How important is rigging for a beginner's rowing technique?
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In this video, John Driessen weighs the pros and cons of individualizing rigging and boat set up for the individual athlete in shared boats.
John's work in quads has seen his crews to two World Cup Golds in 2016, a silver medal at the Rio Olympics, and a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. |
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Video Transcript
Wow important do you think it is to get those gate heights right to get their technique right or should we not worry about that too much
um when they're beginners they don't know whether it's right or wrong in a school program i would strongly recommend that you have i mean i don't know how big your programs are but a lot of a lot of big programs have you know four quads six doubles all put them all on the same seat height put all the feet at the same feet height put all the spans on the same span you're single your double and your quad all on the same span 160. have all your oars set on the same gearing give them a 90 centimeter inboard on 256 length or something like that have them all the same because they don't know any different right and the changes you need use the time you spend on making all these changes take away the focus of what you're trying to actually do and that's teach them how to row oh i can't row because my height is one mil one centimeter or one millimeter too high you know i had an athlete i now go to him as if you checked my height i said yes i said that's a new boat yeah but i've already dropped it once washer that you'll always like it didn't matter what boat you wanted in one centimeter or one washer lower you know so you didn't have to change it it was just one of those sort of things that you get but keep everything as simple as you possibly can so when they actually hop into us into a single from into a double from a single and into a quad everything feels the same to them the height's the same the feet are in the same the only thing you have to do is change the feet position tell you a simple little story here obviously in the national team we go and do selection regattas and we go to canberra for training camps and we do selection of training camps prior to the ntc as it is now we had everybody's measurement we had their height measurement their feet height their feet angle and every time we changed the person from one seat we had to change the seat we had to change the we could change the seat we had to change their height we had to change their foot position and change their angle and we were doing that between every 1200 metre piece or whatever so we were run off our feet
now the ntc we go into a training camp the coaches set all the boats all the feet height are the same all the gate height are the same all the pitches are same all the oars are the same nothing gets changed the only thing gets changed the athlete can move his foot backwards and forwards so it accommodates his length so when he changes one person from one boat to the other all he does is move the feet there's none of this changing the height or anything like this there's only one person that he finally relented to allow the height change and that was luke lecher who was six foot ten or something and he was really struggling starting to hurt his back and so you know there are i suppose there are arguments for both but you know as a beginner rower or a school program keep it simple keep it keep everything the same like um for kids that are probably around that 70 kilo you know your height would be no higher than 150 or something like that for little girls you know and that's 50 to 60 ranges 130 140. if in doubt have the have the rig higher than lower
um when they're beginners they don't know whether it's right or wrong in a school program i would strongly recommend that you have i mean i don't know how big your programs are but a lot of a lot of big programs have you know four quads six doubles all put them all on the same seat height put all the feet at the same feet height put all the spans on the same span you're single your double and your quad all on the same span 160. have all your oars set on the same gearing give them a 90 centimeter inboard on 256 length or something like that have them all the same because they don't know any different right and the changes you need use the time you spend on making all these changes take away the focus of what you're trying to actually do and that's teach them how to row oh i can't row because my height is one mil one centimeter or one millimeter too high you know i had an athlete i now go to him as if you checked my height i said yes i said that's a new boat yeah but i've already dropped it once washer that you'll always like it didn't matter what boat you wanted in one centimeter or one washer lower you know so you didn't have to change it it was just one of those sort of things that you get but keep everything as simple as you possibly can so when they actually hop into us into a single from into a double from a single and into a quad everything feels the same to them the height's the same the feet are in the same the only thing you have to do is change the feet position tell you a simple little story here obviously in the national team we go and do selection regattas and we go to canberra for training camps and we do selection of training camps prior to the ntc as it is now we had everybody's measurement we had their height measurement their feet height their feet angle and every time we changed the person from one seat we had to change the seat we had to change the we could change the seat we had to change their height we had to change their foot position and change their angle and we were doing that between every 1200 metre piece or whatever so we were run off our feet
now the ntc we go into a training camp the coaches set all the boats all the feet height are the same all the gate height are the same all the pitches are same all the oars are the same nothing gets changed the only thing gets changed the athlete can move his foot backwards and forwards so it accommodates his length so when he changes one person from one boat to the other all he does is move the feet there's none of this changing the height or anything like this there's only one person that he finally relented to allow the height change and that was luke lecher who was six foot ten or something and he was really struggling starting to hurt his back and so you know there are i suppose there are arguments for both but you know as a beginner rower or a school program keep it simple keep it keep everything the same like um for kids that are probably around that 70 kilo you know your height would be no higher than 150 or something like that for little girls you know and that's 50 to 60 ranges 130 140. if in doubt have the have the rig higher than lower