Performance Insights in Speed Climbing: Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Key Movement Metrics

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of Speed Climbing athletes by examining motion parameters critical to elite performance. As such, several key values are extracted from about 900 competition recordings in order to generate a dataset for the identification of patterns in athletes' technique and efficiency. A CNN-based framework is used to automate the detection of human keypoints and features, enabling a large-scale evaluation of climbing dynamics. The results revealed significant variations in performance for single sections of the wall, particularly in relation to start reaction times (with differences of up to 0.27 s) and increased split times the closer the athletes are to the end of the Speed Climbing wall (from 0.39 s to 0.45 s). In addition, a more detailed examination of the movement sequences was carried out by analyzing the velocity trajectories of hands and feet. The results showed that coordinated and harmonic movements, especially of the lower limbs, correlate strongly with the performance outcome. To ensure an individualized view of the data points, a comparison was made between multiple athletes, revealing insights into the influence of individual biomechanics on the efficiency of movements. The findings provide both trainers and athletes with interesting insights in relation to tailoring training methods by including split time benchmarks and limb coordination.