Trouble with torso movement. Video critique.

[G-dub]

Mark, once upon a time someone mentioned that the woman on the video was an Olympian. I suppose there is always something to work on.

[markinnb]

Mark, once upon a time someone mentioned that the woman on the video was an Olympian. I suppose there is always something to work on.

Quite possible. She looks like she could get some power from her stroke- pushing swaying and pulling .

the small 'error' in rowing is more than made up for by her other more impressive parts of her stroke. she seems to be ideally built for rowing- long limbs, good thigh muscles, long lower legs, shoulder structure suitable for tight rowing, good flexibility ankles and hips.

in the stop motion parts of the stroke, she maintains the prescribed form: her "lean into " stays firm while she drives back with her legs . and she brings her elbows back a bit more than when she is doing. and her elbows appear to be more ' in' than wide or out.

I thought that her highish arm pull at the end of the stroke was a possible throwback from OTW rowing.

I dont' have much experience with that but I often see the opposite issue with the indoor rowers: they pull too low, after doing a roller coaster with the handle cable

in this, a lot of what happens must be a compromise . Maybe, due to some inefficiency in our own design, we can't keep our elbows in a direct line backwards to maximize the force applied. So we accept that our elbows are going to move out 5-10 degrees and we compensate by pulling harder, or trying to push harder with our legs, or somehow get the other aspects of our stroke better. With this, we must accept whatever negative consequences arise from these things, if there are any.

nick's elbows could possibly be moving more outward than what is desired, as Jack mentioned ( I think ). if this reduces efficiency than a more direct line backwards, then it could be something to work on to improve.

a person with such a problem would have to go back to day 1 and then re-learn how to row with the elbows driven straight back or with a reduced outward splay. this would lead to a reduction in power until they could get the stroke done in this manner.

if a person were to try to fix that problem now, a few weeks before the event, then he/she may want to see an increase in efficiency right away in order to justify the effort.

[Bob S.]

The one thing that really strikes me in that video is that she does not keep "her hands on the table." In particular there is a large dip after her hands pass her knees, then she brings her hands up again before the catch. Xeno Mueller, a gold medal Olympic sculler, does the same thing in a stop motion video and there is another video of elite rower, Angela Hart, doing the same thing. That video is of her teaching a class of Crossfit instructors and in it she is also using a mantic wrist. On the water, I am sure that none of them has that post knee dip. The mantis wrist is not an issue - the combination of feathering and moving through the arc(s) of the oar handle(s) makes OTW rowing very different from the simple straight pull on an erg handle.

With regard to grip, none is needed. The fingers are just hooks. The thumb does very little and can be on top of the handle if you are flexible enough.

[markinnb]

ok. now this is making more sense.

the elbow drifting outward away- from -your- body issue may be from otw rowing ( if done purposefully or through habit ) as well as a misapplication of technique.
Same thing with the wrist roll up and or wrist drop
In OTW rowing, there is a wrist roll up ( mantis wrist ) which is considered an issue to be corrected as it happens at a time where there is a large force being applied through . so there is a chance for injury acute / chronic.
the wrist roll down was used in OTW rowing for feathering the oars, which didn't lead to much problem as there wasn't a huge load at that time. ( oars being out of the water ).
it was then suggested in the 50-60's or whenever to do the finger roll so as not to get carpal tunnel or whatever else. Some people continued with the wrist drop as they never had any incidence of injury . Others did adopt the finger roll & giving up the wrist drop because they were getting some issues from the latter.
http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10919
Thanks for that Bob.

[markinnb]

Angela Hart: that's quite a video.

It appears that much of what she suggests are merely ways to maximize your efforts to reduce your time- they are not proper rowing techniques.
They are 'hacks' that get past the inherent relative safety of rowing.
She by-passes the safeguards.
She appears to be a well trained athlete so perhaps she can handle the added stress.
the problem may be that unskilled rowers adopt these things and inevitably injure themselves.
It is then possible that some of these people put the blame squarely on the C2.
They row in a manner that is the contrary to the style endorsed by concept 2.

[Bob S.]

Angela Hart: that's quite a video.

It appears that much of what she suggests are merely ways to maximize your efforts to reduce your time- they are not proper rowing techniques.
They are 'hacks' that get past the inherent relative safety of rowing.
She by-passes the safeguards.
She appears to be a well trained athlete so perhaps she can handle the added stress.
the problem may be that unskilled rowers adopt these things and inevitably injure themselves.
It is then possible that some of these people put the blame squarely on the C2.
They row in a manner that is the contrary to the style endorsed by concept 2.

I don't see that in the video, just the mantis wrist and I have a hunch that she is not aware of it. It caught my eye in particular because I have that problem and was not aware of it until I saw it in a photo. A friend took the shot in the middle of a 2k competition. I was quite shocked when I saw it, so I was sort of pleased to see that I was not the only one. The drop of hands after they pass the knees on the erg is quite common, surprisingly, especially amongt rowers who are primarily OTW rowers. I would think that it would screw up their OTW technique. Low hands on the recovery result in oar blades too high off the water. Coaches jump all over that; it is called "skying" the oars. I can't see that it as a problem on an erg - perhaps a tiny bit of wasted work, but certainly nothing damaging to the body - just to ones PTW technique.

One thing I like about that video is that she carefully shows the little curling motion of the hands, downward at the end of the drive and back up again going into the catch. It mimics the required movement in a boat, getting the oar(s) in and out of the water, just as the instructor pointed out. However, I am convinced that it helps on the erg as well, in that it allows the erger to change the direction of the hand movement without stopping your hands. In between those curling movements the hands should stay "on the table," i.e. in one of the 2 horizontal planes (for drive and recovery). In a boat it means that the blades keep the proper depth on the drive and clearance on the recovery. On an erg, it just means not wasting a little bit of energy on unnecessary up and down movement of the hands. Probably not enough to really matter.

[markinnb]

I remember a thread about this skying / dropping of the hands. it was probably you or jack or jamesg talking about it.

mantis :

I don't know where I read this or saw it ( not in any of the 3 AH vids I watched ) yet I do remember a technique in which the rower does the mantis at the catch, then quickly snaps down to get more of a bite on the catch. it seems to subvert the proper C2 recommended rowing technique.
the person must decide if the risk is worth the benefit.

[markinnb]

I don't see that in the video,

oh sorry, I was talking about the Angela Hart videos and the things that Hart does. Not the rower in the C2AUS video. I should have been more clear on that


Hart's recommendations are not C2 approved - they are hacks that may or may not pan out for the rower.
This is the first day that I have ever used that word " hacks" in this context.

[Bob S.]

I don't see that in the video,

oh sorry, I was talking about the Angela Hart videos and the things that Hart does. Not the rower in the C2AUS video. I should have been more clear on that


Hart's recommendations are not C2 approved - they are hacks that may or may not pan out for the rower.
This is the first day that I have ever used that word " hacks" in this context.

I did mean the Angela Hart video, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOPQbP8hFmY However, I can't figure out what recommendations you felt were possibly hazardous. I haven't checked out the other videos of her Crossfit classes. In general, I am skeptical of Crossfit as promoting potential dangerous activities, but in this case it seemed to me that they were on the right track. What are the safeguards that you referred too?

Re the mantis wrist: That was not a recommendation by her, it was an observation. As I said, I have a hunch that she was not aware it.

[markinnb]

the hand flick up at the catch: I had read it / saw it somewhere else. perhaps not even here. it was suggested that to get even more out of your stroke, you raise you hand at the catch then snap it down in order to get more force on the flywheel.
I wrote that this recommendation was NOT in any of angela harts videos. It wasn't my intention to suggest that Angela Hart recommended this.

[Bob S.]

the hand flick up at the catch: I had read it / saw it somewhere else. perhaps not even here. it was suggested that to get even more out of your stroke, you raise you hand at the catch then snap it down in order to get more force on the flywheel.
I wrote that this recommendation was NOT in any of angela harts videos. It wasn't my intention to suggest that Angela Hart recommended this.

But this is what I read in your post:

oh sorry, I was talking about the Angela Hart videos and the things that Hart does. Not the rower in the C2AUS video. I should have been more clear on that
Hart's recommendations are not C2 approved - they are hacks that may or may not pan out for the rower.

It looks like a clear contradiction between these 2 posts - unless I am missing something. Please don't think that I am trying to start an argument. I am confused and would like to resolve that confusion.

I haven't heard about a hand flick up and snapping it down. On the water, feathering the oar was done in the old days (i.e. when I learned sweep rowing in the 1940s) by dropping the wrist of the feathering hand at the finish and dropping the hand back down at the next catch. Many years later, I had my first sculling lesson (1980s) and was told that it was a no-no that led to possible carpal tunnel syndrome. One was supposed to feather the oars by rolling them out with the fingers. It was not easy for this old f**t to make that kind of change, but I made an attempt at it - at least while sculling. For sweep rowing I didn't even try to change. Since then I have checked out a number of sources and found out that old time scullers used the wrist drop method and, judging from recent videos, a lot of scullers still do. It may well bring on carpal tunnel syndrome for some people, but I haven't personally heard of it.

The one real problem that I have heard about is a result of the asymmetry of sweep rowing. Most sweep rowers learn to row on just one side and stay with it for their entire sweep rowing career. I asked a physical therapist about this. She rows a single sculls nowadays, but was a sweep rower in college and still does some masters races. She told me that she did, indeed, have issues with that and had to resort to her professional expertise as a physical therapist to deal with them. Obviously no problem for indoor rowing which is strictly symmetrical if done properly. Sculling has a little asymmetry to it because of the crossover, but that is far less severe that the sweep movement.

Bob S.

[markinnb]

I'd never assume that you were starting anything Bob. you merely want clarification and I am often quite confused myself, which leads to confusion.

1. the hand flick thing then strike down has NOTHING to do with angela hart or the C2 athlete in the technique video.

2. just as with Nick, it could quite likely be that Angela Hart is unaware that she adopts this mantis hand thing. her hand droops from her wrist sort of thing. I don't remember if her elbows are going straight back or if she recommends soft grip or 'finger hooks". I don't remember if she rec that you keep your hand and forearm aligned level- not breaking your wrist. she may have said these things. she didn't do them though. so she didnt' recommend them. people do what they see . I don't know if she recommended that you don't let your shoulders fall forward at the catch. But it should have been mentioned- especially since she recommends this launching style leg push. It would take some practice in order to teach yourself how to do this power launch while keeping a finger hook grip. or even a loose grip. and to keep your shoulders back , not letting them fall forward.

I disagree with the intensity or degree to which she has applied the techniques. I realize that the video appears to be directed at advanced rowers who have a lot of time/ energy expended in learning the proper technique and highly skilled in their application and whose musculature can handle that amount of power being generated without injury.

it appears to me that it is quite likely that the idea that this 'launching yourself down the rail with the push " ( as an example ) may be taken up by complete novices or if not novices, then people whose body may not be able to handle the higher intensity of what she recommends. There is a guy who is reading this right now who has a thread about launching himself off of his seat. He hopefully is aware that it was something he was not ready for but it may lead him to believe that he was simply 'ahead of his time" . Tim, develop the proper technique and then you can hit this in a few months or whenever you are ready.

her teaching is set on the premise that the people already know good rowing technique, timing and have the nec muscle to withstand that sort of thing.

what she is rec may end up causing injury to the rib cage muscles , the muscle running up the length of your spine, hurt your shoulder complex as well as the lower back.
that launching also requires that at the catch, you hang on for dear life to the handle .
that's fine but it comes at a cost and doesn't appear to be part of the C2 rowing tutorial.


if a person can do this, then all the best to them. if they can it continually then more power to them.

I've sat next to crossfit rowers who appear to destroy the ergs and hit decent numbers but when I see them 7 months later, these guys/girls always seem to have some injury that ' came out of nowhere.. I don't know what happened.."

they weren't ready for that style of training. they failed to appreciate that the suggestions were meant for adv ath but in their excitement , they used it themselves.

of course, I probably completely misunderstood her video, in which case, I'm wrong.

[Bob S.]

Thanks for supplying the details. Now I know what look for. I hadn't really regarded it as a technique video, but it seems that Crossfit intended to use it that way. My impression was that it was taken of her teaching one of her classes for Crossfit instructors. However, Crossfit and C2 seem to be in accord:

http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/crossfit

I don't believe that the members of the class were necessarily advanced rowers, but rather those who have been with Crossfit long enough to qualify for taking their instructor classes. However, if they are picking up potentially hazardous techniques from the class, they will be passing those on to beginners, so, yes it is a concern.

[G-dub]

I nervously submit....I noticed this morning on a UT2 type row that if I keep leg drive and back unhinge the same and then snap the arm pull in at the end, really getting my elbows back, that the pace accelerates amazingly, like 4 to 8 seconds per 500. Not sure how sustainable it would be but it made me wonder what the right speed is for the arm pull once legs and back are finished. A snappier pull really changed the feel (which I didn't like) and pace. My HR seemed to not be bothered by it, at least in the short term.

[Tim K.]

^^^^^Exactly what you have describes is one of the reasons why I would like to see a force X Stroke length graph as a report in a third party software.