Erg scores – adjusting for athlete weight

It is the season for ergo testing and one of the issues coaches face is how to compare the scores of athletes whose body weights vary a lot.  Is it “fair” to compare a 2k score for a 90kg man against a 75kg man?

The debate has been exhaustively reviewed and discussed here and here.

But there’s a fundamental underlying issue which is weight comparison.  If you weigh more than me and we’re sitting on the water in single sculls – I have less load to heft down the race course than you do.  So power to weight ratio is an important consideration in coaches’ selection criteria for crews.

The best selection is to use single sculls on water – assuming still water, no wind and athletes with perfectly matched bladework skills.  On land, a Rowperfect 2k test willPosts produce scores that are aligned against on-water times and is weight-adjusted and boat class adjusted [if you are selecting an 8 set the test on the eights setting].

The Dutch coach Bert Cocu shared with me his spreadsheet for entering C2 scores and adjusting for weight.  Note the sheet also has a athlete’s height column but that’s not included the formula.

And here’s a sample set of data for women corrected back to a 75kg average weight.  it shows the actual score and the adjusted score re-ranked by athlete (colour coded) in column ‘Corr (75)’.

Concept 2 have had the formula for some time as well.

http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/weight-adjustment-calculator.