Do you hang or grab at the catch when rowing?

​​In this video, Ken Davey describes and demonstrates how to spot the difference between hang and grab at the catch.

​He provides a good example of hang and highlights the critical aspects of a good hang at the catch.​

Video Transcript

​often we talk about hang at the catch
what we mean by that is the athlete

being able to not use their arms and
their shoulders and simply just hang

onto the handle of their skeletal frame
here you can see Lachlan demonstrating

pretty good hang and you can see the
narrowing in motion curve in the

top-left corner and that little bump at
the catch and that little bump is caused

by leg drive not by shoulder drive very
important to know the difference you can

see if you have a closer look you can
see how looking at the bare shoulders

you can see there's no tension in the
shoulders simply the muscles had just

hanging there fully extended arms just
hanging off his skeletal frame and the

blades connected very important to get
that good connection right at the start

without using shoulders or arms you can
see on the graph here that the bump just

at the after the catch is when the
blade is connected and the leg drive is on

so it's the force against the gate
from the legs working against the blade

in the water if you have a close look here
you can see very clearly that there's no

tension in the upper shoulders the
arms are fully extended

no bent arms and in a very strong
powerful position driving against the

legs so the legs driving at this point
holding the body in the same position

and getting a powerful catch powerful
initial leg drive so it's important to

make sure with athletes when they're
learning to hang that you make sure they

don't use their upper body for the catch
and they don't bend their arms at the

catch they also don't pull their
shoulders back into their sockets

so essentially just hanging off their
skeletal frame and using the legs for

that first part of the drive once the
legs are under way of course then they

can start to open up with the body and
then finish with the arms in the normal

rowing stroke so very important to watch
the athletes and make sure that the

shoulders are relaxed the arms fully
extended essentially just hanging off

the handle it's useful if you can to
have athletes when you're working on

this particular aspect of the stroke to
have the athletes have a sleeveless top

because then it's very easy to see what
the muscles are doing

in fact if you have an athlete that
grabs at the catch with their shoulders

or their arms then you can very easily
see the muscle definition change and

that's a very easy way to work on it you
can also use this on an ergo and so the

same principle applies if you have a
sleeveless top on the ergo then you can

watch in the mirror and the athletes can
monitor themselves whether they've got

good hang or not so hang a very
important part of the catch and if you

can make sure that the athletes don't
use their shoulders or their arms at

this point just simply hang off the
handle and drive hard with the legs