Legs Moving Away From the Body in Rowing

In this video, Ken discusses how the legs should move compared to the body during the drive phase. Athletes often struggle to "naturally" execute the correct sequence of movements during this part of the stroke.

Ken demonstrates the correct series of movements and gives his tips and exercises to help the rowers come to grips with this crucial aspect of the rowing technique.

Video Transcript

Let's talk about how the legs go away from the body or the body goes away from the legs like this or like this very similar technique or you or your athletes tend to take the catch like this let's think about it it's important to understand what happens during the rowing stroke and the way I like to describe it is it's perhaps a different way is that for the first half at least of the drive phase what happens is the legs go away from the body the body doesn't go away from the legs as you can see here Anabel demonstrating the correct rowing technique and the blue line is the body angle and the red line was a leg angle at the catch if we look at it now when Annabelle's with about three quarter slide you can see that the body angle is pretty much the same there's very little movement in the body but the legs leg position has changed remarkably coming back to my words before the legs have moved away from the body not the body moving away away from the legs the blue lines being the body angle unchanged essentially and the red lines being the leg angle which is clearly significantly changed as the legs moved away from the body it's also a bit of a mindset as to what the how the athlete feels and thinks about the rowing stroke and if you think about the legs going away from the body and the body remaining stationary that's just another way of looking at the same issue as not lifting your shoulders essentially you have Kim Brennan same principle body angle doesn't change much the leg angle changes significantly again the same concept of the legs moving away from the body and I think it's a really important thing to focus on here we have Anabel demonstrating a technique that we often see often referred to as shoulder lift at the catch another way of describing it perhaps is the legs aren't moving away from the body the body's moving away from the legs again just different words that will resonate with different athletes here it's quite clear the leg angle has almost unchanged and the body angle has changed significantly something we want to avoid in the rowing stroke a clear difference in technique from what we saw in those Top Class rowing athletes what I suggest you do is a method of teaching people or teaching yourself is to take a piece of sponge it's really just a sponge like you wash a car with and I've just cut it up with a pair of scissors to the appropriate thickness ask the athlete to tuck it underneath their zootie on thighs as we see demonstrated here and the purpose of this is twofold the first one is that when they come into the catch then we want them to be able to get that sensation of feeling the sponge against their body which is an unusual sensation because they're not used to that and it reminds the athlete that we must have the legs move away from the body not the body move away from the legs during the first part of the rowing stroke second thing it does is that as they get to the end of the rowing stroke then they can like their legs are say half three quarter slide legs are down quite a long way then the sponge will cease to contact with the body or certainly reduce its its pressure and that's a signal to the athlete like a tactile signal for them to open the body up at that point so it's a useful method for both reminding the athlete of what we're looking to do with the legs going away from the body and also reminding the athlete when they want to open up their body and I suggest practice on an ergo it's the easiest way to do this in a controlled fashion you can see the sponge here with the arrow and we're doing it initially with no handle on the ergo I.E no weight at all just trying to practice the movement of pushing the body back having the legs move away from the body and then the body can open up towards the end so I just suggest practice just the leg Drive component to start with and make sure that the athlete keeps their body on that same angle as they are at the catch and just pushe straight back maintaining that contact with the sponge and once the contact with the sponge disappears because the legs are too flat then that's the time we want to open up here you can see the leg angle changes significantly and the back angle doesn't change much at all exactly what we're looking for again just that sponge in the zootie there can make quite a lot of difference to the understanding of this

so here demonstrating with the handle I just need to make sure that the athlete keeps the lower core turned on so there's no shooting of the slide and again the same principle of just pushing back and practising that maintaining of the body angle and the legs going away from the body

here again in a boat I suggest when you get into a boat I'd put a bit of foam in the same place and then have the athlete do a couple of drills which which are not what we're looking for but they educate as to the extent that there's a difference so if they push back with the slide and leave their shoulders stationary then they're actually what's happening is their body gets close to their legs and they'll feel it quite significantly and then I suggest ask the athlete to row correctly just slowly just feeling that sensation the same as on the Ergo of feeling the sponge and then when the legs have gone away from the body then open up yeah Annabelle's demonstrating opening up too early and you can see what would happen if the sponge were on the zootie there in that position and you can see that she opens up against the legs rather than having the legs go away from the body and here we have Annabelle demonstrating the same technique that you saw at the beginning of the footage where the body stays in the same position the legs go away from the body until between half and three quarter slide and then the body opens up and so this is the way we'd like be able to row and I suggest get a piece of sponge and try it out with yourself or with your athletes to and you'll find that the sensation really is in the mind of the athlete is to think about the legs going away from the body in the body remaining stationary and until the sponge disconnects or until about half to three quarter slide and then start to open up with the body and apply that final a powerful burst into the rowing stroke again it's really you lift you with your shoulders is one way of describing it and so I've had trouble in the past in asking athletes to not lift with their shoulders because they don't actually feel they're doing it but if you ask them to focus on the legs going away from the body and use a piece of sponge to remind them each stroke what we're trying to achieve and also use the sponge so that they want to keep contact with that sponge and till their legs are most of the way down then you'll find it's I think an easier way for the athlete to understand we want the legs to go away from the body and then the body opens up not having the body opening up and the legs going down at the same time or Worse still the body opening up first and then legs going down later so just a different way of looking about opening up but I think you'll find it works