Sweep Grip and Handle Technique in Rowing
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The way the rower grips and maneuvers the sweep handle significantly impacts length, power, and balance when rowing.
In this video, Lachlan demonstrates sweep grip and handle technique. He describes the position of the hands and the role of the inside and outside hands throughout the rowing cycle. |
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Video Transcript
So today we're going to be having a look at sweep handle positions so where you put your hands on the handle uh what you do with the hands during the stroke and um and just basically a couple of the mistakes that people tend to make when when rowing along so the first thing you want to remember with handle grip is to keep the fingers nice and nice and relaxed you don't be gripping too tight grip tightly with the with the hands you end up transferring that all the way up into the shoulders it's a real waste of energy and it's going to make it a lot harder to do those those fine tapping out movements and have any finesse when you're doing doing this part of the stroke so a couple of basics the inside hand does the feathering the outside hand does the levering so the catch you pull through with the outside hand more than the inside hand as you sort of come through the stroke they both turn on and you end up with a stroke but it's important to remember not to drop the drop the wrists at the finish especially the outside hand you really want to be drawing through strong finish position and tapping out if you go and drop the wrist at the finish sort of end up coming through dropping the wrists you sort of drop the shoulders as well so you want to draw up tap down so tapping down typically we talk about tapping down with the outside hand it's just because the inside hand is doing the feathering so coming through tapping down then feathering you let it spin inside the inside the outside hand so inside hand feather and come forward so the other other common thing that we see or get asked about a bit is where to position the handle so what to do with the hands how to position them on the blade so we'll start with the outside hand so on the outs with the outside hand you want to be holding on to the blade but you want to be pivoting so you can still see here how my hand pivots you want to keep the hand basically facing parallel with the boat perpendicular to the 90 degrees so when you come forward you sort of it sort of keeps stays in the same plane so one of the ways that i've heard described Lyall McCarthy says you know imagine you've got a nail driven through your middle knuckle and so it pivots on that nail as you're rowing along and so at the finish it means that you're holding on a little bit more with the inside fingers the outside fingers aren't doing as much you don't want to be like locked onto the blade so if i lock on with all my fingers draw it through to the finish
i have to it sort of brings my whole body around what you really want to be doing is keeping nice and strong with the elbow pivoting from the wrist and just allowing a little bit of relaxation with those outside two knuckles and at the catch again the relaxation with the outside fingers so wrapping around with the inside fingers outside fingers a little bit loose and you could even have the outside finger off at catch just right at that catch angle but as you come through all the fingers are on and then at the finish
again the fingers are a little bit looser because you don't want to be pulling you around too much like that so you just let them come a little bit loose at the finish the inside hand there's a few different rules of thumb that people use for this so sometimes it's two two fist widths so one two and then that's where the inside hand goes heard other people say shoulder width apart but that's not going to be possible for people with really broad shoulders you'd end up having having your hands about you know on this off the grip completely so generally what i recommend is just having the hands on either side of the grip so you know outside hand right at the edge not off the edge you don't want to be having your hands off the edge like this you want to be on the edge nice and strong and then inside hand just before just before the turn up of this this Croker handle or if you have a choice yeah the two fist width is pretty good so you can have your hand pretty comfortably anywhere from from say here all the way to about here that's quite natural so if you're rowing along like that naturally not too bad if you have your hands all the way over here you lose a lot of control of the blade so it's going to be a lot harder for you to control that blade movement it's a lot easier when it's more stable like this if you have your hand down the shaft so imagine if you're rowing like this you end up having to having to twist around your rigger quite a lot and you don't get very good power from this inside hand because it's drawing through on a really really um you're essentially shortening the lever that you have available here is maximum lever here is like minimum lever for the inside hand and that's why the outside hand goes on the end get maximum leverage the inside hand you know compared to the whole blade it's relatively close to the end even having it here so good leverage you don't want to be cramping yourself up too much so people with wider shoulders you know if i if i do that like sort of just cramps you up a lot so it's a bit part relaxation part working out where the natural position for you to put the hand is but try and avoid the extremes try to stay on the grips try not to end up down here trying to end up way up here unless you you know well practiced at it and maybe some more proficient crews might go up here to get a little bit more leverage and a little bit more length at the catch but in general just keep your inside hand about two fist widths apart not too far up the grip and definitely not onto the flared portion of the handle where it where it gets larger onto the oar for example so if we have a look at the finish position from the side you want to make sure that you have a nice neutral position with your wrists when the blade's square in the water especially so when you've got the power on you don't have your wrist cocked up like this yes it'll make it easier when you go to the feather if you drop your wrist they'll end up flat but it's really hard to apply power through this direction because you imagine a line going through you want the line to be going straight through from the handle all the way through to the shoulder nice and relaxed and so again coming through you're drawing through all the way to the finish you've got like a nice pivot in your outside hand inside hands ready to tap down and when you tap down you want to think about uh think about rolling it out in the inside hand so very similar to what we do with sculling so you know rolling it out rolling it rolling it out a little bit you want to avoid using the feathering with a huge drop of the wrist so if i keep my wrist so this is my my powerful position during the drive phase if i use just a wrist drop to feather that blade i have to come all the way to there like that's that's too far and you see it's bringing down my shoulder
so it brings down my shoulder if i feather feather like that so what i really want to do is come through to the finish tap down and feather with a little bit of roll ideally complete roll of the fingers out to the fingers so stability with the outside hand push down outside hand feather with inside hand and try and do it like a rolling motion that way keeping my wrist as flat as possible when i feather the oar means it's not going to drag my shoulders down it's not going to drag my elbows down it's going to mean just like in sculling you're nice and up and on top of it before you come forward so yeah when it comes to the wrists cocked up like this typically people do it more with their inside hand than their outside hand and it's all about them not being able to roll it out in their hands so when they get to the finish they tap down
and their wrist comes into this neutral position good for the recovery really bad for the drive because you just don't can't apply the power successfully with your wrist like that you can imagine trying to hang off a set of uh like a chin up bar with a with a cocked wrist like that it'd be nearly impossible you really need to have during the drive phase especially a really straight line of power from the handle all the way up the shoulder for both the inside and the outside hands so yeah i was saying how it's really important to have a nice relaxed grip but we want to make sure it's not too loose for example when you get to the catch and square up you want to make sure that you've got good control you've got good connection especially through these inside inside fingers and thumb especially on that blade out to the catch and you've got a good solid position to go you don't want to be too loose so feather so here go to the catch go square up like that's it's too loose like we're not on the blade you need to have nice connection there with both the inside and the outside hand it's really important not to be too relaxed when you place that blade in the water you need good control you need good speed and then when you come through to the finish you know it's the same deal tap down keep good control of it nice and relaxed in the hand so you can have like a little little gap here with the fingers so if you roll it out you end up with a bit of a gap that's really easy to you know when you square up all you have to do is just make a fist again and a little square up so go from that position to that position and it means that you're not going to be having any flow-on effects of when you tap down negatively effective so don't be dropping the wrists like this coming forward like this so you have to put your hands a lot lower to get the same height off the water you need to tap down come forward and then when you square up yeah that works right with the dropped wrist but it's not as effective as having tap down with a flat wrist feather flat wrist flat wrist come forward all you have to do let it pivot in the outside hand so this is just providing control the inside hand just rolls in so you go from the feather to the square just rolling in like that so feather square feather square square it's going to take a while to get right and especially when you're starting off if you've got a real dropped wrist and that's how you control that blade just be happy with a half roll half drop so if you can do a little bit to bring your wrist back up with a roll so it's quite hard to roll all the way out especially if you've got smaller hands it's hard to roll it all the way out in the fingers like that very difficult but if you just say go for a half half dropped wrist half roll you still get a pretty good result compared to being dropped down like this so just having a look at the body position when you come come through at the finish so blade square comes comes through at the finish you don't be lifting up with the shoulders you're only coming down with the shoulders you want to be sitting up nice and tall bringing the blade through tapping down so tapping down with the inside and feathering and coming forward
tap feather forward and you want to have pivoting outside hand so outside hands moving in this plane
holding on with inside fingers at the catch as you come through all the fingers become on the blade and then again outside just let that blade swivel in the hand still holding tight with the inside the inside fingers and the outside fingers just relax a little bit to let the blade swivel without swiveling the wrist so coming through strong position not coming not locked on going around and around and around so you want to be through swivel tap down inside hand feather so come through inside hand feather as you tap down come forward that's a roll on the fingers square it up place the blade and at the catch you've got good control through these inside fingers outside fingers can come off even or what i'd just recommend is just loosening them allowing you to get that extra length without locking so we're going for a catch position and we have our fingers locked on we've got a real bend in the arm so trying to keep them nice and loose place fingers on tap down come forward and so it sometimes be difficult getting athletes to understand what you need to do with what hands so rowing with either you know inside arm only so really practicing on that feathering that feathering or outside arm only and remember no feathering with outside arm because it doesn't do the feathering so it's just practicing that pivot keeping control of the blade tapping out coming forward inside arm off it's just rowing square blades you're just controlling you're working on your body position your shoulders nice and relaxed nice and strong and not locked on moving around like this it's more in power on tap out come forward and again just relaxing the outside fingers of the catch so if you find your athletes are having a lot of trouble with dropping their wrists not allowing the hand outside hand to pivot things like that it's probably a tension thing they're probably just really tense tension travels all through the oar makes it a lot harder for them to do everything so one of the ways you can help your athletes relax on the way forward let's tap out this is one of anthony edwards exercises tap out and he calls it playing the piano on the way forward so tap down playing the piano on the way forward nice and relaxed then you get the grip back on and continue on with your rowing stroke so that's especially useful for people who are gripping the oar who aren't allowing it to roll out their fingers so gripping the oar dropping their wrists mechanically working around their rigger um without pivoting that outside hand so just for them to relax tap down on the way forward on the feather just going to play the piano relaxing their hand grip square up place and that'll help them learn to relax their grip a little bit more so it can be very useful to have your athletes practice on land trying to just even with a complete oar like this or you can just take the handle out just have them learn to do what they need to with the inside hand tap and roll out outside hand for control and pivoting especially with the outside hand around keeping the hands nice and straight so it applies to the inside hand a little bit too but generally it's more relaxed because it's done the feathering it's rolled out you've got a little bit of a gap there so when you square up you can square up keep the wrist nice and flat nice and close to that plane so keep the wrist nice and flat when you square up nice and relaxed working in a strong position not being too dogmatic with gripping letting you grip determine what your rowing is strokes to look like try and keep it nice and relaxed not too relaxed and allow for good connection with loose outside fingers at the catch so yeah most most athletes don't have a very good understanding of what they need to be doing with their grip in sweep boats and sculling but it's especially important in sweep boats because it really affects how well you can work around your rigger and get good length in the boat your grip affects a lot of that because of the asymmetrical nature of the rowing stroke so get them to practice on land use either a grip or an oar and when you hit the water it'll be a lot easier to grasp the concept of what you're trying to teach them with their rowing stroke
i have to it sort of brings my whole body around what you really want to be doing is keeping nice and strong with the elbow pivoting from the wrist and just allowing a little bit of relaxation with those outside two knuckles and at the catch again the relaxation with the outside fingers so wrapping around with the inside fingers outside fingers a little bit loose and you could even have the outside finger off at catch just right at that catch angle but as you come through all the fingers are on and then at the finish
again the fingers are a little bit looser because you don't want to be pulling you around too much like that so you just let them come a little bit loose at the finish the inside hand there's a few different rules of thumb that people use for this so sometimes it's two two fist widths so one two and then that's where the inside hand goes heard other people say shoulder width apart but that's not going to be possible for people with really broad shoulders you'd end up having having your hands about you know on this off the grip completely so generally what i recommend is just having the hands on either side of the grip so you know outside hand right at the edge not off the edge you don't want to be having your hands off the edge like this you want to be on the edge nice and strong and then inside hand just before just before the turn up of this this Croker handle or if you have a choice yeah the two fist width is pretty good so you can have your hand pretty comfortably anywhere from from say here all the way to about here that's quite natural so if you're rowing along like that naturally not too bad if you have your hands all the way over here you lose a lot of control of the blade so it's going to be a lot harder for you to control that blade movement it's a lot easier when it's more stable like this if you have your hand down the shaft so imagine if you're rowing like this you end up having to having to twist around your rigger quite a lot and you don't get very good power from this inside hand because it's drawing through on a really really um you're essentially shortening the lever that you have available here is maximum lever here is like minimum lever for the inside hand and that's why the outside hand goes on the end get maximum leverage the inside hand you know compared to the whole blade it's relatively close to the end even having it here so good leverage you don't want to be cramping yourself up too much so people with wider shoulders you know if i if i do that like sort of just cramps you up a lot so it's a bit part relaxation part working out where the natural position for you to put the hand is but try and avoid the extremes try to stay on the grips try not to end up down here trying to end up way up here unless you you know well practiced at it and maybe some more proficient crews might go up here to get a little bit more leverage and a little bit more length at the catch but in general just keep your inside hand about two fist widths apart not too far up the grip and definitely not onto the flared portion of the handle where it where it gets larger onto the oar for example so if we have a look at the finish position from the side you want to make sure that you have a nice neutral position with your wrists when the blade's square in the water especially so when you've got the power on you don't have your wrist cocked up like this yes it'll make it easier when you go to the feather if you drop your wrist they'll end up flat but it's really hard to apply power through this direction because you imagine a line going through you want the line to be going straight through from the handle all the way through to the shoulder nice and relaxed and so again coming through you're drawing through all the way to the finish you've got like a nice pivot in your outside hand inside hands ready to tap down and when you tap down you want to think about uh think about rolling it out in the inside hand so very similar to what we do with sculling so you know rolling it out rolling it rolling it out a little bit you want to avoid using the feathering with a huge drop of the wrist so if i keep my wrist so this is my my powerful position during the drive phase if i use just a wrist drop to feather that blade i have to come all the way to there like that's that's too far and you see it's bringing down my shoulder
so it brings down my shoulder if i feather feather like that so what i really want to do is come through to the finish tap down and feather with a little bit of roll ideally complete roll of the fingers out to the fingers so stability with the outside hand push down outside hand feather with inside hand and try and do it like a rolling motion that way keeping my wrist as flat as possible when i feather the oar means it's not going to drag my shoulders down it's not going to drag my elbows down it's going to mean just like in sculling you're nice and up and on top of it before you come forward so yeah when it comes to the wrists cocked up like this typically people do it more with their inside hand than their outside hand and it's all about them not being able to roll it out in their hands so when they get to the finish they tap down
and their wrist comes into this neutral position good for the recovery really bad for the drive because you just don't can't apply the power successfully with your wrist like that you can imagine trying to hang off a set of uh like a chin up bar with a with a cocked wrist like that it'd be nearly impossible you really need to have during the drive phase especially a really straight line of power from the handle all the way up the shoulder for both the inside and the outside hands so yeah i was saying how it's really important to have a nice relaxed grip but we want to make sure it's not too loose for example when you get to the catch and square up you want to make sure that you've got good control you've got good connection especially through these inside inside fingers and thumb especially on that blade out to the catch and you've got a good solid position to go you don't want to be too loose so feather so here go to the catch go square up like that's it's too loose like we're not on the blade you need to have nice connection there with both the inside and the outside hand it's really important not to be too relaxed when you place that blade in the water you need good control you need good speed and then when you come through to the finish you know it's the same deal tap down keep good control of it nice and relaxed in the hand so you can have like a little little gap here with the fingers so if you roll it out you end up with a bit of a gap that's really easy to you know when you square up all you have to do is just make a fist again and a little square up so go from that position to that position and it means that you're not going to be having any flow-on effects of when you tap down negatively effective so don't be dropping the wrists like this coming forward like this so you have to put your hands a lot lower to get the same height off the water you need to tap down come forward and then when you square up yeah that works right with the dropped wrist but it's not as effective as having tap down with a flat wrist feather flat wrist flat wrist come forward all you have to do let it pivot in the outside hand so this is just providing control the inside hand just rolls in so you go from the feather to the square just rolling in like that so feather square feather square square it's going to take a while to get right and especially when you're starting off if you've got a real dropped wrist and that's how you control that blade just be happy with a half roll half drop so if you can do a little bit to bring your wrist back up with a roll so it's quite hard to roll all the way out especially if you've got smaller hands it's hard to roll it all the way out in the fingers like that very difficult but if you just say go for a half half dropped wrist half roll you still get a pretty good result compared to being dropped down like this so just having a look at the body position when you come come through at the finish so blade square comes comes through at the finish you don't be lifting up with the shoulders you're only coming down with the shoulders you want to be sitting up nice and tall bringing the blade through tapping down so tapping down with the inside and feathering and coming forward
tap feather forward and you want to have pivoting outside hand so outside hands moving in this plane
holding on with inside fingers at the catch as you come through all the fingers become on the blade and then again outside just let that blade swivel in the hand still holding tight with the inside the inside fingers and the outside fingers just relax a little bit to let the blade swivel without swiveling the wrist so coming through strong position not coming not locked on going around and around and around so you want to be through swivel tap down inside hand feather so come through inside hand feather as you tap down come forward that's a roll on the fingers square it up place the blade and at the catch you've got good control through these inside fingers outside fingers can come off even or what i'd just recommend is just loosening them allowing you to get that extra length without locking so we're going for a catch position and we have our fingers locked on we've got a real bend in the arm so trying to keep them nice and loose place fingers on tap down come forward and so it sometimes be difficult getting athletes to understand what you need to do with what hands so rowing with either you know inside arm only so really practicing on that feathering that feathering or outside arm only and remember no feathering with outside arm because it doesn't do the feathering so it's just practicing that pivot keeping control of the blade tapping out coming forward inside arm off it's just rowing square blades you're just controlling you're working on your body position your shoulders nice and relaxed nice and strong and not locked on moving around like this it's more in power on tap out come forward and again just relaxing the outside fingers of the catch so if you find your athletes are having a lot of trouble with dropping their wrists not allowing the hand outside hand to pivot things like that it's probably a tension thing they're probably just really tense tension travels all through the oar makes it a lot harder for them to do everything so one of the ways you can help your athletes relax on the way forward let's tap out this is one of anthony edwards exercises tap out and he calls it playing the piano on the way forward so tap down playing the piano on the way forward nice and relaxed then you get the grip back on and continue on with your rowing stroke so that's especially useful for people who are gripping the oar who aren't allowing it to roll out their fingers so gripping the oar dropping their wrists mechanically working around their rigger um without pivoting that outside hand so just for them to relax tap down on the way forward on the feather just going to play the piano relaxing their hand grip square up place and that'll help them learn to relax their grip a little bit more so it can be very useful to have your athletes practice on land trying to just even with a complete oar like this or you can just take the handle out just have them learn to do what they need to with the inside hand tap and roll out outside hand for control and pivoting especially with the outside hand around keeping the hands nice and straight so it applies to the inside hand a little bit too but generally it's more relaxed because it's done the feathering it's rolled out you've got a little bit of a gap there so when you square up you can square up keep the wrist nice and flat nice and close to that plane so keep the wrist nice and flat when you square up nice and relaxed working in a strong position not being too dogmatic with gripping letting you grip determine what your rowing is strokes to look like try and keep it nice and relaxed not too relaxed and allow for good connection with loose outside fingers at the catch so yeah most most athletes don't have a very good understanding of what they need to be doing with their grip in sweep boats and sculling but it's especially important in sweep boats because it really affects how well you can work around your rigger and get good length in the boat your grip affects a lot of that because of the asymmetrical nature of the rowing stroke so get them to practice on land use either a grip or an oar and when you hit the water it'll be a lot easier to grasp the concept of what you're trying to teach them with their rowing stroke