ArticleFrontiers in sports and active living2025
Assessing the impact of oar blade angle on lower back muscle activation during on-water rowing, a pilot study.
Article in Frontiers in sports and active living, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Rowing is a sport that places significant stress on the lower back, often leading to low back pain (LBP) injuries among athletes. Laboratory studies have shown that rowing with an oar blade under an angle is more efficient compared to a traditional blade. The effect of blade angle on the lower back is unknown. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of different oar blade angles on the muscle activation of the lower back muscles during on-water rowing. Methods: Seven collegiate (five males, two females) athletes row 500 m on water twice, once with a traditional (0-degrees blade) and once with an oar blade under a 5-degrees angle. Surface electromyography of the longissimus muscle of the erector spinae was measured bilaterally at the thoracic and lumbar level with a sample frequency of 2,000 Hz. In total 1,443 strokes were analyzed. Statistical Parametric Mapping was used to investigate the differences in muscle activity between the 0-degrees and 5-degrees oar blade. Results: No significant differences in muscle activity were found between the 0- and 5-degrees oar blade. Conclusion: Rowing with an oar blade under 5-degrees did not alter the muscle activity during on-water rowing. This indicates that rowing with an oar blade under 5-degrees may not increase the muscle activation. These results are important as it seems that a change in oar blade angle does not increase the injury risk, longitudinal studies should investigate the effect of oar blade angles on LBP injuries.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.