Rowing Catch connection from above
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In this video, Ken uses a bird's eye view to analyze catch connection in a school quad. Analysis from above provides a unique perspective and highlights many faults which are difficult to detect from the side.
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Video Transcript
Waiting for the moment of connection can be seen from the side most of the time can certainly be seen from above here it is from a drone or from the crew rowing underneath the bridge let's have a closer look so if we watch what's happening with this particular crew as they're coming into the catch you can see if we watch the bow blade and the athlete what's happening is the athlete started the leg drive before the blades fully in the water you can see it again
now what we want to try to do is we want to try and get it better than that so let's have a look at another athlete in the boat let's have a look at the person in two seat so if we watch their blade watch their knees you can see that the blade goes in quite a lot quicker but the way it goes into the water it's still going in and there's a bit of a movement a little bit more movement than we'd like but it's pretty good catch now the way the blade enters the water is that it actually gets speared into the water so let's have a look here the footage is a little grainy because of the resolution but let's watch the blades going into the water so i'm coming into the catch here and the blade goes into the water and it just spears into the water and it's quite deep quite a quick catch and quite deep and so there's and if you look at where the look at the seat here you can see that there's not a lot of movement perhaps 10 centimeters five centimeters a little bit of movement there but not much which means that we're well connected quite early on so we're well connected early on in the stroke if we have a look here again then you can see here that that the athletes in the main have started to push before the blades in the water and so what we want to do is reinforce to the athlete that they need to wait for that connection so if we go back again here you can see what's happening this blade's going into the water there and there's really not a lot of drive going on until that blades right under the water and you can see it deeply under the water another thing you can see in relation to the connection too is the timing of the blades going into the water here we've got both blades going in pretty much simultaneously in this particular example we've got a fair bit of variation within the crew now the reason why this is important to fix in the crew is if we look at this particular stroke and move to the point of connection you can see at this particular moment here that the stroke person and the two person have most of the load of the boat and so it's quite heavy for them and then as we move forward you'll see that the other athletes start to pick up the load as well so in the early part of the catch here that early connection will mean that there's more load on different athletes in the boat the problem with that of course is that it has a couple of effects the first effect is that it's harder for those athletes of course to row and because everyone's not applying power at the same point then the power curves are not matched and therefore the boat won't go as fast as if we can match them up the other thing that happens too is that if you look at what's the angles on the oars you can see that the athletes that are quicker into the water and getting connected are going to have load because they're well connected early on but also they're going to have load because they're got a larger catch angle if we see here the catch angle for for example the bow person and the two person pretty similar however when we go a little bit into the stroke you can see that at this point the connection here is quite different now what this means is because we've got a steeper angle on on this oar than we do on on this oar then that means that the person in the two seat has got a heavier gearing at that point so it's not only going to feel heavy because they're in the water and connected early but it's going to feel heavier because they're actually got more gearing because of the steeper angle at that point so getting the crew to be connected at the same point is really important it's quite handy too to see that see it from above because as you can see here with the different with each of the athletes you can see that the angles on the oars for the two stroke are pretty much the same on both sides of the boat however the angle for the two person we've got a slightly different angle and
and the same for the vowel person now if you think about what that means it means that at different points in the stroke different athletes have got more load and at some points in the stroke you'll find that they've actually got the entire load of the boat if we go back a step here and we find the athlete that's first into the water
it's probably the two person is the one who's the best connected in the water like if you look at their blades you can see that this is quite well connected and the others aren't quite at the same point which means at that particular point in the stroke that athlete has a disproportionate amount of the load the way to deal with this if you can of course is to get everyone to put their blades in super quickly the other thing you can do is you can indeed do some rigging changes to to change it here as we go past square off you can see that the the person in the bow has it has a much squarer oar than than the the other three
which means that they're going to be feeling different amounts of load at that point if you can get them to line up better then i'd suggest so they're all the same you can get them to line up so they're all the same angle then you'll find that you're going to get a faster boat as a result so looking from above i'd suggest have a have a good look at how the blade goes into the water remember we want it to spear into the water and the more we can get it to spear into the water and and wait for the moment of connection there's always a tendency for the athletes to start to push as soon as the blade starts to hit the water but what they should do if they possibly can is put the blade in quickly with a quick up movement of the hands and the forearms and then just wait a moment to get that connection as you can see here when the blade goes into the water it spears in and there's not a lot of hurry to power it along mind you this piece of footage too is rating at 33 so it's not it's not really slow footage but what you do is you as you as you wait for that connection and then you apply the power and it's very important to make sure that the blades fully buried and connected before you start to apply the leg drive yes the seat will have to move a little bit in order to get connected we see that really quite well
if we watch the two person in in this quad if we look at what the blades doing and what their knees are doing you can see that as the blade goes into the water his shins are over vertical at that point blade's in the water and connected and his shins now are about vertical and so there's still all of the leg drive to come which is which is what we're looking for there are other issues of course with the way that the power is applied in the boat but every boat has these sorts of issues so what i suggest you do if you can is to try and make it so that the athletes when they put the blade in put it in deep and quickly and then wait for that connection before they apply the power to try to apply the power before the blades fully connected and you've picked up the load is going to mean that you're wasting some of your leg drive and therefore you'll have a slower boat so connection viewed from above you can see the spearing action of the blade going into the water and you can better understand perhaps how the blade enters the water how it gets connected and how you have to wait for a moment for it to be connected and pick up the load before you really apply the power for the drive phase
now what we want to try to do is we want to try and get it better than that so let's have a look at another athlete in the boat let's have a look at the person in two seat so if we watch their blade watch their knees you can see that the blade goes in quite a lot quicker but the way it goes into the water it's still going in and there's a bit of a movement a little bit more movement than we'd like but it's pretty good catch now the way the blade enters the water is that it actually gets speared into the water so let's have a look here the footage is a little grainy because of the resolution but let's watch the blades going into the water so i'm coming into the catch here and the blade goes into the water and it just spears into the water and it's quite deep quite a quick catch and quite deep and so there's and if you look at where the look at the seat here you can see that there's not a lot of movement perhaps 10 centimeters five centimeters a little bit of movement there but not much which means that we're well connected quite early on so we're well connected early on in the stroke if we have a look here again then you can see here that that the athletes in the main have started to push before the blades in the water and so what we want to do is reinforce to the athlete that they need to wait for that connection so if we go back again here you can see what's happening this blade's going into the water there and there's really not a lot of drive going on until that blades right under the water and you can see it deeply under the water another thing you can see in relation to the connection too is the timing of the blades going into the water here we've got both blades going in pretty much simultaneously in this particular example we've got a fair bit of variation within the crew now the reason why this is important to fix in the crew is if we look at this particular stroke and move to the point of connection you can see at this particular moment here that the stroke person and the two person have most of the load of the boat and so it's quite heavy for them and then as we move forward you'll see that the other athletes start to pick up the load as well so in the early part of the catch here that early connection will mean that there's more load on different athletes in the boat the problem with that of course is that it has a couple of effects the first effect is that it's harder for those athletes of course to row and because everyone's not applying power at the same point then the power curves are not matched and therefore the boat won't go as fast as if we can match them up the other thing that happens too is that if you look at what's the angles on the oars you can see that the athletes that are quicker into the water and getting connected are going to have load because they're well connected early on but also they're going to have load because they're got a larger catch angle if we see here the catch angle for for example the bow person and the two person pretty similar however when we go a little bit into the stroke you can see that at this point the connection here is quite different now what this means is because we've got a steeper angle on on this oar than we do on on this oar then that means that the person in the two seat has got a heavier gearing at that point so it's not only going to feel heavy because they're in the water and connected early but it's going to feel heavier because they're actually got more gearing because of the steeper angle at that point so getting the crew to be connected at the same point is really important it's quite handy too to see that see it from above because as you can see here with the different with each of the athletes you can see that the angles on the oars for the two stroke are pretty much the same on both sides of the boat however the angle for the two person we've got a slightly different angle and
and the same for the vowel person now if you think about what that means it means that at different points in the stroke different athletes have got more load and at some points in the stroke you'll find that they've actually got the entire load of the boat if we go back a step here and we find the athlete that's first into the water
it's probably the two person is the one who's the best connected in the water like if you look at their blades you can see that this is quite well connected and the others aren't quite at the same point which means at that particular point in the stroke that athlete has a disproportionate amount of the load the way to deal with this if you can of course is to get everyone to put their blades in super quickly the other thing you can do is you can indeed do some rigging changes to to change it here as we go past square off you can see that the the person in the bow has it has a much squarer oar than than the the other three
which means that they're going to be feeling different amounts of load at that point if you can get them to line up better then i'd suggest so they're all the same you can get them to line up so they're all the same angle then you'll find that you're going to get a faster boat as a result so looking from above i'd suggest have a have a good look at how the blade goes into the water remember we want it to spear into the water and the more we can get it to spear into the water and and wait for the moment of connection there's always a tendency for the athletes to start to push as soon as the blade starts to hit the water but what they should do if they possibly can is put the blade in quickly with a quick up movement of the hands and the forearms and then just wait a moment to get that connection as you can see here when the blade goes into the water it spears in and there's not a lot of hurry to power it along mind you this piece of footage too is rating at 33 so it's not it's not really slow footage but what you do is you as you as you wait for that connection and then you apply the power and it's very important to make sure that the blades fully buried and connected before you start to apply the leg drive yes the seat will have to move a little bit in order to get connected we see that really quite well
if we watch the two person in in this quad if we look at what the blades doing and what their knees are doing you can see that as the blade goes into the water his shins are over vertical at that point blade's in the water and connected and his shins now are about vertical and so there's still all of the leg drive to come which is which is what we're looking for there are other issues of course with the way that the power is applied in the boat but every boat has these sorts of issues so what i suggest you do if you can is to try and make it so that the athletes when they put the blade in put it in deep and quickly and then wait for that connection before they apply the power to try to apply the power before the blades fully connected and you've picked up the load is going to mean that you're wasting some of your leg drive and therefore you'll have a slower boat so connection viewed from above you can see the spearing action of the blade going into the water and you can better understand perhaps how the blade enters the water how it gets connected and how you have to wait for a moment for it to be connected and pick up the load before you really apply the power for the drive phase