Let the Legs do the Work at the Rowing Catch
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It's easy to feel connected to the water if you use small arm and shoulder muscles to grab at the catch. The problem with the arms grabbing is that the powerful leg muscles fight the weaker upper body.
The rower needs to connect with the legs at the catch instead of the upper body. In this video, Ken describes how he teaches athletes to push with the legs instead of grabbing with the arms and shoulders at the catch. |
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Video Transcript
if you think about it and this is not fact okay this is fiction made up by Ken but i think it's sort of right
if you if you think about your arms bent like that and then you try and push hard with your legs then that muscle is competing with this muscle well that's stupid that's not going to work is it and so what i think happens in internally somewhere is if you've got your arms bent like this this is a bit that's just fiction by ken if you've got your arms bent like that and then you tell your legs to push as hard as they can then you would expect your arm to do that but it never does it stays like that now i think what happens is i i think it's not good technique but aside from that as a way of and this is more the reason why i'm making it up is because it's a way of uh you might be able to use it to imagine something and therefore get a different answer if you imagine that your legs are trying to straighten your arms and if they push hard enough they would then don't have your arms bent because then you're not trying to trick your body and you can push as hard as you like because you're not worrying about that does that make some sort of sense yeah okay cool yeah a little bit oh it is it is you think about these little muscles here and all the stuff in the shoulder and all these and and you're asking them to take the load of your legs behind me excuse me just hang off your frame just let it hang out okay these muscles are really small therefore there can be really quick you can do quick movements okay these muscles aren't so quick they're big and and so when you take the catch though you it's easy to say i've got the catch i've got the water because you've done this sort of a movement or this sort of you know quick muscle to say i'm connected when you like to be connected because well that's what rowing is about isn't it putting the blade in the water and getting connected but you want to get connected with your legs and so to get connected with your legs you've got to make sure that you're not doing it with the arms and so what will happen is when you start to row it'll probably feel like your catch is gone but that's great okay i was coaching here i don't know 10 years ago when she was at uni up here i got rid of her arm grab because she was grabbing like that you see and she says but ken i don't have a catch anymore because my catch is gone because i can't feel the catch and then she sent me a text from hobart later in the week that said i still haven't got a catch but i'm going faster okay so that's what you want to do you got to we've got to focus on what we want to do the work and initially we want the legs to do the work
if you if you think about your arms bent like that and then you try and push hard with your legs then that muscle is competing with this muscle well that's stupid that's not going to work is it and so what i think happens in internally somewhere is if you've got your arms bent like this this is a bit that's just fiction by ken if you've got your arms bent like that and then you tell your legs to push as hard as they can then you would expect your arm to do that but it never does it stays like that now i think what happens is i i think it's not good technique but aside from that as a way of and this is more the reason why i'm making it up is because it's a way of uh you might be able to use it to imagine something and therefore get a different answer if you imagine that your legs are trying to straighten your arms and if they push hard enough they would then don't have your arms bent because then you're not trying to trick your body and you can push as hard as you like because you're not worrying about that does that make some sort of sense yeah okay cool yeah a little bit oh it is it is you think about these little muscles here and all the stuff in the shoulder and all these and and you're asking them to take the load of your legs behind me excuse me just hang off your frame just let it hang out okay these muscles are really small therefore there can be really quick you can do quick movements okay these muscles aren't so quick they're big and and so when you take the catch though you it's easy to say i've got the catch i've got the water because you've done this sort of a movement or this sort of you know quick muscle to say i'm connected when you like to be connected because well that's what rowing is about isn't it putting the blade in the water and getting connected but you want to get connected with your legs and so to get connected with your legs you've got to make sure that you're not doing it with the arms and so what will happen is when you start to row it'll probably feel like your catch is gone but that's great okay i was coaching here i don't know 10 years ago when she was at uni up here i got rid of her arm grab because she was grabbing like that you see and she says but ken i don't have a catch anymore because my catch is gone because i can't feel the catch and then she sent me a text from hobart later in the week that said i still haven't got a catch but i'm going faster okay so that's what you want to do you got to we've got to focus on what we want to do the work and initially we want the legs to do the work