Category: Q&A

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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So I’m a novice coxswain who walked on this spring. I’m doing my best to catch up with the other coxswains, but you know I’m the newest so I get the least water time, seniority blah blah blah. Whenever I do get on the boat, the rowers are pissed that they got stuck with the “shitty coxswain.” How do I motivate or correct them when I can tell they don’t want me there? (I used to be good friends with all of them, why I walked on, but now they don’t really like me on land either and I don’t know what to do. I almost regret joining crew.)

This is one of those situations where I really urge people to consider their role on the team, what they can bring to it, and whether or not they’re actually enjoying being a part of the team. I know that quitting in the middle of the season is a shitty thing to do but if you’re not enjoying it, you don’t feel like you’re making an impact, your teammates aren’t treating you well or listening to you, etc. I really believe you’ve got to ask yourself if this is the place you want/need to be. From a coach’s standpoint, I want everyone on the team to have a good time but I also want people who are willing to work their asses off alongside their teammates. If someone can’t/doesn’t want to do that or is just straight up not having a good time, both on land and on the water, I question how effective they’ll be (as either a rower or a coxswain).

Have you talked with your team captain or coach and told them what’s going on? That might be worth doing if you haven’t so that he/she can talk to them and tell them to stop acting like assholes because, I’m assuming, they’re novices too so they don’t really have any room to be complaining about people with little to no experience. I’d also tell them that you want to get better but there’s only so much you can do on land so what can you do to make sure you’re considered for a boat when lineups are made … or something along those lines.

As far as your teammates go, you have to leave the issues on land and cox them like normal, for lack of a better word. They can infer from that whatever they want but as long as you’re making the effort to coach them, call for corrections, motivate them, etc. that’s all that can be asked of you. Keep practicing your steering, calls, etc. every chance you get. Let them know when you’re steering around a corner, getting your point, etc. so that they know you’re actively working on making improvements at the same time they are. They’ll either recognize the fact that you’re making an effort or they’ll keep acting like they are, in which case I’ll repeat what I said earlier – you’ve got to seriously ask yourself if this is a team you want to be a part of.

Q&A Rowing Technique

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The Kiwi pair does this really incredible thing where they take their oars out of the water SO FREAKING CLEANLY and I am having such a hard time trying to do it, I can never tell if I’m throwing water around when I feather my blade and IDK if you know what I’m getting at but yeah help?

I watched a couple videos of them rowing just to see what their strokes looked like and to see if I could point something out that they were doing differently but I couldn’t really find anything. I think they’re just really good rowers who have excellent technique and years of experience on their side.

One of the best ways to tell if you’re throwing water around is to listen for it (it’s really noticeable compared to the normal sound of the water) or have someone in the launch tell you. It’s easiest to see it from the side but your coxswain might be able to tell too so have them watch as well. If you can get your coach or someone riding along during practice to record you rowing for a minute or two, you can look at that and review your technique. In order to have a good stroke you’ve got to start with a clean recovery, which means that your posture has to be up tall and solid through the core so that the handle and oar is supported all the way through the water. If you sink into your hips or start slumping over towards the end of the drive there’s no way you can maintain pressure on the oar, which will cause you to have a sloppy release. You’ve also got to be cognizant of where your hands are and what they’re doing.

Posture is critical here as well because it order to finish the stroke and draw in high, you’ve got to be sitting up tall and laying back. If you’re laying back too far, that will prevent you from tapping down properly, so laying back no farther than the 11 o’clock position is important. Tapping down is probably the most important part of the ‘finish and release” part of the stroke (hopefully for obvious reasons). You can’t start the recovery or feather the blade until it’s out of the water so it’s important to make sure you’re drawing in high enough and laying back far enough that you’re providing yourself with plenty of room to get the blade out of the water.

One of the things that drives me crazy is when you tell someone to tap down (repeatedly, ad nauseum) and they don’t change anything but continuously say “I am!”. We wouldn’t be telling you to tap down if you were already doing it so humor us and do something different. Your hands should literally be moving from rib-level down towards your quads. It’s something you’ve got to consciously think about doing until you’ve got it engrained in your muscle memory (which won’t happen quickly).

One drill that can help you work on finishing cleaning and feathering without throwing water around is the delayed feather drill. You can see video of it below. It teaches you to get the blade all the way out of the water before feathering so that you avoid feathering under the water, washing out, etc.

College Q&A Rowing Technique

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I’m a collegiate rower. I have excellent technique except for one thing – I don’t catch quickly enough. I am in time with the rest of the boat, but it’s the issue of going straight to the water and burying my blade completely before driving with my legs. Most of our boat has this issue. I’ve tried asking coaches how to remedy my issue, but they haven’t given me anything very effective yet. Do you have any advice? Please and thank you! I appreciate it.

The first thing that comes to mind is something as simple as just unweighting the handle. (This may be something your coaches have talked about in the past.) One of the biggest reasons why people are late at the catch isn’t because they’re doing anything wrong on the slide, it’s because they’re lifting the blade in rather than taking the weight off the handle and letting gravity do the work. Gravity will put the blade in at the speed it needs to go in at … anything we do to try make it go in faster is doing just the opposite.

You can’t have a good catch without having good body prep on the recovery, so make sure you’re really focusing on finishing clean, relaxing the upper body, getting the hands away at boat speed, bringing the body over smoothly, and coming up the slide controlled and determined. When you get to the catch don’t think about it – just do it. The more you think the more it messes with your head and the more likely you are to make a silly mistake. Ask your coach(es) and/or coxswains to pay particular attention to your catch timing one day at practice and then ask them for feedback afterwards. Make mental notes of what you did differently compared to before, why you made those changes, and how you think they helped you so you can go over all of that with your coach.

Ergs Q&A Rowing

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I’m so stressed out ALL the time, but when I get to crew, I feel like a massive weight has been lifted. I love it so much, when I’m not rowing, I feel like shit. But then 2k’s come around and it’s just paralyzing, I have no clue how to do a 2k, having come off of an injury and I don’t want to do poorly and I’m just scared?

Don’t be scared. Way easier said than done, I know, but honestly, that really does make it worse. Coming off an injury you’re not expected to pull some miraculous 2k that blows everyone’s minds. That’s what we tell ourselves we have to do but no one actually expects that of us. (And if you’re coach does, perhaps someone should direct him to the “priority” entry in the dictionary and remind him that this shouldn’t be one of them.) 2ks coming off an injury are just the same as any other 2k minus the goal of PR’ing (assuming that’s what you’re goal is each time you 2k). Just go out and do the best you can. As your injury heals more and you regain your strength, your 2ks will improve a lot.

Related: How do you fight off the stress of rowing? I can’t just stop because it helps me ease school stuff but at the same time it makes everything pile up and I can’t hold everything in anymore.

It’s literally seven and a half to eight minutes of your entire day. That’s something like 0.005%. Are you really going to let something that takes up that little amount of time screw with your head?

Related: 2k test strategy

Have a plan. Get on the erg, close your eyes, deep breath, strap in, deep breath again, remind yourself you can do this, and then go do it. You can think when you’re done.

Q&A Rowing Technique

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This week I seat raced four times- I’ve been in the 2V, so they seat raced me twice for the 1V. I lost, which is okay, I was happy with the 2V. Then I got seat raced and lost the 2V, and now I’m not boated for this weekend’s race, and probably for the rest of the season. I’m 5’4″, a heavyweight with top 8 time on my team, and my coaches say my biggest problem is that everyone else is just longer than I am. Do you know of ways to improve length? I’m starting to think I’ll never be a decent rower.

This may or may not be adding insult to injury, but I think that’s your coach’s polite way of saying that they’re taller than you and that’s where the advantage comes from. On one hand, strength and flexibility plays a major part in your length but it also comes from how tall you are. You want your reach, catch, and stroke to be as long as possible, which is why you see a lot of insanely tall men and women on the national teams. The biggest thing that will help you in the long run is working on your overall strength (if your team has a lifting program, start doing it) and flexibility (stretch, stretch, stretch, roll out on foam rollers, etc.). The strength part is most likely going to happen before the flexibility does (there’s not much you can really do about that either), but the two together will really help you out. Your height, limb length, torso length, etc. are all things you can’t change so even though they play a big part, it’s not worth worrying about because you can’t do anything about them.

Your hips and shoulders have to work together when you’re trying to achieve good length. Rowers like you who aren’t able to get or be as long as their teammates can make up for that by getting your hips deeper into the catch (not too much though), which brings your upper body forward a little more and allows you to grab a couple extra inches of water. What will allow you to do that is to work on the flexibility of your hips and increasing their overall range of motion.

Once you’ve worked on all of that (fast-forwarding to the fall season) and you know that your technique is good, your strength and flexibility have improved, etc. and you’re still not getting as much length as your coach would like, then he might look at the rigging on your seat. There’s a compromise to this though – changing the rigging, in this case the height and/or angle of your foot stretchers, increases your length but decreases your power output. Your coach would have to weigh the options and decide what he wants from there. Would he rather you be at a uniform length with the other seven rowers or be a little short but still able to get your maximum power output on every stroke? You’ve got one of the top eight erg times though so I don’t know how willing he’d be to compromise that power.

I’m sure you already are a decent rower. It doesn’t take much to be decent but it takes a lot of work (at least on the teams I’ve been a part of…) to be able to seat race for the first varsity boat. Your coach could have told you worse things, like your technique is terrible, you’re a poor sport, etc. but he didn’t. As long as you’re willing to do the work off the water, you’ll be back in a lineup in no time. Like I tell everybody else, don’t let this discourage you – instead, let it motivate you to work harder.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I’ve just been dropped from my coach’s 1st boat after 18 months of loyalty & hard work. He did it by email (coward!) so I haven’t spoken to him yet. Is it OK not to want to? Would you expect your rowers to come to you & ask why? I was so angry at first, but I feel like I’ve found peace with it now & in that peace I’ve sort of concluded for various complex reasons that I don’t want the 8+ back, I’d rather move into smaller boats & try to move on that way. Do you think it’s OK to admit that to him?

Hmm. I think it’s OK to not want to talk to him but I still think you should, if only to get clarification and insight since he’s the one who made the final decision. Once you know and understand his reasoning then you can bring up the subject of maybe moving to smaller boats, provided your reasoning is legit and not just because you’re pissed you got taken out of the eight. As long as you aren’t rude, immature, bitter, etc. towards him or the other rowers, I think you’ll be fine. That’s where problems arise when people get taken out of boats, they develop bad attitudes that essentially start to poison the rest of the team, which obviously has a lot of negative consequences.

Be mature about it and say that you accept his decision but after 18 months you feel as though you deserve at least a little background information as to how he came to the decision to move you down. Ask what you can improve on and regardless of whether or not you agree with what he says, make an effort to work on those things. Just because you got dropped down now doesn’t mean you’re going to stay out of the first boat forever. Don’t burn that bridge just yet.

Coxing Q&A Racing

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I know you talked about coxswains trying to lose weight, but do you also feel strongly against coxswains trying to gain water weight before weigh in?

Yes. I fully get why coxswains take this approach but it’s just as big of a risk as trying to unhealthily lose weight. Although it’s rare that for something serious like this to happen, it’s not worth it … at least in my opinion … just to put on a few pounds. Drinking large quantities of water (1-2 gallons always tends to be the go-to amount for people) before weigh-ins (especially when done in a short period of time) puts an extreme amount of stress on your bladder (and kidneys too) because of the amount of excess urine it produces, which can lead to not-fun infections.

The more serious issue of overhydrating yourself though is hyponatremia, which is when your brain starts to malfunction due to an electrolyte imbalance. One of the electrolytes that can get messed up is your potassium, which gets depleted through sweating or urination if you drink too much water. Sodium is the other. This is, like I said earlier, rare but you can still experience side effects from drinking too much, even if you’re not going to that far of an extreme. It can give you a headache, make you act weird (not weird in a socially awkward, funny way – weird in a “this is not this person’s normal behavior/personality” kind of way), cause you to become uncoordinated, and/or become nauseous (or vomit), amongst other things.

Related: How does getting weighed in work during the spring season? I’m a coxswain for a collegiate men’s team where the weight minimum is 125. I’m naturally under 110, so what’s going to happen? Sand bags? Will it be a problem?

The year I raced at nationals I saw a coxswain get really sick like this and I found out from my coach later on that it was because she’d been drinking so much water, partially because it was pretty warm outside and partially because she was trying to gain a few pounds before her race. The EMTs ended up taking her to the hospital as a result because she was just so out of it. Even though you might not fully get to the point of damaging your organs, you’ll still at the least feel the symptoms of it. You don’t want to do anything that’s going to cause you to be anything less than 100% when it comes time for you to race. It’s just not a smart thing to do regardless of whether it’s done over a long period of time or a short one. I know that people are gonna do it regardless but it’s not something I personally endorse.

College Q&A

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How does a cox/rower know when/if it’s time to quit crew? Especially as a collegiate walk on. I want to make it the four years, but…

I think I’ve talked about this before but if you find that you’re asking yourself that question – when/if it’s time – then that’s probably a good indication that you’re already leaning in that direction.

If you’re not enjoying it as much as you thought you would, it’s interfering with school, work, or other extra-curriculars (specifically, the clubs that relate to your major/minor), your grades are suffering and/or school is taking a backseat in general, the environment isn’t great (due to teammate, coach, or culture issues), if you’re easily frustrated by what you’re doing or find yourself dreading waking up for practice (on a daily basis), etc., those would all be valid reasons as to reconsider being a part of the team. They were all things that went into my decision so I know the feeling. Crew requires an immense amount of commitment and not just with your time. You’re basically throwing your entire self into this sport, mind, body, and soul. That’s not easy for some people to do, and that’s 100% okay, but asking yourself if you’re able to fully make that commitment is something you have to be able to say “yes” to without hesitation.

Related: How did you balance crew, classwork, and a social life while you were in college?

There’s a little bit more leeway for walk-ons, I think, simply because they’re new to the sport and weren’t recruited, but either way I’d talk with your coach if you’re having doubts and see if anything they say sways you one way or the other. Don’t let them pressure you into staying if you don’t want to though.

Q&A Rowing

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Do you possibly have three basic tips for someone who might have to start steering a coxless quad? Much love for the blog as well!!

My three basic tips might be the only tips I have for steering straight boats since they’re obviously something I don’t have much experience with, so if anyone else has any other (more helpful) pieces of advice, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Look over your shoulder every 3-4 strokes, give or take, depending on how well you know the river (switching shoulders each time). Only look when you’re at the finish too, since that’s usually when the boat is the most stable and won’t be upset as much by you turning your head.

Pick a point far in the distance, something right over the head or off the ear of the person in 2-seat, and focus on staying in line with that.

Several small adjustments tend to be better than larger ones because the larger ones are usually made at the last minute and result in you having to make additional (more frantic) corrections later.

If you can, when the boat is in the slings, play around with the rudder and see how much movement it takes from your foot to move the rudder various amounts, that way you have a good idea when you’re on the water how “hard” you need to steer to make a small adjustment vs. a large adjustment. When you first get in the boat do the same thing and feel what it’s turning your foot while you’re sitting there. If there’s enough room and not a lot of traffic on the water, ask your coach if you can play around with the steering while you’re warming up so you can feel what it’s like steering (aka moving your foot) while you’re rowing. From what I’ve heard it messes with how you connect with the foot stretchers (scullers, feel free to confirm or deny this) since you’re kind of twisting your leg a little.

College Q&A

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How bad would it be for a collegiate rower to take a few days off in the middle of the season for bad grades?? How do you go about asking your coach without head being ripped off / guilt tripped/ “not rowing’s fault”?

I don’t think it would be bad, per se, to take a few days off to get things under control, meet with your advisers and professors, take care of what needs to be done, etc. (as long as you actually do those things and don’t just sit around catching up on Netflix or whatever). Will your coach(es) and teammates be disappointed that you’re not there? Maybe, because it might affect the week’s lineups and practice plans. A huge aspect of demonstrating your commitment to your team is being able to manage your course load effectively so that it doesn’t end up negatively impacting you or your teammates. Spring season is essentially what you spend the whole year training for, which is one of the reasons why that school-crew balance is so important.

School comes first though and your coach should already know that. If they try and guilt trip you, that’s not really an indication (to me, at least) that they’re doing their job correctly. It might not be rowing’s “fault” but that’s not to say that it didn’t play a part. I would approach the subject with them (as soon as possible), explain your situation (in it’s entirety, leave nothing out), lay out a timeline for when you’ll be out and when you’ll be back, and be willing to offer and make some voluntary concessions. That might mean doing workouts on your own to make up for what you missed or giving up your seat to someone else/forfeiting a seat race but the more willing you are to work with your coach, (hopefully) the more willing they’ll be to work with you. Ultimately, communication is key.

Go to your professors’ office hours too and see if you can work out something with them. They might be willing to give you an extension on a paper or work out some kind of extra credit opportunity to help you out. Not all of them are that friendly, understanding, or courteous so don’t expect any favors or special treatment going in. Most teachers though don’t want to see you fail and will usually try to do something to help you. If you can do that before you talk with your coach, that might make things a little easier for you because it shows that you’re actually making a real effort to get things under control.