Category: Rowing

Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Quarter Feather

Coxing Drills Rowing Technique

Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Quarter Feather

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Previously: Rush(ing) || Body angle || Pick drill || Suspension || Skying the blade

What part of the stroke/stroke cycle does it refer to?

The recovery.

What does it mean/refer to?

Rowing on the quarter-feather is a drill, similar to square-blade rowing. Instead of the blades being fully feathered on the recovery, the rowers are just barely rotating the handles so that they’re just a few degrees past perpendicular to the water before squaring them back up at their usual spot before the catch.

Relevant calls

There aren’t many specific calls to be made here outside of reminding the rowers to not cheat and rotate the handle past the quarter-feather position. Most of the calls you’d make would be the same ones you’d make if you were rowing on the square or feather … clean finishes, even and consistent handle heights, etc. Understanding the purpose of the drill and the effects it has on the boat (discussed down below) will help you tailor your calls accordingly.

A coach I worked with last summer told the rowers to match the quarter-feather to their layback (in terms of degrees past perpendicular) and this helped everyone (mostly younger rowers) figure out where exactly “quarter” feather is, so if your crew is having similar issues you might make a similar call if you see some blades more or less feathered than others. Try not to get too caught up in the aesthetics though, it’s not that big of a deal.

What to look for

Watch the two videos down below to see what the blades should look like. The first is a compilation video of the junior national team four (I think), one of Princeton’s women’s eights, and the US men’s four. The second video is a quick clip of Cornell’s heavyweight eight from a few years ago.

Effect(s) on the boat

This is mentioned a bit in the first video up above so watch and listen to it, particularly the beginning when Nick D’Antoni is talking.. Quarter-feather rowing is about blade control – as it says in the video, it improves the finish by slowing down the feather, similarly to the delayed-feather drill where the focus is on clean extraction of the blade before the handle is rotated. Having the blade come out square reduces the likelihood of feathering it under the water, which can lead to catching a crab, throwing a lot of water towards the stern at the finish, etc.

Like rowing on the square, it can also help the crew to figure out their handle heights on the recovery without having to worry about the blades smacking the water if the boat goes even a millimeter off set. Stability isn’t always perfect on the quarter-feather (you can kinda see this in the Cornell video) but it does make it a little easier to work on consistent handle heights in the boat, particularly when the conditions aren’t favorable (i.e. wind).

Related posts/questions

Quarter-feather is such a basic thing that I haven’t talked about it on the blog before and couldn’t find much on the internet that talked about it any sort of detail. If you come across something though feel free to leave a link in the comments!

To see all the posts in this series, check out the “top 20 terms” tag.

Image via // @juhi._._
Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Skying the Blade

Coxing Rowing Technique

Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Skying the Blade

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Previously: Rush(ing) || Body angle || Pick drill || Suspension

What part of the stroke/stroke cycle does it refer to

Any point during the recovery but primarily the top quarter of the slide as you prepare for the catch.

What does it mean/refer to

Skying the blade refers to the blade being too high above the water, either consistently throughout the recovery or right before/at the catch. It’s caused by two main things: one, not carrying the hands at a consistent height throughout the recovery (i.e. either immediately out of the release or by lowering/dropping the hands at the catch) and two, by lowering the upper body (usually as a result of lunging) and forcing the hands down towards the feet at the catch. (The latter in my experience tends to be the more common of the two.)

Relevant calls

Many of the relevant calls for skying the blade aren’t necessarily for the skying itself, they’re for things like maintaining level hands on the recovery, setting the body angle early and maintaining it to avoid throwing the body forward at the catch, maintaining good posture, not rowing in a circle, keeping the eyes up/forward (because the hands do follow the eyes, regardless of whether they believe you when you say that or not … which they likely won’t but watch the hands of any rower who is looking down and you’ll see what I mean), etc.

Related: Top 20 terms coxswains should know: Body angle

If I see someone’s blade in the air, how I approach it will depend on who I’m coxing. If I’m coxing an experienced crew that doesn’t really need everything spelled out for them then I’ll just make a quick “Sam, watch the hands, you’re skying…” call and that will almost always fix the problem. Usually calls like this are made towards the end of a hard workout and are more reflective of the rower(s) just being tired and getting a little lazy with their bodies rather than it being an actual technical issue. This has been the case with the majority of the intermediate and masters crews that I’ve coxed.

If I know that a rower has a tendency to, for example, slump over when they get tired or they have poor posture in general then I’ll substitute “watch the hands”, which is pretty broad, with something specific to them, like “stay tall with the body, hold the hands up into the catch” or “keep the shoulders and hands up at the front end”. In instances like this I try not to say anything about what the blade is doing since it’s a secondary issue rather than a primary one but if the skying persists after a couple strokes then I’ll say something, usually like “Sam, gotta hold the hands level here on the recovery, you’re skying your blade nearly every stroke…”.

In high school I’d have to go into a lot more detail to fix the problem which was occasionally frustrating because I’d get caught up with trying to think through the process in my head of what was causing it, how it should look vs. what it looked like then, what I needed to address first, etc. and that would cause me to ignore a lot of other things that were going on (including how I was steering). What this taught me was not only the snowball effect that one issue can have on the rest of the stroke but also how to think fast in order to diagnose what I was seeing (and how important it was to learn about this stuff off the water so I wasn’t trying to learn it in the moment).

What this has to do with calls relevant to skying the blade (or any issue, really) is that because I had to know what calls to make for the issues preceding the rower skying their blade, once I had developed a good understanding of technique and how the stroke should look I was able to make more precise calls and make them say, one stroke after noticing the problem rather than three or four strokes after. Basically the better I understood what caused them to do X, the more accurate and efficient I was able to be in making calls to address that and in turn, problem Y was fixed in the process.

What to look for

This is one of the easiest things for coxswains to see so there’s never an excuse to not point it out when you notice it. It’s usually much easier to point this out with experienced crews because when the handle heights are more consistent across the board the outlier will stand out more and you’ll immediately notice it, whereas with novice/younger crews there can be a lot of different things happening and unless the skying is really egregious it might not be the first thing you notice.

From the launch it’s easy to see when a rower’s hands are dipping down or their posture is collapsing at the front end but when you’re coxing you have to rely entirely on the bladework to alert you of these two things. As previously mentioned, you’ll either see the blade high off the water consistently throughout the recovery or you’ll see the blade make a really extravagant swooping motion at the catch. (I usually refer to this as “flourishing the blade”.) If you could see an illustrated path of the hands it would probably look something like the Nike swoosh, starting from the right side and moving left.

Another thing to look for is the square timing. If when they square corresponds to when the blade skies then that rower is likely squaring down (i.e. pushing down with the hands as their inside hand rotates the handle) instead of maintaining a level, horizontal angle between the release and catch as they square.

Ideally you want the blade to be carried about 6″ off the water (give or take) and if the rowers are carrying the blade too low to begin with (i.e. it’s dragging on the water or it’s just barely above the surface) then that can also cause them to sky the blade. In order to give them room to square it up and prepare for the catch they’ll drop their hands, resulting in the blade going up in the air. Here you should be looking at the distance between the blade when it’s feathered and the surface of the water – if you can’t see any daylight between the two, remind the rowers of where the blade needs to be and the adjustments they should make with their hands.

The key here is that skying the blade is always the result of something else (that in turn has it’s own set of results stemming from it) so when you see someone doing it, you have to take a step back and focus less on the aesthetics (simply getting their blade to match everyone else’s) and instead address the actual issue that’s causing the blade to sky. This means inferring a lot of things about the hands and body based on what you currently see the blade doing but if you have a good understanding of what the “ideal” recovery looks like, both technically and with regards to body positioning, it shouldn’t be hard to call for a correction that addresses more than one issue at a time.

Below are two videos that illustrate what skying actually looks like. If you compare it to “normal” rowing, such as in this video where the blades are relatively level throughout, you might be able to see the difference a little easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWx4mcUuXCE

In this video, pay attention to stern pair. It’s a little tough to see three see but you really don’t even need to see his catch to know he’s skying, simply based on the trajectory of his hands and what you can see from the first part of the recovery. Stroke seat becomes a little more obvious with his skying towards the end of the video and the amount of water he’s missing is a lot more apparent.

Effect(s) on the boat

To name a few: poor catch timing (you’ll almost always be late), missed water at the catch, no suspension, decreased boat speed/increased check since you’ll likely be starting the drive without the blade in the water, and poor set due to hands dipping down into the catch instead of rising into it.

Related posts/questions

So, what did you see?

To see all the posts in this series, check out the “top 20 terms” tag.

Image via // Sofia Donnecke

Q&A Rowing Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

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Hi, I wanted to know if you if you have any advice on goals that you could set yourself. I’m 14 years old and I’m female, I’m 5’9 pushing 5’10 and participate in a lot of sports so I have a tall lean but muscular build. My high school doesn’t have a rowing team so I have joined a club. I really like rowing and I’ve been rowing for about 6 months. My coach is great and I row in a quad, double, and single (all scull). I row 4 times a week and I’m starting to become successful but I want to set myself some goals so I can keep improving. We are going to start gym sessions soon so I was wondering if you have any tips on times or achievements I should aim for?

This would be a great question to ask your coach because he/she would be able to give you a more specific answer than I can since they know your current times and all that stuff. Without knowing any of that it’s hard to give any concrete advice but I will say that whatever times you do end up aiming for, have that be the end goal but also have targets to hit at various intervals leading up to that as well. If you’re currently at an 8:00 2k and you want to be at 7:40 by spring break, determine how often you want to test yourself in between now and then and what times you’re shooting for with each test (i.e. 7:55, 7:50, 7:45, 7:40…).   It’s a lot more effective to be able to check off a small goal each month than to just aimlessly work towards a bigger goal that is three, six, nine months down the road.

When you’re in the gym, if you’re doing a bodyweight or plank circuit, try to add reps or time every couple of days. For example, if you’re doing 30 second planks, after two or three sessions add 10 seconds. If you can comfortably hold it, do 40 second planks for a couple sessions before bumping it up again. If you can’t complete whatever additional amount of time/reps you add, go back to the previous amount. The goal is to slowly build upon whatever you’re already doing. When you’re on the ergs, consider getting a heart rate monitor so you can track your workouts and make sure you’re training in the right HR zones when you’re doing steady state. This can help a lot with tracking your progress towards your goals (because if you’re training the way you should be you should in theory be able to hit your targets with little to no issue).

College Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

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Firstly thank you for writing your blog its been really helpful to me!! Secondly I had a question about heavyweight/lightweight in college. I’m a lightweight junior and I’m 5’4”. I would love to row D1 in college and it seems that there’s a possibility my erg score will become competitive enough to get some attention from openweight programs. What do you think the pros and cons would be of being a smaller person on an openweight team?

If you’re a lightweight with times that can get an openweight coach’s attention I’d say you’re probably in a pretty good position to make an immediate impact on the team. That right there is a huge pro, not just for you but for the coaches too. The two other pros/cons that immediately come to mind though are…

Pro: More opportunities/wider range of choices since there are more openweight programs than there are lightweight ones. If you’re interested in the schools that have top lightweight teams (Stanford, Harvard, Wisco, Princeton, BU…) then I definitely wouldn’t rule them out but because there are fewer schools that offer lightweight rowing, you’d be limiting yourself if you only looked at those schools.

Another pro is that since lightweight rowers have to rely a lot more on technique to move boats than heavyweight rowers do (who can get by with raw power and mediocre technique), this could give you an advantage when it comes time to make lineups.

Con: Maybe slightly contradictory to my last point but getting into the top boats will probably be harder if you’re competing with women who are 20+ pounds heavier (and 10, 15, 20+ seconds faster) than you. That’s not to say it’s impossible but I think it’d be an uphill battle to say the least.

Another issue that I hadn’t considered until recently has to do with body image/eating disorders. I was emailing with someone over the summer who said she had a really hard time last year (her freshman year) dealing with the amount of the muscle/weight she gained from training after going from a pretty thin lightweight in high school to openweight in college. I think it was a conflicting issue for her because she was doing really well on the team, had great times, was in good boats, etc. but just seeing her body change from the increased amount of lifting, fueling, etc. was difficult for her to process. There were some unhealthy decisions that cropped up that led to her seeing a counselor on campus and is something that, as of the last time we talked, she’s still dealing with (although in a healthier/smarter way than before).

It might seem out-of-the-box and like I said, it’s not something that would have even crossed my mind if you’d asked the same question in the spring but now that it’s been brought up I do think it’s something you have to at least think about. You know yourself better than anyone else so you’d have to consider how you would fare in a similar situation. Obviously it’s not a make-or-break issue for most people (at least in my experience with the handful of lightweights I know that have rowed on openweight teams) but it’s worth pausing to think about.

Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Body Angle

Coxing Rowing Technique

Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Body Angle

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Previously: Rush(ing)

What part of the stroke/stroke cycle does it refer to

Body angle is important throughout the entire stroke cycle but the main point where we draw attention to it is at the bodies-over position on the recovery. Other spots where it’ll be brought up are throughout the second half of the recovery, at the catch, and occasionally at the start of the drive but these spots are secondary to the bodies over position and are usually referenced in terms of maintaining the angle rather than setting it.

What does it mean/refer to

Body angle refers to the location of your shoulders relative to your hips. In the bodies over position, the shoulders should be in front of the hips, hence “bodies over“, and you should feel a slight pull in the hamstrings (similar to when you’re stretching and trying to touch your toes). You want to be in this position before the slide begins to move and then maintain that angle throughout the rest of the recovery and into the catch.

If a rower is lacking body angle or you hear your coach tell them that they’re not getting the bodies set early enough, there’s no body prep, there’s not enough forward body angle, forward reach, etc. what they mean is that the shoulders are still in line with the hips instead of in front of them. At the “bodies over” position their upper body and lower body would make a 90-degree angle and on the slides, their hips would be directly under their shoulders. It can be tough to achieve good body angle if you’re not very flexible so working on your hamstring flexibility would be of benefit if you find that’s an issue. (This tends to be the case with guys more so than women.)

Relevant calls

A lot of the calls made in reference to body angle aren’t the singular-type calls like what you would make for the catch or finish. Most of the time when you’re talking about body angle you’re doing so during practice when you’re addressing an issue that requires an explanation or in relation to another part of the stroke.

“Let’s get that early body prep…” and “Get the bodies set…” are both are usually said as a reminder to lock the bodies in the forward angle position before starting the slides. If body prep is something we’ve been focusing on or we did some drills for it at the start of practice I’ll usually work these calls into a longer string of calls (usually in conjunction with some swing calls) over the course of several strokes to get the rowers thinking about where their bodies need to be. It tends to sound something like this:

[Not said in rhythm with the strokes, just in a casual, focused tone.] “Alright guys, we’ve been working on getting the bodies set early on the recovery so let’s keep thinking about that here. Remember, we wanna establish that forward angle and hold it all the way into the catch. [Short pause if necessary so the next call is made at the start of the recovery.] Shoulders in front of the hips, lock [said at the catch] aaand swing [said through the drive and into the finish]. Stay tall with the chests here and swiiing [said at the catch] through [said as they open the angle into the finish]. Set the bodies [said as the hands come away], stay tall in the core. [Said at the catch] Let’s make sure we’ve got that horizontal swing back and we’re not lifting with the upper bodies. [Back to a more relaxed speaking voice, no longer in rhythm with the strokes.] Let’s find that length at the front end … making sure we’re not rounding the shoulders or collapsing into our knees … hands come away together, backs tall and flat.

The time to make a string of calls like that is during steady state rows when you’ve got plennnty of time to talk to the crew. During pieces or a race I only make body prep calls if something I see or feel necessitates it and I’ll (heavily) modify it down to something much more concise, such as “set the bodies”, “get that body prep”, etc. followed by 2-3 strokes of relevant calls to reiterate the message. My go-to follow-ups are:

“Set the bodies go“

“Shoulders in front”

“Chests high”, “Chests above the knees”

“Hold it” (with “it” being the body angle)

I also like to throw in some back end swing calls alongside the ones for body prep. During our practice row at HOCR one of the things I said to my four was “[at the finish] shoulders in front, [at the catch] lock [through the finish] swing, [start of the recovery] shoulders [at the catch] swing, shoulders swing”. You’re still communicating the same general message as what’s up above but in a more digestible and race-appropriate form.

“Watch the lunge…”, “Control the length…”, etc. are calls that are followed up with calls about body angle. If the rowers are lunging at the catch, it’s usually because the bodies weren’t set soon enough on the recovery so in order to maximize their stroke length they overextend at the last second. If you see/feel this happening then make the call pointing the issue out and follow it up with something similar to what’s above.

“Let’s eliminate the extra reach at the catch and make sure we’ve got all our length set by bodies over. Maintain that into the front end and … lock send. Set the bodies, lock send. Hands away, bodies over together … hold that length … swiiing back from the hips. Now feel that pull in the hamstrings as you pivot over and keep the shoulders in front as you start the slide.”

What to look for

Body angle is tough/impossible to see from the coxswain’s seat since you can’t actually see any of the bodies. It’s definitely something that is best viewed from the side so take advantage of being on the ergs or in the launch and watch each individual rower as they move through the recovery so you can learn their individual tendencies. The bodies over position (also referred to as “hands and bodies away”) should look more or less like this (with or without the pause):

Legs flat, arms level and extended, upper bodies pivoted over from the hips (the “pivot from the hips” part is key), etc. Even though you can’t see individual bodies, if you know what good body angle looks like vs. what your individual rower’s angles tend to look like, you can make the necessary individual calls to get everyone on the same page.

Another thing to watch for when watching from the side is rowers that lose their body angle as they come into the catch. This happens when rowers start the slide with the shoulders in front of the hips but finish with the hips tucked under the shoulders (which in turn can lead to them opening the backs early on the drive). With the backs perpendicular to the hull instead of angled forward over the thighs you lose a lot of your length, as well as your ability to control the slide.

This is where a double-pause at bodies over and 3/4 slide can be helpful (preferably on the ergs or in the tanks but it works in the boat too). Pausing at bodies over lets them set the body angle and pausing at 3/4 slide let’s them check to make sure they’ve maintained that position – shoulders in front of the hips – as they came up the slide. If they didn’t, try slowing it down and setting them up beside a mirror so they can watch their movements through the recovery. In my experience the rowers seeing themselves making that error does a lot more than me just telling them they’re doing it, mostly I think because it’s easier to make the association between what I’m saying and what they’re doing when they can actually see it happening. There’s not a lot of calls you can make here outside of reminding them to keep the shoulders forward, hips back, etc., which is why setting them up by a mirror so they can see what you mean is a lot more effective than just talking about it to them.

What about boat feel and watching the bladework? Although it takes a bit of time and practice you can make reasonable guesses as to what the bodies look like based on catch angles and check in the boat. If a rower’s catch angle (the angle of the oar relative to the hull) is very sharp, meaning the blade is closer to the hull than the other blades are, it could mean that the rower is collapsing their bodies at the catch in order to get more reach. In this case you should remind them to not go after any more length once the bodies are set at the beginning of the recovery.

If you’re feeling check in the boat, body prep should be one of the things you make a call for to re-adjust the ratio. If the bodies aren’t getting set early in the stroke, the rowers will have a tendency to lunge in the top quarter of the slide to get an adequate amount of reach. Sometimes you can see this by watching the speed at which the blades move towards the bow. If they’re moving at a consistent pace and then all of a sudden they speed up, that’s an indication that someone is lunging.

Effect(s) on the boat

As previously mentioned, a lack of body angle can lead to check in the boat and result in a loss of speed. The lack of body angle itself isn’t the direct cause of the check but it’s the cause of something else that is the cause of something else that is the cause of the check, which is why it’s important to know what those in-between things are so you can address everything as thoroughly as possible instead of just saying “set the bodies” anytime you start feeling the boat jerk.

Good body angle is the same way. It’s not the direct cause of solid rhythm and swing but it leads to something else which leads to something else which leads to both those things.

Related posts/questions

Can you explain the term “rowing it in”?

(Scroll to the 2nd bullet point – “swinging early“) Hi! My coxing has gotten to the point where I can see the technical problems in my rowers, but sometimes I’m not sure how to call a correction on them. For instance, I know if someone is skying at the catch I can call the boat to focus on direct catches and “hands up at the catch” and things like that for stability…but there are others I’m less sure about. Would you please touch on good ways (positive reinforcement, they hate the word “no” in the boat) to call for the following problems in a rower?

(Scroll down to the last paragraph) What checks the boats run? Recently in our octo the run of the boat is checked but I don’t know how to prevent it and what to call to make it better. Thanks love this blog, so helpful! 🙂

To see all the posts in this series, check out the “top 20 terms” tag.

Image via // Kevin Light
Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Rush(ing)

Coxing Rowing Technique

Top 20 Terms Coxswains Should Know: Rush(ing)

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This is going to be a new series of posts that go up on Wednesdays that highlight some of the “top terms” coxswains should know and understand. I got this idea from Tom Tiffany, who was the coxswain coach at Northeast Rowing Center this past summer. All these terms are ones that he felt were important for coxswains to be aware of so I decided to take it a step further and include what part of the stroke/stroke cycle does the term apply to, what it means, relevant calls, what to look for, effect(s) on the boat, and links to any elated posts or questions.

What part of the stroke/stroke cycle does it refer to

The recovery.

What does it mean/refer to

Rush(ing) is what happens when a rower (or several rowers) move from the recovery to the catch too quickly, meaning they’re coming up the slide in less time than it took to drive through the water. It lacks ratio and rhythm, in part because it requires the rower to pull themselves up the slide instead of letting the boat run out under them.

Relevant calls

“No weight on the legs…”, “Zero pressure on the stretchers…”, “Relax the legs…”

“Feel the run on the recovery…”

“Stride…”, “Lengthen…”, “Control…”, “Looong…”

“Get the bodies set early…”, “Hold the shoulders steady in the second half…”

“Match the hands out of bow to the boat speed, maintain that with the slides…”

“7-seat, make sure you’re backing [stroke] up, get on their rhythm and then send it back. 5 and 6, relax, focus on that swing through the back end and matching stern pairs movements up the slide.”

“Don’t pull yourself up the slide, let the boat come to you…”

What to look for

As a coxswain you’re going to feel the rush more than you can see it but there are still visual cues you can look for to tackle the rush before it gets out of hand. The main one is to look for blades/oar shafts that are moving towards bow faster than your stroke/stern pair’s. You can also count the ratio out in your head and if it’s closer to 1:1 instead of 2:1 or 3:1, particularly at lower rates then that’s an indication that the crew is rushing. You should also feel a loose “back and forth” motion that lacks any sense of control, in addition to feeling a jerking motion as the rowers come into the catch that will typically throw you into the back of the coxswain’s seat a little more violently than normal.

Effect(s) on the boat

Rushing the recovery is one of the main killers of boat speed. Lacking a defined contrast between time spent on the recovery and time spent on the drive results in either an individual’s or the entire crew’s weight being thrown toward the stern which creates check and results in a loss of speed.

Related posts/questions

Calls to control rush? There’s only so many ways to say “control the recovery” and “slow the slides.” Thanks!!

What the hell do I, as a stroke seat, do to calm outrageous rush?

(Scroll to the 3rd bullet point – “rush on the last 1/3 of the slide”) Hi! My coxing has gotten to the point where I can see the technical problems in my rowers, but sometimes I’m not sure how to call a correction on them. For instance, I know if someone is skying at the catch I can call the boat to focus on direct catches and “hands up at the catch” and things like that for stability…but there are others I’m less sure about. Would you please touch on good ways (positive reinforcement, they hate the word “no” in the boat) to call for the following problems in a rower?

Hi, I never know what it means when someone asks me what the boat “feels” like. Like the rush for example. I’m not sure what that feels like vs. a boat with no rush. Just in general, I’m not sure how to gauge whether a piece felt good or bad. I feel like the only things I can see are blade height, square up timing, catch timing, and if bodies are moving together, and I can tell if the boat was really moving and if there was power. But what else should I be aware of?

Hi! Read your last post about rushing rowers. How can you tell which rowers are rushing? My view usually stops at 7 seat. Are you supposed to watch the oars to see if catches match? Thanks!

Today our novice boat was SO rushed! No matter what the stroke, they’d hit it for like 3 secs, before flying 3 or more SR than was supposed to be. Stroke told me that she and 7 seat were trying to control it, but starting middle 4 on down, kept rushing. I tried to say “lengthen, ratio shift, control, etc.” while still saying their SRs. Nothing I said changed it, if anything SR went higher. I gave up by the end of it, since they weren’t listening. Coach didn’t help, just said follow stroke. Help?

To see all the posts in this series, check out the “top 20 terms” tag.

Image via // @drikus_conradie

Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

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Hi! I’m racing in a 4+ this weekend at HOCR. I have rowed port for the past 2.5 years, but my coach wants to see if I can row starboard and be bow seat. Do you have any advice on making this transition effectively so quickly? Thank you!!

The main things to be aware of, especially if you’ve been rowing on the same side for a long time, are what side you’re leaning to, what hand your pulling with, and what hand you’re feathering with. Everything will be the opposite of what you’re used to so it might take a bit before you remember that you have to feather with your right hand instead of your left and lean into your rigger on the port side instead of leaning away from it towards where your “normal” rigger is. With knowing which hand to pull with, if you’ve been rowing the same side for awhile then you’ve likely developed a bit more strength in your outside arm by comparison so you might be more likely to initially pull with that hand instead of your “new” outside hand. That and leaning towards the wrong side can cause some issues with getting fully connected at the catch but once you get some time on your new side they go away pretty quickly, especially if you’re aware of the issues and actively working on them.

Rowing Technique Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Physics of boat acceleration for rowing shells

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I know a 20 minute long video on physics probably doesn’t sound that interesting but it’s actually pretty informative and really well put together. (And, considering it was put together by a rower who also happens to be a physics professor, you know what’s in here is legit.) If you haven’t taken physics in school yet then some of the concepts might be a little over your head but once you hear her explain them in the context of rowing, they start to make a bit more sense.

If you’ve ever heard your coach mention force curves or you want to know how to read them, she explains that here, except instead of using an erg she uses actual video of her and her brother rowing in a double to point out where each of the major points of the stroke are and how they’re translated onto the force curve.  She also mentions how they could improve certain parts of their stroke based off of the data she got from the force curve. I think this section of the video is the most helpful because once you know and understand what each part of the graph means you can then use that knowledge to evaluate your own stroke if you’re in a single or your crew’s collective stroke if you’re in a bigger boat. Keep in mind though that this is one of those things that’s easy to “fall down the rabbit hole” with. It’s cool and can definitely give you a lot of good info but if you’re a novice high school crew, you’re not gonna get much from it. It could be a fun to mess around with though during your winter/spring training trip if you’re a top level junior or collegiate crew though.

The app she used is CrewNerd (iOS/Android), which essentially turns your phone into a SpeedCoach for the much-easier-to-justify price of $50. (I used to have the free version on my phone that I’d use on occasion if I wanted to get a rough idea of our splits but didn’t have my SpeedCoach with me. It works the same as the paid version but stops displaying data after 100 strokes or 5 minutes. If you want unlimited use of it for 30 days it costs $1.99.) Once you’ve completed a workout you can pull it up in the “history” tab and export the data from there.

The Four Defaults

Coxing Rowing Technique

The Four Defaults

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When there are so many different things happening in a such a short amount of time it can be tough knowing what exactly to look at or make calls for, particularly if you’re a novice and have’t fully grasped all the technical nuances yet. The four things listed below are the “defaults” that you should always be paying attention to (every day at practice and as necessary during races) since they are what tend to have the biggest impacts on boat speed (slowing it down when adjustments are needed and increasing it when adjustments are made).

Related: So, what did you see?

Timing at the catch and finish

This should be the most obvious. Are the blades going in and coming out together? If you notice that the timing is off at one (or both) end(s) of the stroke then you should immediately be making a call, either to a specific person, pair, or the entire crew, to get them back into rhythm with the stroke and following the cadence they’re setting.

Related: Timing at the catch

Ratio

This should be the second most obvious. Standard ratio is 2:1, meaning the recovery should be twice as long as the drive – 2 (recovery) to 1 (drive). Rush during the second half of the recovery (starting from the bodies over position) can kill boat speed so it’s important to call a ratio-shift when you feel this happening to get the crew back on track. Communication with the stroke can be a big help here since they’re usually more aware of when rush is happening than you are (unless it’s really bad).

Related: Ratio

Blade coverage

There should be no missed water at the catch and no washing out at the finish – the blade stays fully buried all the way through from beginning to end. If you’re coxing novices or less-experienced rowers, make sure that you communicate what the proper depth is (there’s usually tape on the oar shaft down near the blade – they shouldn’t be buried past that point).

Related: An Intro to Rigging, pt. 3: Pitch (Quick note: adjusting the rigging should never be your “go to” solution. Fix your technique first then see if any alterations can be made to the rigging to complement the changes you’ve made with your rowing.)

Jump at the catch

This is also referred to as the “impulse”.  It’s a result of getting a strong, committed, and deliberate push off the foot boards as the blade enters the water and the slide changes direction. The further into practice/the race you are, the more likely it’s going to be that you need to make a call for this since it relies heavily on maximum engagement from the legs.

Related: Boat feel

Keep in mind that this is something you can feel more easily than you can see. If the the rowers are missing water at the catch then that’s a visual indication that the “impulse” isn’t happening but if you’re experienced enough to have a good sense of boat feel then the boat feeling sluggish, heavy, etc. should be another indication that you need to spend some time focusing on reigniting that impulse at the front end.

Image via // @j.bluff
Coxswain Skills: Boat Feel

Coxing Rowing Technique

Coxswain Skills: Boat Feel

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Previously: Steering, pt. 1 || Steering, pt. 2  

“Boat feel” is something that you’ve gotta understand regardless of who/what you’re coxing. It most often comes up when we’re talking about bow loaders since instead of seeing what’s happening you’ve gotta feel it but everything below is applicable to any boat you’ll ever be in.

The way my coach approached it and how some of the best coaches I’ve worked with lately have approached it is that you should ideally spend your first season learning the basics of rowing, meaning you focus on just the bodies and blades. The following season, that’s when you start to really tie in the associations between what’s happening with the bodies + blades and what your body is feeling. That’s not to say that you can’t think about what boat feel is/means your first season but like they say, you can’t construct a building on a weak foundation. Plus, if you’re in boats with novice crews it’s pretty likely that nothing is going to feel good to the point where you’ll really be able to develop any sense of real boat feel anyways.

Related: Hi, I never know what it means when someone asks me what the boat “feels” like. Like the rush for example. I’m not sure what that feels like vs. a boat with no rush. Just in general, I’m not sure how to gauge whether a piece felt good or bad. I feel like the only things I can see are blade height, square up timing, catch timing, and if bodies are moving together, and I can tell if the boat was really moving and if there was power. But what else should I be aware of?

Once you’ve developed a fairly solid understanding of the basic mechanics of the stroke, then you should start asking yourself how your body reacts to these three things: the movements of the boat, changes in the stroke, and technical adjustments made by the rowers. That (the italicized) is boat feel if you were to define it.

The first thing you should do to give yourself a baseline to go off of is figure out what your body is doing when the boat is running well and things feel good. What that means is consciously thinking about how every part of your body that is in contact with the shell feels (i.e. feet, legs, hips, core/back, hands, etc.). I like to think about all of this when we’re doing steady state because I have more time to focus on each of the three things I mentioned before. I think about it when we’re doing drills and stuff too but it’s a mid-level priority since my main priority is actually executing whatever we’re doing. I also like to force myself to think about it when we’re doing high rate stuff (30 stroke pieces are great for this) so I can get used to feeling how the boat moves in racing situations and managing doing that while my brain is trying to process fifteen other things at the same time. (This helps a lot when you’re actually racing because it takes less effort to do once you’ve practiced it a lot.)

Once you know how your body reacts to the boat moving well (which basically means it’s balanced, you’re getting good run, and the rowers are taking effective strokes) it’ll be easier for you to pinpoint when something is off. From there you can address the issue by reinforcing whatever your coach has been teaching lately or by making the call for the appropriate technical adjustment (hence why you need to have a good base understanding of the bodies + blades).

Once you’ve done that, give the rower(s) a couple strokes to make a change. During this time you should be feeling the boat again and asking yourself if and why it feels different, i.e. did the rower(s) make a positive change or a negative change. If it doesn’t feel any different or it feels worse then maybe the call you made didn’t fully address the problem or the rower was unsure of how to implement the change. This is something to bring up to your coach the next time you stop. If the boat feels good, meaning your body’s hit that baseline feeling again, then reinforce the change by giving the rower(s) some positive feedback.

Developing boat feel requires two main things – time and focus. The more time you spend in a boat consciously working on this, the better you’ll get at developing it. Same with focus, the more time you spend processing what you’re feeling instead of just spitting it back out at the rowers, the better you’ll be at understanding the relationship between what they’re doing and how the shell responds.

Image via // @henryfieldman