[Durbs]

Via her instagram, dropped (not fell) from the top and popped her knee.

https://www.instagram.com/alex_puccio89/?hl=en

Various replays in the story (subject to 24h deletion)

She seems quite injury prone, or is she just pushing things that bit harder and closer to the line that injuries are more common?

Seems to be keeping a good attitude to it all - but must be pretty draining when you recover, get back to where you left off (or better), then ooof - back to enforced rest again.

[Ru]

It's very unlucky, I feel really sorry for her, she's had more than her fair share of injury. It looks like she hit the mat at an awkward angle as she was spinning slightly on the jump down, but that's just a guess.

At a slight tangent (because I don't know to what extent this was a causative factor) I think that the standard height of bouldering walls is too high. I'm always massively over cautious on last moves indoors and I generally down-climb to half hight before jumping, if possible. My fear has always been that the mats are not soft enough to protect against soft tissue injury if joints hit at awkward angles from that height. Alex's injury tends to reinforce that view, even if such injuries are rare. I wonder if any one has ever done any force calculations to justify the standard height of wall (is it 4m or 4.5m?). Just going from the subjective force of impact after falling from the top, they all seem about 50cm too high.

[Durbs]

To that end - is there a standard "squidgy-ness" for bouldering walls (and in particular IFSC comp) mats?

Some walls have notably firmer mats than others, which I would guess are better/worse depending on height of fall?

4-4.5m is high, but that tends to be hand height, so subtract 1.5-ish meters for where a person's feet actually are? You always feel more exposed heel hooking nearer the top...

[GraemeA]

Max height in accordance with BS EN 12572 is 4.5m. I think our highest bit is 4.2m in main Works although I think we hit 4.5m in Unit E.

[Oldmanmatt]

Our max point is 4.3 over mats, but we rarely (and would be hard put to) set a hold there.

[Ru]

Max height in accordance with BS EN 12572 is 4.5m.

Do you know if there is any rationale behind that height Graeme?

[GraemeA]

Max height in accordance with BS EN 12572 is 4.5m.

Do you know if there is any rationale behind that height Graeme?

Sorry Ru, no idea.

But to echo OMM, we would rarely, if ever have a hold right at the top of the wall. Most walls with a grid of T-nuts are going to struggle to bolt on a hold in the top 5 or 10cm of the wall as there won't be a T-nut there stweelwork or timber framing would prevent it.

[remus]

To that end - is there a standard "squidgy-ness" for bouldering walls (and in particular IFSC comp) mats?

I was looking to buy some mats a year or so ago and one of the suppliers I spoke to said there was a standard coming. He was fairly disparaging though...the standard was for quite soft foam, but because foam tends to degrade over time it goes from good-soft to bad-soft pretty quickly. Apparently all the foam that's currently installed would fail the test when it's first installed but would then pass after a month or two of breaking it in.

[owensum]

height (m)      2         2.5      3         3.5         4         4.5         5
speed (m/s)   6.26      7      7.67      8.28      8.85      9.39      9.9
force (kJ)      1.372   1.715   2.058   2.401   2.744   3.087   3.343

Calculated for an arbitrary mass of 70 kg.

For comparison, the force of landing on the ground in a parachute landing is around 2-2.5 kJ, i.e. around  2.5-3m wall. But of course the ground is hard and you're not dropping straight down, so maybe not a useful comparison.

[JamieG]

Being pedantic, but the force you state in your post is really the kinetic energy you need to dissipate on landing. The force your knees experience will vary massively depending on how much you bend you legs, how soft the mat is, if you are spotted etc.

Its probably pretty difficult to calculate the exact force your knees experience, but obviously there is an upper limit to what you can actually dissipate landing straight down and just bending you legs. You'd probably be better to tuck and roll from high heights like some of the parkour people, since you aren't actually trying to dissipate all the energy then, just redirect it. Although this is probably not ideal for everyone else at the wall. And I did once kick a spotter in the face trying to bale out of an awkward landing by rolling. He was NOT happy!!!

[Oldmanmatt]

height (m)      2         2.5      3         3.5         4         4.5         5
speed (m/s)   6.26      7      7.67      8.28      8.85      9.39      9.9
force (kJ)      1.372   1.715   2.058   2.401   2.744   3.087   3.343

Calculated for an arbitrary mass of 70 kg.

For comparison, the force of landing on the ground in a parachute landing is around 2-2.5 kJ, i.e. around  2.5-3m wall. But of course the ground is hard and you're not dropping straight down, so maybe not a useful comparison.

But you don’t fall that far, unless you fall whilst topping out; in which case the max height for a topout wall is 4mtrs.
Your feet will be in the 2-3mtr above the mat range, unless you are under a meter tall (or heel hooking at the top, which would be pretty rare).

[owensum]

But you don’t fall that far, unless you fall whilst topping out; in which case the max height for a topout wall is 4mtrs.
Your feet will be in the 2-3mtr above the mat range, unless you are under a meter tall (or heel hooking at the top, which would be pretty rare).

Good point. In which case, falling off a 4.5-5 m wall would be comparable to a parachute landing in terms of force, if not landing surface and angle.

Being pedantic, but the force you state in your post is really the kinetic energy you need to dissipate on landing. The force your knees experience will vary massively depending on how much you bend you legs, how soft the mat is, if you are spotted etc.

Yep, and added to that if you land on both feet equally, not to mention torque and lateral force.

[joel182]

But you don’t fall that far, unless you fall whilst topping out; in which case the max height for a topout wall is 4mtrs.
Your feet will be in the 2-3mtr above the mat range, unless you are under a meter tall (or heel hooking at the top, which would be pretty rare).

Per the IFSC rules

8.2Design of boulders:
A) each boulder shall be designed:
1) so that the lowest part of the body should not be higher than three (3) meters above the safety matting;

Though obviously what gets set and what climbers do is another matter...

[Ged]

Force is down to stopping time, so surely has everything to do with the mat.

[Nibile]

From what I could see in the video, that mat could as well be made with concrete. She basically stops dead when landing.
Usually the main concern with gym mats is not bottoming out, but firmness is a real issue, and I used to have a lot of problems with it.
That, and gyms with really high walls. A gym I sometimes visit here, has the main wall topping at 5,15 meters... And they set problems with really high, low percentage moves.
As for Puccio, she probably pushed things a little bit too far in the last few years, and surely jumping from problems indoors or outdoors day in day out is going to take its toll (said he who broke his knee playing on the ground with his girlfriend's niece).

[jwi]

I never been less surprised in my life. Female climbers who've been that skinny for that long should stick to roped climbing.

Female athlete triad

[bigironhorse]

I never been less surprised in my life. Female climbers who've been that skinny for that long should stick to roped climbing.

Female athlete triad

That might be a bit of a leap. A quick Google suggests that links between female athlete triad and ligament injuries are pretty minimal, and are more likely to be caused by overuse.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Diane_Elliot/publication/43532358_Young_Womens_Anterior_Cruciate_Ligament_Injuries_An_Expanded_Model_and_Prevention_Paradigm/links/0f31752f687f636deb000000/Young-Womens-Anterior-Cruciate-Ligament-Injuries-An-Expanded-Model-and-Prevention-Paradigm.pdf

[r-man]

From what I could see in the video, that mat could as well be made with concrete. She basically stops dead when landing.
Usually the main concern with gym mats is not bottoming out, but firmness is a real issue, and I used to have a lot of problems with it.

All the new bouldering walls in England have super firm mats. I assume there is a standard they are adhering to. I'm sure more could be done to improve mat technology, but I don't see much of a push for it - just the occasional grumble about knackered knees and ankles, which is offset by others saying "well I haven't hurt myself, what's the problem?"

[bigironhorse]

From what I could see in the video, that mat could as well be made with concrete. She basically stops dead when landing.
Usually the main concern with gym mats is not bottoming out, but firmness is a real issue, and I used to have a lot of problems with it.

All the new bouldering walls in England have super firm mats. I assume there is a standard they are adhering to. I'm sure more could be done to improve mat technology, but I don't see much of a push for it - just the occasional grumble about knackered knees and ankles, which is offset by others saying "well I haven't hurt myself, what's the problem?"

I think there was a thread on here a while ago covering this. I think the speculation was that sprained ankles, twisted knees etc are more common with soft mats but harder mats cause more long term knee and back problems for some people. So by making the mats softer you might be decreasing the number of acute injuries but might be increasing the risk of chronic damage caused by jumping off on to firm matting. This is all just wild speculation though!

[r-man]

Yes, but surely it's not just a choice between soft and firm?

This is the problem - nobody has much interest in looking for a solution. The walls and the mat producers are all quite happy with the status quo. Punters breaking legs wouldn't be great for business (soft mats), but chronic injuries (firm mats) aren't the sort of thing that cause insurance problems. People also don't realise it's happening (and don't complain) until it's too late.

Isn't it possible to have a firm surface with a softer, more energy-absorbing base?

I've said this before, but jumping onto mattresses covered by thick carpet (at an old climbing wall) was preferable to the firm mats we get these days. A firm but springy landing. Surely this principle could be improved on with modern technology.

[Durbs]

Aye, from my limited experience of various walls (especially recently) - they mostly adhere to the "lump of foam with carpet on top", as opposed to actual bouldering mats, many of which have dual-layers of foams of different densities - presumably for precisely this reason (?)

This is guesswork mind as I've not looked under/inside the carpet...

[GraemeA]

Our mats are dual density as are all mats made by Holdz

[bigironhorse]

Our mats are dual density as are all mats made by Holdz

Good to know. I think the mats at the works are among the best ones at walls I have visited.

[Oldmanmatt]

Our mats are dual density as are all mats made by Holdz

This is pretty standard though, isn’t it?

Ours are too, although we added a second stiff layer ~8months ago, because the movement of the “plates” of stiff foam relative to each other was causing problems.
Our mats were Ceetex and their base foam is (was) softer than other manufacturers. I think we have a good balance now. “Dead” rather than stiff. I did some calcs and have been throwing accelerometers at it, attached to varying weighted bags...

Once an engineer, always a geek...

I wish I’d gone with “Holdz” or similar originally though. Ceetex made the sets for Ninja Warrior, Total Wipeout and several European equivalents; as well as being the principle Olympic Trampolining supplier and had good data supporting their designs, but their quality was crap.
They went into receivership the day our mats were delivered...

Reopened with new ownership, but our warranty went for a Burton.

[tomtom]

At least they went bust they day AFTER delivery OMM rather than leaving you high and dry (or low and matless)