The three areas I see ripe for improving rowing power over current technique

[frankencrank]

Give me “pure” as in run, swim, a distance, with zero help. Throw a shotput, jump heigh etc. The only variable is the body. Thats also why those sports stagnate, we are close to what a current human can do. Swimming a bit excluded, which shows that humans are no real natural swimmers. Technique needs to be taught, running much less so.

Is what's bothering you the "bungie cord" changing the look of the boat. What if I changed the slide. changed the wheels to a cog and put a mainspring in it such that the rower wound that mainspring during recovery that would put in energy that would be recovered during the drive? Everything would look traditional. Boat would just go faster.

You can (ofcourse) do whatever you want or like, but you would loose my interest. A bit what happened last season with long distance running. The shoes made the runners faster, that killed my fun. I want the best human to win, not the best tools.

You don't like the use of shoes? Or just new shoes?

I have simply theorized a different technique, that requires a slight, but legal, modification to the shell, to increase rowing power. How is that changing "the best human" concept of racing? No drugs involved.

[Cyclist2]

Rowing is an ancient sport. You don't think that there have been very innovative people over the last 100+ years of "modern" rowing that have come up with viable ideas - both with the boat and with the rower - to make boats go faster? Here are two boat examples that I can think of quickly: Sliding riggers and riblets. Both of those are proven "improvements" to increase boat speed. Both were banned in competition. Actually the sliding seat was a huge improvement back in the day, and I have no idea why it was allowed. What about the current oar shape; why was the hydrodynamically more efficient "hatchet" blade allowed? Want to go faster? How about a hydrofoil; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BXxL9g ... nnel=jbmnh (it would work even better with the sliding rigger to smooth out the boat speed).

Point is, that the people in charge at the time decide where to draw the line with boat modification. There is a point where the tradition and beauty of a sport are lost in the pursuit of applying new technology.

So back to muscle mass. Apply your principles to build up opposing or underused muscles in the weight room, and improve current rowing technique in the current boat configuration. I'm done.

[frankencrank]

Rowing is an ancient sport. You don't think that there have been very innovative people over the last 100+ years of "modern" rowing that have come up with viable ideas - both with the boat and with the rower - to make boats go faster? Here are two boat examples that I can think of quickly: Sliding riggers and riblets. Both of those are proven "improvements" to increase boat speed. Both were banned in competition. Actually the sliding seat was a huge improvement back in the day, and I have no idea why it was allowed. What about the current oar shape; why was the hydrodynamically more efficient "hatchet" blade allowed? Want to go faster? How about a hydrofoil; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BXxL9g ... nnel=jbmnh (it would work even better with the sliding rigger to smooth out the boat speed).

Point is, that the people in charge at the time decide where to draw the line with boat modification. There is a point where the tradition and beauty of a sport are lost in the pursuit of applying new technology.

So back to muscle mass. Apply your principles to build up opposing or underused muscles in the weight room, and improve current rowing technique in the current boat configuration. I'm done.

As I read the rules, boat modifications are allowed as long as the modification is commercially available to all. The sliding rigger idea simply reduced the kinetic energy losses associated with the rower needing to move back and forth. My guess is the sliding rigger problem was one of both availability and cost. My idea is more in tune with the change from a fixed seat to a siding seat, allowing the use of additional muscles to generate power through a rather simple change.

Anyhow, as I read the rules, my idea is currently legal. If the authorities want to ban such an idea before anyone uses it I have no control over that. But the idea is simple and available to everyone. I was simply brainstorming ideas, based upon my experience, to increase rowing power legally. I put them out here for discussion should anyone want to try it (my serious competing days are long gone).. It is clear a lot of you don't like change for whatever reason.

Your thought of building up the underused muscles in the weight room makes no sense. Why do that if you can't use them in competition. They are already strong, they are your sit up muscles, but they just have no aerobic endurance.

[hjs]

Is what's bothering you the "bungie cord" changing the look of the boat. What if I changed the slide. changed the wheels to a cog and put a mainspring in it such that the rower wound that mainspring during recovery that would put in energy that would be recovered during the drive? Everything would look traditional. Boat would just go faster.

You can (ofcourse) do whatever you want or like, but you would loose my interest. A bit what happened last season with long distance running. The shoes made the runners faster, that killed my fun. I want the best human to win, not the best tools.

You don't like the use of shoes? Or just new shoes?

I have simply theorized a different technique, that requires a slight, but legal, modification to the shell, to increase rowing power. How is that changing "the best human" concept of racing? No drugs involved.

The Shoes with the current carbon “spring” build in. If we take it further we could allow the blades that are used at the paralympics. With those a sub 2 hour marathon will be a relative piece of cake.

[Nomath]

Someone has designed an indoor rowing machine that enhances eccentric training.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ng_Machine

[Citroen]

Someone has designed an indoor rowing machine that enhances eccentric training.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ng_Machine

So someone has modified a Concept2 ergo to replace the flywheel with a different load that can act as a generator or a motor. What is the practical use of that, how does that improve on a normal air damped flywheel with a hall-effect tacho? The regular rowerg (not on slides and not a dynamic) isn't exactly the best model of a rowing boat on a lake or river it's a reasonable simulator.

[frankencrank]

Someone has designed an indoor rowing machine that enhances eccentric training.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ng_Machine

Here is how the paper describes the machine.

When using a traditionalmachine, the user allows the body to return with noresistance, and may even have to slightly engagemuscles concentrically to help the user return to thestarting position. The powered rowing machine will force subjects to instead resist the motor as they return to the starting position, leading to a more complete, demanding exercise session

This sounds like the rower pushes with his quads/glutes during power phase (concentric contraction) then resists with his quads/glutes during the recovery phase (eccentric contraction). This gives these muscles no rest. That is like a 12 minute isometric contraction except bonds are being made and broken requiring even more oxygen. How someone does that for 12 minutes makes no sense to me.

My experience with cycling would suggest that if they are talking about what I am suggesting (overcoming resistance on recovery to increase potential energy to be used during the drive phase) that, again, no untrained individual would be able to sustain this exercise for 12 minutes with the high load condition. (experienced cyclists have trouble simply lifting the full weight of the leg to the top of the stroke - about 14 inches) 60 times a minute for 5 minutes because of inadequate aerobic capacity in the hip flexor muscles)

Yet, that, it seems, is what they did.

Can someone tell me exactly how they read this as to what happened.

[frankencrank]

Someone has designed an indoor rowing machine that enhances eccentric training.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ng_Machine

So someone has modified a Concept2 ergo to replace the flywheel with a different load that can act as a generator or a motor. What is the practical use of that, how does that improve on a normal air damped flywheel with a hall-effect tacho? The regular rowerg (not on slides and not a dynamic) isn't exactly the best model of a rowing boat on a lake or river it's a reasonable simulator.

I believe they were trying to see if their was benefit to eccentric contraction of muscles in the training regimen. That required modifying a machine. Eccentric contraction is what muscles do when you let the barbell down to the floor slowly from your chest.

[Citroen]

Someone has designed an indoor rowing machine that enhances eccentric training.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ng_Machine

So someone has modified a Concept2 ergo to replace the flywheel with a different load that can act as a generator or a motor. What is the practical use of that, how does that improve on a normal air damped flywheel with a hall-effect tacho? The regular rowerg (not on slides and not a dynamic) isn't exactly the best model of a rowing boat on a lake or river it's a reasonable simulator.

I believe they were trying to see if their was benefit to eccentric contraction of muscles in the training regimen. That required modifying a machine. Eccentric contraction is what muscles do when you let the barbell down to the floor slowly from your chest.

So how is that going to improve your rowing on water? Or is it a technique to get you swimming back to shore?

[frankencrank]

So someone has modified a Concept2 ergo to replace the flywheel with a different load that can act as a generator or a motor. What is the practical use of that, how does that improve on a normal air damped flywheel with a hall-effect tacho? The regular rowerg (not on slides and not a dynamic) isn't exactly the best model of a rowing boat on a lake or river it's a reasonable simulator.

I believe they were trying to see if their was benefit to eccentric contraction of muscles in the training regimen. That required modifying a machine. Eccentric contraction is what muscles do when you let the barbell down to the floor slowly from your chest.

So how is that going to improve your rowing on water? Or is it a technique to get you swimming back to shore?

some training ideas actually strengthen the muscles more than the usual resistance exercises. vibration, for instance, can enhance effect. Perhaps they were exploring something like that. I am still confused as to exactly what they did do so it is hard to comment beyond generalization. Research people try a lot of things, many of which bear no fruit or sometimes lead to other avenues. But, even negative results can sometimes be valuable.

[Nomath]

So someone has modified a Concept2 ergo to replace the flywheel with a different load that can act as a generator or a motor. What is the practical use of that ....

It is a machine to train muscle groups. That's what 95% of C2s are used for. Only a small minority of us is training to improve otw-rowing power. The advantage of the modified machine is that you can train more muscle groups, by increasing the eccentric workload. That's not possible on a C2. A combination of concentric and eccentric actions is known to increase the effectiviness of training. The designed machine enables this in a programmable, flexible way.

The paper is the condensation of a thesis submitted for the degree of M.Sc. at Cleveland State University. The motivation of the thesis mentions osteoporosis as a problem for astronauts and humans operating in space. Probably a grant along those themes paid the project.

[frankencrank]

So someone has modified a Concept2 ergo to replace the flywheel with a different load that can act as a generator or a motor. What is the practical use of that ....

It is a machine to train muscle groups. That's what 95% of C2s are used for. Only a small minority of us is training to improve otw-rowing power. The advantage of the modified machine is that you can train more muscle groups, by increasing the eccentric workload. That's not possible on a C2. A combination of concentric and eccentric actions is known to increase the effectiviness of training. The designed machine enables this in a programmable, flexible way.

The paper is the condensation of a thesis submitted for the degree of M.Sc. at Cleveland State University. The motivation of the thesis mentions osteoporosis as a problem for astronauts and humans operating in space. Probably a grant along those themes paid the project.

I took this as mainly a rehab focus but it still isn't clear to me how they accomplished the eccentric loading and what muscles were eccentrically loaded. Chains don't usually provide much force in the opposite direction. Long-term microgravity is a huge problem regarding muscle wasting and bone strength. I'll admit though that I didn't spend a lot of time digging into the paper.

[jamesg]

There are plenty of competitors for C2, all with different machines. If the OP wants to add another to the list, he is free to do so at his own expense and risk.

[jamesg]

While he's at it, let's see a design for a boat that can carry a thousand tons (possibly a lot more) back and forth from London to China in less than a year, with no Suez, no engine and less than 25 crew, cooks included.

[jamesg]

This thread is probably a plant by C2 engineers, to see if any good ideas can come up; and if not, have a laugh tomorrow.