Australian Men’s 8+ at the European Training Center

Not too much in this video since it’s only about a minute long but I wanted to point out how he gives them something to focus on (“length and power through the water”) even though they’re at the tail end of practice and taking it back to the dock. It’s really easy to assume practice is over when your coach says to bring it in but it’s not so you should be taking advantage of whatever time you have left to get in as many good strokes as possible so you can end practice on a high note. This is particularly important if the rest of practice was mediocre or didn’t go well.

Other calls I liked:

“With hips, this one…”

“Lets set ourselves up for the row home…”

“One continuous focus to the end…”

Texas Rowing Center Rowing Starts

One thing she says that I remind my crews of a lot is that you have to row well even when you’re tired, otherwise your chance of getting injured or tweaking a muscle goes way up. Another thing she does that I do too is the “BOOM” at the start of a shift. When racing, I would do it on the first stroke of our settle after our high strokes at the start. The aggressiveness in your voice helps to reiterate the fact that the “settle” doesn’t mean there should be a drop in power.

I like the authoritativeness in the commands during the tens but outside of those strokes she sounds bored (or annoyed), like this is what she’s been doing all day and she’s over it. That’s something you have to pay attention to because whatever energy you’re projecting through your tone will get picked up by the rest of the boat and that can either make a good practice better or a mediocre practice worse. You can keep your tone chill and conversational but it should never get to the point where it sounds like you’re just going through the motions.

You can find and listen to more audio by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.