Power And Body Weight

[old] remador · Post by **[old] remador** » January 7th, 2005, 4:43 pm

It's a fact that heavier guys have advantage in erging. In other words, if two guys have the same strength, endurance, etc., the heavier guy will make a better score. Equally, if two guys do the same time, the lighter is stronger. Simply because a heavier guy accelerates more mass, that is, creates greater power just by moving himself. My question is the following: has anybody develloped, or known, any kind of formula by which we could have a "correction factor" for this? AM

[old] phowd · Post by **[old] phowd** » January 7th, 2005, 6:28 pm

You be the scientist! Next time you erg borrow a SCUBA weightbelt from someone (or something equivalent) and make yourself 10% heavier. Do a 2K time trial. Take a rest, take off the weight, try it again? Report back to us. If it is interesting, maybe a bunch of other people will try as well. Is it simply the added mass (thus added momentum you generate pushing the weight UP THE DAMN SLIDE (can we take this back to erg jacking again?), or is it that, in general, bigger people have more muscle mass, so can generate more force? Peter

[old] remador · Post by **[old] remador** » January 7th, 2005, 6:31 pm

1 - Having a belt around is not body weight. 2 - I did not say bigger people where weaker, but that there is some impact of weight on performance. Thought you had noticed that. AM

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » January 7th, 2005, 9:44 pm

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (remador @ Jan 7 2005, 12:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> It's a fact that heavier guys have advantage in erging.  </td></tr></table> Spoken like a lighweight. How is it then as weight is lost a person gets faster on the Erg? it happens all the time, and surely can't be attributted to increased strength at all levels, eventually there are very minor gains to be had in strength. Then again, some believe that slides are some sort of advantage, and to believe that you would have to believe that being heavier is a disadvantage. So which is it? The playing field is equal, performances are not!

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » January 7th, 2005, 11:22 pm

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (PaulS @ Jan 7 2005, 05:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>How is it then as weight is lost a person gets faster on the Erg?  </td></tr></table> I love it.

[old] jamesg · Post by **[old] jamesg** » January 8th, 2005, 2:17 am

Remador, All you have to do is use the W/kg ratio, for a specified distance. Unfortunately the logs and race results don't require a specification of weight, so a vast amount of data is getting lost. The only race I took part in where results were on a W/kg basis was a 500m. There was no correlation between this ratio and weight, and little with age between 20 and 50. We saw values between 7 and 3. It seems to be an excellent indicator (maybe too good for comfort) of fitness and athletic ablity. This mostly because it removes the cube root inherent in pace calculations that try to make everyone look the same.

[old] remador · Post by **[old] remador** » January 8th, 2005, 4:29 pm

Jamesq, Thanks! Finally, I got some information about this, not only "battle-field" biased data. Something to think about... AM

[old] Bill · Post by **[old] Bill** » January 8th, 2005, 11:08 pm

Hello, Might be possible to contact the nonathlon organisers and knock up a correlation from the spreadsheets that they have compiled. I saw someone respond to a newbie question for 2k times with a "thumb rule" Take your weight in kilos amd multiply by 3 write down the answer Multiply by 4 write down the answer After appropriate training your 2k wattage will be somewhere in between the two numbers ie 100kg person will have 2k watts between 300 and 400 I dont know how that thumb rule was derived - the answer is fairly wide ranging but does imply that heavier people can generate more watts. Bill

[old] GeorgeD · Post by **[old] GeorgeD** » January 9th, 2005, 12:39 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (remador @ Jan 8 2005, 09:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> It's a fact that heavier guys have advantage in erging.  </td></tr></table> I dont see how I have an advantage if the only person I am racing against is myself. I think people who are always looking for some way of 'leveling' up the playing field (and I am not suggesting you are) are selling themselves short. I could say well i am only going to measure myself against people my height and weight who have been rowing for the same length of time. have the same commitment outside etc etc. But the truth is I get my arse kicked by lightweights who are older and I get my arse kicked by heavyweights who are younger .... but rather than look for a mathermatical way to even things up I just have train harder or accept my lot. jst my opinion George

[old] remador · Post by **[old] remador** » January 9th, 2005, 11:18 am

George D I only wanted to have some way of comparing times on the erg to try to think on a crew, at my club. Unfortunately, people always tend to make strange assumptions. What I tried to say is that, compared to on-water times, most heavier people get relative advantage on the erg, where they don't have to pull extra drag. AM

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » January 9th, 2005, 12:26 pm

Remador, I think this has been covered pretty well, but since you mention the relationship between Erg, water, and club rowers there are a few mroe things to consider. Heavies do not have an "advantage" on the erg, merely because they are heavier, if they are stronger, they can produce more force and power resulting in a faster time, this option is open to both genders and weight classes. There is an often unstated advantage that some have over others, that is "pulling a faster time" is a distinct advantage since you do not have to perform the work at maximum output for nearly as long. I know it sounds like a backhanded compliment, but the folks that bust their butt for 8 minutes are far more brave than I. Now for on the water: Where times are much closer typically Basic assumptions: 1) We're all pretty lazy and will get away with what we can. 2) Some of use are competitive and like to "beat the other guy/gal". Hwt Men tend to be the fastest by a slight margin (it should be larger IMO), since it is easier to pull harder than to row well, they tend to go that route, to their own detriment. Lwt M tend to row technically better than the hwtM since they do not have the freedom to add muscle mass. This leads to better boat moving skills, that often result in victories over heavier opponents. If the hwtM would row as well, the contest would not be close. Women in general tend to row technically better than men, since they generally also do not have the capacity to gain as much lean body mass as the Men. They also seem to respond better to coaching instructions, with less "I've rowed a boat before, how hard can it be?" attitude than guys. What I want, from a coaching perspective, is an athlete that will adapt technique to maximum efficiency, then train with that technique to become stronger in the required areas. The hull drag is by far the largest enemy of moving a boat along, and this will be pretty equal on a per rower weight basis, so the heavier crew will have to overcome more drag but they also have more strength to do it with. The drag increases due to speed far more rapidly than it does with additional weight. A recent memorable figure I saw was that 10lbs costs 4 seconds/2K on the water, which seems a bit high, but it is fairly obvious that carrying "useless mass" could not be an advantage, so "all things being equal" (which they rarely are) if you have two rowers to select from and one is 10lbs lighter you may as well take the lighter one, or seat race them and find out for sure, but then other variables are introduced that can skew results. Conclusion: Go Row!

[old] remador · Post by **[old] remador** » January 11th, 2005, 10:03 am

Paul S, Now, we are getting into it! The lwt men performance on water tells us that hw men could do better! While erging, as hw's don't have to carry their body weight around, maybe they don't notice this so much - exception made, perhaps, for some, who are, indeed, achieving astonishing fitness levels. AM

[old] remador · Post by **[old] remador** » January 13th, 2005, 10:11 am

This was the kind of compariosn I thought we could have made (look at point n. 8): <a href='http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/rowing/ ... eight.html' target='_blank'>http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/rowing/ ... AM

[old] J.D. · Post by **[old] J.D.** » January 13th, 2005, 12:35 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>How is it then as weight is lost a person gets faster on the Erg? </td></tr></table> A person who has lost weight is often faster because they lost fat weight (i.e. non-power-generating tissue) through exercise which made them fitter. If the lost weight is muscle tissue (due to lack of exercise) it's unlikely that a person would get faster. Much of the power difference between different rowers of different weights is due to height difference (and therefore different stroke lengths) and muscle mass difference.

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » January 13th, 2005, 12:54 pm

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (J.D. @ Jan 13 2005, 08:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> A person who has lost weight is often faster because they lost fat weight (i.e. non-power-generating tissue) through exercise which made them fitter.  </td></tr></table> Excellent point, and exactly the one being made with the rhetorical question I posed in an attempt to illustrate the problem with the various posts that claimed "more weight = faster times". There could also be a case made for reducing muscular bulk while maintaining strength that would also lead to being "lighter and faster". But how wrong does a silly claim need to be proven? Stroke length, duration, and amplitude interact with enough complication that additional rower height is no guarantee of faster times either, so be careful with that blanket claim as well. Thanks for playing.

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