Hi! My coach has been telling me the last couple of sessions that I’m opening up too early (both rowing and sculling). He says to imagine that I’m pushing my knees away from my chest rather than moving my chest away from my knees. I understand what he means and can feel that I’m doing it now but there is some mental block between that and actually fixing the problem. Do you know any other way I could think about it or what I could do to try fix it?

On the erg or while you’re warming up on the water try to spend a couple minutes doing some reverse pick drill stuff. This will help you segment your legs and back and really force you to think about your sequencing (aka legs first, then the back, etc.). Ideally you should do this in front of or beside some mirrors when you do it on the ergs that way you can actually watch yourself; this can help a lot with the “mental block” issue because being able to see what you’re doing can/will help a lot in allowing you to actually visualize where the block is happening with regards to your body movements.