“You taught me to argue with doubt until it began to doubt itself.”
— Brooke Raboutou, refiriéndose a Excalibur

When Brooke Raboutou sent Excalibur (9b+) in Drena, Italy, she didn’t just become the first American woman to climb that level of difficulty — she also cracked the dominant high-performance sport narrative: that men, by virtue of their physiological advantages, will always occupy the summit of physical capability. In nearly every discipline, the top male performances far exceed the female records. Yet climbing is one of the rare sports where that gap significantly narrows. And in doing so, it reveals something deeper than numbers or records: a connection between movement, evolution, and the very essence of being human.

From a quantitative standpoint, Brooke Raboutou’s achievement can no longer be viewed as an exception, but rather a turning point. With this ascent, Raboutou didn’t just reach the highest threshold of sport climbing — she did so barely two years after the first male ascent, dramatically compressing the historical gender gap in conquering the sport’s top grades. As of mid‑2021, just over 100 people worldwide had climbed routes at 9a+ (5.15a) or above, and only four of them were women. This may seem like a small number, but the significance becomes clear when compared to athletics: Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100 m record of 10.49 s doesn’t even rank among the top 2,000 male times of the 21st century (Carroll, 2021). In that contrast, climbing stands out as a statistical anomaly: it doesn’t eliminate gender differences, but it reduces them with a force that demands explanation.

Why is this the case? Why, in a sport demanding strength, power, endurance, technique, and strategy, can women approach men’s performance so closely? The answers are many and interconnected: physiological specifics, cultural biases, participation conditions, movement styles… but perhaps the most fascinating explanation looks back in time, to our ancestors, to the trees we once climbed to survive.

The performance gap between men and women is a useful tool in sports science — but it may also be an indicator of our evolutionary history. Collin Carroll (2019, 2021) suggests that sports where gender differences are smallest may reflect movements that were essential for our species’ evolution. The premise is simple and powerful: if a task was vital to survival for millions of years, both men and women would have been equally pressured to perform it effectively. Over time, this would lead to sex-blind musculoskeletal adaptations (SBMA) that today help narrow the performance gap.

Carroll shows that the gap narrows in short sprints compared to long-distance running, and that it widens in jumping events. This suggests that sprinting — used to flee predators — may have been more critical in our ancestral past than precise jumping, shaping human anatomy more for running than for leaping (Carroll, 2019). In that framework, climbing offers a uniquely compelling case. Not only does it show a small gap, but it does so in a complex, three-dimensional movement that combines strength, coordination, spatial perception, anticipation, and real-time decision-making. That invites us to see climbing not just as a sport, but as an ancestral behavior that may have profoundly shaped human evolution.

Long before Homo sapiens walked the savannah, we were climbing trees. Arboreal locomotion is well documented among early hominins, and its importance is reflected in multiple anatomical traits we still possess: prehensile fingers, mobile shoulders, a strong back, an adaptable center of gravity, and a musculature optimized for both power and efficiency (Fleagle, 2013; Crompton et al., 2008). Even after our ancestors became primarily terrestrial, many communities retained tree-climbing as part of daily life. Recent ethnographic studies show that some modern hunter-gatherer groups still climb trees with remarkable efficiency, using techniques that reflect a deep biomechanical affinity with arboreal environments (Kraft et al., 2014).

From this perspective, modern climbing isn’t a sporting invention—it’s a sophisticated reactivation of an ancestral pattern. When we climb, we aren’t doing something new; we’re updating an ancient inheritance under new rules. And if that heritage was shared by both men and women—because both needed to climb to survive, to gather, to shelter—then it’s reasonable to expect that the performance gap in climbing would be smaller than in other movements, especially those more recent or heavily influenced by sexual selection like throwing or punching.

Participation data support this hypothesis. Though gender disparities persist in many sports, climbing features relatively high female involvement — estimated at 35–45% of regular climbers, with even higher proportions in some indoor disciplines (Dwyer, 2019). This suggests the barrier to entry isn’t physical inability, but the opportunity to deploy diverse, effective movement styles: technique, route reading, emotional control, and efficient body use. It’s not just about who can hang the most weight; it’s about who can move best in a complex vertical environment.

Physiological differences, of course, exist. On average, men have greater total muscle mass, more absolute strength, a lower body fat percentage, and longer limb levers (Janssen et al., 2000; Nieves et al., 2005). But in climbing, these advantages are partially offset. Women tend to have better strength-to-weight ratios, greater flexibility, and superior isometric endurance — crucial for holding small holds or maintaining difficult positions for extended periods (Hunter, 2014; Fulco et al., 1999). They also tend to fatigue less quickly in repetitive, submaximal efforts — essential in endurance climbs or prolonged boulder sequences (Españá‑Romero et al., 2009).

Moreover, climbing demands far more than muscular power: spatial perception, planning, postural adaptation, and emotional regulation in the face of fear or failure. These cognitive and sensory skills show less gender dimorphism and can be developed through practice, enabling both women and men to reach similar levels of excellence via different routes.

In this context, the concept of SBMA takes on profound meaning. It refers to biological adaptations that do not differentiate between sexes because they were equally advantageous for both. The human hand, with its precision grip and tactile sensitivity, evolved both for tool-making and for grasping branches or holds. The dorsal muscles, glutes, shoulder structure… all appear to have evolved to support bodies in traction, suspension, and vertical movement (Bartlett et al., 2013). These adaptations remain active and available today, explaining why human bodies —regardless of gender— are well-suited to modern climbing.

If we accept that the performance gap can open a window onto our evolutionary history, climbing emerges not just as an aesthetic and demanding sport, but as a profound expression of who we are. Not every physical skill is rooted in that lineage. Pole vaulting, hammer throwing, or time-trial cycling are culturally developed talents with little ancestral basis. But climbing, running for life, moving efficiently to survive… that is inscribed in our genes.

And perhaps that’s why climbing holds such universal appeal. It taps into a phylogenetic memory, a movement instinct not invented in the gym but imposed by jungles, savannahs, hunger, fear — the need to live another day. Each hold is a decision. Each move, an adaptation. Each route, a metaphor for what we did to get here.

It’s no surprise, then, that women can reach performance levels close to men in climbing. Because in that deep shared history, there were no privileges—only shared urgencies. The tree didn’t discriminate. For millions of years, climbing was a matter of life and death for all.

Looking forward, climbing could exemplify how sports can reflect not only physical ability but also shared evolutionary legacies. A space where men and women, instead of competing from a place of difference, express a common inheritance in motion. And maybe that’s why, in a world that segregates, exaggerates, and labels, climbing holds a special value. Not only for what it demands, but for what it reveals. Because when we face rock, the void, and the uncertainty of the next move, what matters isn’t how strong or tall we are. It’s whether we can adapt. And in that, as a species, we are equal.

References

Bartlett, J. L., Sumner, B., Ellis, R. G., & Kram, R. (2013). Activity and functions of the human gluteal muscles in walking, running, sprinting, and climbing. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 153(1), 124–131.

Carroll, C. (2019). The performance gap in sport can help determine which movements were most essential to human evolution. Frontiers in Physiology, 10, 1412. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2019.01412

Carroll, C. (2021). Female excellence in rock climbing likely has an evolutionary origin. Current Research in Physiology, 4, 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crphys.2021.01.004

Crompton, R. H., Vereecke, E. E., & Thorpe, S. K. S. (2008). Locomotion and posture from the common hominoid ancestor to fully modern hominins. Journal of Anatomy, 212(4), 501–543.

Dwyer, K. (2019, November 14). Social climbing has a whole new meaning. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/style/bouldering.html

Españá-Romero, V., et al. (2009). Climbing time to exhaustion is a determinant of climbing performance in high-level sport climbers. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 107(5), 517–525.

Fleagle, J. G. (2013). Primate Adaptation and Evolution (3rd ed.). Academic Press.

Fulco, C. S., et al. (1999). Slower fatigue and faster recovery of the adductor pollicis muscle in women matched for strength with men. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 167(3), 233–239.

Hunter, S. K. (2014). Sex differences in human fatigability: mechanisms and insight to physiological responses. Acta Physiologica, 210(4), 768–789.

Janssen, I., Heymsfield, S. B., Wang, Z., & Ross, R. (2000). Skeletal muscle mass and distribution in 468 men and women aged 18–88 yr. Journal of Applied Physiology, 89(1), 81–88.

Kraft, T. S., Venkataraman, V. V., & Dominy, N. J. (2014). A natural history of human tree climbing. Journal of Human Evolution, 71, 105–118.

Nieves, J. W., et al. (2005). Males have larger skeletal size and bone mass than females, despite comparable body size. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 20(3), 529–535.