Ulnar Nerve Entrapment / Cubital Tunnel

[Slidewinder]

I have thought a lot about rowing ergometer handle design, probably more than anyone here, probably more than Concept 2.

The simple cable loop/bicycle handgrip configuration I describe in my Nov. 24 post in this thread... ...should be configured so that when you hold your arms straight in front of you with your hands in a vertical position you will appear in your pose as if you are holding and aiming two pistols. This is the hand to wrist position that we want the rowing handle to maintain throughout the stroke.

There is no arrogance to assert that I have thought more about rowing ergometer handle design than Concept 2. They have thought about it hardly at all. Nor have any of the other manufacturers of rowing ergometers. Even Technogym, the Italian company known for its beautiful designs, obviously gave it no thought. There is the rigid, single-piece handle on their machine. It has become an expected element. It is not as if many have tried to improve on this standard handle design and failed. No one even considers the possibility that it could be improved. The internalized and unexamined presupposition is that that is the way Concept 2 has always done it, therefore it must be the best way to do it. That presupposition does not stand up to scrutiny.

Remember this design guideline: Imagine that at the catch you are holding two pistols, aiming them at the flywheel sprocket. You are holding the pistols in the cool way they did in the TV show 'Miami Vice' - you have them both tilted over towards the horizontal. You keep the pistols aimed at the flywheel sprocket as you push off, and you keep them aimed there as you move your hands and arms from a forward extended position to a retracted close-to-the torso-position, where your hands will naturally be further apart than at the beginning of the stroke. You aim the pistols at the flywheel sprocket for the duration of the stroke - drive and recovery. Imagine how natural and comfortable and non-stressed that would feel. That is what a well-designed rowing ergometer handle should do - enable the user's hands to move through space as if the user is pointing two guns, Miami Vice style, at the flywheel sprocket. It is extraordinarily interesting that this turns out to be very similar to a rower's hand movement in the latter half of an actual sculling stroke.

As I wrote, this design goal can be satisfactorily achieved with a simple diy cable/handgrip assembly. But for some, this feels a bit loosey-goosey. For those with shop skills the cable could be replaced with pivotable rigid links, the pivots arranged such that the handgrips can still follow a sculling stroke geometry, but with the improvement of an oars-in-the-oarlocks feeling. Unlike flexible cable connections, links with properly oriented pivot points define the planes of movement of the handgrips, and this is experienced as a greater sense of spatial stability

[Slidewinder]

I have thought a lot about rowing ergometer handle design, probably more than anyone here, probably more than Concept 2.

The simple cable loop/bicycle handgrip configuration I describe in my Nov. 24 post in this thread... ...should be configured so that when you hold your arms straight in front of you with your hands in a vertical position you will appear in your pose as if you are holding and aiming two pistols. This is the hand to wrist position that we want the rowing handle to maintain throughout the stroke.

There is no arrogance to assert that I have thought more about rowing ergometer handle design than Concept 2. They have thought about it hardly at all. Nor have any of the other manufacturers of rowing ergometers. Even Technogym, the Italian company known for its beautiful designs, obviously gave it no thought. There is the rigid, single-piece handle on their machine. It has become an expected element. It is not as if many have tried to improve on this standard handle design and failed. No one even considers the possibility that it could be improved. The internalized and unexamined presupposition is that that is the way Concept 2 has always done it, therefore it must be the best way to do it. That presupposition does not stand up to scrutiny.

Remember this design guideline: Imagine that at the catch you are holding two pistols, aiming them at the flywheel sprocket. You are holding the pistols in the cool way they did in the TV show 'Miami Vice' - you have them both tilted over towards the horizontal. You keep the pistols aimed at the flywheel sprocket as you push off, and you keep them aimed there as you move your hands and arms from a forward extended position to a retracted close-to-the torso-position, where your hands will naturally be further apart than at the beginning of the stroke. You aim the pistols at the flywheel sprocket for the duration of the stroke - drive and recovery. Imagine how natural and comfortable and non-stressed that would feel. That is what a well-designed rowing ergometer handle should do - enable the user's hands to move through space as if the user is pointing two guns, Miami Vice style, at the flywheel sprocket. It is extraordinarily interesting that this turns out to be very similar to a rower's hand movement in the latter half of an actual sculling stroke.

As I wrote, this design goal can be satisfactorily achieved with a simple diy cable/handgrip assembly. But for some, this feels a bit loosey-goosey. For those with shop skills the cable could be replaced with pivotable rigid links, the pivots arranged such that the handgrips can still follow a sculling stroke geometry, but with the improvement of an oars-in-the-oarlocks feeling. Unlike flexible cable connections, links with properly oriented pivot points define the planes of movement of the handgrips, and this is experienced as a greater sense of spatial stability

[Slidewinder]

We even don't know what percentage gets injured.

According to research mentioned in another trhead, not many:

Did you read in Rowing Injuries in Elite Athletes by S. Arumugam and coauthors (2020)here .

Or look in Rowing Injuries, by E. McNally and coauthors (2005). Download from here.

Elbow injuries aren't that common.

Both of those papers relate to injuries sustained from OTW training, not from rowing ergometer use. The second paper by McNally et al. has a short paragraph on rowing ergometer training. It contains anecdotal information, with no reference to any study by the authors or by others. They nevertheless conclude that, "In general, injuries to indoor rowers are uncommon but more frequent than seen on the water." Hmm... The abstract of the first paper opens with, "Rowing is an Olympic sport gaining in popularity in India and injuries are common in these athletes." So, if the second paper is correct that OTW injuries are common, and the first paper is correct that rowing ergometer injuries are "more frequent that seen on the water", then the conclusion would be that rowing ergometer injuries are very frequent indeed.

[Nomath]

I didn't expect my suggested readings for a hip injurie to be used as ammunition in this war of deaf ears.
Please look if you can find more in here.

My own view is that even if a non-surgical remedy proved to help only 1, it is worth trying.
Note that the surgeon who wrote this paper worked on N=6.

[Slidewinder]

As I wrote, this design goal (the aiming-two-pistols stroke geometry) can be satisfactorily achieved with a simple diy cable/handgrip assembly. But for some, this feels a bit loosey-goosey. For those with shop skills the cable could be replaced with pivotable rigid links, the pivots arranged such that the handgrips can still follow a sculling stroke geometry, but with the improvement of an oars-in-the-oarlocks feeling. Unlike flexible cable connections, links with properly oriented pivot points define the planes of movement of the handgrips, and this is experienced as a greater sense of spatial stability

What do I mean by "planes of movement"? For those interested in a diy rowing ergometer handle project that is more refined than the described cable/handgrip configuration, it is a useful visualization.

One plane of movement would be the horizontal plane. We want the handgrips to be able to move closer and further apart. This occurs during actual sculling. As a rough embodiment think again of yourself holding two pistols Miami Vice style - tilted inwards almost to the horizontal. Imagine them hinged together at their muzzles. You could then move the handgrips through two arcs, those arcs being in one plane.

A second plane of movement would be a vertical plane running fore and aft in the boat or on the RowErg. The handgrips can be raised and lowered, and the pull chain moves up and down on this vertical plane.

Then there are two planes of movement of each handgrip. Think of two round dinner plates, each fixed just forward of each handgrip, the flat of each plate perpendicular the forearm. You want, during the rowing stroke, to be able to rotate each handgrip through a range, and throughout that range you want the flat surface, the plane, of each dinner plate to remain perpendicular to each forearm. This is to replicate that particular planar angular progression of oars and oar handgrips during sculling. This can be accomplished by pivotal means well known in the art (to use patent language).

These above do not include rotation of the handgrips about the centre axis of each. This is part of an actual sculling stroke, but generally, its absence in a rowing ergometer handle is not experienced as a defect. It could be easily added.

If the handle structure enables handgrip movement in the planes described above, the user's hands, wrists, and forearms will remain in alignment with each other and with the direction of applied force throughout the stroke, and the user's hands will move through space in a close approximation of the latter half of an actual sculling stroke. In the development of rowing exercise technology, this uncomplicated insight should have been reached, and implemented, years ago.

[JaapvanE]

I didn't expect my suggested readings for a hip injurie to be used as ammunition in this war of deaf ears.

Sorry about dragging you into this. Sakly had quite interesting related question, and your articles shed some light onto that. I wanted to give you credit for finding such great reads (again), but on hindsight I should have just copied the links.

My own view is that even if a non-surgical remedy proved to help only 1, it is worth trying.

I agree with you on the principle that a non-surgical remedy is always better than a surgical approach.

Issue at hand here is that one person claims that the C2 handle design (and thus practically any Ergometer handle design) is fundamentally flawed and the root cause for all injury, and thus the only remedy is changing the handle as C2 is negliant in doing that. Several, me including, object to this characterisation as the evidence for this is missing and suggest that it often is due to bad technique and thus the first step is to improve the use of the handle before resorting to technical means.