Acceleration during the rowing stroke
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In this video, Lachlan demonstrates the acceleration of the boat is during the rowing stroke.
With the help of the Rowing in Motion app, it is possible to get a highly accurate real-time readout of what is happening throughout the stroke.
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Video Transcript
so today I'm going to show you what acceleration of the boat does during the rowing stroke
you can see here up in the top right hand corner i've got the rowing in motion app and it's showing me the acceleration of my boat throughout the rowing stroke so let's break it down have a look at the different parts and see what the boat's doing at those points we'll look at the fastest point during the rowing stroke and the slowest point it might be different to what you think the blue line's giving you a real-time feedback of what the current stroke is so exactly what's happening at the time you're taking it the red line represents the average of the last five strokes so it gives you an idea of what your stroke looks like over time and so you can make changes with the blue line and then see it represented in the red line so there's lots of things you can see looking at these acceleration curves but basically what you need to start off knowing is that everything above the center line so the zero mark and the graph is making the boat go faster and everything below that line is making the boat go slower so you can see here as we come down the slide the boat's actually at its fastest point we come down into the catch and as that change of momentum we put weight on the foot stretcher the boat slows down and then as we get connected we come back up to that zero line and begin accelerating the boat so you can see here during the drive phase we're doing the bulk of the acceleration of the boat so when you're rowing along you really want to be trying to minimize the difference between your top and top speed during the stroke and your bottom speed during the stroke here on the recovery you can see that the boat slows down a little bit because of the friction on the water but that's counter counteracted a lot by the movement of the body so you can see how here as we run forward the boat's basically traveling at the same speed for for quite a long time during the recovery as we hit this three-quarter slide point the boats at the fastest we actually start to accelerate because we draw the boat towards ourselves and then from here we're starting to slow the boat down as we come into the catch so you want to spend as little time here as possible get forward get the blade in get connected and once you connected that acceleration will be above zero and you'll start going again you'll start accelerating the boat so a lot of people think that the fastest point of the rowing stroke is just as just before you tap out that's actually not the case because as you come forward your boat stays at about the same speed and as you come into the catch in that three-quarter slide mark you accelerate the boat even further than it is at the finish to reach your maximum speed for that rowing stroke
you can see here in the top right hand corner of the the rowing in motion screen i've got my stroke rate 22 strokes a minute and down in the middle i've got my catch duration this is the point from about here where the boat starts slowing down at about three quarter slide right now it's from it's a time between that point there and when we get back to that zero line so stop decelerating the boat so there to there and so that's 0.39.40 of a second a good catch duration is around 0.35 seconds although you'll find a lot of people row with the catch duration of say 0.5 seconds what they're doing here is spending a lot of time decelerating the boat and a lot of uh and that's that means that the decrease in boat switch speed is quite large because you remember this graph is acceleration over time so you can either decrease the amount your boat decelerates but in practice the fastest rowers actually spend less time and have a deeper deceleration so you want to make sure that catch duration's as low as possible thinking about quick catches thinking about getting the legs on quickly you don't lift with the shoulders but you do want to get it on quickly it's always good to see that characteristic bump just at just after the catch just there see the blue line with a little bump then it comes back to the main drive phase of the stroke this is the product of a good connection and you're well on your way to having a good drive phase and getting that power down at the right time so a few little bits and pieces to think about the rowing stroke don't want to go too far there's lots of things you can see here and lots of things you can tell from these acceleration curves but i think that's a pretty good introduction to what it's doing basically you can get this app and put in your boat and uh i've actually got a readout of this graph down on my phone as you can you can see here and so i can just glance down every now and then have a look at the average of my last five strokes so that red line and try and make any changes i've got a tendency when i get a bit more tired not to have that little peak just just at the catch so ends up being a little bit soft so i have to remind myself and by looking at the graph i can see if i'm doing it or not keep a nice sharp catch get the legs on quickly and decrease that catch duration so you can see here if you work on it you can get it down to a good number say see i've done one there 0.35 that's pretty good maybe i get one in 10 like that and but you know in general i'm trying to bring the average catch duration down for the whole session one thing is having this app does is it gives you another set of eyes it's almost like a sixth sense because you can't really pick up these these things looking at the coaches but you really need to have this sort of accurate readout from the accelerometers
the good thing with this is an athlete can see exactly what they're doing every stroke and make changes instantly if they know what it should look like and what they're doing they can change their technique to match you obviously don't want to be looking down every stroke but maybe one in every five or one in every 10 can be a very useful tool for making changes
you can see here up in the top right hand corner i've got the rowing in motion app and it's showing me the acceleration of my boat throughout the rowing stroke so let's break it down have a look at the different parts and see what the boat's doing at those points we'll look at the fastest point during the rowing stroke and the slowest point it might be different to what you think the blue line's giving you a real-time feedback of what the current stroke is so exactly what's happening at the time you're taking it the red line represents the average of the last five strokes so it gives you an idea of what your stroke looks like over time and so you can make changes with the blue line and then see it represented in the red line so there's lots of things you can see looking at these acceleration curves but basically what you need to start off knowing is that everything above the center line so the zero mark and the graph is making the boat go faster and everything below that line is making the boat go slower so you can see here as we come down the slide the boat's actually at its fastest point we come down into the catch and as that change of momentum we put weight on the foot stretcher the boat slows down and then as we get connected we come back up to that zero line and begin accelerating the boat so you can see here during the drive phase we're doing the bulk of the acceleration of the boat so when you're rowing along you really want to be trying to minimize the difference between your top and top speed during the stroke and your bottom speed during the stroke here on the recovery you can see that the boat slows down a little bit because of the friction on the water but that's counter counteracted a lot by the movement of the body so you can see how here as we run forward the boat's basically traveling at the same speed for for quite a long time during the recovery as we hit this three-quarter slide point the boats at the fastest we actually start to accelerate because we draw the boat towards ourselves and then from here we're starting to slow the boat down as we come into the catch so you want to spend as little time here as possible get forward get the blade in get connected and once you connected that acceleration will be above zero and you'll start going again you'll start accelerating the boat so a lot of people think that the fastest point of the rowing stroke is just as just before you tap out that's actually not the case because as you come forward your boat stays at about the same speed and as you come into the catch in that three-quarter slide mark you accelerate the boat even further than it is at the finish to reach your maximum speed for that rowing stroke
you can see here in the top right hand corner of the the rowing in motion screen i've got my stroke rate 22 strokes a minute and down in the middle i've got my catch duration this is the point from about here where the boat starts slowing down at about three quarter slide right now it's from it's a time between that point there and when we get back to that zero line so stop decelerating the boat so there to there and so that's 0.39.40 of a second a good catch duration is around 0.35 seconds although you'll find a lot of people row with the catch duration of say 0.5 seconds what they're doing here is spending a lot of time decelerating the boat and a lot of uh and that's that means that the decrease in boat switch speed is quite large because you remember this graph is acceleration over time so you can either decrease the amount your boat decelerates but in practice the fastest rowers actually spend less time and have a deeper deceleration so you want to make sure that catch duration's as low as possible thinking about quick catches thinking about getting the legs on quickly you don't lift with the shoulders but you do want to get it on quickly it's always good to see that characteristic bump just at just after the catch just there see the blue line with a little bump then it comes back to the main drive phase of the stroke this is the product of a good connection and you're well on your way to having a good drive phase and getting that power down at the right time so a few little bits and pieces to think about the rowing stroke don't want to go too far there's lots of things you can see here and lots of things you can tell from these acceleration curves but i think that's a pretty good introduction to what it's doing basically you can get this app and put in your boat and uh i've actually got a readout of this graph down on my phone as you can you can see here and so i can just glance down every now and then have a look at the average of my last five strokes so that red line and try and make any changes i've got a tendency when i get a bit more tired not to have that little peak just just at the catch so ends up being a little bit soft so i have to remind myself and by looking at the graph i can see if i'm doing it or not keep a nice sharp catch get the legs on quickly and decrease that catch duration so you can see here if you work on it you can get it down to a good number say see i've done one there 0.35 that's pretty good maybe i get one in 10 like that and but you know in general i'm trying to bring the average catch duration down for the whole session one thing is having this app does is it gives you another set of eyes it's almost like a sixth sense because you can't really pick up these these things looking at the coaches but you really need to have this sort of accurate readout from the accelerometers
the good thing with this is an athlete can see exactly what they're doing every stroke and make changes instantly if they know what it should look like and what they're doing they can change their technique to match you obviously don't want to be looking down every stroke but maybe one in every five or one in every 10 can be a very useful tool for making changes