Form check

[btswims]

Hello -

I've been rowing again for a few months and would like to see where I can improve my technique. The clips below are from a recent 7x500m workout. Thanks!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6c2bdf2n5uk6 ... 2.mkv?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5dkj1ftb9r3xt ... 5.mkv?dl=0

[Tsnor]

There are different rowing styles. For the one my coaches use...

Starting from the finish. Layback is good. Hand position good.

Starting recovery, your knees are starting up long before your hips complete rotating your back. Stop the video when your back is vertical and look at your legs, knees are almost 1/2 slide. Try to complete most/all of the hip rotation while your legs are still flat. As a drill, at low stroke rate (12-14 spm) wait until you feel a pull in the back of your legs as your hip swing over before lifting your knees.

Final Back angle should be set as your knees come up. Don't change the back angle later in the stroke. You are grabbing extra reach both throughout the recovery and at the catch. Back angle is continually changing. Watch the angle your back makes with the vertical lines on the doors, don't let it change. Your back is nice and straight, vs lots of lower back bend which is great. Try to hold your back at the same angle while the wheels are moving both in the recovery and drive. 22 degrees is a good forward angle, with the extra reach you are taking your are getting past that.

At the catch your hands are good, the chain is straight and stays that way. Shins are good, vertical. Good ankle flexibility, letting your heels coming up a bit less than usual which is fine.

Your back swing is starting right at the catch. Don't do this. Instead hold the same back angle from the catch until your legs are almost flat. Let your back take the load from your legs driving in this safe, strong position. Once your legs are almost done fire your hips transferring the momentum of your whole body movement into just your back moving (the sled stops when your legs get flat, after that all that moves is upper body). Your arms, shoulders look good throughout the drive, loose and relaxed hanging while the legs are driving and while the back finishes it's hip rotation. Back looks really good, getting it's rotation from the hips rather than by bending the lower back.

Overall looks great.

[jamesg]

Your style is the typical erg all-in-one hands-swing-slide, with no relax. You may find it better to use the rowing sequences, described here:

https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/ ... que-videos

The recovery sequence helps relax arms and shoulders during the recovery and gets the weight on the feet early, so that the catch action with the legs is as simple and quick as possible.

[btswims]

There are different rowing styles. For the one my coaches use...

Starting from the finish. Layback is good. Hand position good.

Starting recovery, your knees are starting up long before your hips complete rotating your back. Stop the video when your back is vertical and look at your legs, knees are almost 1/2 slide. Try to complete most/all of the hip rotation while your legs are still flat. As a drill, at low stroke rate (12-14 spm) wait until you feel a pull in the back of your legs as your hip swing over before lifting your knees.

Final Back angle should be set as your knees come up. Don't change the back angle later in the stroke. You are grabbing extra reach both throughout the recovery and at the catch. Back angle is continually changing. Watch the angle your back makes with the vertical lines on the doors, don't let it change. Your back is nice and straight, vs lots of lower back bend which is great. Try to hold your back at the same angle while the wheels are moving both in the recovery and drive. 22 degrees is a good forward angle, with the extra reach you are taking your are getting past that.

At the catch your hands are good, the chain is straight and stays that way. Shins are good, vertical. Good ankle flexibility, letting your heels coming up a bit less than usual which is fine.

Your back swing is starting right at the catch. Don't do this. Instead hold the same back angle from the catch until your legs are almost flat. Let your back take the load from your legs driving in this safe, strong position. Once your legs are almost done fire your hips transferring the momentum of your whole body movement into just your back moving (the sled stops when your legs get flat, after that all that moves is upper body). Your arms, shoulders look good throughout the drive, loose and relaxed hanging while the legs are driving and while the back finishes it's hip rotation. Back looks really good, getting it's rotation from the hips rather than by bending the lower back.

Overall looks great.

Wow, incredibly helpful feedback! The first cue around feeling the pull in my hamstrings before swinging hips works well. Fixing my drive and making it legs then back is a bit harder. I watched some videos and tried doing legs only drills, but I can't feel it in the same way. Any other cues or drills you would recommend?

Your style is the typical erg all-in-one hands-swing-slide, with no relax. You may find it better to use the rowing sequences, described here:

https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/ ... que-videos

The recovery sequence helps relax arms and shoulders during the recovery and gets the weight on the feet early, so that the catch action with the legs is as simple and quick as possible.

Thanks, will give it a watch.

[Tsnor]

...Fixing my drive and making it legs then back is a bit harder. I watched some videos and tried doing legs only drills, but I can't feel it in the same way. Any other cues or drills you would recommend?

<<VIDEO. Your camera position was great. Get a long video cord (HDMI, DP) and a monitor you can see in front of you so you can see every stroke as you make it with your head looking forward. It will change how you row. Some phones will also cast their screen to a smart TV or google/amazon tv stick so you can do that also. >>

Reverse Pick Drill. It's very awkward. It's designed to build muscle memory for delaying the body swing. Likely this is what you meant with leg only drills. It's not my favorite warm up, but my coaches use it at least once/week erging or OTW.

Reverse Pick:
1.you sit at the catch with correct forward hip swing and arms straight. Handle height is set so the chain makes one straight line with your arms. Think "chin up, chest up". Then you row 1/2 slide from shins vertical to shins making a 90 degree angle with your thighs. Gentle force. Stop at half slide and pull back to the catch. Arms and upper body do not change at all. Shoulders are loose, slightly forward. Think about your hands bending the handle into a upside down U shape, that will helps you engage your lats rather than shoulders/shoulders. 1/2 slide really helps on this, do 1/2 slide before full slide. Do 10-20 strokes this way, slow, no power.

2.Go legs only, full slide. Slow and no power, especially the first one. There will be a hard bump when your legs go flat. Even though you are trying to not swing your hips you will because the momentum of going back has to go somewhere. Don't worry about the minor hip swing at the end. Do keep your arm and shoulder position but not rigid. Your arms will 100% try to bend to stop you and keep your balance, don't let them. Do 10-20 this way.

3.Add hip swing. If you want you can add some power now, but not a ton. The hip swing will absorb the power when you stop. Arms, shoulder are loose, not rigid and do not pull at all. Think push with legs and hip swing, never pulling from arms.

4.Add arms, but only 1/2 way. This keeps you thinking about leg drive, not arm pull. For arms, don't use the arms -- instead pull your elbows behind you. This sounds weird, but try it. Pulling the elbows back instead of pulling your hands back feels different and is more effective. Don't use your wrists or squeeze your fingers, lets the hands hang off the handle, fingers are a hook not a squeeze, wrists stay flat.

5.Finish with a few full strokes thinking "leg drive, body swing" all the way. One coach claims legs do 80%, hips 15% and arms 5%. He knows that's wrong (it's more like 60/30/10). I think he's describing the focus he wants from us as we are rowing == all leg drive then fire the hips without thinking final arm pull at all.

This video from dark horse is good: https://youtu.be/SRlXnpSNf3A They have a second reverse pick video I won't link that is designed to generate more per stroke power by raising the damper setting and doing reverse pick at high power, low stroke rate. I'm not a fan of this approach, and suggest you don't do it, but dark horse knows more than I do. Also found this when looking for video, it's a novice crew on rough water in cold weather doing reverse pick. They look like they enjoy reverse pick as much as I do. You can see problems with handle height, but they are working to get back swing together and you can see the legs to hips sequencing really well. https://youtu.be/qthYo_8DZvQ

Also there are rowing styles with overlapped hip swing and leg drive. The German Junior team won the worlds JM8s in 2022 with an early back swing stroke, so it can be effective. https://youtu.be/d0zJ0mlsBSc?t=75 So pick your own style if the separation of leg drive and back swing gets too irritating. Do keep knees down on recovery whatever you end up doing on the drive.

[Ombrax]

In a related matter:

Will it be relatively obvious on the Force Curve if the person rowing does the "back swing" too soon relative to the end of the leg drive?

And if so, what will be the indicators on the curve, compared to the "standard" haystack?

(It's easier for me to look at the force curve on the PM compared to acquiring and setting up a device capable showing me a video recording.)

I'm pretty sure I initiate my back swing somewhat early, but in general have a decent-looking force curve.

TIA

[Tsnor]

In a related matter:

Will it be relatively obvious on the Force Curve if the person rowing does the "back swing" too soon relative to the end of the leg drive?

And if so, what will be the indicators on the curve, compared to the "standard" haystack?

(It's easier for me to look at the force curve on the PM compared to acquiring and setting up a device capable showing me a video recording.)

I'm pretty sure I initiate my back swing somewhat early, but in general have a decent-looking force curve.

TIA

Hope someone has a good answer, I'm very interested. I've never been able to get value from the force curve, and it seems like it should be high value. Instruction from good sources (USRowing, Darkhorse, C2 website, the biorower guy Aram) didn't help.

(for video I use a 10 year old laptop and free Zoom. Any cell phone probably has a better camera for recording or projecting video but the laptop is easy because you can set the lid angle to point in the right direction while the phone would need some kind of stand)

[btlifter]

In a related matter:

Will it be relatively obvious on the Force Curve if the person rowing does the "back swing" too soon relative to the end of the leg drive?

And if so, what will be the indicators on the curve, compared to the "standard" haystack?

(It's easier for me to look at the force curve on the PM compared to acquiring and setting up a device capable showing me a video recording.)

I'm pretty sure I initiate my back swing somewhat early, but in general have a decent-looking force curve.

TIA

Hope someone has a good answer, I'm very interested. I've never been able to get value from the force curve, and it seems like it should be high value. Instruction from good sources (USRowing, Darkhorse, C2 website, the biorower guy Aram) didn't help.

(for video I use a 10 year old laptop and free Zoom. Any cell phone probably has a better camera for recording or projecting video but the laptop is easy because you can set the lid angle to point in the right direction while the phone would need some kind of stand)

As the biggest force is generated from torso swing, I'd imagine that an early swing would result in an early peak force... and likely an overall flatter curve?

But out of interest of advocating for the devil...

I've never seen my own force curve. Surely it's a valuable tool for many, but from my perspective: I'm less interested in the specific shape of my force curve, and more interested in the total area beneath it. The easiest way to view that is simply watching my wattage (or /500).

[KeithT]

Force curve will show early spike with using back too soon - some times flatter right after as well....and I have even seen two peaks with it when working with new rowers.

[Tsnor]

As the biggest force is generated from torso swing, I'd imagine that an early swing would result in an early peak force... and likely an overall flatter curve?

A late hip swing is supposed to flatten and elongate the force curve. An early hip swing overlaps the hips with legs more and gives you a shorter, higher peak.

That said, reducing leg force vs hip swing and arms also flattens the curve. Less total force (higher splits) flattens and elongates the curve. Ineffective leg drive (shooting the slide, rubbery arms etc) flatten the curve. So I could never tell whether the curve change was good or bad. Especially since the graph is auto scaling each stroke.

Aside: Power definitely peaks when hips rotate since the legs are still finishing. Conventional thinking on rowing power from arms/legs/hips: "This depends on rowing style and shape of the force curve: consequent segments activation and front-loaded drive increases legs share; simultaneous style and late peak force increases trunk and arms shares. Interestingly, the segments power of the World best rowers have higher trunk share and less arms: legs 43%, trunk 36%, arms 21%. " https://www.row2k.com/features/5531/row ... -kleshnev/

I'm less interested in the specific shape of my force curve, and more interested in the total area beneath it. The easiest way to view that is simply watching my wattage (or /500).

^^^^ This.

[jackarabit]

The value of isolated/sequential vs. semi-concurrent muscle group engagement for levering boats out of holes and putting numbers on a counter is not a fresh subject nor an especially useful one to competitive ergers wth no OTW experience. Most newbies OTE don’t know nuanced body swing delay from a tensioned posterior chain. The conscientious ones will take notes and proceed to lock the hip angle at catch and shoot the slide.

Arms contribution 10% or 5% of generated force does not matter either. The arms are connecting rods. I’ve not heard a WIRC or WRIC competitor mention the niceties of engaging the lats vs. ripping thru the shoulder girdle. The gross effect on power generation of dropping in vs. rowing in an oar blade OTW and of an equivalent delay of flywheel engagement OTE is of far greater significance than attaining static postures and discrete muscle group engagement. If you get it right at the catch in terms of immediate transfer of force, a lot of venial sins are forgiven. The “standard” haystack force curve according to the Bros. D is off-kilter to the left. The left precedes the right on the time axis. If you are a follower of this fashion, the needle needs to bump and the hull jump while there’s still chain in the pipe and (effective) swing in the oar shaft. After that, amateur ergers routinely make watts by ignoring rules and slipping discs. That’s racing. Training has more time for exploring the value of tweaking for marginal performance improvement. To each their recombinant, non-binary own.