Month: December 2017

Coxswain recordings, pt. 45

Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain recordings, pt. 45

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JNT High Performance Team U19 8+ Time trials

I think I’ve posted a couple of Dustin’s recordings (this one in particular is great for this time of year) but I really recommend checking out his YouTube channel and giving some of the stuff he’s got posted a listen. He’s one of the few coxswains who I wholeheartedly endorse as embodying everything it means to be a good coxswain.

Related: Tips for coxing a time trial

Time trials seem like they’ve started becoming more of a thing over the last year or two so this is another example of how to call one if you’re unsure of what your strategy, tone, etc. should be. They definitely require a bit of a different approach since they’re not quite a 2k and not a quite a head race but this recording is a good example of how it’s done.

One thing that I cannot stress enough – and I hear this from rowers all. the. time. – is you have to make sure you tell them when they’re on like he does here at 1:48ish. You can’t get so caught up in the build that you forget to tell the crew when they’ve crossed the line. How he executes that entire starting sequence is pretty solid too, both with his calls and tone.

At 2:44, this is a good way to call a quick 5 (or anything really with regards to what the burst is for) – “in two we go for five, we place the blades quicker, we engage the legs … on this one“. That’s another thing to pay attention to throughout this piece – how he calls their moves.

Similar to calling when you cross the line at the start, the importance of nailing the number of strokes left to the line at the end cannot be overstated. This is so easy to practice too, you don’t have to be racing or doing pieces to do it, just pick something that’s in front of you (like a boat docked along the shore, a bridge, whatever…) and run through the calls in your head like you would as you’re coming to the line. This was one of the things that helped me get better at judging distances too, not necessarily in the “50 meters to the line” sense but just in judging how many strokes it takes to get to X landmark. The better you are at judging the distance by eye the easier it’ll be for you to say with confidence “seven strokes to the line” and have it actually be seven strokes to the line.

Wellesley College WV8+ 2016 National Invitational Rowing Championships

This is another coxswain who I’ve posted a couple recordings of – you can check the others out here and here.

A question that came up a lot throughout the fall was how to call out your rowers during a race and I think Ale does a great job of showing how to do that here. You can hear her call out Amelia at 1:05 and 1:32, Sahar at 1:47, Molly at 2:13 and 3:13, and Katie at 3:01 and 5:18 … everything she says is super simple, very direct, and not anything that takes away from the overall point of whatever technical or strategic thing she’s trying to get the entire boat to accomplish, which is something you should be keeping in mind whenever you make individual calls like this.

Other calls I liked:

“Pry into their 6-seat…”

“In two, we sharpen our knives…”

“There are no questions, we stride with our confidence…”

“In two, we trust our training…”

“We suspend, we move … we suspend, we move…”

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Just wanted to say that your blog has been so useful to my rowing and I’d like to thank you for it. Firstly I’ve been rowing for about a year and am a J15 in the UK system. I like rowing and enjoy the challenge but am starting to find it a bit repetitive. I also find myself in a race situation knowing what I needs to change in a boat in order to make it faster but not being able to physically execute it myself. My erg times and splits also aren’t great and I’m starting to get disheartened by this.

I’m 5ft4 and weigh about the right amount to cox but am worried I’ve left it too late to switch. I’ve been trying coxing over the Christmas training period and am really enjoying it. The rowers in the boats I’ve coxed have said that I’m really good and that my technical calls and motivation are both great which is nice to hear. However there are already 3 coxes in my squad and although my coach said she wanted another, there is another person who also wants to cox. I would also feel really bad if I ended up coxing more than the 3 existing coxes as I feel like they would have put more work in and deserve it more.

In general thank you for reading my extremely long question and in essence what I’m asking is: is it too late to switch to coxing and if not then how is the best way for me to go about doing it.

You’re pretty young and you’ve only been rowing for a year – it’s definitely not too late to switch. You’ve also gotta get over feeling bad about potentially coxing more than the other three coxswains … who cares? Whoever puts the time and effort into developing into a good, competent coxswain should be the one(s) in the boat, not whoever’s been there the longest. Seniority doesn’t equate to putting the time in. Not to say they haven’t, just pointing out the fallacy there.

If your coach has already said that she wants to add another coxswain to the squad then go up to her and say “hey, I’m interested in switching from rowing to coxing, what do I need to do to make that happen?”. If she asks why then lay out your reasons but keep it positive and talk about what you’ll bring to the role (i.e. feeling like you know what needs to be changed in the boat, getting positive feedback from the times you’ve been in the boat lately, etc.) rather than saying something like “my erg times and splits aren’t great”. (That’s not a legitimate reason to switch to coxing – you can get stronger and more aerobically fit and improve both of those things if you really wanted to.)

Erg Playlists

Music to erg, pt. 161

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Thinking ahead to our Oakland trip and the small amount of free time I anticipate having – what questions do you guys have about training trips? I’ve gotten a handful of questions about them over the years (what’s a typical day like, what to pack, what should you do during the down time, etc.) but I’m thinking I might try to film a quick Q&A while we’re out there to answer any questions that come up between now and then. Feel free to leave a comment or email me if you have one!

Coxing How To Q&A

Question of the Day

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I’ve been reading your blog for nearly a year now and I attribute pretty much all of my “success” to you. I have a few things to ask. Firstly, this is my first varsity year (I’m a freshman) but I was in the V4 in the fall due to all the coxswains except for one sophomore graduating last year. Reading this blog definitely let my coxing grow by leaps and bounds. Recently my coach has told me that he’d like for the coxswains to work on positive reinforcement and that being critical of the rowers was more his job. We should keep technical calls to a minimum and only “say things pertinent to boat speed”. I’m a person who uses a *lot* of tech calls. The thing is, we have another coxswain who uses very few tech calls and I know a significant portion of the rowers dislike the way she coxes, some more strongly than others. I have rowed in her boat before and agree with them a lot so I have tried to tailor my coxing to be as different from hers (almost) as possible. She often comes off as patronizing, so I was wondering how I might provide positive reinforcement without sounding patronizing or dumb, especially when some of my rowers really just want me to be critical all the time.

This is a good question. I think your coach makes a valid point in that being critical of the rowers – though I’m not 100% settled on if that’s the right or best word – is more in line with his role than it is ours. We’ve definitely got a part to play in that but it can be tough to know how much, especially if it’s never explicitly laid out.

I’m curious why your coach wants you to keep technical calls to a minimum since those make up like, the bulk our calls. That’s definitely something I would talk to him about and get clarification on so that there’s no confusion or ambiguity on your part about what he’s looking for. Alternatively though, it’s possible you might be hearing the extremes of what he’s saying and not what he’s actually trying to get you to do. My interpretation as a coxswain (and also how I’d try to communicate it as a coach) is that his job is to outright say “you’re doing this incorrectly” and then follow it up with how it should be done. Your job is to reinforce the latter part of that with positive reinforcement by making calls like “Let’s draw in level – elbows up – and hold the finishes here. Yea, that’s it, we’re pushing the puddles back an extra half a seat now…” (vs. “you’re washing out, we need to get more run”).

It’s not that you should keep the technical calls to a minimum necessarily, it’s that whatever ones you are making should a) largely be in line with whatever his technical focus is for the day and b) less about telling the rowers what not to do (which can come off as condescending, patronizing, etc.) and more on communicating what they should do and how it’s impacting the boat speed. There is a balance when it comes to your technical calls – if it’s all you make then you’re just gonna get drowned out because it’s a lot to process and not always that engaging – but you can’t really positively reinforce anything if you’re not making the initial calls to correct the issue in the first place.

Don’t overthink what qualifies as “positive reinforcement” either. A simple “yea, that’s it…”, “there it is…”, “Sam, good change from yesterday, catches are looking a lot smoother…” etc. is all you need. You’re only going to come off as dumb if you start sounding like a cheerleader or patronizing if you start saying everything with an air of “I don’t know what’s so hard about doing XYZ, I could do it…”. When it comes to actually taking a stroke, there’s literally no logical reason why any coxswain should feel superior about their ability to do it compared to a rower. I’m not saying we can’t all be good rowers in our own right – I know plenty of coxswains who are – but rowing’s not our thing. We’d get pissed (and most of us do) if rowers acted like that about steering or whatever other coxswain-specific thing so … just something to keep in mind.

Related: Hi! Recently I’ve taken a bigger role on my team as a coxswain and have made some definite improvements with my confidence. But, I’m still struggling with how to handle frustration. When a boat feels really good and my rowers are being super responsive I feel as though I make really good calls, but when my rowers aren’t being as responsive to me or they’re tired, I feel like I never know how to motivate them without sounding mean. The other day a rower told me to work on saying more positive calls instead of negative calls, but I’m having trouble thinking of what would be considered a negative call. What do you think I should do to improve on this?

Check out the post linked above – I think it touches on roughly the same stuff you’re asking here and goes into a lot of detail about positive calls vs. negative calls, which kinda parallels what you’re asking about how to balance positive reinforcement with calling out the rowers when it’s necessary.

Training & Nutrition Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Sac State Stretching Clinic

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If you know you should be stretching after practice but your team doesn’t have a dedicated stretching routine or you’re just not sure what to do, check out this video. It’s 20 minutes long which is about how long you should be spending stretching and/or rolling out after a workout anyways.

For me, the parts of my body that feel the most sore when I come off the water (particularly after a race) are the front of my hips (from leaning over and contracting those muscles), quads, low/mid back, and shoulders. I really like the twists with the bar at the beginning, though instead of twist going back and forth I kinda roll my body instead. I start in the same standing position, arms draped over the bar or whatever I’m using, and rotate my upper body around my hips – sorta like you’re hoola-hooping in slow motion. From there I gradually start leaning my upper body forward until I’m fully bent over and am just loosely hanging there before going in reverse and working my way back up. After that I go into a long side stretch, keeping my arms draped over the bar and just leaning as far over to each side as I can.

Scorpions (at 6:35) are one of the stretches I like to do for the front of my hips. Rather than go back and forth I like to hold it for 30ish seconds before switching, sometimes a little longer depending on how sore I am. This part of my body always hurts the most when it’s cold out (to the point where it actually hurts to stand back up) so this is usually one of the first stretches I do once I get out of the boat or off the launch.

The last thing I do is a few flows through cobra, child’s pose, and downward dog, similar to what she does between 12:05 and 12:45. I try to hold each one for a couple seconds (3-5ish max) but for the most part I like to keep it moving – not fast though, it’s still a slow, smooth transition between each pose. When I remember (which isn’t all the time) I try to take the opportunity to close my eyes as I go through this and focus on my breathing. It’s a good way to relax (or try to at least), especially if I and/or the boat had a shitty practice.

All in all this takes me maybe 10-15 minutes. I always felt like it was a little less critical for me to stretch right after practice (compared to the rowers) so I’d usually wait until I was home and had taken a hot shower before doing this. I found that I felt less sore doing it this way but I still stretched with whoever stuck around whenever I didn’t have anything else to do.

Any other coxswains have their own stretching routines? What do you do?

Uncategorized

Flashback Friday: November 26th – December 9th

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ONE YEAR AGO

Holiday Gift Guide 2016 (check out this year’s here, as well as ones from past years that are all linked down below)

Coxswains, get on the erg…

QOTD: Hello! I’m a collegiate rower currently at a D3 school. Recently I’ve noticed that my team’s top coxswain has seemed to have lost a lot of weight in the past few months. By this, I mean she seems to have lost 10 to 15lbs, which is a lot considering she’s 5’4″ and wasn’t over the 110lb minimum by more than 7 or 8lbs last season. I don’t believe she eats very often but when I do see her eat she doesn’t seem to have an eating disorder. I’m not sure whether or not I should be concerned about her weight loss and if I should bring it up with someone?

TWO YEARS AGO

Top 20 terms coxswains should know: Quarter-feather

College recruiting: The process of being recruited as a coxswain

QOTD: Just wondering , what do you say to your crew after a training session and they say “Thanks cox”?

QOTD: Hi! I’m a junior in high school and I just moved up to the girls varsity team in September. I was on the novice team for fall and spring of my sophomore year and I was in the top boat but now since I moved up to varsity the playing field is a lot more competitive and I am worried about being recruited later this year. I’m also around 5’5 and 140lbs and I wasn’t sure if I should drop to 135 to be considered for “lightweight” considering my height. I was invited for winter training on our team (just finished our first full week) and I feel like I’m already burning out. My family and I are making over a 40 minute commute to get to practice each day, 6 days a week and I just feel like I cannot get, well, my shit together fully. The days are getting shorter and we have practice at 5:45 to 7:45 three days a week and its just a little tough. Mostly I just needed some re-assurance that all this hard work and commuting will be alright and I will get recruited. I was also wondering if its even possible for a 5’5 girl to get into a D1 program in college? I’m also looking at D2 and D3 possibly, but it seems if I want a scholarship D1 is the choice to go. Also I’m taking my SAT’s and ACT’s in about 2-3 weeks and I’m worried that this too late for colleges to see my scores? I heard some girls my age sending them in October for colleges but I think if I send them in December it’s still pretty early…? And should I shoot some coaches an email now about being interested in their team for the fall of 2017 before I even have my SAT scores? Thank you thank you thank you.

THREE YEARS AGO

Coxswain evaluations + how I organize them Since I posted this in 2014 it’s become one of the most popular posts on the site – definitely check it out if you’re interested in doing evals with your team.

QOTD: 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?

Words.

FOUR YEARS AGO

QOTD: Any tips on keeping a straight course in the dark when it’s hard to see things to point at?

QOTD: The other day in our eight we were doing some pieces in which the coach didn’t think everyone was trying. She thought only two out of the whole eight was actually trying hard. She didn’t name, names but you could tell some people she believed weren’t doing anything. In the defense of the crew, the cox wasn’t saying anything, no motivation or anything. After the session I was talking to one of the ‘spare’ coxes who was in the speed boat with the coach. We discussed how she judged who was pulling and her main answer was that the coach was looking at peoples faces and at the puddles but mainly the faces. Personally, maybe I wasn’t trying my hardest (I know, but its hard when the whole boat seemed to be powered by only yourself) but I do not believe looking at faces would be the most accurate way of measuring who is trying as I can easily make faces, and I know some people whose face doesn’t change no mater how hard they are pulling. How do you tell?

Holiday Gift Guide 2013 (here’s more ideas from 2013 for rowers + coxswains too)

VOTW: University of Wisconsin Rowing, 1929

FIVE YEARS AGO

QOTD: So I’m a novice coxswain and I’m really not athletic. The other coxswains told me that during winter training we do everything the rowers do but because I haven’t been erging and working out with the team, I’m scared I won’t be able to keep up with them. What should I do?

Coxswain recordings, pt. 3 Solid clip in here from the Aussie men’s national team

QOTD: Interesting question: How often do you think a cox should talk during a race? I feel really awkward and useless if I stop talking for more than a few seconds, and when I rowed our cox would talk almost constantly during races. However, at a regatta briefing the other day the OU Captain of Coxes implied that coxes should only be talking every few strokes. I guess it depends on the standard and nature of the crew, but what do you think?

Holiday gifts for coaches (and rowers and coxswains)

How to steer an eight or four