Loughborough Uni research proj

 Early on this year I took part in a study at Loughborough University, helping some PhD students out with their research into how effective the blood vessels in climbers are at delivering blood. It was a really cool day hanging out in the labs and checking out all their ghetto equipment.
 Here was the study overview again.


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.


Anyway they sent me the results a while back and I thought I'd put them up for the people that might find them of interest...