Maximum Power - Optimising muscle contraction speed in rowing
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In this video, Lachlan discusses how rowers can increase their power by optimising their muscle contraction speed when rowing. A muscle can only achieve maximum power if it contracts and shortens at the right speed.
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Video Transcript
If you want to get maximum power and rowing, you have to make sure that the rowing stroke isn't too quick and isn't too slow
so too slow too slow a muscle contraction will mean you can't achieve maximum power and if it's too light too quick it means you won't be able to achieve maximal power either and so when a muscle's contracting about a third of its maximum contraction speed is uh where it develops its maximal power this is a little bit dependent on what type of muscle fibers you have either fast or slow twitch muscle fibers it's going to vary from person to person but basically it looks like a little little um little graph like this and so at about a third the speed of maximum contraction is where you'll develop maximal power and so when it comes to rowing you have to make sure that the boat's not too heavy and it's not too light to row so your gearing is not too heavy so if it's too heavy you can't complete the stroke quickly enough you might not be able to get the rating up and if it's too and that will result in less power than uh you're looking for and also if it's too light so it's really quick you can easily get the blade through the water and and yeah you can't apply the maximum power it's it's going to be the same so there's there's a bit of a middle ground between it being too heavy and too light that you have to sort of work out with your own rowing uh one of the things that can trip people up a little bit is their technique with placing the blade in the water so if you place the blade in the water too shallow or say it's not buried so this is water blade goes in if it's not buried well enough it will start to catch air in the behind the blade there and allow the blade to shoot through the water really quickly so you haven't got a very good purchase on the water and it will be kind of erratic and so you'll be like fast fast fast slow fast and that's not optimal for developing maximum power for your muscles so what we recommend typically is that the blade is buried in a way that's deep enough under the water that you get a consistent pressure when you're pulling through so that allows your muscles to get that maximum power and once you've got the the blade buried deeply enough in the water and good well connected that's when you can start playing with the the rigging make it lighter or more heavy and so typically what happens is athletes work it out for themselves they go for a row they say oh that's too heavy uh they lighten it off or too light etc when it comes to racing it's a whole whole different ball game it's it's the boat behaves differently and so if you've got a really heavy or say it's it's heavy during training it's going to be really heavy during a race and you're going to really struggle to get that rating up there so in my experience generally speaking have it a little bit lighter than you feel it should be in training so so you place the blade it's quite easy to do and then when it comes to racing they'll end up about the right the right area but again it varies from person to person so it's really worth trying uh in a racing situation to try and work out whether you've got it heavy heavy enough or too light so if you're racing and the blades are too light you'll struggle to get that maximum heart rate and you'll be doing a really inefficient rowing stroke you'll be coming up and down the slide a lot moving your body within the system and consuming a lot of energy like that on the other hand if the the blades are too heavy what typically happens is you struggle to get the rating up and so you get sort of bogged down and you also can't get your heart rate to its maximum either because the muscles aren't contracting in the area where they develop maximum power and consume maximal heart rate and so it's quite an efficient way to row but it's not very fast so trying to work out uh the where the crossover point between uh efficiency is so low rating well locked on and um yeah the inefficiency so the higher rating so so like spinning the wheels i guess and not not actually getting anywhere so it's a real it's a fair bit of practice goes into working out what that point is and having enough feel in the boat to say oh it was too heavy or it was too light and that was what made me struggle to achieve my maximum performance so as a general rule of thumb it's a slightly lighter in training so feeling slightly lighter in training will get you at about the right place when it comes to racing if it's too heavy in training it's going to be way too heavy in racing and you're really going to struggle to get the get the rating up and get that boat speed to a optimal point and also get maximum power from your muscles maximum heart rate and have your best performance so you really have to be not too light not too heavy when you're when you're training and when you're racing to get the most out of your muscles your heart etc
so too slow too slow a muscle contraction will mean you can't achieve maximum power and if it's too light too quick it means you won't be able to achieve maximal power either and so when a muscle's contracting about a third of its maximum contraction speed is uh where it develops its maximal power this is a little bit dependent on what type of muscle fibers you have either fast or slow twitch muscle fibers it's going to vary from person to person but basically it looks like a little little um little graph like this and so at about a third the speed of maximum contraction is where you'll develop maximal power and so when it comes to rowing you have to make sure that the boat's not too heavy and it's not too light to row so your gearing is not too heavy so if it's too heavy you can't complete the stroke quickly enough you might not be able to get the rating up and if it's too and that will result in less power than uh you're looking for and also if it's too light so it's really quick you can easily get the blade through the water and and yeah you can't apply the maximum power it's it's going to be the same so there's there's a bit of a middle ground between it being too heavy and too light that you have to sort of work out with your own rowing uh one of the things that can trip people up a little bit is their technique with placing the blade in the water so if you place the blade in the water too shallow or say it's not buried so this is water blade goes in if it's not buried well enough it will start to catch air in the behind the blade there and allow the blade to shoot through the water really quickly so you haven't got a very good purchase on the water and it will be kind of erratic and so you'll be like fast fast fast slow fast and that's not optimal for developing maximum power for your muscles so what we recommend typically is that the blade is buried in a way that's deep enough under the water that you get a consistent pressure when you're pulling through so that allows your muscles to get that maximum power and once you've got the the blade buried deeply enough in the water and good well connected that's when you can start playing with the the rigging make it lighter or more heavy and so typically what happens is athletes work it out for themselves they go for a row they say oh that's too heavy uh they lighten it off or too light etc when it comes to racing it's a whole whole different ball game it's it's the boat behaves differently and so if you've got a really heavy or say it's it's heavy during training it's going to be really heavy during a race and you're going to really struggle to get that rating up there so in my experience generally speaking have it a little bit lighter than you feel it should be in training so so you place the blade it's quite easy to do and then when it comes to racing they'll end up about the right the right area but again it varies from person to person so it's really worth trying uh in a racing situation to try and work out whether you've got it heavy heavy enough or too light so if you're racing and the blades are too light you'll struggle to get that maximum heart rate and you'll be doing a really inefficient rowing stroke you'll be coming up and down the slide a lot moving your body within the system and consuming a lot of energy like that on the other hand if the the blades are too heavy what typically happens is you struggle to get the rating up and so you get sort of bogged down and you also can't get your heart rate to its maximum either because the muscles aren't contracting in the area where they develop maximum power and consume maximal heart rate and so it's quite an efficient way to row but it's not very fast so trying to work out uh the where the crossover point between uh efficiency is so low rating well locked on and um yeah the inefficiency so the higher rating so so like spinning the wheels i guess and not not actually getting anywhere so it's a real it's a fair bit of practice goes into working out what that point is and having enough feel in the boat to say oh it was too heavy or it was too light and that was what made me struggle to achieve my maximum performance so as a general rule of thumb it's a slightly lighter in training so feeling slightly lighter in training will get you at about the right place when it comes to racing if it's too heavy in training it's going to be way too heavy in racing and you're really going to struggle to get the get the rating up and get that boat speed to a optimal point and also get maximum power from your muscles maximum heart rate and have your best performance so you really have to be not too light not too heavy when you're when you're training and when you're racing to get the most out of your muscles your heart etc