Improving Connection in a Sweep Boat when rowing - With Chapters
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In this video, Ken teaches a University 8 how to connect to the water at the catch. The connection must happen while the shins are vertical. We use this exercise with boats of any size.
Please select the chapter you are seeking in this long video or watch from the beginning. |
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Video Transcript
the moment when you put the blade in the water you're putting it in like this and it and it's you're already pushing
okay so what's happening as you start to put the blade you get to the front and you think right oh i'm never going to push you put the blade in and push all at the same time now the what actually happens is they're two separate movements so the first thing we want to do is put the blade in and then we want to push we're going to put it in deep obviously so what happens is that we want to make sure that when you put the blade in that goes in and then you push now the blade to get the blade covered takes if you slow about a quarter of a second and if you fast about a tenth of a second so it's pretty quick but what you want to do is you want to separate that movement from pushing now if you think about it what happens when the blade goes into the water the boat's moving let's just shin the boat's moving the blade goes into the water what happens to the blade
it has to move yeah so if you're holding it still it's going to check the boat and if you what you have to do is you have to move with it so as you put the blade in the blade's going to push you a little bit if you let it but there's no point pushing on it and pulling on the blade because it's not in the water yet so you've got to get it in the water get it connected and then you push so you want that blade in deep then you push now the way to do that is as you come into the catch you come into the catch and you say right i'll just use one hand as a demo come into the catch and you get to the front and then you go up and then you push now the difference in timing is about as i say about a quarter of a second so it's pretty quick but they're two separate movements what most people do when they're rowing is that they come into the front and they as they start to lift their hands they start to push and so by the time the blade is in and connected they've already used that much of the slow that much of the slide okay but you've got to remember what we'll do in a minute you've got to remember you're going to have to use about that much of the slide anyway because it takes that long for the blade to get covered the blade starts to go in it starts to move therefore you have to move but you don't push you move you let it get connected and when it's connected then you push but not until it's connected does that make sense yep all right so what we'll do is we'll do a drill and the easy way is we'll have the balfour sit out and the sternford do it the reason i always pick on the stern floor is because then you can watch what they're doing whereas if you did it first they wouldn't be able to see keep the boat nice and level for them what we're going to do the first thing we're going to do is we'll get the boat moving a little bit and then every third stroke i want you to put the blade in and don't push it all and un and let the blade push you down the boat all right so i want you to get that sensation of what it feels like to let it get connected and then we'll go we'll do it every third stroke for a while so you get the feeling you put the blade in and i wouldn't finish the stroke off i'd just do legs only for that so just push it until your legs are flat don't use your body come in and do the next stroke and do two normal strokes to get the boat going again put the blade in let it push it down the slide to get that feeling okay then what i want us to do is to come into the catch and deliberately put the blade in and then feel it kick in your hand a little bit and then push and then we'll get rid of the kick so by just gradually increasing the oar decreasing the time increasing the time so you put the blade in and then it'll kick in your hand that means you didn't push early enough if it doesn't kick in your hand you push too early so we've got to put it in get connected and push one thing it'll feel remember when we did the drill down the other end there where you put the blade in shallow and just pull it and that was easy put it in deep and it's hard so what that means is that if you're connected at the catch it's going to feel heavy it should feel heavy you're connected you're on if it doesn't feel heavy you're not connected and you're not not driving the boat does that make sense that's what i want to try all right so i'll have is the stern four and what i want you to do is we'll get the boat moving just with the stern floor it doesn't have to be going very fast then i want you to come in when i say i want you to come into the catch put the blade in keep your bodies over don't open up or anything like that and just let it push it down the slide and then come in and do two more normal strokes and do it again make sense we'll do that first and then we might stop and we'll have the bow four do it and then when we've done that we'll we'll go again one thing to remember that i think is pretty handy you come into the catch for me the stone four
now i want you to just glance you have your plate square now the glass down at your knees your shins are vertical huh pretty much that's what we want now what i want you to do take the blade and balance it for him about four please so now take the blade out of the water and now put it in and then look at your shins now i know that sounds really stupid doesn't it but they haven't moved so what i want you to do when we actually get through this drill and you put it in then i want you as you put it in look at your shins when you put the blade in and they still vertical now come halfway down the slide for me just to make it extreme all right now take the blade out of the water now just put it in now look at your shins now you'd know you missed the catch if you put the blade in you look at your shins and they're like that you didn't get it right that makes sense doesn't it still want them vertical so up push it's not pushing up the hassle with it a little bit is that as you're coming into this into the front is we ask you to come into the front reasonably gently but we'll get to that and then we want you to put the blade in really quick and then we want you to come out of the catch and don't start pushing too hard so you've got a slow move and a quick movement of slow moving in less than a second so it's a bit tricky to do does that make sense one thing we'll do before we head off we'll do this with both sides
is what i want to do is i want to just use your outside hand
so just the stern four just your outside hand at the catch come into the cat for me
all right now i want you to so outside hand on me man there the other outside you got it um so take the blade out of the water now put the blade into the water just take the catch as you would balance the boat come on guys up the bow there one perfectly balanced all right i put the blade in the water go all right so now i want you to when i say just don't put it in go i want you to really put it in i want to go in really quick okay keep the boat balanced up the bow please all right out of the water and on three one two three oh come on quicker than that let's do it again one two three come on quicker than that okay let's put your hand on the oar like that so you've got your thumb underneath the oar and your hand just flat on top okay and a gap so it's not thai grip at all i want you to put the oar in with your thumb this time balance the boat guys come on it's not balanced so when i one two three i want you to put it in i want your thumb to put it in with your hand to come off the oar okay one two three all right let's do it again this time don't have your thumb there just put your hand flat on top and i want your hand to come off the air completely one two three see how quick you've got to get your hand out of the way you've got to actually try to get your hand out of the way so what we're going to do is when you come into the catch i want you to actually put the blade in all right u4 keep it balanced and can you guys up the bow have a go and keep your balance for a better than they did for you can we get some footage of them just doing yeah that's a good idea all right so always out of the water keep the boat balanced and so on three put the blade in one two three all right now let's do it really quick one two three outside hand only everywhere up there
one two three come on quicker than that one two three that's better one two three that's better so when you put the blade in i want you to put it in and put it in just straight in make sense all right balfour sit out stern four let's head up this way and we'll just get the boat moving and then on the i'll call the third stroke and remember what we're doing on the third stroke we're to just put the blade in and let keep our bodies and our arms fully extended bodies over and let it just push it down the slide okay
remember when you're when you let it push you it's good every
and two-stroke we'll get this eventually
i want you to do is do nothing just lift your hands and sit there let it go all the way that'll push you down the slide all the way when the blades in there if you want to let it push the urge to push is so strong and you've got to resist it you've got to put that blade in get it connected now i'll push yeah that took 0.2 of a second but that's the time that's the sequence and so what i want to do is do it again but this time i want you to put it in and just let it just push it just hold it and put it in and just let it push you just do nothing turn everything else off just let it push it you're letting letting it move so you're not holding it you put the blade in and then you go back on the slide and it just pushes you so what i'm demonstrating is that the boat as the oar goes into the water it has to push you or you have to let it go into the water and not push because if you push before it's in and connected we've got slip and we don't want slip but the concept is into the front and then put it in and just hold it hold your upper body nice and taut and just just let your seat just go just let your legs go loose don't use your legs at all for anything
and then you put the power off but not to the left is
had to feel as far as the connection goes and your shins vertical and that sort of stuff oh yeah it felt felt like you were pushing more probably feel heavier yeah yeah but what it is it's about making sure you're connected before you put the power on because otherwise you're not you're pushing air there's no point that was good so if you're going to tell these guys up here up the back how they're going to do it what do they got to be careful with there's a massive lag when you put it in before you actually feel it yeah it really feels like a massive leg so what rupert's saying is when you put the blade in and you get it right it feels like you're sitting there forever while this blade goes into the water about that long but it feels weird because you've been doing this other way for so long uh the next one we do let's do it a little differently finish the whole stroke off but don't put leaving them laid in any water buried all the way through
hands up quick let's push you all the way do one more and make sure
is that easy doing the full stroke yeah it was easier doing the full stroke just needed to know what we were doing yeah like um once we knew what we were doing was all right okay cool you still want to put the blade in quick because that's critical for every stroke but then just let it push you now what you felt there is that that's what happens every time the blade goes into the water that's what happens but it only happens for about that far on the side and your slide rating about 20 your slide is probably going to move that far with no weight on the drive so you don't want to push until it's gone about that far because otherwise you're just wasting your leg drive so once it's done that though then we want to push so what i want you to do going down here is to watch your knees so put that blade in what you need okay let's think about it
all right
so you can feel the weight a bit more feels heavier feels heavier but still i don't know it's funny i feel weird any change feels weird and rowing such a rhythmic sport that as soon as you make a change it's going to feel really strange because you're so used to doing it the way you're used to doing it does it feel heavier does it catch excellent it doesn't feel heavy it's useless so come to the catch everyone else and when you put your blade in the water and make sure it's buried never look at it under the water under the water all right i now want you to note where your outside arm is in relation to the boat okay and so it's it's not parallel with the boat but it's near so can you guys balance the boat um seven and eight balance the boat can the bow six do the same thing so come to the catch put the blade in i want it in come on you don't want to be able to see it right so now look at where your outside arm is and what angle it is in relation to the boat now each of you a bit different because you've got different body shapes but remember what that is that's how deep it wants to be so down here i want to do the same thing but this time i want you to focus just on that movement there there's not shoulders it's just that movement okay let's try that same deal though put it in feel for the connection
push back
thank you
now what i want to do we'll head back up here and this bit i want to change it a little bit i want you to row like that and get it really good as you can and then what i want you to do is one at a time and you can do it randomly don't tell who's going to do it i want you to just pause just just delay that leg drive just a fraction okay so you put the blade in and then normally you put it in and you push we got that drill now we understand there's two separate movements that's great what i want you to do is i want you to put the blade in and then on independently and only about i don't know no more than every 10 or 12 strokes something like that we don't have everyone doing it once is i want you to put the blade in and deliberately delay your leg drive just a little bit more so at the moment we're saying we put it in 0.25 a second later we push so let's put it in and wait point five and then push so just a tiny little bit more okay now why we're doing this is because if you do that and you delight a little bit more and you don't feel the handle kick in your hand like that so it's got a kick like that if it doesn't kick like that it means you're pushing too early anyway because we know that if the blade's in and we're connected and then we push that's good if the blades if we've already pushed in the blades in then it's not going to kick because we're already pushing so what i want you to do is to test whether you've got it right individually put the blade in and wait just that fraction of a second longer before you push and if the handle doesn't kick in your hand it means you had it wrong so wait a little bit more until you feel it just kick and when it just kicks you'll say i'm almost there then put the legs on a little bit quicker and you'll be spot on now what you can do is if you get this bit right though what you can do is you can check in a race you can be going down the course doing 34 saying i think i'm good i might just check i'll just delay my leg drive just a fraction if it kicks in your hand you're saying i'm on the money if it doesn't kick in your hand to say i better fix my catch and then you make a little bit change those those put the blade in push got to change that little bit there and you can get it right so you can check anytime you like whether you've got a good catch or not all you've got to do is just delay the leg drive a little bit if the handle doesn't kick you got it wrong if it kicks you say i'm i'm there and you just go back to where you were so you don't need to talk about it you just need to check and from a coxswain's perspective what they can do is they can ask remind everybody just every now and then just check that you've got your catchphrase so i'll go 500 meters up here and as we do the 500 meters just individually just muck around with it okay don't tell anyone you're doing it just do it and get a feel for what i'm talking about
okay so tell me what's different about that compared to how you thought you wrote before
it feels sort of like when i put it in that i can't really get the power on it's probably me doing something wrong i put it in i just feel like i can't just put the power down yeah and what it is and it's probably not really the power of what it is before you're used to pushing and so now you put the blade in and you must be able to get the power on because the blades buried in the water i mean you've got no choice but the powers go on there it's not going anywhere else but i reckon what it is is that you're used to pushing at that point and so all of a sudden i've taken away that push so that bit of the stroke's gone now it doesn't exist because the blade's in the water so it's already you know you're used to feeling it heavy after you've already started pushing i reckon that's what it is remember connections
if you're getting it in and you're getting connected and it's going well and it feels heavy well that's great if it's too heavy that's a gearing problem so shorten yours if we get bigger we get stronger we do something but the fact that it feels heavy means that you're connected unless you're all out of time if you're rowing a double and one of you has got the blade in another other guy doesn't then okay that's going to feel heavy because they're not running very well but if you're rowing together pretty well on the blades in the water it's connected and you've got the drive on then it works
well that was really good what makes a boat move what accelerates the boat now the easy answer good point the easy answer is i put the blade in the water and i push and i pull and i make the boat go faster you know what actually makes the boat go faster at another point in the stroke so if you think about it let's do it in terms of a single skull first because i think it's an easier example so you've got a guy who weighs 90 kilos sitting in a single skull and a single skull weighs what 14. so if he pulls his legs towards him does he go down the slide or does the boat come to him but it's got to come to him because he weighs 90 kilos he's not moving and he pulls his little boat to come straight towards him okay now what's that doing to the boat it's accelerating it if you look at an acceleration curve goes up then there's a bit of a bump if you're rowing well then it goes up higher accelerations are accelerating more than it goes down to no acceleration pretty much and it sits there until you get to the catch no it doesn't it goes down to there and as you pull the boat towards you it goes back again and accelerates again just before the catch so the boat accelerates just before the catch heaps of grass in fact the in a single scale his acceleration during the drive phase when he's pulling on the oar and pushing is about five and a bit meters per second squared his acceleration when he's pulling himself into the front is about four meters per second square not much different and that's what makes the boat go fast mind you if you pull the boat towards you and you don't put the blade in the water the next movement is to push the boat backwards so you pull it towards you push it away so that slows the boat down that's why it's so important to get the catch in so what will happen when you're rowing fast you can't right like that and not pull yourself down the slide so pulling yourself down the slide is really good if you all do it together let's think about an eight eight weighs 100 kilos and you guys together weigh probably i don't know six to 900 kilos sitting in a boat and the boat weighs 100 kilos so when you pull your legs towards you coming into the catch what moves the boat clearly so as you're doing that sort of right you have to pull the boat towards you a bit and so that's good so yes you have to put yourself down the slide because you can't get there quick enough otherwise and if you think about you think well the boat's going to push me down the slide oh hang on though the boat's going at a constant speed it's not doing anything to your body you can just sit there and it's not going to it's not going to push it down the slide slides in an 8 a flat in a single they've got a they might have a bit of an angle on them a tiny bit of an angle but then you know you're not going to come down the slide naturally you've got to do it aggressively the danger is if you don't put the blade in the water at the right time and you start pushing then you're going to lose that benefit so you want to put yourself in get that quick deep connected catch we've been talking about and then push and you'll get a faster boat
okay so what's happening as you start to put the blade you get to the front and you think right oh i'm never going to push you put the blade in and push all at the same time now the what actually happens is they're two separate movements so the first thing we want to do is put the blade in and then we want to push we're going to put it in deep obviously so what happens is that we want to make sure that when you put the blade in that goes in and then you push now the blade to get the blade covered takes if you slow about a quarter of a second and if you fast about a tenth of a second so it's pretty quick but what you want to do is you want to separate that movement from pushing now if you think about it what happens when the blade goes into the water the boat's moving let's just shin the boat's moving the blade goes into the water what happens to the blade
it has to move yeah so if you're holding it still it's going to check the boat and if you what you have to do is you have to move with it so as you put the blade in the blade's going to push you a little bit if you let it but there's no point pushing on it and pulling on the blade because it's not in the water yet so you've got to get it in the water get it connected and then you push so you want that blade in deep then you push now the way to do that is as you come into the catch you come into the catch and you say right i'll just use one hand as a demo come into the catch and you get to the front and then you go up and then you push now the difference in timing is about as i say about a quarter of a second so it's pretty quick but they're two separate movements what most people do when they're rowing is that they come into the front and they as they start to lift their hands they start to push and so by the time the blade is in and connected they've already used that much of the slow that much of the slide okay but you've got to remember what we'll do in a minute you've got to remember you're going to have to use about that much of the slide anyway because it takes that long for the blade to get covered the blade starts to go in it starts to move therefore you have to move but you don't push you move you let it get connected and when it's connected then you push but not until it's connected does that make sense yep all right so what we'll do is we'll do a drill and the easy way is we'll have the balfour sit out and the sternford do it the reason i always pick on the stern floor is because then you can watch what they're doing whereas if you did it first they wouldn't be able to see keep the boat nice and level for them what we're going to do the first thing we're going to do is we'll get the boat moving a little bit and then every third stroke i want you to put the blade in and don't push it all and un and let the blade push you down the boat all right so i want you to get that sensation of what it feels like to let it get connected and then we'll go we'll do it every third stroke for a while so you get the feeling you put the blade in and i wouldn't finish the stroke off i'd just do legs only for that so just push it until your legs are flat don't use your body come in and do the next stroke and do two normal strokes to get the boat going again put the blade in let it push it down the slide to get that feeling okay then what i want us to do is to come into the catch and deliberately put the blade in and then feel it kick in your hand a little bit and then push and then we'll get rid of the kick so by just gradually increasing the oar decreasing the time increasing the time so you put the blade in and then it'll kick in your hand that means you didn't push early enough if it doesn't kick in your hand you push too early so we've got to put it in get connected and push one thing it'll feel remember when we did the drill down the other end there where you put the blade in shallow and just pull it and that was easy put it in deep and it's hard so what that means is that if you're connected at the catch it's going to feel heavy it should feel heavy you're connected you're on if it doesn't feel heavy you're not connected and you're not not driving the boat does that make sense that's what i want to try all right so i'll have is the stern four and what i want you to do is we'll get the boat moving just with the stern floor it doesn't have to be going very fast then i want you to come in when i say i want you to come into the catch put the blade in keep your bodies over don't open up or anything like that and just let it push it down the slide and then come in and do two more normal strokes and do it again make sense we'll do that first and then we might stop and we'll have the bow four do it and then when we've done that we'll we'll go again one thing to remember that i think is pretty handy you come into the catch for me the stone four
now i want you to just glance you have your plate square now the glass down at your knees your shins are vertical huh pretty much that's what we want now what i want you to do take the blade and balance it for him about four please so now take the blade out of the water and now put it in and then look at your shins now i know that sounds really stupid doesn't it but they haven't moved so what i want you to do when we actually get through this drill and you put it in then i want you as you put it in look at your shins when you put the blade in and they still vertical now come halfway down the slide for me just to make it extreme all right now take the blade out of the water now just put it in now look at your shins now you'd know you missed the catch if you put the blade in you look at your shins and they're like that you didn't get it right that makes sense doesn't it still want them vertical so up push it's not pushing up the hassle with it a little bit is that as you're coming into this into the front is we ask you to come into the front reasonably gently but we'll get to that and then we want you to put the blade in really quick and then we want you to come out of the catch and don't start pushing too hard so you've got a slow move and a quick movement of slow moving in less than a second so it's a bit tricky to do does that make sense one thing we'll do before we head off we'll do this with both sides
is what i want to do is i want to just use your outside hand
so just the stern four just your outside hand at the catch come into the cat for me
all right now i want you to so outside hand on me man there the other outside you got it um so take the blade out of the water now put the blade into the water just take the catch as you would balance the boat come on guys up the bow there one perfectly balanced all right i put the blade in the water go all right so now i want you to when i say just don't put it in go i want you to really put it in i want to go in really quick okay keep the boat balanced up the bow please all right out of the water and on three one two three oh come on quicker than that let's do it again one two three come on quicker than that okay let's put your hand on the oar like that so you've got your thumb underneath the oar and your hand just flat on top okay and a gap so it's not thai grip at all i want you to put the oar in with your thumb this time balance the boat guys come on it's not balanced so when i one two three i want you to put it in i want your thumb to put it in with your hand to come off the oar okay one two three all right let's do it again this time don't have your thumb there just put your hand flat on top and i want your hand to come off the air completely one two three see how quick you've got to get your hand out of the way you've got to actually try to get your hand out of the way so what we're going to do is when you come into the catch i want you to actually put the blade in all right u4 keep it balanced and can you guys up the bow have a go and keep your balance for a better than they did for you can we get some footage of them just doing yeah that's a good idea all right so always out of the water keep the boat balanced and so on three put the blade in one two three all right now let's do it really quick one two three outside hand only everywhere up there
one two three come on quicker than that one two three that's better one two three that's better so when you put the blade in i want you to put it in and put it in just straight in make sense all right balfour sit out stern four let's head up this way and we'll just get the boat moving and then on the i'll call the third stroke and remember what we're doing on the third stroke we're to just put the blade in and let keep our bodies and our arms fully extended bodies over and let it just push it down the slide okay
remember when you're when you let it push you it's good every
and two-stroke we'll get this eventually
i want you to do is do nothing just lift your hands and sit there let it go all the way that'll push you down the slide all the way when the blades in there if you want to let it push the urge to push is so strong and you've got to resist it you've got to put that blade in get it connected now i'll push yeah that took 0.2 of a second but that's the time that's the sequence and so what i want to do is do it again but this time i want you to put it in and just let it just push it just hold it and put it in and just let it push you just do nothing turn everything else off just let it push it you're letting letting it move so you're not holding it you put the blade in and then you go back on the slide and it just pushes you so what i'm demonstrating is that the boat as the oar goes into the water it has to push you or you have to let it go into the water and not push because if you push before it's in and connected we've got slip and we don't want slip but the concept is into the front and then put it in and just hold it hold your upper body nice and taut and just just let your seat just go just let your legs go loose don't use your legs at all for anything
and then you put the power off but not to the left is
had to feel as far as the connection goes and your shins vertical and that sort of stuff oh yeah it felt felt like you were pushing more probably feel heavier yeah yeah but what it is it's about making sure you're connected before you put the power on because otherwise you're not you're pushing air there's no point that was good so if you're going to tell these guys up here up the back how they're going to do it what do they got to be careful with there's a massive lag when you put it in before you actually feel it yeah it really feels like a massive leg so what rupert's saying is when you put the blade in and you get it right it feels like you're sitting there forever while this blade goes into the water about that long but it feels weird because you've been doing this other way for so long uh the next one we do let's do it a little differently finish the whole stroke off but don't put leaving them laid in any water buried all the way through
hands up quick let's push you all the way do one more and make sure
is that easy doing the full stroke yeah it was easier doing the full stroke just needed to know what we were doing yeah like um once we knew what we were doing was all right okay cool you still want to put the blade in quick because that's critical for every stroke but then just let it push you now what you felt there is that that's what happens every time the blade goes into the water that's what happens but it only happens for about that far on the side and your slide rating about 20 your slide is probably going to move that far with no weight on the drive so you don't want to push until it's gone about that far because otherwise you're just wasting your leg drive so once it's done that though then we want to push so what i want you to do going down here is to watch your knees so put that blade in what you need okay let's think about it
all right
so you can feel the weight a bit more feels heavier feels heavier but still i don't know it's funny i feel weird any change feels weird and rowing such a rhythmic sport that as soon as you make a change it's going to feel really strange because you're so used to doing it the way you're used to doing it does it feel heavier does it catch excellent it doesn't feel heavy it's useless so come to the catch everyone else and when you put your blade in the water and make sure it's buried never look at it under the water under the water all right i now want you to note where your outside arm is in relation to the boat okay and so it's it's not parallel with the boat but it's near so can you guys balance the boat um seven and eight balance the boat can the bow six do the same thing so come to the catch put the blade in i want it in come on you don't want to be able to see it right so now look at where your outside arm is and what angle it is in relation to the boat now each of you a bit different because you've got different body shapes but remember what that is that's how deep it wants to be so down here i want to do the same thing but this time i want you to focus just on that movement there there's not shoulders it's just that movement okay let's try that same deal though put it in feel for the connection
push back
thank you
now what i want to do we'll head back up here and this bit i want to change it a little bit i want you to row like that and get it really good as you can and then what i want you to do is one at a time and you can do it randomly don't tell who's going to do it i want you to just pause just just delay that leg drive just a fraction okay so you put the blade in and then normally you put it in and you push we got that drill now we understand there's two separate movements that's great what i want you to do is i want you to put the blade in and then on independently and only about i don't know no more than every 10 or 12 strokes something like that we don't have everyone doing it once is i want you to put the blade in and deliberately delay your leg drive just a little bit more so at the moment we're saying we put it in 0.25 a second later we push so let's put it in and wait point five and then push so just a tiny little bit more okay now why we're doing this is because if you do that and you delight a little bit more and you don't feel the handle kick in your hand like that so it's got a kick like that if it doesn't kick like that it means you're pushing too early anyway because we know that if the blade's in and we're connected and then we push that's good if the blades if we've already pushed in the blades in then it's not going to kick because we're already pushing so what i want you to do is to test whether you've got it right individually put the blade in and wait just that fraction of a second longer before you push and if the handle doesn't kick in your hand it means you had it wrong so wait a little bit more until you feel it just kick and when it just kicks you'll say i'm almost there then put the legs on a little bit quicker and you'll be spot on now what you can do is if you get this bit right though what you can do is you can check in a race you can be going down the course doing 34 saying i think i'm good i might just check i'll just delay my leg drive just a fraction if it kicks in your hand you're saying i'm on the money if it doesn't kick in your hand to say i better fix my catch and then you make a little bit change those those put the blade in push got to change that little bit there and you can get it right so you can check anytime you like whether you've got a good catch or not all you've got to do is just delay the leg drive a little bit if the handle doesn't kick you got it wrong if it kicks you say i'm i'm there and you just go back to where you were so you don't need to talk about it you just need to check and from a coxswain's perspective what they can do is they can ask remind everybody just every now and then just check that you've got your catchphrase so i'll go 500 meters up here and as we do the 500 meters just individually just muck around with it okay don't tell anyone you're doing it just do it and get a feel for what i'm talking about
okay so tell me what's different about that compared to how you thought you wrote before
it feels sort of like when i put it in that i can't really get the power on it's probably me doing something wrong i put it in i just feel like i can't just put the power down yeah and what it is and it's probably not really the power of what it is before you're used to pushing and so now you put the blade in and you must be able to get the power on because the blades buried in the water i mean you've got no choice but the powers go on there it's not going anywhere else but i reckon what it is is that you're used to pushing at that point and so all of a sudden i've taken away that push so that bit of the stroke's gone now it doesn't exist because the blade's in the water so it's already you know you're used to feeling it heavy after you've already started pushing i reckon that's what it is remember connections
if you're getting it in and you're getting connected and it's going well and it feels heavy well that's great if it's too heavy that's a gearing problem so shorten yours if we get bigger we get stronger we do something but the fact that it feels heavy means that you're connected unless you're all out of time if you're rowing a double and one of you has got the blade in another other guy doesn't then okay that's going to feel heavy because they're not running very well but if you're rowing together pretty well on the blades in the water it's connected and you've got the drive on then it works
well that was really good what makes a boat move what accelerates the boat now the easy answer good point the easy answer is i put the blade in the water and i push and i pull and i make the boat go faster you know what actually makes the boat go faster at another point in the stroke so if you think about it let's do it in terms of a single skull first because i think it's an easier example so you've got a guy who weighs 90 kilos sitting in a single skull and a single skull weighs what 14. so if he pulls his legs towards him does he go down the slide or does the boat come to him but it's got to come to him because he weighs 90 kilos he's not moving and he pulls his little boat to come straight towards him okay now what's that doing to the boat it's accelerating it if you look at an acceleration curve goes up then there's a bit of a bump if you're rowing well then it goes up higher accelerations are accelerating more than it goes down to no acceleration pretty much and it sits there until you get to the catch no it doesn't it goes down to there and as you pull the boat towards you it goes back again and accelerates again just before the catch so the boat accelerates just before the catch heaps of grass in fact the in a single scale his acceleration during the drive phase when he's pulling on the oar and pushing is about five and a bit meters per second squared his acceleration when he's pulling himself into the front is about four meters per second square not much different and that's what makes the boat go fast mind you if you pull the boat towards you and you don't put the blade in the water the next movement is to push the boat backwards so you pull it towards you push it away so that slows the boat down that's why it's so important to get the catch in so what will happen when you're rowing fast you can't right like that and not pull yourself down the slide so pulling yourself down the slide is really good if you all do it together let's think about an eight eight weighs 100 kilos and you guys together weigh probably i don't know six to 900 kilos sitting in a boat and the boat weighs 100 kilos so when you pull your legs towards you coming into the catch what moves the boat clearly so as you're doing that sort of right you have to pull the boat towards you a bit and so that's good so yes you have to put yourself down the slide because you can't get there quick enough otherwise and if you think about you think well the boat's going to push me down the slide oh hang on though the boat's going at a constant speed it's not doing anything to your body you can just sit there and it's not going to it's not going to push it down the slide slides in an 8 a flat in a single they've got a they might have a bit of an angle on them a tiny bit of an angle but then you know you're not going to come down the slide naturally you've got to do it aggressively the danger is if you don't put the blade in the water at the right time and you start pushing then you're going to lose that benefit so you want to put yourself in get that quick deep connected catch we've been talking about and then push and you'll get a faster boat