[Evolution314]

This is comparing two entirely different things. Rock climbing is a very complex sport in which the physical advantages that females have, such as flexibility are of similar importance to strength. Being able to get a high foot will give you much more leverage on the stronger muscles of your legs which is especially important when your forearms are screaming at you. Female climbers are also usually more efficient than male climbers which is needed as they are on average less strong. The difference between female strength and male strength in climbers is still significant, but the difference in performance less.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'm fairly certain Alex Puccio will kick my ass at any sport you care to name, and I'm sure that goes for the vast majority of men.

[empthought]

Luckily someone already did research into this (the other commenter linked it) and it’s likely she’d only be able to kick half of men’s asses at best.

Which would still be pretty impressive and unlikely.

This whole “actually there’s a big overlap” misconception is easily defeatable by noting that no women play in the NBA, NHL, MLB, or MLS. If there is a big overlap in physical capability, why haven’t women started going for the millions of dollars available in these open leagues? Are they too lazy, or too stupid?

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'm going to need a citation on that. I very much doubt even 25% of the men in the world could do what she does.

The big overlap is with the rest of the population. Of course little advantages in a population are going to be exaggerated if you only sample the top 1% of people!

[empthought]

You managed to reply to a whole comment thread without reading the existing citation, why do you need it repeated?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17186303/

> The results of female national elite athletes even indicate that the strength level attainable by extremely high training will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men.

The data from this study is helpfully visualized here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/4vcxd0/alm...

You said "in any sport" and not bouldering, so this finding will apply. You can also consult the rest of the literature such as it is. Or spend some time in a mixed-sex group strength training program and just observe.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7253873/

> Results indicate that untrained men have greater upper and lower body strength than trained women athletes in terms of both absolute and relative strength.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> The results of female national elite athletes even indicate that the strength level attainable by extremely high training will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men.

Irrelevant, because it requires training, which is not at all what we're talking about when we're talking about the general population.

> Results indicate that untrained men have greater upper and lower body strength than trained women athletes in terms of both absolute and relative strength.

Let me know when half of men can iron cross their way across a difficult move with their "greater upper body strength".

[empthought]

The strength of strength-trained females being less than 50% of non-strength-trained males is not “irrelevant” at all.

You’ve chosen an arbitrary and niche sport and athlete because you literally don’t have any other examples at hand and have conveniently made it impossible to test. No one is foolish enough to boulder at this level without training.

She would lose a simple wrestling match against the vast majority of men regardless of their training.