Tag: erg

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 23, 2013

Question about the foot plates on the ergs – what number do you find it’s best to keep them on? Is there a standard it’s “supposed to” be at or is it best for each girl to change them for herself? What do those numbers even mean?

Where your feet are placed on the erg make a huge difference in your technique and power output. When I explain this to novices, I tell them to think about what their feet look like when they go up on their toes or for girls, what it feels like when you’re wearing heels. Where your foot bends below your toes (on the balls of your feet), that’s where you want the strap to be. This allows for the most natural movement as you come up to the catch. If the strap is above that (over your toes), it’s not helping you out at all and can actually lead to you over-compressing (meaning your knees are in front of your ankles, which is an entirely separate issue). Over-compressing means that your legs won’t activate immediately at the catch and you’ll end up becoming fatigued faster due working harder than you have to. You always want your toes to be in contact with the foot stretchers, and having the strap too high (meaning the number is set too low) prevents that.

On the flip side, having the number too high will put the strap down over the center of your foot (closer to your ankle), which is extremely uncomfortable. I don’t even know how people can row like that and not assume it’s wrong. This prevents your heels from coming up as you move on the recovery (at the very least it doesn’t let them come up enough) and doesn’t allow you to get fully compressed at the catch, which means your stroke is short and you’re not generating as much power as you otherwise would. It can also lead to a lot of lunging, because if you can’t get all the way up the slide you might compensate by trying to reach farther than you normally would to increase the amount of length you’re getting.

The shorter you are, the higher the number will be. The taller you are, the lower the number. I’ve seen some guys who row with it on 1 or 0 with no problems. It’s both a personal preference and … not. The strap has to be on a certain part of your foot in order for your stroke to be correct but the number that the stretchers are at is different for everyone. There is no “standard” so each rower should set their feet themselves just like they would in the boat.

I’ve never really looked into it so I’m not positive what the numbers mean but it might be how many inches of shoe is left over once you’ve adjusted it … but that’s a total guess that could be completely wrong.

Ergs Q&A Technique

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 23, 2013

Every time we do an erg test, our coach writes both our splits and our watts down. I was wondering why he’d write the watts down too? I know they’re units to measure power but I don’t understand what kind of extra information it would give, more than just the splits show.

This is a great question. My coaches (college and high school) barely focused on watts (maybe because we were a women’s team but who knows) so I didn’t really do much with them until I started coaching. I’m coaching guys too which is why I thought maybe that’s why our coaches never paid that much attention to them but that’s all speculation though.

You’re correct in that watts are units that measure power but they’re also a great indication of each rower’s individual fitness and how efficient their stroke is. To make an easier-to-understand comparison, think of it as quality vs. quantity where watts are quality and splits are quantity. You can pull a low split but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re generating a lot of power. If you look at someone who does CrossFit vs. an Olympian, they might both be able to pull the same low split but the Olympian will 99% of the time pull a higher wattage because they’ve got technique and finesse on their side.

The coaches and sports scientists who really study this stuff will tell you that splits and times are a great indication of one’s endurance but the watts are the true indication of how well you can move a boat. To generate a high wattage you’ve obviously gotta have the raw strength and power but you’ve also gotta have the technical proficiency so that the power you’re generating is being used efficiently.

Video of the Week

Video of the Week: 1:16.6

By readyallrow February 18, 2013

Ergs Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 15, 2013

How do you fight the winter blues? I know it’s different between rowers and coxswains but I’ve just been getting so frustrated with myself and with workouts. I’m in a perpetual state of soreness (that’s a given) and it’s getting to the point that I struggle to maintain the splits that my coaches are asking me to hold. Spending one more day on the erg might drive me nuts and my team still has 2-3 weeks indoors. HELP!

Sounds like you’re getting close to being seriously burned out. I would spend some time first figuring out why you’re frustrated. Is it just because you’ve been inside for so long that you’ve got cabin fever or is it something else (coach problems, teammate problems, coxswain problems, life problems, school problems, etc.)? What’s frustrating you about the workouts? Are they getting predictable and boring? If that’s it, you’re probably not the only one who feels like that.

Also figure out why you’re frustrated with yourself. Is it because you’re not putting forth the effort you know you’re capable of or is it something else? If you can’t physically take a break from practice, do something each night after practice (as soon as you get home, after your homework is done, before you go to sleep … whatever works for you) to relax yourself. If you can tolerate doing yoga, try and do 20 minutes of that. Or grab a foam roller or a tennis ball and stretch out for the duration of an episode of something on Netflix. Just do something to take your mind off of everything that is stressing you out.

To an extent it’s inevitable to have a little residual soreness but you shouldn’t be painfully sore all the time. Are you stretching before and after your workouts? Are you eating the right foods before and after practice? Are you staying hydrated? Stretching, eating properly, and drinking water are all crucial to repairing your muscles after a workout. Even if you do stretch before and after practice, stretching when you get home while you watch TV or read your history notes is still a good idea. You can even stretch while you’re in the shower. The hot water and steam works wonders on sore muscles.

It’s easy to get discouraged so there’s no point in saying “don’t do it”. It’s not that simple. Instead, when you are feeling down or you want to smash the erg monitor with a sledgehammer, look at the bigger picture. What are you training for? What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? Then ask yourself is any of that is going to be achievable if you quit or give up. What’s going to get you what you want – pushing yourself, mentally and physically, or taking the easy road out? Take your frustration and use it to motivate you instead of bringing you down.

Ergs Novice Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 13, 2013

I think this is a basic technique thing, but a lot of people seem to forget to watch their arms when we’re erging because they’re so focused on everything else. I know what the finish looks like but what position would you say the arms/elbows are in at the catch? Also with arms on the erg, should they be going straight in and out? Like should the cord (or whatever it’s even called) be moving at all vertically? If that makes sense?

It’s hard to explain over the internet what it should look like – it’s definitely something you need to see, not read – so my suggestion would be to watch this video. It’s the best one I’ve seen because it really breaks down the stroke and shows what everything should look like. They start with the finish around the 0:56 mark, so if you pause the video there, you can see what her body looks like.

The video I’ve posted below is great because it shows you everything people do wrong. You’ll want to pay particular attention to the 1:10 mark where they demonstrate “chicken wing arms”. The opposite of the chicken wing arms that they don’t discuss is the T-Rex arms. If you look at a T-Rex’s arms (in this super educational photo) you can see that they’re tiny, close to the body, and weirdly bent at the wrists, which if you watch some people on the erg, that’s how they row.

Regarding how the arms should travel, yes, they should ideally be going straight in and out, for the most part. Think of the handle and chain as the oar; if your arms and hands are going all over the place on the erg, what do you think the oar would be doing if you were in the boat? The movement of the chain and hands is a hotly contested topic amongst rowers. Some rowers on the erg pull the handle all the way up to their chests because it makes the stroke longer and the output is a few more meters per stroke than if they’d pulled into their usual targets.

If you watch the video below, see if you can pause it at 0:26. Look at the rower in the bottom right of the screen with the black and red shorts. See how far he’s laying back and how the handle is practically level with his shoulders? Now, unpause it and go back a few seconds so you can watch him take the full stroke. Play from 0:23-0:28 a few times and watch the path that the chain travels. He pulls the handle in really high, which, because he lays back so far doesn’t change the chain height too much, but watch it on the recovery … he shoots his hands down from his chest to his knees as he swings up and then brings them even lower over his feet 0:30 before lifting them back up a few inches at the catch. These are all guys on the Canadian national team so obviously whatever they do works for them but for the sake of demonstrating a different side of the argument, this guy does a good job of making my point.

Personally, I think this style is really inefficient so when I’m trying to explain the stroke I tell people to pull somewhere between the bottom of their rib cage and their belly button and make the small c-turn with the handle to mimic tapping down with the oar handle. I think you should row the same on the erg as you do in the boat because why wouldn’t you? People who say “oh, I don’t do this in the boat” are wrong – whatever bad habits they have on the erg almost always translate into bad habits in the boat.

You don’t want the chain flopping up and down because a) that will break it, b) it’s inefficient, and c) it’s just wrong. I tell people to envision a table or something over their legs that they have to slide their hands across as they come into the catch. Visualizing your hands gliding across something helps them to stay level and avoid lifting their hands up (which in the boat would mean they’re catching before their bodies are actually at the catch), as well as from dropping them down too low which would lead to missing water and rowing it in.

Coxing Ergs Q&A Racing Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 13, 2013

When do you call power 10s, both on the erg and the water? Would it be like when you see a girl’s split dropping and staying down on a 2k or during a race if you’re close and want to pass another boat? Or could it be any time just for a burst of energy? I don’t really know the strategy, I just know at some point I’ll have to sound like I know what I’m doing and call a few.

On the erg, I don’t call a power 10 unless the rower has asked me to beforehand. A lot of rowers don’t like to be bothered during 2ks so they can get/stay in their zone and randomly popping up behind them to give a power 10 can sometimes do more harm than good. When they’ve asked me to give them one, they usually say to do it whenever it looks like they need one or they’ll say “I want a 10 at 1500m, 20 at 1000, 10 at 750m, 10 at 500m, and 10 at 150m.” If they say to call it whenever I’ll try and do one at each of the major meter marks and/or within the last 100m. In between there if it looks like they’re falling off a little I’ll give them a quick 5 instead of a 10 to get them to refocus.

On the water, I always have a strategy ahead of time that I try and stick to. Nearly every burst I call is called with a purpose – I very rarely call a burst just for power but if I do it’s usually because I’m not feeling the power or because I want to get up with or past another crew. During sprint races in high school I was always trying to listen to the other coxswains and when I’d hear them take a 10 or 20, I’d wait for them to get about halfway through it before I’d start my own burst. Not only would that counteract their move nearly every time but it’d also put us a little bit more ahead at the end of it. Sometimes those spontaneous calls would interfere with my planned calls so I’d either go straight into the planned call or I’d skip it if we were far enough ahead that I could afford to do that. For head races, using the course map to find the landmarks, mile markers, etc. will help you a lot in figuring out where to make calls.

In sprint races, I don’t deviate too much from “the plan” each week since 1500m or 2000m courses are the same everywhere. They’ve all got 1500m, 1000m, 500m, and 100m to go marked along the course and since those are major points where I tend to call strategic bursts, I don’t change it up very much.

Normally my crew would also have a “special move” thrown in outside of my usual spots, usually to counteract another team’s move or to just open some water on the other crews. This was typically a 20 where we’d build for three, bump the rate up a beat or two for 15-18, then settle back into our regular pace over the remaining couple of strokes. These moves always had code words associated with them so that the other crews wouldn’t know we were making a move. “POWER 10” is really, really obvious (and easy to exploit by other coxswains), especially when you’re yelling it into your mic, so we’d talk during practice the week before and figure out what they wanted me to say. Usually it was something simple like “fire ’em up” and they would just know, without me saying it, that the move starts on the next stroke. They’d make the move and I’d cox them as normal. Even though I wasn’t calling it I could see it happening because we’d either be walking on or away from a crew and I could see the stroke rate change on my cox box. (We practiced this a lot to ensure everyone knew when to bring the rate up and when to bring it down too. Doing it on the fly I think would have been a mess.)

At bigger regattas where sprints were a bigger deal we’d take 5 to build into the last 250 but before that burst we’d take a build into the build that was purely for power. My senior year when I used the build-into-the-build nearly every race, I’m convinced that it’s what put our bow ball ahead in the few races we didn’t win by open water. I don’t remember what I’d say to start that build but it was always something synonymous with “power”. I think one of the things I said most often was “bend ’em”, meaning to hang on the oars so hard that you’re bending them as they go through the water. Going into the 5 to build into the sprint, the call was always “light ’em up” and then the start of the sprint was “afterburners”.

The best thing you can do is to sit down with your coach, your crew, and a course map. Figure strategic spots along the course to make a call then figure out what that call is going to be for. If you’re going to use a code word, discuss that with your crew. Make sure everyone knows what the word is and what means. Once you’ve got the strategy down, figure out your “special” move, what it’s going to be, where you’d ideally like to call it, and then make sure you practice it throughout the week so the crew gets used to hearing and feeling it.

Ergs Video of the Week

Video of the Week: C.R.A.S.H. B’s

By readyallrow February 11, 2013

Ergs Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 8, 2013

I am a little wary of doing a 2k soon, since I really haven’t done one since May of last year. We are starting to move into sprinting pieces, so I assume that the 2000m is coming within a week or two. Would it be smart to do a “pre-2k” where I go in on my own and try to hit just my PR from last year and see how it feels? Or should I just train super hard the next few weeks and hope that the test pops up on a good day? I don’t really mind doing 2ks but I just want to do the best I can. Thanks!

I think doing a base 2k or a 2k-predictor workout like 8x500m with equal amounts of work and rest would be a good measuring tool to to see where you’re at. I’d keep in mind what your PR was from last season but also when you achieved it. Was it in the middle, at the end, during winter training, etc. Go out and do this practice one and obviously go at it like it’s a real one but use it just to see how your time compares and to get your mind and body back into the swing of things. Don’t specifically go out with the goal of hitting your PR because if you don’t you’ll just unnecessarily beat yourself up for it. If it happens naturally, great. If not, it’s only February. There’s plenty of time for a PR to happen this season.

Related: 2k test strategy

I don’t like when people “hope” they have a good test … hope isn’t a strategy. The goal with winter training is so that by the time the first 2k rolls around you aren’t hoping for a good test, you know you’re going to have a good test because of all the work you put in during the winter (and building upon previous seasons if you’re an experienced rower). Don’t hope for it, just do it.

College Ergs Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 6, 2013

My team only ergs once a week but we are still an extremely well known competitive team. I am wondering if this is normal as most people seem to erg multiple times a week. And also will going from a once-a-week erg to a multiple times a week erg in university be a hard transition? Thanks!

I wouldn’t say it’s totally abnormal. In the winter my team would erg every day but once spring season rolled around we’d only erg once every two weeks for their 2k test. If you’re only erging once a week during winter training that’s definitely unorthodox but if your team isn’t suffering any ill effects (I assume because you’re rowing the rest of the time?) I wouldn’t worry about it.

Regarding making the switch in college I would say this: just because your team right now only ergs once a week doesn’t mean you only have to erg once a week. You can erg as many times a week as you want. It might be an adjustment switching to a more “normal” erg schedule in college but I don’t think it will be that difficult. It’s like when the semesters switch and your class schedule changes – it’s weird for the first few days but then you get used to it after the first week and that becomes the new normal.

Ergs Q&A Racing Technique Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 23, 2013

During 2k tests, I have the most difficulty sprinting. I’m generally better at long distance pieces (both running and erging) and can usually work with that to my advantage but I think that if I worked on my sprint I could chop off a second or two. Basically what’s your advice about sprinting in general? Where should I start the sprint? How many splits lower should it be than the rest of the 2k? Sorry there’s a lot of questions within this, sprinting is just one big clusterfuck for me

Sprinting is the definition of controlled chaos. By the time you reach that point, your body has entered a whole new circle of hell and you have no choice but to keep it together and continue rowing. It’s definitely something that takes practice and a lot of mental stamina to be able to execute effectively.

When I’m coxing I typically call 5 to build at 350m and then at 300m(ish), we go. When I see most people doing a 2k, that’s about where they start their sprint too. Any more than that tends to be too long and unsustainable and any less is usually not enough to produce any measurable gains. As your stamina and strength increases you’ll be able to start your sprint sooner but 250m is usually a good starting spot. The difference between your “sprint splits” and your average split time will depend on you, really. The goal of sprinting is to empty the tanks and go all out, as fast as you can, and even harder than you thought you could. As your body gets stronger and more used to rowing at those higher rates, your splits will fall. I’d say 2ish seconds below your average 2k split would probably be a good.

Before you try and jump straight into an all-out sprint though, practice. Don’t practice when you’re alert and have a full tank of gas in your system either, practice it when you’re tired. Practice keeping your head in the game – close your eyes, take a few deep breaths – and controlling your body. Sit up tall, relax your shoulders, tighten your core … these are all things you might think you’re already doing until you actually do them and realize you weren’t. Also, have someone watch and/or record you for a few strokes so you can watch the footage later and see how you looked.