Climbing

About: Climbing is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4122 publications have been published within this topic receiving 43284 citations.

Anthropometric, strength, endurance and flexibility characteristics of elite and recreational climbers

Abstract: There has been remarkable development in the scope and quality of rock climbing in recent years. However, there are scant data on the anthropometry, strength, endurance and flexibility of rock climbers. The aim of this study was to compare these characteristics in three groups of subjects – elite rock climbers, recreational climbers and non‐climbers. The 30 male subjects were aged 28.8 ± 8.1 (x ± s.d. years. Group 1 (n = 10) comprised elite rock climbers who had led a climb of a minimum standard of ‘El’ (E1‐E9 are the highest climbing grades) within the previous 12 months; Group 2 (n = 10) comprised rock climbers who had achieved a standard no better than leading a climb considered ‘severe’ (a low climbing grade category); and Group 3 (n = 10) comprised physically active individuals who had not previously done any rock climbing. The test battery included tests of finger strength [grip strength, pincer (i.e. thumb and forefinger) strength, finger strength measured on climbing‐specific apparatus], body dime...

Exploring Biomechanics: Animals in Motion

Abstract: Muscle: the motor for animal movement walking and running jumping, climbing and crawling gliding and soaring flapping light floating swimming small-scale locomation epilogue: what we want to know next.

Positional behavior of female bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus)

Abstract: Observational data were collected on the positional behavior of habituated adult female orangutans in the rain forest of the Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Results revealed the following about locomotion during travel: movement was concentrated in the understory and lower main canopy; and brachiation (without grasping by the feet) accounted for 11% of travel distance, quadrupedalism for 12%, vertical climbing for 18%, tree-swaying for 7%, and clambering for 51%. In climbing and clambering, the animal was orthograde and employed forelimb suspension with a mixture of hindlimb suspension and support. Thus suspension by the forelimbs occurred in at least 80% of travel. Locomotion in feeding trees resembled that during travel but with more climbing and less brachiation. Feeding was distributed more evenly among canopy levels than was travel, and use of postures (by time) included sitting 50%, suspension with the body vertical 11%, and suspension by hand and foot with the body horizontal 36%. The traditional explanation of the evolution of the distinctive hominoid postcranium stresses brachiation. More recently it has been proposed that climbing, broadly defined and partly equivalent to clambering in this study, is the most significant behavior selecting for morphology. The biomechanical similarity of brachiation and the orthograde clambering of orangutans precludes the present results from resolving the issue for the evolution of Pongo. The orangutan is by far the largest mammal that travels in forest canopy, and a consideration of the ways that its positional behavior solves problems posed by habitat structure, particularly the tapering of branches and gaps between trees, indicates that suspensory capacities have been essential in permitting the evolution and maintenance of its great body size.

Self-organizing neural integrator predicts interval times through climbing activity.

Abstract: Mammals can reliably predict the time of occurrence of an expected event after a predictive stimulus. Climbing activity is a prominent profile of neural activity observed in prefrontal cortex and other brain areas that is related to the anticipation of forthcoming events. Climbing activity might span intervals from hundreds of milliseconds to tens of seconds and has a number of properties that make it a plausible candidate for representing interval time. A biophysical model is presented that produces climbing, temporal integrator-like activity with variable slopes as observed empirically, through a single-cell positive feedback loop between firing rate, spike-driven Ca2+ influx, and Ca2+-activated inward currents. It is shown that the fine adjustment of this feedback loop might emerge in a self-organizing manner if the cell can use the variance in intracellular Ca2+ fluctuations as a learning signal. This self-organizing process is based on the present observation that the variance of the intracellular Ca2+ concentration and the variance of the neural firing rate and of activity-dependent conductances reach a maximum as the biophysical parameters of a cell approach a configuration required for temporal integration. Thus, specific mechanisms are proposed for (1) how neurons might represent interval times of variable length and (2) how neurons could acquire the biophysical properties that enable them to work as timers.

A six-legged climbing robot for high payloads

Abstract: This paper describes the design and control concepts of a wall-climbing robot. It has an hexapod configuration and it is able to manoeuvre on vertical surfaces carrying high payloads. Configuration and leg design criteria specific for climbing tasks are discussed. The controller architecture showing decentralised parallel control and hard real-time performance is outlined. New stability criteria for wall locomotion are introduced and a climbing gait using force distribution shows the working of our control scheme for wall gait generation. We call this four phase discontinuous sawing gait. This prototype is an example of a climber specifically tailored for industrial applications.