On learning to scull

[Gus]

The only power boats we have on our lake are coaches launches. If you are out at the same time as a group or boat being coached, you can use the launches wake for wake practice. I was behind a launch one time and ended up crossing the wake as I caught up. For a while I was rowing on top of the wake which caused me to snake back and forth as I crossed it on the stroke and fell behind it on the recovery. Rather than stopping to avoid it, you could just keep using it for a prettty good practice for learning how to handle less than idle conditions.

Depending on your water and whether you mind going for a swim fairly often, you could also practice seeing how far you can push yourself off set and still recover. Try to emulate getting pushed over by a wake and then try to recover. Yes, you'll end up in the water a lot, but you will start to learn what controlled reactions will help and which one's just add to the problem.

[LJWagner]

Once rowing in Ballona Creek in Marina Del Rey, I nearly went over with a crab while rowing all out. The Creek is supposedly heavily polluted, and at times gets storm sewer runoff, and I knew it. Somehow, I let go both oars and grapped the edges of the splash boards. My momentum put me down nearly on my back, but it did not go over despite rocking pretty far to starboard. I managed to get the oars back and continue.

It is possible to stay up, as has been mentioned. Some folks will pop in the water rather than roll. When going over, continuing to pull the high oar may be what finishes you off. So finishing early and getting your hands back together and down will give you a shot at staying afloat.

If good water, and not too cold, enjoy the dunk.

Try splitting your hands a bit far, and pulling the blades some, you'll find you nearly put yourself in. If you know how you force yourself in, you know more about how to stay up.

[davidn]

Wow, as the originator of this thread I’m surprised that it’s gotten this much traction.

In any case, I just wanted to give an update on my progress. Haven't fallen out in a while and I'm not really that worried about it anymore, which probably helps me not to fall out. I don’t make the beginner mistakes of letting go of the oars and I’ve found that if I’m more assertive with getting the oar out of the water at the end of the drive, it’s less likely that something will go wrong with them and cause me to tip.

After some coaching last weekend, I think I'm holding onto the oars better now. There is a way to hold onto them so that they are cupped at the end of the knuckle during the drive and not so much under the palm. The coach held up an oar and had me pull against that as if I were going to do a pull-up and said that’s the way it should be held. I also found that when it was held like that, my wrist wasn’t bending so much on the drive, and was flatter, which I think is desirable. I think that bending of the wrist can lead to tendonitis.

Have moved up to more of a racing boat recently from a Maas 24 trainer, which makes all the difference. You can really feel the thing take off, so its much more fun for all that work.

[Byron Drachman]

I've always thought there should be a section for on-the-water questions that wouldn't interest people who row indoors only. I'll try asking my question here:

A rower at out local club once mentioned to me that you should have the distance between puddles at least as long as the boat when you're doing steady state rowing. So that would be about 9 meters or so per stroke. Let's round up to 10 meters per stroke. It's a little hard to judge just by looking at the puddles, but if I look at my Garmin GPS, I can establish a ratio and rhythm so I'm going 10 meters per stroke. Is this something recommended by coaches? So the question is essentially this: Is 10MPS also recommended for OTW? I'm assuming a typical single shell and good conditions.

Byron

[Ray79]

I have been told the same thing Byron, that you should get a boat length between your 2 puddles. I row sweep mostly, so basically the idea i think is to have no overlapping of the puddles.

So say you are sitting at stroke, you take a stroke, the puddle moves away, your next stroke should not be until bows puddle has passed you. Or at least thats how I think it goes anyway.

even at race rates, I find that the same thing happens.

[PaulS]

I've always thought there should be a section for on-the-water questions that wouldn't interest people who row indoors only. I'll try asking my question here:

A rower at out local club once mentioned to me that you should have the distance between puddles at least as long as the boat when you're doing steady state rowing. So that would be about 9 meters or so per stroke. Let's round up to 10 meters per stroke. It's a little hard to judge just by looking at the puddles, but if I look at my Garmin GPS, I can establish a ratio and rhythm so I'm going 10 meters per stroke. Is this something recommended by coaches? So the question is essentially this: Is 10MPS also recommended for OTW? I'm assuming a typical single shell and good conditions.

Byron

It's much like the Erg Byron and the DPS can vary by simply letting the recovery last longer as you like. In a boat like an 8+ the riggers on each side of the boat are very close to 8m apart, so "2m of 'spacing' (distance that stroke catches beyond 2's puddle) would mean 10m/stroke". It would be nice if this were something that could be maintained as the rate increases, however at race Paces/Rates even the 8+ goes to about 9m/stroke. In training we used to push 2's puddle beyond the stern during low rate power pieces, that was in excess of 15m/stroke.

Maintaining DPS when rating up is a key factor in moving boats well, if you like this sort of thing, there are several papers on it at biorow.com, the summaries should point them out. 2005 number 10 gives a model to follow, 2004 Number 3 is also quite good and shows exactly why the "left leaning haystack" is the way to go.

The interesting thing in 2004 #3 is that the point at which the lines tend to cross for Rate and DPS is 10mps. I've been told this was merely a coincidence by those that love to argue against S10PS as being a "meaningful" training principle, but I've incorporated S10PS for a long time and I didn't set the axis scales for the study.

Cheers.

[Byron Drachman]

Hi Paul,

Thanks a lot for those references. Those newsletters are interesting. I especially like the ones on gadgets, along with the warning not to get carried away with the gadgets.

Byron

[becz]

The interesting thing in 2004 #3 is that the point at which the lines tend to cross for Rate and DPS is 10mps. I've been told this was merely a coincidence by those that love to argue against S10PS as being a "meaningful" training principle, but I've incorporated S10PS for a long time and I didn't set the axis scales for the study.

Let's point out one thing. You for a long time would refuse to admit that there was any reason to ever deviate from 10MPS in training. Even when people would ask "Surely you can't mean that when rating 16 spm (and therefore training different systems) you should still shoot for 10MPS", you would still find some reasoning why it was appropriate. Over time you've (thankfully) softened on this.

[Bob S.]

It's a little hard to judge just by looking at the puddles, but if I look at my Garmin GPS, I can establish a ratio and rhythm so I'm going 10 meters per stroke.
Byron

Byron,

It seems to me that the use of a GPS would be very misleading - unless you row on a lake. The GPS can only give you distances over the bottom, but you really need distance through the water. That is something that you can get with a speed coach or some similar device.

I remember a story about a sailboat cruising along at seven knots and suddenly one of the crew realized that they had been sitting under the Golden Gate Bridge for a half hour getting nowhere while everyone was sitting around the cockpit enjoying the conversation and not paying any attention to their location. I haven't been in the postion of rowing against (or with) a seven knot tidal flow, but I have been in a river race in which there were several exchanges in position as a result of differing currents in the various race lanes.

If you are doing a water-measured 10 meters per stroke on a river, your GPS might well give you a reading of 8 mps going upstream and 12 mps going down - or even much further off.

Wind, of course, would be another factor, but you specified good conditions, so that need not be considered. In the case of rowing on streams or tidal areas, moving water is a fact of life under the best of conditions.

Bob S.

[Byron Drachman]

Hi Bob,

Absolutely! If I want a good idea how I am doing, I should average the performances going one way and then the other. Yes, the current makes a difference, and for me the wind also makes a big difference. Actually, I can let the boat drift and determine the effects of the wind and current that way. It's usually a slowly moving current, and the wind is usually more of an issue for the river I use.

If I want to feel good about my rowing and want to indulge in self-deception, I only look at the Garmin going downstream with a tailwind. Heh, heh.

I don't own my own boat so I don't have a Speed Coach. I use club boats.

I do find the Garmin very useful in finding what seems to help the speed. For example, when I first started rowing I could see for myself that not rushing the slide and taking long, relaxed strokes improves the speed and also seems easier. The coach can yell "don't rush the slide" but actually seeing it on the display is very convincing that the coach is right.

It also give me an accurate measurement of how far I rowed, although it is a distance traveled using land measurement, not how far the boat moved in the water. As you say, in a strong current you could move the boat in the water but relative to land the boat could be not moving. Since I start and stop from the same dock, I travel the same distance upstream and downstream so the total recorded distance should be accurate enough, even though it is based on land measurements.

I still have a long way to go in sculling. My speeds should be approximately 10 percent less than my speeds on the C2, according to a posting by Paul. Actually, his posting gave more precise figures and I'm just taking a ball park figure. For example if one could do a certain distance at 1:40 (100 seconds) on the C2 then one should be able to do the same distance at about 1:50 (110 seconds) on the water, with neutral, perfect conditions. Even with a tail wind and downstream I can't get close to this. This lets me know that I have a lot of room for improvement in my technique on the water.


Byron

[PaulS]

The interesting thing in 2004 #3 is that the point at which the lines tend to cross for Rate and DPS is 10mps. I've been told this was merely a coincidence by those that love to argue against S10PS as being a "meaningful" training principle, but I've incorporated S10PS for a long time and I didn't set the axis scales for the study.

Let's point out one thing. You for a long time would refuse to admit that there was any reason to ever deviate from 10MPS in training. Even when people would ask "Surely you can't mean that when rating 16 spm (and therefore training different systems) you should still shoot for 10MPS", you would still find some reasoning why it was appropriate. Over time you've (thankfully) softened on this.

I think you are remembering wrong, I don't deviate from the S10PS in the way I set up training. If someone wants to do R16 training it just won't be S10PS, so be it, what do I care? I've always acknowledged and accepted there are many other ways to train, and I have done a lot of them myself. Again, so what?

The nitwits that don't seem to grasp the concept at all are always saying things like "If I rate R20 there is no way I can work hard enough if I ONLY go 10mps.", then fail to understand it when I say "Okay, rate higher until it's hard enough.", surely 1:40 R30 will get 'hard enough' for you if you go long enough". Then they come back with "1:40 is too hard!". Well, why is S10PS TOO EASY in one case, and TOO HARD in another? Because they simply don't understand the concept of training the whole stroke for ratio.

And finally, why should this matter to me? I know what works and have trained a lot of people to relatively good success along the way, but please, do what you want, as you are not paying me to advise you.

IOW, I'm not sure exactly what you consider to have softened.

[Hal Morgan]

I enjoy on the water rowing more and more each time I go out to the Lakes. It is really something to get going at a fast clip. I am rowing just because I like it. I will test my metal someday but that is not my focus. I feel so dang cool rowing. It is neat to see the kids ask lots of questions and have the parents call my shells beautiful. This is the most rewarding sport I have ever participated inand I find it even better when I can focus on it and not on traffic. I really must get my lazzy bum out of bed and arrive before the rest of the world.

Has anyone read the latest rowing news. The lake shot of dexter lake is on the "features" page and hats off to Yaz! You go little screamer!

[FrankJ]

Well even though it is not as sophisticated as a Speedcoach I picked up a Garmin Forerunner 201 on eBay because the price was so low. I used it for the second time today and it is definitely a big help is tuning my stroke. My used boat came with an old Strokecoach but knowing the SR is only part of the equation. I watch the current pace on the Garmin and in just two sessions with the Garmin my average speed has increased from about 6:45/K to 5:40/K. The Garmin gives pace in time per K so that is equivalent to going from a 3:22 pace to 2:50. It kind of amazed me how some seemingly insignificant things like relaxing my shoulders improved my pace. I think today is the first time since I've been OTW that the workout has felt like an aerobic workout as well as rowing technique. So far I've logged 20:45 OTW.

Frank

[sledgehammer]

Re the Garmin - How do you compensate for different current and wind conditions from day to day. Depending on the body of water, I'm thinking that could make a big difference. The Garmin can't tell the difference between an improvement in your stroke and a nice tailwind, can it?

[FrankJ]

Re the Garmin - How do you compensate for different current and wind conditions from day to day. Depending on the body of water, I'm thinking that could make a big difference. The Garmin can't tell the difference between an improvement in your stroke and a nice tailwind, can it?

There is no current rowing in a lake and wind would affect the Speedcoach just like the Garmin. The point I was trying to make though is that with instantaneous feedback of speed it is easier to tune your stroke than by guessing. I find it difficult to feel the difference between 2:40 and 2:50 pace but with a GPS readout it is easily discernible.

Frank