Abstract

This study was aimed to understand the relation between the physical caracteristics of the holds and the abilities for the climbers to distribute their body mass on the four stays and to displace a foot stay on higher stay on a vertical way. Seven male rock climbers with high level of expertise were tested. The test took place on an original dynamometric device for measuring the hands and feet reaction forces while the subjects maintained a vertical quadripodal stance on an artificial climbing wall. Fourhand foot hold couples were used, conditionning two forms of posture and two levels of difficulty. Load variations and distributions, differential and instantaneous indexes, temporal organization were analyzed. The ANOVA showed a significant difference between the postures performed (p<.0001 for 1Si ans 1Sd). Moreover, for latencies and load variations, the interaction between posture and stay displaced is significant (p<.0000) especially for ipsilateral hands (p<.0000). These results can be explained by the fact that feet holds induce different postures in relation with the holds plane. On the opposite, in each posture, the different difficulties presented by the caracteristics of the holds are not detected in this study. Unknown of sagittal and lateral components and spread of the results are certainly responsible for this lack of significance. Verf.-Referat