Point of Connection when rowing
|
The point of connection is hard to spot, but it's what separates efficient from the inefficient. In this video, Ken Davey unpacks the point of connection and why it's essential to understand and improve.
World Cup rower Joel Naukkarinen demonstrates how it should and shouldn't be done. Joel is fast either way, but one way is more efficient and can be maintained for longer. |
|
Video Transcript
In this video we're focusing on the ideal that the blade should be well connected with the water before the leg drive commences as you can see here joel's demonstrating a good catch position with shins vertical blade buried ready to undertake the drive phase here he is rowing with that same particular technique getting well connected blade deeply buried before the drive phase here he is in the same session but on purpose demonstrating the way that we don't want to see the catch taken and from a distance it looks as though it's not a bad catch but let's break it down and have a look at the differences between the two strokes let's have a closer look see the white mark on the oar there that's just 30 centimeters from the end of the blade we see as he takes the catch you just see the white mark just under the water at that point let's hold the frame at that point and compare it to when joel's undertaking the catch to his best see here the white mark of the tape inside the green circle see here the blade is buried just buried under the water not a bad position but i would prefer to see the blade deeper in the water but that occurs later in the same stroke here when joel's rowing correctly you can see the same tape at the same point and see it's in the water at at this point you see the white tape in the middle of the green circle so in both images the oar is at the same depth the same part of the stroke if you like see the blade again buried to the same extent as in the other image it's the same boat same session same rigging if you see here in the blue circle the position of the legs in relation to the boat in both circumstances let's have a closer look with the image on the left you can see that the legs are on more of an angle than on the right so let's measure the angles
rowing correctly here we have 88 degrees with the blade buried to the white mark on the ore 30 centimeters up the up the shaft here deliberately rowing by missing the catch we see it's 82 degrees quite a significant difference of leg drive used not correctly now let's have a look at the a little bit further through the stroke and let's find a point where both oars are at the same depth the deepest they go to on the left hand side rowing without proper connection and so we'll move the images so that both of them match the image on the left hand side at its deepest point so here we have another white marker on the oar that's another 30 centimeters up the shaft from the first 30 centimeter mark
so this point on the left is about the deepest of the blade gets to so let's make the one on the right match the same depth so we can have a good comparison between the two here you can see that the rowing more correctly that the blade is a little deeper in the water yet we still have a lot of leg drive yet to go compared to the one on the left where we're rowing missing the catch so let's move the image so that they're both the same i.e that the oar is at the same depth in the water at about halfway between the top and bottom white markers this way we have a fair comparison of where the blade is in an equal point of connection in the water see here it's about halfway between the two markers if we look again at where the legs are in relation to the the angle between the thigh and the shins you can see that there's a significant amount more leg drivers been utilized in the image on the left where the catch hasn't been as well connected as that on the right we measure it 86 degrees for rowing correctly and 71 degrees for rowing missing the catch so as you can see it's very clear that we can get the blade into the water well connected before we use any significant amount of the leg drive if we get that executed correctly now let's have a look at the blade depth overall just as an indicator which is not necessarily related to the leg drive because once you're connected then i'd say you're connected but essentially the deeper the blade is in the water without going to extreme the better connected you're going to be and the more chance you have of being able to have the boat levered past the blade in the water rather than having the blade move through the water and so let's find the deepest point so on the left hand image we find that the deepest point is about halfway between both the white markers i about 45 centimeters from the blade if we look at the right image where we have a better catch you can see that the blade is also deeper in the water in that the water level is pretty much where that second marker is is 60 centimeters up the blade and so that's going to be better connected because it's deeper in the water i don't think you want to be any deeper than this because then the amount of extra connection you get is going to be compensated for by the shaft in the water and other issues in the boat here we show both images in slow motion linked together at the same speed rating is slightly different and so there is little difference but as you can see the blades are well connected right the way through the stroke pretty much to the end the blade that's not quite as deep in the left hand side does tend to come out early but that's clearly a different problem than the catch that we're talking about on the right hand side it's held right through to the finish and having the blade deep in the water makes it easy to do this so here we have joel demonstrating how to start the leg drive before the catch before the blade is connected and something we want to avoid here we have him getting well connected before the drive phase and if you look carefully you can you can see a clear difference between the two techniques and if we can get our athletes to connect like this before the leg drive will get better outcomes
rowing correctly here we have 88 degrees with the blade buried to the white mark on the ore 30 centimeters up the up the shaft here deliberately rowing by missing the catch we see it's 82 degrees quite a significant difference of leg drive used not correctly now let's have a look at the a little bit further through the stroke and let's find a point where both oars are at the same depth the deepest they go to on the left hand side rowing without proper connection and so we'll move the images so that both of them match the image on the left hand side at its deepest point so here we have another white marker on the oar that's another 30 centimeters up the shaft from the first 30 centimeter mark
so this point on the left is about the deepest of the blade gets to so let's make the one on the right match the same depth so we can have a good comparison between the two here you can see that the rowing more correctly that the blade is a little deeper in the water yet we still have a lot of leg drive yet to go compared to the one on the left where we're rowing missing the catch so let's move the image so that they're both the same i.e that the oar is at the same depth in the water at about halfway between the top and bottom white markers this way we have a fair comparison of where the blade is in an equal point of connection in the water see here it's about halfway between the two markers if we look again at where the legs are in relation to the the angle between the thigh and the shins you can see that there's a significant amount more leg drivers been utilized in the image on the left where the catch hasn't been as well connected as that on the right we measure it 86 degrees for rowing correctly and 71 degrees for rowing missing the catch so as you can see it's very clear that we can get the blade into the water well connected before we use any significant amount of the leg drive if we get that executed correctly now let's have a look at the blade depth overall just as an indicator which is not necessarily related to the leg drive because once you're connected then i'd say you're connected but essentially the deeper the blade is in the water without going to extreme the better connected you're going to be and the more chance you have of being able to have the boat levered past the blade in the water rather than having the blade move through the water and so let's find the deepest point so on the left hand image we find that the deepest point is about halfway between both the white markers i about 45 centimeters from the blade if we look at the right image where we have a better catch you can see that the blade is also deeper in the water in that the water level is pretty much where that second marker is is 60 centimeters up the blade and so that's going to be better connected because it's deeper in the water i don't think you want to be any deeper than this because then the amount of extra connection you get is going to be compensated for by the shaft in the water and other issues in the boat here we show both images in slow motion linked together at the same speed rating is slightly different and so there is little difference but as you can see the blades are well connected right the way through the stroke pretty much to the end the blade that's not quite as deep in the left hand side does tend to come out early but that's clearly a different problem than the catch that we're talking about on the right hand side it's held right through to the finish and having the blade deep in the water makes it easy to do this so here we have joel demonstrating how to start the leg drive before the catch before the blade is connected and something we want to avoid here we have him getting well connected before the drive phase and if you look carefully you can you can see a clear difference between the two techniques and if we can get our athletes to connect like this before the leg drive will get better outcomes