Rowing & Tech
Words Martin Cross
“That was my 10/10 moment.” Those were the words of Mark Fangen-Hall, Eton’s new Director of Rowing. We spoke after Dr. Gunnar Treff’s remarkable presentation: ‘Is 5:50 really 5:50?’. It revealed the ongoing research he was doing to test both the accuracy and reliability of the scores registered on the Concept2 rowing ergometer. The German team’s exercise physiologist showed a packed room data that revealed the score shown on a Concept2 performance monitor for the first three strokes of an erg test, concluding it “doesn’t have a lot to do with reality.” His advice was to be wary of using short, power-based tests, of around 20 seconds.