Trouble with torso movement. Video critique.

[jackarabit]

Well fellers, much as I enjoyed Mark's overtrained frog analogy, the sky, contrary to worried reports, will probably not fall again today and most ergers, neophyte and veteran, will survive the scholastic inventions of Angela Hart--in particular the static suspension of body weight off the rower seat. Charlotte Hollings and John Dunne use a similar position to give a feeling for, pound into hard heads, precondition the body to, the formation of the habit of DELAYING elbow flex and premature arm pulling until leg push is complete. Hollings' method of illustration is to have two of her OTW students stand facing, interlock the hooked fingers of both pairs of hands, bend their knees to cantilever body weight outboard of their respective centers of gravity, and lean back. Lots of muscular tension in legs, core, and arms. No rower seats, conceptual or actual, influence or distort the message.

Ms. Hart's inclusion of the erg seat in the fizzix of her illustration is an infelicitous choice to the degree that ergers MIGHT misinterpret her teaching as literally recommending a disconnection of bum from seat and choose to ignore her real message by adopting/maintaining/engraining an early arm pull. Dull scholars have the unfortunate ability to miss the message of good teachers. I don't remember Tim K. laying blame for his levitation problem at the feet of Ms. Hart's teaching methods. Did I miss that particular tree in this thicket of discussion?

[markinnb]

I nervously submit.Mark says " lol "
...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.

I'm glad that someone did it and reported the results. thanks !
yup. it produces an amazing amount of force , acceleration . the trunk swing hinging & leg drive timing is something!
0.1 second earlier for the back to engage makes a world of difference.
It's bringing in the back at a time when there MAY be a significant amount of force needed to be applied which, if waited for the legs to finish, would have been diminished- giving the back less of a load to bear.

I used to row like this way back when. . I had a strong back and legs and weak arms. I had a fairly decent 500 but a crappy 2000m
in truth, I rowed in almost every permutation of bad timing that possibly exists. The only thing I probably ever did right was sitting on the seat without falling off.
I have been influenced by some people on here and have gone back to re-edumacate myself. I want a good 2k but I don't want to risk injury to get it.
I have also read of the negative things that happen from such adv row . tech: strained ribs, injuries to the mid and lower back, Achilles injuries, wrist & elbow tendinitis, shoulders popping .
It always was due to bad form or bad form coupled with some adv technique such as earlier torso engagement, and/or arm pull.

I think that you ( G-dub )are a fairly well trained athlete ( in rowing at least and maybe mountain biking but I am not sure if that is you) with a strong back so even at high wattage output, it may not exceed your back/rib cage strength.

[markinnb]

Well fellers, much as I enjoyed Mark's overtrained frog analogy, the sky, contrary to worried reports, will probably not fall again today and most ergers, neophyte and veteran, will survive the scholastic inventions of Angela Hart--in particular the static suspension of body weight off the rower seat. Charlotte Hollings and John Dunne use a similar position to give a feeling for, pound into hard heads, precondition the body to, the formation of the habit of DELAYING elbow flex and premature arm pulling until leg push is complete. Hollings' method of illustration is to have two of her OTW students stand facing, interlock the hooked fingers of both pairs of hands, bend their knees to cantilever body weight outboard of their respective centers of gravity, and lean back. Lots of muscular tension in legs, core, and arms. No rower seats, conceptual or actual, influence or distort the message.

Ms. Hart's inclusion of the erg seat in the fizzix of her illustration is an infelicitous choice to the degree that ergers MIGHT misinterpret her teaching as literally recommending a disconnection of bum from seat and choose to ignore her real message by adopting/maintaining/engraining an early arm pull. Dull scholars have the unfortunate ability to miss the message of good teachers. I don't remember Tim K. laying blame for his levitation problem at the feet of Ms. Hart's teaching methods. Did I miss that particular tree in this thicket of discussion?

lol..

No ..tim didn't blame Ms. Hart.. nor did I say that he did or would.
Tim discovered that particular style of rowing on his own through an unplanned mis-timing in his torso involvement of which he was unaware.
But it gave him a good 500 m time iirc. or at least a good low pace power stroke.
Like some scientific discoveries, his was serendipitous.
I think that he said that his legs and biceps were really strong so it was a concern that his back involvement coming so early , along with his bicep pull , would lead to some problems. once he gets his back stronger, perhaps he will go back to it.

it is really effective as he discovered. But a person must be able to control it which he can't do at this stage of his rowing.
So he was a bit ahead of his time.

and no, not everyone who makes use of this style of rowing will injure themselves.
your hyperbolic comments aside, concerning my motives & meanings , the sky won't fall nor was it ever suggested that it would.
in a group of 100 rowers, a few will get hurt almost immediately, many more will get by with just a few aches and there will always be a few who excel at this style of rowing ( training or competition ) , feeling no ill effects of it whatsoever.

I would tend to believe that the normal distribution would apply to people who use it in their training. and no, not everyone gets every injury /ache and those that do get whatever injury may not get the injury to the same degree as everyone else.

these people in the final group will be used as exemplars of the benefits of this style of rowing to the masses. This is how it goes.

[markinnb]

Nick,

try to keep your elbows coming straight back, bringing them a bit behind your back a the finish.

Just like the Australian Olympian did during the stop & hold pose in the C2 training video
push your hands right away quick .. or do that curvy arc thingy.

that explosive kick: I want to see how many people can do this for the full 2k or if it empties the tank at around 500 m.

it would be encouraging to see those stroke pace numbers down at 1:10 or whatever for the first several strokes.

Is the goal for the cross fit rowing event a distance or a calories burned target? The guys rowing next to me were talking about burning 100 Calories. it may be different for the bigger competitions.

[G-dub]

Although I will experiment more with snappier arm pull and elbow travel because the affect on splits was very noticeable, my hunch is that it will not be as dramatic at faster paces since there is more engagement of the whole body already, but who knows. I also want to try it at UT2 paces to see what impact it has on HR over several minutes. The little experiment I did really made my normal pull seem pretty lethargic -almost along for the ride.

[Tim K.]

Someone pointed it out elsewhere but you want to reduce the amount of lift off the seat you get as much as possible. Some lift is an inevitable consequence of having your feel lower than the drive sprocket, however the closer your butt is to the fixed points the greater the mechanical advantage you have over your body weight and the "lighter" you will become in the seat for a given force. I was lifting off the seat because I was bring back and arms in way too soon (based on a couple of little tests I did on the weekend I think I may be capable of lifting off with legs only but that isnt for here). I solved the issue for now by adopting "more" proper form (will have it evaluated in the near future) and as a result force is spread out over entire stroke instead of all being applied at the point where I had the most mechanical advantage over lifting myself. I didnt know who she was until a day or so ago and wasnt impressed with her explanations so no thoughts of "being ahead of my time" here. I just had an issue and asked everyone about it. Thanks again for all those who helped!

Jackarabit, I almost pissed myself laughing. I had to look up "infelicitous"

[hjs]

Pound for pound proberly the best erger ever. Shows that erging is very much fitness and certainly not an "optimal" technique. Digging deep like he does, look how relative fresh he still is at the finish.
What I do see, short strokes, both at the catch and at the end, lots of back movement, early usebof the arms and certainly no last snap of the arms. The legs, back and rapid change of direction (superbe fitness) bring the energy.

[G-dub]

What a machine. I do think his hands are faster than the guy next to him which helps the turnover, no?

[hjs]

What a machine. I do think his hands are faster than the guy next to him which helps the turnover, no?

He is a freak of nature, notorious for his rating. Those other guys are no also fast, but If I am not mistaken he is unbeaten on the 2k, nobody comes close, only an italian guy pulled a low 6, but that was in the haydaysbof epo use, which was very wide spread over there.

[G-dub]

I was going to say "I do think his hands are faster than the next guy, AS WELL AS EVERYTHING ELSE!"

[Tim K.]

Pound for pound proberly the best erger ever. Shows that erging is very much fitness and certainly not an "optimal" technique. Digging deep like he does, look how relative fresh he still is at the finish.
What I do see, short strokes, both at the catch and at the end, lots of back movement, early usebof the arms and certainly no last snap of the arms. The legs, back and rapid change of direction (superbe fitness) bring the energy.

Quoted for truth, but wanted to add a little. These are all out feats of strength and endurance. Who ever gets there first wins. Period. Good form has no place here, only power development.

Could you imaging that form and level of effort in a boat? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DKvpgaf9wQ

[BermyNick]

Thanks all. There is a lot of discussion about hands. I got the side shot video that folks said I should. The video is taken at the last set of a 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 minute ladder with the last set being the highest spm and lowest split of a progression. 32spm and 1:34/500m split. [VIDEO: https://youtu.be/fQY9mzCdLpc]

I notice my hands are doing the "mantis" and I am gripping the handle quite tight. I see that quite a bit though when I look at top folks on Youtube such a the USMNT. Pretty much all of them "roll their hands under". [VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwqd13jS5FY]

I also watched some top performances from last year's crash B's (Fournier and Bach) and their wrists were much flatter. [VIDEO: BACH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QygNkyToQE]

I'll have to focus on finishing with upper back rather than biceps, I think, in order to flattern forearms.

[jackarabit]

Thanks Nick. Alissa was correct about the importance of camera perspective. Jack

[Bob S.]

What a machine. I do think his hands are faster than the guy next to him which helps the turnover, no?

There is also just a bit of mantis wrist showing there. What didn't show was that there was probably a guy in the front of the erg with his foot against the base of it to keep it from jumping. That rower is not only the one LWT that has gone sub-6, but he also uses a lot of additional energy converting an erg to a grasshopper. Note that he is primarily an OTW rower.

Note added in edit: His stroke rate is nudging 40 overall and is above at times.

[Galeere]

What a machine. I do think his hands are faster than the guy next to him which helps the turnover, no?

There is also just a bit of mantis wrist showing there. What didn't show was that there was probably a guy in the front of the erg with his foot against the base of it to keep it from jumping. That rower is not only the one LWT that has gone sub-6, but he also uses a lot of additional energy converting an erg to a grasshopper. Note that he is primarily an OTW rower.

Note added in edit: His stroke rate is nudging 40 overall and is above at times.

Too bad that nature made him small. Imagine him as a HWT at 6 foot 6''