Rowing Efficiency

Project Overview

Objective: Determine if suspending bodyweight off the seat during the drive while rowing leads to faster and/or more efficient rowing

Role: Self-guided independent research topic, primary researcher, designed & performed experiments, wrote final technical paper

Skills: Experimental design, data collection (LoggerPro), hypothesis testing, statistics & uncertainty analysis, technical writing

Result: Rowers exerted 2.1% more force, experienced 6.0% higher acceleration, and 1.7% lower heart rates, suggesting more efficient rowing technique

Project Description

One method of improving rowing speed is to refine the rowing stroke by making it either more powerful or more efficient. The goal is to use the larger, stronger muscles as much as possible to accelerate the oar through the water without wasting energy through extra, unnecessary motions. A major topic of debate is suspending bodyweight off the seat (leaving contact with the seat) during the drive. Can expending energy by displacing the body vertically lead to a faster horizontal velocity and more efficient rowing?

In this experiment, two 10-minute trials were done comparing force, acceleration, cardiovascular response between rowers suspending their weight and not. Averaged over the test, without suspending their weight, the rower exerted 614.4 N ± 4.6 N of leg force, experienced an acceleration of 1.33 m/s^2 ± 0.01 m/s^2, and had a steady state average heart rate of 155.8 bpm ± 0.6 bpm. Suspension yielded a leg force of 627.2 N ± 4.4 N, an acceleration of 1.41 m/s^2 ± 0.01 m/s^2, and a heart rate of 153.1 bpm ± 0.5 bpm. While suspending their weight, the rower exerted 2.1% more force, experienced a 6.0% higher acceleration, and a 1.7% lower heart rate, suggesting that at the same velocity, suspension is a more efficient way to row.

While suspending their weight, rowers exerted 2.1% more force, experienced 6.0% higher acceleration, and 1.7% lower heart rate, suggesting suspension is a more efficient way to row.

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