Effects of various leg positions at the catch on the force of the rowing stroke

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to test in isolation various leg and body movements in the rowing action and to relate them to forces created on the oar handle. The subjects were four senior oarsmen. The independent variables were the four knee angles at the catch with hip flexion maximized at each. The dependent variable was the maximal force exerted on each trial. An intra-subject ABAB experimental design was used. Four random sequences of the three experimental conditions were determined and each subject was tested on all four testing orders. An analysis of variance revealed no significant difference in force magnitudes between the four treatments (£p>.05). The interaction between days and subjects was significant (p<.05). Subjects* performances varied considerably from day to day, and also from trial to trial. All subjects displayed difficulty in stabilizing their performances under all treatment conditions.