Category: Q&A

College Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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I emailed the coach of a college I’m interested in about two weeks ago and she hasn’t emailed me back yet. I’m going to look at the school in a week and I’d like to meet up with her. Would it be worth sending her another email or should I just drop it?

Yea, it couldn’t hurt. It’s possible that if her team went on a winter training trip that that’s where they are now if classes haven’t started back yet or where they were when you initially emailed her two weeks ago. I’d send a quick email saying that you’re just following up on your previous email from [whatever the date was] and that you wanted to see if she’ll be around campus on [date(s) you’ll be there]. If you still haven’t heard back from her by the time you get to the school then you could always stop into the athletic department and ask them if she’s on campus. They can usually call her office or the boathouse to see if someone’s available to talk with you.

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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So today we did some 30 second watt tests. I pulled a 305 on my first one and a 322 on my second one, and my assistant coach flipped out and is now obsessed with me becoming a rower. I guess I trust her judgement but I’m having a hard time with that idea. First of all, I hate the monotony of rowing. I’ve done it enough to hate it. The other coxes on my team are super type B and just don’t have good enough focus to make any calls. I’ve also almost exclusively coxed for two years a this is going to be a hard transition ( a junior in HS, 5’5″, 129 lbs). ALSO CAN 30 seconds really tell her anything? Really? Anyone can do anything for 30 seconds, and I’m not so sure that me being able to bang out 30 seconds will translate to a 2k very well. Thoughts? Thanks!

That does seem pretty good but like you said, anyone can do just about anything for 30 seconds. If you’re in good shape, play other sports, etc. then it’d make sense that you’d be able to pull decent numbers. I remember doing watts tests like that in high school and the novices that were swimmers, runners, volleyball players, etc. all did great just because they were super fit and had insane leg muscles. If I were you I’d probably just laugh it off and say “yeaaa … no” if she asks if you’ll consider rowing. If she presses it just be honest and tell her that you prefer coxing over rowing and feel like you’ll make a bigger/better contribution to the team by staying a coxswain.

Drills Q&A Technique

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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.

College Q&A Recruiting

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I am a senior in high school and have only been rowing for about 8 months. I was wondering if I should fill out the recruiting questionnaires if I plan on walking on to a rowing team next year.

I wouldn’t. You haven’t been rowing for that long and unless your erg times are holy-shit-unbelievable then there’s not much to be gained from it. If you’re planning on walking on then just wait until you get to campus and find out when the walk-on meeting is or email the coach some time during the spring/summer and say that you’re an incoming freshman, you’ve rowed for a year, and are interested in walking on, can they give you some details about the program, etc.

Coxing Ergs Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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What is your opinion on weight-adjusted erg scores? I’m about 105lbs and 5’1″ so due to obvious height disadvantages, my erg scores are a bit higher than other lightweights on my team. There is an older girl on my team who is older and a “worse” erg score but she has the seat in the ltwt 8+. Would you suggest switching to coxing? I asked my coach about it at the end of the fall season since our team is going to be short on coxswains at the end of the year but she was trying to avoid the topic. Any suggestions?

I’ve never really done much stuff with weight-adjusted scores before this year so I’m largely unfamiliar with the “science” but from the limited knowledge/understanding that I do have, I think they can be useful but really only for determining who gets a shot to be in a boat, not who actually gets in the boat. I think most people agree that on-the-water performance is the more important variable though. I’ve also heard that the heavier/lighter you are the less accurate it is so if that’s true it’s probably not doing you many favors since you’re only 105.

Weight-adjusted scores aside, I’d probably at least suggest looking into coxing. You’re pretty small and it’s no secret that it’s tougher to be a successful rower the smaller you are. I really don’t ever understand why coaches make this so awkward and try to avoid the subject when it gets brought up but if it’s something you’re interested in and you know you’re going to need coxswains anyways, I’d probably bring it up again at some point (although not repeatedly…) and just be very point-blank about it. The more beating-around-the-bush you do the more opportunity you’re giving your coaches to avoid the conversation (I’ve been on both sides of that so … trust me on this).

Q&A Rowing Technique

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Hi! I’ve been rowing for four years and recently I’ve been getting some sort of tendonitis in my forearms: the forearm swells up a little and it feels very stiff and it is very painful to row with. This usually happens when I’m in a single or a double, but it has happened before in an eight and a quad. It has never happened to me so often, last year I got this twice throughout the season, but it went away the same day. I’ve talked to my coach and he said I might be gripping too much with my fingers, I’ve changed my grip since then and it was fine for a few weeks, however over the course of this week, it has come back and I’m not sure what I am doing wrong. I know it’s caused when I row long distances and when my forearms tense at the catch, but I don’t think that there is any other way to row (without tensing the forearms at the catch), when I relax my arms I end up pulling more with my fingers. As far as I’m aware, no one else in my crew has this although some say that they have had it before, but very rarely. I was just wondering if you had any tips for correcting my stroke if it is what is causing this? Thank you.

I definitely agree with your coach, I think you’ve got a bit of a death grip thing going on. If you made adjustments though and the pain came back then I’d probably recommend checking in with your doctor just to make sure there’s nothing else going on. At the very least they’ll likely be able to give you a stronger anti-inflammatory than your standard over-the-counter Ibuprofen that might help with the pain.

As far as tips for correcting your stroke, I really think loosening your grip is the biggest/best technical correction you can make right now. It’s a sequential thing too; if your upper body (i.e. upper back and shoulders) is relaxed, your arms will be relaxed, and that will lead to you having a more relaxed grip. If your upper body is tense, which it sounds like it probably is, then your forearms and grip are going to be tense as a result. When you’re at the catch, you want to maintain what I like to call a “common sense grip” – not too tight but tight enough that you have control of the handle – and make sure you’re unweighting the handle rather than lifting it in. If you’re lifting it in then that’s going to contribute to the tension you feel in your forearms. Tension’s not really the right word but if you’re going to feel “tension” anywhere it should be in your lat muscles as you lock on to the water.

From there it gets a bit harder for me to guess what you can do so definitely make sure you’re discussing this with your coach, having them watch you on the water, look for specific technical flaws, etc. and then go from there. Start with the grip thing though, for sure.

Coxing Q&A Racing

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Hi, this is a great resource, thanks for devoting so much time to it. I’m coxing a 5km head race in the UK in a couple of weeks. I’ve raced it before, and am feeling quite confident. One thing I’m unsure of is how best to call the end of a power twenty. Our race plan is to push for twenty at the end of each kilometre. I don’t want to call down pressure at the end of the push, to avoid a sharp drop off in boatspeed, but neither do I want not to call anything, and have my crew pushing for longer than the twenty I’ve asked for. Any help you could offer would be great – thanks!

My suggestion is to not aim to call a “power” 20 at the end of each kilometer, rather call it for something and don’t necessarily make everything 20 strokes. During HOCR this year, which is also about 5km, I only called one 20 and it was at the start of the last kilometer.

Related: Race skills: All about Power 10s

At this point it’s very rare that I actually call something for straight power but when I do I remind them to maintain this as soon as we finish the burst, usually in the form of “yea that’s it, now let’s maintain it, we’re sitting at 1:46 right now, stay on it with the legs and accelerate through the water…” and then I go right into calling a couple strokes for acceleration, giving them position updates, and coxing them like normal. It’s not like I’m calling the end of the burst and then completely falling off with my calls, tone, volume, etc. If you do that then yea, there will be a sharp drop off in speed but if you maintain your voice and immediately jump into like what I said up above then you’re more likely to, you know, actually maintain whatever you just did. If the crew is falling off with pressure immediately after then a) you’re not doing your job, b) their endurance is awful, and c) someone needs to clue them in on the concepts of pacing and flying-and-dying.

As far as having your crew pushing for longer than the twenty you asked for … the phrasing of that is bugging me. I really can’t put my finger on which exactly of the five reasons I’ve come up with for why it’s bugging me but there’s something about how you said that that’s just … off. I’m probably/definitely over-analyzing this but just keep in mind that they should be pushing themselves regardless of what you’re saying and you shouldn’t be calling them up or down. Whenever coxswains say stuff like that I imagine them coxing the race like they’re on a roller coaster, going up and down with the pressure and their voice and whatever else and it makes me wonder how they can possibly think that that’s effective.

If you continuously call for 20s to push (and I’m going with the standard definition of pushing in this context to mean “more pressure”) then you will be coxing a roller coaster race and it’s not effective because the crew will likely do what I said before, which is fly and die each time. If you give each burst a specific purpose, limit the number of 20s you use and instead incorporate in some 5s, 10s, etc., and remind them to maintain whatever feels good during those bursts then you’ll be able to have a much more efficient and evenly-paced race.

Coxing Novice Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi, I am a novice cox and was just wondering about what to do during the winter training. Thank you so much.

Check out any (or all) of these posts:

Winter training tips for coxswains…

Coxswains + winter training (Similar titles, different posts, I promise…)

How To Survive Winter Training, pt. 1b: Coxswains

“The Coxswain in Winter”

How do you as a coxswain help your rowers when they are erging in the winter?

Coxing Masters Q&A

Question of the Day

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So I’m the most experienced coxswain on my juniors team, and was asked to cox a master’s eight. It isn’t a racing boat or anything. Some of the masters just wanted to try sweep. The thing is both of my coaches and a few of the board members for the juniors team will be in the boat, as will my dad. I’m afraid that if I mess up, or if my coach isn’t a fan of my style, it could affect boat placement going into spring. Any advice?

It won’t. It would be really stupid of your coach to keep you out of certain boats just because he didn’t like your style of coxing. I was emailing with another coxswain about a very similar situation a couple weeks ago and a lot of what I told him applies to you too. In this situation, yea it might be awkward to have your dad, your coach, and some of the board members in the boat but when you’re on the water they’re none of those people – they’re just another group of rowers. Something that I’ve noticed with masters rowers over the last few years (both men and women) is that they tend to forget that on the water I (and the other coxswains) don’t look at them the way their employees, colleagues, etc. look at them – they’re not doctors, lawyers, university administrators, hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, small business owners, non-profit managers, contractors, advertising execs, etc. to me. They’re just rowers. If it comes off like you’re intimidated by them because of who they are off the water then you open the door for them to put on their manager/department head/executive hat and try to run the show because that’s what they’re used to doing every day. Don’t forget though, you’re used to managing people every day too, the only difference between the two groups being age.

The majority of masters rowers are great and come out just to have a good time with friends so trust me when I say all you have to do is the exact same thing you do during practice with your normal crews. Obviously you should make sure you’re on top of your game (that means steering good lines, not hitting things, communicating clearly and concisely, etc.) but if you excel at all of the basic coxswain skills any other day of the week then you’re not going to have any issues with these guys.

Below is another part of the email I mentioned earlier that I hope will help you out. Remember, you wouldn’t have been asked to do this if someone (your coach, I’m assuming) didn’t think you were capable. Don’t take the situation too seriously and have fun with it!

“The biggest piece of advice I can give you is if you get nervous, keep it to yourself. Act like every single thing you say and do is a deliberate action, not something you debated doing before making a decision. Be confident and have a good time! Coxing masters, even competitive ones, can be a lot of fun. They’ll probably joke around with you which will hopefully lighten the atmosphere a bit so just approach it like you would any other practice. Communicate with the coach, ask questions if you don’t understand something, need it repeated, etc., be clear with your calls to the crew, and use this as an opportunity to learn. Every crew is different so you can probably apply something you’ve done with your high school team to these guys and you’ll probably be able to take something away from this and apply it to your high school practice next week.”