How to Use the Legs?

[Leanora]

Hi everyone, I'm a total noob here, I just got my C2 in December so fairly sure I'm making some beginner mistakes. I have been practicing with the Dark Horse Rowing YouTube videos so for the most part I think all is going ok, but I don't seem to be using my quads at all, just gripping my glutes! At the end of my row, I feel some hamstring tightness, a little in my traps, but my butt is super sore, like in the piriformis area. Now, I don't really do much with my butt during my day other than sit on it, so it could just be really weak, but I'm thinking it's more likely I'm squeezing it more than I need to. Is that a common beginner mistake? I'm short, 5'2", and my feet are kind of loose in my foot straps so I wonder if I'm compensating for a short drive & slippery pushing surface by squeezing my butt? The rest of my muscles feel decently worked afterwards, I can get my heart rate up...I don't know what kind of data you need to consider but I'm doing about 24 s/m avg, and about a 2:42-2:45 for my 500m.

Also this is literally my first post to any forum in my life so please let me know if I should have posted someplace else!!

[max_ratcliffe]

Hi everyone, I'm a total noob here, I just got my C2 in December so fairly sure I'm making some beginner mistakes. I have been practicing with the Dark Horse Rowing YouTube videos so for the most part I think all is going ok, but I don't seem to be using my quads at all, just gripping my glutes! At the end of my row, I feel some hamstring tightness, a little in my traps, but my butt is super sore, like in the piriformis area. Now, I don't really do much with my butt during my day other than sit on it, so it could just be really weak, but I'm thinking it's more likely I'm squeezing it more than I need to. Is that a common beginner mistake? I'm short, 5'2", and my feet are kind of loose in my foot straps so I wonder if I'm compensating for a short drive & slippery pushing surface by squeezing my butt? The rest of my muscles feel decently worked afterwards, I can get my heart rate up...I don't know what kind of data you need to consider but I'm doing about 24 s/m avg, and about a 2:42-2:45 for my 500m.

Also this is literally my first post to any forum in my life so please let me know if I should have posted someplace else!!

Hi Leonora, welcome to the forum. This is totally the correct place to post.

Your quads should be doing the majority of the work so there probably is something a bit wrong. The best way for us to diagnose anything is for you to post a video of course (I've never done so, so who am I to preach?!?).

My best guess is that you are shooting the slide, so that you are not putting work into the handle as you extend your legs - you are just pushing the seat back. Then your glutes have to work extra hard, from a weaker fully extended position to compensate.

Make sure that for every inch of the start of your drive you are moving the handle an inch too. A very good trick that Stu (dangerscouse) has suggested is to alternate legs so you push say 80% with your right leg on one stroke, then 80% left leg the next stroke and so on. That should help you feel your quads more.

[jamesg]

I don't seem to be using my quads at all,

Our quads are strong since we can climb stairs with just one leg at a time; but climbing 4-5 flights can have some interesting effects. Legs don't feel much unless we use them a lot. This is just what rowing requires. The main effect will be CV: HR goes up, controlled via rating; 20 strokes per minute are enough to start with, if the stroke is a good one.

Rowing technique as seen in the last 100 years or so is designed to use the slide, so that the legs can indeed do most of the hard work needed to shift a boat or spin a flywheel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ82RYIFLN8

Following the action sequences in this video will engage them and allow best use of the slide, without overloading other muscle groups. A first test can be single stroke: from half slide, use the legs as hard as possible. Let the flywheel slow down, repeat.

[Dangerscouse]

Welcome to the forum. As Max has mentioned, I found a great way of checking leg use was to alternate the leg emphasis. You will definitely feel that you're using your legs using this strategy, and you build a mind muscle connection as you ingrain the motion and effort into the drive.

Broadly speaking you are trying to use the lower body to start, with some upper body, then transition into the upper body with some lower body. Keep the transition in your mind when you're rowing.

Your butt may also be aching because of your physiology. I don't have an issue with sitting on a rower for a few hours but the vast majority of people do suffer and I've heard quite a few people say that it starts after 15-20 mins.

The other possible issue is that your core muscles are too weak, so your butt is taking the load. If your job, and lifestyle, is quite sedentary, you will really benefit from focusing on strengthening your core and your butt. Both are essential in protecting your lower back and are required in rowing. Pilates type exercises are ideal eg plank variations, squats, lunges etc

[Tony Cook]

Not going to repeat the good advice already given but it depends on your previous activity and so relative strength and strength endurance around your body. Glutes are certainly rowing muscles, ‘recruit the glutes’ is a stock rowing coach phrase. It may be that you have much stronger quads than glutes and so you are feeling it in the weaker places. With time the strength will balance out.

[mitchel674]

Welcome!

As others have said, a short video of you rowing from the side could be very helpful. Best to do this early to address anything that could become a bad habit.

Have you ever tried rowing strapless? I find this a good tool to use to periodically check my stroke. If your sequence is off, strapless rowing will tell you. Just be careful not to fall off the end of the rower!

[Dangerscouse]

Have you ever tried rowing strapless? I find this a good tool to use to periodically check my stroke. If your sequence is off, strapless rowing will tell you. Just be careful not to fall off the end of the rower!

Good point. I do most of my rowing strapless, but it does take a bit of getting used to as you can naturally use the straps as brakes.

When you get your centre of gravity sorted out, engage your core and plant your feet you will be fine. Until then falling off the back of the rower is a very real concern.

[jackarabit]

Obviously the muscles of the posterior chain, including glutes, must contract (flex) on drive. During contracture, the locations of sitz bone protuberances change relative to glute tissue which produces muscle soreness. The only remedies are acclimating the muscle to this mechanical kneading action (lots more rowing) and sitzbone relief holes or depressions in rowing seats. (Concept 2 rower seats are NOT of this classic design for reasons about which I will not speculate here.).

Your choice of word “gripping” for glute contracture suggests to me not so much a constant loading of the muscle during the core rockover TO finish as it does an intentional clenching of the glutei AT finish. I have short legs and recall adding this accent to the finish for a few months during my own ‘break in’ on the rower. I can only speculate that I was straining for additional range of motion (drive length) by reducing the angle between pelvis and femurs. I certainly wasn’t doing so based on a conscious analysis of stroke optimization so could have been just a reaction to the soreness/discomfort/burning sensation in glutes? I eventually stopped doing this don’t recall how or when? These teething pains will pass and you will be just another seasoned ironbottom. Well maybe not 12 hour-capable like Stu but certainly not so sore as to notice for an hour or a M/2.

[. . . and rowing strapless, as stated above, cures everything but freckles, so you should go that route!]

[Tsnor]

Welcome!

As others have said, a short video of you rowing from the side could be very helpful. Best to do this early to address anything that could become a bad habit.

Have you ever tried rowing strapless? I find this a good tool to use to periodically check my stroke. If your sequence is off, strapless rowing will tell you. Just be careful not to fall off the end of the rower!

You likely already know that Rowing strapless means don't strap your feet into the foot stretchers. Instead just put your feet where you normally put them but don't strap in. Be careful on your first stroke, it will feel strange. Then you get used to it.

[hjs]

Hi everyone, I'm a total noob here, I just got my C2 in December so fairly sure I'm making some beginner mistakes. I have been practicing with the Dark Horse Rowing YouTube videos so for the most part I think all is going ok, but I don't seem to be using my quads at all, just gripping my glutes! At the end of my row, I feel some hamstring tightness, a little in my traps, but my butt is super sore, like in the piriformis area. Now, I don't really do much with my butt during my day other than sit on it, so it could just be really weak, but I'm thinking it's more likely I'm squeezing it more than I need to. Is that a common beginner mistake? I'm short, 5'2", and my feet are kind of loose in my foot straps so I wonder if I'm compensating for a short drive & slippery pushing surface by squeezing my butt? The rest of my muscles feel decently worked afterwards, I can get my heart rate up...I don't know what kind of data you need to consider but I'm doing about 24 s/m avg, and about a 2:42-2:45 for my 500m.

Also this is literally my first post to any forum in my life so please let me know if I should have posted someplace else!!

Re Butt, that is bloodflowrestriction, the sitting on the glutes will cause this, some people don’t have it, others a lot. Using a soft pad can help. Not sitting still, but using a good rock over back and forth can help. Its not the muscles working hard..... for that you really need to row hard and fully extend the stroke.
Re legs, at the end of the stroke, fully extend the legs, and lean back a bit. Do this first without holding the handle and feel the sqeeuze.
Also, rowing at 2.45 rate 24 is not so fast, so don’t expect to feel so much. To really feel the motion pace should be a lot higher. Rowing is an endurance sport, not a power sport.

[G-dub]

Try sitting closer to the front of the seat and see if that reduces butt soreness.

Also, lower the fan setting all the way down and practice quick and snappy leg drive with no drag.

[faach1]

Try sitting closer to the front of the seat and see if that reduces butt soreness.

Also, lower the fan setting all the way down and practice quick and snappy leg drive with no drag.

I totally agree with this, likewise with what has been said previously.

[G-dub]

Another thought on legs:
I practiced a little with holding an exercise band wrapped around the structure that holds the PM instead of using the handle. I would practice pushing off and holding arm extension and back angle. Just little pushes away to get the feeling of initiating with legs

[woodsy5]

On a similar note, I also don’t feel like my quads are ‘engaged’ as much as they should be during a row. To describe the feeling, it feels as much as a try to push off the pads-I use straps-its like
the position of my feet isn’t akin to maximising the push off... I try to push off, but it doesn’t seem effective. Does that make sense?

[Dangerscouse]

On a similar note, I also don’t feel like my quads are ‘engaged’ as much as they should be during a row. To describe the feeling, it feels as much as a try to push off the pads-I use straps-its like
the position of my feet isn’t akin to maximising the push off... I try to push off, but it doesn’t seem effective. Does that make sense?

I'm not sure that I understand, but I wonder if you're 'shooting the slide' so your legs are disengaged by the time you're taking the strain.

Henry (HJS) says to imagine jumping horizontally, which is an ideal way of describing the feeling. It's a jump away from the flywheel rather than primarily a pull with your arms and back.