Validity and normative scores of finger flexor strength and endurance tests estimated from a large sample of female and male climbers.

Abstract

Recent reviews have highlighted conflicting findings regarding the validity of finger flexor strength and endurance tests in sport climbers, often due to small sample sizes and low ecological validity of the tests used. To address these gaps, 185 male and 122 female climbers underwent maximal finger flexor strength, intermittent and continuous finger flexor endurance, and the finger hang tests in a sport-specific setting to determine the predictive and concurrent validity of these tests. The finger hang test showed the strongest relationship to climbing ability for both sexes (R ≈ 0.75). However, despite its widespread use as an endurance test, the finger hang was found to be primarily determined by finger strength, explaining 65% and 80% of the variance in males and females, respectively. Finger strength emerged as the dominant factor, explaining the majority of variance in climbing ability (males 68%; females 64%), followed by intermittent endurance (males 28%; females 34%). These findings emphasize finger strength as the primary predictor of climbing ability and highlight the importance of intermittent endurance testing for assessing climbing-specific endurance of the finger flexors. No significant differences were found between male and female climbers in finger flexor strength and endurance when normalized to body mass.