Day: April 7, 2015

Drills Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

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What are stationary drills? How can there be drills if the rowers aren’t rowing? What are some examples?

Stationary drills are just drills that are done when the boat isn’t moving. They’re good to do if/when you’re waiting for your coach at the beginning of practice or just have time to spare in general.

Catch placement drills (also known as roll ups) are one of the most well-known and basic stationary drills. (I talked about them a bit more in-depth in the fourth paragraph of this post.) The rowers start at the finish with their blades buried then tap down, come up the slide to the catch, and drop their blades in without actually taking a stroke. The purpose is to match up the timing on the slides, when the blades enter the water, and the motion of taking the catch. Here’s an example of what it looks like.

Another common one is bob drills. These can get pretty frustrating the more people you have doing it but they’re good for getting people to think about having level hands at the catch and maintaining pressure with the oar against the collar (the thing that keeps the oar shaft from sliding through the oarlock), in addition to the obvious focus on timing.

Related: Reverse pick drill progression + what “bob drills” look like

You can either do these at the catch or finish too. All you do is sit at full compression at the catch or in your normal finish position, starting with the blades squared and buried, and tap them in and out of the water. The bobs have to be confident and deliberate otherwise the boat will just crash over to one side. If you follow the movements of the people in front of you instead of anticipating them then that will also mess things up.

Coxing Q&A

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If I am 5’5 and 115lbs but bound to keep growing because I am a freshman in high school, is it worth it to keep coxing girls? I have coxed for a couple months and I absolutely loved it. I was thinking I could keep coxing girls for a couple years and then maybe switch to boys if I get too tall/heavy. Would it be better to row? I really really love coxing, especially for races, but I would like to do something that I can continue through high school and I don’t know if coxing is it.

Every coach is different and they want different things when it comes to their coxswains (here’s an example from a question I posted last night…) so your best option is to talk with your coach and see what they think. You could probably cox men or women at this point but if you have a good rapport with your coach and like coxing your current team then I’d stick with them. If you decide as you get closer to making college plans that you want to keep coxing after high school then look into coxing on a men’s team.

Coxing Q&A Rowing Technique

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My team has been working on our starts and sprints for our races coming up. One thing that I have noticed is that we have a really difficult time hitting our rates for our high strokes. We usually hit between 34-35 but we are supposed to be in the upper 30s, maybe even 40. Any suggestions for how to hit these rates? Thanks!

Here’s a couple…

Focus on getting the rate on the drive and through the water instead of with your slide speed on the recovery

Coming out of the finish match the speed of the hands coming away to the speed of the boat immediately – eliminate any pauses

Make sure you’re not slamming into the catch – you want there to be a smooth transfer of energy when the slide reverses

As the rates go up keep the focus on maintaining good form (if you let the bodies get sloppy or fall apart then you’ll never hit your target rates)

I’d talk about this with your coach(es) too and see if you can incorporate some stroke rate ladders or something into a couple of your practices. Definitely make sure you’re communicating with them (on and off the water) when you’re not hitting your rates. If you let them know then they can watch the boat and figure out what’s going on but if you don’t say anything then they can’t help you.

Coxing High School Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I was a coxswain for the fall season for high school novice crew because I was coming off surgery but I ended up falling in love with coxing. My rowers (one in particular) told me off a couple times for not doing anything and I talked to her about it and she stopped after I started doing the erg workouts with the team. I did the workouts with the rest of the team before we got on the water this spring but then my coach told me that I was too tall to be a coxswain any more. I am 5’3-5’4isn but I am still growing. I kind of want to go back to coxing but I don’t know how to tell my coach that and I don’t want to take the possibility of coxing a boat away from anybody else.

There are few things I understand less than the decision-making process of most coaches when it comes to choosing their coxswains. Nearly every female coxswain I’ve known (regardless of whether they’re coxing men or women) is between 5’3″ and 5’5″.. There’s the odd outlier that’s shorter or taller than that but the average is definitely around there. I don’t know why your coach thinks that’s too tall. If you really want to get into it, height doesn’t matter at all for coxing. Does it make it easier to cox when you’re short? Duh – have you seen the seats we sit in? Does it make more sense for someone who needs to hover around 110lbs/125lbs to be on the shorter side? Yes. In the grand scheme of things though, as long as you’re close to racing weight and are a good coxswain, your height should literally be the farthest thing from your coach’s mind. (Just look at male coxswains – our male coxswain is 5’6″, I know two other guys who are 5’8″, the V8+ coxswain at Northeastern is 5’10”, the national team coxswain is 5’9″…)

If you want to keep coxing then meet with your coach and make your case. Highlight the stuff you think you’ve done well and have improved at since you started and why you think you would be a good addition to a boat this season. Keep it simple. If your coach is open to giving you another shot, have at it. If he’s still stuck on the idea that you’re too tall then see if you can compromise and be a “spare” coxswain on days when someone can’t make it to practice, is sick, etc. A lightweight rower I know who started out as a coxswain for three years in high school did that last year when he was recovering from a shoulder injury and it helped his team a lot since they were short on actual coxswains.

Coxing Q&A

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What are some “rhythmic calls” you use? I know ones such as hook, send and catch, send but I was wondering what others are used.

I’m a big fan of taking a “swing three” or a “swing five” and saying “long swing“, “surge  long“, swing through“, “long rhy-thm”), etc. I think it’s important to pick one call and stick with it for the duration of the three or five strokes just because I feel like it helps get everyone moving together better/faster than if you were alternating between two or three different calls on each individual stroke.

Most of my rhythm calls also specifically include “swing” or “rhythm” in the call. I don’t tend to look at “hook send” or “catch send” as rhythm calls but they can definitely work that way, although I think the rhythm part of it is secondary or tertiary to catch/finish timing and/or acceleration.

Related: Hello! Sorry if this is a dumb question but I was wondering, what does it mean when coxswains say “cha”? Thank you!

Another good rhythm call is “cha”, which I talked about in the post linked above. As I said in there, it’s not one of my most used rhythm calls but it really has started to grow on me over the last year or so. Some coxswains say “cha” or “ja”, others add “ssshhhh-uh” to the end of their calls (this is what I do) but it all accomplishes the same thing.