Improve the Stroke - Knee position at the rowing catch  (+ Common Problems)

Please look at the examples below and review your positions or that of your crew. Anthony Edwards, five times Olympic athlete, demonstrates common issues.

The knees must be in the correct position at the catch for power application.

Also worth noting is where the athletes place their knees at the catch and just before the catch can provide insights as to balance issues and the athlete's flexibility.

Correct Position:

Here Eddy demonstrates the correct knee position at the catch in the sculling stroke. The knees are about the same distance apart as the feet, providing the best position for power application.

Knee height is just under the armpits, indicating that the feet height is correct. However, sometimes you need to compromise and lower the feet further if the athlete is inflexible.

​Knees too close together:

​​Here the knees are tightly together, which can cause the athlete to miss a bit of length at the catch. As in the above photo, it is easier to get the seat closer to the feet if the knees are apart.  

Also, the drive power is slightly less in this position.

Knees too far apart:

Rowing with the knees apart like this leads to a slightly weaker drive phase and encourages the athletes to drop their bodies into the catch.

It can often be a symptom that the athlete has inflexibility issues, and these should be corrected by regular stretching. Inflexibility can lead to injury problems if ignored. An alternative may be to increase the seat to feet distance.​

• Compilation of videos on stretching and flexibility in rowing 

Shoulders uneven:

Having the shoulders uneven, as in this image, will make the knees uneven. This can most easily be corrected by having the shoulders square.  

These issues can upset the balance in the boat and lead to uneven loading with potential speed and injury issues.

Wobbly Knees:

​This is very common with an unbalanced boat. The athletes tend to move their knees from side to side to balance the boat. Unfortunately, this does not work as moving the knees to one side overbalances the boat in most cases. Then the athlete invariably moves the knees to the other side, which unbalances the other way. The solution is to hold the knees vertical and use the handle heights and blade work to balance the boat.

Often in a crew boat, different athletes in the same boat will use their knees to balance the boat, and you will find that they are all doing it differently, whereas if they did not use their knees in this way, the boat would be easier to balance.​

• Don't wobble the knees - with Eddy