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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Making climbing fairer 4-Feb-2005 At 11:41:32 PM cheesehead

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So to complete Runnit's explaination (he's obviously had to get back to work, and my lunch break' just started) - A long lever is like a tall gear (or high gear) in your car - big mechanical advantage. Amplified output movement range for input range. This takes greater force than a short lever - or a short gear (such as first gear). A short lever has less of a range - therefore force, multiplier.

In short (no pun intended), a shorter lever (arm in this case) requires less force to haul your body weight.
The downside is, you need to make more moves overall. If you wanted to be a supergeek (and had a slightly longer lunch break), you could draw a chart or equations to find the maximum efficiency arm length for a given body weight......
But Fatboy is right :)