The Recovery Effect in Rowing
|
Using the right muscle groups at the right time during the drive is essential for maximising speed and biomechanical efficiency when rowing.
Many rowers find it challenging to use the legs effectively at the catch and end up opening with the body and grabbing with the arms, largely negating the leg drive. The Recovery Effect describes how a rower's movements on the recovery impact the drive sequence. Small changes in the recovery can be the key to improving the drive sequence. |
|
Video Transcript
So today I want to demonstrate a concept that we call a recovery effect and essentially what it says is whatever sequence you do on the recovery is the sequence you'll do during the drive and the sequence at which you turn the right muscles on during the drive is extremely important for how high your boat speed is going to be how efficient you are with using the right muscles at the right time
so typically what people do is whatever sequence they've done the recovery so say they are rowing quite well they have good separation of the hands they have good rock over with the body early on and then they come forward to the catch they're far more likely to be able to put their legs on and get the power on early with the legs and then open their body and then finish off with their arms someone who does so the classic which i'll show you an example of in a second is they'll they'll come into the catch they'll pivot over a little bit and as they come into the catch they go for a little bit of extra length a little bit extra length of the catch and the first thing they do when they go to the drive phase is go with the shoulders go with the arms so just having a look at here at one of my athletes and he's rowing quite well he's got good separation he's got a good length rowing at a good length there but he's doing the classic thing of going for a little bit of extra length at the catch and starting the drive phase up in the shoulders uh whereas it should be more in the legs so let's have a little bit of a closer look so the bit that we're focusing on so here he gets a good rock over could be sitting a little bit taller but good rock over nonetheless as he comes into the catch see just here goes for as he squares up he's just going for a little bit of extra length so you can see reaching out there with the shoulders so we're really looking at this just the shoulders what they do here so coming into the catch and then just diving into the catch a little bit it's only quite subtle but as you can see it turns into something a lot greater in the drive phase so as it goes to the drive you see the blades are getting placed with the shoulders so so just look at the shoulders here when the blade gets placed so they're lifting up so lifting up the uh the body is opening up quite early and so he's actually getting the catch with this blade opening up so it's still got good length good compression there but this part of the stroke needs to be taken with the legs as opposed to the upper body um because if you take it with the upper body you're really negating the power of the legs and it's not until about here that his legs actually start to do something but at this point it's a little bit too late you're not going to get maximum maximum effect out of those legs the other thing that you notice is a small bend in the arm especially the right arm left arm not so bad but goes to place the blade square up goes the shoulders and goes with the arm so getting a bend in that arm just at the catch so this is all the result of going on too early with the shoulders at the catch
and like i was explaining just before that could be mitigated by stopping the body position here not going for extra length into the catch so you're basically sitting up on top of it instead of reaching over it and that makes it very important for applying the power if you reach over it like this you end up having to go with the shoulders early on so yeah get that body position set by about here in the stroke and that's the position that you're going to hold all the way through the catch don't go for more so don't lean over more and then that'll help stop that shoulder lift and arm grab at the catch so if you can get an athlete to separate well rock over fully and then just come forward into the catch so rock over they're not going any further they come forward into the catch and not go for extra length they're more much more likely to keep that strong body position press with the legs then open with the body which is what we want to get maximum utilization of all the muscles from the legs through the back and core and then up into the upper body you don't want to be leading with the upper body and so essentially the more preparation you do for that catch position the more likely you are to be able to get the right sequence of events coming through in the drive and instead of say for example lifting with the shoulders at the catch so so the two key areas where we see this uh recovery effect is with the body rock over so when they rock the body over so if they rock the body over earlier in the recovery phase keep the legs down they're much more likely to use the legs fully before they open the body during the drive and the other part of the stroke is when they get to the catch if there's someone who reaches out for extra length at the catch the first thing they're going to do is lift the shoulders so if you can get them to come into the catch just keep the same position don't go for extra length they're much more likely to put the blade in push with the legs and then open with the body as opposed to lift with the shoulders break with the arms so we'll have a look here at another one of my athletes and in particular you want to focus on the body movement so having a look here at the body we've got a late body rock over and so this is going to lead to an early body activation during the dive phase so we want to have the body rocked over fully by this point and you can see here it's barely started to move and so what this means the late body rock over is you end up with an early body activation during the drive not to mention not being able to get into a good catch position to get good length and good activation so again there's not no dive at the catch here like with the other athlete well not much but it's it's all about that body rock over so because the body was rocked over late
when you get to the catch
it starts to open early and again negates a large portion of that leg drive and in fact the the main effective part of this rowing stroke is the arms so the recovery effect particularly useful for those two parts of the stroke and so if you want to get the patterning a bit better in the drive phase uh really work on the rock over position hold that strong position all the way into the catch don't drop the shoulders into the catch just stay rock over come forward stay strong push with the place the blade the catch push with the legs open with the body and that way you'll get a good separation of movement you'll be able to utilize the legs when they're most effective the body when it's most effective and the arms when they're most effective that's why we look for good separation when it comes to rowing the recovery effect explains why you can see the movements in the recovery during the drive phase just in mirror so really good to focus on the recovery if you're trying to fix problems with the drive especially with power application or grabbing with the shoulders or arms try and get it fixed in the recovery and you'll be surprised at how easily the athletes make the transition to fixing that part of the stroke which was perhaps a little bit more resistant so get the recovery right first it makes it a lot easier and so in a lot of cases automatic to get the drive phase in a much better place
so typically what people do is whatever sequence they've done the recovery so say they are rowing quite well they have good separation of the hands they have good rock over with the body early on and then they come forward to the catch they're far more likely to be able to put their legs on and get the power on early with the legs and then open their body and then finish off with their arms someone who does so the classic which i'll show you an example of in a second is they'll they'll come into the catch they'll pivot over a little bit and as they come into the catch they go for a little bit of extra length a little bit extra length of the catch and the first thing they do when they go to the drive phase is go with the shoulders go with the arms so just having a look at here at one of my athletes and he's rowing quite well he's got good separation he's got a good length rowing at a good length there but he's doing the classic thing of going for a little bit of extra length at the catch and starting the drive phase up in the shoulders uh whereas it should be more in the legs so let's have a little bit of a closer look so the bit that we're focusing on so here he gets a good rock over could be sitting a little bit taller but good rock over nonetheless as he comes into the catch see just here goes for as he squares up he's just going for a little bit of extra length so you can see reaching out there with the shoulders so we're really looking at this just the shoulders what they do here so coming into the catch and then just diving into the catch a little bit it's only quite subtle but as you can see it turns into something a lot greater in the drive phase so as it goes to the drive you see the blades are getting placed with the shoulders so so just look at the shoulders here when the blade gets placed so they're lifting up so lifting up the uh the body is opening up quite early and so he's actually getting the catch with this blade opening up so it's still got good length good compression there but this part of the stroke needs to be taken with the legs as opposed to the upper body um because if you take it with the upper body you're really negating the power of the legs and it's not until about here that his legs actually start to do something but at this point it's a little bit too late you're not going to get maximum maximum effect out of those legs the other thing that you notice is a small bend in the arm especially the right arm left arm not so bad but goes to place the blade square up goes the shoulders and goes with the arm so getting a bend in that arm just at the catch so this is all the result of going on too early with the shoulders at the catch
and like i was explaining just before that could be mitigated by stopping the body position here not going for extra length into the catch so you're basically sitting up on top of it instead of reaching over it and that makes it very important for applying the power if you reach over it like this you end up having to go with the shoulders early on so yeah get that body position set by about here in the stroke and that's the position that you're going to hold all the way through the catch don't go for more so don't lean over more and then that'll help stop that shoulder lift and arm grab at the catch so if you can get an athlete to separate well rock over fully and then just come forward into the catch so rock over they're not going any further they come forward into the catch and not go for extra length they're more much more likely to keep that strong body position press with the legs then open with the body which is what we want to get maximum utilization of all the muscles from the legs through the back and core and then up into the upper body you don't want to be leading with the upper body and so essentially the more preparation you do for that catch position the more likely you are to be able to get the right sequence of events coming through in the drive and instead of say for example lifting with the shoulders at the catch so so the two key areas where we see this uh recovery effect is with the body rock over so when they rock the body over so if they rock the body over earlier in the recovery phase keep the legs down they're much more likely to use the legs fully before they open the body during the drive and the other part of the stroke is when they get to the catch if there's someone who reaches out for extra length at the catch the first thing they're going to do is lift the shoulders so if you can get them to come into the catch just keep the same position don't go for extra length they're much more likely to put the blade in push with the legs and then open with the body as opposed to lift with the shoulders break with the arms so we'll have a look here at another one of my athletes and in particular you want to focus on the body movement so having a look here at the body we've got a late body rock over and so this is going to lead to an early body activation during the dive phase so we want to have the body rocked over fully by this point and you can see here it's barely started to move and so what this means the late body rock over is you end up with an early body activation during the drive not to mention not being able to get into a good catch position to get good length and good activation so again there's not no dive at the catch here like with the other athlete well not much but it's it's all about that body rock over so because the body was rocked over late
when you get to the catch
it starts to open early and again negates a large portion of that leg drive and in fact the the main effective part of this rowing stroke is the arms so the recovery effect particularly useful for those two parts of the stroke and so if you want to get the patterning a bit better in the drive phase uh really work on the rock over position hold that strong position all the way into the catch don't drop the shoulders into the catch just stay rock over come forward stay strong push with the place the blade the catch push with the legs open with the body and that way you'll get a good separation of movement you'll be able to utilize the legs when they're most effective the body when it's most effective and the arms when they're most effective that's why we look for good separation when it comes to rowing the recovery effect explains why you can see the movements in the recovery during the drive phase just in mirror so really good to focus on the recovery if you're trying to fix problems with the drive especially with power application or grabbing with the shoulders or arms try and get it fixed in the recovery and you'll be surprised at how easily the athletes make the transition to fixing that part of the stroke which was perhaps a little bit more resistant so get the recovery right first it makes it a lot easier and so in a lot of cases automatic to get the drive phase in a much better place