Month: May 2016
Music to erg to, pt. 122
A couple recent posts to check out if you haven’t yet:
This question yesterday on race steering and whether you should move back to the middle of the lane if you get moved off-course.
How to lose vs. how to win. Alternatively known as tactical mistakes that can cost you, as well as strategies that can put you in a good position during the race.
Race calls. These are a couple examples of calls that were mentioned on our coxswain evals, in case you need some inspiration or further confirmation that your calls don’t need to be magical or anything other than simple and straightforward.
https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/5UJVGZmx6WZE8aCvTuLq10Question of the Day
Hi Kayleigh! This weekend our start pushed us to port and we ended up with our blades about 6-9 inches off the buoys, so I decided to stay along the buoy line and go straight there instead of adjusting to the middle and then going straight. Despite this, the guys who have been watching the GoPro have said that I should’ve gone to the middle of the lane and then gone straight. If you had been pushed to one side or the other off the start, would you have adjusted to put yourself in the middle of the lane or stayed just off the buoy line? Thanks so much!
Yea, I agree with the guys, I would have eased back into the middle for two reasons.
First, if you’re sitting on one side of the lane instead of in the middle then you’re setting yourself up to potentially row in the wake of the crew beside you (i.e. if you’re in lane 3 and you’re riding the port buoys, you could end up hitting lane 4’s wake). I don’t think this is a super common occurrence but I remember talking about it at IRAs last year (though I can’t remember why) so it’s something I remind our coxswains of now to be aware of when we’re on buoyed courses.
Related: Race steering
The second reason is more likely to happen and has to do with the wind. If you get caught off guard by a gust of wind (and let’s be honest, this happens a lot more than we’re all gonna admit) then it can end up pushing you over so that instead of being 6-9″ off the line, you’re now one touch of the rudder away from hitting them for the next 2-3 strokes before you can steer back out. The other scenario though is your blades go over the buoys and you end up interfering with another crew’s race. That’s obviously the worst case scenario (and one you can get DQ’ed for) but it’s still something you have to be aware of.
I know it seems counterintuitive to say that you should steer back to the middle when literally every other piece of advice says you shouldn’t be steering during a race but you have to consider the alternatives (i.e. what I said up above) and how much time you’ll lose if you get caught up in one of them vs. how much time you’ll lose by just touching the rudder for a stroke to reposition yourself.
Related: “Always steering” vs. “never steering”
If you haven’t already you should figure out why your start pushed you to port (starboards out-pulling ports, ports taking a bad stroke, not having a point, the wind pushing you over right off the line, etc.) so that you can address it and hopefully avoid it the next time you race.
How to Lose vs. How to Win
Previously: Steer an eight/four || Call a pick drill and reverse pick drill || Avoid getting sick || Make improvement as a novice || Protect your voice || Pass crews during a head race || Be useful during winter training || Train when you’re sick (as a rower) || Train when you’re sick (as a coxswain) || Sit in the boat
It’s obviously not that simple or black and white but that’s the easiest way to frame the points I’m trying to make.
There are two big tactical mistakes that you can make during a race that could cost you a win, a qualifying position, or a spot in the medals. (There’s probably/definitely more but our team had issues with both of these at various points this year so they’re fresh on my mind.) I say you because it’s your job to be aware of how you’re moving and how the race is evolving. If you’re paying attention and not just robotically going through the motions of reciting your race plan then you’ll be able to recognize these situations and say/do something to (hopefully) prevent them from having a negative impact on your crew.
Getting comfortable/sitting on a lead
The longer you sit on a short lead the more confidence you’re giving the other crew(s) to make a move on you. A coach I worked with a few years ago frequently said “hope is not a strategy” – you can’t sit on a six seat lead and hope that you can hang on until you cross the finish line. Leads are fragile and you don’t want to give the other crew(s) any opportunity to think you’ve peaked and “now’s our chance”.
Succumbing to another crew’s move
A crew has broken you if they can get in your head with a single move. In most cases this happens somewhere between 750m and 1250m; you’ll be even or close up to this point, their coxswain calls for a move, they walk four or five seats, and you completely fall apart or scramble to make a counter-move and then fall apart because you’re just spinning your wheels.
You also can’t guarantee a win (it’s foolish to ever think that, regardless of how you stack up against your opponents) but you can put yourself in a good position to succeed, which is what these points address.
Make your moves decisive
Rather than being the one who gets broken, be the one doing the breaking. Once you start moving, regardless of whether you’re walking on a crew or moving away, don’t stop. Racing is a game of inches (see also our race against Wisco) so every move you make has to have an unwavering amount of intent, focus, and discipline behind it. This starts with you – your calls and your tone can/will have a huge effect on how successful your moves are.
Execute the race plan
It’s there for a reason. Without it the race lacks structure which makes it impossible for you to manage and if you can’t manage it, you can’t win it. Know when to focus on your boat, when to focus on the field, what your cadence should be, what your moves are, where you’ll take them, what volume/tone is appropriate at different points throughout the race, etc. Your coach not giving you a race plan is not an excuse for you not to have one. Period.
Practice how you want to race
I’ve always viewed this as a standard that the coxswain is responsible for upholding, mainly because attention-to-detail is a core component of what makes a good coxswain and the devil is always in the details. You have to have the discipline to act like an athlete on and off the water and as the coxswain, you sometimes have to be the person that reminds them of that when you’re away from the boathouse and holds them to it during practice. You can’t practice with a lackadaisical attitude and then expect it to all come together on race day – it never works like that.
This post, as you might have noticed, isn’t about giving you bullet-pointed solutions or ideas – it’s about increasing your awareness so you know what to pay attention to when you do pieces during practice, watch race video, etc. From there you (along with your boat and/or coach) can come up with strategies to achieve/deal with each situation so that on race day you’re prepared to manage the race regardless of what happens.
Image via // @tristanshipsides
Video of the Week: Gut Check Moments
Race calls
“What are some good calls I can use during a race to motivate my team?” “Is there anything I shouldn’t say during a race?” “What are some calls that have worked for you…?” “Can you give me some really great calls to use during my race?” (Lol no.)
This question gets asked ad nauseum. I’ve given and highlighted plenty of examples in past posts (all of which are tagged “calls“) but for this post I thought I’d highlight a couple examples that have come up on our coxswain evaluations. When we refined the evals last spring we added a section that asked what calls the rowers liked and didn’t like, which gave them a chance to highlight what they wanted to hear and/or didn’t want to hear during races (and practice, but that’ll be a separate post).
You can see some of their comments, exactly how they were on the evals, up above. Not only is none of it groundbreaking, none of it is “magical” either. Everything they said is pretty straightforward and basic … just like your calls should be. This is just one set of examples of what a D1 men’s crew likes to hear but hopefully this gives you a few ideas for calls to incorporate into your repertoire as we get into the championship part of the season.
Image via // @merijnsoeters
Q&A Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition
Question of the Day
Hi Kayleigh! I was just wondering in what universe does it make sense to increase work load a week before your championship race? We’ve been having one practice a day all year, then the Monday before our race we start going twice and by Wednesday we were all exhausted. The day before our race our coach has us do 14k of steady state rowing with some full pressure pieces thrown in. Then the day of the race our coach has us wake up early so we could do another 4K steady state before racing. How is this logical in anyway shape or form??
Hmm. I really don’t have a good answer because I don’t understand his approach either. Ramping up the volume the week of your race is the exact opposite of tapering, which is what you should have been doing going into the weekend. That’s what we did last week in the lead up to Sprints on Sunday – the intensity of the workouts was still up there but the volume steadily decreased as we closed out the week.
Did anyone ever ask your coach what his thought process was in doing this? Obviously you shouldn’t be all confrontational about it but if everyone is confused about the training plan and sore/exhausted 48-72 hours before your championship race, I think that at least justifies a conversation. I wish I had a better answer but I’m with you guys – this doesn’t make sense to me.
Video of the Week: The History of Women’s Rowing
This is a neat hour-long interview with Ernestine Bayer, who is often referred to as the “mother of women’s rowing”, on her involvement with the sport, the founding of Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club in 1938, etc . There’s also some photos here that show her rowing in Philadelphia, her husband’s coxless four training for and racing at the Amsterdam Olympics, and other cool memorabilia.