I'm not patient (Was Power)

[jliddil]

OK so I managed to do 14466 meters in 60 minutes and kept my stroke rate down to 24 max at a drag of 120.

6'5" 185lbs

Despite my best efforts I could not get below 1:58/500 meters on any given pull.

I really paid attention to technique, tried to pull with increasing force through the stroke. OK maybe it's all in my head and I did none of this well?

So I guess I need to get on training plan? Is it a leg strength thing?

So depressing

[jamesg]

It's always technique. Try pulling full length, starting from well forward with your back straight and weight on your feet to get a very quick catch. Make sure the recovery sequence is correct (hands away, swing, then legs), and relaxed and smooth.

Someone your size should see a ratio of at least 10 between Power (Watts) and rating, tho' you get some discount if you are very old (like me, 68 and 8W'/stroke is plenty). 14+k in an hour means you have the fitness already.

[Bob S.]

OK so I managed to do 14466 meters in 60 minutes and kept my stroke rate down to 24 max at a drag of 120.

6'5" 185lbs

Despite my best efforts I could not get below 1:58/500 meters on any given pull.

I really paid attention to technique, tried to pull with increasing force through the stroke. OK maybe it's all in my head and I did none of this well?

So I guess I need to get on training plan? Is it a leg strength thing?

So depressing

Well, you made a definite improvement, so the lower rate appears to have helped.

The legs are generally regarded as being the most important part of a strong drive. For most people the quads are the strongest muscles in the body. My old coach used to call them the drivers and referred to the back and arms as just linkage. Actually, it was easy to observe that the lats do a lot of work too, by just looking at the physiques of the oarsmen.

One successful oarsman describes a strong drive as being like leaping into the air from a squatting position — sort of exploding at the start of the drive.

It is especially important to make sure that all that leg drive goes into moving the handle. "Shooting the slide" is an easy error to fall into and not one that is easy for the rower to detect. A recent contribution to the forum referred to this as "bum shoving." It refers to just pushing the seat back and allowing your back to bend a bit more forward, so that some of the leg drive is just lost and has not contributed to the movement of the handle. It should show up in a video, but, like I said, it is not easy for the rower to tell that this is happening.

If it is a matter of leg strength, there are a number of thigh strengthening exercises, especially the sort of machine on which you have your back against a solid support and use your feet to push a weighted platform up an incline. Some people like to do squats with a lot of weight, but those can be really back for the back. One-legged squats with little or no weight might be a good alternative. I haven't tried this and haven't seen it done, but it was just a thought. I used to do calf work that way to avoid putting all that extra weight on the spine that is needed to do both calves at once. It just occurred to me that my friend's strong drive description might make a good thigh building exercise, i.e. leaping into the air over and over again from a squatting position. No machine is required, which is a great advantage. I shudder to think of doing that with my 84 year old knees, but it might be a good exercise for the young fellows.

Bob S.

[sheehc]

For the first few minutes of your pieces, focus on breaking the stroke down into smaller parts. First using just about a quarter of the recovery, then lengthening out to 1/2 the slide, then 3/4, then full. At each point, focus on initiating first with the legs, while also maintaining a connection between yours legs and the handle with the upper body. Saying that a different way, the upper body is being used, however it's only being used to connect to the handle rather than actually open up.

Don't worry about power when doing this, just pull enough to feel the connection through your body. By breaking it down to smaller chunks, you can focus on where the connection is being lost and really fix that section without worrying about the whole thing.

[Mattlikespeoples]

I feel that you're trying to work on 2 different things at once here. Doing an hour of power but then worrying about how low you can get your split for any one stroke is counterintuitive. Try seeing how low you can get it pulling a 250 if you're really curious about how low it can go. It is pretty much all about leg power. Your arms should just be holding on until just before the finish

[jliddil]

I feel that you're trying to work on 2 different things at once here. Doing an hour of power but then worrying about how low you can get your split for any one stroke is counterintuitive. Try seeing how low you can get it pulling a 250 if you're really curious about how low it can go. It is pretty much all about leg power. Your arms should just be holding on until just before the finish

Let me better explain the situation. I'm no really worried about how low I can go. I am working from the suggestion that for someone my size (6' 5") I should be able to do a 2:00 split for 60 minutes. Right now I can't. I do have the cardiovascular capacity since I have run etc for years, ran marathons etc. But maintaining even the 2:04 pace I did was quite a bit of work. Thus it has been suggested I need to work on technique.

When I did my last row I warmed up and for the first few minutes tried to see how low I could go. 1:58 was as good as I got. I would think (maybe wrongly) that I should be able to at least do a few fast strokes when I am fresh.

I do know from being a runner for years and having trained to increase speed with intervals, that I really lack fast twitch muscle fibers. And tall people generally don't make good fast runners.

So what I am trying to do is maintain 2:00 pace for 60 minutes.

[Mattlikespeoples]

Yeah, I thought you were trying to get a low split just randomly through the piece. Maintaining sub 2:00 for an hour is not easy. Make sure you are trying to be as efficient as possible with your stroke like coming up to the catch as far as you can and leaning back with your weight pulling the handle, not just your muscles. (hope that made sense)

Another thing I sometimes think about it driving my knees down rather than pressing harder against the stretchers. Feels a bit different and its something you can try.

[Bob S.]

I do know from being a runner for years and having trained to increase speed with intervals, that I really lack fast twitch muscle fibers. And tall people generally don't make good fast runners.

So what I am trying to do is maintain 2:00 pace for 60 minutes.

You don't need much fast twitch for rowing, especially for longer distances. I am strictly slow twitch and I had a fairly successful rowing career, both in college in eights and in erg competition in my dotage.

As a college rower, I was a bit on the small side, at 6'1" and 172#, so I rowed #2 seat for the first couple of years and then at bow after the coach switched me to starboard. We used to consider the ideal height and weight to be 6'4"-6'5" and 190-200#. Taller guys don't fit into a crew as well and heavier weight slowed the boat down. On the erg, extra height and weight don't have these disadvantages.

Bob S.

[Mattlikespeoples]

Taller guys don't fit into a crew as well and heavier weight slowed the boat down. On the erg, extra height and weight don't have these disadvantages.

Bob S.

6'8' ~260-265lbs here. I know ALL about this dilema. I'm the fastest short distance erg'er on our team and still up there as far as long distance erging goes but my weight slows our boat down quite a bit. My coach said not to really worry about it too much. Just need to cut some fat and redistribute that weight into my already 28" quads (last time i measured they were 27" and I've been hittin the weights hard)

[657v]

Interesting. I'm 6' 9" 265.

[Mattlikespeoples]

Interesting. I'm 6' 9" 265.

My long lost twin? haha

[Bob S.]

Taller guys don't fit into a crew as well and heavier weight slowed the boat down. On the erg, extra height and weight don't have these disadvantages.

Bob S.

6'8' ~260-265lbs here. I know ALL about this dilema. I'm the fastest short distance erg'er on our team and still up there as far as long distance erging goes but my weight slows our boat down quite a bit. My coach said not to really worry about it too much. Just need to cut some fat and redistribute that weight into my already 28" quads :) (last time i measured they were 27" and I've been hittin the weights hard)

For over ten years, the undisputed top erger was Matthias Siejkowski, at about 6'9". I never did hear what he weighed, but he did not appear to have any surplus weight. He had a typical rowers build, relatively slender, without the bulging muscles of weight lifters and body builders. He was an OTW rower, but I heard that he did not make the German national team. I don't know if it was a matter of too much weight or of having a reach that was too much longer than the others in the boat. The current top erger, Waddell, is the same height and, of course, he has a top OTW record, but he is a sculler, so would not have a problem of not matching crew mates. He has competed in doubles I believe, but I don't know the details, like the height of his doubles partner.

Bob S.

[NavigationHazard]

Current German Olympian/national team rower Karsten Brodowski is 6' 9" and about 230 lbs officially. He was 5:43.8 on the erg earlier in the year at EIRC in Rome, and if my German is up to par recently finished 4th in the 1x in the German National Championships. Dutch international Sjoerd Hamburger is also 6' 9" and around 220 lbs. US Olympian/international Jamie Schroeder is 6' 8" and again around 220. Mahe Drysdale is 6' 7". Marcel Hacker is 6' 5" and at least 225. There are others....

[Bob S.]

Current German Olympian/national team rower Karsten Brodowski is 6' 9" and about 230 lbs officially. He was 5:43.8 on the erg earlier in the year at EIRC in Rome, and if my German is up to par recently finished 4th in the 1x in the German National Championships. Dutch international Sjoerd Hamburger is also 6' 9" and around 220 lbs. US Olympian/international Jamie Schroeder is 6' 8" and again around 220. Mahe Drysdale is 6' 7". Marcel Hacker is 6' 5" and at least 225. There are others....

I see that Brodowski is a sculler and has competed in both single and doubles. From a brief check on Hamburger, I see that he is primarily a single sculler, but he was apparently in an Oxford 8 at one time, so, yes, the really tall guys can get sweep seats, but I am still convinced that a lot of variation in an eight is not advantageous. Another factor is that 6'9" is not so tall nowadays in relative terms, that is to say that the average height of today's sweep rowers is no doubt a fair amount higher than it was 60 years ago when I was competing and probably higher than 15 years ago when Siejkowski was trying out for the German national team.

Another point is that good erg scores do not always make it to the water.

Bob S.

[NavigationHazard]

Bob, I think raw height has rather less to do with sweep-rowing compatibility than do limb sizes and effective stroke length. Someone who's (say) 6'2" with long arms and legs and a short torso might well have the same handle arc as someone who's (say) 6'8" and disproportionately long in the trunk. One of the reaons squads do seat races is that the tape measure, like erg scores, is not a particularly good guide to how fast boats actually move OTW....