Drag Factor

[Paolo]

OK so on my bike....in a high gear ratio lets say 400" of travel..... so for one revolution of the pedal I will travel 400" regardless of how hard I push the pedal or how fast I push the pedal I still only travel 400". If I use a lower gear ratio say 200" again one revalution of the pedal only yeilds 200" of travel again regardless of how hard I push or how fast I push. the simple fact that the pedal went around once yields the distance.......Now having said all that, back to the erg (and forget about training thats not the question) I set the damper to 1 I pull once my travel is 3 meters lets say ... I set the damper to 10 I pull once my travel is XXXX ............that is the question because, to my mind, if as C2 claims on they're web site that the drag is like gearing on a bike then the travel at 10 should be much further. I hope this make my queston a little clearer
again this is a machanical question not a training one.

thanks
Paolo

[Atorrante]

I think C2 are only making an analogy in relation to the resistance. The erg has only one fixed gear, altough the damper can allow more or less air into the chamber. More air means the spinning wheel will reduce its velocity more rapid during the recovery (more drag) and at the catch you will find more resistance. Less air means the spinning wheel will barely loose speed during the recovery, and at the catch you will find less resistance to spin it. But your effort to spin a wheel that is already moving rapidly will be less than the effort to spin a wheel that is moving slower. Thats the reason why your best times for given distances will be achieved with the damper in a 4 to 6 position. Not too low or too high. That is my better understanding of the drag factor.

[Carl Watts]

IMO the ideal drag for you will only be found by experience and a HR monitor helps alot.

I have finally got down to a DF of 132 just yesterday. What I noticed on the Heart Rate monitor is that by rowing a set time at a set pace and same SPM the DF made quite a difference in my average Heart Rate.

The change was 3 bpm down on the average for the 45min row when compared to the 42min row the day before at a DF of 147 so clearly some experimentation with the DF is worthwhile.

The experience I don't yet have is to alter the DF to suit the event. A few quick strokes after the 45min resulted in a 1:30ave at best so clearly the DF of 132 is too low for me still in say the 500M, my leg speed just is not there.

[Rockin Roland]

It's really a matter of how efficient your rowing technique is.

Usually, those with poor rowing technique prefer the higher drag factors. They are unable to row the long effective strokes which keeps the flywheel spinning at lower drag/resistance. They tend to heave it at the catch and dump the finish and not use their legs efficiently. Hence they prefer a heavier handle at the catch. The penalty they pay for this is that they have to rush back up the slide to take another stroke before the flywheel loses too much spin. It results in some very ugly rowing. Those on a lower drag have more time to return to the catch.

Technical differences aside, higher drag places much more strain on your body leading to greater incidence of injury plus earlier fatigue.

Your much better off learning to row more efficiently so that you can use a lower drag. This enables you to maintain pace longer before fatigue sets in. Most elite rowers use less than 130 drag.

[NavigationHazard]

To actually answer your question: look at http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/ ... l#section7
re cog size on an erg and its relationship to bicycle gearing. There's also more than you probably care to know about the physics behind DF.

[c2jonw]

The bicycle analogy was my idea and it admittedly holds up only to a certain extent. It was originally conceived as a means to answer the question "since a lower drag factor is easier than a higher drag factor, why don't I get my best score at a low drag factor?". The analogy goes something like this: If you ride your road bike at a steady pace to the top of a given hill in a given time, (no wind conditions) you are doing a certain amount of work, having raised your weight a certain distance in a certain time. It doesn't matter what gear you are in, the same amount of work has been accomplished. However, most of us bikers out there know that there is an optimal gear ratio that will get us to the top of the hill in the same time but with a lower heart rate. This has to do with efficiency of the human body at different pedal rpms, which is going to be different for everyone. On the erg, the 2000 meter piece (or whatever distance) is the hill, and the drag factor is the gear ratio (to an extent) and completing the distance at a steady pace in a certain time is the same amount of work regardless of the drag factor. It's another way of simply saying that the monitor compensates for drag factor (and other "local" conditions).
I have also thought of an erg piece as a pile of snow that has to be moved, and the question being am I most efficient using a big shovel (high drag, low stroke rate) or a small shovel (low drag, higher strokee rate)?- think I may be overanalyzing a bit? C2JonW

[Atorrante]

In general terms, do HW tend to use higher drag than LW?