-
All right, welcome back to the largest
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study on climbing falls. In the first
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episode we looked how does extra slack
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affect the fall, or more precisely does
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falling more reduce the pendulum into
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the wall and how hard the climber is
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going to hit the wall, and then I showed
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you the importance of soft catch and
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what a massive difference that makes and
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also that hard catches are not only the
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problem for heavier belayers
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lighter belayers often lack practice to
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give soft catches since most of the time
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they don't need they fly up anyway but
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in exceptional cases with enough
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friction... -My foot -What happened to your
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foot -Well it was a hard fall - Heavey belayer?
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-Llight belayer. Yeah yeah and I also
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asked you guys I'm curious did you ever
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got unexpectedly hard catch from a light
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belayer? And turns out this happens more
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often than I
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thought. so yeah light or heavy you're
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going to love this episode because we're
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going to investigate which method of
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giving soft catch is the best. We're
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going to compare stepping forward versus
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jumping up and as a bonus the tube slide
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method where the belayer lets the rope
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slide through the device which is more
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common in trad
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climbing so let's begin. Now in the
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previous episode I showed you this
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beautiful horizontal velocity graphs and
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I explained that the peak of horizontal
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velocity is at the bottom of the
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pendulum and that is a good indicator
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how hard the climber would meet the wall
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if the wall would not be overhanging and
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in this test I wanted to go a step
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further and see what happens when the
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climber meets the wall. - 1... 2... 3...
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and my idea this time was to
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measure deceleration during the impact
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and in many of our test cases
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this idea was working really well. If we
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compare the soft catches to the hard one
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you can see a huge spike in
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deceleration. However after doing lots
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and lots of more falls and analyzing the
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data I realized that the peak
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deceleration is not always a good metric
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to look. for example take a look at this
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hard catch you can visually see that it
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was much harder for the climber but the
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peak deceleration was nearly identical
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to the soft catches before, so it turns
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out our soft bodies are incredible at
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absorbing
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impacts but the problem is that it's
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very difficult to measure what's
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happening in our muscles during this
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impact. So while peak deceleration was
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interesting to look in some cases,
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horizontal velocity at the moment of
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impact was much better indicator. After
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all, all of this velocity that we are
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about to hit the wall will need to be
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absorbed by our soft bodies. Okay so
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let's see which method to give a soft
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catch is the best. To not kill me on the
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very first test we started with smaller
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falls and jumping up technique. And these
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falls were extremely nice and soft.
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[Climber] - A soft ride!
So let's see how stepping
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forward will compare.
[Climber] - 1... 2... 3...
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- This is harder.
And the fall this time
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felt a little bit harder and we can also
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see that in the graphs. However overall
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it was still a very soft catch.
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And the second fall was very similar.
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Also a quick note: I was not sure
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how much stiffer the rope gets over
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multiple falls, and even though in this
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video I'm presenting you all the data
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grouped by method, meaning at first I
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show you all the soft catches with
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jumping up method, then I show you all
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the soft catches with stepping forward,
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in reality we did alternate between the
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methods between every fall. So we did a
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jumping up and then stepping forward, etc.
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Pointless information for most of
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you, but I know that a lot of geeks are
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watching my videos and we like to write
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nitpicky comments, so this is for you
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nitpicky geek. All right now let's see
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how the tube slide method compares and
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while I was expecting a lot from this
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method, the first fall wasn't any better.
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The second fall had a very low momentum
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into the wall but a lot of vertical
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momentum, which made me almost run across
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the wall, which was slightly
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uncomfortable. So we tried again and this
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time the fall was much nicer and I know
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that people like to try all the crazy
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things they see on the internet so
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that's why I have to stress that this
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tube slide method is really advanced, so
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if you don't know what you're doing, make
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sure that you have an expert guiding you.
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Now if we would compare all the best
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attempts of all the methods, we can see
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that the jumping up was slightly better
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but overall all the method were very
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similar.
[Climber] - So all of these falls felt quite
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soft except the one where he does
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nothing, then I fell to the wall.
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Yeah we actually forgot to film hard catches
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where the belayer does nothing on this
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test, but no worries this was just a
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small warm-up.
And let's see some bigger falls.
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So this time we started with a
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tube slide method,
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which at least in theory,
lets the belayer achieve
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any full arc.
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And here is one more attempt
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this time with even bigger arc or longer
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braking distance, and the fall was just
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tiny bit softer for the climber. For now
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I'm just going to keep the softest
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attempt in the charts and let's see how
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does that compare to the jumping up
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technique. And we can see that the first
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fall was slightly smaller, however it had
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nearly identical horizontal acceleration
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and velocity. However it also had lower
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absolute velocity, which is actually
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better for the climber. Now the second
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fall was slightly smaller
but had a tiny bit
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more horizontal velocity towards the wall
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and again let's keep the best
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attempts of each method and see how does
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that compare to the stepping forward technique.
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And we can see that the fall
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was smallest however it had the greatest
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impact to the wall. Now on the second
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attempt the belayer did a much better job
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and the fall was significantly softer.
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And if we compare all the best attempts
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of all the methods, we can see that the
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horizontal speed at the moment of impact
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was nearly identical. Which means that at
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least in this test case scenario,
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a skilled belayer can achieve almost the
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same results with any method. But since
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consistency in catches also matters,
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if we compare the worst attempts,
tube slide method
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was the best, followed by jumping up,
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and then the stepping forward was the worst.
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However even the worst cases of
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any of these methods were much much
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better compared to the passive belay.
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So the first arising takeaway was that no
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matter which method you choose to give a
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soft catch, it's going to be much better
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than passively standing and doing
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nothing.
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And as always one test is no test, so I
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wanted to repeat these tests in a
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different location with another belayer.
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Ricky who has also a lot of experience
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using this tube slide method, and he told
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me that it's actually
his preferred method.
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So, high expectations.
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[Climber] - Two, three...
- Okay
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- Falling!
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- Aw, that was super soft!
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So we did three attempts, and all
of them had very similar
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horizontal velocity.
Nice, for consistency.
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Next we tested the stepping
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forward method and we can see that the
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fall was much shorter and had a much
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greater swing into the wall. It seemed
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that the belayer was pulled towards the
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wall way too much, and did not have enough
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control to make the fall smooth.
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[Music]
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All right next the jumping up method,
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where Ricky actually did a very bad job
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on the first attempt.
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And the same happened on the
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second attempt where his jump was very
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minimal only initiated a little bit from
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his right calf. So that's not how you
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jump and that's why I decided to ignore
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these two attempts for the poor technique,
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and after he adjusted his technique
on the third jump,
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he jumped with both legs
and it was much much better.
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And finally we did one passive
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catch where the belayer does nothing and
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same as before, it causes significantly
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higher swing into the wall. So at least
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in this test case scenario, tube slide
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was the best, followed by jumping up, and
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stepping forward was again the worst.
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[Belayer] - So stepping forward versus uh
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jumping up
[Climber] - Yes stepping forward was not
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in a controlled way I was just pulled to
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the wall. I tried to lean
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backwards to break to catch the fall
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but it was not in a controlled way, and
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jumping up I can choose how much I want
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to jump and at what timing.
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So overall which method is the
best will heavily
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depend on your experience using this
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methods, however stepping forward seemed
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to be the worst and gave the least
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control, and also worth mentioning is
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that standing too far in many situations
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can drag the belayer into the wall
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completely uncontrollably.
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And that would make the catch even harder.
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All right but what if the belayer
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is significantly heavier. In that case if
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you try the jumping method there is not
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much pull up by the rope and jumping is
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much more difficult. So maybe stepping
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forward is better in this case. To test
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that Kishu suggested to introduce extra
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friction which basically makes the
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belayer heavier.
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[Climber] - Can we try like this?
[Belayer] - He wants to kill me!
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So that's what we got: a little
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zigzag in the beginning and then a
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straight line all the way to the climber
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so the rope actually is not going over
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the edge it's just very sharp angled.
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- He says you have to fall!
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- One, two, three
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The swing into the wall is...
...okayish.
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So we started with jumping
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method which felt slightly harder with
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increased friction but still
plenty soft enough.
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Just take a look at this belayer
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running up the wall and even avoiding
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his arm being squished into the first
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quick draw. So let's see if
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with increased friction stepping forward
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will be better. This time he was not
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pulled into the wall uncontrollably
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anymore. It also looks like he got the
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perfect timing and even started running
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forward just before the impact, however
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the swing into the wall for the climber
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was still harder compared to the jumping
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method. Okay next we did a series of tube
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slide catches. The first felt very nice
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and soft. Now the second fall had even
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softer impact with the wall however I
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still had a lot of momentum downwards
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which forced me almost to run down the wall
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which is a little bit awkward.
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And the last fall had a very
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similar effect
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And if we look into the best cases for
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each method we can see that jumping up
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and tube slide were very very similar,
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and the stepping forward was slightly
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worse. And this bar chart plots all the
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falls so we can see that on average, tube
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slide method performed the best, followed
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by jumping up, and then stepping forward
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was the worst. Now from pure feeling
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standpoint for me as a climber, both
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jumping up and tube slide methods felt
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very nice and soft. Maybe if I would be
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nitpicking this extra momentum downwards
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sometimes on the tube slide method was
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slightly uncomfortable although in
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theory the belayer should be able to give
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almost any kind of catch with this
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method and the stepping forward method
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was maybe slightly harder, had slightly
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bigger impact to the wall however it was
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still plenty soft enough. And what is not
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soft enough is passive belays. So once
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again, no matter which soft catch method
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we tried it was significantly better
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than passive belay. And with added friction
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the belayer wasn't even lifted off the
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ground this time. Previously when we had
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no friction, passive belay looked like
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this: the belayer was still pulled up but
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now with extra friction, that is not the
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case anymore and you can see how the
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climber is being pulled up and into the
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wall even harder.
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[Climber] - Okay that was...
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... that was the way it was.
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So yeah don't forget to subscribe, I might need
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advertisement money to fix my broken
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body at old age.
[Climber] - So what's your favorite method?
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[Belayer] - Yeah jumping up, yes
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Okay so we were leaning towards
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jumping as our favorite method, but
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what if the belayer is really really
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heavy, or there is so much friction in
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the system that the rope almost doesn't
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pull the belayer up? In that case, you can
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jump I don't know what 30 40 cm maybe 50
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if you're a crazy athlete... but is that
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enough for the soft catch? And this
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brings us to this experiment: here we did
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a series of falls, alternating between
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stepping forward and jumping up and we
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measured the forces to the climber.
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And same as before, jumping up was
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consistently better than stepping forward,
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and doing nothing was
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significantly worse. And then we decided
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to introduce this zigzag in the route, and
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although it doesn't look like much,
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it actually added a ton of friction,
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basically imitating a very heavy belayer.
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[Belayer] - Wow! I couldn't jump at all!
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And, as I was expecting,
jumping up was not working
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at all in this case, so let's see if
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stepping forward is going to be better.
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[Climber] - Wow that was solid!
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[Climber] - 2.5, oh sh*t!
And it actually was even worse.
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[Belayer] - Man I cannot give you
a soft catch this way!
-
So yeah no matter how much I tried
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to jump, I was not able to give a
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truly soft catch, and stepping forward
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was even worse.
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[Belayer] - It's impossible to give
a soft catch like this!
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To time well the stepping forward
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on such a short fall
-
is nearly impossible.
-
Now while ,it seemed that heavy
belayers are doomed, on
-
this next experiment I actually
-
discovered something that helps.
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This time I was belaying a light girl, and as
-
before, I was also struggling to give a
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soft catch. The jumping
simply did not work.
-
And neither did the stepping
-
forward method.
-
But then I discovered something.
-
[Climber] - Better, better.
This one was soft!
-
It's soft!
-
So yeah, turns out that bending the knees
will give you more
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range of movement and in this test case
-
scenario it made a huge difference.
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[Climber] - If the fall was Wyuuuuuuuuu
-
Just super soft, and the others was Bump!
-
- Like Bum?
- Yeah yeah yeah!
-
- So it's Bum versus Yuuuuuuu.
- And we prefer Yuuu.
-
- You prefer Woooo.
- Yeah!
-
And although I already
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mentioned this in the first episode, but
-
it's really important to stress that
-
simply throwing a lot of slack does not
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mean a soft catch.
-
And in the case of a passive belay,
-
it can end up very badly.
-
And the only reason she was fine in this
-
case, was because she was falling
-
straight down under the quick draw.
-
So all she felt was just a jerk to the
-
harness. In a different situation with a
-
little bit of swing, that kind of catch
-
with would probably break her ankles.
-
So, instead of feeding a ton of slack for
-
your climber maybe you should...
feed your climber?
-
And as we saw If the fall is
-
small, bending the knees before the fall
-
might help. Now in case of a big whipper
-
the fall naturally is much bigger, so you
-
will have more time to go down and
-
explode up and from a biomechanical
-
standpoint since our muscles act as
-
springs, going down and jumping up should
-
result into a higher jump. Now if that
-
doesn't help I would suggest more food
-
cycles and if that's not an option then
-
I've seen a method used by a very heavy
-
belayer, which worked very well for him,
-
where he took a little bit of slack with
-
his lead hand and during the impact he
-
used his lead hand to soften the catch.
-
It is extremely important to not
-
have too much slack here or you will
-
burn your hand. So be smart and use this
-
at your own risk. This is sketchy but
-
I've seen it working really well.
-
Or alternatively go old school and learn
-
how to use tube style belaying, then it
-
doesn't matter what's
the weight of the climber
-
You can always make a soft catch.
-
But of course that comes with
its own risks of not
-
having an assisted belay device.
-
But for majority of you,
jumping up is going to
-
be the best and if for whatever reason
-
you find yourself away from the wall,
-
then just do stepping forward as we saw.
-
Whatever soft catch method is much
-
better than passive belaying.
-
Now I understand that this
video was full of
-
charts and graphs and chances are if
-
you're still watching you're a little
-
bit nerdy, however I'm going to make a
-
separate video for my belay Master Class
-
where I will go more on practical
-
details, including those sketchy
-
low-to-the-ground situations.
And also during
-
these two years we have measured forces
-
on hundred of falls, so we have a lot of
-
data. But as I explained in previous
-
episodes, peak force to the climber might
-
not be the most important factor for
-
sport climbers.
-
However that might be much more
-
important for trad climbers.
-
[Climber] - Keep a good eye.
-
[Climber] - Sh****t!
-
So I guess this deserves an
-
episode for trad climbers as well and
-
all of these people and supporters
-
deserve a huge thank you. None of this
-
project would've been possible without all
-
of you. And you deserve some knowledge.
-
For the last 6 months I was
-
warming up my brain in the mornings with
-
brilliant.org which is an awesome online
-
platform for learning math, data science,
-
and computer science interactively
-
- Good morning Ben how are you?
-
- Ah feeling like quaternion and
-
four dimensional space
with emotions twisting
-
like Möbius transformation and my mood
-
transforming like eigenvector.
-
So no only you get deeper connections with
-
your smart friends, you also deepen your
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Just imagine how your regular life
-
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-
contemplating that we are all just
-
riding a giant rock through constantly
-
expanding space, with supernovas and
-
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-
thinking becomes obsolete...
-
- Write a short math poem
in a style of...
-
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-
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-
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So thank you Brilliant for making sure
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-
you for watching. Enjoy your brain and
-
climbing and see you in the next one.
-
- Now it's gonna be fun...
Feeling like quateri...
-
That word!