The coordination and consistency of rowers in a racing eight

Abstract

Recordings of force developed simultaneously by four rowers in a good club‐standard eight over a 20‐min training run were analysed in terms of mean and variability. The average force‐time profiles showed small but distinctive differences between rowers that were maintained as force declined through the run. The variability was examined further in terms of time‐series of features extracted from single force‐time profiles, including the peak force, duration and interstroke interval. There were consistent positive correlations between rowers in interstroke intervals even after removal of low‐periodicity components (trends) in the time‐series.

Keywords:

• Force‐time profile
• rowing
• variability

Notes

Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed.

Present address: Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, UK.