Category: Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow July 12, 2016

Hi, I just wanted to know how you think the style of coxing differs between the US and the UK. I’ve been coxing in the UK for a couple of years and the calls made during races seem to be made in a more rhythmic and fluid style (if that makes sense, probably not), whereas in the videos I’ve watched of US crews there seems to be a lot of counting with stuff thrown in between each number, which I think is a bit cluttered. Of course this is only based on a couple of videos I’ve watched but I might be going to the US for university, so would I have to adapt my style to the one I’ve seen? Thanks.

This is a really good question. I don’t think you’d have to completely abandon whatever you’re used to but you will probably have to adapt a little bit. I wouldn’t say that’s uncommon though – my style changed a little when I went to college but I’d probably classify it more as evolving rather than adapting to an entirely new way of coxing. I mean, there was some adapting but not a ton. There were definitely things I had to do that were different than how I’d done it for the previous four years but a lot of what I did differently was a result of just realizing there were new (not better or worse, just new) ways of doing things that I hadn’t been exposed to before. If I were you that’s the attitude I’d have going into this if you do come here for college … I think it makes the idea of potentially doing things differently a lot less daunting.

To make a really bad comparison/analogy, think of it like learning to drive on the other side of the road. You’re still doing all the basic driving “things” the same, you’ve just gotta get used to being on a new side (of both the car and road). It’s the same with coxing. The core of it is all the same, it’s just the nuances of it that might be different than what you’re used to.

As far as US vs. UK style, there’s absolutely no way I can give an unbiased opinion or breakdown on this since the US style is what I’m most familiar with. To me personally (and sorry if this is offensive), the UK style is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. There is no style of coxing that I dislike more than that super rhythmic, roller coaster-y style of speaking. If I close my eyes and listen to a recording I actually feel like I’m on a roller coaster that is just continuously going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. It’s so distracting! I’ve asked friends to listen to the audio to see if maybe it’s just me but we all tend to feel the same way and agree that the biggest difference between the two styles comes down to our speech patterns and how we say things. For the most part I think we’re communicating the same things but the US style is more to give a constant stream of information so that the rowers know exactly what’s going on at any given point in the race whereas the UK style tends to have periods of silence before interjecting occasional updates about whatever they’re seeing/feeling or their position relative to whatever else is going on. I wouldn’t say the UK style is fluid at all, if anything it’s as terse as you can possibly get … but that’s obviously based on the handful of UK recordings I’ve listened to and my preconceived notions about that style based off of what I’ve heard, know, and like (or dislike, rather).

Now that you’ve posed the question this is definitely something I want to explore more. I’m curious to know how much, if at all, international coxswains have adapted their style when they come to the US for college. If anyone knows a coxswain here in the US who “grew up” coxing a different way, have them email me. Feel free to comment too and let me know what you think.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow July 12, 2016

Hi. I’ve coxed girls for a year now and I’m changing to guys. I’m not sure how to cox guys as I’ve heard it’s quite different. Any tips? Also they want me to motivate them in the gym and I don’t know how to apply my coxing in the river to a gym session.

Per usual, the best advice here is to just ask them what they’d like you to say or what the best way to motivate them is. Normally when we’re doing circuits in the winter the coxswains aren’t doing a lot of motivating, either because we’re off in the lounge doing something or because the guys have the music turned up so loud that trying to yell over that would be a pointless effort. If I or one of them is keeping time then outside of calling when to switch stations, the only things we’re saying is one-on-one stuff as we walk around the room. Usually it’s something really basic like “that’s it Clay…” or “good job guys, keep it up…” or “yea Pat, get after it…”. There’s nothing (or very little) from their coxing on the water that they apply to stuff that isn’t erging and even if/when they’re coxing them on the ergs, there’s still a pretty large degree of difference between that and what they do in the boat.

Coxing How To Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow June 23, 2016

Hey! I have a couple questions.

1. I’m not very good at taking criticism. Mentally I don’t mind it and I try to use it and everything, but for some reason emotionally I seem to take it as an attack and always feel close to crying. I’m not sure why this is and I was wondering if you have any tips.

2. We just got a new coach and he’s doing a summer rowing program, which is great, but he’s trying to completely change my style of coxing. I understand that repetitiveness is something I need to work on, but he’s telling me that while I was coxing the rowers on the ergs that I was “singing” to them. He expects me to be much louder (which I can be when I choose to be- I prefer to save it and use it as a “wake up” call kinda thing to change the pace of the race) and also be more direct and short (which I understand that part of and agree with). How should I deal with this? Should I try to explain my ways (I did a bit) or just go with what he says? And how do you work on being less repetitive ?

Thanks!! (Sorry if the second one is kind of a loaded question. Today was the first day with the new coach and tomorrow is the first day on the water)

So this is always a question that I genuinely don’t know how to answer and always struggle with when people ask for advice on how to work through it. I think my initial thoughts on it tend to come off kind of flippant (unintentionally) which makes it hard to give legit feedback without sounding like an ass. My take on it though is that if you can acknowledge the value in what’s being said and are able to use it … I don’t see how at the same time it can be construed as an attack. You’ve gotta be able to separate you the coxswain from you the person, which I talked about in the post linked below. If someone says “you’re a bitch” then yea, that’s clearly a personal attack but if they say “you need to work on your steering”, that has absolutely nothing to do with you as a person. One of the things I learned early on in coxing is that you have to – have to – look at everything objectively. As soon as you start letting emotions cloud your judgement or how you interpret situations you’re shooting yourself in the foot and limiting your growth potential.

Anyways, moving on. It kinda seems like you’re contradicting yourself a bit here by saying your coach wants to completely change how you cox … but you acknowledge that you could do XYZ better. Normally in situations where a coach is at odds with a coxswain’s style I’d advocate for them to, at the very least, explain their approach so the coach can better understand why they do things a certain way. In most cases I think that as long as your approach isn’t completely ass-backwards to the way things should be done (which some coxswains try to pass off as “their style”) and you’re able to clearly communicate how/why coxing this way works for your crew, most coaches will take a step back and let you do your thing. I’ve had to do that before (not even with new coaches either, with my coaches that I’d worked with for 3-4 years) and one of my coaches who was a coxswain said that even though he didn’t necessarily agree with how I was doing it, I presented it in a way that at least made sense and he could see that the crew responded well to it.

Related: Words

In your case though, I think you should just go with what he says for the time being (give it a trial period of a week or two) and see how it goes. Tell him that you’re going to be working on XYZ and ask if he can give you some feedback over the next few days about how you’re doing. After your trial period is up, compare and contrast the changes you made with how you were coxing before. What improved, what stayed the same, etc. Whatever improves, based on his and the rowers feedback, incorporate it and do it from now on. With whatever stays the same, explain that you tried doing [whatever] the way he suggested and the rowers didn’t really respond to it or felt kinda “meh” about it so you’re probably just gonna stick with how you were doing it before, at least for now.

With whatever suggestions you don’t use or incorporate, I’d at least keep them in your back pocket to use if/when you need to try something new. There have definitely been times where a coach has suggested something to me and I’m just like “lol no” because I know it won’t work or sounds ridiculous but other times, even if their suggestion doesn’t work at the time with whatever boat I’m coxing, I’ll try to remember it so if a time comes when I’m feeling burnt out or the crew I’m with is hitting a mental plateau, I’ve got something on hand that I can try. Why create extra work/stress for myself by trying to come up with new calls/strategies when I can just re-try or re-purpose ones that have already been suggested to me?

As far as how to work on being less repetitive, check out the post linked above. A good place to start would be to listen to your recordings and identify which calls you use most frequently, that way you can then think about what you’re actually trying to say and come up with more specific calls from there. If you’re one of those coxswains that says “let’s go” or “now” every 5 strokes during a race then working on creating a basic race plan would probably go a long way in helping cut down on the repetitiveness. The less room you give yourself to make seemingly random calls like that (outside of where they can/should be used), the better you’ll be at communicating effectively with the boat.

Coxing Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

By readyallrow June 23, 2016

Hi! I currently am a female rising junior in high school, and I am hoping to be recruited for college for coxing. My normal weight floats between 105-110lbs without me doing anything special or extra to hold it there (ex. dieting, working out, etc). However, I am very tall at 5’7″ and I am worried that coaches will overlook me because of how tall I am. Do you think that it is possible for me to cox in college knowing that I can healthily maintain sub the minimum weight, but am really tall for a coxswain, and that I don’t fit the short 5′ coxswain stereotype? I have been a girls’ coxswain for the past two years. This summer I am doing two coxswain camps and am coxing the men’s’ team (they do not have enough girls to fill a boat) for a club that practices in the same boathouse that my school does for about half of the summer.

Shortest/simplest answer ever – nobody cares how tall you are as long as you can make weight.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow May 17, 2016

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.

Coxing Masters Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow May 12, 2016

Hi! I have my last race coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m coxing four boats at it. The first boat is our Varsity 4A who I am very used to and have been coxing all year. The second boat is a LWT Novice 4 that was kind of thrown together last minute because we needed to boat everyone. The other two are masters boats for my club team that I’m obviously not a part of because I’m in high school, but they needed an extra coxswain and their coach is my old coach, so he asked me. Do you have any tips for coxing races generally and not super person-specifically, but still well? The two masters boats have real shots at medalling so I want to make sure I do my best with them, even though I’ve never met or worked with any of them before. The LWT4 doesn’t really have much of a shot just because who we’re competing against but I still want them to feel like they had a good end-of-season race. What do you think? Thank you so much!! PS: The two masters boats will be bowloaders and since I won’t have very good boat sense with them because they’re not my teammates, I don’t know how well I’ll do with technical calls.

I wouldn’t be super concerned with the masters boats – your main goal there should be to just steer straight. (Obviously that should be the goal every time you race but in this case it’s really your only responsibility.) I’d ask your coach if he has a race plan he wants them to follow and if he does, go over it with him so you understand it and then just execute it on race day. Don’t worry about technical calls or anything like that unless they specifically ask you to make some (this is something you should ask rather than waiting for them to bring it up).

Masters crews tend to fall into two categories – the ones who are doing it recreationally and should never (ever) be left to their own devices and the ones who are fairly competitive and a little more self-sufficient. If these guys have a chance at medaling then they probably fall into the latter category, in which case they might just ask you steer and handle everything else themselves. When I’ve coxed one-off races with masters boats they usually tell me up front that to keep things simple since I’m new to the boat all I need to do is get them from Point A to Point B and the bow seat will make whatever calls they need outside of rate shifts and transitions. It’s not the worst arrangement and it definitely takes a ton of weight off your shoulders when you’re meeting them for the first time the day of the race.

You have two jobs on race day … steer straight and execute the race plan. If you do those two things well then you’ve done your job. With your lightweight boat, if they’ve raced before then I’d ask them to tell you one thing that motivated them in their race or if they haven’t raced, give you something they want you to say to them during the race (either technical or motivational). That way you’ll at least have something you can fall back on during the race if it starts to feel a little dry. I’ve said this a lot but you can also incorporate them into whatever moves you take, i.e. “lets take 5 for the legs, here we go middle pair…” or “let’s take 10 to take two seats, go get your seat [3-seat]”. Stuff like that can bring a good energy to the boat and it literally takes no effort on your part.

Usually my approach to “generally” coxing a race is to just do what I know works. There were plenty of times in high school where my main boat would be my eight and then on top of that I’d also have a four that we put together that week as an extra entry so everyone could race twice. If it was a light four comprised of four people from my light eight then I’d cox them the exact same as I would the light eight. If it was four people in the 1V and I’d been coxing the 2V then I’d ask the 1V coxswain for a few calls that she’s been using and incorporate that into my race plan, which would more than likely be the same one that I’d use with my regular boat. Very, very little changes for me when I get into a new/unfamiliar boat, especially if I’m only gonna be with them for one race.

Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

By readyallrow May 12, 2016

I’ve been having some trouble for some time now that when I’m rowing at high rates and focusing on just being faster and tapping down and getting my blade in I’m burying the entire shaft of the oar pretty much. Not all the time but I would say 65% of the time. When the boat is set and we can all square up on time and have a direct catch then my blade just goes in but I’ve been told “Not the whole shaft, just the bury the blade” countless times. I’ve been focusing mad hard on trying to fix it but I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I wouldn’t mind seeing video of me rowing to nail it down and that might happen today but I just want to fix it already. My hands might be too low at the catch or too high (mostly depending on the boat being unset). When I was in a better set boat, my technique was a lot better and less of the shaft of the oar went in and I got the blade in. I can get the blade in on the drive and have a lot of power but it seems that I enjoy making things harder for myself by putting the shaft in the water. Any help or tips would be extremely amazing. I also seem to just do this on port side and when I rowed starboard it worked a little bit better but I was having a hard time transitioning from righty to lefty. Thanks again.

We’ve had a couple guys doing this recently, usually when we’re practicing our starts. Their tendencies have been to get a little grabby at the catch and lift with their upper bodies to get the blade in which causes it to get buried deeper than it needs to be (vs. allowing their arms to just pivot from their armpits and driving back with the legs first). When you’re rowing at lower rates focus on feeling the connection at the catch in your low back and hips and resist the urge to sit up right away. Once you’ve got that feeling “memorized” it’ll be easier to replicate when you hit the higher rates. Keep your shoulders relaxed and body over while you push back with the hips and the blade depth should correct itself.

Definitely ask your coach if he can get some video from the launch so you can see what you’re doing, not just with the handle at the catch but on the recovery as well. I know it’s hard to take good strokes when the boat’s not on keel but do your best to hold your body stable (not tense … stable) and your hands level, that way you’re in the best possible position to have a good catch. If you allow your body/hands to react to every movement of the boat you’re just adding to the problem and making it harder on yourself.

College Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow May 12, 2016

Hi Kayleigh, I’m coming and asking you because at this point my team is desperate. I don’t want to give much away other than we are a college team with a head coach who is boarder line abusive with an assistant coach who doesn’t coach and knows way to much about our personal lives beyond way what we post on social media. Some people have gone to compliance and they didn’t do anything and when some went to the Title 9 office that ended badly for us. Do you have any advice on dealing with a bad coaching situation?

Yikes. If neither of those two things worked then you should probably consider escalating it to the athletic director or assistant AD. If things are that bad then there’s no way they wouldn’t want to know, not to mention the fact that they should know about it. Situations like this are always tough and the tendency to sweep it under the rug or side with the coaches over the athletes, even if there’s a valid reason to look into the coaches’ actions and behavior, can be frustrating (especially when the go-to response lately involves saying something about “entitled millennials” not being able to handle a coach being “tough” on you). That shouldn’t be a reason to not speak up though if you feel like lines are being crossed.

I’m not sure what you mean by “it ended badly for us” in terms of going to the Title 9 office but I feel like whatever it is, it’s probably not legal just based on what Title 9 is. For those not familiar, it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Here’s an example of what a Title 9 policy looks like (this is ours):

“MIT is committed to providing a learning, living and working environment free from gender-based discrimination. Gender-based discrimination, including sexual misconduct (a term used to describe a range of behaviors including sexual harassment, non-consensual sexual contact/sexual assault, non-consensual sexual penetration/rape, and sexual exploitation), intimate partner violence, and stalking committed by MIT students, staff, or faculty will not be tolerated. This applies to academic, educational, athletic, residential, and other Institute operated programs.”

So … yea. Obviously I don’t know all the details but if the issue wasn’t addressed and you were retaliated against for speaking up (especially if it was by your coaches), that’s a pretty serious problem in itself. Like I said though, I’d start with scheduling a meeting with the AD or assistant AD and calmly, rationally, etc. explain what’s going on. Keep it as straightforward as possible (make a bullet-pointed list if you have to), don’t elaborate for effect or anything like that, just lay out the facts and let them deal with it. Don’t be afraid to stay on them about this too if you haven’t heard anything or it feels like things have stalled.

As far as how to deal with this during practice … tread lightly, get in, and get out. I’ve had bad coaches but nothing to this magnitude so I don’t know how helpful that advice is but whatever you do end up doing, try to keep a level head throughout the situation and just channel your frustration into your strokes.

Feel free to email me if you wanna share more details – sometimes understanding the context of the situation helps me come up with better advice. Definitely keep me updated though, I’m interested to hear how things turn out.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow May 12, 2016

Hello! I’ve seen you mention before that coxswains are supposed to be completely silent during seat-races and that was a huge surprise to me because I’ve been a high school coxswain for three years now and we always talk during our seat-races. We race our boat against the other boats making calls like those that we’d make during races. My coach is a retired olympic rower so I figured he knew how to run seat-races but then I read what you said and it seems to make more sense to have a seat-race be all about the rower. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on this (having coxswains cox the seat-races). Thanks!

Ah, I assume you saw my comment on Reddit the other day. I don’t think coxswains should be talking during seat races because seat races are supposed to be about which rower can make the boat go fastest under neutral conditions, not which rower can make it go fastest with someone motivating them along the way. To me that’s just a regular piece and would qualify as “unofficial” seat racing, which is something we do on occasion too. We’ll do normal pieces if we want to compare a couple guys and if the times are close and warrant it, then we’ll set up a day to do actual (no-talking) seat races.

Related: How to: Cox a seat race

Check out the post linked above – it’s all about how the role and responsibilities of coxswains when rowers are seat racing. There’s a lot more info and details in there but here’s what it says about actually coxing the pieces.

Do know what you are and aren’t allowed to say. 99.9% of the time, coxswains aren’t (and shouldn’t be) allowed to say anything more than the stroke rate and the time/distance. If during a normal sprint racing you are talking 98% of the time, during a seat race you should be silent 98% of the time. When I’ve coxed seat races I would tell the crew the stroke rate every 30-45 seconds, point out 250, 500m, and 750m, and let the crew know the time (i.e. 1 minute down, 2 minutes down, etc.). All of that was regulated by the coach too – I didn’t just randomly decide to say those things or when to say them, I was told to give that information and only that information at specific times during the piece (usually 1000m pieces).

You cannot cox them at all. No motivation, no technique, no moves, nothing. In the boat, the most important thing you have to stay on top of is making sure the stroke rate stays consistent and doesn’t surpass whatever cap the coach has given you. If the cap is no lower than 28spm and no higher than 30spm, it’s your job to communicate with your stroke if he/she is under or over that. The only thing you can do to get the stroke rate back in that range if it’s outside of it is to keep reading off the numbers until they get it where it needs to be. You can’t cox or coach them on how to get it there. (In any other situation you should not do this. Seat racing is the only time when reading off stroke rates like this is OK.)

Everybody does seat racing a little differently. Some people take coxswains out of the equation entirely and just do pairs matrices or pieces in straight fours. Sometimes they do regular pieces and call it a day and other times they get super official about it and do it the way it’s laid out in the post I linked to (which is how I’ve done it several times so it’s what I’m most familiar with). I’ve seen them done all three ways though and the most effective/efficient ones are the ones where the coxswains just steer and stay quiet. Pairs matrices/straight fours are fine but then you’ve gotta worry about the rowers being capable enough to steer in a straight line. That usually just ends up being an unnecessary distraction and in some cases can tamper with the validity of the races . When I’ve seen coxswains be allowed to cox the seat races like a normal piece, for whatever reason it always ends up being more disorganized and frantic. Like I said though … everybody does it differently based on what they think works (or is the easiest and least trivial).

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow April 28, 2016

Hi! So, I have been quite “upset” with my boat. You see, I’m a very competitive coxswain but half of my boat is … not, you could say. Anyways, I want to share my feelings and tell them that I leave practice feeling pissy because of their lack of motivation and the fact that it was such a horrible practice. But I also don’t want to add drama and tension in the boat. I’m that always nice, sometimes getting pushed over, type of coxswain but I have been learning to stand up and put them back in line but it always makes me feel guilty and thus kind of “sucking up” (hugging them, compliments) to the rowers. I want to be feared AND loved but I just can’t balance it out. There’s also a few girls who always WHINE and COMPLAIN every single time we do workouts. I just want to shut her up and tell her to suck it up. But my mind tells me no and just ignore it. Any advice? I so need it! Thanks!

I have no time for people who bitch just for the sake of bitching. It’s one of those things that annoys me on a deeply personal level. If you’re going to complain every single time we do a workout you can pretty much count on me telling you to shut up every single time in response. It just makes no sense to me that you’d join a sport (or any activity really) and then complain about the work that’s associated with it. So yea, I’m all for telling her to deal with it but my approach is to do it one-on-one first and then if it continues (and I know it’s distracting or pissing off other people in the boat) then I’ll say it to them on the water going forward. (This also prevents someone in the boat from saying something, which usually ends up causing more drama than if the coxswain says it.)

Usually what’ll happen is I’ll just lean out of the boat, look at them, put a hand in the air, and be like “Dude … seriously? Stop.” and that’s all it takes unless they’re hell bent on acting like a brat that day … which happens with college athletes more than you think it would. I can really only think of one time off the top of my head that it progressed past that and at that point my coach stepped in and told them that they could either grow up and stop wasting her, my, and the boat’s time or we could turn around, go back to the dock, and they could leave. She quit not long after that.

I know that in the long run I’m going to irritate more people by not saying something than I will by calling them out so that’s a big part of my rationale for how/why I address it. Basically I’d rather have one person be pissed at me for two hours than have the other four, five, six, or seven people think I’m a pushover who can’t handle having tough conversations with a teammate.

I get not wanting to create drama or add tension but I also think you’re undermining yourself by just brushing it off and hugging it out with them afterwards. That, to me, just says to those rowers that it’s OK for them to keep complaining and not putting the work in because you’re never going to actually say anything to them about it. If you want something to change in this situation you’re gonna have to be the one that makes the first move, which is to hold them accountable for their lame attitudes and not coddle them afterwards because their feelings might have been hurt for a whole fifteen seconds.