Year: 2013

Novice Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

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Hi! I’m a novice and I have a problem with my oar. My coach said that it doesn’t square early enough. I square just before the drive but he said I need to square earlier. I don’t understand how I can do this ? I feel like I will catch a crab if I square too early (which I did twice today). Do you have any solutions or a way to know how to square at the right time? Is my oar too close to the water on the recovery? Thank you, your blog is the best btw!!

When you say “just before the drive” I assume you mean just before the catch. You do need to square earlier than that, so your coach is correct. Ideally, you’d be squaring or starting to square over your knees, meaning that when you reach the bodies over position of the recovery your blade would be squared or starting to square. I usually like to have the people I’m coaching start squaring over their knees and be completely squared by 3/4 slide, that way all they have to do when they reach the catch is unweight the handle and drop the blade in. If you wait longer than that and start to square around 3/4 slide (this is know as a “quick catch”) you run the risk of going in the water late. (This is more so the case with younger rowers, not so much experienced ones.)

Related: I have practice tomorrow and I really have trouble squaring up on time. I always tell myself to gradually start squaring up at half slide but I’m always behind everybody else. I also try to follow the person in front of me but I’m always a millisecond behind everybody else. I’m a girl and this is my first season of rowing! I’m so embarrassed so please help me!!

If you’re catching crabs trying to square your blade then yes, your blade is probably too close to the water. That’s probably partially because of the boat being unset and down to your side and your hands being too high. Both of those things seem counter-intuitive but it only takes one person to offset the boat, so it is possible.

Next time you go out I would focus really hard on keeping your hands level coming out of the finish (imagine gliding them across a table top) and starting to square as soon as your hands are over your knees. It’s going to feel awkward and uncomfortable but that’s how most changes in rowing feel. I promise it’ll help a lot though. Just think to yourself “hands away, square, place, push”.

Erg Playlists

Music to erg to, pt. 8

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In addition to being accompanied by one of the most badass sequences of cinematography like, ever, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s version of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” practically made that Henley scene from The Social Network. Not bad considering the song was originally composed in 1876.

https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/44ZORVupgqujoBma1oM2BP

College Novice Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

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Hi! I started rowing last spring for my college and I was sculling basically all the time. (I swept like twice I think, the first 2 learn-to-row things). However, this year, my coach wants me in a four. We had our first practice yesterday evening and it was awful. I couldn’t do anything right and I was a pain in the ass for the others. Do you have any general advice for a rower that goes from sculling to sweeping ? (I was rushing my slide and couldn’t get the blade in correctly either). Thanks!

If it was your first day in the four and only third time sweeping, there’s only so much fault they can put on you for practice sucking. I mean, if you’re used to sculling it might take a couple days to get used to sweeping. That’s fairly natural, I think. I would talk to your coach about the issues you’re having and ask her to maybe work with you a bit if you’ve got a dock rower or to maybe lengthen out the warmup a bit and watch/correct your form as you go along before you get into the day’s workout.

With regards to rushing, just … relax. Get used to following another person and taking your time on the recovery. Keep your eyes forward and watch their body move. Anticipate their movements and move with them. Focus on the sequence (arms – back – legs coming out of the finish) and matching your sequence to the person in front of you.

With getting the blade in right, there’s a million things that could be. It all starts at the finish though. If your recovery is poor you’re not going to have a good catch. Work out those issues and getting the blade in will start to become a little easier and feel a bit more natural. Get to the catch, place the blade, then push. Repeat that to yourself – place, push. Place, push.

Understanding what the buoys mean

Coxing Racing Rowing

Understanding what the buoys mean

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Fall season is just getting started and before you know it it’ll be time to start racing which means buoys … buoys everywhere. Buoys in all sorts of different colors scattered all over the place. If you’re unfamiliar with what they stand for then it can be easy to become confused and/or disoriented when trying to figure out where to go on your way to the starting line or worse, when you’re on the course.

RED buoys should always be on your port side (meaning the boat should be to the right of the buoy).

GREEN buoys should always be on your starboard side (meaning the boat should be to the left of the buoy).

YELLOW (or sometimes orange) buoys are used to indicate some kind of potential hazard, such as a log submerged under the surface of the water, a sand bar, etc. and can be on the left or the right. As they pop up you just have to adjust as necessary. In my experience they’ve also been used to mark stakeboat turns on the race course during head races.

WHITE buoys are used to outline the course, although they’re more commonly used during sprint season to mark the lanes than during head race season. Head of the Charles uses them though to separate the travel lanes and the race course.

Typically at the coaches and coxswains meeting the regatta officials will go over any buoys on the course with you and tell you what they mean but for the most part they should follow the nautical definitions fairly closely.

During sprint season, buoyed courses are set up using the Albano buoy system, which is the marking of the race course with parallel lines of buoys. The first time this was done was at the 1960 Summer Olympics on Lake Albano in Italy, where the rowing events were held. The course is, as we know, 2000m long with six 13.5m wide lanes that are separated by seven lines of buoys that are set 10-15m apart. For the first 100m and last 250m of most courses the buoys are red whereas the other 1650m are white.

Image via // @tristanshipsides

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi! I have a couple of questions. I recently switched schools and I’ve noticed that my new team doesn’t check pitch and spread. Is this weird? And if I were to say something like “and send!” would I call that at the catch?

Are you in high school or college? If you’re in high school I wouldn’t think it’s too weird. I don’t think I ever saw my coaches do anything with the rigging (although it’s possible they messed with it when we weren’t around). I know some high schools that pay way to much attention to that kind of stuff for the level their kids are rowing at and others who don’t pay any attention to it. It couldn’t hurt to ask your coach just out of curiosity. If you’re in college and they don’t check it, that’s probably a little more rare since you’re starting to row at a level where those minor changes can actually have a big impact on your stroke.

With “and send” you would say “and” at the catch and then “send” at the finish since that’s when the boat actually sends. Instead of saying “and” though, make a call for the catch. “And” doesn’t really do anything, even though I get why you do it. If you say something like “jump”, “press”, or whatever other words you can think of, that has the ability to initiate a stronger response from the rowers which in turn will make the drive more powerful and the run a little longer. You want to say as few words as you need to in order to get your point across but the key to doing that is making sure every word means something. If you can eliminate the useless words and replace them with something more likely to elicit a response, you’ll be a more effective coxswain.

College Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

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Can you go over NCAA recruiting rules? Like when they can call, email and talk to you, and how often, and whats the difference when you are a senior and a junior.

With written correspondence (letters, emails, brochures, etc.), D1 coaches can start sending you info after September 1st of your junior year. So, if you’re a junior right now, since it’s September 4th, you’re “eligible”, for lack of a better term, to start receiving stuff from coaches. For D2 programs I think it’s sometime early in June, maybe the second week of the month or so. You can send as many emails, etc. as you want throughout the time you’re in school but coaches can’t initiate them until after September 1st. They also aren’t allowed to talk to you about recruiting-specific stuff but they can answer general questions or direct you to people in the athletic or admissions department who can also help you out.

D1 coaches can start calling athletes on July 1st after you’ve finished your junior year, so during the summer before senior year begins. D2 is a little different in that they can start calling athletes on June 15th before the start of their junior year, which is an entire year earlier than D1. After those dates coaches can call you once a week for any length of time. You can only get one call per university, meaning if Callahan calls you from Washington on Wednesday, his assistant can’t call you on Friday. It’s one or the other but not both. You can call the coach as many times as you want throughout the time you’re in school though. If the coach answers you can talk for any length of time but unless it’s after July 1st or June 15th after/before your junior year, they can’t call you back if you’ve left a voicemail, so you’d have to just keep trying and calling them until you get them if you have a pressing question. If it’s after those dates and they haven’t used their one allotted phone call for the week, they can call you back.

The other big difference between junior year and senior year is that you can start going on official visits following the first day of school your senior year. Before that you can only go on unofficial visits.

Related: Official vs. unofficial visits

Coaches can also observe you at practice up to seven times during the year. Contact also becomes a bit more limited as they aren’t allowed to contact you or your parents more than three times while you’re a senior. In D2 there are no limits. The contact referred to is in-person, face to face contact at your house, at practice, at a regatta, etc. If you meet up at a regatta, there are a lot of rules that go into effect. Basically the coach can’t contact or call you from the time the races start until they end and you’ve been released by your coach. They can talk to your parents or family at any time though. So, if you just finished racing and the coach was standing with your family and they see you coming off the water, your parents can say “good job!” but the coach can’t, otherwise that would be considered contact. It’s all a little confusing so it’s best to read and learn the rules so you know what is and isn’t permissible.

College Coxing Q&A Recruiting Rowing Teammates & Coaches

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So I’ve noticed that most recruiting questionnaires ask for your coach’s phone/email. What do college coaches who are talking to your high school coach ask about? I’m not nervous about it cause my coach and I have always had a good relationship, I was just curious.

If you’re a rower: erg scores, boatings, attitude, personality, personal qualities, work ethic, grades, coachability, etc.

If you’re a coxswain: everything I said about rowers (minus erg scores) plus leadership ability, practice management, communication skills, possibly audio, etc.

Basically they’re trying to figure out if you’re a good fit based on your overall attitude, level of commitment, and desire to push yourself. The biggest thing for them is finding people who are ready and willing to go to that next level and really throw themselves into a team environment and doing what is necessary for the good of the team. Having a good work ethic and the ability to be coached is crucial, as is being someone who will put the team and university in the best possible light. All of that stuff they assume your coach knows, so they’ll typically ask them for input and use that as part of their decision as to whether or not to move forward with you.

College Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

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If you didn’t know too much about a school but they sent you a generic “email us back, we saw your recruitment profile (even though mine is super ambiguous)” type email, what would you suggest doing? I’m really scared to respond.

There’s literally no reason to be scared to respond, let alone really scared.

Does the school have the major you want to pursue? Is it a school you’re interested in? Is it in a good location that you wouldn’t mind living in for the next four years? Does their team look like one you would be interested in being a part of? Do some research on them first and if you can say, with reasonable confidence, yes to all those questions after learning more about the school and rowing program, I’d send them a quick email. You don’t have to say much or be super detailed, just say something along the lines of “I received an email from (whoever it came from) after they’d viewed my recruitment profile and I wanted to follow up by seeing if you could tell me more about the team.” Finish it off by saying something like you’re looking forward to hearing more about the team, say thank you, sign it, and send it.

If you’re not interested in the school or that particular program, you don’t have to respond. I remember getting a thing from a school that I wasn’t really interested in because of the location and I didn’t know how to respond and essentially say “yea … no” in a polite way so I think I ended up saying I appreciated them reaching out but the university didn’t have the major I was planning on pursuing (which to my credit they didn’t) so it wasn’t currently one I was considering. They replied, said no problem, good luck, and that was that. But like I said though, don’t feel obligated to reply if it’s not a school you’re interested in. They’re not going to care. It’s better to establish that ahead of time instead of going through the whole process and then finally saying a few months down the road “yea, I’m not interested”. That just wastes everyone’s time, yours included.

You might want to update your profile or add in some more details. Coaches do look at them and the more info you give them, the better of an idea they can get as to whether or not you might be a good fit for their program.

Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

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Hi! I am starting my 3rd year rowing and for the past 2 days I have been stroke of an 8 (first time stroking ever, as well as rowing port!). I have no clue if there is a future for me as stroke but it has really made me think. Specifically when bringing up the SR I know that much of the up in pace should come from moving quicker on the drive versus sacrificing control on the recovery but I was wondering just how much? Sorry if that makes no sense but any tips?

I think I understand what you’re asking. The increase in stroke rate should come from two things: faster hands away (matching them with the speed of the boat) and a stronger drive through the water. Both of those have to happen equally instead of one more than the other, which I think might be what you’re saying. The ratio also has to be there if you want the strokes to be effective which means the recovery has to stay controlled, like you said.