Rowingchat

Compromises are needed sometimes in rowing. What happens to you and what can you do about them? How can you decide what to do? Timestamps 00:30 Happy new rowing year. What's in the January training program? 1k base preparation for those racing in April-June; 2k-5k Head racing in March; Crash-B program. CRASH-B Date change to Feb 4th from Mar 5th in prior years. This caused us to have to adjust the program to race day being 4 weeks earlier. 4 weeks of training you can't do. Land training to align with the training program; analysing force curves on the erg, the year in review, sleep monitoring and sculling right over left. Review our training programs https://fastermastersrowing.com/our-courses/ 04:30 Compromises in rowing We discussed among the coaches - this is not something we could influence or change. The race date is fixed. Review our planned workouts and the end goal for the last month and the taper week before the race. Review the test days planned and were these dates appropriate given the new rac

Moving up the skill ladder from beginner to intermediate and then advanced requires improved skill. These 9 drills are essential for you to master, and to revisit regularly. 01:00 The skills ladder - a helpful concept Execution to a high standard is the main difference between advanced scullers and beginners. 04:45 Nine Essential Rowing drills 1 - Legs Only - from the catch to legs straight. Watch for keeping shoulders sternward of the hips. Do it square blades for beginners and the most advanced single scullers. 2 - Legs and Back Only - keep the arms straight. Teaches the transition from leg drive to adding the back swing. This helps to recruit other muscles into the stroke power delivery. Variant - 10 strokes legs only, 10 strokes legs and back rowing. 3 - Wide Grip - sweep inside hand down the shaft; sculling hands on end of rubber grip or on the shaft. This increases the load in sculling to help to feel the grip connection at the catch - notice when the oars are in the water. Sweep it's useful to teac

Upskill your technique with some self-coached drills. This week we focus on your hand holding the handle - fingers flat on the recovery. 00:30 The open palm drill helps with getting improved skill handling the oars and sculls in the boat is key to improving your boat comfort. It sorts out your grip and handle placement on the recovery. 01:46 What is the drill for It teaches how to have a loose grip on the recovery and also to have the weight of the oar in your hand so you can control the handle for correct feathering. Also, via the fulcrum you control the tip of the blade. This is a semi-advanced drill - not for beginners. 02:45 How to do it Take the oar out of the water at the finish, feather and extend your arms and at that point straighten your fingers so the oar handle rests under your palm (where the palm and fingers meet). Have a straight line from knuckle, wrist and elbow. Put downwards pressure on the handle without gripping it. Then rock forward and move through the recovery, bend your knees and ro

Often the first rowing drill taught, but so often executed poorly and without care. This is one of the best drills to teach how to recruit more muscles into your stroke. Learn how to teach it, what it does for your boat and errors to watch out for. Timestamps 01:00 The arms and body drill - how to set up the boat from the finish, get run on the boat and recruit more muscles. Sitting in the finish position - shoulders behind your hips, leaning backwards and feet pressed flat into the shoes. Row with your arms square blades with your arms only - straighten, then bend them keep your body and legs still. Then move to a second position - adding a body swing forwards after the arms are fully straight - place the oar into the water, swing back and then bend your arms to complete the stroke. The familiarity of the drill makes us less careful in the execution. 02:30 What is the arms and body drill for? It's to teach sequencing. Release the oar from the water at the end of the power phase, how to enable the arms to lea

What's the drill for? How to use it to improve your skills and errors to watch out for. 01:00 Drills and Skills We do them for crew alignment, blade handling, technique, isolating part of the stroke or exaggerating part of the stroke to amplify its effect. 01:30 The reverse pick drill This starts at the catch - sitting at full compression. Start with a very short stroke (2 inches of the slide). Some like to start with a blade placement before this stage. - Tapping and placement - 2 inches stroke (5 cm) - from catch to 3/4 slide [using one quarter of the slide] - from catch to 1/2 slide - from catch to 1/4 slide - legs only rowing [note different from normal rowing] - legs and body [straight arms] - normal rowing including arms 04:45 what's the drill for? 1) Placing the blade before the leg drive begins. Some people assume the blade placement and leg drive are simultaneous. They are not. These are sequential movements - on the recovery your hands move upwards so the blade goes down towards the water while st

We need to map an athlete pathway for masters. All other parts of rowing have this as it guides federations, funding, coach resources and competition. Why don't masters have a pathway? Timestamps: 01:00 Rebecca's advocacy work to get masters taken seriously, our needs to be noted. Speaking out on behalf of masters as the fastest-growing part of the rowing community. Would people who run the sport and set policy acknowledge the needs of masters? We are not the same as youth rowers - what's right for them is not right for us. 02:30 A pathway for masters This is one aspect of big-picture policy setting for masters. Pathways guide policy for sport and I hope this will enable masters to be part of the overall plan for sport in your club / region / country. 04:00 Systems thinking is a framework we can use to find answers for masters needs A call for a working group to create the pathway and change our sport to become masters-friendly. Link to Rebecca's slides for download https://www.slideshare.net/rcaroe/sys... 0

Buying rowing training programs online - making your decision. Timestamps 01:00 A customer writes ""I have presented the options to our club & pushed heavily for the program. There are some very vocal people who feel like there are robust free training plans online Some suggest we reuse our plan from 6 years ago and that would suffice for our purposes. It’s more of an uphill battle than I expected. The next step is for people to submit their own recommendations for our committee to consider. Once that’s done, we will put it to a vote. People are just very largely against paying for a plan and think that we have enough talented, intelligent people on our team to put something together that’ll be good enough. We are a recreationally competitive club with no real desire to progress beyond that." Is this a situation that looks familiar to you? 02:00 Our challenges are often similar but local situations have nuance. - A committee that makes decisions - Vocal people in the group - Perceptions about what will "do

5 dos and don'ts for. crew alignment... when to coach the whole crew versus coach one individual. Timestamps 01:00 When in a mixed ability crew it can be challenging, especially if you think you're the least experienced. Working on one thing for the whole crew at the same time created common endeavour in the boat. Whole crew coaching creates a singular focus. Five situations where there's an advantage of picking whole crew or individual coaching 03:30 Warming up We all do this every practice - the outcome we want is to refresh our memory of the movement and to be warm enough to do the workout. I need the warmup to activate muscles and get into the rowing stroke pattern. This is best done with a coaching focus on the whole crew. Focus points - these help each person to check their own movement and technique in one area of the stroke. It brings everyone together in one point of the stroke cycle and creates alignment. Try using these in your next workout. First create a common understanding of the static posit

Dave Houchin is researching masters rowers and intrinsic motivation. What makes us what to do what we do? Timestamps 01:00 Dave started rowing 18 months ago after retirement at Ancholme Rowing Club. If you row and race, you accept that motivation is part of the deal. Masters are the most diverse population in our sport. 02:00 Masters diverse motivations The approach is different from juniors - coached in a different way, explanations and buy-in are different. He wants to know more about masters' motivators and the positive and negative factors affecting your enthusiasm for rowing. There is little academic research into masters' motivation. Dave is leading the charge. With masters there's no obligation to show up and what you put into rowing is up to you. So the coach needs to be flexible. It's harder to set the learning environment and atmosphere for masters when you are coaching. Motivation is about how we move into action. Dave believes masters motivation needs a different approach. 06:00 Self-determinati

You've done the race. What happened? How to decide what could be improved. And what to do about it. Timestamps 03:00 What we can do to improve our head race performance, Race review - what happened in the race. Look beyond just the race course. Consider the 24 hours beforehand, what you did well to prepare for the race. 10 things you did really well so you can repeat that in another competition. What could have been better? 05:00 Review photos and video of your crew and race - ask friends and family to share. How did you steer every corner? What made you anxious or frightened? When we came close to another crew people turned their heads to look, someone yelled, we lost our rhythm and balance. Good race results come from many small gains. Get the free ebook about aspects of Head Racing 08:00 What to do about it? When someone not so good happens ask yourself - Could I have anticipated this? - What you could have done to change it - What are the unexpected things that happened to your crew? - Have a respon

The final parts of your head race preparation including essential pre-planning in advance of race day. Tapering, travel and using borrowed boats. Timestamps 02:00 Tapering The training program volume is reduced so you are rested and ready to race. Faster Masters Rowing programs always include the taper. It may feel weird because you're doing much less training and you are less active than normal. Take precautions to not catch viruses. 04:00 Book on tapering The timing of your rest day is the critical factor for creating a peak. The opportunity exists to over-rate in your practice because you are rested. This mimics the adrenaline boost you will get on race day. 07:00 Rebecca's best peak ever. 08:15 Travel - do this either early or late for timezone changes. Your bodyclock adjustment is one hour per day. Arrive and race within 48 hours of arrival or wait 8 days to get into the timezone before your big event. Seek comfort during the travel - reduce stress from the environment around you. NSAID - a herbal r

It's head racing season. Staying focused on the power and technique during a race. What are the best race plan calls to manage fade. Timestamps 01:00 Train for fatigue and fade Everyone needs this focus - you will get tired during a race. Working with crews who haven't practiced together (throw-together crews). Discussed in Coach Mastermind Group Understand the language - have a common understanding and agree what calls mean and how to do the changes. 03:00 Focus on power How to deliver power in the rowing stroke. Marlene likes a really steady pressure on the blade or good leg drive acceleration to build momentum and swing. Swing is a good call. Rebecca likes to stay longer on the legs and delay the back swing so you can keep the blade in the water a bit longer and make the swing more dynamic. Ask the crew - is there a word which clicks for them the "mantra" word that works. The words you choose need (initially) to explain how to do the movement. This is useful for novices and crews who aren't used to rowing

Watch expert coach and serial HOCR winner, Jim Dietz explain how to position your boat for every turn, bridge and hazard on the Charles River course. This is a re-play of a video recorded in 2021. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

With Kim Degutis (Riverside Boat Club, Cambridge MA) and Heather Franklin (Orlando Rowing, East Arm Rowing, NY). Timestamps 02:30 Coxing a four compared to an eight. Heather - coxing a four (front loader) you can't see behind you. My bow seat is an extra pair of eyes stroke telling me if a boat is coming up behind and stroke seat communicates with other crews. It's great for picking a point beware knowing how wide your oars are because you can't see. Kim - the eight has a bigger engine and you can see your rowers and help them with technique calls. The pivot point for an eight is like pin a tail on the donkey - it turns differently from a four because it has more mass to get around the corner. Setting up a turn in an eight is easier for visual acuity. 06:30 Bow loaded four gives a different vantage point. The rowers partially obscure an eight's coxswains view. The eight is the "dump truck" or "freight train" of rowing boats. In a four you have to trust the rowers behind you - you need better boat feel t

How do you manage pain? In rowing there's the sport and there are injuries. Blaž talks about how to manage pain. He's a masters rower and physiotherapist in Slovenia. Injuries - what you can do without a medical person to assist. Timestamps 02:30 The ABC of pain - how to help yourself manage pain. Everyone has a "medicine box" inside your body which you can use including many modalities. - Pain misconceptions - Mistakes in training. 04:00 Not all pain is tissue damage. Some is the result of lactate. Pain does not necessarily equal tissue damage. Pain is individual and MRI scans don't show more damage in athletes who report more pain. 10:00 Pain can change your behaviour and so is a "red light" on your dashboard. 11:00 Mistakes in training that cause pain. Athletes tend to go into too much training too soon. Either frequency or workout intensity. They don't have good enough technique for the load they put on themselves. Ego gets in the way of rowers. They don't seek proper guidance for training and cross trai

Head race challenges - how to deal with things like turning buoys, wind and waves, and staying warm at the start marshalling. Something unexpected always happens in head races - caused by you or external factors. Timestamps 01:00 Your experience base is what will serve you well in dealing with challenges. 02:00 Challenges -expect the unexpected. anything can happen. Get accustomed to rowing with many other athletes and boats around. Know your response to a range of different situations so you know what to do when a challenge arises. Marcus Buckingham research into why some long distance lorry (truck) drivers had fewer accidents is helpful for us rowers. 06:00 Staying warm in the marshalling area. Wear clothing you can keep on until the last moment. Marlene likes a lightweight wind jacket because it's easy to take off. Can you row in small circles to stay warm? Do the push/pull drill - rowing in place. Keep your muscles moving as much as you can. Are you able to get out of the boat and stay warm on the b

Race plans - overtaking and being overtaken. 00:30 Coach masterclass discussion zoom was about running masters learn to row classes. We learned the diversity of situation and how people problem-solve for their own clubs https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/coach-mastermind/ 02:30 Race plans Free ebook - the Ultimate Guide to Head Racing sign up to get your copy https://fastermastersrowing.ck.page/693a02e0a1 Goal of a race plan is to row the best race you can, technically the best you can as you fatigue through the race. What to focus on as you move through the stages of the race to retain good technique and efficiency. Don't question the competitive desire. As the stages of the race progress how to maintain your technique is key. Be as consistent as possible and as aggressive as possible. How much time will the race take? This affects stroke rate choices. 05:00 During your practice work out your most efficient stroke rate with good technique. 4.5 to 5k meters is over 600 strokes. Marlene likes t

How to select the right races for your head racing season. Ways to build up to the big race event. Improving race plans and race execution. Timestamps 01:00 The big event is your focus. It's easy to choose the big event. But the season starts with smaller events. If you are new to head racing choose local events you can do in a day trip. Choose those with uncomplicated courses and reliable water. More experienced racers choose races to help me perform better in your peak event. 3 things to consider when choosing your head races - Conditions Competition - Steering complexity. 04.. 00 Check the rowing regatta calendar David Biddulph's rowing calendars https://www.biddulph.org.uk/rowing.htm#calendars Regatta Central, Row2k, Rowit.nz, are other calendars for different countries. Few people are good enough at racing to just do one big event - most of us need preparatory events to test ourselves out. Get a reminder about fitness, steering, race craft skills all need practice. Work back from the date of your

Volker Fritz talks about ways to teach (and learn) how to row and race a coastal rowing boat. Timestamps 01:00 Volker's background in touring and coastal rowing. The big coastal rowing countries are France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Germany and UK are getting going more recently. 02:00 touring boats are 10 meters long and are stable and wider. Coastal boats are more suited to the ocean with a thick skin to resist impact from high waves. 03:00 Learn coastal rowing Volker runs a seminar (they already know about rowing) he teaches about the environment. Where are you is the first lesson - consider direction, wind and wave conditions. Make safety assessments. Learn how to get in and out of the boat at the beginning. The seminars run for 1-3 days - this is where you can prepare yourself for a beach sprint or coastal rowing race. It is 70% rowing practice. 06:00 In 2k racing you try to get every stroke the same. In coastal you need to have flexible hands, to leave more space at the finish and be sensitive at the

Get confident steering your coxless boat for long distance racing. Timestamps 02:00 Going straight This is the first lesson because if you can't go straight it really affects your steering. Consider your strength imbalances if you have been a long term sweep rower moving to sculling. Equalise your arcs by watching and listening for these three things - Entry timing - Release timing • Pressure If your strength is unequal - don't over-power one side compared to the other, row the same arc. 05:00 steering off a point. Watch your wake - see if it is going straight, keep an eye - your stern. Learn how to set your point off a landmark on the bank like a tree or building. Row away from the point and watch your wake to see if it's going straight. Learn to make small corrections before you are way off course. 06:00 Where the boat pivots is approximately in the middle of the boat. 07:00 Bridges Not all bridges are created equal. First choose which arch you want to go through in the race. For HOCR at Weeks Footbri