The endurance test
How to take the 4-minute endurance test, one hand at a time, and read its results: the app's critical force, your sustainable force and the other numbers.
Checked with app version 1.0.64 Last updated
On this page
Take the 4-minute test with one hand, and pull as hard as you can on every pull, from the first one. The app gives your critical force, to see from test to test whether your endurance improves, and your sustainable force, which endurance workouts use for their targets. Take it rested, on a day of its own.
How to start a test, choose your hold and find old results is on Take a test. Why endurance counts, above all on routes: What each test measures.
What you do
- The test lasts 4 minutes. You pull, you rest a moment, and you pull again, to the end. The timer tells you when to rest. Each pull starts when you pull. The briefing lists every pull under Overview.
- One hand per test. From the Test tab, the app asks which hand; in a plan, the plan says. To test both hands, take the test twice, with a good rest between.
- You choose one edge.
- Pull as hard as you can on every pull. Do not save strength for the end: the result is read from your last pulls, when you have nothing left.
- Your force falls fast at first, then levels off. That is the test working: the level part at the end is what the test reads.
The test is hard. Do it after a good warm-up, and not on the same day as a hard session.
Right after the test
The app shows Critical Force Results, with six numbers:
- CRITICAL FORCE: the average of the peaks of your last pulls (the last sixth of the pulls of the test). See below.
- PEAK FORCE: your highest force of the whole test.
- W' CAPACITY (say “W prime”): the work you did above your critical force, in your unit times seconds, for example kg·s. It is the reserve you spend when you pull harder than you can sustain, as on a crux: a bigger reserve lets you stay above that level for longer before you pump out. The app counts it above its own critical force, which reads high, so do not compare it with the figures of studies.
- RFD: the fastest start of a pull in the test. If the app could not measure a start, it shows 0.
- FATIGUE INDEX: how far your force fell, from your best pull to your weakest one, in percent.
- DECAY RATE: the trend of your force from one pull to the next over the first pulls of the test. A negative number is force lost per pull.
Critical force and sustainable force
In sports science, critical force is the highest force you can keep repeating in on-and-off pulls without running out of steam: about 41% of max in trained climbers. The app gives two forces close to it:
- The app’s CRITICAL FORCE is a peak: the average of the highest force of each of your last pulls. A peak is the top of a pull, not what you can hold through it, so it reads higher than the research’s critical force. It is the number the app has always shown, and it compares well from one of your tests to the next: use it to see whether your endurance improves.
- Sustainable force is what you could still hold at the end of those last pulls. It is never above the app’s critical force, and it is closer to the research’s. Endurance, recovery and rehab workouts set their targets from it, for example “60% of your sustainable force”.
If you set endurance work yourself, stay below the app’s critical force. The research behind the test, and how to train with it: Critical Force Test for Climbers.
In your history
In Activity History, the page of an endurance test shows Sustainable force and Test peak. Test peak there is your critical force, under its old name, not your peak force. A sustainable force marked Estimated was worked out from your critical force, because that test has no force recording.
In the Test tab
The tile shows one number, in % of max: your critical force as a share of your highest force in the same test, the average of your two hands if you tested both. It says how much of your strength you keep when tired. It is not the 41% of the studies, which divide a lower force by a max from a separate test: compare it only with your own past tests. Under it, a small curve shows your force over the 4 minutes, with a dashed line at your critical force, or a plain bar if the test has no force recording.
The section (tap the tile) shows, for each hand, PEAK FORCE, CRITICAL FORCE and W' CAPACITY, each with its change since the test before, from your second test of that hand. FORCE DECAY CURVE shows your highest force in each 10 seconds of the test.
If the test did not give a result
- A test you leave before the end is not saved.
- A test done without the plate has no force to read, so it gives no result.
Related
- The finger strength test, the third test.
- Follow a training plan: put your results to work.
Go deeper in Train
- Climbing Endurance and Forearm Pump How to train against the pump: aerobic base below critical force, repeaters above it, how to fit them into a week, and what blood flow restriction does.
- Finger Strength Tests for Climbers Test finger strength: maximum force, critical force and rate of force development, making results repeatable, how often to retest and which device to use.
- Finger Endurance Training for Climbing How to train finger endurance for climbing: why intermittent endurance matters, training below and above critical force, and sample sessions.
- Aerobic Endurance Training on the Hangboard Train forearm endurance with intermittent hangs at 30-40% of max, 10 s on and 5 off. Why intensity decides what you train, and what the research shows.
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