Coming off seat in sprints

[Lincoln Brigham]

I've been working on my 500m time and the biggest problem I'm having is losing contact with the seat. It's as if my drive starts to become perpendicular with the foot rests, sending me up and out of my seat. What are the most common causes of this?

[Alissa]

I'm not sure about the most common causes, but a couple of possibilities come to mind (I'm sure there are others):

1. Are you channeling the force against the footboard through your heels? If not, I could see ankle wobble (in the air or loosely against the footboard) allowing "lift"

2. If your heels are "down" then your torso may be a little unstable...if you're not sufficiently braced against the force produced by the drive of your legs (so that the angle of your body to the rail becomes smaller instead of staying the same) that would cause "lift." If you think this might be it, think about holding the angle you have at the catch (lats/shoulders down, lower back & abs supported).

3. Should your heels be higher? If they are too "low" so that you are essentially pushing "down", then it could produce a "lifting" effect.

Just a few thoughts...HTH,

Alissa

[johnlvs2run]

My first thought is if you have the foot plates raised high enough. Be sure to raise them as high as you are comfortable.

Also I'd recommend pushing off the balls of your feet and your toes, or the whole of your foot, not just your heels.

What you want is to drive straight back as much as is possible, and not to go up in the air. Beyond this make sure your rhythm and timing is coordinated with your sprinting.

[Lincoln Brigham]

Thanks, I'll try raising the foot plate adjustment.

[Lincoln Brigham]

Changed the foot adjustment a couple of pegs higher, from "4" to "2".

Rowed a 500 meter pr of 1:33.7
Previous pr was 1:36.2, from Jan 23rd, 2007.

Split paces were:
@100 - 1:31.0/50spm
@200 - 1:29.5/44spm
@300 - 1:32.5/42spm
@400 - 1:35.0/41spm
@500 - 1:41.0/42spm

Obviously I was slowing down!
Altitude 4,500 feet.
Video:
http://crossfitsedona.com/Videos/500mRowPR.mov
(32meg, may take a while to upload/download)

[Bob S.]

Changed the foot adjustment a couple of pegs higher, from "4" to "2".

Rowed a 500 meter pr of 1:33.7
Previous pr was 1:36.2, from Jan 23rd, 2007.

Split paces were:
@100 - 1:31.0/50spm
@200 - 1:29.5/44spm
@300 - 1:32.5/42spm
@400 - 1:35.0/41spm
@500 - 1:41.0/42spm

Obviously I was slowing down!
Altitude 4,500 feet.
Video:
http://crossfitsedona.com/Videos/500mRowPR.mov
(32meg, may take a while to upload/download)

You didn't say if raising the foot boards cured the lifting problem. Your improved time strongly suggests that it did, but you didn't specifically say so. How about it?

One comment. A 500m piece is long enough that most people cannot sustain an all out effort for the whole time. A little pacing is in order, preferably negative splitting, like starting out at a 1:34 pace and trying to work down. It might also help to start at a lower rate, like 40 and save the really high rate for the finish.

Bob S.

[Lincoln Brigham]

... I don't know if the foot position was the reason for the pr. I suspect it helped, but was not the main reason. I think the main reason was additional practice with intervals to get used to the higher stroke and work rate. I think with more practice I could drop my time even more, especially with better pacing as you noted.

For the past couple of weeks I've been doing work intervals of 20-30 seconds and rest intervals of 30-60 seconds, at about a 1:40 pace. Plus I'd throw in a few rounds of 250 or 500 meters at a 1:50 pace. Tabata squats* with a 20kg barbell really seemed to help a lot, but they'd crush me for 2-3 days afterwords.

*High speed all-out squats for 0:20, rest for 0:10, 8 rounds for a 4 minute workout. I usually managed a little over 100 squats total.

[PaulS]

Be careful about the hyperextension of your knees at the finish, that shock to the tendons and ligaments is going to take a toll.

The Raising of the heels looks to have caused what it usually does, and that is keeping your seat farther from your heels at the catch, which would help to reduce "lift-off".

WIth your heels in normal adjusted position, you probably came a bit more up on your toes and used a bit more slide, though the cause of more lift-off in that case would be related to how your recovery ends. All forward reaching body angle should be complete when half of your slide is remaining, so that if a triangle were made from the handle/shoulder/seat it would remain the same shape for the last half of the slide on the recovery and the first half of the slide on the Drive. Also do your best to avoid a pause at the catch, it simply wastes time in getting to the drive. Most of your pause is caused by the body coming over at the very last moment. Usually that is followed by a "bum shove", however you avoid that, which is a good thing.

Great music to set off on a sprint! The birds chirping in the backgroud are almost surreal as we know what is about to happen.

[Lincoln Brigham]

Thanks for the comments Paul.

So what you are saying is that the back angle should not change for the first half of the drive and the last half of the recovery?

Technique for this piece was a lot sloppier than my normal rowing. I'm trying to integrate my endurance rowing technique into my sprinting technique so that I don't have two different rowing techniques. I'm getting better at it but still have a ways to go. I was consciously trying to explosively extend the knees in order to get more leg power into the drive, which accounts for the hyperextension. I normally don't do that and I noticed I also didn't get my shins consistently vertical on the catch either.

[Alissa]

So what you are saying is that the back angle should not change for the first half of the drive and the last half of the recovery?

I'm not Paul, but thought my diagram might help:



You can click on the picture to get a bigger version (I've edited to make the one in this post smaller). See particularly the angles marked in red & blue, one of which will change during the drive and the other of which should remain the same.

Separately, I note that the green line should flatten out along the rail where the arrowhead is instead of suggesting a continuing upward movement...

HTH,

Alissa

[PaulS]

Alissa's diagram is good, though it describes what we would refer to as completely "segemented" sequencing of the Legs, Torso, and Hands components. This is a good way to think about the components when starting out, so that the orderis correct, however we should tend to a bit more overlap as the technique becomes more fluid. Each component overlaping it's neighbor by half but all three not overlapping.

The Drive and recovery should also be a virtual mirror of each other.

As for the legs going down forcefully, I keep my caution in place. Once the leg has reached it's full length, anything beyond that can add nothing to your power application, so focus on using the torso openning at the hips as a powerful motion that also keeps your feet well set on the stretcher. The straps will become much less of a necessity when this is done and all your effort will be going into spinning the flywheel.

[johnlvs2run]

Changed the foot adjustment a couple of pegs higher, from "4" to "2".

Rowed a 500 meter pr of 1:33.7
Previous pr was 1:36.2, from Jan 23rd, 2007.

Lincoln,

Congratulations on the huge PR - looks like quite a bit more to come.

Sedona sure is a lovely place. You are quite fortunate to live there.

[Carl Henrik]

Seems like a good 500 to me. Looks like most of the movements are transitioned "upwards" into the handle.

The leg bounce does not look like a good idea though, possibly damaging and throwing too much energy in the wrong direction. Wasting energy can be ok for the 500, especially in the last 100. But I can't see this move motivated.

Your start is a few very short strokes, like typically seen in a boat, or on the erg with people with weak backs. You're obviously not in a boat, so if the other criterium doesn't describe you then powering out "full" (or 3/4) strokes from the beginning will reduce time to race pace and give a tenth of second or two better time.

If you feel the stationary flywheel is too much for your back, then you can work on back strength.

Possibly the reason you want to bounce your knees is lack of back/hip strength as well, then you can hit two flies at once.

It's hard to tell from the video what your hip is doing and not, but it should be a large source of your upper body movement. If you have an inflexible hip, the back, which is weaker, will do the tilting, possibly leading to injury and also relying on weaker muscles, which is very bad for a 500 which is anaerobic to a large extent. So perhaps just stretching the hip will allow to engage it more, which could make it more natural for you to bring the knee bounce energy up through the arms and handle instead.

In order to get to race pace quicker, and learning to coordinate the return quicker and more efficient you can also do 100m sprints, which should be very aggressive on the return. A warm up for the 500 should then include a 50m sprint for example. Why? Because the first is never the quickest one. So, you don't want the slow first one in the race.

The over extension of the knee probably makes it harder for you get a high rate as well, meaning inefficiency due to overcompensating with speed forward at the end of the return.

All IMHO.

Great time. Good luck with improvements!