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What is the perfect body for rowing, and can the machine be used by paraplegics?
Katherine Croft: "What would be the perfect body for rowing, what would the proportion of the lengths of the legs and the arms be and which would be the strongest muscles?
"What compensations would be necessary if the person was a paraplegic? Do you know if adaptive rowing can be used by paraplegics? Is there an indoor version of adaptive rowing?"
Terry O'Neill: this is quite a difficult question to answer. Taller people have an advantage because for a given stroke length they can operate over the most efficient range of muscular contraction. Competitive rowing is about power and so they would need to be strong as well as having endurance. Why I said it is a difficult question is that indoor rowing has several distances from 2,000m to the marathon and in the long distance events the more slightly built person comes into their own.
The legs provide 60-70% of the power in a normal rowing stroke and over 50% of the stroke length, with the upper body supplying the remainder.
The machine can be adapted for paraplegics. It requires a seat with a back similar to that of a recumbent cycle and a strap so that the rower doesn't fall to the side. They are then able to row from a fixed seat using their arms and shoulders.
As far as compensating this would be a matter of trial and error as I don't know of anyone who has researched this.
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