increase in torque (72% mass over 20% longer levers). And all that force has to be applied through the same contact area, on the same patch of skin.

Sure every now and again the tall win by reaching past the crux but that only looks like a good thing because they are too weak and heavy to climb the intermediates in the first place.

The problem is, as a tall person, you don't look like you have a good excuse when you can't move out from some super cramped bunched up position or can't make the crap slopers work because your centre of mass is too high or your long levers mean you can't crank on some small sharp crimp: you just look weak and uncoordinated. 

Whereas complaining about not being able to climb to the jug is regarded with sympathy.

Chances are some talented 10 year old will dance up your project despite being half your size.

Id just not let it frustrate you full stop, its only climbing

I used to get annoyed at such things but it really doesn't matter, i struggle on hard problems set by Ian Vickers as his style is usually high feet real deep lockoffs to your hip and pull hard - impossible for me most of the time.

Maybe be more dynamic, less hesitant in your movement to reach those distant holds?

Im going to screenshot that for future reference!

you are right, getting frustrated doesn't help. I might spend some time just watching climbers with more or less my height to see how they cope with it. 

There is always someone that complains at everything....

That is interesting. By the way, how do you enhance your "ape factor"?

It's also unlikely that unless you are climbing at an elite level that height is your limiting factor. Regardless of the debate around which genetic factors provide the most advantage in terms of climbing, a lot of it is also down to effort, training and practice. 

IMO comparing yourself to others isn't particularly helpful. People progress at different rates in any case. The most important thing is just to concentrate on enjoying the journey of improvement and the things that you can improve like strength, skill and tactics. 

Carry very heavy weights around daily?

At the elite level evidence does not show any significant advantagei to being tall.  There's a nice chart here for all people who have climbed 9a+ or harder.

https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,29904.0.html

Shows a bell curve distribution centred around about 173cm (5 foot 8) with lower and upper limits of 5 foot 1 and 6 feet 2

There are a few shortar*e sandbags around, get them wired and then drag your beanpole mates along and watch them suffer! Insanity at  Curbar and King Kong at Stanage spring to mind. 

This is nonsense.  If this were true then climbing - at the highest level at least - would be like basketball or the high jump, dominated by extremely tall athletes.  And, generally, most women would struggle because they "can't reach the holds"..  

But, this is clearly not the case.  In particular, I would say that flexibility and nimbleness are far greater attributes than height.

The other obvious disadvantage for most tall climbers is the size of their feet.  It must be so much easier to climb in size 5 shoes than size 12.

Can you prove that is true? I don't think it's necessarily true at all that as height increases so does "thickness"? 

Certain builds clear help in just about all other sports, why not in climbing? I'm sure there are very specific circumstances where being short helps - sit starts like you say - but being tall and gangly (i.e. tall but light) has to help in most.

Yes agree. Think my post wasn't very clear.

Just meant that people can get too hung up on what they think are limiting factors (regardless of whether the evidence shows that they are or are not limiting factors) and actually most people haven't reached what they are capable of with more effort and training. So believing that some genetic or unchangeable factor is holding you back (whether that's real or perceived) isn't particularly helpful in terms of improvement.

Maybe the whole tall/short debate really doesn't matter that much, I have a fairly big negative ape index, maybe that is a disadvantage, maybe it is not, but its certainly not my limiting factor in climbing harder. 

Certain builds do help in certain sports and in those sports the evidence is there at the elite level - very tall basketballers, tall tennis players etc.  There may well be builds that help for climbers (almost certainly low body fat for example) but height appears unlikely to be one and there is certainly no evidence that it is.  Elite climbers are simply not taller than average, in fact they are probably slightly shorter than average.  This argument seems to come up all the time but nobody ever seems to provide any evidence beyond  'it must be so' and 'Adam Ondra is tall' (even though he isn't even that tall unless you're only comparing him to other climbers!)

I am sure there are a lot of situations where tall and gangly helps but I don't think it is as bigger benefit as is often suggested due to the mechanical disadvantage of longer levers and increased weight. I suspect a sample of taller climbers given a set of hang tests or chin ups would perform worse than a sample of short climbers operating at the same grade, but I don't think this shows the whole story.

Possibly of interest is the work of Prof. Nick Trefethen at Oxford University on BMI as he points out that the simplistic x^2 relationship underestimates healthy weights for tall people and overestimated them in shorter people. So a comparable build tall person is carrying more mass than you may expect. 

it always comes down to the level. At a beginners level (up to French 6a or so) being tall is good, because most routes are slabs or vertical and reach is more important than weight (which is on the feet). At an advanced level being short/medium height is good, because weight is much more important than reach (and it is easy to get a strong core while remaining light).

There was some statistics done with 8a.nu data that showed that the average height of subsequent groups (best 10000, best 3000, best 1000, best 300, best 100 climbers in the system) went down. It ended with 1m70 cm.

The main advantages for short climbers are in steep terrain and in endurance routes.

I can’t comment on how well Lattice interpreted their data but they seem to have more data and more experience of such things than anyone I know of in climbing.

I appreciate that all things being equal, taller climbers are heavier than shorter climbers and therefore may need more finger strength when on a climb that is at their limit of finger strength - for instance where there’s a crimp that they may or may not be able to hold on to BUT..

...if a climber can’t reach that crimp (imagine there are are no feet and no smearing opportunities) then it doesn’t matter how strong that climber is.  I’ve seen plenty of 10 year old wonder kids get shut down this way.

I find that being unable to reach the next hold, from the feet available to me, is a much more common limiting factor than whether I can keep hold of something that I can reach.

Joe Brown (not the tallest climber in the world) seemed to have no problems. Think his quote was if you can't reach the hold climb up to it! 

Tomoa just jumps to everything

Nice quote, I did read it before. Lots of interesting facts and opinions came out in this post, in fact more than I expected. Based on all this, my conclusion is that height does not really matter when you have to reach that hold, everything else does!

So a tall heavy climber can reach the crimp but cant stick it and the shorter stronger climber cant reach it regardless - sounds about equal either side to me!

Here is the proof: (obviously it isn't a true proof! and more an observation with a bit of reading thrown in)

People's body shapes in the normal range of heights, excluding medical factors are pretty much the same.  Thus their proportions are pretty much the same and they scale in all three dimensions at the same rate.  This isn't actually true but if you read around criticism of the body mass index number you'll find that mass is roughly proportional to height cubed (exponent ranges from 2.5 to 3 but for men is normally around 2.95).

On the other hand BMI scales with height^2 and therefore over estimates thinness in short people but over estimates fatness in the tall.

Now being tall and thin is the outlier in your argument but this is not the boon you might think.  Your bone mass is pretty much a height determined constant and as you become tall and thing your muscle mass as a fraction of total body mass decreases.  Couple this with the fact that your levers are getting longer and you lose out.

Now I'm not saying being short helps but what I'm saying is the obvious advantages of being taller are accompanied with significant disadvantages.  If anything climbing favours a middle ground but only weakly.

Lattice published their heigth vs performance data, when I analysed it the correlation was weak, when you removed the one obvious outlier the correlation was very weak, if I remember correctly the Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.15 (very weak) meaning that you could pretty much draw any line through the data point from showing a negative effect with being tall to a positive one.

Overall there are more important things the matter (like finger strength, flexibility, mobility, upper body strength and core strength) than height.

As someone above said if height was a real advantage then the elite would be huge but they aren't

That doesn't sound right. Say one person is 5ft and weighs 10 stone are you really saying that someone 6ft tall i.e. 20% taller will be 72% heavier i.e 17stone?

They might be but there's more chance they won't. There's no direct mathmatical correlation between them, sure a 6 footer will probably be heavier than a 5 footer but probably not 7 stone heavier.

Get him on some routes where being shorter is an advantage, such things do exist! Usually ones where you end up bunched up and having to traverse. Then sit back and laugh at him attempting to get his knees by his ears

I'm a tall (6' 4") and very heavy climber, and while I can sometimes miss crux moves out with reach there are as many routes where it makes it more difficult, e.g. being "bunched up" or overhangs.

I'd say it's swings and roundabouts, to be honest.

FWIW, most famous climbers are not particularly tall.  That might say something?  Trouble is that being tall generally makes you heavier than someone of the same build who's shorter...

This is I suppose more about climbing outdoors, though.  Some setters at walls will set a 6a, say, with holds a certain distance apart, then will set near enough the same route as a 6b with the holds just a bit further apart.  This is just rubbish route setting, though I must admit I do occasionally enjoy a 6a/6b which is basically a giant's jug ladder!

Yeah, sit starts can be a right sod to tall people, particularly tall, heavy people with long legs.

Fortunately both Big Rocks have quite tall bouldering walls so don't set too many of them

Lots of exceptions in basketball - 'shorties' running rings around lumbering giants and high jump - there was a five foot eight American (can't remember his name) who set a world record of seven feet eight. Johnny Dawes stand up please! Oh, you're already standing up...

I once participated in bouldering league at my local wall. I'm 5'5" ish. When I complained that the routes where biased towards tall climbers I was challenged by the route setter to demonstrate the problem. I stood on the ground next to the start of the problem, which started with two hand holds wide apart. I couldn't even touch them both at the same time with fingertips, let alone use the as holds. Problem impossible.

Yes, it is correct in terms of the person having the same proportions (10 stone at 5ft is rather heavy).  The density of the tissue is the same in both cases and the volume goes up as the cube of the linear size (height).

Actually, on average taller people tend to be slighter in build but only by a little bit, the reason being is that one way of being taller is to have proportionally longer limbs (put this another way the very short tend to be stumpy and the very tall tend to be lanky).  However, the typical exponent (for men) is around 2.95 rather than 3 so weight goes up as height^2.95 rather than height^3.

The effect for women is a bit more variable.with the exponent varying from 2.5-2.9 meaning that "on average" proportions change a bit more with height.

For comparison a fairly slight man at 6'2" at 11st would come in at 7st1lb at 5'4".

Height does make a big difference to weight.  It may not be a fully a three-dimensional relationship but it is significant. 

For example, the ideal weight for someone of 5ft is about 50kg, according to the BMI; for someone about 5ft 6 it's 60kg, someone about 6ft it's 75kg; and, for someone about 6ft 6, it's about 90kg.

So, someone who is 6ft will be about 50% heavier than someone of the same build who is 5ft. And, someone who is 6ft 6 will be almost twice the weight of someone who is 5ft.

It certainly makes no sense to say there is no correlation between height and weight.

I'm not sure what basketball you've been watching.  The average height in the NBA is 6ft7.  Sure there are a few smaller players.  Even some of the best.  But fundamentally height is huge advantage in basketball.

I also checked the last Rio Olympic High Jump final: ALL competitors were 6ft3 and over.  Although no one was taller than 6ft6.  This suggests that unlike basketball, eventually the extra height is no advantage.

If height was an advantage in climbing then a top sports climbing competition would look like that.  Almost all the competitors would be over 6ft.

One of the interesting aspects of this debate is how different people interpret "advantage".  For example, in tennis many commentators believe that it as an "advantage" to serve first in a set.  The data, however, shows that there is no relationship between serving first and winning a set.  And, yet, the commentators say that even so it's still an "advantage".

So, it depends what you mean by "advantage".  If you mean that tall climbers can sometimes do things that short climbers can't then sure.  But, if it means that tall climbers can use their height to become better climbers, then that is not the case.

Route setting at indoor walls can be an issue. A well set route should be the same level of difficulty  irrespective of the climbers’ height. Some setters can’t do this, others can. 

Of course height tends to make a difference to weight, that's blindingly obvious. My point was there was no direct mathematical correlation, its incredibly variable and that being 20% taller will in no way result in being precisely 72% heavier, in most cases nothing like that much.

I said there's no direct mathematical correlation because there isn't.

I remember discussing this with a particularly spidery route setter some time ago.  He acknowledged his extra reach but said he made sure he could always touch crucial handholds with his elbow. 

Although that may not be a causal relationship - The route setters probably take into account the height of the shortest competitor when setting, lest open themselves up for criticism for setting moves that are 'impossible'. However, for most other moves, being short (and light) will be an advantage, although this advantage is much less obvious to see. Therefore setting will tend to favour the shorter competitors... 

... over time, taller competitors will be put off from competing and the trend will be self perpetuating.  

Not sure that basketball and high jump can be compared. The need for defence obviously means that taller players benefit in basketball though they also need good hand-eye co-ordination for passing and shooting. High jump is more about sheer explosive power. Above about 6 ft 3 (feet and inches sound so much better!) jumpers tend to be more and more lollopy and unco-ordinated. Stefan Holm, who won the 2004 Olympics, was only 5 ft 11 and Valery Brumel the 60s superstar was only a shade over 6 ft. There was a world class American from the 80s who was only 5 ft 8 and jumped over 7 ft 8 - his name will come to me soon. Though granted the world record holder Sotomayer was around 6 ft 7 (or 2 metres - metric for once!!) and rangy as hell. If you watch videos of Johnny Dawes  climbing note the controlled power and co-ordination. Don't give up wee men and women!

I'm 6,2. But with disproportionately long legs & short torso (when I sit down I'm the height of most average sized people).

It's great that sometimes I can reach holds that others can't without putting in an extra move, but where it does seem to have a big disadvantage for me is roofs and overhanging routes. Having an oversize set of limbs to haul over a roof and bunch up onto crucial footholds, is sometimes near impossible. 

If I was the same height and had a long torso and short legs, the opposite would be true. So I think the length ratio of upper body to lower body has a greater impact than just height alone.

it is swings and roundabouts. I am 6'2" and will struggle like hell to get off the floor on a bunched up sit-start whereas my shorter friend makes it look easy. I may then be able to lank the next move and he has to put in extra footwork. Neither is better - although for the same weight he has more muscle mass so I think he has the advantage

on balance, if I only wanted to do well at climbing, I would be shorter than I am now.

same goes for fell running. complete pain in the a*s dragging unnecessary and useless weight up a steep gradient

I'm 5'5. I think trying to compare if taller or shorter climbers have it harder or easier is just the most ridiculous and pointless exercise. Both parties have strengths and weaknesses so I just let it be, to me I feel that is the beauty of climbing.

Compared to my lanky compatriots I obviously tend to struggle on long reachy moves, but tend to dominate on bunched compression moves and high feet, hanging off small holds etc. In general, to compensate for lack of reach I have learnt to embrace jumping and cutting loose, making use of high feet, really focusing on my feet to push off to launch to the next holds and so on.

Sometimes though, I find particularly reachy climbs (particularly ones that can only be climbed statically) impossible, and I'm willing to accept that I might never be able to climb that. Though for every reachy climb I project with lanky friends I always make sure I set something very bunched on the training board to balance the universe

It all depends on where you climb and at what level.

At normal punter level a taller climber will have a greater choice of holds within reach and therefore have the option of making the problem easier *if* its there and *if* they want to. 

I can count on one hand the number of sit starts I've seen in the Works over the last 2 years so yeah being shorter is handy once every 8-10 months. 

It's obviously true that some climbs will suit taller climbers and some will suit shorter climbers, however I disagree with those that say it balances itself out.

I can't think of a climb that doesn't involve a reach up or across to the next hold.  Only a minority of climbs are bunched up, require cutting loose, or any situation where being short is a benefit.

Generally this only bothers me when I'm climbing indoors and can't complete a boulder problem because I can't reach the way it's been set and can't find a way round it.  When I fail a V2 this way but flash a V6 next to it, I'm left with frustration at the poor setting.  I find this to be an issue with a minority of setters.

Outside isn't an issue.  I can usually find better feet positions and if not, I can move on.  Having said that, there are occassions where I can't reach the starting holds on a sit start!

Doesn't really prove anything but I came across this tall Vs short video this morning which reminded me of this thread. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxnYw_lF850/?igshid=5knw2aqb4lbd

I am 152cm tall, and I route set in our wall. People often say that my routes are reachy, but I argue they are footworky! However, what can also happen is that a hold which is useful for me might be too low for a taller climber so they try to reach through to the next move. This does make a move reachy. 

I also use a lot of high steps and balancey moves, which can also favour the short and flexible. 

Generally though, people tend to like my routes and taller climbers seem to like the different sort of challenge. Having a range of route setters in a wall helps as then you tend to get a good range of routes to suit climbing styles and body shapes.

So - as Pero already pointed out one comment above yours - why aren't most top climbers tall and gangly then?

(OK, with the admitted exception of the top climber. And even he isn't really exceptionally tall)

Five footer weighs 10 stone? Are you sure?

I weigh over 10 stone at the moment. 69kg currently, and 152cm tall. And I route set. 

Some one 6’ 3” here...

one point worth noting is how injury prone you can be.  I’ve always struggled with elbow/finger injuries...to be a good climber you need to be climbing.

Nailed it! I'm sending this to all my mates who like to tell me "it's just easy for you 'cause you're tall" whenever I get up something. 

im 6-3 and 17 stone. its a huge disadvantage being tall. smaller the better. the small climbers who complain just need to get stronger.

myself and andi are the same height and climbed with readza lots who is tiny. it never stopped him and he never mentioned it