New Climbing Study!

Juliana Exel, Paul Kaufmann, Olivia Froschauer, Arnold Baca, Hans Kainz and Lis Mochizuki recently published a paper titled “Upper-Body Neuromechanical Coordination Strategies During Fatiguing Sustained Dead Hangs in Climbers” in the European Journal of Sport Science.

In this study, we explored what happens when climbers hang until fatigue, not only at the level of the fingers or forearm, but across the upper body as a coordinated system.
We found that fatigue changes how the body organizes stability during dead hangs. As the task became more demanding, coordination demands shifted from the wrist toward more proximal joints, while intermuscular connectivity increased among postural muscles.
For me, one of the most interesting messages is that fatigue is not just a local phenomenon. Even in a task that seems highly dependent on grip endurance, the body adapts through a broader neuromechanical strategy involving both distal grip control and proximal stability.