Sport Climbing and REDs: Why IFSC’s screening might fail to protect climbers

Introduction

“Do we want to raise the next generation of skeletons?”

In July 2023, Janja Garnbret, the gold medalist in women’s sport climbing at the Tokyo Olympics, shared a post on social media, asking this question to the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). In her post, Garnbret criticized IFSC’s inaction on athletes’ malnutrition and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports (REDs) and called for mandatory REDs screening tests in competitions (Garnbret, 2023).

Seven months after Garnbret’s advocacy, IFSC introduced a new policy on REDs. When applying to national federations for competition certificates, athletes are required to take questionnaire tests on energy availability and eating behaviors and provide BMI, heart rate, and blood pressure data. Meanwhile, IFSC will perform random and focused REDs testing on athletes before competitions (IFSC, 2024).

IFSC’s policy on REDs is unprecedented among international sports federations, but it’s not the first time they have implemented screening procedures addressing athletes’ health. BMI screening tests have been included in IFSC World Championships and World Cup events for over a decade to protect athletes from eating disorders (IFSC, 2021). However, IFSC choosing BMI as the sole parameter for athletes’ health also raised skepticism for being insensitive and inaccurate in identifying athletes with concerning conditions (Leslie-Wujastyk, 2019; Joubert et al., 2022). IFSC’s new REDs policy, which includes multiple clinical questionnaire tests and evaluations, is therefore viewed as a more holistic approach to protecting athletes’ health.

As Garnbret sided with strict testing on athletes, she also acknowledged that the REDs is rooted in the sport climbing culture. Identifying athletes at risk could save them from being further influenced by REDs, but it could not change the sporting culture and fundamentally protect all climbers. In this essay, I argue that IFSC’s new policy still fails to protect sport climbing athletes as a risk group of REDs. I will apply the concept of instrumentality in sports to explain how the logic of sport climbing shapes its sporting culture and makes climbers inherently vulnerable to REDs.

In the first part of the essay, I will provide a background for REDs’ prevalence in sport climbing based on current empirical research. Then I will analyze how the intrinsic instrumentality of sport climbing constitutes the triggering factors of REDs. Following the analysis, I will discuss the problems with IFSC’s current policy and offer athlete-centered and sport-specific solutions to combat the REDs in sport climbing.

Since climbing is a diverse sport and the definition of sport climbing varies, for clarity of terminology, I shall explain that sport climbing in this essay refers to the three competition climbing disciplines recognized by IFSC: boulder, lead, and speed. This definition aligns with the current Olympic program and international competitions and would provide a more accurate context for discussion.

REDs and its triggering factors in sport climbing

The concept of REDs was first introduced in the 2014 International Olympic Committee (IOC) consensus statement. It was developed from the Female Athlete Triad, a clinical entity comprising three interrelated factors: energy availability, menstrual function, and bone health (Mountjoy et al., 2014). A common and severe outcome deriving from the Triad is low energy availability (LEA) causing menstrual dysfunction and low bone density. Built upon the Triad, the new conceptual model of REDs highlights problematic LEA as the cause of REDs and demonstrates its extensive effects on athletes’ health beyond menstrual function and orthopedic issues (Mountjoy et al, 2023). Male athletes are also incorporated into the potentially affected group of REDs.

REDs could influence athletes in any sport. However, researchers have found that weight-sensitive sports, in which leanness or weight plays a key role in performance, appearance, or categorization could present a higher risk of LEA to athletes (Sundgot-Borgen et al., 2013; Mountjoy et al., 2014). In other words, athletes from weight-sensitive sports are more prone to REDs.

Sport climbing belongs to the (anti-)gravitational subgroup of weight-sensitive sports because athletes moving their bodies against gravity is essential in climbing and weight would restrict performance (Sundgot-Borgen et al., 2013). Past studies have shown that certain health outcomes of REDs (e.g., disordered eating and amenorrhea) are prevalent among elite climbers (Joubert et al., 2020; Joubert et al., 2022). Some common training practices in sport climbing, such as nutrition intake restrictions and body weight control have been scrutinized for making climbers susceptible to disordered eating, LEA, and eventually REDs (Gibson-Smith et al., 2020; Lutter et al., 2021).

Though there haven’t been sufficient empirical studies on REDs to support an onset mechanism framework in sport climbing, triggering factors of REDs and its related syndromes could be summarized from past research and athletes’ narratives. Here, I identify three factors triggering REDs in the context of sport climbing: 1) the emphasis on athletes’ strength-to-mass ratio, 2) the climber mindset, and 3) the paradigm of elite climbers’ body appearance. All three triggering factors of REDs discussed above are essential in sport climbing. They are not separate but interrelated with each other.

The emphasis on athletes’ strength-to-mass ratio

In sport climbing, having only high absolute strength or low body weight can’t guarantee good performance. What plays a key prerequisite role in climbing success, is the strength-to-mass ratio (sometimes named as power-to-mass ratio or strength-to-weight ratio) (Watts, 2004).

Optimizing the strength-to-mass ratio for better performance has become the ultimate goal of most climbing training methods (Reeves et al., 2017), but problems with this approach lie in both ends of this metric. In climbing training, strength building always goes hand in hand with weight control. Focusing on improving athletes’ strength could lead to overtraining, echoing the climber mindset discussed in the following. Meanwhile, weight is considered a rather controllable variable than strength to athletes. Losing weight is a common strategy for climbers to send harder routes (Michael et al., 2019; Wickes, 2021). Former climber Matt Samet describes this weight-controlling approach as seductive yet detrimental. For climbers, it is easier than training and improves climbing performance quickly, but it also exposes climbers to the danger of eating disorders, LEA, and other complications (Samet, 2021).

The climber mindset

When climbers narrate their personal experiences with REDs, they often mention how they used the characteristics of climbers to justify their risky behavior such as overtraining and strict weight control. In climbing’s risk-taking encouraging environment, athletes thrive on pushing limits while being in control. Climbers are always expected to have a sense of control of their bodies, be self-disciplined, and be highly committed (see Forté, 2024; Leslie-Wujastyk, 2019).

The climber mindset could be motivating, but it also normalizes pushing one's body to the limit to pursue better athletic performance. The boundary between putting in acceptable efforts and exploiting one’s body can sometimes be blurry. As Thompson and Sherman (1999) pointed out, traits of a ‘good athlete’ like self-discipline and commitment are valued as assets in the athletic environment, but they could be overlooked as signs and symptoms of a serious problem such as anorexia eating disorder. Similarly, the tough mindset that makes the climbers distinctive could leave room for REDs.

The paradigm of elite climbers’ body appearances

As a result of stressing the high strength-to-mass ratio’s role in climbing performance, elite climbers tend to be leaner and lighter (Watts et al., 2003; Michael et al., 2019). Leanness and lightness constitute the ideal image of an elite climber, indicating the asceticism of a ‘good athlete’. This body ideal is reinforced by body-centric presentations in climbing media and has been internalized by climbers and coaches (Reeves et al., 2017; Schöffl & Schöffl, 2022). It also aligns with the body image standard in a broader elite sports context where leanness means ideal and equals good performance (Thorpe et al., 2019; Heywood, 2011). Elite athletes are under constant pressure to achieve and maintain an ideal body type (Sundgot-Borgen & Torstveit, 2010).

In return, the paradigm of elite climbers’ body appearances will motivate climbers to stick to their training strategy and weight control approach, fostering a risky environment for REDs.

Athletes and researchers tend to attribute the triggering factors to the climbing culture and usually advocate for a change in the culture. The climbing culture does have its problematic sides, but it's also worth noting that a sporting culture is created simultaneously with or following the development of the sport. Instead of simply criticizing the climbing culture, we should shift our focus toward the sport itself and examine how a sporting culture presenting risks of REDs to the athletes is created. In the following section, I will apply the concept of the instrumentality of sports to illustrate why sport climbing inherently brings the possibility of athletes exploiting their bodies and making them susceptible to REDs.

The instrumentality of sport climbing

The concept of instrumentality describes the means-ends relationship of activities. Sports as an activity that carries internal ends (objectives and aims) itself, unavoidably bears instrumentality. Martínková (2013) distinguished two types of instrumentality in sports: intrinsic and extrinsic instrumentality. Intrinsic instrumentality represents the characteristic of the sports performance itself, while extrinsic instrumentality refers to using sport as a tool to achieve external values, such as health and fame. The focus of this section will be the intrinsic instrumentality of sport climbing. However, it’s worth noting that both instrumentalities will contribute to creating a sporting environment (Martínková & Parry, 2018). The climbing culture reflects the social sporting environment (as opposed to the concrete environment) of sport climbing.

Sport climbing is a typical purposive sport (see Best, 1980 and Parry, 1989) and has a clear means-ends structure. In sport climbing, athletes’ internal objective is to fight against gravity and their body weight to top the route. Meanwhile, they also hold the aim of finishing faster (in speed climbing) or higher (in boulder and lead climbing) than competitors. The internal objectives and aims constitute the basic internal ends of sport climbing. The difficulty grading system of climbing and IFSC’s all-year-round competition framework further create a limitless scope of ends for athletes. In speed climbing where there’s a record system, climbers are always chasing the record. In boulder and lead climbing, there is always a more difficult route to conquer. Climbers are always pursuing the next big title and attempting to collect more wins in the competition circuit.

The intrinsic instrumentality of sport climbing is exhibited through the internal objectives and aims. It naturally leads to the instrumental thinking, or the striving (Martínková, 2013, p.66) of climbers. In the competitive sports context where extrinsic values like achievement and fame are emphasized, the effects of intrinsic instrumentality could be amplified by extrinsic instrumentality, resulting in highlighting only certain intrinsic ends of the sport (Martínková, 2013, p.40). The three triggering factors of REDs I summarized in the previous section demonstrate how internal ends in sport climbing override the means, and how this imbalance deepens instrumental thinking and potentially brings negative outcomes.

The emphasis on athletes’ strength-to-mass ratio represents a type of instrumental thinking, with climbers’ bodies as the object of instrumentalization. Climbers focus on improving their strength-to-mass ratio to send more difficult routes or to perform better than competitors, but other aspects of sport climbing, such as problem-solving and techniques, are diminished. Though this training regimen has proved effective for enhancing climbing performance, it can also reduce sport climbing to a relative strength test. When there’s an overemphasis on competitive objectives and aims, some of the intrinsic values, such as experiential values, generated from participating in sport climbing could be conceded.

Meanwhile, compared to building strength or controlling weight, working on problem-solving strategies and climbing techniques might take longer to show the effects in improving climbing performance. The competition setting in sport climbing could also encourage athletes to accelerate their results (see Martínková, 2013, ch. 11). Since weight is perceived as the more flexible variable of the strength-to-mass ratio, Matt Samet won’t be the only climber who found losing weight to improve performance a seductive approach. The deepened instrumental thinking in sport climbing is then open to harmful or extreme training and diet practices.

The climber mindset reflects certain intrinsic values of sport climbing. It brings climbers asceticism, the excitement of pushing limits, and the experience of being in control. Meanwhile, this mindset is also driven by climbers’ instrumental thinking. When we prioritize the internal objectives and aims of the sport, instrumental thinking could be troublesome. The limitless scope of ends in sport climbing carves out a space for continuous improvement and pushing limits, driving climbers to keep a sense of constant unfulfillment and make excessive effort (Martínková, 2013, ch. 11), The asceticism of climbers could turn into extreme weight control while striving for the ends will lead to overtraining. This also explains why certain traits of a ‘good athlete’ could be dangerous signs of REDs in disguise.

The paradigm of elite climbers’ body appearances is produced from the training regimen emphasizing strength-to-weight ratio and reinforced by the climber mindset. It also depicts how the instrumentality of sport climbing fosters a less diverse body culture. According to Martínková (2013, ch. 11), sports require an existing well-balanced state instead of helping athletes reach balance. In sport climbing particularly at the elite level, those athletes with lean and light body characteristics are ‘balanced’ and thus favored in competition. This disbalance will disadvantage athletes who are not born with the ideal type of body, forcing them to fit in the ‘balanced’ standard.

In summary, the intrinsic instrumentality of sport climbing motivates athletes’ instrumental thinking in training and competitions. It also creates a significant climbing culture, which normalizes controlling and striving in the training regimen and promotes an ideal body image. As Martínková (2013) contends, instrumental thinking isn’t negative – it’s common and integral in sports. When positioned in the context of competitive sports where results and achievements receive much attention, sport climbing would see problems with athletes’ instrumental thinking. Going back to the theme of this essay, the three triggering factors of REDs stem from the intrinsic instrumentality of sport climbing and are inherent in the sporting culture. Their threats could be amplified when the pursuit of objectives and aims overrides the means, which is exactly what is happening in the IFSC-governed sport climbing world now.

Problems with IFSC’s policy and recommendations

After examining how the intrinsic instrumentality of sport climbing fosters a sporting environment presenting risks of REDs to its athletes, I will now discuss how IFSC’s current REDs policy fails to address the problems within their sporting environment and provide possible solutions.

The current IFSC policy on REDs relies mostly on screening tests, which is consistent with the 2023 IOC consensus statement’s recommendations. Responsibilities are shared between national federations (NF) and IFSC. NFs are in charge of conducting risk assessments of REDs when athletes request a competition license. IFSC should be informed of the athletes at risk screened by NFs and will conduct REDs testing during competitions. IFSC also has the duty to suspend an athlete at risk after tests and an independent advisory panel’s review.

IFSC’s approach to REDs could be summarized as identifying and helping athletes at risk, but problems will arise in practice. The two questionnaires on athletes’ LEA and general eating disorders adopted by IFSC on the NF level have been proven validated in probing certain medical conditions. Nevertheless, it’s also noteworthy that there are still no validated and comprehensive screening instruments for REDs (Torstveit et al., 2023). In a sporting environment that normalizes adequate exposure to LEA and weight control, the applicability of population-derived questionnaires should be considered (Bloodworth et al., 2017). Moreover, IFSC’s policy leaves much room for manipulation for NFs, which already raised concerns about NFs prioritizing results over athletes’ health in the past (Savage & Axon, 2024).

By identifying athletes at risk, IFSC’s REDs policy might save climbers already influenced by REDs inflicting syndromes from developing more deteriorated conditions, but it won’t fundamentally protect climbers from REDs. Because of the sport’s intrinsic instrumentality, climbers formulate a general risk group to REDs, not some athletes are in a specifically risky state. To address the REDs issues in sport climbing, it’s imperative to consider solutions based on the logic of the sport.

As discussed in the last section, the imbalance of emphasis between the ends and means of sport makes the intrinsic thinking of climbers troublesome, creating a risky sport environment for REDs. Thus, I suggest IFSC modify to encourage diversity in route setting and modify its competition format to balance the focus on ends.

Climbing routes constitute the tests for athletes in sport climbing. They should be a comprehensive test of a climber’s skillset, rather than a test that favors climbers with certain physical characteristics. As boulderer and coach Ugo Neumann suggest, the cognitive elements of climbing, such as problem-solving and decision-making, need to be addressed more if we want a more inclusive, fair, and sustainable climbing competition (Neumann, 2023).

The current competition format in sport climbing prioritizes the ends (if the athlete tops and finishes the fastest or highest) but overlooks the means (how the athlete finishes a climb). This underappreciation of the climbing process could turn the sport into a fitness test and create a tougher environment for athletes without the ‘balanced’ physical conditions to thrive. To re-balance the importance of ends and means in sport climbing, the climbing process, such as the flow of movement and the variety of the skills used, should also be considered in the evaluation of performance (but not overtaking the original objectives and aims).

In this way, sport climbing will keep its playful and creative side and refresh other intrinsic values sidelined by the overemphasis on competition and results. The sport climbing community would also be raising a generation of diverse and versatile climbers rather than the next generation of skeletons.

Conclusion

Developed from the concept of Female Athlete Triad, REDs has raised concerns for its extensive effects on the health of athletes of all genders and across different sporting disciplines. Sport climbing is perceived as one of the high-risk sports for developing REDs, because of its weight-sensitive characteristic and the long tradition of lean and light athletes prevailing. As the governing body of sport climbing, IFSC introduced an unprecedented policy on REDs, with screening tests as the main prevention instrument. This approach is recommended by the IOC consensus group, and is the common countermeasure to REDs in the sporting world. Nevertheless, screening tests could only identify and save athletes from being further affected by REDs, rather than fundamentally protecting athletes from REDs.

In the context of sport climbing, three key triggering factors of REDs can be summarized: the training method emphasizing strength-to-mass ratio, the paradigm of climbers’ body appearances, and the climber mindset. Instead of simply attributing all the problems to the climbing culture, I introduce the concept of instrumentality to outline how sport climbing intrinsically makes athletes prone to REDs. Sport climbing is purposive and brings intrinsic instrumentality with itself, which naturally drives athletes’ instrumental thinking. The triggering factors of REDs in sport are associated with climbers’ instrumental thinking and reflect the intrinsic instrumentality in sport. Their problematic sides are amplified in the current competitive sports context. A sporting culture triggering REDs is then created.

Since the triggering factors of REDs lie in the logic of sport climbing, I suggest IFSC shift policymaking focus toward the competition format and route setting. When the competition format doesn’t only value the results and route setting truly welcomes diversity, we will have an environment for all climbers to flourish.

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