[petejh]

Occasionally I find myself thinking that certain people I meet and/or read on here might be poor responders to training stimulus.. naming no names!

So as per the title - who's had a genetic test for training responsiveness, who wants one and what are people's views?

I sent one off about 3 years ago but they lost it (XR Genomics). They sent me a replacement kit but I didn't ever get around bothering to re-do it.

The one I did tested to predict responsiveness to aerobic endurance only. More recently a climbing friend took a test which predicted responsiveness training endurance and power (which I find interesting); natural VO2 max, recovery potential - based on ability to clear free radicals, predisposition to injury, specific nutrition needs. I have his results pdf and it details results for the 27 different genes they test for and what training effect they may have.

I say 'predicted', I'm aware it's far from undisputed how powerful a predictor of training responsiveness genetic testing actually is. Here's a good paper on the subject, and it's conclusion (Think I recognise the 'H. Wackeridge' from winter climbing..?):

http://pilarmartinescudero.es/2017%20en-mar/Genetic%20testing%20for%20sport%20perfomance.%20Practical%20and%20ethical%20considerations.pdf

The focus of this paper has been on the potential use of genetic tests to predict performance and/or the risk of exercise-related injury or illness. The knowledge base is expected to develop so that the prescription of training, nutrition and competition load, and the management of injury risk, can be conducted in a more individualized manner than is currently possible to improve both performance and athlete welfare. Consequently, various people may wish to conduct a sport-related genetic test on themselves, or on another person, for a variety of reasons. An individual may seek personal genetic information to assist him/her with their own sporting participation and career, by identifying the most suitable type of sport. A sports coach may wish to test the members of a youth team to assist in selection for a professional career or to individualize training. A physician may want to predict the risk of injury or illness in an athlete and advise a coach regarding selection or preventative measures. An insurance company may seek to estimate the risk of career-threatening injury or illness to an athlete based partly on genetic information. However, despite the commercial availability of genetic tests today, the evidence available at present suggests that few, and probably none, of these or similar scenarios are scientifically justified – the genetic tests available at the moment are not powerful enough to provide valid data on which to base important decisions in sport.

[Ru]

My gut instinct is that there are a lot of genetic factors affecting performance and that there is unlikely to be any consensus (or even real knowledge) on which ones are the most important. There is a confounding factor in that genetic testing can only tell you what genes you have, it cannot tell you anything about epigenetics - i.e. the degree of functionality of those genes. Similarly many genes code for many different things at once and there is a degree of overlapping functionality so just knowing whether or not someone has a certain gene doesn't necessarily mean you know whether (or to what degree) they are advantaged/disadvantaged.

Disclaimer: my wife is a doctor and uses genetic testing, mostly looking at metabolic issues that lead to chronic disease, hence I know virtually nothing about this, but just enough to be able to sound like I do to others that also don't know much about it.

[Doylo]

You been reading Luke's power club?

[slackline]

There are an estimated ~30,000 genes in the human genome and a lot of other regulatory regions that control their expression (much of which hasn't yet been identified).  To date science has identified many genes for monogenic disorders (single gene, e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Huntingtons Disease, Phenylketoneuria) and some with large effects in multifactorial diseases (e.g. BRCA1 and BRCA2 which increase risk of breast cancer).  There is variable penetrance for each mutation (the degree to which a given phenotype is manifested based on genotype) and many of these things interact with complex environmental factors to result in your current physiological state and its 'responsiveness' to training.

A quick scan of the paper suggests around 20 genes have been shown to be associated with responsiveness and are tested for in commercial kits.  Some of those I recognise as part of the immune systems response (e.g. IL6 which is an Interleukin and TNF which is Tumor Necrosis Factor).  Each of these has lots of variants in it, and not all will have been tested for association, rather reference frameworks of Single Nucelotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) are tested and typed on Illumina or Affymetrix genotyping arrays and some will be virtue of linkage disequilibrium show association but not be the causual variant itself.

All in all I'd say Science^TM is a long way off being able to give a genetic profile for anything but a relatively small handful of diseases and a long way off something as complicated as repsonsiveness to training, but people are working on it.  You can browse tons of information about the effect of variants at Online Mendelian Inherithance in Man and the more promising studies are things like the UK Biobank and 1000 Genomes projects.

Thats not to say there isn't an underlying genetic component involved which interacts with the environment and is manifest in the variation you see around you, just that we're a long way off being able to "test" for it, so I agree with the papers conclusion.


Disclaimer : Studied Genetic Epidemiology all about mapping disease genes and worked for +10 years as Genetics Statistician on identifying genes in complex human diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, macular degeneration, kidney disease in children and breast cancer.

[alx]

You should look to your ideal wine pairing for performance enhancement.

https://www.vinome.com

[jwi]

You should look to your ideal wine pairing for performance enhancement.

https://www.vinome.com

Hahaha. Duly wadded.

[TobyD]

Isn't it more likely that limitations are exposed through simply not doing the right training for the individual and their specific goal, or a deficiency in skills?

[Luke Owens]

Occasionally I find myself thinking that Luke might be a poor responder to training stimulus..

FTFY, I have an idea; Can everyone crowd fund me to do a lattice assessment and get a training plan from Tom which I'll follow to prove it's impossible for me to improve? 

Then, If everyone can pay for me to get a genetic test done we can all ponder over the results.

You been reading Luke's power club?

 

[Tommy]

The "poor responders" concept is a really interesting one. I've come across a number of climbers over the years who seem to have really terrible response to training and they fit in this box where I think "damn, why did they never fulfil their potential that they had on paper?".

In the early years I put it down to crap training plans, wrong conclusions or training methodology not being suited to the individual. However over time, I've come to think the following are often are more likely:

1. The person's weight fluctuates too heavily through the year

2. They do the training, BUT they also do way too much other stuff (more climbing, running, cycling, DIY)

3. They don't recognise how stressful and energy draining their life is (hard jobs, family, sleep cycles, partying)

4. They convince themselves they're either "naturally weak" or "naturally strong" and then pigeon hole their training sessions to suit this. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They're weak, so actually they avoid a lot of the truly hard stuff in training as it makes them feel rubbish... or likewise the opposite for strong, unfit climbers. I'm massively guilty of this. 

5. Their balance of indoor (training) vs outdoor (performance) is really out of kilter with their skill set. It's damn hard to get right, but it's a massive effect.

I bet if any coach worth their salt spend 10 one-on-one sessions with Luke he'd see an improvement. It's just a shame that it costs money or can't persuade a mate to do that!

[mrjonathanr]

The "poor responders" concept is a really interesting one. I've come across a number of climbers over the years who seem to have really terrible response to training and they fit in this box where I think "damn, why did they never fulfil their potential that they had on paper?".

3. They don't recognise how stressful and energy draining their life is (hard jobs, family, sleep cycles, partying)

That covers most of the middle aged dads on here.

[Nutty]

The "poor responders" concept is a really interesting one. I've come across a number of climbers over the years who seem to have really terrible response to training and they fit in this box where I think "damn, why did they never fulfil their potential that they had on paper?".

3. They don't recognise how stressful and energy draining their life is (hard jobs, family, sleep cycles, partying)

That covers most of the middle aged dads on here.

Except the partying!

[slackline]

Seen in local Oxfam at lunch today...




£2.99, let me know if you're interested in it petejh

Its worth remembering that its possible to demonstrate that something is heritable (i.e. has a genetic component) without knowing anything about the genes involved.  The original and classic example is the hereditary nature of pea flowers and pea shapes demonstrated by the monk Gregor Mendel long before it was even known that DNA (rather than the proteins that they encode) was the heritable material, and even further before the structure of DNA and the molecular biology revolution that ensued.  Mendels theory of particulate inherithance was nicely reconciled with the continuous nature of characteristics by RA Fisher, JBS Haldane and Sewall Wright to form the foundation of the current neo-Darwinist theory of evolution.  RA Fishers The Genetical Theory of Nautral Selection is well worth a read if so inclined.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Are you trying to break it to him gently, Slackline? 

(or indeed, the rest of us)

[bigironhorse]

There is a confounding factor in that genetic testing can only tell you what genes you have, it cannot tell you anything about epigenetics - i.e. the degree of functionality of those genes.

You can test for some epigenetic marks, for example DNA methylation by bisulphite sequencing. The usefulness of this would probably  be even less than than that of the a basic genetic test as the effects of epigenetic changes on specific genes are generally poorly understood.

[Oldmanmatt]

The one I did tested to predict responsiveness to aerobic endurance only. More recently a climbing friend took a test which predicted responsiveness training endurance and power (which I find interesting); natural VO2 max, recovery potential - based on ability to clear free radicals, predisposition to injury, specific nutrition needs.

Coming from someone as large and strong as you, I find this painfully ironic.
Today, someone described you as “Hardly ever goes near a campus board, then gets up off the couch and 1-5-8’s like it’s easy”.

[Oldmanmatt]

The "poor responders" concept is a really interesting one. I've come across a number of climbers over the years who seem to have really terrible response to training and they fit in this box where I think "damn, why did they never fulfil their potential that they had on paper?".

In the early years I put it down to crap training plans, wrong conclusions or training methodology not being suited to the individual. However over time, I've come to think the following are often are more likely:

1. The person's weight fluctuates too heavily through the year

2. They do the training, BUT they also do way too much other stuff (more climbing, running, cycling, DIY)

3. They don't recognise how stressful and energy draining their life is (hard jobs, family, sleep cycles, partying)

4. They convince themselves they're either "naturally weak" or "naturally strong" and then pigeon hole their training sessions to suit this. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They're weak, so actually they avoid a lot of the truly hard stuff in training as it makes them feel rubbish... or likewise the opposite for strong, unfit climbers. I'm massively guilty of this. 

5. Their balance of indoor (training) vs outdoor (performance) is really out of kilter with their skill set. It's damn hard to get right, but it's a massive effect.

I bet if any coach worth their salt spend 10 one-on-one sessions with Luke he'd see an improvement. It's just a shame that it costs money or can't persuade a mate to do that!

Damn, but if this isn’t the exact conversation I had with Toby this morning...

Weird.

He agrees with you, btw.

[Oldmanmatt]

The "poor responders" concept is a really interesting one. I've come across a number of climbers over the years who seem to have really terrible response to training and they fit in this box where I think "damn, why did they never fulfil their potential that they had on paper?".

3. They don't recognise how stressful and energy draining their life is (hard jobs, family, sleep cycles, partying)

That covers most of the middle aged dads on here.

Except the partying!

Oh I party almost every weekend.

I took my 8 year old to on last Saturday, it’s my other 8 (now 9) year olds birthday party tonight and I’m driving the 12 year old to a party/sleep over this Friday.
I’m a God-Damned-Partying-Tyranosaurous-frigging-Rex mate!

[slackline]

The "poor responders" concept is a really interesting one. I've come across a number of climbers over the years who seem to have really terrible response to training and they fit in this box where I think "damn, why did they never fulfil their potential that they had on paper?".

In the early years I put it down to crap training plans, wrong conclusions or training methodology not being suited to the individual. However over time, I've come to think the following are often are more likely:

1. The person's weight fluctuates too heavily through the year

2. They do the training, BUT they also do way too much other stuff (more climbing, running, cycling, DIY)

3. They don't recognise how stressful and energy draining their life is (hard jobs, family, sleep cycles, partying)

4. They convince themselves they're either "naturally weak" or "naturally strong" and then pigeon hole their training sessions to suit this. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They're weak, so actually they avoid a lot of the truly hard stuff in training as it makes them feel rubbish... or likewise the opposite for strong, unfit climbers. I'm massively guilty of this. 

5. Their balance of indoor (training) vs outdoor (performance) is really out of kilter with their skill set. It's damn hard to get right, but it's a massive effect.

I bet if any coach worth their salt spend 10 one-on-one sessions with Luke he'd see an improvement. It's just a shame that it costs money or can't persuade a mate to do that!

This reads to me as though some people are poor at adherence to a training plan rather than being poor responders.

Its one of the reasons clinical trials will often employ two forms of analyses, Intention To Treat and Per-Protocol (entries on Wikipedia explain the difference for those interested).

[petejh]

Coming from someone as large and strong as you, I find this painfully ironic.
Today, someone described you as “Hardly ever goes near a campus board, then gets up off the couch and 1-5-8’s like it’s easy”.

You are joking, I assume?! 147 on smalls is my standard, never done 158 

[petejh]

Luke you're not the only one - there's a certain individual with a passing resemblance to housewives favourite telly doc, Michael Mosley, who I also wonder about...

[nai]

I reckon certain individual could adapt but doesn't give him, or her, self chance to and might be guilty of 3,4 or 5 of Tommy's loist

[slackline]

What should pop up in my Twitter stream this morning which is bang on topic for you petejh...


Genome-wide association study of habitual physical activity in over 277,000 UK Biobank participants identifies multiple variants including CADM2 and APOE

Physical activity (PA) protects against a wide range of diseases. Engagement in habitual PA has been shown to be heritable, motivating the search for specific genetic variants that may ultimately inform efforts to promote PA and target the best type of PA for each individual. We used data from the UK Biobank to perform the largest genome-wide association study of PA to date, using three measures based on self-report (n=277,656) and two measures based on wrist-worn accelerometry data (n=67,808). We examined genetic correlations of PA with other traits and diseases, as well as tissue-specific gene expression patterns. With data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC; n=8,556) study, we performed a meta-analysis of our top hits for moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA). We identified 26 genome-wide loci across the five PA measures examined. Upon meta-analysis of the top hits for MVPA with results from the ARIC study, 8 of 10 remained significant at p<5x10-8. Interestingly, among these, the rs429358 variant in the APOE gene was the most strongly associated with MVPA. Variants in CADM2, a gene recently implicated in risk-taking behavior and other personality and cognitive traits, were found to be associated with regular engagement in strenuous sports or other exercises. We also identified thirteen loci consistently associated (p<0.005) with each of the five PA measures. We find genetic correlations of PA with educational attainment traits, chronotype, psychiatric traits, and obesity-related traits. Tissue enrichment analyses implicate the brain and pituitary gland as locations where PA-associated loci may exert their actions. These results provide new insight into the genetic basis of habitual PA, and the genetic links connecting PA with other traits and diseases.

[TobyD]

Coming from someone as large and strong as you, I find this painfully ironic.
Today, someone described you as “Hardly ever goes near a campus board, then gets up off the couch and 1-5-8’s like it’s easy”.

You are joking, I assume?! 147 on smalls is my standard, never done 158 

  I actually claimed 159 for you initially, Pete, but I did then correct myself to 147 IIRC. Either way, you do have some enviable off the couch power. I'm not saying this isn't as a result of hard work over a long period of time, but I'm jealous anyway.

Tommy, I totally agree with you as Matt says. Loads of people assume running etc won't really tire them out for climbing, or avoid having to look shit at the wall by working their strengths. Fortunately, only Matt can see me at the Bunker, and he already knows how shit I am, so I can happily struggle up 1-2-3...

[petejh]

Hmm.. I wonder if your relative lack of power is something to do with your genes. And if it is, whether there's a reliable test for this?
 

[slackline]

Hmm.. I wonder if your relative lack of power is something to do with your genes. And if it is, whether there's a reliable test for this?
 

No there isn't a reliable test, and there won't be for a very long time.  People don't even know the complete set of genes involved, let alone quantifying all of the variation that exists within them throughout the human population which would then allow such tests to be performed.

The BioBank paper above is how to go about tackling the first step.  You won't ever get a sufficiently large sample size of climbers in which to conduct such a study specific to climbing.

[bigironhorse]

Hmm.. I wonder if your relative lack of power is something to do with your genes. And if it is, whether there's a reliable test for this?
 

You won't ever get a sufficiently large sample size of climbers in which to conduct such a study specific to climbing.

I would 100% agree with this. GWAS style studies are notoriously low powered and its hard enough to pull out significant genes/variants even when you have a very large population of people with a strongly defined phenotype.

[slackline]

To clarify bigironhorse is referring to statistical power and not physiological power.

[petejh]

No there isn't a reliable test, and there won't be for a very long time.  People don't even know the complete set of genes involved, let alone quantifying all of the variation that exists within them throughout the human population which would then allow such tests to be performed.

The BioBank paper above is how to go about tackling the first step.  You won't ever get a sufficiently large sample size of climbers in which to conduct such a study specific to climbing.

Just for the record I 'was' being sarcastic..


I started this thread because it's an interesting topic and I'm curious to know more, so thanks Slackers for educating us all!

Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm sure you will but it seems to me that when we start talking about a lot of things to do with the human body/health/fitness/nutrition, it'll always be a very long time for scientists to be able to say with certainty that x+y = z. The best you can ever really hope for in some cases are strong correlations.

So saying something is or isn't scientifically proven doesn't appear to me to necessarily be a realistic standard to expect to achieve when it comes to talking about subjects like fitness, training, nutrition etc.

We follow training and nutrition protocols all the time that aren't scientifically 'proven' - some of the better training ideas out there no doubt based on scientific method, is backed up by previous training methodologies that have seemed to work and are based on established physiological research, and have a bunch of data from other climbers showing correlation with 'improvement x'. But I doubt that any of it is 'proven' to the scientific standards that are being discussed here.

I think it's normal for people to be attracted to the idea of finding out if they posses 'xyz' (or GCTA..) which in some tests has shown to be correlated to 'outcome abc'. Little harm in it as long as you possess healthy skepticism and a clear understanding of the limitations.

Doubt I'll be paying just yet though...

[Oldmanmatt]

Hmm.. I wonder if your relative lack of power is something to do with your genes. And if it is, whether there's a reliable test for this?
 

He doesn’t usually wear Jeans whilst Campusing, but he does have tendency to turn every session into an endurance fest. If only I could swap some of his endurance for a little of my strength; he’d be bounding up 8b+ in no time and I might manage to get beyond warm up...
I need to pinch a bit (actually a metric shit tonne) of foot work from him too.

[slackline]

Just for the record I 'was' being sarcastic..

I took the scratching of the chin to mean you were still wondering if there was such a test.

Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm sure you will but it seems to me that when we start talking about a lot of things to do with the human body/health/fitness/nutrition, it'll always be a very long time for scientists to be able to say with certainty that x+y = z. The best you can ever really hope for in some cases are strong correlations.

That is very much the nature of science, you have paradigms/models for viewing the world around you and go out and test the predictions based on that model, if the results match the predictions it lends support that the hypothesis is correct.  If evidence accumulates that the paradigm/model is wrong then the hypothesis is revised.

We follow training and nutrition protocols all the time that aren't scientifically 'proven' - some of the better training ideas out there no doubt based on scientific method, is backed up by previous training methodologies that have seemed to work and are based on established physiological research, and have a bunch of data from other climbers showing correlation with 'improvement x'. But I doubt that any of it is 'proven' to the scientific standards that are being discussed here.

I think it's normal for people to be attracted to the idea of finding out if they posses 'xyz' (or GCTA..) which in some tests has shown to be correlated to 'outcome abc'. Little harm in it as long as you possess healthy skepticism and a clear understanding of the limitations.

And therein lies the problem, the vast majority of people do not possess healthy skepticism nor do they think in complex terms because its just not at all simple in any way shape or form.  Hell many people still believe in deities and don't dare to question their beliefs?  There is actually huge scope for harm from unregulated genetic tests such as these, 23andme were prevented from providing any information on the association of genotypes with disease risk by the FDA in the US, although that has been relaxed a bit.  Why is it harmful?  Because its not a simple relationship and the vast majority of people don't understand the context of the information, nor will they be interested in learning it.

Most medical/nutritional/training research follows the research paradigm proposed by Rose in his book The strategy of preventive medicine where in essence you look at a sample from a population, if you can affect a change in the populations distribution, e.g. shifting the mean cholesterol levels (which are a predictor for risk of cardiovascular diseases) downwards, then everyone will be "better off".  The implicit assumption is that this change in the population parameter (the mean) is because everyone's reduced a little. This very often won't be the case though, out of your sample you may have some with very high cholesterol whose levels were dramatically reduced (this will also reduce the variance/standard deviation).  In essence and this is at the heart of your question, not everyone is the same, nor responds the same.  A paper from last year goes into this in greater detail... The idea of uniform change: is it time to revisit a central tenet of Rose's "Strategy of Preventive Medicine" (the full PDF is available from various sources including a certain illegal Russian site that has a mirror hosted in Brazil).  This has led in recent years to notions of "repsonders" v's "non-responders" and the panacea of Personalised Medicine

Back to your original question though...

Before asking what determinants might predict training response I'd say a step or two back needs to be taken and an estimate of the heritability, if any, of training response needs to be obtained.  This isn't straight-forward as off-spring share 50% of their genetics with each parent and they very often share the same environment, so you need to disentangle nature and nurture.  A classic approach to this in animals is selective breeding, not so popular in humans, so the alternative of Twin Studies are employed.  Thing is the money available for doing much of this research simply does not exist, big players are cancer and dementia research as the demographics of the populations shift as they age.

Speculate and cogitate to your hearts content and remain skeptical of anything you read, but Science^TM won't have any climbing specific answers any time soon.  Tom and his Lattice pals are taking a fairly systematic approach to collating and analysing data so that might reveal some interesting avenues on the training front, but they won't obtain blood samples and consent from the hundreds of thousands of people required to perform Whole Genome Screen Associations.

If you are really, really interested in learning more about human genetics I can highly recommend Strachan and Read's Human Molecular Genetics, it was reading this course textbook for a module of the same name at undergraduate rather than attending the boring lectures that got me interested and set me on my path of employment.  Its very accessible and older versions (I still have a copy of the first edition) are still highly relevant and cheaper.


And as an aside here's a paper I came across on a tiny study on nutrition and recovery in climbers, but the sample size is so small that the conclusions are effectively useless...

Potter, Julia A and Fuller, Belinda (2014) The Effectiveness of Chocolate milk as a Post-Climbing Recovery Aid. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, epub. ISSN 0022-4707 (In Press)

Its great that someone has learnt how to do research for their Masters thesis but to suggests such tiny studies have the same credibility as larger more rigorous research is a discredit to Science^TM and increasingly the validity of that hallowed status for understanding the world is being eroded, helped in no small part by people wanting incredibly complex topics boiled down to sound bites and headlines that give a binary answer.  Such papers should not be permitted to be published in peer-reviewed journals at all in my view.

[abarro81]

Tom - why do you think excessive weight fluctuations limit gains? Per our conversation the other day, surely holding too low a weight through the year is more likely to inhibit gains? No doubt that holding holding a healthy, slightly higher weight the whole time is better for gains than fluctuations, but also worse for performance (links to the balance you mentioned obvs)

[Murph]

Barrows- In the absence of Tom's reasoning I'll offer my view on weight fluctuations being bad. Causative or not, they could well be indicative of a lack of consistency. And consistency, it has been said, is the key to success.

Even among people who employ some sort of bulk cut strategy they aren't going to be going up and down like a yoyo.

Your example of holding too low a weight, yeah that'd be bad too. But so too would holding much too high a weight!

[Tommy]

Barrows- In the absence of Tom's reasoning I'll offer my view on weight fluctuations being bad. Causative or not, they could well be indicative of a lack of consistency. And consistency, it has been said, is the key to success.

Even among people who employ some sort of bulk cut strategy they aren't going to be going up and down like a yoyo.

Your example of holding too low a weight, yeah that'd be bad too. But so too would holding much too high a weight!

Hey Alex, sorry forgot to answer this. It's not that I think that weight fluctuation will definitely cause people to lack response to training (although there is still an element to this - just look at the effect on natural testosterone levels) but more that it can lead people to feel like they are "non-responders". I'll give you an example.

Climber X in 2016 weighs 70kg and climbs V10, but that year drops 2kg and bumps up to V11. He feels good about this & will often assign some of this gain to fantastic training methods in that same year, which is more or less not really true.

Climber X in 2017 goes back to 70kg during training season but struggles (for whatever reason) to drop to 68kg the following summer. They don't achieve V11 or V12 they were hoping for and get despondent. Typically (in my experience) a lot of climbers will then think their training is not effective rather than being objective about their weight. The fluctuating weight can create a lot of "noise" in performance levels and make it hard for the self-managed climber to maintain objectivity.

Thus, my thought is that people who go up and down quite a lot can erroneously assign performance gains (or losses) to their training and not be objective enough to understand the effect of weight. This becomes a long term habit and then eventually becomes deeply engrained in performance psychology.

In your case Alex, I don't think you'll see this as you're really disciplined, really honest with yourself and know why and when you're going to be light and heavy. 99% of people are not like this though!

[Murph]

Must admit when I saw "excessive weight fluctuations" I wasn't imagining +/-1kg... what's a V grade worth these days Tom? Just 2kgs or so? Incredible!

[Fultonius]

Yeah, tom, can you clarify if you are talking about 1 or 2kg, or 3 to4 kg?  I fluctuate 1 kg weekly!

We follow training and nutrition protocols all the time that aren't scientifically 'proven' - some of the better training ideas out there no doubt based on scientific method, is backed up by previous training methodologies that have seemed to work and are based on established physiological research, and have a bunch of data from other climbers showing correlation with 'improvement x'. But I doubt that any of it is 'proven' to the scientific standards that are being discussed here.

I also wonder how much psychology plays its part - i.e. if someone comes up with the latest best training plan with top level climbers getting good results, is it necessarily better than what came before, or does it's newness and association just inspire people to train harder and be more focused, therefore getting better results?

[Tommy]

More clarifications :-)

Weight change = change in body fat, not "I'm dehydrated" / "ate a big curry" / "feel bloated". I think we all know that daily fluctuations mean very little, although the fact that this has been brought up suggests maybe not?!

True 1kg (up or down) = very little

2-4kg  (up or down) = significant (hence my example) but as I work as a coach I don't really want to create examples that make weight loss look too appealing e.g. saying client loses 8kg and boulder grade goes up 4 grades (which it most likely would if they weren't already lean).

+4kg (up or down) = excessive

Like ALL situations this is hugely dependent on the individual. On UKB you've got top end athletes like Barrows, Mason etc and then some weekend warriors and also a load of desk jockeys who are dads, like wine and still like climbing.... basically you're all very different beasts!

And of course I'm also talking of constant swings here as well. A loss of 4kg could be brilliant for one individual, but I would assert that any climber who's constantly swinging +/-4kg through the seasons will find it pretty hard to be objective about their response to training.

[abarro81]

Got ya.