On-water Rowing Biomechanical Assessment: A Systematic Scoping Review.

Background: Biomechanical parameters can distinguish a skilled rower from a less skilled rower and can provide coaches with meaningful feedback and objective evidence to inform coaching practices on rowing technique. Therefore, it is critical to understand which technical characteristics can be related to the fundamental rowing performance indicators. The aim of this systematic scoping review was to describe the current focus and density of rowing biomechanics research specific to on-water rowing and provide a guide for practitioners and researchers on future directions for on-water rowing biomechanics research.

Over 50 Years of Researching Force Profiles in Rowing: What Do We Know?

There has been substantial interest in the mechanisms underpinning the skilled movements of on-water rowing for more than 150 years. Contemporary attention from biomechanical research has focused on the important relationship between kinetics (such as force application at the oar) and performance. A range of instrumentation systems have been developed and used in both academic and applied training contexts to better understand this relationship.

A force profile analysis comparison between functional data analysis, statistical parametric mapping and statistical non-parametric mapping in on-water single sculling.

Objectives: To examine whether the Functional Data Analysis (FDA), Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) and Statistical non-Parametric Mapping (SnPM) hypothesis testing techniques differ in their ability to draw inferences in the context of a single, simple experimental design.

Design: The sample data used is cross-sectional (two-sample gender comparison) and evaluation of differences between statistical techniques used a combination of descriptive and qualitative assessments.

Methods: FDA, SPM and SnPM t-tests were applied to sample data of twenty highly skilled male and female rowers, rowing at 32 strokes per minute in a single scull boat.

Considerations for the use of functional principal components analysis in sports biomechanics: examples from on-water rowing.

The proliferation of new biomechanical technology in laboratory and field settings facilitates the capture of data-sets consisting of complex time-series. An understanding of the appropriate statistical approaches for analysing and interpreting these data-sets is required and the functional data analysis (FDA) family of statistical techniques has emerged in the biomechanical literature. Given the use of FDA is currently in its infancy with biomechanical data, this paper will form the first of a two part series aiming to address practical issues surrounding the application of FDA techniques in biomechanics.

Bivariate functional principal components analysis: considerations for use with multivariate movement signatures in sports biomechanics.

Sporting performance is often investigated through graphical observation of key technical variables that are representative of whole movements. The presence of differences between athletes in such variables has led to terms such as movement signatures being used. These signatures can be multivariate (multiple time-series observed concurrently), and also be composed of variables measured relative to different scales.

How gender and boat-side affect shape characteristics of force-angle profiles in single sculling: Insights from functional data analysis.

Objectives: To examine whether gender or side of the boat influenced shape characteristics of the force-angle profile in on-water single sculling.

Design: Cross-sectional study design.

Methods: Bivariate functional principal components analysis (bfPCA) was applied to force-angle data to identify the main modes of variance in curves of forty highly skilled male and female rowers (national and international level), rowing at 32 strokes per minute in a single scull boat.