THE HORSE-POWER OF A ROWING MAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 May 1927, Page 4

THE HORSE-POWER OF A ROWING MAN.

(By A SCIENTIST, in the London

“ Daily Mail Eiglu men, straining every muscle and (very nine, putting foitli every*! ounce of energy—what power do they •; develop? Can they work better than , a steam or petrol engine? It has been | proved that they can and do. j Professor Yandell Henderson, an j American, has made extensive tests on , members of Yale University crew, and ! some surprising facts have been I brought to light. j Professor Henderson based his tests j on the amount of oxygen that the men consumed per minute. By providing each member of the crew with an apparatus after the style of a respirator, he was enabled to measure the amount of air which passed in and out of tlie;r lungs. From this it was easy to <atculate the amount of oxygen consumed. The result of hard training was forcefully sliowil when it was found that, whereas an ordinary mail, while resting, breathed about six litres of air per minute fusing about litre of oxygen) the Yale crew breathed almost twice this amount. Me found that when racing the crew breathed nearly ten times ns milch air per minute as the ordinary man did when rest ug. This works out to roughly sixteen gallons of air per minute. The professor found that the consumption of one litre of oxygen per minute is equal to nearly I-horse power. If these results are borne in mind and a race over a four-miles course considered. it will he seen that each man develops an average of about IV-horse power throughout the race, or a total of 12-horse power for the crew. A still more amazing result was obtained by measuring the horse-power developed at various times during the race. Naturally it was found that tlio strength dropped considerably at the mid of the course, but during the first few minutes each man developed l-hor.so power. It has been calculated that only one quarter ol the energy produced goes into the oar. Hut when the amount of fuel used fin this ease, oxygen) is considered in relation to the load that has to he moved, it is found that the boat-race crew is actually more efficient than a petrol engine, although, of course, the engine comes into its own when the effort lias to he maintained for any length of time. Those results also show that a course of rigorous training will increase a man's power by about four times.