Pre-performance psychological states and performance in an elite climbing competition

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to assess the relationship between pre-performance psychological states and expert performance in non-traditional sport competition. Nineteen elite male sport climbers (M=24.6, SD=4.0 years of age) completed the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule before an international rock climbing competition. Climbing performances were video-recorded to calculate movement fluency (entropy) and obtain ascent times. Official route scores were also obtained. Successful climbers reported higher pre-performance levels of somatic anxiety and climbed the most difficult part of the route more slowly than their unsuccessful counterparts. The psychological states preceding elite climbing competition appeared to be an important factor in determining success, even when differences in baseline ability were taken into account.

Current understanding in climbing psychophysiology research

“…reported that unsuccessful climbers climbed slower, taking longer to reach each bolt, than those who successfully completed the route; successful participants climbed faster and more efficiently, rather than in a more conservative considered approach . In contrast, Sanchez et al (2010) found that successful competition climbers completed the most difficult part of the route significantly slower than their unsuccessful counterparts. Thus, expert climbers, in comparison to Draper et al's intermediate climbers, chose to climb slower and more carefully to control their equilibrium, although they were not necessarily more fluent than those who were unsuccessful.…”

“…Competition climbing and climbing with an audience. Competition is a potent psychological stimuli; a number of studies have examined competition climbers' precompetitive anxiety and affective states (Aşc i, Demirhan, Koca, & Dinc, 2006;Sanchez, Boschker, & Llewellyn, 2010). Climbing competitions, with few exceptions, take place on routes that are unknown to the competitors (International Federation of Sport Climbing [IFSC], 2007).…”

“…and the affect of competition (e.g. Sanchez et al, 2010). This research will be discussed in the following section.…”

“…Competition and successful versus unsuccessful ascents. Performance differences between those who successfully complete an ascent and those who fall en route have been investigated by both and Sanchez et al (2010). In both studies, significant differences between successful and unsuccessful climbers were found in climbing time, experience and pre-climb CSAI-2R measures of anxiety.…”

Constraints representing a meta-stable régime facilitate exploration during practice and transfer of learning in a complex multi-articular task

“…GIE has a number of advantages over other reported spatial variables (such as the average movement distance [7]) in that it is readily interpreted with respect to climbing activity, accounts for climb height and, shown to be effective for detecting skill [2], practice [2], route [8] and technique effects in climbing tasks [5,9]. Furthermore, data collection to perform an entropy calculation is relatively straight forward, involving use of a single camera [10]. Figure 1 Response to Reviewers shows how entropy is calculated (Panel A) and with respect to changing the length of an analysed trajectory.…”