ROWING PERFORMANCE AND SELECTED DESCRIPTIVE, FIELD AND LABORATORY VARIABLES

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships among measures of rowing performance and selected descriptive, field, and laboratory variables. Rowing performance of 20 intercollegiate oarswomen was assessed using a 2,500-m time test on a Concept II rowing ergometer, the rower's competitive experience, and the coach's ranking of the rowers. The oarswomen also underwent standardized descriptive tests including anthropometric measurements, field tests including 90-s rowing ergometer distance and weight lifting tests, and laboratory tests including VO(2)max and isokinetic knee extensor strength tests. Rowing ergometer times were highly related to competitive experience (rho = -0.86; p < 0.01) and coach's ranking (rho = 0.87; p < 0.01). VO(2)max was the only other variable to produce correlations greater than 0.71 with rowing performance. Although most of the correlations observed in the present study were poor to modestly high, they do document and quantify relationships, and suggest that training and testing techniques should be modified to be more rowing specific and that their usefulness with respect to positive transfer and prediction should be examined.