The effects of physical activity on individual’s posture is well recognised. However, investigations of the effects sport climbing on posture is scarce. With this Master’s thesis we were aiming to analyse posture and mobility of muscles linked to it of recreational sport climbers. 65 male volunteers were divided in three sub-groups of sport climbers based on the years practicing sport climbing (less than 5 years, 5 – 10 years and more than 10 years) and one group of non-climbers, which served as a control group. We performed measurements of the sagittal spine with SpinalMouse® during three different positions (upright, spinal flexion and spinal extension). We also evaluated the mobility of three different muscle groups (pectoralis major, hamstrings and iliopsoas) where we were looking at the angles reached in joints.
There were no significant differences between groups regarding the thoracic kyphosis angle. In addition, all groups showed similar mobility in all muscle groups. Correlation between posture and mobility was shown only between thoracic kyphosis and mobility of the right pectoralis major muscle. The mobility of the pectoralis major decreased as thoracic kyphosis angle increased. For additional evaluation, we divided sport climbers based on their reported climbing difficulty (up to 6c, 6c+ - 7c, more than 7c). There was significant correlation between the climbing difficulty, years of climbing and weekly training hours, where better climbers trained more hours per week and more years. However, we did not show any correlation between thoracic kyphosis, climbing difficulty, years of climbing and training hours, like researchers before us.
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