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My ground fall in the Gramps 23-Jul-2003 At 4:44:54 PM fruityarse

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Blimey...land of the giants!!!!!!

My consistant reference to weight is done so keeping in mind the limited sport science research that exists on climbers. This research also constantly states that climbers have "phenomenal" power to weight ratios, in part due to their "lighter" body weight. Mind you, these studies have looked at semi-elite climbers - whatever they classify that as!

My (devil's advocate again) response to Rich's and Fatboy's comments - which I think are absolutely valid - is that a bigger climber will put the gear to its force limit. Yes, I do think that as a bigger climber - with all other things equal - you will be more susceptible to pulling gear during a fall. Whether this is an "everyday" fall or not, I suppose depends on many other factors.

Bungy is a nice example - different size bungy for different body weights. Granted, a bungy jump has a vastly looooooonger fall than a climbing fall - the principle of shocking the system with too much weight is what I am trying to nut out here....

I am also trying to get some research up and running here to look at recovery rates and different recovery modalities in between climbs - will let you all know the results if it goes ahead!