The purpose of this study was to investigate physical and cognitive performance during dual task conditions of upper-extremity (UE) or full-body (FB) rowing exercise. In a crossover counterbalanced design, college-aged male and female participants completed five conditions: (a) Sitting, (b) Single task UE rowing, (c) Single task FB rowing, (d) Dual task UE rowing, and (e) Dual task FB rowing. For single task UE and FB rowing conditions, participants were asked to row as hard as possible. After sitting and dual-task conditions, we administered the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and a word-list memory test. We analyzed participants' absolute differences (single task - dual task) in power output and their cognitive test scores to compare UE and FB rowing. There were no significant absolute differences from sitting to dual task conditions of UE and FB rowing for either PASAT (p = 0.958) or word list memory (p = 0.899) cognitive scores. Absolute power output loss from single to dual task conditions was significantly higher in FB versus UE for PASAT (p = 0.039; d = 0.54) and word list memory (p = 0.021; d = 0.66) in the dual task condition. These results suggest that, while cognitive performance was preserved regardless of the amount of muscle mass activated during dual task rowing, physical performance suffered more during FB than UE rowing under the dual task condition. These findings have important implications for optimizing cognitive and physical performance in dual task situations.
Keywords: memory; power output; rowing; single task.