Well, I haven’t had a chance to carry out any statistical interpretation of the results, however I can highlight difference in performance attributes, as found by over 50 performance Profiles completed in the first 6 months of setting my basic iCoach features on the web.
These will be a dynanic list that updates itself based on user intereactions when the next stage of the site goes live later this year. However at present over all the top ten attributes selected by all climbers are.
- Confidence
- Power Endurance
- Technique
- Finger Stength
- Core Strength
- Footwork
- Reading Route
- Stamina
- Weight Control
- Overcoming Fear
However when I split the the result based on the F grade, I choose this as it was easier to seperate the user’s by grade, without having to do a more complex table join. The people below F6a had the following top ten Performance Profile attributes.
- Power Endurance
- Overcoming Fear
- Confidence
- Will to WIn/Suceed
- Footwork
- Technique
- Weight Control
- Stamina
- Emotional Control
- Self-Belief
The F6a to F7a band had these as there top ten attributes.
- Technique
- Confidence
- Footwork
- Finger Stength
- Finding rest
- Core Strength
- Reading Route
- Power Endurance
- Self-Belief
- Discipline
Final the above F7a.
- Power Endurance
- Finger Stength
- Stamina
- Technique
- Confidence
- Power
- Core Strength
- Reading Route
- Finding rest
- Cope with Pressure
What is interesting is on first appearance whilst Power Endurance occurs in all three of the groups. The first impressions are of the more novice climbers in the lower group have more psychological and tactical attributes 7 out of the ten. Whereas this has reduce to five by the intermediate group. Finally in the elite group this has come down to four.
In general it would appear that the more elite climbers may well have found ways over there time in the sport to deal with psychological pressure and techniques and tactics. In effect they have developed there own coping strategies, and percieve a more physiological approach to climbing improvements.
As we go down through the grades there is a growing perception that the mental skills side of performance are of greater interest to improving performance. This is really interesting, since I focused on mental skills in my MSc. Although these really are prelimary results that have not been tested for statistical significance. Nor have I weighted the results in terms of only selecting the top five training areas for each user. I will try and do this at some point in the future.
If you are a student in need of some data for a research paper, I would be keen to do some collaboration. Especially by the end of next winter, when hopefully the data set will increase. There are certainly some trends that might be interesting to test.