Relation between anaerobic power and rowing ergometer performance in young rowers

Aims: Rowing performance over 2000m is dependent upon the functional capacity of both the aerobic and anaerobic energy pathways. Although several studies have indicated that maximal oxygen uptake is strongly related to rowing performance and it is the best predictor of performance in elite rowers, some evidence is that muscle power output could be an important predictor of performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible relationship between anaerobic power and rowing ergometer performance over 2000m in young rowers, and whether anaerobic power assessed could identify athletes with the best performance. Methods: We collected biometric characteristics and energy data, including average power during 20 sec. (W20) and 60 sec (W60) maximal efforts, and maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max), in 20 club and national level young rowers (mean age 14.7 ± 1.1 years). Enrolled athletes were divided in 2 groups by performance: high-performance athletes (N=7) completed 2000m indoor row in ≤ 425 sec, and low-performance group (N=13) in > 425 sec. A simple linear regression model was used to assess relation between time to complete 2000 meters and biometric data, W20 , W60 , and VO2max. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to determine if significant predictors identified by linear regression modeling might be accurate in discriminating athletes with the best performance (HP Group) from those with a less good performance (LP Group). Results: Indexed W20 and W60 were greater in high-performance compared to low-performance athletes (7.77 ± 0.3 vs. 6.34 ± 0.5 W/Kg, p = 0.005 for W20 , and 6.77 ± 0.7 vs. 5.99 ± 0.5 W/Kg, p = 0.04 for W60 ). Indexed VO2max (62.5 ± 8.5 vs. 60.1 ± 7.5 ml/Kg/min, p = 0.44) was not different in the groups. At ROC analysis, indexed W20 ≥ 7.19 W/Kg was able to identify athletes with the best performance in 100% of the cases, while W60 ≥ 6.68 W/Kg and VO2max ≥ 65.6 ml/Kg/min had a discriminatory power of 86% and 59%, respectively. Conclusions: Anaerobic power evaluated by W20 was the most significant predictor of indoor rowing performance, and more accurate than W60 or VO2max in identifying athletes with best performance.