How efficient is your rowing stroke?
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In this video, Lachlan explains and demonstrates why you should be thinking about efficiency while you are rowing.
If you spend energy in an unproductive way during the rowing stroke, you will have a hard time maintaining your speed throughout a race or during training. He demonstrates what to look for when you are in the boat and what the coach should be looking for as well as some critical tips for maximizing efficiency. |
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Video Transcript
so today, I want to convince you to be a bit smoother with your rowing
and more specifically i want to demonstrate to you that there's a loss of energy when you do any jerky or abrupt movements in the rowing boat that's why you want to keep it as smooth as possible whenever you can this can be harder at a higher rating but when you're rowing at a lower rating like i am here you should really be focusing on being extra smooth so what happens when you aren't smooth well you lose efficiency very quickly and when you lose efficiency you can only keep the same speed for a short amount of time before you become fatigued and then you're done so you really want to stay as efficient as possible for as long as possible that'll allow you to race at your fastest speed for the longest period of time so what does the loss of efficiency look like well it looks like either a bow wave or a stern wave coming for your boat the bigger the less efficient the smaller the more efficient so the wave we're looking for is essentially wash from the boat it can be either a bow wave or a stern wave so at the catch it's a stern wave and at the bow it's a bow wave because that's the way the transfer of momentum is going so at the finish you're putting weight into the bow of the boat at the catch you're putting weight into the stern of the boat the stern wave can be a lot harder to see than the bow wave this is because it's hidden within the bow wave and usually just amplifies its effect but you can see when the boat dips at the finish hard to see in this shot but easy to see if you're in the boat or in a coach's boat if you rush into the catch you can see extra waves created from the stern of the boat which then combined with the bow wave to increase the wash
it's impossible to get rid of the bow and stern waves completely what you want to do though is minimize them so you can do that by being smooth around the finish you want to be sitting tall you want to be drawing the boat up to you don't want to be falling flat with the shoulders you don't want to be leaning back too far and you want to be nice and smooth around that back turn no jerky movements just one continuous flowing motion the same concept applies at the catch when you change direction you want to have the blade in the water and before you put any weight on that foot stretcher by pushing the legs you need to be locked on otherwise you're going to push the boat backward that change of momentum is going to create an extra wave and you're not going to go anywhere fast in the coaches boat you want to make sure the stern of the rowing boat is not coming towards your boat at the catch this is a clear sign that the athlete's losing water at the catch and dumping a lot of wasted energy into the stern of the boat at the catch so one thing that brett crowe a coach in tasmania does is he follows a boat really closely a rowing boat really closely and he watches to see if that stern is coming closer to his boat at the catch so when you're rowing along here you really want to be thinking about minimizing those movements trying to make sure that the boat isn't creating an unnecessary wave either at the bow or at the stern this is very easy to do on a day like this you can see the waves perfectly on a rougher day you can still see the waves but it's not as pronounced so you can see here that i'm leaning a fair way back and you know i'm getting away with it at this rating if i was riding in a race situation i'd be changing direction a lot quicker and this would create more force and a much larger bow wave and this is one of the reasons why it's raining you become much less efficient with your rowing this is one of the reasons why you'll see a lot of rowers that can row really quickly at a slow speed but they struggle when it comes to rating situations in a race and i put myself in that category very fast rowing at a low rate not so fast at a high rate probably because i developed a technique which is perfectly suited for a low rate but in a race situation i really have to be conscious to sit up a bit more so not finish off so not have such a long stroke because otherwise i can't keep a high rating and if i do i'll be burnt out by the 500 meter mark if you think your rows might fit into this category so good low rating specialists but not high rating specialists have a look at their body position during the race and maybe encourage them to sit up a little bit more when they're rowing along they'll say it feels like they're rowing shorter but in reality it's almost no different the final thing that really affects the bow and stern waves is what you're doing with the handles what you're doing with the blades at the finish and at the catch so basically these two two points you either tapping the blade out of the water which will increase the bow wave at the couch not so much but you have to be much more quick at the catch too in order to get those legs on and change the direction of the boat without it dipping so the finish when you tap down you want to make sure you have flat wrists you can see in this film here that i'm dropping my wrists at the finish and then magically making them flat throughout the stroke you'll find a lot of rowers do this it's not ideal what you really want to be doing is trying to keep those flat wrists at the finish and that'll really help you make sure you don't dip at the finish and really drag the boat down forcing that bow wave to become larger the lower the rate the easier this skill will be to master but it's something you really have to take to the higher rate because at the higher rate the loss of efficiency due to the bow stern waves is so much greater so practice at a lower rate see if you can get a handle on it and then keep it in mind when you're doing high rate pieces and try not to waste too much energy along the way after all you're going to need that energy in the last 500 meters
and more specifically i want to demonstrate to you that there's a loss of energy when you do any jerky or abrupt movements in the rowing boat that's why you want to keep it as smooth as possible whenever you can this can be harder at a higher rating but when you're rowing at a lower rating like i am here you should really be focusing on being extra smooth so what happens when you aren't smooth well you lose efficiency very quickly and when you lose efficiency you can only keep the same speed for a short amount of time before you become fatigued and then you're done so you really want to stay as efficient as possible for as long as possible that'll allow you to race at your fastest speed for the longest period of time so what does the loss of efficiency look like well it looks like either a bow wave or a stern wave coming for your boat the bigger the less efficient the smaller the more efficient so the wave we're looking for is essentially wash from the boat it can be either a bow wave or a stern wave so at the catch it's a stern wave and at the bow it's a bow wave because that's the way the transfer of momentum is going so at the finish you're putting weight into the bow of the boat at the catch you're putting weight into the stern of the boat the stern wave can be a lot harder to see than the bow wave this is because it's hidden within the bow wave and usually just amplifies its effect but you can see when the boat dips at the finish hard to see in this shot but easy to see if you're in the boat or in a coach's boat if you rush into the catch you can see extra waves created from the stern of the boat which then combined with the bow wave to increase the wash
it's impossible to get rid of the bow and stern waves completely what you want to do though is minimize them so you can do that by being smooth around the finish you want to be sitting tall you want to be drawing the boat up to you don't want to be falling flat with the shoulders you don't want to be leaning back too far and you want to be nice and smooth around that back turn no jerky movements just one continuous flowing motion the same concept applies at the catch when you change direction you want to have the blade in the water and before you put any weight on that foot stretcher by pushing the legs you need to be locked on otherwise you're going to push the boat backward that change of momentum is going to create an extra wave and you're not going to go anywhere fast in the coaches boat you want to make sure the stern of the rowing boat is not coming towards your boat at the catch this is a clear sign that the athlete's losing water at the catch and dumping a lot of wasted energy into the stern of the boat at the catch so one thing that brett crowe a coach in tasmania does is he follows a boat really closely a rowing boat really closely and he watches to see if that stern is coming closer to his boat at the catch so when you're rowing along here you really want to be thinking about minimizing those movements trying to make sure that the boat isn't creating an unnecessary wave either at the bow or at the stern this is very easy to do on a day like this you can see the waves perfectly on a rougher day you can still see the waves but it's not as pronounced so you can see here that i'm leaning a fair way back and you know i'm getting away with it at this rating if i was riding in a race situation i'd be changing direction a lot quicker and this would create more force and a much larger bow wave and this is one of the reasons why it's raining you become much less efficient with your rowing this is one of the reasons why you'll see a lot of rowers that can row really quickly at a slow speed but they struggle when it comes to rating situations in a race and i put myself in that category very fast rowing at a low rate not so fast at a high rate probably because i developed a technique which is perfectly suited for a low rate but in a race situation i really have to be conscious to sit up a bit more so not finish off so not have such a long stroke because otherwise i can't keep a high rating and if i do i'll be burnt out by the 500 meter mark if you think your rows might fit into this category so good low rating specialists but not high rating specialists have a look at their body position during the race and maybe encourage them to sit up a little bit more when they're rowing along they'll say it feels like they're rowing shorter but in reality it's almost no different the final thing that really affects the bow and stern waves is what you're doing with the handles what you're doing with the blades at the finish and at the catch so basically these two two points you either tapping the blade out of the water which will increase the bow wave at the couch not so much but you have to be much more quick at the catch too in order to get those legs on and change the direction of the boat without it dipping so the finish when you tap down you want to make sure you have flat wrists you can see in this film here that i'm dropping my wrists at the finish and then magically making them flat throughout the stroke you'll find a lot of rowers do this it's not ideal what you really want to be doing is trying to keep those flat wrists at the finish and that'll really help you make sure you don't dip at the finish and really drag the boat down forcing that bow wave to become larger the lower the rate the easier this skill will be to master but it's something you really have to take to the higher rate because at the higher rate the loss of efficiency due to the bow stern waves is so much greater so practice at a lower rate see if you can get a handle on it and then keep it in mind when you're doing high rate pieces and try not to waste too much energy along the way after all you're going to need that energy in the last 500 meters