Category: Racing

Advice from a former novice

By readyallrow March 1, 2016

Back in late June I got an email from a coxswain who had just finished her novice season and wanted to share some of what she’d learned and what she wish she’d learned throughout the spring. Here’s what she had to say (the italicized text is mine).

“Now that I’m no longer a novice, I can reflect on my time on the novice team and also add in all the new things I’m learning at a competitive camp. My hope is that I can help the novices that look at your blog with all my mishaps and experiences, so here are two lists:

Things I wish my coach told me while I was a novice:

When you’re rowing it up after your sprint race, if you see boats coming down the course about to pass you, weigh enough.

For those that don’t know, this is a sportsmanship thing and also so that the wake from you rowing doesn’t impact the crew in the lane closest to you. You’re not always required to stop (the officials will tell you if it’s something you must do but if they don’t, ask to confirm) but it’s just one of those things you should do regardless. It also gives the rowers a chance to grab a quick drink or make any needed adjustments, not to mention cheer on their teammates if a race your team is in is on the course.

When you have a bad day/bad row don’t let it stay in the boat with you. Let it go and be patient.

Don’t expect rowers to do what you say just because you’re their coxswain. You have to be their leader.

When steering, less is more.

Related: How to steer an eight or four, Oversteering, and “Small adjustments“

If you need to clear your skeg of weeds in an eight, you need to turn all the way around, lean over the stern deck on your stomach, and get both hands down on the skeg.

Unless it’s 80 degrees out this is rarely an enjoyable activity but if you’ve got a lot of weeds/leaves wrapped around the rudder or a stick caught between the fin and the rudder (had that happen at HOCR two years ago) then reaching into the water and loosening it up manually is your best/fastest option. Just make sure that you’re pulled over to the side out of the way of other crews that are practicing or racing.

Things I’m so glad my coach told me when I was a novice:

Your warmup is this, your race plan is this, and when I raced in college, it helped when my coxswain said this.

With regards to the first two, if these aren’t things your coaches tell you, ask them yourself. They might forget, they might think you already know, or they might think that one of the other coaches already filled you in. If you don’t know ASK. These are not dumb questions, these are critical parts of your race day preparation.

Don’t panic, and have fun.

This is how you stake boat. (She showed us a video and then the next day we practiced it on our dock.)

Related: Spring season pre-race prep (includes videos on how to get into a stake boat)

When coxing an eight, instead of staring at one oar at a time, stare at a point in the air in front of your stroke, and your peripherals will bring everything to you. (Tricky to do, but when practiced, super helpful.)

Being a few pounds over the limit is okay. It’s called the minimum for a reason.

So, as a message to all frustrated novice coxswains (and rowers!), here are my words of advice: Hang in there. You never stop learning but it does get better.”

Image via // @gramulho

College Coxing High School Racing Rowing Training & Nutrition

Coxswains + Weight Management

By readyallrow February 25, 2016

Given that it’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week I thought this was an appropriate video to share. It’s from a talk on weight management that was given during the Sparks coxswain camp this past December. It’s only about nine minutes long so I encourage you to set aside some time to watch it (in addition to sharing it with the other coxswains on your team). There’s some great info, advice, and anecdotes in here but beyond that, at the very least I hope this serves as a wake-up call for those of you who are or are considering employing unsafe methods of losing weight.

Coxing Racing Recordings Rowing

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 35

By readyallrow February 16, 2016

Something I really like about these recordings is how sitcom-y they feel. You know how in any show things start off fine and then something happens but then at the end things are good again, if not better? That’s what these pieces are like – the first one was alright, the second piece not great, and the third is where they make some changes and it all comes together. We’ve all had practices like that but this is the first set of recordings I’ve come across where you can actually hear and feel how the pieces ebb and flow throughout the practice. If you struggle with how to call practice pieces (i.e. how to find that balance between race-coxing and still maintaining a technical focus), you should definitely make time to check these out and take notes.

University of Washington 3x1500m, Piece #1

At the beginning I like when the coach (Bob Ernst, I think … this would have been his last season with the men before switching to the women’s team) says “try not to make it a tug of war with the upper bodies”. When the water’s not great or there’s a headwind it’s easy to fall into the trap of pulling more than you’re pushing and it can be tough to come up with a way to communicate that (that’s not the same played out “make sure we’re driving with the legs” calls…) so I like the tug-of-war analogy there.

Throughout these pieces you’ll hear Katelin talk a lot about the rate and where to bring it up (the drive) and bring it down (the recovery). If you’re trying to take it up, “a beat through the drive” is the simplest, most straightforward way to communicate that and avoid creating a lot of rush on the recovery. The “through” part of it is kinda crucial too because you want the crew to be accelerating from catch to finish and “through” says that without you having to throw in a bunch of extra words and make the command longer than necessary.

It’s not until they’re sixty seconds into the piece that she first mentions the other crew … and only to say that the other coxswain is taking a move but they’re walking on him as he does it. The next time she mentions them (thirty seconds later) is when she says they’re gonna take a move when she’s next to their bow man … but the move isn’t for the other boat (i.e. to take another seat, get the bow ball, etc.), it’s for them (five for timing, five for the legs) and that is one of the key things about calling pieces in practice like this. Are you “racing” the other boat? Yea sure, but you’ve gotta get your own shit together first if you want to actually be able to race the other boats like you would other crews during an actual race.

She does a really good job of telling the crew where they are and what she wants while keeping the atmosphere calm and focused. They’re racing but she’s keeping them more in tune with what’s happening in their boat instead of constantly calling out the other crew and ignoring the technical issues that you hear her making calls for. THIS is one of those key things that, as a coxswain, the sooner you get it the better – she could have just called this like a normal race and made a third of the technical calls she’s making and the crew might have still finished ahead … but at the end of the day they wouldn’t be any faster. Because of the technical calls she’s making and the way she’s incorporating them into her race strategy, she made them faster that day by being relentless about holding the crew accountable for their strokes. (And now she’s coxing the national team so take from that what you want.)

At around 4:10 you can hear her stroke or 7-seat say “let’s open it up … open water” and then the next series of calls she makes is that ten to get some separation between the two crews. THREE MINUTES AFTER THE START OF THE PIECE and that’s when her boat starts to really race the other one. THREE MINUTES. THREEEE. MINUTESSSS. Her tone intensifies, her calls intensify, and the focus has clearly shifted to walking away. I also really like the call “do not get up and sit up” call she makes towards the end of the ten. They’re not being walked on (yet) but they’re also not walking away either … in that situation they’re the easier target.

6:41 is probably one of my favorite “speeches” I’ve heard a coxswain make in awhile. A lot of coxswains are … for some reason … afraid to say shit like this to their crews but sometimes you really do just need to get on them and say it’s really fucking unacceptable that we – WE – let this happen. This is also a perfect example of the difference between being a bitch and being authoritative and really reiterates the point I was trying to make in the post linked below from November. Next time someone tells you to “be more bitchy” when you’re coxing, this is what they want you to do.

Related: The Bitch in the Boat

University of Washington 3x1500m, Piece #2

The tone of this piece is a little different because they lost a length at the end of the last piece so they’re fired up and planning on going hard right off the line to match the other boat. Spoiler alert, this backfires. Now don’t get me wrong, I love that she says “we’re not waiting to make the move” (that’s a great call, especially for situations like this) but as the piece goes on you can hear how that mindset, while good in theory, probably contributed to a lot of the slide control issues they experience. I don’t think you need to spend three minutes waiting to get into race mode on every single piece but at the very least you do have to establish your in-boat presence first (whether that takes ten strokes or two minutes, whatever) before your focus shifts to walking on or away.

At 3:44, I like how she splits up this ten. A lot of coxswains, particularly younger, less experienced ones, will call for a ten and then trail off midway through because whatever they called for didn’t actually need to be ten strokes long whereas here, she calls for a ten but it’s actually two fives that are focused on timing at both the front and back ends of the stroke. This is a much more effective way of matching up the timing without saying “move together”, “watch stroke seat’s blade”, “ten for catch timing”, etc.

Related: All about Power 10s

At 5:11 you can hear her stroke seat yell out “get long, get longer!” and then the next set of calls she makes after she finishes the ten are for length on the slides. Normally if my stroke says something to me or yells something out to the boat when I’m calling a ten (it’s always during bursts) it knocks me out of my bubble for a second and I’ll stutter on the next call because it’s like “wait, what just happened?” … I hate that. I can’t tell if that rattled her focus or not (which is good, obviously) but even if it did, she did a great job of finishing up the ten and then immediately incorporating in calls to reiterate what her stroke said. This is another thing you should talk about with regards to communicating with your stroke. I’m OK with my stroke talking to me (as you hear her stroke doing throughout the pieces) or occasionally yelling things out to the boat but one of the few no-no’s I have is if I’m calling a burst, don’t say anything until we’re done because I just go into a zone when I call those 10s and 20s and them saying something just jolts me out of it. If you don’t like your stroke yelling out to the boat or talking to you when you’re calling 10s or whatever else, make sure you have a conversation with them about that off the water.

Her point at the end about it not being a big deal if they get up a couple seats applies to pretty much any situation with any boat ever. A few seats isn’t a death sentence so long as you regroup and focus your energy through the drive and not on trying to get to the catch faster just so you can get your blade wet again.

University of Washington 3x1500m, Piece #3

Her stroke makes a good point at the beginning about it being the same number of strokes and that they just need to get longer on each one. If you’ve ever done those “how far can you go in X number of strokes” pieces then you’ll get what he’s saying. The crew that controls the slides and accelerates the handles on each stroke is going to be the one that covers more ground and does so more effectively, not the crew that is rowing at the same stroke rate but has lost their ratio in the process.

Compared to the previous piece, you can hear the difference in her tone at the beginning here. It’s pretty similar to those pieces from the last set of recordings where the stakes are high but you know that she knows that the key to her crew’s bow ball being in front at the end is staying calm, focused, and loose right from the start.

At 2:11, that’s the kind of positive reinforcement you should put out there when your crew does something well, particularly the “nice fucking response, that’s the way to get it done” part. Obviously you don’t have to say it exactly like that but you can’t deny that just hearing “nice response” would probably make you sit a little taller and push a little harder on the subsequent strokes. (Also another example of swearing with a purpose.)

2:52, “let ’em know it’s over” … this is one that I would save for just the opportune moment – it’s one of those afterburners calls that just reignites the fire at the end of a piece. I distinctly remember using this call once during a similar workout where we’d been sitting on the other boat for probably 5-7 strokes after having walked up on them about half a length on our previous move to get almost even (we were maybe half a seat to a seat back).This was a crew I knew we could beat (I was in the 2V and we’d been evenly matched with our 1V on the ergs and the water for pretty much the whole season) and I could tell the other crew was getting comfortable with us being beside them, to the point where they thought we were starting to fall apart because our progress on them had stalled. I heard the other coxswain say something to the effect of “show them why YOU’RE the 1V” and my stroke said “fuck that, let’s go” so I called a ten and made the “let ’em know it’s over, go now” call. We ended up finishing two seats up and me, my stroke seat, seven seat, and three seat all got switched into the 1V.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Racing Rowing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: 2000 Sydney Olympics Men’s 8+ Final

By readyallrow February 8, 2016

To follow up last week’s VOTW (if you haven’t watched it yet, I’d set aside some time to do that), here’s the race video of the men’s eight final from the Sydney Olympics. By now we all know how it ended up for the Americans but after watching the documentary from last week, it puts the race in a different (slightly more gut wrenching) light.

Racing Rowing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: A Fine Balance

By readyallrow February 1, 2016

This is a must-see documentary on the USA men’s team training for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It’s 90 minutes long and well worth the time spent watching it.

In addition to all the Teti-isms and solid life/rowing lessons, there’s a lot of good audio clips of the coxswains from inside the boats so you should be able to get a couple good calls out of this to use in your boat or pass along to your coxswains.

College Coxing Racing Recordings Rowing

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 34

By readyallrow January 28, 2016

As most of you know I got to coach at the coxswain camp that Sparks hosted in Tampa the week after Christmas. One of the other coaches was Katelin Snyder, current coxswain of the USA women’s eight, and she graciously offered to send me a bunch of her recordings to put on the blog. I’ve been obsessing over these things for the last week so I’m really excited to finally share some of them with you guys. The three I’m posting today are all in a playlist on my YouTube channel that I’ll keep updated as I share more of her audio in future posts.

University of Washington Opening Day 2008 vs. Navy and Poland

This is from Katelin’s junior year at UW, her second year in a row coxing the varsity eight.

Right off the bat you can hear how she calls the start isn’t like how a lot of coxswains call it. There’s some punch behind her words but for the most part she’s very calm and relaxed. One of the big concepts that we’ve talked about with coxswains at the Sparks camps is not losing your shit at the start of the race and instead remaining composed and keeping your focus on steering straight through the first five or so strokes. This is a perfect example of what that should sound like.

At 0:45, I really like how she called their stride – “we’re striding in three strokes, increasing boat speed in two…”. She says what she wants (stride) followed up with an objective (increasing boat speed), and says it all as succinctly as possible.

When calling something like a minute move like she did at 1:17, it’s easy to think that in 60 seconds you can take a handful of seats on the other boat(s) but I like that she kept it simple here by going after just one seat and calling out the guy in her boat whose seat they were targeting (and then told him when they’d got it).

In between her calling “inches” you can hear her stroke say “length!” at 4:13, which she immediately follows up with on the next call by calling for more length through the water. That’s a fairly common question that I get, how to communicate with your stroke during the race and this is a good example of how simple it really is.

University of Washington vs. California 2009 Duel

OK, so for some context watch this video of the race that was taken from the launch. Turn your volume up too and prepare yourself for the single greatest move that I think I’ve ever seen at 1:41. (TBH I’m kind of excited to hear from inside the boat how this move played out because we saw Washington do something similar several times at IRAs last year, including when they were in our race in the V4+, so … it’s nice having some insider knowledge now of how they do it.)

I really like the “lengthen and increase boat speed” call she makes out of the start at 0:40 as a reminder to not let the power fall off as the stroke rate starts to ease out into their base pace. Also saying “hold the knees” instead of something related to the slides is a good alternative; it’s a more active call than just “slow the slides” or whatever we normally say.

I like that they take their move at 650m in. Calling moves at the 500m, 1000m, etc. is fine but these moves taken at relatively unconventional spots are what gets your bow ball in front. Starting at 1:52, I’m obsessed with this chunk of calls, particularly the “get outta here!” one. I’ve looped it so many times because even without watching the video, I can feel California’s souls getting crushed and as a coxswain there are few better feelings than seeing that moment when the other crew realizes they’re about to get dropped. After you make a successful move on another crew, the next thing you have to do is watch them for the counter attack because it will happen and you don’t want to be caught off guard when it does. I like how she stays calm at 2:25 and reminds them to defend it by completing the strokes (nothing fancy, just relying on flawless execution of the basics) before calling that ten at the thousand to “end it”.

Lengthening out at 1250m is a really solid strategic move. It’s not necessarily a move to gain anything, rather it’s an internal move to get the bodies ready for the last 500m. By 1250m – the middle of the third 500 – this is probably the peak of pain before the rowers catch that second wind leading up to the sprint. Reminding them to breathe, stay long, etc. eliminates any tension that could otherwise shorten the strokes and decrease the boat speed.

At 3:55 you can hear the stroke say “They’re going!”, which is Reason #875 why stroke-coxswain communication is important. If you’re far enough ahead that you don’t have a clear view of the other boat in your peripheral vision, you’ll need to rely on your stroke seat to alert you to when the other boat starts to move on you.

Team USA Women’s 8+ 2010 World Cup III Heat

This is my favorite of these three recordings. Note how, similarly to the other two recordings, she has a very focused calm in her voice during the start. It isn’t until about 60 seconds into the race where her coxing voice really comes out.

At 4:48 when they’re approaching 750m she makes this call: “…5 more and we lengthen back out. I wanna do it by sending … now send through the back end.” Similarly to the “lengthen and increase boat speed” calls, I like this one because the objectives are clear and she’s calling for them to do it by calling on her knowledge of the stroke and by emphasizing their swing and acceleration (which if that’s something you know your crew does really well, you should incorporate that into calls like this and work the rhythm that comes from it). I also love how her voice is pretty chill at the start of this and then there’s that kick in her voice when she says “fuck yea” – the excitement there is motivating in itself but the contrast in her tone would for sure make me drop a split or two if I were rowing.

Similarly to the lengthen move at 1250m in the previous recording, I like this “breathe for 5” move that they take at 6:45 coming into the last 500m. This has always been one that I do too with my crews just as another way to get them to stay fluid and loose and refocus before we make the final push to the line. The thing to remember with calls like this (that Katelin does really well) is you have to match your tone to the intensity of your call – a call like this can’t be said in the same tone as the “we’re gonna send a fucking message to Canada” call.

Side note, one of the many amusing stories that the guys told me last year about our V8+ coxswain was how during a race he was trying to get the crew to relax and because he was getting progressively more frustrated with how the boat felt, eventually he yelled “JUST. FUCKING. RELAX!!!” which obviously accomplished absolutely nothing. Don’t do that. If you’re gonna make a call that falls under the “relax” umbrella, your tone has to be a little more subdued that it is during the more intense parts of the race.

One last thing I want to point out is the swearing, which I’ve talked about on here a few times (most recently in this post). These recordings are some more good examples of how to swear and how to make it work without sounding like a try-hard. If you’re a junior coxswain and even less so as a collegiate coxswain, very few people are ever going to actually care that you said “fuck” during a race if you use it to punctuate your calls like she does. It’s when it gets gratuitous that coaches get annoyed because it’s just unnecessary and can be borderline unsportsmanlike.

Other calls I liked:

“Hold your momentum…”

“Third 500 is crushing … base … speed!”

“We’re gonna send a fucking message to Canada!”

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: 1997 M8+ World Championships

By readyallrow January 25, 2016

This week’s video isn’t embeddable so click here to go watch it on World Rowing’s website. I’m not sure why I had this specific race bookmarked but it’s a good showdown between the United States, Romania, and Australia.

If for whatever reason it doesn’t load – the website can be SUPER slow sometimes at loading videos – just search “1997” on the video archive page and you can find it from there.

College Coxing Racing

Coxswain recordings, pt. 33

By readyallrow December 17, 2015

University of Washington 2012 Windermere Cup Men’s open 8+

I realized after uploading this that I think I labeled the video incorrectly – rather than the varsity eight race I think it’s actually the men’s open eight since “Western” is Western Washington and they weren’t in the V8+ race.

Starting at 0:22, I like this series of quick calls (“now build it and here we go, get on it now…”) right before they start their high strokes. It’s a good alternative to not calling the first four or five stokes if you’re not into that kinda thing.

“One seat up, that’s fine…” Compare his call of “one seat up, that’s fine” at 0:59 to what a lot of coxswains do – “200m in, we’re one seat up, by 250m I wanna be on their bow ball, power 10!” – and it’s not hard to see why I like this, not just for what he says but for how he says it. If you’ve established your rhythm, are taking tight, clean strokes, the boat feels good, etc. then ride that and use it to your advantage for as long as you can, regardless of whether you’re up one seat or down three seats.

If you watch the time on the video, you’ll notice that 200m to 300m and 300m to 400m only took them roughly 20 seconds per 100m. That’s a little over 11mph (18km/hr). For comparison, Germany rowed the first 500m of the final in London at just over 13mph (21km/hr). I stopped paying attention to this after awhile but in the first third of the recording you’ll hear him call 200m, 300m, 400m, 500m, 600m, 750m, etc. While he’s probably rowed on the Montlake Cut long enough to know where each 100m mark is along shore, another way you can tell your crew where you are is by paying attention to the times. If during practice you’re pulling similar splits during pieces to what you’re pulling during your race then you’ll be able to guesstimate that each 100m is taking you roughly X seconds. This in turn means that even if there aren’t markers along shore telling you where you are, you can make a good guess based on what the clock on your cox box is saying.

At the 500m, I like the “five to set the swing” they took. Especially after the first 500m, which can tend to be a little frantic, it’s always good to take a couple strokes to re-establish that long, smooth stroke that you wanna maintain throughout the bulk of the race. Making focus-specific calls like he did here for swing is also important, especially when your busts are short like this one was. I liked the “good swing through the back” one the best.

Overall, this was a really well-coxed piece. What I really liked and what you should be taking away is how there was a good balance of everything a coxswain should be focused on during a race – position on the course, position on other crews, splits (if you’ve got a SpeedCoach), technique (maintaining a balance between general calls and calls for individuals when necessary), etc. His voice is great too – calm at times, in your face other times, but intense as hell from start to finish.

Other calls I liked:

“Hands up to the front bow six, we want no missed water…”

“Keep walking away, give them nothing…”

“Curb stomp the shit out of ’em…”

“We’re comin’ into the Cut, it’s Husky territory now, show ’em a hell of a race…”

“With the push…”, with regards to the leg drive. “On the legs” can get old after awhile so I like this as an alternative.

Gainesville Area Rowing Women’s Varsity 8+ Steady State + Docking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF9505cWYpI&feature=youtu.be

So this video is of an eight minute steady-state progression starting at rate 20 and finishing at a 26. At the start of the piece it takes a few strokes to find that long 20spm (during the 5+10) so going forward what I would do in that situation is try to hit the rates just like I would during a race, which means calling it the same, giving the same instructions, etc. (albeit minus the intensity of a race – her tone here was perfect for what they were doing), that way if you have to do something similar during an actual piece you’ll already know what to say to get them to respond (and in turn, they’ll know what they need to do).

That means telling them to hit it the rate “on this one”, making rate-specific calls such as “lengthen out a beat here”, etc. If you’re doing 5 to build or something similar then you’ve gotta communicate with your stroke beforehand and say “we’re at an 16 right now and we’re doing a long build into a 20, all you’ve gotta do is hit half a beat each stroke and we’ll be good”. From there, as long as you’re in the 19.5 – 20.5 spm range, you’re fine. Particularly at the junior level it’s unlikely that you’re going to be right on your desired rate every single stroke so going with a tight range like this gives you some wiggle room and prevents you from having to say the stroke rate every stroke to try to get it exactly on a 20.

This applies to all the other transitions too. Instead of saying “OK let’s take it to a 24 … 22.5, 22.5, 22.5, 22.5, 23.5, 23.5, 23.5, 24…” just say “OK we’re at a 22, let’s hit that 24 in one stroke with the legs … on this one, leeegs, good 24…”. Or, if you’re doing a long build again (which I think they did going from the 22 to a 24), instead of saying the rate on every stroke and nothing else, say something like “OK we’re gonna take another long build into this 24, let’s make sure we’re staying controlled, finding our length, and moving right with stern pair. Ready to go … on this one, that’s 1 through the water, 2 23, 3 controool here, 4 let’s hit that 24 … on this one, boom send…good, right on rate.”.

One of the things I think she did well was build her tone/intensity across the duration of the piece. It drives me crazy to hear one-note coxswains cox pieces like this because they never do anything different with their voice. If the rate and pressure is going up, by default so should your tone/intensity.

I love how she docked too. Good job giving them instructions and telling them what to do every step of the way. Novices in particular, take note – this was a pretty good example of how to bring it in at the end of practice.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Novice Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow November 15, 2015

Hello! I was wondering if you had any advice for not panicking during a head race? I’m a novice rower who usually rows stroke in doubles. During practices everything is fine. Mock races are great, good start, ratio, and pressure … but during the last two actual regattas I started panicking when the head race started and my rate was too fast with no pressure and I felt like it was endless and I couldn’t push … it almost felt like I had to give up! Do you had any advice?

If things are good during practice then the issue is more likely you just letting your nerves get to you rather than you getting to the starting line and panicking because you feel unprepared (which is another reason why people freak out at the start). I used to always get really nervous before the start of a race too so before our boat would meet to start our land warmup I’d find a quiet spot well away from the boats, other people, etc. and just sit for 10-15 minutes to try and relax. Sometimes I’d go lay in our trailer if it was a short walk away and other times I’d go into the boathouse and find a stairwell to sit in. I totally sabotaged myself during one of my first races as a novice by letting my nerves get to me and it was a total shitshow (at least on my end) so I learned quickly that I needed to take a few minutes to get out of my own head before we launched. During the row up to the start I’d always try to focus on my breathing too (long, slow, deep breaths), that way I’d always have something to focus on even when I wasn’t making calls to the boat.

The more experienced I got the less nervous I’d be by the time we got to the starting line but even now the buildup of adrenaline still makes me antsy. Once I catch myself drumming my fingers on the gunnels I know I need to close my eyes and take a couple deep breaths to get back to that relaxed baseline feeling I had on the row up. I talk to myself a lot while we’re sitting there too (in my head, not out loud … that’d be weird), usually just to remind myself to chill out, the crew trusts me and has my back, etc. Each of my stroke seats and I (or bow seats if I’m in a four) have always had our own little thing we’d do too (fist bumps, “secret handshakes”, things we’d say to one another, etc.) and that’s kinda the last little thing I need to get me 100% dialed in. At that point there’s no time left to be panicked or antsy because I’ve got a job to do so whatever nervous energy I have left just has to be channeled into calling the race.

I’d recommend doing something similar before your next race – find somewhere quiet to collect your thoughts before you launch, subtly focus on your breathing on the row up, and dial yourself in at the line so your start is as controlled and powerful as possible. What works for everyone is a little different so you’ll probably have to tweak all that to make it work for you but eventually you’ll get into a pre-race routine that leaves no room for nerves to take over.

Coxing Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 29, 2015

Hello, I’m going to be coxing a mixed four later on in this month and I wondered if you could help me with some head racing phrases as I’m usually a rower.

Talk to the people you’ll be coxing first and ask them what things they want/need to hear throughout the race. Time, rate, distance, and landmarks should be your default calls so make sure you check out a course map before the race so you can pinpoint some of the important spots along the course and get an idea for where halfway, the last 500m, etc. are.

Related: HOCR: Race plans

For other calls, the first third of the race should be focused on establishing a rhythm and making sure you’re technically “on”. The middle third is generally a continuation of the rhythmic/technical calls with some motivational stuff getting thrown in as you pass the halfway point in the race. The last third should be all about power and pushing through to the finish, as well as making any last efforts to walk on or away from any crews around you. A lot of those calls you can pick up just from what you like to hear from your coxswains, what the rowers tell you they want/need to hear, and what the coaches say during practice. If you’re worried about remembering everything, use Post-It notes to help you remember the key parts of your race plan and the important calls you know you’ll want to make.