Balance Relaxation and Handle Movement in rowing
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In rowing there is a close relationship between relaxation, handle movement and balance. In this video, John discusses the interactions between the three during the stroke.
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Video Transcript
A pair is one of the hardest things and it's the most important for the pair is that both handles move at the same speed because you can imagine you do this exercise in a pair somebody moves quickly and slowly it's it's an instant problem there are a set of core muscles in here that only get engaged when balance becomes an issue okay so we can all actually stand on the on the ground here quite comfortably quite relaxed but if i get you to all stand up on your toes then you start shaking and vibrating because you're trying to engage in other set of muscles now the reason you're trying to while you're shaking is because none of those muscles are strong enough to actually hold you still so i'm standing here shaking trying to hold my posture all right we never engage these muscles in the boat but we will when we do this exercise all right the other part of this exercise and the next level of this exercise is to actually stand on your toes and close your eyes and then you'll engage the next set of muscles that you never use because once you lose the focus of balance in terms of you know perception on the thing then it becomes difficult so to actually teach your people in a boat to do this you engage a whole pile of muscles that they've never used before which in turn gives you better balance characteristics and ability to actually sit and relax so if you just do a two-fingered roll-up for me Ciona so you sit with two fingers you push down you come forward and then you sit at the front with the blades in the water all right just reverse and push back
that's it reverse so the other thing this teaches you the amount of effort required to take the handle from the finish to catch right just that's all it is just get it there so you know you see your crew's racing and there's a lot of movement a lot of shaking going on but the actual movement to get to there requires just the pressure of the two fingers if you can actually come off the back and relax and move with the boat then you're going to be a lot better a better chance of connecting to the run of the boat so what we're trying to do here is create posture and create stability and that'll help that'll happen in a minute when i get them both do the same exercise at the same time all right finger tip of the finger push down with your finger don't push down with your wrist all you're doing lucy is just pushing down follow the handle and put it in follow the handle and just lift that's it hold there reverse and go back
all right so now this this is this is the crucial part of this exercise you know as an individual you can do it easily by yourself but now what we're doing is we're bringing in a balanced criteria into the exercise all right so let's just tap first just two up and down together see if we can just go up and down look up look up sit tall
all right so at the moment we're engaging muscles they've never used before all right sit at the finish all right let's try the two-fingered roll up all right now the focus what's important here is your focus okay what you're trying to do is not rock the boat okay what you're trying to do is sit the boat up on the way forward all right so that creates a thought pattern all the way through am i out of my square and my thing what you should be thinking about is moving the handle from here to here so your focus is not what's happening in the middle it's happening what's happening or where you're going so if you both look up you both sit up and you just think about pushing your handles down and going to the catch and let's see what happens all right you're ready
go it's important here in any in any boat and a pair is one of the hardest things and it's the most important for the pair is that both handles move at the same speed because you can imagine you do this exercise in a pair somebody moves quickly and slowly it's it's an instant problem in a double you know it's a little bit more forgiving very just scared exactly we're scared we're scared and one of the biggest problems rowers have is a confidence and not falling out of a boat where we do this exercise they're sitting here a bit of a rock and i would tense up so what do you think is going to happen when you're racing and there's a roll in the boat we tense up what happens when we tense up we lose feel and we lose the ability to run the other thing we we need to do is actually try and minimize that movement that rock and roll so we can actually when we are relaxed we can actually hold the level a lot better so when we got the bit better development of our core strength and our better development of our posture we can actually sit back and relax and you know so you come off the water after a race and this oh it was going all right but we had a little bit of a lean you know after 10 strokes and we lost a bit of rhythm here and and the reason we lost rhythm is because we lost balance because people started to compromise their relaxation
that's it reverse so the other thing this teaches you the amount of effort required to take the handle from the finish to catch right just that's all it is just get it there so you know you see your crew's racing and there's a lot of movement a lot of shaking going on but the actual movement to get to there requires just the pressure of the two fingers if you can actually come off the back and relax and move with the boat then you're going to be a lot better a better chance of connecting to the run of the boat so what we're trying to do here is create posture and create stability and that'll help that'll happen in a minute when i get them both do the same exercise at the same time all right finger tip of the finger push down with your finger don't push down with your wrist all you're doing lucy is just pushing down follow the handle and put it in follow the handle and just lift that's it hold there reverse and go back
all right so now this this is this is the crucial part of this exercise you know as an individual you can do it easily by yourself but now what we're doing is we're bringing in a balanced criteria into the exercise all right so let's just tap first just two up and down together see if we can just go up and down look up look up sit tall
all right so at the moment we're engaging muscles they've never used before all right sit at the finish all right let's try the two-fingered roll up all right now the focus what's important here is your focus okay what you're trying to do is not rock the boat okay what you're trying to do is sit the boat up on the way forward all right so that creates a thought pattern all the way through am i out of my square and my thing what you should be thinking about is moving the handle from here to here so your focus is not what's happening in the middle it's happening what's happening or where you're going so if you both look up you both sit up and you just think about pushing your handles down and going to the catch and let's see what happens all right you're ready
go it's important here in any in any boat and a pair is one of the hardest things and it's the most important for the pair is that both handles move at the same speed because you can imagine you do this exercise in a pair somebody moves quickly and slowly it's it's an instant problem in a double you know it's a little bit more forgiving very just scared exactly we're scared we're scared and one of the biggest problems rowers have is a confidence and not falling out of a boat where we do this exercise they're sitting here a bit of a rock and i would tense up so what do you think is going to happen when you're racing and there's a roll in the boat we tense up what happens when we tense up we lose feel and we lose the ability to run the other thing we we need to do is actually try and minimize that movement that rock and roll so we can actually when we are relaxed we can actually hold the level a lot better so when we got the bit better development of our core strength and our better development of our posture we can actually sit back and relax and you know so you come off the water after a race and this oh it was going all right but we had a little bit of a lean you know after 10 strokes and we lost a bit of rhythm here and and the reason we lost rhythm is because we lost balance because people started to compromise their relaxation