Rowing technique review

[AndyNewland]

Hi all,

I would appreciate if any of you knowledgeable people would spend some time to review my rowing technique. Any tips to speed me up would be much appreciated.

There is a short video below. I was mid way through a 40min workout and, on a whim, got my wife to film it. At the start I am doing SR20 and then I increase to roughly 2k pace as I wanted to see if there was any difference.

I'm 182cm and 85kg. I've never rowed on the water or had any ERG coaching. The little I do know has been learnt through YouTube.

Thanks in advance

Andy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx7DTVMASpo

[Tony Cook]

Those with more knowledge than I will be along later but my assessment is it looks pretty good.
Slight over compression at the catch - you go past vertical to full knee flex;
don’t ‘cock’ your wrists at the end of the stroke; and
slightly delay the knee bend on the recovery, but only slightly. Think if you had an oar in your hands you would be hitting your knees.

[max_ratcliffe]

I'm no expert but it looks pretty decent to me. Perhaps you would benefit from slightly lower feet, which might give you a slightly flatter lower back.

I agree with Tony that you could get your hands away a little quicker but I don't think that will make much of any difference on the erg.

[Steff]

Hi Andy,

You're doing quite well for learning by watching.

I agree with Tony and Max that when you start the recovery of the stroke, you can hold the knees down (a lot) longer and only let them come up to the chest when your hands are past the knees and your body has rocked over so your shoulders are in front of the hips. This is a hard sequence to get and it feels really awkward at first.

The other thing you could practice is to hold the core muscles firm at the catch - when you first take the stroke by pushing on the foot stretcher, the chain should be quite tight so the handle, your body and your butt all move away from the foot stretcher at the same pace - at the moment I think I see your butt moving away first and the chain is loose, then your body moves and takes up the slack in the chain - the stroke is a third done and you appear to have imparted little effective work - it all should feel quite firm and like you are squeezing your legs away from the foot stretcher and hanging off the handle.

[btlifter]

Nobody has ever accused me of having wonderful technique. So, please have your grain if salt ready . . .

- I'd echo others' overall opinion: it looks solid.
- The start of your drive could be smoother. Particularly with your low rate at the beginning, it seemed rather jerky.

[Milkfloat]

I think it is fair to say you are doing better than the lady in the background.

[AncientMariner]

Echoing what the others have said, I would focus on the recovery first and how to prepare to be connected at the catch.

At the finish, you want to get your hands away more quickly, and rock over on your hips with your torso into your forward position and then break the knees and begin moving forward once your hands have cleared in your forward upright position. When you focus on it, it will probably start off somewhat mechanical feeling, which you can work on blending into a smooth flow over time.

Getting into the proper position in the recovery will help you prepare for the catch. What I'm really noticing at the catch is that you are engaging too much with your arms and shoulders, rather than hanging off the handle with arms extended and shoulders loose. This also contributes to that slippage at the start.

This video covers how to have proper connection at the catch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLyOyWls9_Y

[jackarabit]

Looking for someone to agree with ll. Going with A.Mariner—>elbow flex, active shoulder engagement, hip opening all happening too early. Arms should be static tierod to handle until the legs extend. Least that’s the floaty boaty sequential stroke. Maybe the all-in concurrent stroke works well enuf on erg?

I never see anyone mention that matching blade speed to passing water or handle speed to spinning flywheel is more easily practised/accomplished at low stroke rate in a beamy tub with not much run or on an erg with quickly-decaying flywheel velocity. If you have trouble taking up chain slack with leg extension only @ 20spm, try kicking up the df 15-20 points. Might train out that elbow jerk drive train engagement. This is an exercise to increase proprioception and encourage an alternative biomechanical sequence. When you can name that tune, dial the df back down to see if you can use the same muscle enlistment sequence to attack the slack and catch before all the chain runs out the hawsepipe.

[AndyNewland]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

This morning I did 45 mins at SR20 and tried to focus on the points made. The main change I made was to extend my arms back over my knees quicker as suggested by a few people. This made quite a difference to the entire sequence! It's not easy to explain but I'll try......

I found that this encouraged me to also bring my back forward much earlier. Effectively this meant that my arms and back are in the catch position much earlier in the recovery phase. Previously because I was waiting longer to bring my hands forward my back was coming forward much later. I think this led to me going slightly past vertical with the legs as my back is still moving forward into the catch and this momentum was taking my legs past where they should be. It also made pushing off with my legs more difficult. I think this caused the slack at the start of the catch that is clear on the video.

By bringing my hands forward quickly and then my back into the catch position I felt much more like I was a "coiled spring" at the catch position and could simply push with my legs when I felt some resistance building up. I felt like this was earlier than I was previously starting the drive.

This also meant I changed my breathing (I take 2 breaths per stroke). In the video I am breathing on the catch and right at the end of the stroke. When I bring my hands forward quicker I was breathing on the catch and then only when my hands and back were in the correct position. In essence I start the recovery only after my hands are in front of my legs.

All of this actually felt like it made quite a difference. This was bourn out by my HR monitor as it stayed lower for longer.

Hope that makes some sense. When I'm at the gym with the wife I'll try to get another video. Now I just need to try and ingrain this stroke. I have a feeling at faster rates and when I get tired I will slip into my old stroke.

Thanks again,

Andy

[Tony Cook]

…
This also meant I changed my breathing (I take 2 breaths per stroke). In the video I am breathing on the catch and right at the end of the stroke. When I bring my hands forward quicker I was breathing on the catch and then only when my hands and back were in the correct position. In essence I start the recovery only after my hands are in front of my legs.

All of this actually felt like it made quite a difference. This was bourn out by my HR monitor as it stayed lower for longer.

Hope that makes some sense. When I'm at the gym with the wife I'll try to get another video. Now I just need to try and ingrain this stroke. I have a feeling at faster rates and when I get tired I will slip into my old stroke.

Thanks again,

Andy

Breathing is a whole other chapter!
One breath or two per stroke?
In on the catch and out on the recovery or vice versa?
If two breaths when in and out?
I’ve tried various methods for many sessions and ended up just breathing and not thinking about it. When I try a particular breathing pattern I end up feeling like I am suffocating or hyper ventilating, so just let nature take its course.

[Dangerscouse]

Breathing is a whole other chapter!
One breath or two per stroke?
In on the catch and out on the recovery or vice versa?
If two breaths when in and out?
I’ve tried various methods for many sessions and ended up just breathing and not thinking about it. When I try a particular breathing pattern I end up feeling like I am suffocating or hyper ventilating, so just let nature take its course.

Totally agree. Breathing is all too often ignored aspect of rowing, but at leastly partly due to the compression of your diaphragm compared to most other sports, it does play a role.

I have also found that you just naturally find your own breathing sequence and it's not something I'd suggest that there is a right or wrong way to do it. I also wonder how much of it is due to your body adapting to the presence of CO2, as you allude to, there is an innate reaction to panic when you can't breathe and expel CO2, but it is clearly something that is trainable. Just look at pearl divers.