Which is fastest? Rowing finish position techniques compared
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In this video, Ken Davey and Joel Naukkarinen compare finish position techniques. Rowers and coaches commonly overlook the finish when striving to make the boat go faster. With the help of slow motion, Ken slows the footage down to analyze which is technique is faster.
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Video Transcript
Here we have joel demonstrating two different styles of finish the first one which is quite a quick upright finish in the second one which is more laid back and slower let's see what the differences are so here we have joel in the longer finish position you can see the angle his body's out in relation to the boat see where the blade is in the water and so let's measure how long it takes for the handle to return to the point of the yellow line from when the power ceases to be applied
you see here that Joel's body is well back into the leaning into the bow and additionally he's got a small slump in his lower back in order to be able to accommodate the handle position
as he comes back over to recover you can see it's about 0.56 of a second it takes to get from that point when there's no power applied right the way through to the finish tap it out and get back to that same point let's watch it again there's a lot of handle movement and travel after the blades stop exerting power into the water
let's have a look at what it does to the bow of the boat good finish position at that point however as his shoulders continue to go back as he finishes the stroke off you can see it pushes the bow of the boat well down into the water which slows the run of the boat significantly that's what happens when you have a lengthy finish where you're pulling the handles through too far after the strokes effectively finished now let's look at it rowing in a more upright style and finishing earlier in front of the body and feathering correctly see the blade is just coming out of the water here let's mark the position of the handle and it's time how long it takes for the stroke to be finished off and to get back to the same point so you're finishing off much earlier in relation to the body very strong tall position and 0.31 of a second so almost half the time that it takes to do a long stroke if you look at how his shoulders move in this particular part of the stroke you can see he holds them upright his pelvis vertical in a strong position
except with very short people there's not a lot of need to lean back most athletes will be able to get plenty of arc by not having to lean too far back and therefore you can finish earlier so i suggest really watch carefully and make sure that you don't lean back too far you tap out in front of your body and don't follow through with the hands just simply reverse direction feathering as you go and get back over your toes without putting too much downward pressure in the bow of the boat a slow finish can be twice as slow as a fast finish and remember that half second that is missing there is very significant when it comes to being able to try to produce a high rating when you're in a racing position so actively work towards having less lean back in the boat so we suggest not leaning back too far in the boat unless you really need to to get the length sitting tall with your pelvis vertical and making sure you tap out the handles in front of your body and feather and get the hands away quickly so you don't waste time sitting around the finish
you see here that Joel's body is well back into the leaning into the bow and additionally he's got a small slump in his lower back in order to be able to accommodate the handle position
as he comes back over to recover you can see it's about 0.56 of a second it takes to get from that point when there's no power applied right the way through to the finish tap it out and get back to that same point let's watch it again there's a lot of handle movement and travel after the blades stop exerting power into the water
let's have a look at what it does to the bow of the boat good finish position at that point however as his shoulders continue to go back as he finishes the stroke off you can see it pushes the bow of the boat well down into the water which slows the run of the boat significantly that's what happens when you have a lengthy finish where you're pulling the handles through too far after the strokes effectively finished now let's look at it rowing in a more upright style and finishing earlier in front of the body and feathering correctly see the blade is just coming out of the water here let's mark the position of the handle and it's time how long it takes for the stroke to be finished off and to get back to the same point so you're finishing off much earlier in relation to the body very strong tall position and 0.31 of a second so almost half the time that it takes to do a long stroke if you look at how his shoulders move in this particular part of the stroke you can see he holds them upright his pelvis vertical in a strong position
except with very short people there's not a lot of need to lean back most athletes will be able to get plenty of arc by not having to lean too far back and therefore you can finish earlier so i suggest really watch carefully and make sure that you don't lean back too far you tap out in front of your body and don't follow through with the hands just simply reverse direction feathering as you go and get back over your toes without putting too much downward pressure in the bow of the boat a slow finish can be twice as slow as a fast finish and remember that half second that is missing there is very significant when it comes to being able to try to produce a high rating when you're in a racing position so actively work towards having less lean back in the boat so we suggest not leaning back too far in the boat unless you really need to to get the length sitting tall with your pelvis vertical and making sure you tap out the handles in front of your body and feather and get the hands away quickly so you don't waste time sitting around the finish