How to fix a slow rowing catch using the Rowing in Motion app
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In this video, Ken with the help of the Rowing in Motion app demonstrates how you can quickly and easily fix a slow catch.
If you want to download the Rowing in Motion app you can below: 
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Video Transcript
Here we're going to demonstrate how with the assistance of the rowing in motion app and the acceleration graph on the video you can very easily see when an athlete is not as well connected as you would like and doesn't have as powerful a drive phase the way we go about this is firstly to make sure that the athlete understands the importance of of rowing with a good connection one of the problems is that it's very difficult to actually see visually when an athlete isn't as well connected you can see this video here mel looks like she's reasonably well connected but when we work on it later on you'll see that we can actually improve that quite a lot so the way to do it is to make sure that if you've got that gradual acceleration part and no bump around the zero line during that drive phase then the catch is not being executed as well as you might have wanted to it's important when you're coming into the catch to make sure that the blades fully buried the arms will be almost horizontal in the boat which is higher than a lot of people would be used to doing and maintain a very relaxed shoulder very relaxed shoulder and grip is vital to getting a good catch and a good connection the next thing we want to do is to ask the athlete to sit at the catch you may need to hold the boat if the athlete doesn't have the balance for this ask them to sit at the catch and make sure that they're tapping in without moving their slide at all so they lift their arms and bury the blade lift their arms bury the blade then what i suggest you do is ask them to start rowing very slowly and make sure they understand that the blade as the blade enters the water that the seat will need to move just marginally as the blade gets covered so ask them to sit at the catch put the blade in and then with the boat moving a little bit just continually tap the blade in and out so not really driving the boat very far just a tiny bit once i've got this under control and can get the blade buried effectively then i suggest ask them to do one stroke with power on and then one stroke where they just put the blade in and then allow the water to push them down the slide holding their body in the catch position as you can see here mel is demonstrating putting the blade in and then waiting whilst the boat essentially pushes her down the slide this is designed to make sure the athlete understands the difference between being well connected and then driving rather than starting to drive as the blade goes into the water so we're trying to disassociate the concept of the blade entering the water the seat moving marginally as it does that and then separating that from the drive phase so the concept is practice putting the blade in allowing the boat to push you down the slide a bit so you get to understand the difference between placement and drive then you can ask the athlete how they felt it worked and how what works for them does it feel like um it just feels like it's very hard to disconnect the putting it in and pushing it's in my mind it's very hard to disassociate those two things
it actually doesn't take very long to get this drill complete and to have the athlete understand the need to have the blade placed first with a little bit of seat movement as the blade enters the water and then commence the drive phase as you can see with the acceleration graph from rowing in motion you can see now that we've got a much steeper curve at the beginning when the catch is underway and we've also got that little dip above the line which is a hallmark of a faster boat so very important to practice this and you'll find it's a very quick change to make but i suggest make sure that the athlete understands why they're doing it and how it's being done and ask them for their feedback so you can make sure that they understand this way you'll get a better connection and a faster boat here we have slow motion video of the two different techniques with the associated graph and you can clearly see from the graph the difference in the acceleration of the boat
aggressive like feel i can really i can feel the two separate things i can feel myself put it in and i can feel my legs go on two separate things
it actually doesn't take very long to get this drill complete and to have the athlete understand the need to have the blade placed first with a little bit of seat movement as the blade enters the water and then commence the drive phase as you can see with the acceleration graph from rowing in motion you can see now that we've got a much steeper curve at the beginning when the catch is underway and we've also got that little dip above the line which is a hallmark of a faster boat so very important to practice this and you'll find it's a very quick change to make but i suggest make sure that the athlete understands why they're doing it and how it's being done and ask them for their feedback so you can make sure that they understand this way you'll get a better connection and a faster boat here we have slow motion video of the two different techniques with the associated graph and you can clearly see from the graph the difference in the acceleration of the boat
aggressive like feel i can really i can feel the two separate things i can feel myself put it in and i can feel my legs go on two separate things