Assessment of morphological architecture of feet in rock-climbers

It was hypothetioally assumed that rock-climbers have normal foot structure. The aim of this study was to assess the structure of all the foot segments. Materials and methods: This study embraced 43 rock-climbers, who had been training for 3 to 7 years. The research group included 17 women and 26 men, aged from 18 to 24 years (mean age - 24.3). The control group consisted of 31 students of the University of Wroclaw, aged from 19 to 23 years (mean age - 22.7). Photometric method was used to examine the morphological structure of the feet Results Results of the examinations show that all the rock-climbers had normal structure of the longitudinal arch, while various types of the longitudinal arch structure were observed in the students. The analysis of the transversal arch structure showed that disorders were more frequent in the rock-climbers Conclusions. 1 Rock-climbing has a beneficial influence on the structure of the longitudinal arch, yet it is the factor facilitating disturbances of the frontal foot segments. 2 Deformations of the transversal arch structure and the toes arrangement do not coexist with the longitudinal platypodia.