White water kayaking has been underrepresented in the scientific literature, largely due
to its recreational nature. White water kayaks are manufactured on male body
specifications, due to the male dominated history of the sport. Female kayakers have to
therefore adapt the kayaks to meet the demands of the environment and task, and their
own anthropometry, commonly achieving this through changes to sitting height. The aim
of this thesis was to quantify the differences in anthropometry between male and female
white water kayakers and, using anthropometry and an observational model of boat
kinematics, to develop a method to identify the optimum sitting height for female white
water kayakers. An anthropometry study measured 53 kayakers (31 male; 22 female) and
identified that the difference in sitting height between males and females was that
females were on average 6.93cm shorter than males. This difference is bigger than seen
in either slalom paddlers or the normal population. Overall 72.7% of the measures taken
were significantly different between male and female white water kayakers. An
observational model of boat kinematics was developed, extending our existing
understanding into technique analysis of flat water racing kayakers. This doctoral thesis
furthered knowledge around what the body does during the stroke cycle in flat water
racing, building upon this to identify the patterns of movement caused by the paddle
stroke that the white water kayak undergoes. Normalised measurements of patterns of
boat movement and paddle forces were established from up to 1154 individual paddle
strokes using three-dimensional kinematics and kinetics. This newly created methodology
was then employed to develop a technique efficiency method to predict the optimum
seat raise for female white water kayakers using a sample of experienced female white
water kayakers (n=7). The optimum seat raises identified for the participants were
considerably lower (mean 1.86cm (SD 1.46), range 0-4cm, mode 1) than the 6.93cm mean
sitting height difference found between male and female white water kayakers in the
anthropometric study. The method, based on percentiles, identified seven measures that
can be used together to identify optimum sitting height for female white water kayakers.
These include 2D kinematic measurement of pitch, velocity change, left arm reach, and
stroke length left to right, alongside a timed slalom course and kinetic measurement of
both left and right paddle strokes.