Nathaniel Coleman is an elite sport climber.
With help from US Olympian, Lolo Jones,
we’re putting him through a series of challenges
to understand what it takes to reach the top
of the climbing world.
Just Olympic determination.
Hi, I’m Lolo Jones and welcome to Anatomy of a Sport Climber.
Joining me in Las Vegas is US star Nathaniel Coleman.
-Are you ready for this? -Let’s do it.
Sport Climbing’s Olympic debut is at Tokyo 2020.
The competition is broken down
into three disciplines;
Speed Climbing,
Bouldering,
and Lead Climbing.
To reach the heights of this sport, you need a variety
of skills including speed, strength and agility.
I think I’m suited to climbing
because of my natural athletic tendencies.
You need a lot of coordination,
fast twitch reactions.
You need fast thinking, you need problem solving.
We’ve come to a state-of-the-art
human performance institute to examine Nathaniel’s
physical make-up.
How will he fare when we when look behind the stats
US champion climber?
First up we’re going to look at
Nathaniel’s body composition with the Dexa scan.
So the Dexa scan is a measure of body composition
and Nathaniel produced some really great results today.
He had a total body fat percentage of 11 per cent.
We would expect him to have those types of numbers
where he’s not having to carry around excess body fat.
He’s having to take his body from the floor
against gravity up the wall so
we need to remove any inefficient excess weight
and those data today really reflected that.
Nathaniel, climbing must use all the muscles in your body?
Yeah, especially your legs when you’re doing speed climbing.
Really? You don’t use your arms.
That’s what you think.
Alright, well let’s test out
-the power in your legs. -Sounds good.
Strong leg muscles are crucial when using the smallest
footholds on the climbing wall.
And the more weight you can put on the lower body,
the longer the arms and upper body will last.
OK, Nathaniel we’re going to do
our next test which is the countermovement jump.
So this is a measure of lower body power which
as a climber when you’re doing those bouldering manoeuvres
and those big explosive reaches actually
you’re going to use your legs for some of those, right?
-Yeah. -So we’re going to look at
how explosive you are with your lower body power
-and see what you can do. -Alright.
OK, step onto the plate.
Here we go in 3,
2, 1, go. Up!
Good.
His performance in this test was
exceptional.
He had a vertical jump of right around 50
centimetres which is a really good score.
When we look at combat athletes and we look at some other
sports like rowing, they’re probably going to be a little
bit lower than a score like that largely in the mid-40s.
So to have a score of 50, that’s a really good score
and really shows that he’s explosive for those
movements, those high technical explosive efforts
that he does with his speed climbing.
I mean this seems pretty easy to me.
I mean I don’t know why climbers
make a big deal out of it.
It’s like look one arm.
OK, this next test I’m sure
is going to show his upper body strength.
Nathaniel’s sport requires phenomenal upper body strength.
These muscle groups are the engine room for a sport
climber where huge amounts of propulsive force are generated.
OK, Nathaniel the next test
is our upper body strength endurance test.
This is closest to your kind of
routine on a day to day basis,
so we’re going to take the bar
and we’re going to try and do as many pull-up’s as we can.
I’ve been training my whole life for this.
For this one moment.
Here we go whenever you’re ready.
Alright,
a second pause in between each one. There's one.
So he just goes until he burns out?
Absolutely.
We’re going to be here all day.
The pull-up test is a love-hate experience.
I think it’s my strength but
it sucks to just keep pulling until you
fail because your muscles are just burning so much.
-You got this, you got this. -Good job Nathaniel.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
-Fight for it, fight for it. -Alright good job.
23.
Just Olympic determination.
Good job. Good job my friend.
That’s tough. That was impressive.
That’s tough.
23. Outstanding, outstanding number.
Anything over 18 we would say is exceptional.
You should have told him that at 18.
I’m not going to tell him 18, keep going, it’s a max test.
He fought for one like, aarghhh!
So if we look at sports like mixed martial arts
they’re probably going to be pulling about
10 to 12 long arm pull-ups.
Things like American football again very similar scores
because they’re having to lift more mass off the ground
and that’s obviously compromising
the endurance capability.
So what Nathaniel has is a real good balance
between strength and a frame and a body size which is
conducive to supporting the endurance effort.
Let’s take a break from testing.
So did you ever think you could be an Olympic athlete?
-No, no way. -And now that
you know that climbing
is in the Olympic Games,
how does that feel for you?
What did you think when they announced it?
Well, when they announced it I was like,
“Well, damn, I’m going to try
as hard as I can to make it there”
I just feel like it was just the perfect timing.
I’m about that age where it’s
the prime time to be trying for the Olympics
and climbing is a new sport.
It’s crazy that it’s introduced to the Olympics
at the same time that I’m competing.
But you really just want an Olympic gold medal?
-That would be nice. -You know they’re made
of chocolate on the inside right?
-Really? -I don’t have one.
Why are you asking me? Let's get back
-to some more testing. -OK.
Time now to look at Nathaniel’s anaerobic power.
Our final test looks at how well Nathaniel’s
short-term energy system can power his leg muscles.
We’re going to be on the bike.
Basically it’s a 10-second maximal effort.
We’re trying to produce as much
power through your legs as possible.
-OK. -Here we go.
In 3, 2,
1, go.
Push, push. Hard.
-Push, push, push. -Come on Nathaniel.
Keep working, keep working.
Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Hard, hard, hard.
Stop.
Good job.
That’s so intense.
His results were really, really positive.
If we look at his peak power, it was about 1211.
But if we look at his relative power
of about 11.8 watts per kilogramme of body weight,
if we look at some of the sports like martial arts
they’re producing power in the average range of about 14 watts
per kilogramme and if we look at some of these sprinters
they can actually get up into the 17 watts
per kilogramme of body weight.
But he did a great job and again it also shows
that he’s got a certain amount of explosive nature
to his physiology which is really going
to be conducive to his sport.
He just kept killing all these tests like you know
the vertical jump was solid, his pull-ups were solid.
You know the sprint on the bike solid
and the fact that he had a burger the night before
he had the Dexa scan, I mean...
he’s honestly like an A-plus student,
so he’s ready for the Olympics.
Nathaniel’s results were really fascinating.
It showed that he is a real great all-rounder
with lower body power
and explosive nature to his legs,
upper body strength endurance
to sustain the workload across time and then his
metabolism and the speed at which he can create
energy on the bike demonstrated that he’s really a supreme
athlete and it’s fascinating to see.
I’m Nathaniel Coleman.
I’m signing out.
I’ve got some climbing to do.