Research on the Quantitative Evaluation of Cooperation between Boat and Oar in Canoe

The canoe is an event that athletes use a paddle on one side of the boat to row, by harmonizing muscle groups in upper- and lower-limbs and trunk, so research on the cooperation among human, oars and boat is most important to improve athlete's technology and performance. In this paper, we measured 7 kinematic parameters, such as force and angles (pitching and upset) of oar, speed and angles (pitching and upset) of boat, frequency, during the process of which 6 national athletes rowed as fast as they could. We constructed kinematic model of each parameter, and on the base of these models we analyzed the cooperative relationship between human and oar, human and boat. The results showed that: (1) These models based on methods of normalizing and averaging could describe the technical characteristics of athletes, and variance and correlation analysis methods could analyze quantitatively the co-ordination between human and oar, human and boat which provided ways to real-time assess athlete's specialized skill.(2) Combined with the process of phasing paddle method, quantitative method evaluated the relationship between human and oar, human and boat which established the basis of understanding particular technique for coaches. At the same time, we found that the rowing skill of national athletes was most steady in the process of preparation phase and power stages, less steady in the process of grasp and orientation phase. (3) The pitching angle was most consistent during the period of rowing, otherwise the upset angle was most differential. The steady of boat was consistent with the upset angle.