Waterrower Stroke Rate versus Speed Analysis.

First Experiment.
Purpose - to see the effect of rate against speed, and the effect, if any, of "firm" strokes.

Ok so here is what I did :-

Firstly I set up a metronome to give me ratings of 15,20,25,30,35,40,45 and finally 50.

I rowed on the waterrower for 250m at each rating, occasionally putting in a few "firm" strokes at each rating.

Here is the graph plotted by "RowH2O" software.

The green line is the stroke rate, and the blue line is the speed (Can you see any "firm" strokes?) .
The scaling is on the far right. You may have to scroll to see it all.
The "dips" in the stroke rate (green) line are due to breaks in rowing to reset the metronome.

I had expected "speed" to look something like this purple line, given the extra energy with firm strokes.

Certainly the water was moving quicker, but this did not seem to be recorded by the WaterRower computer.

Thus is appeared that rating was directly proportional to Stroke Rate......
But otherwise independent of effort!!

Second Experiment.
Purpose - To determine the effect of Stroke length.
first 250m full stroke (~1.3m in length), 2nd 250m shorter stroke "backstops rowing" (arm and body only ~0.8m) rating 25. then repeated at rating 35.

Result - speed is directly proportional to stroke length.