How to set up the boat if you are inflexible
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In this video, Lachlan discusses and demonstrates what you can do to change the rowing boat if you are inflexible.
Suppose you are inflexible and the boat is not set up appropriately for you. In that case, you will feel cramped, especially at the catch, and a sore back will often result. Flexibility is a big problem for athletes of all ages and can hamper your rowing if you can't work your way around it. In this video, Lachlan takes us through all the ways to make a boat fit an inflexible athlete. |
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Video Transcript
so if you're someone like me you really struggle to get your length of the catch you're really inflexible um for example my my achilles tendon and my calf muscle my ankle joint isn't particularly flexible so that means i run into trouble at the catch i end up rowing maybe three quarters slide if the foot stretch is not set up properly for me so there's a couple of key things you can do with the foot stretcher to make your row a lot more comfortable and it's important to have a comfortable row because if you only go into three quarters slide you're really missing out on some of the best water when you get your blade in so if you if you're rowing short your boat will go a lot slower and you'll have a much a much less enjoyable experience so with the foot stretcher you can you can move it forward and back but that's not going to affect how how much i can come forward at the catch what the the main factors that increase how far you can come forward at the catch is the height of the feet so how high they are up in the boat versus how low so for me almost always i undo the foot stretcher move it all the way to the bottom position and so in a double or a bigger boat so say like a quad or an eight there's usually heaps of room in the bottom of the boat for you to put your feet down and i've i've worked out that i need at least 20 centimeters difference between the lowest part of the seat and the the bottom of the heel so i know that if it's any higher than that so say up here it may be like 10 centimeters or 15 centimeters difference i know i'll have a bad row i'll feel cramped i'll be putting extra strain on my back i'll get off the water and you know i might have pulled a muscle in my back and it's just it's just no good so for me i know that every time i get into a boat i have to check this first otherwise i might as well just not go wrong and so i move my feet all the way to the bottom there's another thing you can do too and you can change the angle of the foot stretcher so basically change how how flat the feet are so the more upright they are uh the less easier it will be to come forward and the more flat they are the easier it will be to come forward so there's a couple of trade-offs with this um but but there's it's i'd say that they're nothing compared to not being comfortable in the boat so unless you're comfortable in the boat i wouldn't even think about these as being a trade-off so if you have the foot stretcher more vertical technically the application of power will be more straight out the back at the bow of the boat so you get more power if it's flatter you'll struggle to put the power through the feet a bit more in my experience that's not really the case because when you're at the catch you get the blade in the water that very first bit of the rowing stroke you often lose that that first bit just because the c has to move back a little bit just to get the blade in the water so it's impossible to put the blade in the water on the way forward but you want to have it as close to on the way forward as you can and so that that little extra bit uh doesn't matter so much so for example with my single uh a lot of people will tell you so you can see even with this single it's a fair bit shallower than the double this is a big single but the feet so basically the feet won't go down as far as i'd like them to go down to get a comfortable rowing stroke so what what i've actually done here and you can see see it started rubbing on the boat a little bit as i put my feet all the way down so they actually hit the bottom of the boat so this is probably set up one or two centimeters lower than uh than the boats actually meant for so what this means is that when you get to the catch and put if you put your heels all the way down i'll touch the bottom of the boat but i find that because i'm so inflexible when it comes to getting to the catch by the time i'm at the catch my heels already come up so my heel is already up in the boat like this as opposed to down like this so when i apply the power it's all coming through the balls of my feet anyway and none of it's getting forced into the bottom of the boat which can sometimes be a bit fragile so i don't see that generally there's no problem with having the shoes that actually hit the bottom of the boat with your feet if you need to put them down that low to get into the right position
so another thing that people talk about has been a problem is when they put their legs down so when you when you straighten your leg at the finish the calf muscle actually hits the slide and that can be a problem if you put your feet all the way down in a boat but a simple very easy way to fix this problem is just to point your toes at the finish so by the time you get to the finish you your legs have been flat you push down all the way to the finish and then the very last moment instead of putting your legs flat with your heel down you just point your toes so you finish you point your toes that clears the slides so your feet come up like this and you don't rub you rub your legs on the slides a lot of people try and force themselves not to point the toes at the finish they'll try and keep their heels down for the whole rowing stroke then they get to about this point hit their hit their calves on the slides and and mess up their calves so quite an easy fix it's just a small technical one is when you get towards the finish just point your toes heels come up and and you can have a much more comfortable rowing stroke so in general with the foot stretcher uh changing the height of the feet is the easiest way you can become comfortable on a boat i don't really buy into people having to stretch to improve their flexibility i mean yes it's great in theory but in practice you'll find that people people are generally got really tight muscles and like are inflexible or are really flexible just naturally you can change change it so i did spend a lot of time working on my flexibility increasing the amount i could come forward without changing the feet of my foot stretcher but i still found it wasn't it wasn't comfortable i didn't like it so i'd highly recommend you know just putting your feet down as low as you need to go to feel comfortable in the boat and and go from there and the problem with the heels hitting the bottom of the boat isn't really a problem if you're inflexible because of just just the mechanics of how you come forward and how you how you take the rowing stroke means that you're not actually putting any pressure through the hull of the boat which uh which most people would think you are so um so i reckon change your foot stretcher and enjoy your rowing a bit more so the other main thing you can do other than dropping the feet is lifting the seat up because it's all comparative what we're talking about is having a bottom of the seat height to the heel height i want to make that 20 centimeters or more and so the other way to do that is to raise the seat so if you have a look at this seat of mine here it's got it's got uh adjustments so you can raise the seat but that wasn't enough for me so i i got another centimeter here easily of of um of packers that i put in there i've got some longer screws put them straight into my seat and it works really well you can try and overcome this with seat pads so put a seat pad on top but this this uh isn't connected to the boat it's a lot more spongy it's like it's like trying to balance on a balance beam that wasn't completely solid you'll find that it's a lot harder to actually actually get your footing and and be on solid ground so instead of having a seat pad if you're going to do it for any length of time in the same boat i recommend having making sure you increase the high the seat by some rigid way like some seat packers and then you'll still feel the balance of the boat but you'll be able to come forward and get a good position at the catch when it comes to raising the seat some people are concerned that by raising the seat you'll make the balance far worse i think this is uh you know making a a mountain out of a mole hill yeah you are increasing the height and the boat is a little bit more unstable but these boats are already extremely unstable you're probably making one or two percent differences you're not going to actually notice it while you're rowing along unless you convince yourself that you actually got a problem so for me in particular my uh the balance point is irrelevant i really need to just make sure i'm getting into the right positions so making sure at the catch i have plenty of space i don't feel like i'm really stretching myself i feel like it's comfortable i could do it all day sit at the catch position and that's what you want to feel you don't really want to have rowing three-quarter slide putting undue pressure through your back and other muscles so if you lift the seat height don't be too worried about the change in balance i just give it a go go for a few rows see how you feel and i reckon you'll like it
so another thing that people talk about has been a problem is when they put their legs down so when you when you straighten your leg at the finish the calf muscle actually hits the slide and that can be a problem if you put your feet all the way down in a boat but a simple very easy way to fix this problem is just to point your toes at the finish so by the time you get to the finish you your legs have been flat you push down all the way to the finish and then the very last moment instead of putting your legs flat with your heel down you just point your toes so you finish you point your toes that clears the slides so your feet come up like this and you don't rub you rub your legs on the slides a lot of people try and force themselves not to point the toes at the finish they'll try and keep their heels down for the whole rowing stroke then they get to about this point hit their hit their calves on the slides and and mess up their calves so quite an easy fix it's just a small technical one is when you get towards the finish just point your toes heels come up and and you can have a much more comfortable rowing stroke so in general with the foot stretcher uh changing the height of the feet is the easiest way you can become comfortable on a boat i don't really buy into people having to stretch to improve their flexibility i mean yes it's great in theory but in practice you'll find that people people are generally got really tight muscles and like are inflexible or are really flexible just naturally you can change change it so i did spend a lot of time working on my flexibility increasing the amount i could come forward without changing the feet of my foot stretcher but i still found it wasn't it wasn't comfortable i didn't like it so i'd highly recommend you know just putting your feet down as low as you need to go to feel comfortable in the boat and and go from there and the problem with the heels hitting the bottom of the boat isn't really a problem if you're inflexible because of just just the mechanics of how you come forward and how you how you take the rowing stroke means that you're not actually putting any pressure through the hull of the boat which uh which most people would think you are so um so i reckon change your foot stretcher and enjoy your rowing a bit more so the other main thing you can do other than dropping the feet is lifting the seat up because it's all comparative what we're talking about is having a bottom of the seat height to the heel height i want to make that 20 centimeters or more and so the other way to do that is to raise the seat so if you have a look at this seat of mine here it's got it's got uh adjustments so you can raise the seat but that wasn't enough for me so i i got another centimeter here easily of of um of packers that i put in there i've got some longer screws put them straight into my seat and it works really well you can try and overcome this with seat pads so put a seat pad on top but this this uh isn't connected to the boat it's a lot more spongy it's like it's like trying to balance on a balance beam that wasn't completely solid you'll find that it's a lot harder to actually actually get your footing and and be on solid ground so instead of having a seat pad if you're going to do it for any length of time in the same boat i recommend having making sure you increase the high the seat by some rigid way like some seat packers and then you'll still feel the balance of the boat but you'll be able to come forward and get a good position at the catch when it comes to raising the seat some people are concerned that by raising the seat you'll make the balance far worse i think this is uh you know making a a mountain out of a mole hill yeah you are increasing the height and the boat is a little bit more unstable but these boats are already extremely unstable you're probably making one or two percent differences you're not going to actually notice it while you're rowing along unless you convince yourself that you actually got a problem so for me in particular my uh the balance point is irrelevant i really need to just make sure i'm getting into the right positions so making sure at the catch i have plenty of space i don't feel like i'm really stretching myself i feel like it's comfortable i could do it all day sit at the catch position and that's what you want to feel you don't really want to have rowing three-quarter slide putting undue pressure through your back and other muscles so if you lift the seat height don't be too worried about the change in balance i just give it a go go for a few rows see how you feel and i reckon you'll like it