Covering/pushing Against The Airway

[[old] Rate35]

Alright I have a simple question, today I was at an erg competition and at the start of my race my erg began to move over on an angle and the officials behind the erg are suppose to hold on to the base of the bottom erg to prevent this. As my start went on I was dragging the person with me, and eventually it became dragging 3 people with me at one point until one of them decides to go to the front of my erg and push against where the air comes out of the flywheel. This happens with 600m left in my race when I m getting ready to go and not only does this gentleman push against the airway but he also pushs me back into line with the other ergers. Intially when he went to the front he was still getthing pushed by me and need someone else to push him at the front. When he pushed me back into line it was messing up my rates I felt and I couldnt do a good finish.<br /><br />Now my question is, despite the mental aspect of this happening, is there any physical proof in the erg design backing my point up that if the airway is blocked it will slow down the spin of the flywheel which generates your score along with being pushed back into line? Also how much of an impact (if it does) would it have, I lost to a bronze medal by 1.2 of a second(a tie with 3rd and 4th for bronze) (and to 5th by .2 of a second) and finished with a time of 704.5 and before the gentleman went to the front my projected finish was 6 58. <br /><br />I dont know enough about the design of an erg and how it works but I feel confident in saying I know the jist of it, do I have the right idea?<br /><br /><br />Thanks

[[old] John Rupp]

Changing the air resistance would mess up your timing, not necessarily your time that much, but the greater problem was the movement of the erg.<br /><br />When you're pushing hard, and the erg is being pushed in the same direction, then you're not going to register much force that gets applied to the monitor.<br /><br />

[[old] michaelb]

Not sure what was going on with the erg sliding across the floor, or how you were able to generate so much movement that you dragged an official across the floor, but that would be a total distraction in the middle of race. Bummer. I can see one of the monster heavyweights like Dwayne Adams dragging around a few officials, but I would also take a look at your stroke and technique, just to make sure that you aren't doing something that is producing those forces, that could be corrected and result in you being faster (by putting that energy into the handle instead).<br /><br />I think you have the physics backwards on how it would have affected your row. Blocking the cover with their hands or body would reduce the amount of air coming into the flywheel, and that would lessen the drag on the flywheel. So instead of "slowing down" the flywheel, this reduces how much the flywheel slows down (ie. the flywheel goes faster). The PM3 monitor adjusts for this difference in drag each stroke, so it did not actually affect the outcome of your race or how the PM3 reported your result, but it certainly could have affect you. It would have made the handle feel "lighter" and would have required you to be quicker at the catch, and would have required you to explode faster, in order to produce the same amount of power in watts, or the same pace. I would guess most people would be slower if the drag on the erg was reduced during the race from what they were used to and had used in training.

[[old] Brendo]

It has the same effect as moving the damper to a lower number doesn't it? <br /><br />In which case it will definitely affect your stroke