Fingers n Veins

Wrestling with my Dangerous Soul

I've had a bit of a bruised finger for a few days now, so had to take a bit of time out and rest up, but it came at a good time as I've been helping out a bunch of PhD students at Loughbourgh university with their study into how effective the arms blood vessels, among climbers, are at delivering blood. So the finger setback hasn't bothered me too much as I wasn't supposed to really train while they performed their tests, plus I was in need of a few days off! It'll be really cool to see the full results when they are published, it was definitely interesting seeing the arteries rushing with blood on the ultrasound as they released the clap from my arm! Below is the study overview for those that are interested.

Elite rock climbers have a highly adapted forearm vasculature, when compared to the sedentary population. For example, we have previously demonstrated that the blood flow capacity, and blood flow during exercise, was much higher in the rock climbers compared to non-climbing control subjects. However, this study is not able to identify the mechanisms for this higher blood flow capacity, which could be due to structural and functional changes in the artery supplying the forearm (brachial artery), or a higher number of capillaries within the forearm.

Therefore, this study aims to examine artery structure and function, and capillarity, in a population of elite rock climbers, and compare them to a group of non-climbing control subjects.

I'll be sure to post up the report of their findings soon as they email them through. Out.