Month: March 2013

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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Hi, can I get a coach’s perspective? Every time our two 8+s do race pieces together and my boat’s a little behind, our head coach is always shouting through her loudspeaker for me, as the cox, to do/say something to get us even and pass. It doesn’t help that I’m in the “faster” boat. It gets me frustrated because it’s not like I’m not trying. What do I do? I’m definitely putting in 110% effort into my coxing but I’m just not sure anymore … what would you do in this situation? Thanks!

First, I would talk to your coach. If she’s constantly yelling at you to do something (which get’s irritating – been there, experienced that), there’s clearly something she wants to see and she thinks that eventually you’ll figure out what that is and do it. Talk to her and tell her what you’re doing, what you’re saying, etc. and then ask her for her thoughts. What does she think you should be saying that you’re not? Is she seeing something with the technique from the launch that is putting your crew at a disadvantage that you can make a call for? If she can’t give you answers to those questions, she’s just yelling to yell for no reason. I hesitate to say “ignore her when she does that” but if she can’t at least give you a reason for why she’s on your ass all the time, I’m not sure what else to suggest. If you’ve recorded yourself, give the clip to your coach and have her listen/critique it.

Related: My girls really like when I cox off of other boats, even if we’re just doing steady state. I’m in the 2V boat so they all want to beat the 1V at ALL times. I find it easy to cox when we’re next to another boat/in front of it. However, I never quite know what to say without being negative and annoying when we’re CLEARLY behind another boat. Yesterday afternoon we were practically three lengths behind the v1, and we STILL didn’t catch up even when they added a pause. What do I say at times like these? I always end up getting rather quiet since the overall attitude of my boat is pretty down. I feel like whenever I call a 10 or get into the piece at this point it does absolutely nothing, since my rowers have practically given up.

Secondly, talk to your rowers. When they get down like that, what are they thinking? What do they want to hear? What can you do to help them? Write everything down and then make an effort the next time you do pieces to incorporate some of what they said. Record yourself so you can hear what calls worked and what didn’t. Keep the ones that work and tweak or discard the others.

Don’t let your coach throw you off. I know it can be frustrating and distracting, but you’ve just got to find some way to tune her out and focus on your boat. There’s nothing wrong either with telling her that it throws you off when she’s yelling at you to do something to make the boat move. Coaches, especially ones that are/were rowers, tend to forget that there is no magic call or switch that we flip to make the boat go faster. We aren’t generating any power so if she wants to see the boat even up and pass the other crew, maybe she should focus her efforts on telling the rowers what to improve on instead of thinking that all of the changes have to come from the one person without an oar in their hand.

Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

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I get incredible lows from rowing. I’ll have a bad day at practice and suddenly freak out about losing my spot in the boat and I over analyze everything so much. It mentally kills me and it bugs my teammates as well. I get some of the best erg scores on the team and still always stress and they feel like I’m being selfish, etc. What should I do? I feel like rowing is my sport but that I mentally can’t compete, despite having good times.

Every sport is considered the ultimate team sport by the athletes who participate in them but rowing … rowing is the ultimate team sport. If you think about football, everyone has to work together to score a touchdown but each person has an individual responsibility. The responsibilities of a quarterback, running back, and lineman are all completely different but it’s still possible to get the touchdown if someone misses a block or runs a poor route. With rowing, everyone has the same job and if someone or multiple people don’t execute it right, the boat isn’t going to move. No one is out there for just themselves. You’re out there for eight other people or four other people or your pair/doubles partner. If you’re out there constantly thinking about yourself, you’re doing two things: hurting yourself and hurting the boat. I mean thinking about yourself in a negative “My rowing sucks, they hate me, I’m being replaced” way too, not in a “I’m concentrating really hard on making sure I’m not washing out at the finish” way. You have to get in the boat everyday 100% confident in your abilities You have to execute everything like you know what you’re doing is right until someone tells you otherwise.

Related: How do you fight off the stress of rowing? I can’t just stop because it helps me ease school stuff but at the same time it makes everything pile up and I can’t hold everything in anymore.

Before you go to your next practice, take a few deep breaths and clear your head of every single negative thought you’ve had about yourself and your rowing up to that point. Wipe the slate clean and tell yourself you’re going to have  good practice … then go have one. Repeat each day until you don’t need to repeat it anymore.

Coxing High School Novice Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hey! As a novice cox for a highly competitive novice high school team, in a group of overflowing (double the amount needed) sophomore/junior coxes, would the coach give the lowest boat to the youngest? I am in eighth grade and everyone says that I am better than a lot of the others yet I always get the lowest boat. Do you think it is because I am just so young? Our boats (in order) 11, 10, 10, 11, 10, 11, 9 , 8. And I can’t do anything about it anymore since my spring season is over and I am repeating novice year in 9th grade and I am not racing again until fall season. What do you think? I am probably not as mature/responsible as them though (I MUST CONCEDE…). Is that why? Any advice for me trying to improve? Is it still worth it coming 6x a week for nothing? I’m not quitting! Just for the rest of this season, I am not racing again and won’t even get boated and if I do, the worst boats. What should I do? Thank you so much!

It’s definitely because you’re the youngest. Don’t take it personally though. Logically, no matter how good you are, there’s no way they’d give an 8th grader one of the better novice boats because like you said, the older girls are (hopefully, given their ages) more mature, responsible, and trustworthy. That’s great though if you’re already getting complemented on how well you’re doing.

I would keep going to practice but maybe on an abbreviated schedule, like only on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays or something like that. Talk to your coach and ask if you can come in the launch with him/her to observe on the days you go and if/when they might need a substitute coxswain, you can fill in. You will learn so much just from observing, trust me. I know it sounds boring but when you’re out there and have the chance to ask the coach questions after he’s told someone to do this instead of that or has said we’re doing this drill to work on this part of the stroke, etc. it’s a really invaluable learning tool. It’ll also show your coach how dedicated you are to learning the sport and making improvements, which will be really favorable for you next year when he’s trying to decide who to put in which boat.

Q&A Rowing Technique

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So basically my erg scores are pretty dang good. But my technique on the water … is interesting to say the least. I really want to improve it and have been trying hard to do so, but with little success. Do you have any advice about on the water sweep technique? Thanks so much!

The best suggestion I can offer is to have your coach take some video and go over it with you before/after practice so you can see what improvements are needed. This will help give you specific things to focus on (i.e. getting your shoulders set by half slide) rather than just hearing “stop lunging at the catch”. You can also use whatever you learn from watching that video to do some research on YouTube, Reddit, etc. to see what others have done to work on the same or similar issues.

Related: Good and bad technique on the erg

Also ask lots of questions – what are you doing wrong, what can you do better, how do you fix it, what needs to change, etc. Communication is key and the better you understand what you’re doing and what you need to fix, the easier it will be to actually make the necessary changes. Talk to your coxswains too and let them know what you’re working on so they can make the right calls to help you stay focused on making and incorporating those changes.

Related: You’ve posted before on calling rowers out in practice for what they’re doing wrong (e.g. “Three, you’re late”). Does the same count for technique? For example, my bow seat always opens with his back. Is it appropriate for me, when talking technique, to say something like, “Keep your knees over your ankles so you don’t over-compress and open with your back – that means you, bow seat,” even if I can’t see it actually happening, or does that sound antagonistic?

The last thing is to be diligent about your practice. Don’t just do something right for three strokes and then revert back to old habits. You just put all that effort into making the change so why waste it but going back to how you were rowing before? For awhile, the amount of time and effort that it’s going to take to make the change stick will be way more that what it took to learn it that specific skill in the first place, so that’s something you have to accept. Make an effort every day to do it the right way.

Coxing Novice Q&A

Question of the Day

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During my novice boat’s pieces with some varsity boats, I found my point before starting and kept it with minimal rudder use throughout each piece. Despite maintaining a relatively straight course, I noticed a gap developing between my boat’s oars and the closest boat’s oars during some of the pieces. There wasn’t a crosswind pushing us away, just a light headwind. Is it more important to keep a straight course or the boats close together?

Both are important for safety reasons but my coaches always stressed that it’s more important to keep a straight course when you’re doing race pieces. Obviously it’s a little easier to do when you’re on a straight stretch of water vs. having to deal with the bends of the river, but racing/pieces = straight course, always. If you’re just rowing along or doing steady state, keeping the boats together is a little more important than how straight you’re steering just because it’s easier for the coaches to monitor and observe everything and it’s just safer overall.

This is a tough question to answer though because both have to be priorities, regardless of what you’re doing. If you’re steering a straight course but there’s three horizontal lengths between you and the other boat … nobody cares that you steered in a straight line. That’s another thing to keep in mind too, you can steer a straight line and still be off course which is why it’s important to establish a point with the other coxswain before you start your piece.

Related: Hi there! So I’m in my 5th year of rowing (3 years in high school as a rower on a women’s team, in my second year of coxing men’s collegiate right now) and this morning during seat racing I experienced a problem I’ve never had before. We were in fours, and my stroke seat, a port, was out-powering every 3 seat who switched in, but my bow pair were matching up pressure. It was pushing my stern to starboard a bit, but I was steering to port just enough to keep our bow pointed straight. However, we also had a cross-wind coming from port, also pushing us to starboard. The result was that I held the right point, but my course wasn’t straight because we were kind of skidding sideways while we were going forward. In a situation like that where I need to steer a straight course but I can’t actively cox my boat (beyond telling them stroke rate and position) and I can’t ask them to adjust pressure, what can I do beyond just using the rudder? Is there a way to keep my boat straight without sliding sideways across the water like that?

In this situation, if you know you were steering a straight point and your coach didn’t say anything, don’t worry about it. Worry about your boat and let the other coxswains worry about theirs. If your coach is concerned you guys are getting too far apart they’ll say something but until then, just steer your course and don’t worry about the other crews unless their course starts interfering with yours.

College Coxing High School Q&A Training & Nutrition

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What differences are there between being a collegiate coxswain versus a coxswain for a high school level team? What would a typical practice session look like?

“Typical” depends on your program. How practices are run, what you do, etc. all differ between programs, sometimes even between boats on the same team. There are big differences between Division 1 schools (where I was) and Division 3 schools too. Your best bet is to talk to the coaches of the schools you’re looking at and ask them what a typical practice entails.

In general though, you’ll probably have somewhere between 7-10 water practices a week and a team lift 1-2x a week. Most teams practice in the morning (usually somewhere between 6-8:30am) every day with the occasional afternoon/evening row (usually between 5-7ish), with the team lifts happening during that same block on the days they’re not on the water. Some teams only practice in the morning, some teams only practice in the afternoon/evenings, some teams have the rowers do weights on their own instead of all at once, etc. It varies.

Practices usually consist of a warmup followed by some drills (sometimes the drills are the warmup) and then either some AT pieces or several miles of steady state. There were also some days where we would do nothing BUT drills or just a warm up and steady state. There are a lot of factors that go into deciding what you do during a practice (the two biggest being the weather and how many people you have = what boats you can take out), so most coaches have a general idea of what they’d like to do but that’s not always what actually ends up happening. Usually the further out they have something planned, the more likely it is to change (i.e. if you get your training schedule for the year in August, what’s on the calendar for April might not be exactly what you end up doing, though it’ll usually be close).

As far as coxing specifically in college vs. high school, I don’t think there are any real differences because you’ve still gotta do all the same stuff. The only difference I can think of is that you’re really expected to be at that next level. The coaches expect you to be more responsible, be more on top of your coxing game, etc. They really anticipate not having to worry about you when you’re on the water too, whereas in high school, your coaches are always terrified you’re gonna hit something or break something or whatever. Basically though college rowing vs. high school rowing is the same as college vs. high school in general – there’s more work involved, it takes up way more time, and for most people it’s way more fun.

Coxing Novice Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi! I’m a novice cox and I don’t think I talk enough during practice. I call the drills and I call people out when they are digging their blades. I try to keep them together and I let them know if they are rushing the recovery but that’s about it. Most of the time I really don’t know what to say and I don’t want to undermine or talk over the coaches.

What will help in knowing what to say is developing a better understanding of the technical aspects of the stroke. Once you can relate what you’re seeing to what’s happening with the bodies and how that compares to what everything should look like, you’ll be able to give the rowers more/better feedback.

A good starting point is to talk to your coach about the drills you do. Why does he have you do those ones specifically, what’s their purpose, what part of the stroke are they aimed at, what is he looking at/for when you do them, etc. When you’re on the water, try connecting what you learned with what you’re seeing and make calls based off of that (either to affirm that they’re doing it right or to initiate a change).

Related: So, what did you see?

Obviously you don’t want to be actively talking while the coaches are giving instructions (unless you’re mid-piece or executing a drill) because that’s distracting for the rowers. Any comments you do make should be brief and to the point but in most cases, they can wait until your coach is done. Also, obviously, if the boat is stopped and starts drifting into shore or you get in another situation that requires you to move or make an adjustment, you should do tell whoever you need to row to take a few strokes. Coaches aren’t going to mind if you do that – what they will mind is if you’re not using your common sense and being quiet when they’re trying to give feedback or instructions to the crew. Unless you’re in the middle of a piece, there’s no reason why you can’t stop talking for a few strokes to let your coach say something. Otherwise though, it’s all you.

Checking it down vs. backing it

Coxing Q&A

Checking it down vs. backing it

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I got a question this afternoon asking me to “do a post on checking vs. backing, what each one is used for and when it comes in handy”. Just to clarify, checking and backing are two totally different things, each with their own specific purposes. Checking and holding are similar though, both of which I discussed in the post linked below.

Related: I was wondering what the difference is between checking it and holding water. I think checking it is just once side and everybody holds water? But I’m not sure. and then also what do you think is the easiest way to turn around? I usually have my stern or bow four row with ports backing. Is that pretty standard would you say? Thank you again so so so so so much.

Checking it down

Purpose: To slow down and/or stop the boat

When to use it: When you’re about to hit something, to stop the boat before turning, to stop the boat after a drill/piece, etc.

How to do it: While you’re still moving, all eight rowers will square the blades and bury them in the water. You can also lightly check it by burying the blades halfway.

Call: “All eight, check it down.” Tone of voice is key here. If you’re about to hit someone/something, your voice should impart an immediate sense of urgency in the rowers.

Backing it

Purpose: To physically move the boat backwards or help in turning the boat around

When to use it: When backing into stake boats at the starting line, when spinning the boat, etc.

How to do it: Instead of pulling the handle towards you, you’ll push it away from you with the blade fully buried in the water. This is just an arms or arms + body motion too – the legs are not involved.

Call: When backing into stake boats, say “Stern 4, back it … ready, row.” When spinning the boat, “starboards row, ports back, ready, row.” Stern pair/stern 4 is typically who backs the boat, never bow 4.

Image via // @row_360

Coxing High School Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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Hi! I’m a cox from PA. We don’t have very many people on our team so my coach told me I’m going to row for the spring season too. I’m 5’2 100 pounds. I’m not sure what 1k and 2k times I should be trying to get! My best 1k is 4:21! Also, I’ve been debating for a while whether or not to completely quit crew altogether. Trust me, I’m not a quitter, but I feel like my team hates me, and being around them 24/7 doesn’t really help my self-esteem. Some guys on the team always tell me I’m a worthless cox and that I’m useless to the team. It really hurts. I try to be the best I can be but I just don’t feel like it’s good enough. I’ve already gotten injuries 3 times this season due to poor training from my coaches. My mom says if I get another that I have to quit anyways. Next, being the lightest person on the team doesn’t help my case. I pull less than them and I’m just smaller in general. I can hardly contribute while carrying the boat down. Crew is also affecting my school. On top of all the stress I have from crew, I have honors classes to pertain to. I’m not sure what to do, but I’d really like your intake on my situation! Thanks!

This is another pet peeve of mine, when coaches make coxswains actually row. Yes, coxswains should get experience in a boat and they should know how to row but actually having coxswains, especially tiny people like you, row in races and stuff makes no sense to me. Like you said, you pull higher splits than them and you’re smaller in general so there’s no way you could possibly stack up to the people who are actually built to row. Coaches have to recognize that. Instead of sticking coxswains in boats to row, maybe they should make more of an effort to go out and find rowers. Shocking concept. I’m a firm believer that the role of coxswain and rower are not interchangeable and it really grinds my gears when coaches treat them like they are.

Related: Hi, I’m on a novice crew team and I’ve enjoyed it, but I want to quit. My team will have enough girls to fill an 8 but how do I let my coach know? I’m an engineering student and my schedule is too demanding for this sport. I know I’ll miss it but I need to focus on my schoolwork. Any advice?

I hate telling people to walk away from rowing, but I did it at one point so I’d be a hypocrite if I told you to stay with it even though it was making you miserable. If you’re not enjoying it, your teammates are assholes (and yours sound like they are), other more important responsibilities are falling to the wayside, you’re frequently getting injuries, you don’t feel like you’re contributing even when you’re making the effort, etc. then I would sit down with yourself and seriously ask yourself why you’re still there. I’m not a quitter either – I absolutely hate people who quit things – but sometimes there are legitimate reasons that warrant it and you have to swallow your pride and accept that.

When I was in school, I didn’t put anything above rowing. In high school I could put all my efforts into crew and still get good grades, so that’s what I did. In college I had to put all my efforts into crew and it screwed me, both mentally/emotionally and with school. Now that I’m done with all that (and maybe this is just attributed to 20/20 hindsight and being a few years older and wiser) I realize(d) that nothing should be put ahead of yourself and school, while you’re in it. I know we tend to act like crew is the be all, end all but it’s not. If you don’t have school to consider, you at least have to consider the effect it’s having on you. You have both school and yourself to think about and right now, both of those sound like they’re being negatively impacted.

Related: I’m debating with myself whether or not to quit coxing (at the end of the year of course, I would never quit midseason) and I was wondering if you could listen to my reasons and offer some advice?

It’s not even crew itself that I think is the problem for you, I think it’s more your coaches and “teammates” … and I say that with quotations because they don’t sound like what teammates should be, thus they don’t really deserve the title in my opinion. In the end it’s your decision, but you’ve got to make sure you look at the situation rationally and consider the effects/consequences on all the things I just talked about if you stick with it.