Rowing Gloves?

[FrankJ]

Frank - I assume you are now sculling otw. Congrats! (although this may be yet another place where I will someday be forced to row in your wake)...

Some good stuff on hand position in sculling here:

http://www.sculling.com/HOWTO.htm

or

http://www.sculling.com/Peinert_sculling_primer.pdf

I believe that the experts would encourage you to feather the oar by lightly rolling fingers back and foward over the oar handle while minimizing wrist movement.

Best, Ernie

ps...thinking about otw racing? you would enjoy it.

Hi Ernie,

I guess that my explanation was not that clear. We were talking about gloves and blisters and I was trying to refer to the fact that the oar handle changes angles in my hand because it travels in an arc. I would have to swing my wrists from side to side to match the arc of the oar handle if I was going to prevent this movement. Since I don't seem to be doing that the oar handle moves a bit in my hand and this causes rubbing which can cause blisters. I understand the rolling of the oar to feather and square the blade and don't seem to have any rubbing problems with that.

Of course Ernie I have already tried racing and my first 5K was a disaster in 5K on a very windy lake. My next race is a 10 miler on Sept. 9. Be glade to race you OTW once I get the hang of it.

Frank

[sledgehammer]

Ahhh. I see! Another fine example of me failing to pay close enough attention.

For what it is worth, I have always found that the calluses eventually protect my hands from the inevitable friction. I don;t know many scullers who wear gloves for traditional races (1k - 6k). Perhaps it is more common in the ocean racing events.

Great to hear you are racing. The steering, wind, balance, waves, wakes makes erging feel straightforward, doesn't it?

[FrankJ]

Maybe LJWagner is not an expert in this matter. Perhaps most of us would consider anyone in an Olympic final qualified as an expert? Watch this video clip that Xeno has supplied of the Olympic singles final. There are enough close ups for you to see the wrist movement on some of the participants. After the finish they show a slow motion close up of Xeno. You can watch what he does.

http://homepage.mac.com/xenoralfmuller/ ... ater1.html

I found it particularly interesting that his hands recovered at such an apparent difference in speed. Perhaps the slow motion made it look more dramatic than it was?

Gus,

I tried watching the video but my copy of Quicktime complained about not finding some file it needed and all I get is sound but no video.

Frank

[LJWagner]

Yes, Gus, I am not an expert, as well you know.

But I have enjoyed the amateur rowing I have done, never with gloves, never with blisters. I do, or did, pullups and chinups. First thing I do is get my wrists straight as I hang on the bar. Otherwise I can feel the skin pull.

My father enjoyed ocean sculling for 15 years from age 65-80 twice a week, and also never wore gloves, never blistered. He got his hands plenty wet, and would row well over an hour on most occasions.

At his height, does Xeno have larger hands than most ? I am curious if the female scullers also favor this finger motion technique, or if it is more common with male scullers with larger hands.

Perhaps you might initiate a poll as to who feathers with fingers vs arm/wrist. I woudl be happy to learn of the correct technique. Lord knows mine is unchanged in 30 years.

Do you wear gloves ? How do you handle the sculls ?

I shared from my limited, and well-intended, knowledge where I thought I could be genuinely helpful. Please do the same. Not all of us can do things the same as an Olympian, or similar gifted athletes. Xeno is not exactly your average guy in size, strength, or ability.

[Bob S.]

Perhaps you might initiate a poll as to who feathers with fingers vs arm/wrist. I woudl be happy to learn of the correct technique. Lord knows mine is unchanged in 30 years.

That's an interesting item, LJ. My first feathering instruction was in 1942 and we were taught to feather the (sweep) oar by dropping the wrist of the outside (i.e. toward the blade) hand.

My initiation to sculling wasn't until 1989, at the Long Beach Rowing Association. The young woman conducting the class introduced us to the technique of keeping the wrists straight and rolling the handles with the fingers to feather. She implied that use of the wrists could lead to carpal tunnel syndrome problems. I was very surprised by all this and found it very awkward.

Shortly after that, I had the opportunity to visit Jim Lemmon, a former teammate and later the head coach at UCB. I knew that he had had some sculling experience in his high school days at Long Beach in the thirties. When I asked him about it, he said that he had never heard of the technique of using the fingers.

I continued to feather sweep oars with the outside wrist, but I eventually learned to feather sculls with my fingers. It doesn't seem so awkward now and I think that it is probably easier to do with the light modern oars than it would have been with the old wooden ones.

I have checked out feathering technique in a number of pictures of elite crews and have observed plenty of examples of each method, so it seems to me that either one is acceptable.

Bob S.

[becz]

Like most things in rowing, I think the amount of wrist rotation used for feathering an oar is dependent on who you learned your technique from, as Bob points out. If you go to Craftsbury sculling camp, they will spend the weekend telling you to use your fingers, as they spend a great deal of time focusing on what the hands are doing. If you go to another camp, they may very well not make much mention of it at all. As Bob also pointed out, if you spend time watching video of elite rowers, you will find all variations between these two extremes.

I use my fingers, and I think (just my opinion) that there are a number of reasons that make it "better" technique.

First, it makes more room for the down and away motion of the hands at the finish. If you feather with your wrist, and you have a boat with typical rigging, you can run of space between your hands and your hips.

Second, I think it allows for a smoother entry into the recovery, which makes it easier to increase the stroke rate when needed.

And last, and maybe most important, it encourages the rower to keep the hands relaxed. Feathering with the wrist requires a tighter grip on the oar, and you can end up with very tired forearms in the middle of a race.

[LJWagner]

Thank you very much for the info on finger use. Makes sense when vertical space is at a premium, such as low rigging, and big thighs. Never had big thighs, nor carpal tunnel.

Carpal tunnel is partially dependent on genetic and anatomic predisposition to those who overuse the wrist and grip, and from pressure applied on the bottom of a bent wrist, as at a desk. Typists and pianists even get it if they bend there wrists for long periods on a repetitive basis. The carpal tunnel is a passage for nerves and tendons through the wrist. Some folks have tight crevices, others have relatively roomy passages.

I never had a problem, while my twin brother had it very bad and required surgery to release the pressure in both his hands.

I can just imagine some lawyer taking sculling lessons just so he could induce CTS and sue someone for it.

[flan48]

I found a nice solution -"New Grip" gloves. These are not actually gloves, but more like pads. They allow an excellent grip on the erg handle which in turn allows for concentration on rowing, not hand discomfort. Furthermore, the top of the hand is open thus not enveloping the hand in heat and sweat. I'm very pleased with them.

http://www.newgrip.com/order.htm

Best regards

[Galt]

I used to get terrible blisters on the water. One of my teammates calls me Jack The Gripper.

I have had way fewer this year just because I have learned to lossen my grip.

I did get some blisters on one hand after 3 races at Des Moines this weekend. I have also occasionally been wrapping my inside hand with some rubbery medical tape that came home with my daughter from surgery.

It has worked fantastically. I don't know what the name of the stuff is but I am trying to find out. I will post the name if I learn it.

[Dillon]

I found a nice solution -"New Grip" gloves. These are not actually gloves, but more like pads. They allow an excellent grip on the erg handle which in turn allows for concentration on rowing, not hand discomfort. Furthermore, the top of the hand is open thus not enveloping the hand in heat and sweat. I'm very pleased with them.

http://www.newgrip.com/order.htm

Best regards

I've had success with these as well. I use them for long training rows but remove them for speed work and competition, as you do loose some "feel" with them.

A side affect of this approach is that, I seem to get help from the ingrained memory of the "gloves off - row hard" programming.
Binary logic seems to be all that I'm capable of, late in a race...