RowingChat

Rebecca Caroe
  • 4.3 (18)
  • Sports
  • Updated Weekly

Rowing Chat is the podcast network dedicated to rowing. We have many shows hosted from around the world on specialist topics from Strength Training to USA news, from interviews to data analysis. Produced by Rebecca Caroe, it brings rowing news, coaching advice and interviews to you. Go to https://rowing.chat/ for links to the latest episodes & subscribe in your favourite podcast software.

  1. How to locate weight on the feet

    2d ago

    How to locate weight on the feet

    Weight on the feet is one of the three key concepts for rowing and sculling mastery. How it's a key transition point in the stroke cycle and the giant advantages for crews who can all get there at the same time. Timestamps 01:00 Weight on the feet This can be hard to understand how to do weight on the feet. After learning how to do this you will learn slide control (stop rushing) and how to move your body in time with the hull of the boat. Learn how to slow down the boat speed less on the recovery - your speed is the net of power phase acceleration and recovery phase deceleration. 03:00 How to locate weight on the feet Sit on a hard chair and take your two forefingers and put them under yourself and find the "sit bones" which is the ischial tuberosity. It will crush your fingers a bit. While your fingers are there, rock forwards and back with a straight spine. If you are using your pelvis to rock you'll feel the sit bones moving over your fingers. Note if you curve your spine and don't rock from the pelvis, the sit bones do not move over your fingers. 05:00 Find weight on the feet Stand up from your chair (sit on the very front of the seat to to this). As you stand up you will rock your shoulders forwards and feel pressure through your socks and shoes onto the floor. In order to push through your feet in rowing you have to get your body mass rocked forward and your hips pivoted. Get your hands and arms straight and your body rocked forward then bend your knees a little and you will feel pressure on the soles of your feet. This is "weight on the feet". The leaning forwards is an important part of the sequence because it's hard to get weight on the feet when leaning backwards. Get the feeling of weight on the feet by clenching your glute muscles. At the finish, tighten your glutes which helps you to locate your sit bones on the seat, then straighten your arms and when they cannot straighten any more - the shoulders naturally follow and your legs bend till you feel you can push on your feet. This may be at one quarter slide or half slide - it depends on your flexibility. You HAVE to get your shoulders forward, if you do not do this you will find it harder to locate pressure on your feet. The glute engagement connects your back and legs like a door hinge. Soggy glute muscles means you don't get the connection or the transition of body weight forward successfully. 09:00 The key transition point When you have your feet pressed into the foot stretcher, it's an important transition point in the rowing and sculling stroke. Weight on the feet is the moment when you move from tension to deep relaxation in the stroke cycle. You stay relaxed until the oar goes into the water at the catch. With deep relaxation you have very deep muscle relaxation in your legs and you can remove all tension from your body (while maintaining poise in your posture). Elite rowers work hard because they give themselves extreme relaxation and "turn off" muscles when they are not needed - this means they don't get tired so quickly. At weight on the feet your oars should be off the water in a high balance position (shafts horizontal to the water surface), controlling the blades with your hands. The control of the oars and your body means you are able to relax your body and prepare early for the next catch. Weight on the feet is one of the 4 key concepts we teach in our Sculling Intensive course. https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/sculling-intensive/ The advantages for crews "From Frustration to Flow" using the four quarters method taught by Richard Parr - learn how to do this quarter in his masterclass webinar. https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/frustration-to-flow/ Once you can handle weight on the feet you can do three things 1- better prepare for the catch. blade entry 2 - further control the balance on the recovery 3 - manage wind/waves better

    13 min
  2. Repeat workouts to build skill

    6d ago

    Repeat workouts to build skill

    Repeating workouts to improve your skill at doing them - how to sharpen into the piece, count down, ways to swap with bow four. How not to waste strokes and ways to start on the right stroke rate. Execution quality is a performance variable in its own right. Timestamps 01:00 Execution quality matters What do you think is happening when you do a workout? Execution skill improves with repetition. There are repeating workouts in any training program - this builds fitness and your ability to do that practice. The second time you do a workout, you know what it feels like, how to make your effort work consistently across the whole piece. This is performance-relevant knowledge. Poor execution comes from wasted strokes at the start of the piece, being at the wrong stroke rate, the wrong pressure, taking 5 strokes to get to the specified stroke rate. This affects your pacing (too hard or too light) and also changeovers (steps up in rate for example). Your physiological adaptation needs to be as good as it possibly can be. Over a season there is a compounding effect of successful physiological response to training stimulus. 03:45 Use a countdown Get into the work and don't waste your approach. For a 20 stroke firm / 10 light piece. All the 20 firm need to be at the right stroke rate and intensity. Use the last few light pressure strokes to build pressure and rate. By counting down into the work piece so each stroke builds to the stroke #1 rate and pressure. Have in your mind the target stroke rate - what does SR 24 feel like? Build your familiarity without needing a stroke coach to count rating. 06:30 Build in the right order First add pressure before adding rate. Rate without pressure leaves you "spinning" especially at rates over 24. Call "Going up in 3 -2 1 - GO" or "Going up, on the next stroke [wait one stroke] now". Our cox calls "Build pressure now'; two strokes pass then 'Rate up now'. At rates below 25 it's easy to hit the rate just using increased pressure - it is harder at rates from 26 and above to get the rate - you have to be more deliberate building the pressure then the rate. Start a change like that at the correct place in the stroke cycle. Make these changes at the catch. The pressure change starts at the catch; stroke rate changes begin at the catch. To do this effectively, athletes must know they are making a change half a stroke cycle in advance of the change. Call the change at the FINISH. This gives them advance warning of the change. There are changes which happen at the finish like stepping down in stroke rate or a rhythm call and these must be called at the catch. Be half a stroke ahead of time if you give the calls. Listen to when the cox or the caller made the call to change. Your goal for the workout is to execute more and more successfully.

    12 min
  3. Erg hacks

    Jun 5

    Erg hacks

    Three fixes for your indoor rowing technique faults. Timestamps 01:00 The unforgiving erg Interrupt the fault before it becomes a habit. Foot connection gets lost at the finish as your toes come away from the footstretcher. When you lose connection you aren't moving the boat forwards, same on the erg because the feet are the only connection to the boat. Take a $10 bank note and put it under the toes of the athlete - if they lose foot connection at the end of the drive, the money falls to the ground. Have a bet with your athlete - they can keep the money if it's still under their toes. The whole of the sole of your foot needs to stay pushing on the footstretcher at the finish. Try it separately for both feet. 04:00 Catch position Avoid over-compressing at the catch with knees going over your toes. Take a bungee cord or some electrical tape and wrap it around the rail so the seat wheel butts up to it at the correct catch position. The athlete will feel the wheels rolling over the tape - it acts as a gentle physical reminder to stop at the catch position. Check your catch position first using a mirror or a photo - get your shins vertical. Do some steady rowing to learn where your new compression limit is. 06:00 Slide control If you tend to pause at the catch, try this. On the erg the rail slopes downwards towards the footstretcher. Lift up the front leg of the rowing machine by 10-15 cms. Use a crate, an aerobics step or a big book. The incline means it's harder to rush forwards. Note if your catch alters when you change direction with the front leg raised. Gravity will tend to make you want to roll backwards away from the flywheel.

    11 min
  4. Sculling Rowing Hacks

    May 24

    Sculling Rowing Hacks

    Three cheap and simple hacks to help your sculling. Small clever fixes to real problems that scullers deal with all the time. One for your head, your wrists and your blade depth. Timestamps 01:00 Sculling Hacks for self-coaching Sculling technique faults are very subtle and you can't always feel them from inside the boat. These three hacks move that feedback from external to the boat (from your coach) to inside (you can feel changes yourself and can act on them). 01:50 Hat brim position If you move your head during the stroke, this is the hack for you. Ideally you want your head to be in line with your spine during the stroke and to stay in line when you swing your body back/forwards. The head is heavy - 15 lbs or 7 kg. Wear a cap with a stiff brim so that you can see the horizon from under the cap brim. The horizon is always horizontal - pick a single point to watch (a tree, a house, the back of the head of the person in front). Keep an eye on the horizon point while you row - this will give you clues about how your head moves. 05:30 Wrist tape When feathering in sculling you want to use your fingers and not your wrist. Take a piece of tape from your forearm across your wrist towards your knuckles - masking tape / electrical tape / micropore are all suitable. If you move your wrist it will pull on your arm hairs and serve as a reminder. As a rule of thumb tape 20 minutes before you start rowing - this gives time for the adhesive to bond with your skin. 07:30 Shaft tape A hack for those whose oar spoons go too shallow, too deep or corrugate through the stroke. Tape the oar so that when the oar is sitting in the water at the correct depth, you can just see white tape on the oar shaft. How to position the tape - sit in the boat with it level and put the oar, squared, into the water carefully so you don't get the shaft wet. Let go of the handles and the blade will naturally sit at the correct depth. The blade will tend to sit 1 cm above the water surface (this gets covered up when you are rowing as you push a mound of water in front of the spoon). Track where the shaft gets wet and that's where you put the white tape. Measure the distance from the spoon insertion point and you can then put tape on other oars at the same place. As you row, the white tape is then above the water surface while you are rowing - adjust your handle height so that the tape stays visible.

    12 min
  5. Fear of failure

    May 19

    Fear of failure

    Limiting beliefs can hold you back due to fear of failure. Is this the biggest hurdle for your rowing progress? Timestamps 00:45 Fear of failure I would love to go and race at (this regatta) but I don't want to come last. What is it that they are frightened of? Would you like to do the world masters regatta? 02:30 Redefine failure What holds us back? Feeling well prepared for your event is important but masters' fears show up differently than kids'. Children are less good at thinking through the consequences of their actions. Anxiety holds you back from trying new things. A mind shift to assess what failure means to you. A failed piece is one where you have learned nothing about your own effort or your own pacing. Did you stay within your capabilities? Did you try anything different, notice anything different? 04:40 Separate training from racing Try to think differently about "failure" in training - we should feel safer here and able to try new things. Some feel more anxious when rowing with more experienced athletes - how could you give confidence to someone less experienced than you? Buy the worst house in the best street - a definition of success tends to look up (better) than you. 06:00 Take risks in training While out practicing, could you try a high risk drill during your training? Take the training wheels off and take a risk - limited but "do-able". What about a 5 stroke rule - commit to doing five strokes of your new thing / drill in a way that is confident and reflects your new norm. Do it at the same point on your waterway every single time you go out. Even if those strokes aren't perfect you will still learn from them. The point is the repetition and becoming more familiar and this builds confidence. 07:30 3 simple strategies When you come off the water after rowing you do a debrief - what did I do well, what could I deliberately risk next time? Use understanding risks as a mindset change to help you conquer your fear of failure. It only needs to enable you to feel just a little bit more capable of trying something different. A limiting belief is something you tell yourself but which you won't get past unless you try. "I cannot do square blades" won't enable you to learn square blade rowing. Challenge your limiting belief or it will stay with you. Taking risks may help you get more satisfaction from your rowing by learning something new. In the debrief, share one good failure you had and what you learned from it. Fear of failure steals boat speed more than lack of fitness. Pick one "low stakes" thing which you can try this week - intentionally take a risk. How did you go, what happened as a result and did you learn something from it?

    11 min
  6. Sweep Rowing Hacks

    May 18

    Sweep Rowing Hacks

    Three cheap and simple hacks to help your sweep rowing. Small clever fixes to real problems that sweep rowers deal with all the time. Timestamps 00:45 What is a rowing hack? Tricks and techniques for your own rowing - a low cost, improvised fix to a persistent problem. The best hacks give you physical feedback in the moment as a constant reminder so you don't have to keep something front of mind. Moving you into unconscious competence. Learn more about unconscious competence and the 4 stage adult learning model https://fastermastersrowing.com/rowing-technique-makes-my-brain-hurt/ 02:00 Elastic band on the oar handle If your inside hand moves up and down the handle - it drifts. This affects the amount of effort / load you can put onto the oar from square off to the finish. Take an elastic band and wrap it around the oar handle so it sits on the outside of your hand next to your little finger. If the band is tight, when your hand starts to move it won't roll the elastic band - you'll feel it and realise if your hand has moved off position. If your hand goes the other way, put the elastic band next to your forefinger instead. First check you have the correct spacing between your hands first. 04:00 The coxing plank When you have someone who is too large to fit into the coxswain's seat - use the coxing plank. A plank of wood sitting across the transom / sax board of your eight. We put a sculling seat on top so it's comfortable to sit on. Put your feet into the bottom of the boat. And add a lanyard to attach to the steering wires in case the plank moved or fell off and it remained attached to the boat. The cox can then see above the heads of the athletes giving greater line of sight for coaching the crew. If your crew has to take turns steering the eight - this is the hack for you. 06:30 Wrist tape If you feather with both hands and twist your wrist to turn the oar when squaring and feathering - this is for you. The correct sweep feather action is to allow the oar handle to turn inside your hand grip for the outside hand, while only your inside hand wrist rises or lowers to turn the handle. Take a piece of tape - sellotape/scotch tape or micropore or masking tape or electrical tape. Run it from your knuckle across your wrist and to your lower forearm. The idea is that it sticks to the hairs on the back of your hand so when you turn your wrist (and you shouldn't) it pulls on the hairs. This hurts.... you feel the tape tighten and serves as a reminder not to move your wrist.

    9 min
  7. What your puddles are telling you

    May 14

    What your puddles are telling you

    The marks your blade leaves in the water after every stroke are one of the most honest pieces of coaching feedback you’ll ever get — and most rowers row straight past them. Today you’ll learn what a good puddle actually looks like and why size has nothing to do with it, what your puddles are telling you when they go wrong, and a practice tool that removes puddles entirely — and why that can be exactly what you need. Every stroke leaves a mark. Today we learn to read them. Timestamps 01:00 The anatomy of a good puddle This is your stroke made visible - what you actually did on that stroke. You should be aiming to make tight, swirly, deep — and no splash puddles. It's concentrated and without foamy white water around it. The depth and darkness of the water swirl indicates the power applied. The puddle is caused by the curve at the front of the blade - as you lever the boat past the point the oar went into the water. The mound test - you want water to move effectively. Water flows and you cannot compress water with a rowing oar. This is why you can create a mound in front of the face of the spoon. Look at the end of your stroke to see your mound. The water should be pushed up in front of the spoon with a corresponding hollow behind the blade spoon. Sustaining both through to the finish enables you to take the oar out of the water with very little effort. If your acceleration drops in the second half of the power phase, the mound lowers, the hollow fills up and it becomes harder to take the oar out of the water. Anyone can make a big splashy puddle by washing out - pull the handle down into your lap at the finish and you'll see the puddle changes. 04:50 Puddle Killers What goes wrong and why? Energy wasted on the extraction causes splash - feathering out, lack of a clean exit - these may be an indication of unnecessary energy being used to take the oar out of the water. The language you use can be problematic e.g. "pulling". Using your arms can mean you rip the oar against the water. Water moves as a single block at a gradient of 1:200 - rowing needs to keep the water block solid. Breaking the water block causes little air bubbles to get into the water and this makes it harder for the oar to grip the water and it becomes less effective. Use language such as burying the blade, pushing it horizontally and extracting smoothly. The boat moves forward because the water goes back relative to the boat. 07:30 Puddle-less rowing Sometimes no puddle is the whole point. Try to row without making a puddle - this helps you to focus on your technique and if you are keeping the oar at the correct depth through the stroke and taking it out cleanly. Try rowing with the oar only half under the water. This helps you to learn how to manage the handle which controls the oar height through the stroke. Align the catch and finish heights by controlling the handle. What your puddles are telling you - take a look behind you from catch to finish and watch the puddle move away from the boat using peripheral vision or by turning your head to see the full stroke.

    10 min
  8. The racing anger gap

    May 5

    The racing anger gap

    The anger caused by a gap between expectation and reality. This episode is for intermediate rowers who are learning how to race. How to turn your anger into something useful. Timestamps 00:45 What happens if a race outcome isnt' the result you hoped for Should you suppress the anger or spiral into it? Or neither. 01:45 Identify it Anger is expectation minus reality. The bigger the gap, the bigger your anger. Name your gap not the "failure". It's an outcome not a judgement on you, the athlete. Intermediate rowers are learning how to train first, and now you are learning how to race. This is the same process. You've done enough training to have expectations of success but you haven't yet done enough racing to get the outcome you desire. Experienced racers expect this gap. Make the gap concrete - a time, a distance behind the winner. Name the gap and move it from being an identity problem to being a performance problem. Notice what you say..... "I worked hard but the crew fell apart". Name it in numbers not feelings and emotions. 04:45 Accept it Less "but" and more "and". Your post-race debrief language will have used the word but. This cancels everything which went before it such as your training investment. And allows you to hold two truths at once. I trained hard and I had a bad race. Neither cancels the other out. You accept the outcome and your next race is still ahead. As masters there's always another age group or challenge to move into. 07:00 Change one thing You're going to take one thing from your toolbox of skills, mental strength, fitness and change it. Changing everything resets expectation and creates another gap. You can only test the effect of what you've changed if you change only one thing at a time. Ask yourself - what's one thing I already know how to do better, but I didn't do today? Your answer is already there, in your toolbox. Use the "and" mindset as you think about this. If it's technical - you likely know how to fix this. If it's a tactical error - if it comes up again, you will make a different decision. If it's a fitness shortfall - train it, not blame. 09:45 Learn how to race You are learning how to do this and pattern recognition is an important part of this learning. Experiencing different situations will teach you if what you have in your toolbox is sufficient to help you close the anger gap. Training alongside another crew can help you experience more race-like situations. Go to your crew mates and coach and find out what their gap was and discuss what you're going to do about it next time.

    12 min
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4.3
out of 5
18 Ratings

About

Rowing Chat is the podcast network dedicated to rowing. We have many shows hosted from around the world on specialist topics from Strength Training to USA news, from interviews to data analysis. Produced by Rebecca Caroe, it brings rowing news, coaching advice and interviews to you. Go to https://rowing.chat/ for links to the latest episodes & subscribe in your favourite podcast software.

Information

  • Creator
    Rebecca Caroe
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2026
  • Episodes
    500
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    RowingChat

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