The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using rowing ergometer to measure maximum aerobic capacity, as well as to compare the maximum aerobic capacity measured by rowing ergometer and treadmill. The subjects were 18 college-aged adults who engaged in regular exercise (aged 22±1.8yr, height 173.2±3.4 cm, weight 65.6±7.3 kg). The subjected were randomly divided into two groups by using a counterbalanced design. Subjects in group A were tested by using treadmill in the first test and using rowing ergometer in the second test. Subjects in group B were tested in a reversed order. Three days of rest was given between the first and the second test. Bruce protocol was used in the treadmill test, while in the rowing ergometer test, the rowing frequency was set at 30 per min with wind speed level 5, and the starting load was set at 50W and progressively increased by 30W every 3 min. The Mobile wireless metabolic analyzer Meta Max was used to measure the aerobic capacity in both the treadmill and rowing test. Data were analyzed by using paired t-test and the α level was set at .05. The result revealed that the VO(subscript 2max)(9.48±5.45 vs. 44.15±4.33 ml•kg^(-1)•min^(-1), p＜.05) and VE(subscript max) (122.17±18.1vs. 105.68±14.72 L•min^(-1), p＜.05) obtained from the treadmill test were significantly higher than the rowing ergometer. It was concluded that because of the exercise mode of the treadmill, the aerobic capacity measured by using treadmill is more valid than rowing ergometer. However, because of the relative convenience and low cost of the rowing ergometer, it is suggested that the aerobic capacity measured by treadmill protocol can be used as the criterion variable to develop a regression equation for rowing ergometer.
