Abstract
Over the past 25 years sport climbing has developed from an elite extreme sport subculture
pursued by few into a mainstream recreational sport enjoyed globally by climbers of
all ages, climbing abilities, and with pre-existing health conditions. As the demands
and grades of climbing difficulty have increased over this period, most scientific
literature on sport climbing focused on acute injuries and overuse syndromes, or performance
physiology in healthy adult males. The physiological response to sport climbing is
more similar to that of resistance training (i.e., body building) rather than a predominantly
aerobic sport (i.e., running, cycling), so that heart rate and blood pressure during
a climb will be disproportionately high relative to the ‘exercise’ of climbing, and
breathing may be irregular. Therefore this review sought evidence-based recommendations
for recreational sport climbing participation by those individuals with pre-existing
cardiopulmonary medical conditions including coronary heart disease, chronic heart
failure, cardiac dysrhythmia, pulmonary diseases (i.e., asthma) or hypertension. This
review defines the criteria that must be fulfilled for safe sport climbing by those
with pre-existing cardiopulmonary conditions or those with hypertension.
Key words
rock climbing - sport climbing - cardio respiratory stress - hypertension - exercise
prescription - resistance training
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Correspondence
T. KuepperAss. Prof.
Department of Occupational & Social Medicine
University of Aachen
Pauwelsstr. 30
52074 Aachen
Germany
Telefon: +49/1520/182 02 56
Fax: +49/211/164 91 11
eMail: TKuepper@ukaachen.de
