[mrjonathanr]

Coaches could facilitate the process by using regular weight checks, body fat ratios and measurements of the upper arm and thigh circumference.

Have you the slightest idea how problematical this is in relation to young people, especially girls?

If you have nothing worthwhile to contribute, don’t.

[moose]

The latest Science of Sport podcast reported that a few sporting bodies (UK Swimming etc) have banned that kind of monitoring as it can trigger disordered eating - athletes starving themselves during the days prior to measurement day. 

[Gritter]

Coaches could facilitate the process by using regular weight checks, body fat ratios and measurements of the upper arm and thigh circumference.

Have you the slightest idea how problematical this is in relation to young people, especially girls?

If you have nothing worthwhile to contribute, don’t.

It was a joke ffs

[IanP]

I meant for climbing in particular, so yes the examples you give for more established, not-necessarily-power-to-weight-driven sports will be different.

I am partly playing devil's advocate here of course. But then who are we to deny people their ultimate climbing performance...

I picked more mainstream sports since it's probably significantly more difficult to reach / stay at the top for those than a niche sport like climbing. 

However to answer your point, Ondra and Garnbret seem to have managed to balance ultimate performance and health over an extended period.

Understand that there's an element of devil's advocate but as others have pointed even if there was any merit in this argument it would have to be considered in the light of how much you really believe athletes (particularly young and up and coming) can make rational informed decisions to cause themselves harm unaffected by external factors.

[Gritter]

The Gillick competence seems to have pretty broad boundaries these days, at what BMI does a 16 or 17 year old be deemed to be making poor and irrational choices? 13.5 seems around the mark.

[edshakey]

Do we want to raise the next generation of skeletons?

Brittle hair, dull expressions, trying to show everyone you are ok but are you really?

Eating disorders are poorly understood, probably more so inside sports than in the general public. Under-eating is not something to be proud of or emblematic of success. Being light does not mean being strong. I can’t count how many times I have heard someone say that they hated their body or that they wanted to be skinnier. It breaks my heart hearing young girls say that if they lost a few kilos they could be just as strong as the other girl is. It hurts to see so many examples in the climbing community.

We all have the power to change the culture of eating disorders in sports. It starts with the way we talk about food, our bodies and how we define being fit. I encourage coaches to hire dietitians or other professionals to speak about nutrition to their athletes and train coaches on eating disorders in sport. RED-S screenings should be mandatory for all World Cup and Continental Cup participants. And yes, I believe that sanctions from competitions are needed if thresholds set by experts are not met. This being said, I‘m skeptical towards putting national federations in charge of this as for understandable reasons there can be too much personal closeness to see the truth or dependency on an athlete’s success to actually make the necessary calls.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Malnutrition and RED-S in climbing needs to be tackled asap. Preventing athletes and our sport in general from further damage should be in all of our interest and on top of the @ifsclimbing agenda.

Let’s not look away and make sure competitive climbing doesn’t become a failing environment no-one can truly win in!

[abarro81]

Are there any other sports that have BMI limits or similar? Watching TDF some of those guys must presumably be running prettying unhealthy body fat % for periods of the year?

[Paul B]

There's a GCN+ video called "the Weight of the Peloton" and Zwift are seemingly still giving away free memberships for the TdF Femmes.

I've not watched it yet. Don't forget legs are heavy.

[jwi]

Are there any other sports that have BMI limits or similar? Watching TDF some of those guys must presumably be running prettying unhealthy body fat % for periods of the year?

If a ski jumper is below 18.5 kg/m2, or 20 fully equipped, they must use shorter skis.

[stone]

What if, for competitions, everyone had to climb with a weight belt that took them up to a certain weight for their height -perhaps set a bit heavier than fairly hefty?

[Fiend]

 

[Muenchener]

Volker Schöffl actually argued in favour of that idea in this (German language) interview: https://binwegbouldern.de/dr-volker-schoeffl-ueber-essstoerungen-im-klettersport/

[cheque]

Brilliant, give ‘em all a trad rack. “You’ve weighed in a bit low, here’s a Friend 6 and another 4 quickdraws”

[stone]

Volker Schöffl actually argued in favour of that idea in this (German language) interview: https://binwegbouldern.de/dr-volker-schoeffl-ueber-essstoerungen-im-klettersport/

Wow, I was worried it was a really stupid idea but the I failed to make a compelling self-rebuttal to myself- but that's also often the case with stupid stuff I've said!

[moose]

Brilliant, give ‘em all a trad rack. “You’ve weighed in a bit low, here’s a Friend 6 and another 4 quickdraws”

Or, they can climb without added weight, but have to cope with increasing numbers of holds that fall off and angry fulmers.

[jwi]

I do not understand at all what enforced weight wests would achieve. In the world cup, BMI is not correlated with results. Body-fat percentage is, even when controlling for training load.

[remus]

I do not understand at all what enforced weight wests would achieve. In the world cup, BMI is not correlated with results. Body-fat percentage is, even when controlling for training load.

I think the idea is to remove the immediate advantage from being underweight. Say there is a minimum weight of 50kg for a given climber, if the option is to weigh 45kg and carry a 5kg weight belt or to put on 5kg of muscle, then if you want to perform well the 5kg of muscle is a better option. As you say, I struggle to see how it would help with issues of unhealthily low bf percentage.

[User deactivated.]

I do not understand at all what enforced weight wests would achieve. In the world cup, BMI is not correlated with results. Body-fat percentage is, even when controlling for training load.

Is there any data on that? Most affordable body fat tests are notoriously unreliable.

[Muenchener]

Is there any data on that? Most affordable body fat tests are notoriously unreliable.

I keep going back to the interview with Dr Schöffl that I liked to above. Only in German unfortunately, and no transcipt/translation available.

He agrees that bodyfat % would be a far better measure than BMI, but also says calliper tests are not sufficiently consistent/repeatable and would lead to endless appeals. He says there's research ongoing into better methods using ultrasound - portable and relatively cheap / available - that looks promising but isn't ready yet.

[jwi]

I do not understand at all what enforced weight wests would achieve. In the world cup, BMI is not correlated with results. Body-fat percentage is, even when controlling for training load.

Is there any data on that? Most affordable body fat tests are notoriously unreliable.

Yeah. Furthermore, thanks to the central limit theorem, it does not much matter that caliper tests have somewhat high variance since they are unbiased.

[User deactivated.]

I do not understand at all what enforced weight wests would achieve. In the world cup, BMI is not correlated with results. Body-fat percentage is, even when controlling for training load.

Is there any data on that? Most affordable body fat tests are notoriously unreliable.

Yeah. Furthermore, thanks to the central limit theorem, it does not much matter that caliper tests have somewhat high variance since they are unbiased.

Where is this data, i'm just curious? My expectation is that every male competitor is somewhere between 6% and 12%, with most being sub 10%, and perhaps Megos being the one exception who occasionally turns up at bodybuilder-like sub 6% levels (AKA near death).

[Wellsy]

Are we really thinking that arbitrarily bringing people to the same weight makes sporting sense?

[User deactivated.]

Are we really thinking that arbitrarily bringing people to the same weight makes sporting sense?

That's exactly what happens in boxing. E.g. 147lbs is an arbitrary value, but every fighter in the division is killing themselves to make weight for it.

But to answer your question; probably not.

[Wellsy]

Sure, but in fight sports we have weight classes, as with lifting sports. These fit the culture and challenges of those. I don't think weight classes are appropriate for climbing comps, but I don't think arbitrarily adjusting people's weight to a standard is either. I doubt anyone in this thread would seriously want either of them too!

Ultimately being strong and light helps, which is unfair on weaker, heavier people. Being more talented helps too, as does having started earlier with better coaching, not getting injured... sport isn't fair, I don't think we need to change these weight considerations for performance, we just need to be thinking about ensuring there are checks on athlete health

[User deactivated.]

Sure, but in fight sports we have weight classes, as with lifting sports. These fit the culture and challenges of those. I don't think weight classes are appropriate for climbing comps, but I don't think arbitrarily adjusting people's weight to a standard is either. I doubt anyone in this thread would seriously want either of them too!

Ultimately being strong and light helps, which is unfair on weaker, heavier people. Being more talented helps too, as does having started earlier with better coaching, not getting injured... sport isn't fair, I don't think we need to change these weight considerations for performance, we just need to be thinking about ensuring there are checks on athlete health

Weight classes in climbing is an interesting thought experiment at least. Let's say the males have categories for over 50kg, over 60kg, over 70kg and over 80kg. A climber of around 63kg might still try to reduce their weight a little bit, but not too much or they'd be in the next weight class down. Psychologically (and possibly objectively) going down a division would mean they are losing their advantage. At the other end of the scale, a climber of around 67kg might actually choose to bulk up a little bit so they can compete in the next class up and potentially feel they are at an advantage.