Methodological Considerations on the Relationship Between the 1,500-M Rowing Ergometer Performance and Vertical Jump in National-Level Adolescent Rowers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether 3 different approaches for evaluating squat jump performance were correlated with rowing ergometer performance in elite adolescent rowers. Fourteen young male competitive rowers (15.3 +/- 0.6 years), who took part in the French rowing national championships, performed a 1,500-m all-out rowing ergometer performance (P-1500) and a squat jump (SJ) test. The performance in SJ was determined by calculating the jump height (H-SJ in cm), a jump index (I-SJ = H-SJ.body mass.gravity, in J), and the mean power output (P-SJ in W) from the Samozino et al.'s method. Furthermore, allometric modeling procedures were used to consider the importance of body mass (BM) in the relationships between P-1500 and jump scores. P-1500 was significantly correlated with H-SJ (r(2) = 0.29, p <= 0.05), I-SJ (r(2) = 0.72, p, 0.0001), and P-SJ (r(2) = 0.86, p < 0.0001). Furthermore, BM explained at least 96% of the relationships between SJ and rowing performances. However, the similarity between both allometric exponents for P-SJ and P-1500 (1.15 and 1.04, respectively) indicates that BM could influence jump and rowing ergometer performances at the same rate, and that P-SJ could be the best correlate of P-1500. Therefore, the calculation of power seems to be more relevant than H-SJ and I-SJ to (a) evaluate jump performance and (b) infer the capacity of adolescent rowers to perform 1,500-m all-out rowing ergometer performance, irrespective of their body mass. This could help coaches to improve their training program and potentially identify talented young rowers.