| Summary: | The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of eccentric workloads generated by a powered rowing machine on the cardiorespiratory, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. It was hypothesized that beneficial physiological effects would result by training with high eccentric workloads. Conventional rowing machines are utilized for performance improvements through concentric workloads alone; however for this research, a conventional machine was modified with an electric motor and an advanced control system to allow the machine to also include eccentric capabilities. The ability to combine concentric and eccentric actions in any exercise has the potential to improve training effectiveness. The study followed an experimental design, exposing ten subjects (5 male, 5 female) to multiple eccentric workloads generated by the powered rowing machine. Each subject participated in two 12-min exercise trials corresponding to full body row (FBR) and low body row (LBR). Each of these trials included four 3-min stages that gradually increased the eccentric workload. Increased eccentric muscle contractions and metabolic cost were confirmed in the experiments. The results on oxygen consumption reveal a significant increase between stages 1 and 2 for both exercises (FBR p=0.0001 and LBR p=0.004) with no significant increases between the remaining stages. Results on heart rate reveal a significantly increase with each stage for both exercises (p<0.05). Results on muscle activation also reveal an overall increase for all muscle groups as eccentric workload is increased.
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