A Rock Climbing Wall based at IMAR, TORT Centre

A Rock Climbing Wall based at IMAR, TORT Centre The artificial rock climbing wall, based in the Institute of Motion Analysis & Research’s Sports Lab, was recently refitted in November 2013. The original wall was designed and constructed last year by IMAR’s technical staff with the help of an experienced undergraduate rock-climbing medical student, Mr Ryan McHenry, who was undertaking his BMSc (Hons) project on the biomechanics of climbing.

His project, which was supervised by Professor Rami Abboud and Dr Graham Arnold, won the first Medical School Intercalated Award, the Sir James Mackenzie Award, in June 2013. The outcome of the project has been submitted to a relevant scientific peer-review journal. The climbing wall has been used extensively over the last two years for undergraduate research projects and was beginning to show general signs of wear, so the decision was made to refit rather than repair before the start of the current project by Andrew Ferguson that has attracted interest from industry. Higher grade materials have been used as a replacement for the 10° angled overhanging climbing surface and as before a mounting point matrix has been included allowing the fitting of a large range of handholds and route configurations. Situated around the climbing wall is an 18-camera Vicon 3D motion capture system and wireless EMG system which allows highly accurate tracking of the climber’s motion as well as recording synchronised muscle activity (an example can be viewed HERE). The plan is to add a short-traverse right-angled extension to the climbing wall early next year allowing data collection of climbing movements over a greater area and over more complicated route configurations to explore the hidden complex biomechanical manoeuvres encountered during rock climbing.

The artificial rock climbing wall, based in the Institute of Motion Analysis & Research’s Sports Lab, was recently refitted in November 2013. The original wall was designed and constructed last year by IMAR’s technical staff with the help of an experienced undergraduate rock-climbing medical student, Mr Ryan McHenry, who was undertaking his BMSc (Hons) project in Applied Orthopaedic Technology on the biomechanics of climbing.

Ryan's research project, which was supervised by Professor Rami Abboud and Dr Graham Arnold, won the first Medical School Intercalated Award, the Sir James Mackenzie Award, in June 2013. The outcome of the project has been submitted to a relevant scientific peer-review journal.

The climbing wall has been used extensively over the last two years for undergraduate research projects and was beginning to show general signs of wear, so the decision was made to refit rather than repair before the start of the current project by Andrew Ferguson, a current intercalated BMSc (Hons) students in Applied Orthopaedic Technology, that has attracted interest from industry. Higher grade materials have been used as a replacement for the 10° angled overhanging climbing surface and as before a mounting point matrix has been included allowing the fitting of a large range of handholds and route configurations. Situated around the climbing wall is an 18-camera Vicon 3D motion capture system and wireless EMG system which allows highly accurate tracking of the climber’s motion as well as recording synchronised muscle activity.

The plan is to add a short-traverse right-angled extension to the climbing wall early next year allowing data collection of climbing movements over a greater area and over more complicated route configurations to explore the hidden complex biomechanical manoeuvres encountered during rock climbing.