Analysis of Relations between Spatiotemporal Movement Regulation and Performance of Discrete Actions Reveals Functionality in Skilled Climbing

Abstract

In this review of research on climbing expertise, we focus on different measures of climbing performance, including spatiotemporal measures related to fluency and activity states (i.e., discrete actions), adopted by climbers for achieving overall performance goals of getting to the end of a route efficiently and safely. Currently, a broad range of variables have been reported, however, many of these fail to capture how climbers adapt to a route whilst climbing. We argue that spatiotemporal measures should be considered concurrently with evaluation of activity states (such as reaching or exploring) in order gain a more comprehensive picture of how climbers successfully adapt to a route. Spatial and temporal movement measures taken at the hip are a traditional means of assessing efficiency of climbing behaviors. More recently, performatory and exploratory actions of the limbs have been used in combination with spatiotemporal indicators, highlighting the influence of limb states on climbing efficiency and skill transfer. However, only a few studies have attempted to combine spatiotemporal and activity state measures taken during route climbing. This review brings together existing approaches for observing climbing skill at performance outcome (i.e., spatiotemporal assessments) and process (i.e., limb activity states) levels of analysis. Skill level is associated with a spatially efficient route progression and lower levels of immobility. However, more difficult hold architecture designs require significantly greater mobility and more complex movement patterning to maintain performance. Different forms of functional, or goal-supportive, movement variability, including active recovery and hold exploration, have been implicated as important adaptations to physiological and environmental dynamics that emerge during the act of climbing. Indeed, recently it has also been shown that, when climbing on new routes, efficient exploration can improve the transfer of skill. This review provides new insights into how climbing performance and related actions can be quantified to better capture the functional role of movement variability.

Keywords: affordances; exploration; functional movement variability; motor skill; rock climbing; skill transfer.

Figure 1

(A) Shows that the shorter the path length within a given convex hull, the lower the geometric index of entropy (GIE). (B) The blue line is data from an advanced climber, who shows a more straight forward trajectory (and thus lower GIE) compared to the beginners climbed trajectory (red line). (C) After practice (the blue line representing a climbed trajectory after 42 trials of practice) typically do not show periods of searching as shown in the first trial of practice (red line on the left). (D) When the technique used is more complex, GIE also increases. Here an individual was asked to climb the same route either with the front of the body remained facing the wall (red line) or with the side of the body facing the wall (blue line). The more advanced technique required an increase in movement complexity.

Figure 2

The relationship between entropy and immobility as a function of wall position. Radius of each point was scaled to increase in proportion to the duration spent in a given state (thus the larger the dot, the longer the individual was in the given state of mobility (i.e., blue line) or immobility (redline). c, convex hull. Also note that upper means the top convex hull. Middle means the middle convex hull, bottom means bottom convex hull, and overall means the total convex hull. GIE, geometric index of entropy; IMR, immobility to mobility; m, meters.