Sore Shoulders and Arms when rowing?

In this video, Ken and Lachlan discuss and demonstrate the technique missteps which result in sore arms and shoulders.

​The way you hold the handle and apply the power significantly impacts how quickly your shoulders and forearms fatigue.

Video Transcript

You get this sore shoulder up here uh particularly when you've got a good connection you're getting a good catch you've got the load on then what what's happening is that you're finding that that you're using your shoulders too much early in the stroke or you're bending your arms and that'll put load up here so in the first part of the stroke you feel the load in your arms here and your arms get tired so if your arms are getting tired because of that load at the catch then it probably means that you're using your shoulders or your arms at the catch so just understand in your own body that when you're rowing along if you if you're rowing along got a good catch well connected and your arms and your shoulders are getting sore then it probably means that you're using your using your shoulders too much early in the catch so then just consciously make yourself relax and just hang off your tendons and your bones so just hang onto the handle tendons and bone right the way through to the shoulder that way you're going to use a lot less energy in these small muscles and they don't have the reserves to do that another thing is that often you'll find that you get a sore wrist here some of you had a sore wrist here at times when you're racing and if it happens yeah and it gets really inflamed and really really tense the simple answer is that you've probably got your grip too tight so if you grip really tight this is going to tense up and in a race situation that's going to start to hurt so the end of the race your arms forearms will be really sore but what it really means is that you've had too tight a grip and so you've worn those muscles out by tensing them up so you don't need to do that so the answer is just just hang off tendons and bone just hang on the handle and hang on your shoulder tendons and bone through to the handle and you'll find that you don't get these issues with the upper body so if you find that you're getting sore shoulders sore arms sore forearms then think about what's causing it and it's probably using your arms too early keeping them tense too early in the stroke or hanging onto the oar too tight so just when you're out there racing next time just think about those things and and if they do start to flare up then think about why and then relax your fingers a bit relax your grip relax your shoulders hang off your tendons and bones

so basically what happens is that the catch that this happens so people come forward and they grab their arms like this so it's an exaggerated form but mostly people look like this when they're doing it

and so when you do that when you break with your arms you're really not giving yourself a good connection through your back you really want to be pushing with your legs and locking on with your back starting to open then breaking the arms around about the half slide mark all your body finishes like this so when you get to the catch think about having your arms straight they don't have to be locked out but just you know they're straight and then there's straight so just have them nice and straight nice and relaxed and think about picking it up with the legs locking through the core and not grabbing with the arms like this so when you're rowing along you want to have them nice and loose

and relax your grips as well so a lot of people will grip the oar really or the handle really tightly and that will cause their arms to go cause their shoulders to grab and so you really want to just be hanging so try and keep a nice loose grip like this