4 Ways to Increase Your Rate in a Rowing Race

When racing, a high rate is often crucial for success. And getting your rate up in a race can be easier said than done, especially in smaller boats like singles, pairs and doubles. 

In this video, Ken discusses four things you can do to increase your rate without spending more effort. It can be frustrating when rowers put up a maximal effort in a race and can't get their rating up. If you or your crew are struggling to get your rating up during a race, this video explains how to solve the problem.

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Video Transcript

​The easy solution for rating is not necessarily make the oars lighter gearing at the catch is one of those interesting concepts we understand that if the blade is perpendicular to the boat that's got a gearing that's easily measured and you measure the outboard versus the inboard and you come up with a gearing number but as it goes round to the catch then the gearing increases significantly towards the catch so at 70 degrees catch angle you've got a lot more gearing at that point so we want to make sure that athlete can handle that amount of gearing the first step probably with most athletes will be to educate them on what gearing feels like if it's heavily geared at the catch compared to lightly geared at the catch an easy way to do this two methods one on the ergo one in the boat on an ergo if you put the the damper onto ten and get them to row for a little while with that feeling about and concentrating what the catch feels like and then put on zero and concentrate on what the catch feels like they'll notice the difference there about what a a heavy catch feels like now the catch should feel heavy you should feel connected you feel should feel connected with the water so that's important i don't lose sight of that but it's about having too much weight at the catch in the first part of the drive for the athlete to be able to actually accelerate the boat effectively if you want to do the same thing in a boat then i suggest practice a heavy gearing move the foot stretcher as far towards the stern as you can and ask them to row for a little while and then move it as far towards the bow as you can and ask them to row for a little while you'll find that it's the same effect they'll understand then better what a really heavy catch feels like again important not to be confused with being connected at the catch and feeling the load that's always important the next thing is if we've got an athlete that is struggling to get their rating up during a race then i'd suggest think about what the gearing is doing particularly at the catch and in the first part of the drive because that's probably what's slowing them down if the thought process well let's make the oars a bit lighter making yours a bit lighter sure it changes the gearing and it reduces the amount of gearing at the catch but nowhere near as much as moving the body position in relation to the to the rigger so i wouldn't first go straight towards reducing the gearing of the oar by changing the inboard outboard ratio first thing i'd look for is a couple of aspects if it's too heavy at the catch when they're coming into the catch and they take the first load and they pick it up and they find they can't accelerate the boat because it feels really heavy i'd suggest this there's three other methods you can use to lighten that gearing or change that gearing the first one the most simplest one is to move the seat move the foot stretcher and therefore the seat and everything to do with the athlete move them towards the bow that's going to reduce the catch angle which is going to lighten the gearing so they'll notice a significant difference if you do that second thing to watch for is that if they're coming into the catch uh make sure that they if they're leaning into the catch and they've got too much body lean over then they're doing two things one they get more gearing because they're reaching further out and getting a sharper catch angle the second thing they're doing which doesn't help at all is they're putting their body into a weak position because their lower back is not in the correct position to undertake the rowing stroke so you'll find they've done two things there one is they've put themselves into a weak position and they've increased the load and so neither of those are going to work very effectively so they're the two first things i'd particularly focus on is move the foot stretcher towards the bow to lighten the load a little bit and make sure they sit up tall coming into the catch so they're not getting excessive length out the front because that's not not not suitable another thing you can do which is again a little bit less effective and depends on the body shape is to increase the span so if you increase the span by moving the gates further away from the athlete making sure you keep the inboards correct so that their hands are in the same position as they're used to so you need to make the oar longer and the inboard longer but if you widen the span then that's going to reduce the amount of catch angle as well which will again lighten the load a little bit i'd suggest that's probably the last resort and so in order of what i would try in order to to get an athlete right in this space first thing i suggest is understand what heavy in the first half of the drive phase feels like compared to light and i'd suggest do it on an ergo or do it in the boat then once they're calibrated to understand what the differences are and they can feel that difference then i'd suggest if it's still heavy or it's light indeed but let's assume it's heavy to start with then i'd suggest first thing to do would be to move the athlete foot stretcher towards the bow that'll reduce the catch angle which will make it feel better in lighter in that first part of the stroke second thing i'd suggest is to get them when they're coming into the front make sure they sit tall another way of making sure that they don't go too far into the front is if the shins are right over vertical at the catch then i'd suggest lift the foot stretcher and make the shin so they're not so vertical again what we're doing there is is essentially not going so far forward so we get less catch angle so we're going to get the ability to apply faster power earlier in the stroke and third thing if you really have to would be to widen span i don't really recommend that unless you've got particular issues you can't do with any other way as far as total arc for example and the fourth is to lighten the oar off change the way that the boat feels at the catch and have less effort required in that first part of the stroke because if it's really heavily geared for that particular athlete then they won't be able to accelerate very effectively in the first part of the stroke won't be able to get the seat speed up won't be able to get the boat speed up and very importantly won't be able to get the rating up so i'd suggest if it's heavy first calibrate yourself or the athlete calibrate so they understand what heavy feels like and what light feels like and then fiddle with those aspects of the rig in order to make it so that they can get a good effective catch doesn't feel like they're pushing a car or pushing a wall too much and they're accelerating through to the finish and they can get the rating up so the easy solution for rating is not necessarily make the oars lighter because that has much less effect than changing the catch angle