Rowing - Session 4 Overview

• Skill Area #1: Warm up slowly and safely in the first 6 minutes of rowing.

  Tips: Now you appreciate the first 6 minutes. As you move away from the dock you are totally relaxed; not thinking about work, family, etc. You go through a check list of critical skills: braced back, head up, chest up, shoulders down and relaxed; loose grip on the oar handles, wrists up and flat; at the catch let the oars enter the water the same speed the boat is going, oars completely covered with water, swing with legs and back together; within 4 inches of the finish draw your shoulders back, draw the sculls to your ribs; quickly loosen your grip and strike the oars downward 1-2 inches and let the spoons come out of the water; quick and smooth hands out of bow, swing forward and set the back without breaking the legs; start to come up the slide the same speed the water is moving underneath you. Practice perfect on a half slide with no pressure, then half pressure, then ¾ slide with no pressure, then half pressure. Wow, 6 minutes is over - you are nice and warm, ready to row!

• Skill Area #2: You can travel over 50 meters in six strokes because you have improved ratio.

  Tips: Now you understand glide. The whole idea in sculling is to work with the boat - to let it glide underneath you, in spite of any turbulence or conditions that might affect it. By coming out of bow quickly and smoothly you allow the maximum hull speed to last longer. In technical terms, you are trying to maximize the affects of propulsion, by seeing how far the boat can glide between strokes. Young novice rowers like to brag about their stroke rate during a race - as if number of strokes taken determines the victor; it doesn’t. If anything, they should be bragging about how few strokes it took for them to win a race. By coming up the slide slowly and smoothly, the boat will be more balanced on the recovery, and the hull will glide farther.

• Skill Area #3: You are aware of 10 good drills for preventing frequent novice mistakes.

  Tips: Although rowing problems vary with each newcomer to the sport, there are 10 common mistakes that can often be overcome with some of the following drills:

  Rowing Mistake	Good Fix-it Drills
  Tight grip at the catch	Form the letter "L" with your fingers before you drive
  Rushing slide for the next catch	Count 3-banana on the recovery before the next stroke
  Dropping head before the catch	Make your chin go upward right before the next catch
  Beginning the drive with arms	Lock the elbows for 5 complete strokes
  Using back too soon or late	On half-slide push so hard you lift your butt off the seat
  Ragged blade work at the catch	Put blade in the water the same speed the water is moving
  Curving the back on the drive	Row as if there is a board lashed to your entire back
  Dropping hands at the finish	Squeeze your shoulder blades together at the finish
  Sitting in the bow too long	Practice flying out of bow with feet out of stretchers
  Setting body angle on recovery	Have friend yell "stroke" at various points on slide




• Skill Area #4: Row the 2.5 miles around Lake Union in less than 40 minutes.

  Tips: You push off the dock and begin your 6-minute warm up. You align your boat to be within 50 meters of the so-called "pier head line", and you proceed counter clock-wise around Lake Union. (Coast guard regulations stipulate that within 100 meters of the pier headline, boats are to pass on the right as they navigate from salt water to fresh water, and that any collisions within the pier headline are the responsibility of the party going the wrong direction). After 6 minutes you start going faster and faster. You notice that the water under your boat starts to make a "whooshing" sound when you apply more and more power. When you hear this noise, it tells you the boat is probably traveling at least 5 miles per hour. At that rate, you could traverse Lake Union in only 30 minutes.

  Every 10 strokes you look over your should to reset your course. You look for sailboats under sail since they alone have the right of way over you. As you briefly enter the shipping lane next to Gas Works Park you look for shipping vessels that have the right of way (tonnage has the right of way) in any designated shipping lane. You start to get a little winded as you head southward back to our boathouse; you shift gears to a 30% recovery cycle. You feel more refreshed after doing the 30% (off for each 10 strokes on pressure) recovery for a few minutes so you power up again. You bring the boat back to the dock with a few minutes to spare. Bring on the Olympics!

• Skill Area #5: Achieve a rowing "concentration score" of at least 15 out of 20 strokes taken.

  Tips: Outstanding Canadian coaches like to give their scullers tools for self-monitoring progress. One tool is called the Concentration Score. The sculler is to count 20 consecutive strokes, keeping track of the number of strokes done at least acceptably, versus the number of strokes done poorly. When they take a good stroke they are to give it a score of "1"; a bad stroke gets a score of "0". In addition, the rower is to count the number of consecutive strokes done at least acceptably. This sounds hard to do this counting and record keeping while rowing, but it’s easy if you just precede the stroke count with the number of strokes already done acceptably. For example, if you were on stroke number 15 and 12 of them had been done at least acceptably, you would say "12 of 15". Moreover, you consciously try to keep track of the number of continuous acceptable strokes done acceptably. So at the end of the 20 strokes, the sculler might give themselves a Concentration score of 15 out of 20, and a consecutive score of 8. Within a year of continuous improvement at rowing, a sculler might hope for an overall concentration score of 17 or 18 and a consecutive score of 15 or more strokes.

• Skill Area #6: Can easily adjust your power "recovery cycle" from 20% to even 50%.

  Tips: Distance runners use so-called interval training to simultaneously improve their endurance and skill. When going a long-distance, the runner will try to run hard and technically perfect for a certain distance or length of time, then back off on the speed, but still try to maintain good former while preparing for the next hard piece. A newcomer to distance running might run hard for 2 minutes, and then coast (with good form) for 4 minutes. This length of recovery time would be 200%

• Skill Area #7: Can do a flip test, buddy rescue, a stranger rescue, and a damaged shell rescue.

  Tips: Yes, you will flip a single sooner or later. Because we use boogie-boards, lashed to the riggers, to prevent flips, its easy to infer that flipping will not happen. But it does, early on in the training process. Therefore it is critical to learn how to do a self-rescue, as well as a buddy or stranger rescue. At least 75% of the skill required to pull you out of the water and back in a shell involves getting both fully extended oars in one hand. By doing this you create an outrigger affect with the oars. Make sure the oars are touching the water and the spoons are flat before attempting a re-entry.

  There are lots of methods for reentering a shell from the water. Here is one 4 step process: 1) both oars in one hand; 2) reach across the dock and make 3 successive kicks with your legs to get your stomach up and over the side of the boat; 3) then roll over on your seat bottom so that your buns are inside the boat; and 4) put your feet back in the foot stretchers before attempting to left your rear end onto the seat. A variation of this method is to extend your leg across the boat, like sitting on a horse, until your feet are back in the foot stretchers.

  A buddy rescue requires that you back the stern of your boat under the rigger arm of your friend’s boat, until your riggers touch their riggers. Hang onto your friend’s boat, leave your oars on the water, and let them climb over the deck of your boat and climb back into their seat. This is a safe, easy method for helping someone out of the water.

  In the event of a stranger who has broken equipment or refuses to listen to you, the assisted rescue approach is different. First ask them to look you in the eyes (get their attention). Then have them grab onto your boat approximately 4 feet up from the end. Then have them try to lean on your boat, at least high enough so their heart is out of the water. Then drag them to shore. If they refuse, have them put one of their oars under each arm and kick themselves to shore - no trying to swim on their own.

• Skill Area #8: Are able to reduce the extent of wrist rotation when squaring and feathering.

  Tips: As you become more skilled at the catch and release, there will be less need to rotate the wrist at the catch and release. As you improve the catch you will begin to rotate the scull handles with your fingertips, followed by initiation of the legs. This simultaneous fingers-legs movement will allow the spoon to square itself due to the hydraulic pressure on the face of the oar. In other words the partially squared oar that you are holding on to with a soft grip will rotate to the square-up position as you apply pressure with your legs. Try it over and over during the 6-minute warm up period.

  As you come into the release position is important that you finish the last 4 inches of the drive by rotating or "pinching" your shoulders into the bow - not upward. The effect of this motion is to draw your elbows to your ribs, change the angle of your fore arm, and rotate the spoon of the oar under the water, all with little or no wrist rotation by you. Again, practice this maneuver over and over.

• Skill Area #9: Can row 5 strokes in a row, blades left square, on half slide and half pressure.

  Tips: Ready for a big league racing boat? Maybe so. One way to answer that question is to take 5 strokes, on a full slide, with blades fully squared throughout the stroke motion. With practice, you will be able to take at least 5 strokes with blades square, without flipping your racing shell. And if you can’t do it --- well you need more practice and drills to develop balance, soft grip, smooth entry, swing, and a clean finish. While you would never actually row with blades square, it is a "validating" activity, which proves that you have good balance and blade work for at least a few strokes at a time.