The number of mountaineers and climbers has increased over the last few years. Considering the geographical features of Iran, this increase in the number of climbers is more significant in this ...country. Because of the importance of mountaineering injuries, a comprehensive survey of these injuries is needed. In this base, we designed a survey to investigate skeletal injuries in mountaineering accidents. This cross-sectional study was conducted on athletes from the Mountaineering Federation of Islamic Republic of the Iran (MFIRI) in 2015 and 2016. A total of 110 athletes were included using a simple random sampling method, and they were examined for any complications after skeletal injuries. Their medical records were reviewed. A total of 110 mountaineers completed the checklists, and 15 mountaineers reported a rock-climbing trauma and injury during 2015 and 2016. The most traumatic location was the lower extremities (46.7%). Additionally, most of trauma occurrences were in descent (80%) and times of day between noon and midnight (64.3%). The mean age of the mountaineers who had a trauma incidence was 37.95±8.76 years. Smoking was significantly different between the two groups. Skeletal injuries during mountaineering and rock climbing mostly affect the lower extremities, followed by the upper extremities and spine. There was no significant difference in age, sex or climbing equipment between the group who had an accident and the group who did not. In this study, there was a relationship between smoking cigarettes and an increased incidence of climbing accidents. Longitudinal studies with larger sample sizes are needed to evaluate this relationship.
Rock climbing is an increasingly popular sport worldwide, as a recreational activity and a competitive sport. Several disciplines including sport climbing and bouldering have developed, each ...employing specific movements and techniques, leading to specific injuries.
To examine risk factors and prevention measures for injury in sport climbing and bouldering, and to assess the methodological quality of existing studies.
12 electronic databases and several other sources were searched systematically using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Eligible articles were peer-reviewed, based on primary research using original data; outcome measures included injury, morbidity or mortality in rock climbing, and included one or more potential risk factor or injury prevention strategy. Two independent reviewers assessed the methodology of research in each study using the Downs and Black Quality Index. The data extracted is summarised, and appraisals of the articles are presented with respect to the quality of evidence presented.
19 studies met the inclusion criteria, and introduced 35 possible risk factors or injury prevention measures in climbing. Age, increasing years of climbing experience, highest climbing grade achieved (skill level), high climbing intensity score (CIS) and participating in lead climbing are potential risk factors. Results regarding injury prevention measures remain inconclusive.
This field is relatively new and, as such, the data are not as robust as for more established sports with a larger research foundation. The key need is establishing modifiable risk factors using prospective studies and high quality methodology, such that injury prevention strategies can be developed. The CIS may be a useful measure in this field of research.
Common knowledge implies that individuals engaging in outdoor sports and especially in regular and extreme mountaineering are exceptionally healthy and hardened. Physical activity in outdoor ...environments has a positive effect on physical and mental health. However, regular and/or extreme mountaineering might share similarities with behavioural addictions and could thus also have a negative impact on health. In this cross-sectional web-based questionnaire study, we collected data on exercise and mountaineering addiction (Exercise Addiction Inventory; original and adapted version for mountaineering; Exercise Dependence Scale adapted version for mountaineering). Further surveyed parameters included mountaineering habits, Risk-Taking Inventory, Sensation-Seeking/Emotion Regulation/Agency Scale (SEAS), resilience, self-perceived stress, physical activity in metabolic units and mental health. Comparisons were performed between individuals with symptoms of addiction to mountaineering (MA) and individuals without symptoms of addiction to mountaineering or sports in general (CO) using non-parametric analyses. We analysed data from 335 participants,
n
= 88 thereof with addiction to mountaineering (MA) and
n
= 247 control participants (CO). The MA group scored significantly higher with regards to self-perceived stress (
p
< 0.001) and included a significantly higher number of individuals affected by symptoms of depression (
p
< 0.001), symptoms of anxiety (
p
< 0.001), symptoms of eating disorders (
p
< 0.001), alcohol abuse or dependence (
p
< 0.001), illicit drug abuse (
p
= 0.050), or current and history of psychiatric disorders (
p
< 0.001). Individuals with MA showed higher values in all SEAS subscales as well as increased risk-taking (
p
< 0.001). Regular and extreme mountaineering can display features of a behavioural addiction and is associated with psychiatric disorders. Behavioural addiction in mountaineering is associated with higher levels of sensation-seeking, emotion regulation, and agency, as well as increased risk-taking.
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the environmental impact of mountaineering and climbing. In recent years, they have become one of the enticing sports practiced by amateurs and athletes. ...The results obtained unequivocally reveal that a commitment of the organizers to the protection of the environment and the natural resources of the mountains and rocks is needed. This includes the protection of endangered plant and animal species, their ecosystems, and the environment. Conclusion: The joint efforts of various institutions are needed in order to increase the popularity and awareness of the commented sports, which should be realized under optimal environmental conditions and not violate its ecological sustainability. This requires a current environmental policy and education aimed at future development in this direction. Mountains and rocks are a limited resource that must be shared by climbers and climbers with different interests and from different generations.
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of alterations in potential lead fall distance on the hormonal responses of rock climbers. Nine advanced female climbers completed two routes while ...clipping all (PRO-all) or half (PRO-½) of the fixed points of protection. Venous blood samples were analysed for total catecholamines, noradrenaline (norepinephrine), adrenaline (epinephrine), dopamine, lactate, cortisol and serotonin. Differences between the two conditions pre, immediately post and 15 min post climbing were assessed using a 2 × 3 repeated measures ANOVA. All hormones and blood lactate concentrations increased significantly (P < 0.05) immediately post climb, except for cortisol. Peak cortisol concentrations did not occur until 15 min post ascent. Further, significant interactions between climbing and clipping conditions were found for total catecholamines (890% of basal concentration in PRO-½ vs. 568% in PRO-all), noradrenaline (794% vs. 532%) and dopamine (500% vs. 210%). There were no significant interactions for adrenaline (1920% vs. 1045%), serotonin (150% vs. 127%) or lactate (329% vs. 279%). The study showed a greater catecholamine response with an increase in potential lead fall distance. The most pronounced increases seen in catecholamine concentration were reported for dopamine and noradrenaline.
This article focuses on the crisis of precarious work/livelihoods that pervades the global tourism industry and prevents many from experiencing fair and just employment. Drawing on an ethnographic ...study of high-altitude mountaineering tourism in the Himalaya, we explore the various ways in which mountain workers are precarious, vulnerable, marginalised and often overlooked in the context of cross-border tourism practices. Drawing on concepts of justice and fairness we argue that the ongoing racial and social contours of colonialism give privileges to some bodies and not "Others," entrenching precarity of vulnerable communities and workers. However, despite these unfavourable conditions, local workers are not without agency to shape their conditions and experiences. Mountain workers on Everest provide an example of how, despite their precarity, workers can self-organise and exercise their voice to secure more just and equitable work. Decent work, secure livelihoods, and equality are core features of the sustainable development goals and will only be achieved through collective action, solidarity from different tourism stakeholders and the realisation of fair and just employment practices for the most vulnerable communities.
In The Everest Effect Elizabeth Mazzolini traces a series of ideological shifts in the status of Mount Everest in Western culture over the past century to the present day and links these shifts to ...technologies used in climbs. By highlighting the intersections of technology and cultural ideologies at this site of environmental extremity, she shows both how nature is shaped—physically and symbolically—by cultural values and how extreme natural phenomena shape culture.
Nostalgia, myth, and legend are intrinsic features of the conversations that surround discussions of historic and contemporary climbs of Everest, and those conversations themselves reflect changing relations between nature, technology, and ideology. Each of the book’s chapters links a particular value with a particular technology to show how technology is implicated in Mount Everest’s cultural standing and commodification: authenticity is linked with supplemental oxygen; utility with portable foodstuffs; individuality with communication technology; extremity with visual technology; and ability with money. These technologies, Mazzolini argues, are persuasive—and increasingly so as they work more quickly and with more intimacy on our bodies and in our daily lives.
As Mazzolini argues, the ideologies that situate Mount Everest in Western culture today are not debased and descended from a more noble time; rather, the material of the mountain and its surroundings and the technologies deployed to encounter it all work more immediately with the bodies and minds of actual and “armchair” mountaineers than ever before. By moving the analysis of a natural site and phenomenon away from the traditional labor of production and toward the symbolic labor of affective attachment, The Everest Effect shows that the body and nature have helped constitute the capitalization that is usually characterized as taking over Everest.
Research has now debunked the standpoint that high-risk sports participants are a homogenous group of sensation seekers (Barlow et al., 2013); the process of agentic emotion regulation is a primary ...motive for high-engagement high-risk sports (i.e., mountaineering). The evidence, however, remains cross-sectional, and there is currently no evidence to support the timeline of this process. We aimed to bridge that gap by investigating the process of agentic emotion regulation over three post-participation time points across different disciplines of climbing that vary in risk and objective danger. Emotion regulation is the process by which individuals alter the nature, intensity, and duration of their emotions (Gross, 2008). Agency refers to individuals' perceived control over their internal beliefs, desires, intentions, and actions (Bandura, 1997). The results from two retrospective (n = 161, n = 134) studies and one longitudinal (n = 45) study revealed that those who engage in high-risk forms of climbing (i.e., traditional climbing) experience a greater increase in agency and emotion regulation difficulty after participation than individuals who participate in lower-risk forms of climbing (i.e., sport climbers) and other relatively low-risk sports (i.e., swimming). This research supports the benefits of high-risk activities for regulating participants' agentic emotion regulation difficulties.
•High-risk climbers experienced increased agency and emotion regulation difficulty between participation.•High-risk climbers are motivated by the agentic emotion regulation function of participation.•Sensation seeking is not a primary motive for engaging in high-risk climbing activities.
Research on people's motives for engaging in high-risk activities has typically been viewed through the single-focused lens of sensation seeking. We provide evidence that comprehensively challenges ...that view. First, we develop and confirm the structure of a 3-factor measure of motives: the Sensation Seeking, Emotion Regulation, and Agency Scale (SEAS; Study 1). We then use the SEAS to provide evidence of differential motives for 2 high-risk activities: skydiving and mountaineering. The motive for skydiving is strongly associated with sensation seeking; the motive for mountaineering is strongly associated with emotion regulation and agency but not with sensation seeking (Study 2). We also show that these conclusions cannot be drawn from existing measures of personality and sensation seeking (Study 3). Finally, individuals who are motivated by emotion regulation and agency needs also have greater expectations regarding their emotion regulation and agency. It is these greater expectations that most successfully discriminate mountaineers from skydivers and control participants (Study 4). It is concluded that researchers should no longer consider risk takers as a homogenous sensation-seeking group and that they should consider risk taking as a potential model of human endeavor. The SEAS can be used as a measure of motives for behavior whenever sensation seeking, agency, or emotion regulation is thought to be at the core of such motives, and the results are discussed in the context of encouraging personality researchers to consider the specific spontaneous behaviors that motivate different people.
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