JRBJR wrote:Finally, some of us of would appreciate links to those articles you mention that definintively link stationary ergs to serious injury in elite rowers.
I would be interested in this too. I did a brief search of the medical literature, since I was surprised that one of the few exercise equipment that I can actually use without injury would be associated with a high rate of injury. (I’m not an elite rower though.) The literature doesn’t even seem to be in agreement on how much of a difference rower design makes, and increased risk of injury is "postulated" in the more negative study, certainly not established.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picren ... obtype=pdf
This study found no difference between the two designs in terms of trunk and hip muscle activations among other variables that they measured.
http://www.jssm.org/vol4/n1/3/v4n1-3pdf.pdf
I think there are one or two other studies that I don't have access to but nothing in their abstracts suggests that they are definitive.
I did find this discussion of the Rowperfect vs. Concept II on this blog interestering.
http://fightindog.blogspot.com/2007/01/ ... pt-ii.html
http://fightindog.blogspot.com/2007/01/ ... pt-ii.html
http://fightindog.blogspot.com/2007/01/ ... rfect.html
There is evidence however, that even among elite rowers,
fatigue leads to changes in form that increase loading on the lumbar spine that could increase risk of injury. (study was performed on stationary concept2). So elite rowers are not immune to deterioration of their technique under fatigue conditions or excess loading.
This is also in line with the comments by Dick Dreissigacker quoted in the blog which discuss the issues with rowing with too high a damper setting, or with low stroke rate/high power rowing.
It's not entirely clear to me that on the water rowing is safer for the back (or other injuries) compared to a stationary erg, particular for sweep rowers. There are other forces that come into play that might actually increase lumbar stress and risk of injury. But I'm no expert.
I think the only thing everyone seems to be in agreement on is that dynamic erging more closely approximates on the water rowing although still imperfectly.
From the rehab perspective (my interest), I was wondering, can the Row Perfect even be adapted for adaptive rowing? I'm not that familiar with it, but it doesn't seem that this would be easy.
In any case, (per the original thread topic) the water rower is also a static erg. For those interested, there is a research article comparing the Concept2 to WaterRower, that does seem to somewhat favor Concept2.
http://www.jssm.org/vol5/n1/6/v5n1-6pdf.pdf
Personally I wouldn’t want to deal with the water (even if you can wash your clothes in it.) I recall someone else mentioning elsewhere that the water in the rowers at his gym became very disgusting. I don’t clean the dust out of my concept 2, I get rewarded by a lower drag which is what I would like anyways (damper is already set to one).