Category: Coxing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 27, 2016

Do you have any recommendations for summer programs for collegiate coxswains (with 1-2 years of previous experience)? Can you provide several recommendations with varying competitiveness and schedule flexibility? I’d like to cox this summer but I’m also looking at a full-time summer job.

Places that host U23 programs like NYAC, Penn AC, Vesper, Riverside, etc. are probably gonna be your best options because they (as far as I know) practice early in the morning and later in the afternoon/early evening to accommodate the schedules of athletes that are working or interning at the same time. Those clubs also tend to be the upper tier of competitiveness too. I don’t know much about the competitiveness of other Boathouse Row clubs or ones like TBC or Potomac but if you’re looking for jobs in the DC area, those two would also be worth looking at.

I think for next year’s camp spreadsheet I’ll try to reach out to these clubs to get some information on scheduling, how they work with athletes who will be working/interning, as well as what their coxswain selection procedures are (roughly) like. I get questions about this, especially the latter, a lot but tend to default to whatever’s online, which admittedly isn’t much. If any college coxswains (or rowers, but mainly coxswains) have rowed with a club over the summer and have some insights on this, hit me up (or if you can put me in touch with the coaches you worked with, that’d be even better).

Coxing Racing

Coxswain skills: Evaluating races

By readyallrow October 25, 2016

Previously: Steering, pt. 1 || Steering, pt. 2 || Boat feel || How to handle a negative coxswain eval || How to cox steady state workouts || How to cox short, high intensity workouts || Race steering || Steering a buoyed course || Evaluating practices

Following up on September’s post on evaluating practices, today’s post is gonna talk about evaluating your race performance. Given that the biggest race of the fall season for most of us is now over and the hangover (either from racing or Ned Devine’s) has worn off, today seems like a good day to reflect back on how we did.

Related: Evaluating practices

Similarly to when you’re looking back on practice, there’s a lot of different variables you can look at to determine if your performance was up to par (and no, winning is not one of them – you can win and cox like shit just like you can lose and still cox a good race). There’s some carryover between the two but below are the ones I fall back on the most when talking with our coxswains, regardless of whether we’re talking about sprint or head races.

Did you execute the race plan effectively and if you had to deviate from it, did you do so in a way that was easily understood by the crew?

I’ve extolled the virtues of race plans enough times that you should know by now that there’s no excuse for not having one. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C … gotta have ’em all because you never know when you’re gonna need to make the switch because the race is developing differently than you’d originally planned. The better acquainted you and your crew are with the plan before launching for your race, the smoother the transition will be if you need to make that jump. Having to do this during a race is a good test of your composure, your ability to stay focused, and your awareness of how the race is developing around you and how you need to adapt to it.

Did you work towards and/or achieve your personal goals for that day?

Usually with our coxswains this involves something related to race management, steering, and/or communication with the crew. This is a big one for us because we’re always talking about what we did well during this race that we want to carry over to next week (and continue to improve on, implement more frequently, etc.), as well as what we didn’t do well that we need to work on throughout the week so that it’s done better during the next race. We discuss their goals before the race, immediately after, and then more in depth when we go over the video and having that conversation consistently throughout the week is one of the things that helps keep them on track.

Did you make technical corrections that contributed to an increase in boat speed?

This is a question that carries over from the previous post where I talked in more detail about how to determine if your technical calls are effective. Obviously during a race it’s too late to be coaching a rower or crew’s technique but you can/should still make simple, targeted calls that address issues if/when they pop up (i.e. “shape the finishes” if the blades aren’t coming out cleanly, particularly in rough water like we had all weekend). This is crucial during a race because if your technique is off just enough to slow you down 0.001 seconds per stroke, that’s 2 seconds over the course of 2000 meters, which at this level (collegiate men) can equate to nearly a boat length.

These post-race reflections are easily done without audio or GoPro but they’re so much more effective if you’ve got a recording on hand that you can go through, analyze, and get feedback on. GoPro is even better but the caveat, for you at least, is that your performance and execution skills will get scrutinized and critiqued a lot more because you can see your course, the bladework, etc. and how well you’re doing relative to each of those things.

The Wisco race from this past spring is good example of this. If we’d just had the audio I think we’d all agree that it was a solid performance by our coxswain but because we had the GoPro video too, there were a lot of things that stood out where if he’d executed XYZ better, attacked certain areas of the course with a little more fire, etc. that race could/would have been closer. And yea, I agree that it’s absolutely nitpicky as fuck but that’s also the nature of the game.

The great thing about going over that video with our coxswain (who was a freshman at the time) was that all the stuff I wanted to point out and say “we need to do this better”, he said first. I remember leaving that meeting and being so impressed because all I really had to do was help refine whatever plan he’d come up with to work on each of the areas where he felt he needed to improve. The one or two things that I pointed out that he hadn’t already mentioned, we discussed so that it made sense to him and then he followed up with “OK, how would you do it?” or “What should I do/say next time?”. That’s a HUGE sign of maturity in a coxswain and ultimately plays a big part in how effective these post-race (or post-practice) self-evaluations are.

Image via // @rowingcelebration

Coxing Racing

HOCR: Setting up for Weeks

By readyallrow October 20, 2016

Previously: Getting to the starting line || Steering through the bridges || Landmarks along the course || Steering around the turns || Race plans || My general race plan || Yaz Farooq’s coxswain clinic || Race plan “hacks” || The course in meters || Weeks, Lowell House, and “the turning tree”

Two years ago Pete Cipollone was on the Rowing Illustrated podcast talking about how to take the Weeks turn. I’ve talked about Weeks before in a previous post but if you’re looking for some last minute tips, here’s a few from the guy who’s won HOCR seven times and whose course record still stands (13:58.9, set in 1997 if you’re curious).

Setting yourself for the turn is easier than you think, provided you give yourself plenty of room to execute it and position yourself in the middle of the course coming down the Powerhouse stretch. Despite what you’ve probably heard from your coach about staying tight to the buoys, this is one spot (of many, tbh) where you don’t want or need to do that. If you’re confident in your rudder system and the strength of your bow and 3-seat then you can hug them a little tighter but the “ideal” position is about a full boat length off the buoys.

There are two ways to know if you’ve nailed the turn – the first is if you’re done steering before you hit the bridge. If you’re going through the bridge at an angle and you’re pretty much completely off the rudder already, you nailed it. The other visual cue is if your port side’s blades miss the abutment by a foot or less. I’ve talked about this before but for me personally, I know that when I have the momentary feeling of “oh shit I’m gonna hit the bridge”, that’s how I know we’re right where we need to be.

The last part of managing the turn is thinking ahead to Anderson, which you should be doing before you even enter Weeks. Coming out of the turn, provided you started it early enough and are done steering before you go through the bridge, you want to be pointed straight ahead at the outside abutment of Anderson Bridge (the one between the Boston arch that contains the traveling lane and the center racing arch).

Related: Steering through the bridges

A lot of coxswains, particularly those who are racing at HOCR for the first time, have a tendency to wait too long to start their turns which then throws them super wide coming through Weeks, which then means they’ve gotta do an S-curve to get back into position to be lined up for Anderson. You can save yourself a lot of stress and steering by thinking a bridge or two ahead so that you’ve got plenty of time to get set up and make adjustments to your course if necessary if there’s other crews in your way.

Image via // hocr.org

Coxing Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: That time a boat sank at HOCR

By readyallrow October 17, 2016

Legend has it that the coxswain of this eight (from a university in China) got held up at customs and wasn’t allowed into the United States. None of the rowers spoke English which meant not only did they have to find a coxswain, they had to find one that spoke Mandarin. Luckily they found someone at MIT who spoke Mandarin and could cox but they later found out (too late, of course) that she and the rowers spoke different dialects of Mandarin which meant they could barely understand each other. This proved particularly problematic when they collided with another boat and eventually sank two miles later. It also produced what is probably one of the greatest photos of a coxswain ever. Good luck this weekend!

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 13, 2016

Hi. I was hoping to get some explanation on how to call a power train. My guys said they like power trains but I’m not sure how to call them. Thanks!

Follow-up question – are you sure they’re not saying “power 10”? I’ve never heard of a “power train” before. Anyone else familiar with them?

Related: All about power 10s

Anyways, assuming they’re asking you to call a power ten, check out the above link. It talks about what power tens are, what they aren’t, how to call them, etc. Also check out this question that asks about a different take on power tens.

When in doubt, the best (and fastest) thing to do is ask your crew to give you an example of what they want to hear. Presumably if they’re asking you to call something then they already have an idea of what it sounds like or how they want it to sound so getting their input first will give you something to work off of (and then fine tune from there once you’ve got a better understanding of what they’re looking for).

Coxing Rowing

Taking the Weeks turn with the Carl Douglas “AeRowFin”

By readyallrow October 12, 2016

I posted a clip of this on the team’s Instagram earlier but wanted to share the full video to highlight the new fin on our Empacher. If you’ve emailed me at any point in the last four years about not being able to take tight turns with your normal Resolute or Empacher fins, have your coach check out the Carl Douglas “AeRowFin”.

Not to take away from Riker’s steering here because he did a great job but compared to what Weeks looks like with the normal Empacher rudder, this was so much tighter and smoother. Before, even with the rudder all the way over and one side powered down, the turn would take longer and you could still end up on the opposite side of the river which was obviously super frustrating for both the coxswains and the coaches. This Carl Douglas fin though is magical. Definitely recommend checking it out.

Some context for the video – we were doing 3′-2′-1′ steady state at 18-20-24spm through the Powerhouse and then built to 30spm at full pressure for 20ish strokes through the bridge.

Shout out to the Radcliffe coach in the launch at the end too.

Coxing Racing

Race skills: Calling a head race

By readyallrow October 6, 2016

Previously: Race warmups || Coxing from behind || Calls for when you’re behind || Managing the nuances of a head race

To follow up on last week’s post on managing a head race, I wanted to share an excerpt from one of my articles that’s in Issue #2 of Coxing Magazine. This one is on “calling a head race”, which you can read in full, as well as my other article on executing your race warmup, by subscribing to the magazine. Don’t forget too that you can use 2016LAUNCH to get 50% off your subscription if you sign up before the end of the year.

(Note: What’s below is my writing as it appeared when it was sent to the publisher. It may be worded differently in the magazine.)

Develop a list of internal calls.

These calls are occasionally technical but largely motivational and ones that resonate for a specific reason with the boat or a rower. (A great example of this is the “baseball bat” story I posted in 2013 – it’s worth searching for if you haven’t read it.) I like to have 3-4 of these in my back pocket to be used at just the right moment. That could be when we’re sitting on another crew or when I sense the boat starting to get heavy and the fatigue setting in. You can’t plan necessarily when to use them but having them ready to go ensures you won’t waste precious seconds (and meters) searching for the right words.

Related: HOCR: Race plans and Race calls

From there, the rest of my calls are the usual “stock calls” that don’t take any extra effort to come up with. It’s what I’m saying every day during practice combined with what I see happening around us. Having my calls loosely outlined in my race plan (which has been crafted with the help of my rowers and coaches) means that instead of relying on the same handful of stock calls throughout the race, all I have to do is interject the relevant ones based on what I’m seeing and feeling in between the pre-planned stuff where my calls are a little more directly focused.

Coxing Racing

Race skills: Managing the nuances of a head race

By readyallrow September 27, 2016

Now that the fall season is well underway and we’re a little less than a month away from Head of the Charles, I wanted to share some tips for head racing for those of you that are new to coxing or new to head racing.

Look at the course before you arrive

With Google Maps being, ya know, a thing, there’s no excuse to not have a general idea of what the river looks like before you get to the race site. Race maps are obviously ideal but they’re not always available so the next best alternative is looking the course up on Google. This will give you just as good of a look at the turns, bridges, possible landmarks, geography (i.e. how much room is there to navigate), etc. and will help you plot out a rough idea of where you might want to execute (or avoid executing) certain moves.

Don’t count on being able to do your usual water warmup

Making your way to the starting line, especially at big regattas like HOCR, tends to be a crowded affair. You can rarely row above half pressure or by anything less than all eight, which makes getting the crew properly warmed up tough. To combat this, do a land warmup (7-10 minutes of dynamic stretching plus a light jog … or something similar) 20ish minutes or so before you launch so that when you’re on the water, you can focus on getting from Point A to Point B without the distraction of having to actually call the warmup and the crew can focus on getting into their rhythm, establishing their swing early, and keeping their focus internal.

Establish your rhythm early

Your first priority coming out of your high strokes should be on lengthening to a sustainable pace and immediately finding your rhythm. This is where you can really work your tone of voice and use your calls to help facilitate that. The sooner the crew gets into their rhythm, the better – you don’t want to still be trying to figure this out when you’re eight minutes in to a 3.5 mile long race.

Plan ahead

This is where knowing the course and having studied it ahead of time will really help you. In a head race you’ve always gotta be thinking one bridge or turn ahead of where you’re currently at, which means knowing where the buoy line is (and when to follow it closely vs. when to stray off of it) and whether you need to be on the outside or inside of this turn in order to get the better/faster/more effective line on the next turn. You’ve probably heard (or will hear) numerous times that the inside line is the fastest but that isn’t always the case. The best example of this is the stretch between Weeks and Eliot on the Charles – Eliot is a bigger/more important turn than Anderson so coming out of Weeks (a turn to port) you should line yourself up on the outside of Anderson (a turn to starboard) so that coming out of that one you’re automatically lined up on the inside of Eliot (a turn to port). This minimizes the number of crews you have to tousle with to get that inside line and has been my go-to strategy for nailing the Eliot turn for the last four years.

Steer competitively and aggressively

Those two things are not synonymous with “a lot” or “recklessly”. You have to be smart here because your steering, per usual, can make or break you. Patience and forethought is key and will help you avoid or navigate through at least 50% of the situations you’ll encounter. It all starts with holding the strings correctly though. You know the phrase “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”? Look at steering the same way – your hand position on the strings and the gunnels is the “single step” in that analogy. I talked about this in the “race steering” post linked below so check that out to see how I hold the strings when I’m coxing and how it helps me avoid oversteering.

Communicate with your bow/stroke

Saying it again for the people in the back that didn’t hear this the first 8,023 times it’s been said – not yielding during a race because you didn’t see the other crew, didn’t know they were there, didn’t hear their coxswain yelling at you to yield, etc. is not an excuse and you deserve every second of the penalty/penalties you incur. I get that you’re looking forward and you can’t see what’s behind you blah blah blah but your stroke/bow can and they should know (either through their own common sense or because you’ve discussed this with them beforehand … preferably both but definitely the latter) that they need to communicate to you in some way that a crew is behind you, walking on you, etc. and you need to yield.

Maximize your time in the straightaways

When you’re in long straight stretches, this is your best opportunity to pass a crew or make up time by steering laser-straight. Way too many coxswains fail to take advantage of this because they’re focused on unimportant stuff (i.e. that crew that’s four and a half lengths of open in front of you) or just completely lacking in awareness of where they’re at and what’s happening around them.

Work the crowds

If you’re neck and neck with another crew and you’re near a heavily populated spot on the course, bring all that energy from the crowd into your boat. Use it to reignite your crew if the boat’s starting to feel a little heavy or to add some extra fire to the start of a move. Make your crew think that all that cheering is for them and then harness that to help you move through the other crew(s), even if that means only taking a seat or two. Sometimes that’s all it takes to change the tone of a race.

Know what logistics need to be handled … and then handle them

Heel ties, bow numbers, top nuts, knowing the subtle differences in rules at each regatta, etc. … all the little things that might trip up an unprepared coxswain, figure out what they are ahead of time and take the initiative in handling it. Discuss this with your coach ahead of time (because they’ll definitely have a list of little things that you can do so they don’t have to) so you know beforehand what your priorities need to be once you get to the course.

Better safe than sorry (ALWAYS)

Your most important job as a coxswain is to keep the crew safe. Everything else you do outside of that is a bonus. Whether it’s on the water, walking to/from the launch site, or loading/unloading the trailer, your main focus has to be on executing the safest course of action followed by the fastest/most efficient, etc. There’s obviously a risk-reward aspect to it when you’re racing but there’s a very fine line between taking a calculated risk to move ahead of a crew or take a sharper turn and straight up putting your crew (and potentially others) in a dangerous situation. Erring on the side of safety isn’t always a popular decision in the moment but you’ve gotta be able to deal with a few people being annoyed at you for a small amount of time and recognize that the alternative (a lot of people being furious with you for an extended period of time) will tarnish your status/position on the team a lot more in the long run.

If you guys have any other pieces of advice, feel free to leave it in the comments.

Image via // @alanmcewan

Coxing

Coxswain skills: Evaluating practices

By readyallrow September 22, 2016

Raise your hand if after practice your coach, a teammate, your parents, etc. ask “how’d it go?” and you shrug and say “good” for no reason in particular other than nothing disastrous or of note happened. I spent most of my first year or two of coxing doing this before one of the varsity coxswains asked if it was actually good or if I was just saying that because I didn’t know how to actually evaluate a practice. Obviously the latter was the case because I’d just assumed that as long as I didn’t hit anything and the boat had been reasonably set, that’s all there was to a “good” practice.

Related: The four defaults

There’s a ton of different things you could look at to determine how practices went but as a coxswain, here are three you should start with.

Did you make calls throughout practice that reinforced the coach’s technical focus for that day?

Did you make technical corrections that contributed to an increase in boat speed?

An easy way to determine the effectiveness of a technical call is if the boat’s speed picks up within 3-5 strokes and is maintained for 5+ strokes. If you’ve got a SpeedCoach you can determine if your speed is improving by watching for a consistent improvement in splits that is maintained for five or more strokes. If you don’t have a SpeedCoach you can look to see if the boat is running out further between strokes, which is easily determined by watching for an increase in the distance between your puddles.

Did you work towards and/or achieve your personal goals for that day?

Ideally you want to accomplish all of them to some extent but my goal on any given day is to hit two of the three, usually with the priority being reinforcing the technical focus. (If we’re not focusing on something specific that day then I’ll make calls for whatever we did the day before or last week or whenever.) That one is always non-negotiable because it’s like, kind of your job to do that regardless of whatever else is going on.

I don’t always have a personal goal when I go on the water (and if I do it’s usually just making sure I’m steering well) so I’ll try to spend a lot of time watching the blades and relying on boat feel to guide whatever technical calls I’m making, with the goal being to tie in stuff our coach has been saying (to an individual or the crew), maintain what feels good, and/or fix any issues that pop up. That all then obviously falls under the umbrella of hitting our splits when we’re doing steady state or pieces. If those three things are happening then hitting our splits should come easily.

Related: Coxswain skills – Boat feel

Being able to look back at your performance during practice is beneficial to you for a lot of reasons but one that coxswains tend to overlook is that if you’re regularly critiquing yourself and making improvements based off of that, there’s not gonna be a ton of surprises that pop up if/when your team does coxswain evals. It’s always in your best interest to get regular feedback from the rowers but that can’t be the only thing you do to get better. Having an objective eye towards your own coxing has got to be part of the process and that starts with asking yourself these three questions a few times each week.

Image via // @tristanshipsides

College Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow September 20, 2016

Hi Kayleigh! I’m a bit confused on filling out recruiting forms as a coxswain. A fair amount of the schools I’m looking at have men’s heavyweight, men’s lightweight, and women’s rowing; if I’m open to coxing all three, do I fill out all three even though it’s at the same school? Thanks so much!

Yes, just be prepared for them to ask you early on which one you want to cox for. Even if right now you’re open to coxing any of the three, don’t just say “I don’t know” or something equally vague because that just makes coaches (at least the ones I’ve worked with and heard say this) think that you have no clue what you want. You should prioritize them based on your level of interest (and ideally narrow it down to two before you get too far into the process), that way you can tell coaches that you’re interested in all three, right now this is your order of preference, you’re hoping to learn more and narrow it down further over the next few months, etc.