Anthropometric characteristics of female Olympic rowers

Anthropometric data on 51 (23%) of the female rowers in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games are summarized and compared to a female non-rower athletic sample and to a female Canadian university student sample. The rowers, being taller and heavier (means 174.3 cm and 67.4 kg) tended to be larger in all measures than the reference samples, with the exception that the university students had larger mean skinfold thicknesses. The Heath-Carter somatotype distribution of the rowers (mean 3.1 - 3.9 - 2.8) was compared to that of the students (4.0 - 3.5 - 2.9) and other female athletic samples. Proportionality profiles scaled to a unisex reference human or phantom showed both samples to be rather similar in proportional lengths except for longer tibiale height, wider transverse chest breadth, larger flexed arm and forearm girths, and smaller skinfold thicknesses in female rowers than in students. Fractionation of body mass by a four-component model showed the rowers to have similar percent skeletal and residual masses, lower percent fat and higher percent muscle mass than students. The anthropometric characteristics as described and analyzed in this study are submitted as the basic anthropometric reference for those interested in fostering the development of women's rowing.