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Articles on

• Rowperfect seminar with Paul Thompson "Technique Training and Racing Planning"
• New Force Curves for Ropwerfect DOS for Drysdale, Langlands, Winkless, Male
• Thor Nilsen interview - his views on C2 versus RP

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Rowperfect is supporting the Womens Eights Head of the River Race with its charity partner, Breast Cancer Haven.  Here is our earlier post about the tie-up.

Crews who race and raise over £30 for the charity are entered into a free draw to win one of the new Rowperfect Rowing Simulators and the second prize of a set of 8 Magik Rowing oarlocks. 

Maggie Hitchins from Breast Cancer Haven called me today to say that 17 crews have signed up with www.justgiving.com sites for their individual crew fundraising efforts.

She is hoping 50 crews will take part this year, as 39 participated last year and raised over £10,000 for the charity. She told me

"Many women expect to know someone who has had breast cancer or to get it themselves during their lifetime.  We get fantastic support from women across the UK who understand the value of the work we do to support breast cancer victims and their families.  We are grateful to everyone who takes the time to raise money for us while participating in this rowing race."

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We recieved this question from Nick Panza, coach at Yale University. 

We use the rowperfects a lot at my university and I had a few questions about them. 

My primary question revolves around being able to enter different weights and how that affects your splits, watts, power on the screen, if it does at all. 

For example, over a 2000m piece, if someone who actually weighs 75kilos and enters 75kilos averages a 1:25.0 split for the piece….if he did the same piece with the same settings but changed his weight to 70kilos, would his split be a lot faster?  Does the weight adjust the split or anything else?  Thanks very much for your reply. 

Nick Panza

Our reply

The algorithm behind the RP software works like this.  The power (joules / watts) you pull is an absolute measure.  If you pull 500 joules and I pull the same it is the same number and totally unadjusted for our respective body weights.

BUT the athlete's body weight and the boat class affect the 500m split score because this is a derived number. 

To answer your question about the 75 / 70kg athlete.  Yes he would go faster at 70 kg as the computer assumes he is carrying the weight of his boat plus his body mass.  If the body mass is lower the score improves for the same amount of power exerted.

I did a test of this once while training alongside a Lwt lady who was about 10kgs lighter than me (thanks Marjan!).   I tried to pull the same watts score as her.  When I did (approximately) my 500m split was about 8 seconds slower than hers. Which proves the point.

I attach a document detailing a re-verification of the algorithm done by Casper Rekers which I think you'll find interesting reading!  It still holds true from original 1991 data to today!
Rowperfect algorithm

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